Week 06, 2000 ,Svenson

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07-02 to 13-02

MM-xxxviii     Monday

2000-02-07

Happy winter. Its about 8°C at the coldest time of day, more typical of late spring than the deep of winter. And we have got rain again. A light steady rain, but just as wet as a downpour.

I adapted a few more programs for the II/DR ownership change. I couldn't test a few of them (GAI050R and GIA010R) because they are not registered in the cross reference tables and direct calling produced an endless loop.

And I had to update Jan and Theo on the problems I solved last week. Mainly because the Germans are not playing along. They are more or less blocking us. They have got the TeleSales programs as first opco, somewhere around June/July 1999 because they really wanted to use them. They were going to do the main testing. And, being a pilot project they were going to get preferential support. They didn't test the programs. They installed them on a few PCs, tested for about two days and then let it rest. During that resting period the Americans got on board. Now they did test seriously, causing us problems no end. We did some custom work for them and by September they started introducing TeleSales to the actual users. In October they had the whole system up and running as their main (and only?) tele ordering system. We still had no word from Germany. After the Americans the Belgians took up TeleSales and after some minor problems had it up and running as their production system. Then, in December the Germans picked up again and started to throw problems back at us. Each problem was called a 'show stopper' with them calling "you solve this or we don't take it". The result is that they still aren't using it. They seem to test, until they find something that doesn't work as they want it and then stop testing until we solve the 'problem'. So when we had an option on a menu and they wanted it on a double click, they called it a 'show stopper' and refused to test until we changed the program.
They have long run out of credibility by now. And just today they found a real problem. Sigh.

While this political game is developing, Ronny is wrestling a few problems with the introduction of version 9 of Progress. Most things work, a few bugs can be worked around, some other things work but look a bit different. There are however a few problem that are real. One of them for example is the pooping up of a message demanding that a field must be filled (on-leave trigger going off) but this is while the user tabs into the field, before he even gets a chance of filling in a value. This is unacceptable behaviour of course but before we can call on Progress we must find exactly why this is happening. I think this is fun but Ronny is looking a bit phased out.

We got a new member being introduced into the Gang: Ben Rota. Before actually getting onto the main Daynotes.com list he will have to face the dangers on the mirror at Brian's site. He is one of the people that keep Ars Technica up so you can expect quite a lot of interesting cutting edge stuff on his daynotes. Well the notes are not actually daynotes because he adds only when he has some interesting things to report. Which is often enough, not like some other dayno ... what? who do you say? Yea, what about Svenson? Oh.

I added him to my own mirror (and to the drop down list under the map). Check him out from time to time.

MM-xxxix     Tuesday

2000-02-08

It remains unseasonably warm at 9°C. It also remains wet but not with a steady rain like yesterday but with short and heavy showers. Adding strong gusty winds to this made for some surprising driving conditions.

The posting problem that the Germans have is different from the one in Belgium. The Belgian problem is caused by running the archiving before the posting. The result is that temporally invoices are not posted but remain in the temporally invoice file (HI-OM3 member). The Germans have the same symptoms but a different cause. the result is that no invoices remain in the temporally invoice file so the proposed recovery is not going to work. I suspect that the so called missing invoices are not really from Supplies (OMSI-3) but rather from another module. OLI and OSI and OMSI-1 all create invoices directly in the HI file, bypassing the HI-OM3 and thus bypassing the General Ledger. All invoices go to the Accounts Receivable. This is bound to produce problems in the financial balance. If this is the case it is not my problem anymore. But I will have to find out and prove it.
I lost the whole after noon fishing data on the German system and trawling sources on our system. And the V9 deathline did not move.

The morning was spent chopping up sources in TeleSales to find the difference between V8 and V9. Our code has not changed but the program behaviour has. Becoming all but unusable. To allow fast order entry the user could use the tab key to move from field to field, adding extra order lines without interruption. Now every other tab a message pops up with a test on a field that cannot be filled yet.
After spending some days at this problem we change the interface from an updatable browser to a input dialog. This solves some other problems as well.

I am feeling a bit washed out so I am going to bed early (try to ...).

MM-xxxx     Wednesday

2000-02-09

The rain and wind have cooled down everything a bit but is still is 6°C. The main difference is that it doesn't rain anymore and the wind has slackened off somewhat.
Hey we even had sun (for about 4 minutes).

No news is good news. Unless you are waiting for it. I asked Tom to send the solution for the posting problem to Belgium. And I mailed the Belgian manager an explanation on how to handle everything. I also asked him to send a reply back. By about 16h00 I still hadn't received a reply so I mailed him. Hm he didn't receive a shipment. How's that, click, click, click, tap, tap, tap, Oh, indeed. The shipment was sent to Germany, not to Belgium.

Not that I was idle all the time. Just checking up and digging into the German database. I did locate a bunch of unposted invoices. But I still don't know how they were created. A request for more information from the Germans hasn't been answered yet.

I have been changing page here but I will post them when I got some uniformity again. At the moment the local copy of my site is a bit chaotic < !-- yea even more so than usual -->.

MM-xxxxi     Thursday

2000-02-10

Strange weather, it is warmer at night than by day, with the temperature peaking on 8°C at around six-o-clock. It did remain dry till the early afternoon.

The updated posting program arrived in Belgium and Robert, the manager, called for some information about the way to correct the problem. They have a lot of missing invoices so they are not going to reset them manually but rather via a small program. So I gave him some instructions as to what the program must do. I know the programmer there so things should be OK.

Still no answer from the Germans. Theo will follow up the situation with a call tomorrow. So I will be busy with the German posting problem again. Because they didn't call I could work on the II/DR programs. As things are going I still need about five days for it. And then I can continue with the other changes for OCS-V9

When I find some interesting but lengthy stuff while surfing in the office I download it, I cannot spend all my office hours surfing. I download everything to a Zip drive so that I can take it home and read it there, normally after reading it I delete it again. Today my Zip disk got filled up. That means that I have about 50Meg of downloads to be checked. (The rest of the Zip contains a copy of my Web site and some program directories.) I think I am going to book an extra day per week for catching up. Now do I put that extra day between Saturday and Sunday? Or in some other spot in the week?

This method is not enough., BTDT.

MM-xxxxii     Friday

2000-02-11

Haha, it's freezing again. Not much, just -2C but there is a nice covering of ice on my car. The advantage of a cold spell is that it stays dry and we get lots of sun.

A disadvantage of the cold is that you also get icy patches on the roads.
There was no rain for the best part of the night so the roads were dry and I was driving just as fast as normal (which is under the speed limit). Until I hit a patch of ice on the ramp up to the highway. I typically take that ramp much too fast but then I like the three curves (right 90°, left 70°, right 70°) that can be taken at just over a hundred (Km/h). Yep, I take my corners at the same speed as a straight road. Did I tell you that I don't like braking?
On the first curve I slipped out just a bit on a first patch of ice. Well the road itself was clear but, to take the corner at speed I cross the white marking line and that was frosted over. These lines are about 20 centimeter wide so I didn't slip far and I kept the speed up. Well you don't brake when you just lost traction on ice.
The second curve went normal so I did hit the accelerator again. The third curve, which ends on the highway proper, had ice all over the road, not just on the sideline. I came out of it moving sideways. I was lucky that there was nobody on the highway and that it was ice free. I managed to pull the car back under control, going in the right direction.
Yea, a bit of luck, a shot of adrenaline and good reactions saved my day.
But it will be a wile before I take these corners at speed again. I think.

At work there still was no answer from Germany. I prepared a document for Theo (I did that yesterday but I couldn't find it anymore so I redid it) So we can discuss things on Monday. Probably with Jan as well.
I lost some time on that but I did spend most on the II/DR programs. Which are progressing quite nicely.

MM-xxxxiii     Saturday

2000-02-12

It was still cool, 3°C and clear. The whole morning was sunny but in the afternoon the weather turned. First becoming gray and windy, later adding rain.

I got me an extra 100 Base/T network card and a cable from my shopping. And a new 32MB Compact Flash card. I paid about 95 Euro for it and I later compared it at Masset. Again it is the same what he has to pay, minus taxes, to the importer. At these prices I should have bought more but then I don't need more at the moment and I expect that, by the time I do need more the price is likely to be lower (or the same for a larger size).

I tried to take some pictures of the new box I am assembling (well, I started at it a few weeks ago but it slipped down the priority list). Getting a good picture of the motherboard is practically impossible while it is installed in the case because I cannot get it at an angle that prevents reflections. And I don't have enough lighting to prevent the flash going off.

As a test I made some shots of a memory card (128MB/100 no name) and the CF cards. The best shot was with the flash covered and a halogen spot on the objets. With a white background. I must try to get a few extra spots, with only one the camera always uses its flash and that always produces reflections and over exposures in close ups.

MM-xxxxiv     Sunday

2000-02-13

It is about the same weather as yesterday. Starting off at 4°C with a clear (starry) sky, we get dry but changing weather, sometimes bright and sunny (OK with some white MS trademarked clouds in a pale blue sky) then threatening gray.

I took the wrong shorts for running, they keep slipping down and every few hundred meter I have to hike them up again. That didn't slow me much.

Profiting from the spells of sun cutted and pulled (and hacked and sawed and ...) the brambles from the garden. I keep the brambles growing on the railroad side because they provide a reasonable good barrier against trespassers. Our street is a death end street ending against the railroad and quite some people climb over the low fence to cross the railroad. because the fence is lower at the back of our garden they often take the easy route. By nursing the brambles I am slowly making the easy route rather hazardous. The problem is that brambles send out long shoots in the autumn and where these hit the ground again they dig in and grow roots. the next year the shoot out and produce new, independent plants. That is all right on the railroad side but not on the garden side. And they typically take root in inaccessible places of course. Now my hands are full of scratches and small punctures from bramble thorns.

I finally added the page for Timareen, my fathers computer. With a picture, he (my father) would make a good daynoter.