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Sunday, April 4, 1999
Since today is Easter, what better time to include a link from ZDTV that will help you find Easter eggs within some of your more popular software titles, like Word 97, Excel 97and Windoze 95. I think the Easter egg surprise was probably made famous by the Windows 95 design team.
Hope you’ve had an enjoyable Easter. It’s been more like a summer day than a spring one here in Piedmont NC. So much so, that we’re packing a picnic and heading off to the park.
The entire Tucker family managed to crawl out of the sack this morning at 4:30 (it was really 3:30 AM with the time change) and attend the Sunrise Easter Service at Old Salem.
And later in the afternoon: It was brought to my attention that maybe I had moved to Piedmont, NC. Nope, we're still in Winston-Salem. We live in the piedmont section (the middle, just before the mountains start, or just before the foothills), so we can go East and head to the beach or west and head to the mountains. Life couldn't be better.
Also, that I originally posted the wrong date. I was only off by a month. Must have been a combination of the early morning and DST time change affecting me!
We have just returned from a frolic filled afternoon in a couple of parks, which also included an impromptu picnic. Even managed to dodge some ominous looking clouds. Thankfully the clouds just cooled us off and there were no rain droplets.
The local Linux Users Group (PLUG - as in Piedmont Linux Users Group) has another "installfest" scheduled for Saturday, April 24. Don't know where yet, but I am sure details will follow soon on PLUG's installfest page If you live in the Winston-Salem, NC area and have been thinking about a Linux machine, this might be a good opportunity for some free help. I have a machine that I have been thinking about installing Linux on, just so I can begin to learn some Unix commands. I need to know some Unix just to administer this website.
The computers at Intuit and the NC Dept. of Revenue have finally been able to speak to each other and the NC computer accepted my state tax return today. The Federal return was accepted Friday. All in all the electronic filing process has been painless except for having the check back to ensure the computer systems have accepted the returns. Better that than the tax man beating on our door. I would give you a review of the electronic filing process, but my view would be a little clumsy this year, since I encountered some hiccups by having entered the incorrect social security number for Katie. I must have been doing this for several years. Finally the two government computers talked to each other and disagreed. That's something I never would have known if I hadn't filed electronically, so I guess it was a good thing after all. The government's computers must be able to do this because of all of the Y2K enhancements!
This one has to come under the heading: Timing is Everything. Evidently a bug fix for the Office98 package included a little surprise for MAC users whose browser of choice is not Internet Explorer. The "accidental bug" will not allow Netscape MAC users to download the bug fix package. Now, I don't know anything about MAC's and have no plans of learning anything or turning this into an Apple site, but thought this "accident" in Microsoft's code was amusing, especially as they're trying to get out of this anti-trust thing with big brother. Timing is everything.
That domain name you have always wanted may be available. Word is coming that Network Solutions has dumped some 18,000 domain names back into the system. These domain names were apparently reserved by speculators, you know those people who reserve domains and then want to sell them to you for a tidy profit. Trouble is, it seems the Internic registration fee has never been paid by the speculators. Maybe Network Solutions and Internic should institute a policy of not actually reserving the name until the cash arrives. I realize this would slow down the process in these days of immediatecy (is that even a word, but I am sure you get the picture), but at least in would make strides towards saving the names for legit folks like you and me. Hey, maybe Tucker.Com is available. I doubt it. Last time I checked it belonged to an electronics company in Texas that actually had a web site. I think I am going to check for Winston Cup Preview, also. When I last looked for that one someone in Florida had it. They only had a simple text "under construction" placeholder on the web the last time I looked. It would be better suited for the folks who manage the Winston Cup Series at SME. Maybe I should suggest a proxy fight (little RJR humor there).
Good ole Republicans. The GOP boys plan to hit the airways with some ads suggesting a reality check for the veep (you remember his claim of inventing the internet). The ads are strategically planned for the San Francisco area as Mr. Gore heads to Silicon Valley in an attempt to extract some hefty campaign contributions from rich computer geeks. Maybe Mr. Gore's time would be better spent saving a few spotted owls who happen to be living in redwood trees. Picked this story up from CNN if you're interested.
I have asked for an upgrade with www.pair.com so I can begin to use Front Page extenstion on this site. I will also be able to begin using a few canned system cgi scripts, but they don't offer anything to get that excited about in their system cgi-bin. However, don't be too surprised to see a counter or something like that in the future. I am also hoping to add FP's search engine for this site when the FP extensions get installed. I'll keep you posted. I made the request today, which was a holiday at pair, so they will probably be pretty backed up when the doors open Tuesday. In addition to their weekend and holiday load, a major portion of their connection was down this weekend becasue of some routing problems on the backbone. So I am sure they will be dealing with that first. May be several days before I can play with cgi, etc.
In less than three weeks of operation, more than 171,000 people signed an online petition against the FDIC's proposed "Know Your Customer" rule. According to the FDIC, virtually all of them were opposed to the new rule.
But it’s not over yet. The FDIC says it could write a policy statement that still gets a program in place. It appears the FDIC doesn't care what the American people think. They seem determined to enact it one way or another. To stop Know Your Customer will probably take some legislation. Like we need more laws.
If you would like to follow these developments, check out the Defend Your Privacy website
Wednesday, April 7, 1999
I have upgraded my status with my web host (pair) to include the use of cgi scripts (system only at this point) and soon I will also have the use of Front Page extensions. FP extensions haven't been installed yet. I'll let you know when to watch for changes. One of the interesting things that I will add is a search bot for this web site to go along the page of seach sites I already have on this site.