Week 22, 2000 ,Svenson

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29-05 to 04-06

MM-cl     Monday

2000-05-29

We had about the same weather as yesterday without the high winds. Well it is still blowing hard and irregular but nowhere near as hard as yesterday. Same temps as well.

We don't have Imperial Troops so we don't have a rememberance day. It's a normal working Monday here.

The ring around the town center has been rebuilt.
It was a double two lane with parking lane boulevard with a strip of grass and trees in the middle. It was fondly called 'Den Boelvard, which is Dutch for 'The Boulevard'.
Now it is called 'De Groene Boelvard' which means 'The Green Boulevard'. It is now a on-way counterclockwise two lane road with a wide, asphalt walkway in the middle with two rows of trees and a wide cobblestoned parking area on the inside. The grass is gone so it actually is less green than the old one but now I am nit-picking.
All the old trees have been replaced with new ones last autumn and about half of these have been blown over now. For one they haven't had time to get a firm grip with their roots and secondly they haven't got enough place for their roots with all the cement rich ballast covered with cobble stones or asphalt. (And they will never get enough water either but that is nit-picking again I guess.)

I lost half the day with passing trough the synchronization problem we had last week. We already did most of the things Wilbert suggested. We did produce a few log files to communicate back to Progress.

Then I assisted Ronny in testing out the solution to a problem we have been struggling with for months. The problem is that the data base is not a Progress database, it is located on an AS/400 system. Whenever a non-Progress program changes something in the database the Progress programs don't see the change because Progress serves up the data from an internal local buffer. Closing the function you are using and reopening it refreshes the buffer (actually that deletes and recreates the buffers). Quite annoying because the AS/400 does all the calculations so if you make an order and you want to know the total order value you got to save (without releasing), quit and reopen the order.
Now a new startup-parameter can be used to bypass the buffers on every read. It is a slowdown we could well do without but we don't really have a choice here.

And lastly I got the transport-costs adaptation tested fully. Both in OMSI-3 and TeleSales. It is now transferred to System-Test for Jan. Later this week I expect it back, approved and with the request to do the same thing in the previous release.
I can fully understand the reluctance of MS to support programs years after they stop shipping them. It is hell.

In the news

Lots of storm damage reports but also ..

In Ostend three Alouette helicopters have been blocked for three weeks because the actual destination was not clear. Now, after three weeks, the destination is found, AirKatanga in Zaire Congo. The Alouettes, dating back to 1957, are not exactly built for civil aviation. They can be used for military purposes but if that was the intention they should have been accompanied by special transit licenses. These were not even requested.
Well if it takes three weeks to find out the buyer of them I guess none of the other transport documents were OK.

MM-cli     Tuesday

2000-05-30

A dry but grey day with temperatures going from a cool 6°C to a blistering ... 14°C. Well dry until about four o clock, when it begins to rain.

Most Americans were serious about their Remembrance day yesterday.
Something is often forgotten however.
Every war has two sides and most of the soldiers, on both sides, laying down their lives do so in a fight for their freedom. Freedom thus is always won at the cost of freedom from others. On a remembrance day we should not only give thought to those from 'our side' but also for the victims on the 'other side'.

Every remembrance day up to now has been chance to learn from the mistakes in the past.

The AS/400 starts from the wrong IPL-side (Initial Program Load; that is like booting from an alternative partition) with a different set of PTFs (Program Temporal Fix; IBM-speek for OS-patches) since the power cut a few weeks ago. This could be causing the problem we have with the synchronization on the DataBase schema for TOS.

Pieter reported a problem with the new TeleSales installation in Austria. A nasty type of problem : "Sometimes some items cannot be ordered". That the programs work flawlessly () in Germany, the US and the other opcos obviously does not mean a thing to him. After trawling trough the messages (in German) and checking their system we find that they did recompile the files. Of course they did not use the correct compile parameters and switches. For common operations in OMSI-3 that is not a problem because the access paths are always specified. Some uncommon operations in OMSI-3 and Logistics doe run into problems and of course TeleSales hits problems as well.
The rules say that they shouldn't compile the common files locally, heck we jump some special loops to not compile them ourselves.
But who plays by the rules anyway?

Another problem in Austria is a non-deleted record in the invoice print file. This cancels the printing program. That was just a single old record that remained in the file after a previous crash. Koen deleted that so they can go on.

In the news:

Telenet is being taken over by Callahan which is a relative (here) unknown American telecom operator.

Flanders has 100% coverage by cable, the best cabled region in the world, with about 70% covered by Telenet. Now that the year long waiting for financial stability is over all the old and new plans can be picked up again. While Telenet limited itself to telephone and internet access over the cable, mostly laid and owned by 'intercommunales' (that are commercial companies setup by multiple local governments). It has now agreements with the bigger intercommunales (70%) to actually take over the cable itself so it will be able to provide television channels. But also start Video on demand and widespread tele-voting schemes. Next year Digital TV will arrive.
Of course Government could not keep its hand behind its back and got an 'independent' committee organized to make sure that the 'quality and diversity of the provided channels' will be guaranteed and to determine the cost of the analog part of the transmissions.
One question that the intercommunales now have is what they will do with the money they get from the take over. return it to the local governments (as dividend) or use it to start new services.

Most interesting, from my point of view, is Pandora, the Internet department of Telenet. Some months ago they limited the upstream speed to 128kbps (victim of their own success). This will be pulled up again (at a cost of course) to 256 at first and maybe more later. Also, instead of being cut off when going over your budget you will be allowed to continue, at a reduced speed.

My main (or should I read Vain) hope is that this will put some extra competitive preasure on the clasic telecom operator, Belgacom. So maybe I can get a DSL line at last and for a reasonable price.

MM-clii     Wednesday

2000-05-31

A bit of a nebulous start of the day but without wind or clouds. Heated by the sun the fog rises but it takes till about noon to get it burned away totally. the result is a fairly cool day starting at 5°C but getting close to 20°C in the evening.

I got almost zero productivity today.

First the server had ups and downs. After some searching by Wilbert the problem was that the number of licenses was limited to about 10. Normally we don't notice that because that server is for our project only with tree or four people connected. Now there are those TOS developers all logging on. Wilbert pulled up the number and all was well again.

Then we did hit a performance problem in Progress. When reading a record and displaying some fields sometimes the result snapped up on the screen and sometimes we had to wait for over a minute. Again after spending a lot of time on it we found that this only happened with two fields (last-ammend-user and last-ammend-date) and even then only is we didn't specify the full qualified name (including the file). So even if you explicitly open a certain file the Progress editor still walks trough the whole data-dictionary to find the correct field.

And then I had a discussion with Koen about the performance of the calculation program. I tell him the program, on the AS/400, is not the problem. He checked the source and sees that there is a potential problem and so doesn't believe me. The problem he sees is real but the result of using an OMSI-3 program in TeleSales. the programs must use different files but cannot be adapted (that would break OMSI-3) so there is a work around that involves file copying and overriding before and after the program. That eats performance. So he thinks we can solve the performance problem by (drastically) changing the method used.
After testing he finds that the whole process, including copying, takes about 0.6 seconds. The total process from the user point of view takes around 15 seconds.
So he concluded it is useless to spend the time on reducing that 0.6s to probably 0.4s. The bottle neck is not in my program.
Which is just what I told him.

Headline in the newspaper :

Belgian law contains absurdities and anachronisms.

Now I wonder why that is reported in the 'news'.

There is an estimated 45.000 law-norms, 15.000 of which are punitive. (estimate? Oh yes I forgot counting is higher math and these people are lawyers) About 3.000 new rules are added each year. The CVP (which is now in opposition for the first time in about 40year) proposed to remove rules that don't apply any more.

I have been surfing along on my daynotes mirror and I wondered why Kerri didn't post anything new. Now I found out. She moved out from the iTool account to another site. Glad I found her back.

And Brian is down at the moment. Well his site is. Or am I looking in the worn direction again? Maybe, because Marcia is available.
Hmm, must check later

And then I stumble on this "Remedy will not work" article in Linuxworld.
I agree mostly with it but I look at it a bit different.
IMO Microsoft or the Baby Microsofts will remain the dominant force and we need it that way. By keeping one big (or a few less big) unit strangling the market other companies are forced to develop new niche markets. If you take MS totally out of the market a lot of smaller companies will try to fill the resulting gap, sucking in talent to develop things we now have, to essentially reinvent the wheel. That is talent now working on more innovative projects.

MM-cliii     Thursday

2000-06-01

Ascention

A fair day. Not bright yet sunny and dry with the odd white cloud and temperatures rising to 22°C in the afternoon.

Ascension day is a public holiday here so no work and no news.

Well there was news. In Luxembourg a man is keeping a bunch of kids as hostages. Yesterday he went into a daycare center for kids, aged between 0.5 and 4 years, with a gun (of unspecified type). At first he demanded money and an escape taking the kids along, later he dropped the money and later still, after releasing some of the 42 kids he also didn't want to take the kids along. After releasing yet more kids his only remaining demand is a flight to Libya. (I guess he won't be welcome there.).
It is assumed he acts in some sort of revenge because, after a divorce, he has lost the right to visit his own kids some time ago after an (alleged) attempt to carry them off to Algeria (he is from Algerian origin). The news is however very vague about this.

The news has been dominated by this with regular bulletins repeating one another without actually disclosing news.

I fell into the trap. Again.
I use Roman numbers on my days and I happily applied five X-es for fifty while it should have been an L.
Found and corrected that during some reorganization.

MM-cliv     Friday

2000-06-02

Nice sunny, even bright day. Though there was some mist in the morning (at 6°C) it was burned away soon. And burning is the operative word with the temperature rising to 26°C.

Yesterday was a holiday both in Belgium and in the Netherlands. Today is a semi holiday in the Netherlands. Semi because it is not an official holiday but most people take this day off with the result that most companies stay closed. Oce is also closed but being an international organization some people have to hold the fort. That means six Belgians are in at work and I am BOFH.
But no operator function was required.
The problem was that, with Oce closed, the air conditioning was left on standby. That means too hot for my taste (and concentration)

I do love these holidays however because there is almost no trafic. I gain a little bit time and get in Venlo quite relaxed. Going home was less relaxed than I hoped for because there were a lot of tourists, mainly Germans, on the road. Most of them overburdened or pulling a caravan or something.

Some reorganization on my index page. And I changed the links on my Daynotes mirror to go off opening new pages. With a permanent and fast connection (at work) I can surf one daynote at a time. At home with a slow standard modem connection that is not a good idea cause I pay while reading. Now I have all the daynotes open in their own window in Opera, all I have to do is click the link on the mirror page to refresh that daynote pages.
If anyone has a problem with this arrangement let me know and I will revert back to the classic style. And learn how to do the "Offline Browsing " .

MM-clv     Saturday

2000-06-03

Again sunny today but with high humidity. And high temperatures, up to 29°C. The evening ends in heavy rain and heavy thunderstorms.

On the attic, directly under the roof the temperature always goes to extremes typically staying almost 10° above the outside temperature. No heating in winter means it gets down to 0°C, even running a few computers is not enough to push up the temperature. Now, with 29°C outside I measure 37°C inside.

Way too hot for computer action.

Until now.
The rain and thunderstorms are pulling down the temperature to more bearable levels. Of course thunderstorms are not as dangerous here as they are in North Carolina. I am sitting in the attic, typing away while watching the lightning and rain outside. No need to hide in the basement.

MM-clvi     Sunday

2000-06-04

We got a warm night (18°C) with a very light drizzle, more like heavy mist really. And that turns into a cool (relative at 21°C) and very grey day till noon. Then the sun breaks trough and drives up the temperature further.

My father had troubles with his heart again. Not as severe as the previous time. Then the pain was much worse and his circulation almost stopped causing him to lose his balance. He couldn't even speak anymore then. This time his pulse remained relatively strong, only skipping over once every few beats.

I got up in the middle of the night so I did not go running at six as usual but slept in till half past seven. Well not really sleeping but ...

I lost time reorganizing stuff. I say lost because the new organization isn't an improvement.
And in the afternoon I spent time in the garden.

I also spent (not lost) a lot of time watching the tits playing and fighting over peanuts. During the winter we feed them hazel and peanuts which they have to work out of a plastic basket. The normal diet of these black and blue tits consists of insects and insect larvae which are not abundant in winter. By helping them trough the winter we ensure that, comes spring and summer they are hanging around and ready to protect our plants from being overgrazed.
The black tits have been doing their thing and now they have their you pestering them for food. Once every few weeks we give them a handful of peanuts in the basket even though they don't need it.
But it sure is a delight to see some seven or eight tits hopping on and off the basket and chasing each other.

I installed the USB hub I bought yesterday. Plug and play as it should. Pull out the camera from the PC, plug in the hub, plug the camera into the hub. Presto. The fun really is getting out of the business.