Tag Archives: retrospect

A Close Shave

computers

I was up until 0000 hrs. Friday night with a serious challenge. I was tinkering with my spreadsheet/database program Quattro Pro, which I use to keep track of jogging stats, IRAs, 401Ks, as well as pilot log book, when the system locked-up (crashed) and a little message appeared with the generic warning that “systems resources were low” or some such non-sense, and to “save your work to another file.”

These things happen infrequently but can be routinely handled, and are considered more of a nuisance then a disaster. Usually the remedy is to exit the offending program by rebooting the PC. You have to re-enter the data that you were working with since you last saved, which isn’t fun, so good practice is to save often. In my situation, and this was unusual, the error had erased the entire file! This would be disaster time. My running records lost; there is no hard copy. Trying to reconstruct 24 months of my pilot log book, for example, would have been… Oh! I don’t want to even think about it!

Okay. Don’t panic. Re-start Quattro Pro. Re-load the file. Nope. It’s empty allright. Lots of empty spaces and squares in blank columns. Not a pretty sight. Okay. No problem. I have backups. First though, let me try the Microsoft Undelete utility. This comes with windows and sometimes allows you to recover files that have been deleted but not yet overwritten. Ah! There it is. The erased file. But there’s a note. “File is destroyed” “Cannot be rebuilt” I had exhausted all of the simple possibilities. Go to Microsoft Backup. Select the recover function and insert the floppy into drive “A”. OOPS. Another message. “Backup file was created with Microsoft DOS 6.0 or 6.2 see the readme.txt in the MS-DOS 6.22 step-up disc.” Swell. It was true. The original full backup was made in January and I had since upgraded my operating system. Hey. It was free. Why not? This added complication I hadn’t figured on and I was now grumbling to myself. It was just further confirmation that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it… Okay. Dig out the backup diskettes of the MSDOS 6.22 step-up that I had made. All of these files are archived in a compressed state. There are two on a 5 1/2″ floppy and two more on a 3 1/2″. The first file is designed to run so as to expand automatically the other three. When I ran this the one file extracted just fine but it then prompted me to insert the other disc to work on the remaining two files. Another snag. The other floppy (3 1/2″) was on drive “B” and wouldn’t read as it was expecting to see it on “A”. This was getting comical. All I wanted to see was the &#$*!?% readme file so that I could root out my problem with the old backup. I would have to manually re-install the entire OS just to see the help message? My efforts were continually thwarted as the problem twisted and convoluted. I had a pile of floppy discs, 14 full backup plus 6 incremental backups, the two OS discs, in addition to the usual natural clutter on my desktop and on the floor. I half expected to see a message appear on the monitor which said, “Abandon all hope, Give up, Just forget it!”

Well, after some additional frowning and cursing, I got the idea to try and run MS backup from the DOS command line instead of from Windows. The reluctant machine bought it. The file was restored. The January version, that is. I still had a slew of incremental backups (the changes made since then to restore and bring the errant file completely up to date and back to life), to do. After a few dozen more mouse clicks and another 40 minutes I had merely succeeded in returning to the point were I was before I had turned on the machine in the first place. I love computers…

Computing, Time Sponge Even Then

computers

A letter to my best friend – Mel. This was before social media. This was before email. This would have been printed and sent by, gasp, snail mail. Personal computing in 1995.

I haven’t been NET surfing or CorelDRAW!ing much lately. I’ve been absorbed in DOOM. I’m getting pretty good with a shotgun. Dede puts on the headphones and sits next to me and watches while I blast away. “Tell me if you hear any bad guys sneaking up on me, honey.” The beauty of this game is that it is so widely supported on the net. Kinda like a VW beetle. You will always be able to find parts for it. When I finish the episodes included with the original from ID, I can download more levels, sound fx, and music. These wads are made by hackers and are really quite good. Some are designed to run on fast 486s so they get a little jerky at times on my machine. Here are some that I played. Hurt me plenty. They must have taken some serious work. I have to replay some of the sections many times. Seems like I’m out numbered and low on ammo! Save often. You can run them from the DOS command line like so: Change to your DOOM directory and at the prompt exactly type–

doom -file serenity.wad sersound.wad -warp e3m1

Cool! I found a utility on-line to convert .au to .wav so you can listen to those sound files.

Really COOL! Using Window’s Object Packager, I embedded sound into those graphics you sent me. I hope this works on your PC. Open the .cdr in Corel and then double click on the little icon I put there. Multimedia!!!

I just got your Greetings From LaLa Land. I liked the font! What’s it called? How do I get it? Ah, Painter.zip, I was most curious as to what it was. Man. That sucker was huge, man. How do you get that whole file into Corel. Mine balks with insufficient memory dialog boxes. I’ll bet the pics from Greetings… used up some RAM. Can you set your scanner for lower resolution or definition to save bytes? Can you control the dithering? My impact printer got a new ribbon. It had more ink then any of the others; a quality control problem of sorts. I think it should be okay now. I use 360 x 360 dpi, its maximum, otherwise the graphics look like s___. I need colour. I was reading about the comparisons between the 560C, Epson Color, and the Cannon. It’ll be tough to decide when the time comes…

Wow! Glad to hear about your new office computer. How are you ever going to get any work done? That’s what I paid for my Zeos only a 18 months ago and it’s only a 25Mhz. Hah! I notice now in their advertisements that they don’t even offer a 25 or even a 33 anymore! I’m following the prices for the Intel Overdrive upgrade chip. Perhaps a 75DX4? Also I see hard drive prices are way down. Mine is 3/4 full. I’m having to be real selective now with what stays and what gets dumped. I have only 50 mb left.

On the floppy is a new release from 3d Realm. Terminal Velocity. Should play pretty well on a 486/66.

Boy! The web is changing. You may not recognize it when you go back on-line. Using the latest NETSCAPE browser you can see some pretty creative home pages. BTW here’s a URL for ya: http://www.corelnet.com/index.htm (this is a new CorelDRAW site worth checking out)

Family Hauler becomes a Money Pit

cars

Dede was complaining that her Taurus wasn’t blowing cold air. I dug out some of my old hoses and gauges for A/C diagnostic purposes and the repair manual. None of the fittings work on the newer cars. (Not to mention you can’t pick up a $2 can of R-12 at the Pep Boys anymore) So I left the car with the technician at Western(?) Auto for the afternoon. Can’t be fixed. Numerous leaks at “O” rings and the evaporator. Needs new accumulator/receiver/dryer while your at it. $800 estimate. Geez. I would hate to see what it costs to fix a MBZ or BMW these days. This is for a generic Ford here. All I wanted was a little bit of freon added. (I think what they wanted to do was change over to the new environmentally friendly refrigerant which basically implies converting the entire system for the higher pressures.) No thanks. I’ll help the environment. I’ll roll down the windows! This doesn’t fly with Dede. Okay. You can drive the Pontiac, (now age 17) that has functional AC, during the summer. Do I sound like my Dad?

You might guess who won out– the conversion was undertaken so happy wife happy life.

Even Before the WWW

computers

A letter to my best friend – Mel. This was before social media. This was before email. This would have been printed and sent by, gasp, snail mail. Personal computing in 1994.

So much to try on my PC and so little time. I FTP’d to a windows directory archive at wu.archive.wustl.edu (the INTERNET address of Washington University in St. Louis) and found gigabytes of software. The INDEX which I downloaded and printed was a 40 page list! It’s on the floppy if you want to check it out. Let me know if there is anything in it that really blows your hair back and I’ll get it for you… I retrieved a UTILITY called WINzip, which you will also find on the diskette. It’s alot like Pkzip/Pkunzip (for DOS) which you already have but is alot mo’ betah. It runs in WINDOWS so it might be easier to use. (See the attached instructions.)

One little goodie I got was a macro to use in AmiPro called workshet.smm which builds a math worksheet for kids. It’s kind of like homework. It is homework! It puts math problems (up to 50) on a page using random numbers which I then print and say: “Here kids do these.” This keeps them busy for awhile.

SMS, who is a whiz at MathBlaster, can add numbers already (without using his little fingers in most cases). So it was pretty funny the other day when I handed him the paper with the problems on it and he looks at me says: ” Dad! I can’t do these!” “Why not?”, says I. “Because, I can’t write the answers yet, Dad! Sheeze!” Well excuse Meeee. Seems I taught him how to push the correct keys on the computer but forgot that other stuff…

I tried a new feature available on-line called teleconferencing. Basically this allows you to send messages back and forth in real time. It is not as fast or efficient as a voice phone line connection where two people can have a rapid dialog exchange. You only have space for one line of typed thought so its difficult to say anything really intellectual but it is a fun way to communicate. For a social defective like me it’s great therapy. You can join in and chat with many people much like you would on CB or HAM Radio. I felt really awkward at first. Many people use strange and anonymous sounding handles like DarkStar and SleepySquirrel and I felt kind of naked with my REAL name out there for the world to gawk at. Not only that but when I signed on the topics of conversation seemed to be about school and I thought “Oh, great…”. Here I am with a bunch of High School kids (who probably know more about PC’s than I do) talking about the girls/boys in class and generally just hanging out on-line. Would they accept me, a newbe, a novice? I watched for awhile but you are instantly sucked in. When you log on

your name automatically displays on screen to every other user present, with something like: “ClintonS just walked in!” and immediately you start seeing responses like: “Hi Clinton” or “Hello Mr. President”. You can’t help but answer. I took a safe tack and confessed to the others that I really didn’t know what I was doing in here. I saw stuff like “Just type naturally” and “Hey everybody, let’s help ClintonS!”. Which they did. One with the handle SlockAmy held my hand so to speak (type) and answered my queries about various command options displayed at the bottom of the screen. “What does the action button do?”…”Try it!” So I did. A menu popped up that described a list of actions such as “Smile” or “Secretly hug Susan”. With a simple singular key stroke, then, the larger macro of the desired event takes place. I chose smile. The message “ClintonS is smiling” went merrily off into cyber-space. It was exciting. It was kind of a rush. After I said good-by and thanks for all the fish, I checked the on-line member directory. I was curious to know who I had been talking to. Turns out these virtual folks, who were chattering about school, weren’t kids at all but teachers!

Dede has discovered all of this including the SOAPS Forums and can now be found typing like mad to virtual people in cyberspace after the kids have gone to bed! I had to get her, her own E-Mail address on the INTERNET (Dede@nando.net). I couldn’t have MY name floating about the General Hospital discussion groups!  🙂 Dede must send messages to her sister in Phoenix twice a day. This is great! I expect my phone bill to be cut in half.

Hey Mel! You want to go with America Online when you get your modem. They are super easy to use and have the best gateway to Internet E-Mail.

I was experimenting with PINE, my Internet E-Mail text editor from hell, and figured out how to upload a document from AmiPro, Write, NotePad, or any other word processor to include with my messages. Now I can compose off-line and send this entire letter, for instance. The only thing is all of the fancy formatting and graphics etc., get stripped away during the export process. Only plain ASCII text can be transmitted. There are ways around this, sort of. I can use a utility called uudecode/uuencode which convert graphics to text and then the receiving party can reassemble it all using same. Oh well, that’s a project for another day.

I’m learning a few other things. TURN OFF THE SCREEN SAVER. I had been having difficulty downloading large files from on-line. Some of them can take over 30 minutes. I would launch my communications software from windows This comm. software is actually a DOS program so windows would shell to DOS but continue to run in the background but unseen. I would start the download but after a few minutes the download would abort. “Incoming garbage”, the message would say. “Too many errors. No more retries.” It finally dawned on me what was happening. With the lack of activity in windows the screen saver was coming on and messing everything up.

I found out something else: My FAX software and COMM. software definitely don’t get along and can not co-exist. They both fight for access to the modem and will not share. This one took me the longest time to figure out. I could send faxes but everytime after I had received one my comm. program refused to work. This was baffling because there were no error messages. The modem would dial. I could hear it over the PC speaker but the computer on the other end would not pick up. I could only get back in business again by somehow reconfiguring the modem with the self test routine included with the installation. This is a pain in the butt so I have to pull the plug on the FAX. “Hal, open the pod door.” “Hal?”….”I can’t do that Dave..” The elegant solution is to buy an integrated comm/fax package like the new ProCommPus for Windows. ($179.95) instead of using the mix mash that they threw in for free with the modem purchase. Anywho, until I can come up with a new initialization script language for my comm. software, I won’t be accepting any incoming. I will post the problem on-line for some of the experts hanging out there to solve for me.

Have you heard of PagePlus, desk top publishing software from Serif? I ordered their “intro.” version for the price of the $6.95 shipping & handling fee. I don’t think it is as good as AldusPageMaker but I just got it in the mail and am going to load it and try it out.