What's it all about, Alfie?

I went to TerraServer at Microsoft and got some old, but accurate space images of the house. It shows the playset in the background as well as the house, court, street, etc. It's a great map to the house, and I thought it'd be nice to add it to the web site so that we can point people to the site and they can get the picture which would lead them right to our door.

Well... that turned out to be interesting to say the least.

I'm trying to piece these together in The Gimp and while this is a fine tool for the job, the machine I'm doing it on, mao, isn't really up to the task as much as I might like. There was considerable thrashing of the disk and much slowness of the machine. It makes me want to get a new machine...

But I have to hold back... we also have a need for my limited hardware dollars for a new monitor for my NeXT slab, wally. Last night, the horizontal lines were getting so bad that I had to power off the system and take my chances. I knew it'd be likely that I wouldn't be able to power it back up, but I had no real choice. So I powered down and sure enough, the monitor didn't come back up with the slab.

Now this is an odd phenomenon... the Hitachi 21" monitor that seems to come back from the dead if I take off the black plastic case, blow the dust out of the inner metal cage, and put it all back together. Since I know I don't really do a thing in this operation other than blowing dust, I thought I'd try to skip the disassembly/reassembly and just let it sit for a while and cool off.

That was last night... to be sure, I left the cables off it as well to closely simulate the "cover off"experience. When I plugged the cables in this morning I got the exact same bahavior - the power LED comes on for about 1.5 sec, during which time you can hear the capacitive charging of the circuits inside the monitor, and then the LED goes black and we see nothing.

What I'm concerned about is the cost of getting a new NeXT 21" monitor... I have no desire to have a headless machine, but I also know that it's close to $300 to get a refurbished Hitachi, and while under normal circumstances this might not seem bad, it's right at a time that I'd like to be getting a new laptop, or a new desktop, for the office. Life is always giving me challenges to overcome.

So... the thing to do is to fire off a question to both the DeepSpace Tech guys and the Black Hole, Inc. crew to see if they know of this problem and have a more permanent fix for me. I'm hoping that a final disassembly/clean/reassembly will do the trick, but if not, then it's a new monitor at a time I'd rather not be getting one of those.

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Well... I heard back from DeepSpace Tech, the guys I got the monitor from, and their assesment was that the monitor is shot. Crud. They pointed me to Black Hole, Inc. and I called them to get the low-down on the monitors. He said that they didn't have any 21" Hitachi monitors but they had a bunch of 17" Phillips monitors. Now I probably had a Phillips in the beginning, that or a crummy Fimi, and it went out in a flash of smoke and light. I got the 21" Hitachi becuase it was supposed to be "better". Yet this one died too... I'm very disappointed in these monitors.

That having been said, I ordered a 17" Phillips for $79 (+$65 shipping) and used my PayPal account to make it easy to keep clear of the rest of the family finances. When this guy arrives I'll throw out the 21" and hopefully keep this 17" for a long, long time. I mean I've got PC monitors that have been with me and working for more than 8 years! What is it with these NeXT monitors that they die out so darn fast?!

This guy sounds nice, and I'm hoping that he's going to pick me out a nice one that will last a very, very, long time. Here's hoping...

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OK... I've been working on a lot of little things today, but I keep coming back to the NeXT Monitor. I think tonight after Liza goes to climbing class I'll spend some time doing one last clean-up. I have the 17" monitor on order, and when it arrives I may have to use it, but if I can clean this guy up and make him work, I'm certainly going to give it a try.

It's gotta be worth half an hour, right?

Boy... what a weekend... When you work as much, and as hard, as I have been working, weekends seem like the idea time to slow down, catch your breath, and rest up for the week ahead. Yet, when it's the only really good time I get to spend with my kids, it's not a time to rest, but rather a time to play.

That makes it a very tiring time... I come home on Friday, tired from the 12+ hour days and want to rest. But that's just when the kids want to play. It's rough-n-tumble, or it's hide-n-seek, or it's reading books, listening to what's happening, or playing games. Whatever it might be, it's non-stop activity for me. Yikes! It's hard work, but I can't imagine not doing it. I just wish I felt I could hold up under this stress... I have a feeling that this can't hold up for long.

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On the work front, things are going well. When I was working in JDK 1.1.8 and read about JDK 1.3 (a.k.a. Java2) I was convinced that there wasn't a thing in Java2 that I couldn't do in JDK 1.1.8. Now that I've been working in Java2 for a month, I am convinced that I was right.

Oh sure, the HashMap is better because it allows nulls, but that's a marginal improvement in functionality as opposed to adding really new classes like built-in persistence, object-relational mapping, or even something as simple as altering the security system to allow JDBC connections from within the sandbox to a machine different than the one the applet came from. Those would have been changes that would have made the move to Java2 as compelling as the move to Java in the first place. And while I understand Sun's financial motivations, I can't help but wonder what Java would be like if it were backed by something more like the Open Source movement.

I think we'll never see all that I want in Java within the language. And it's primarily because Sun wants to sell these components that it feels are "add-ons" and I feel are fundamental parts of the language. Oh well... it's nice to know that my impression of Java2 was right on the money.

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I finally got back to Slashdot today and caught some of the hub-hub about Mono, Ximian's new project to compete with Microsoft's .NET project. There are always folks that want to make life black and white... Microsoft is Bad and anyone dealing with them is, by association, Bad. And while I can't imagine I'd ever buy a Microsoft OS again, I can see that you have to respect the fact that Microsoft is the major player in the desktop market, and they will succeed if it's at all possible for anyone to succeed. They simply can afford to give it away until it becomes a success.

So in comes .NET - a sham in my book because I can't see the reason for it. The web is nice, the web is good, but there's a fundamental limitation in the web because of the page-based representation. It's good, but shouldn't be pushed into applications where it doesn't belong. There are plenty of web-building frameworks out there, and ASP/IIS is certainly as successful as any other. Why they need to make it accessible from all languages - and even create a new language (C#) to use it is beyond me. But they did, and if they want to, it'll be like IIS/ASP and be in every server (for free) they sell.

This means it'll succeed simply by having a large user base. Consulting shops will use it because it costs them nothing to deploy it, and their clients will already have it. It's a real no-brainer.

Yet to try and make it work with Open Source - specifically, to try and build an alternative is, I believe, very ambitious. I don't know that I'd try it. I don't think it's needed, but if I believed that it was needed, then I'd be very interested in having some competition to Microsoft. And I'd think Microsoft would be interested too, in light of their anti-trust issues.

But on Slashdot there are kids that still live with their parents, and teenage beliefs in good and evil are easily enraged by Ximian's move to try and fill the need as smoothly as possible. In this case, that means working with Microsoft as opposed to fighting them on it.

Again... I can't imagine why I'd ever want to do this, but if I did, I'd much rather it be through something like Mono - even if it eventually goes to Microsoft's systems eventually, than having to use a 100% Microsoft system from the jump. It's just like FreeTDS, or EasySoft's Bridges... it may be a fact of life that I have to deal with Microsoft at some point, I'd just like to be able to control what that point is.

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OK... I've read more on Mono and I have to say that the hub-hub is even more overblown than I had thought. Also... I might like to have Mono.

The real project is about getting the C# language and APIs to Linux in an Open Source project. The real point for Microsoft is to create a VM that can be embedded within any language and therefore make shared components very easy to use. If you make a C# object that does authentication, then you could use it within Visual C++, VB, Ada, etc. No need to mess with recompiling the library, etc. It's a Java-like .class file and VM that makes it all work.

In that sense, it's a language and might be quite useful to have. If there is going to be a lot of code generated in it, it could be quite beneficial - like having f77... maybe you might not need it for a year, but when you do, it's nice to know it's there and will work for you.

Then in comes Mono and all they plan to do is to build the C# development environment, integrate it with CORBA and GCC, and get it going on Linux as well as it will be going on Windows. That's a reasonable goal. The design seems OK, and while it's nothing really new (when compared to GNOME) it's being backed by the 800 lb. gorilla, and that makes it something to think about supporting simply because of market share.

Interesting... and the Slashdot comments seem even more incredible...

Most importantly, Mono is not a complete .NET replacement... it's just the language, APIs, libraries and runtime. That's it. In that spirit, it's no different than putting Java on Linux - new language, new runtime, new libraries, and it took a long time to get Java stable on Linux. But it was, and is, a good thing. Mono may succeed, and it's just a C# environment, which is fine.

Well... Liza made it to CompUSA today and while she had her hands full with the kids, she managed to get exactly the part I needed and should be on the way home with it now. This means that late this evening, or tomorrow I'll be able to toss out the old D-Link NIC and put in this Linksys one and get the internal network back up. What I think I'll do at the same time is to move the hubs around and link them so I don't have to worry about the damaged port that's on the one. We'll see... thankfully I have a good cross-over cable so the linking won't be hard.

Looking forward to that...

Last night I came home to find out that the network wasn't working for Liza's computer. Thinking it was yet again the Cable Modem, I went downstairs after dinner to investigate the problem. I was surprised to see that it wasn't but disheartened to find that the NIC in opus that connects to the internal network was dead.

Totally dead.

I mean it worked well enough to pass what little POST the drivers do, but nothing extensive and while opus could ping himself, he couldn't see anyone on the network, nor could anyone on the network see him.

I checked the hub and it appears that we have at least one dead port - probably caused by the storm we had yesterday. Liza said the lights dimmed a couple of times, and the UPSs wouldn't protect the hub from induced voltages on the cables. Anyway... the hub now has a dead port and the NIC and hub agree that there's no link between them.

I checked the cable/hub with another machine - link was fine, looked good. I opened the box and cleaned it up a bit, then reseated the card. No difference. I unloaded the drivers and re-installed them. No difference. So I'm convinced that we have a dead NIC. The problem is that I don't have the time to get to CompUSA to get a new NIC until Saturday and until I do, the internal network in the house is down. I moved Liza's machine to the Cable Modem network, but that's not going well, and frankly, I'm not surprised. What I need is a new 10/100 PCI NIC.

Liza mentioned that she'd go to CompUSA today and call me on her cell phone and I could tell her what to pick up. I thought about this on the trip into work this morning, and think that with the CompUSA web site, we can probably pull this off. I've picked out a NIC for her to get, and I know they are in-stock at the local CompUSA. I can give her the exact part number so there shouldn't be any problems. This might work out well. Then, when I get home tonight, and after the kids are asleep, I can do the swap and get the network back to where it should be.

Here's hoping that it's going to work as well as I've planned...

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It's nice when work isn't full tile but at the same time, there's things to do. I've been working on a feature set at work and while it's nice to have goals, it's a pain when your deliverables are totally dependent on someone else's work. It took two weeks for a feature that should have taken 3 days. Oh well... now that it's done people are happy and things are returning to normal.

It's also nice not to be so new and get to the point that I'm not under such incredible examination all the time. Maybe it was all in my head, maybe it wasn't. But it's nice to have at least one good success to get things going and then move on from there.

It's been a verygood day!

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Well... it turns out that Liza didn't go to CompUSA today. She says she'll go tomorrow. Looks like it'll be another day before I get the networks back in shape. Darn!

Now that I have the remote update working (I think), I'll fill in what's
been happening with me for the last month. It's been very interesting...

First off, I got a job with Computer Horizons Corp. as a consultant placed in UBS O'Connor - formerly O'Connor and SwissBank. They have a lot of trading systems for the Hedge Fund and they are a big user of Java/CORBA (Visigenics). So I interviewed with CHC and they passed me on to UBSOC. They liked me and on a Friday I accepted. I wanted to start work right away, as CHC pressured me to make a quick decision - they wouldn't wait a week to find out if eFS Network would have come through. UBSOC wanted to wait two weeks before getting me in the door, and I voiced my concerns and reluctantly accepted the fate.

The CHC folks called back and I was starting the next Monday. Lucky me... the overlap between BankOne and CHC is less than a week. That was pretty darn close.

So... I've been at UBSOC from June 25, and it's a reasonably nice place to be. The people are nice enough, they seem to be doing interesting things, and in general, things are going well. I still don't like being new and I'm certainly that, but it's getting better as I get more things working and start to handle things by myself.

Working for CHC, however, is difficult. Their benefits are much less than the Bank's so we had to change doctors, and I won't get a vacation day until June 25, 2002. I get paid by the hour, which is nice for the money, but it's not nice in that I feel like an assembly line worker... Not treated with much respect, and someone's watching over me all the time. Interestingly, I don't feel this from the O'Connor folks, it's the CHC and the entire consulting business which I haven't been in since Port-to-Port. It's not a comfortable feeling. I'm just not the same kind of person that started Port-to-Port.

Working downtown is nice in that I get to eat at Panda Express which is one of my favorite places. They like me... I like them... the food is great... they pack it on for me, and remember my order... it's like Cheers... Who doesn't want to go where everybody knows your name?

Today I decided that I needed to be able to update my Journal while I was away from the office. So I came up with a little script that reads all the HTML files in a directory and inserts them into the database by their file timestamp. This is the first such inserted entry and I'm hoping that this will make it a lot easier for me to keep my notes during the day and then save them to the database each evening when I plug my laptop into the network and sync up.

There were a lot of things that needed to be done to get this right - and while the script is short, it is deceptively simple. I augmented the standard HTML to include the TagLine as well as stripping it out on the INSERT. Nothing fancy, but it was a lot of little details.