Week 16, 2000 ,Svenson

-- Previous week -- Most recent -- Next week --

17-04 to 23-04

MM-cviii     Monday

2000-04-17

Today starts off raining but it dries out soon. We even get some bright moments, driving the temperature up from 5°C to around 16°C. The sky remains dotted with very dark spots however and a few very localized heavy showers pass by.

We got an unproductive Monday. Problems with the Roundtable (the version control system used for TeleSales) databases keep Ronny off work for most of the day. I introduce him to some HTML coding which he tries to apply to a budding web site for his indoor-football (not the American type) club. My main advise was to surf a lot and collect ideas. This typically leads to a very cluttered interface. My next advise is not to use a layout tool to apply the ideas (I installed CuteHTML on his PC). This typically leads a a keep it simple style because all the page items have to be hand coded. He is a programmer so hand coding doesn't frighten him like it would some.
This way he learns HTML so that when he starts to use another tool, like FrontPage or DreamWeaver or ..., he still knows where to look if things don't come out as expected. I know quite some people (even real programmers) that have made reasonably good looking and even functional pages but that would be utterly lost if they lose their main tool. There is nothing better as a foundation as the pure code.
You shouldn't learn to fly on auto pilot.

I did finish the Invoice date passing problem from Friday and I tested it. Testing is a bit tricky because the problem only occurs if you submit the job one day and it only becomes active the next (or a later) day. On a PC you could fiddle with the system clock but you don't do that on a multi-user system. So I cheated for testing and now it is in the system-test environment so the regular testing should pick up any error.
While transferring it I applied the change to the previous version as well. It is a problem from Belgium and they probably want the fix ASAP.

My upload yesterday somehow broke the images. But in a strange way. When I open a page I do get for example the gradient background but when I press the reload button I lose the background. Now, locally at home, everything works and I don't see a problem (well I see lots of problems but not the missing backgrounds).

MM-cix     Tuesday

2000-04-18

Sufficiently cloudy to obscure the stars but clear enough to show the moon and quite warm at 7C. It remains a bit hazy throughout the day with the odd shower for tastes.

A problem occurred during the integration tests. That is the last test stage before sending out the release, it is where the cooperation of the various modules is tested. The problem was an order that produced an invoice in the invoice files but the invoice didn't get printed and wasn't sent to the financial system.
I have been checking, rechecking, tracing code digging and whatever all day but, apart from an unrelated problem, I didn't find a thing. Other invoices were being processed as it should.

I did help Ronny some more with his HTML. He is picking it up rather well, falling in all the usual traps :-)

MM-cx     Wednesday

2000-04-19

Dry and sunny is the <!-- MS Theme --> today. Ever heard about something from Redmond that has no flaws? So. We get a hazy and cloudy morning (5°C) before it gets bright and during the afternoon a few patches of cloud drift by. Not too bad after all, the day didn't need a reboot. Unlike that time last year. (Yea, I know the MS spin doctors wanted us to believe in a solar eclipse but I for one don't take their sweet talk).

I finally found and solved the problem with the invoices. Though I don't understand how it could have escaped detection so long. Last year, in December, I changed the programs to pass the invoice address from the selection screen, trough the invoicing program to the actual printing program. Before that the address was only passed to the invoicing program. The printing did print all the newly created invoices which typically was correct. Sometimes invoices were made but not printed however and they had the tendency to get printed at the next invoicing run, even it they didn't fit the filter.
In solving this I made a mistake so that only invoices for the requested address would be printed. No address would mean print for all addresses but actually said print nothing. That is why now nothing gets printed unless you test individual invoices (they bypass all the tests). This fix was tested (ahum) and accepted by Pieter and is active in Belgium. I don't know how the Belgians handle their invoices but I doubt things are running as they should.
Well it is fixed now and tested by the OFI people, not by some ......

Checkout this : www.theregister.co.uk/000419-000004.html . And then notice that Tom has a link to Seti@home. And he claims he broke his box. This cannot be coincidence.
What was he really doing?

And Toshiba starts building water cooled notebooks ( www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/press_release/04172000_3.jsp ). What I find amazing is that they have a 'patent pending' on it. So, Ford and GM, get ready to pay up or switch your engines to air cooling :-)

     Temptation.
The parquet is ready and now we are moving the books back from the attic to the front room. That means picking up books checking them (we are entering them into a database while moving) and finding an appropriate place. That is handling over a hundred books and not taking the time to read them.

MM-cxi     Thursday

2000-04-20

Weather as predicted. But then, at this time of year that is not too difficult, just repeat ten times that it will be sunny but with a chance on the odd shower and you will be right five times. The temperature rises from 5°C all the way to 20°C.

The solution for the invoices seems to be accepted. I mean testing is still going on and I did not get any complaints so ...

An other, less serious problem, was reported yesterday and solved today. Orders that are fully handles, with the invoice sent to the customer are removed from the active files, they remain then only in the archived files. It is still possible to review these orders and they can still be used as the basis for a new order (or for a return 'order'. The details of the order lines however couldn't be viewed.
Now they can.

Yet another day that I could read all the daynotes. I am however missing Leah, I guess Tom didn't let her take a PC along. Or she took one but with Windows on it and now it will only crash.

While moving the old Toshiba I noticed that Peter took the new notebook with the mouse and the power brick. But forgot to take the power cord. It is a standard, two pronged cable as those used on radios so maybe he could 'borrow' one. Otherwise he had a good boat anchor :-)

MM-cxii     Friday

2000-04-21

With a little cloud cover like we had tonight the temperature didn't drop far tonight (down to 12°C). The clouds do not however prevent the sun from warming things up so we end up at just over 20°C. So while it wasn't a brilliant day it wasn't grey either, rather silvery and warm.

I did a clean up of some code and fixed the solutions I worked out hastily during the week. Not quite a productive job but it has to be done sometimes.

In between these things I gave Ronny some more advise for his web site which is coming along rather well (but with a rather dark background (#666699) :-). Explaining things is the best way to learn them and it won't be long before he gets into deeper water so I'd better prepare myself.

In the news :

Belgacom, the Belgian telephone ex-monopoly will provide WAP services by the end of May. With enough fanfare as if they invented it. I'd be more interested in ADSL but that is an on/off thing more intended to keep the cable network at bay.

The various police services are being merged. That was a political decision made after the child kidnap, abuse and murder case (the Dutroux case) some years back. There is an agreement between the government and some unions but nobody seems to think the agreement acceptable. This looks like a reform that will drag on for a few years more and then fizzle out.

The asparagus season has started so I pick some up on the way home. This means I will have to shop a bit faster tomorrow to be back in time for cleaning them.

MM-cxiii     Saturday

2000-04-22

A nice enough start of the day with temperatures rising to 25°C by noon. However clouds start to drift in and by evening we are being rained down.

Shopping but not for computer stuff. And later on I get to my brother to fetch and install his laundry drier.

He brought back the notebook. He had two problems with it. First he didn't have the power cable and so, after about three hours he was stopped. That was time enough to notice that I hadn't installed any printer drivers for his WordPerfect. The result is that his documents all look different.
Anyway, he is going to take the Toshiba back and see if it works any better now. If it doesn't he will switch over to the Fujitsu in which case he also switches over to MS Word for his text because the administration is using that. There are talks to equip all the pilots with notebooks with a DGPS (GPS augmented with a few land stations) and a wireless link (GSM?) so maybe he doesn't need the notebook anymore. He works in a government service however so this could take some time.

In the news :

The regional governement of Limburg has started to distribute (free?) chickens for use in waste disposal. The idea is that chickens can be used to (cheaply) pick out all the edible stuff from the general waste. It are chickens that have ended their productive cycle at egg farms and would be slaughtered. So far about 8000 families have requested chickens.

MM-cxiv     Sunday

2000-04-23

Easter

The predicted rain has decided to be drizzle, so the clouds don't empty themselves. They remain stationed up there and keep the sun out.

I like to run in the rain but this drizzle is no fun and the 12°C in the morning is too hot really. For running anyway.

I scanned in a map for my father. He had made it painstakingly on graphing paper, with lines every millimeter. Of course scanning the map also scanned in all the ruler lines. After some trials I could only get them out scanning in colour and then doing a colour separation and then readjust the contrast and balance until I got them faded out.

While doing that I tried to print an intermediate map to see if the lines, still visible on the screen were also visible on paper. My old HP Deskjet 500 seems to have broken down however. The ink was almost up so I intended to buy a refill but now he doesn't want to feed paper anymore. To the right, under the control panel is an a-centric wheel that depresses the stack of paper. When a page must be fed the wheel should turn and the stack is pushed up against the rollers short a few moments. The wheel however doesn't start to turn anymore and needs a manual assist.
It has been running since 1991 with hardly a problem and consuming less than a cartridge a year. I'll take it apart to see if it can be repaired but I am not going to spend money on it, buying a new one is probably cheaper than sending it back for repairs and spare parts are possibly unavailable. I guess this will be the end of the line for this trusty old printer