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Tuesday, September 7, 1999

I have seen a lot of these deals for what amounts to a free PC out there that, but to this point I have resisted.  On the surface it's been hard to turn down a semi-potent machine for very little original investment, but if you look a little closer you'll find it's only the beginning of the investment.  Most of the deals want you to sign up for at least a three year commitment for internet ISP service.  That's a bad deal.  This would lock you into an ISP for 36 months and with the way the market is changing I find it hard to believe you would want to stay with an ISP that long.  I have changed providers several times for what I think are very good reasons and I am sure I will make some kind of ISP in the future, probably to take advantage of the changing technology and to certainly take advantage of broadband service when it finally arrives in Winston-Salem.

I was originally with IBM and probably liked them the best.  IBM provided five e-mail address with the account, but when I installed ISDN service IBM went off the radar screen.  I think they wanted an additional $4 per ISDN channel hour.   Too rich for my blood.  I then selected GTE and at first it was a very good service.  I think their flat rate was something like $39.95 per month for dual channel ISDN service.  Unfortunately GTE does not have a pop in Winston-Salem and their service was handled here by UUNET, who also handles AT&T and who know how many other providers.  Don't send me mail...I know all internet traffic in North Carolina eventually goes through UUNET.  At first the service was great, but then I started dealing with busy signals.  I use my service a lot in the evenings and I could not deal with the busy signals, so after much frustration and many calls to customer service to voice my displeasure, I had to move away from GTE.

That brings me to my current provider, BellSouth.   Unfortunately BellSouth provides only single channel ISDN here in Winston-Salem and offers only one mailbox as well.  I hope I don't jinx myself here, but their service has been very good and I have suffered with only limited outages.  Like my friend Bob Thompson surmises, "they are the phone company.  You should never get a busy signal."  So far, he's pretty much been on course.  I use my web hosting service for e-mail address, so the limit of free mailboxes from BellSouth hasn't been a problem.

We are being teased with the prospect of xDSL or cable modem service here in Winston-Salem.  Time-Warner claims they will be offering cable modem service by the end of the year and BellSouth is offering ADSL service on pockets of Winston-Salem.  You guessed it.  I do not live in one of those pockets.   I'll bet you a cup of coffee that when the cable modems come on line ADSL will not be far behind.  I hope Time-Warner moves fast.  I believe ADSL will be a better bet in the long run vs. cable modems.  It looks like I may be changing ISP's in the future, but it will be transparent to those who email me because I use my web service to handle my mail.

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If you're still using Microsoft's Office 95 package there is a Year 2000 compatibility package available at Miscorsoft's site.  They latest version of the Office 95 Y2K update is dated July, 1999 and includes the bugs released (er fixes) released in earlier packages.

Here's something that might be fun to play with when Microsoft gets most of the bugs out of the Office 2000 package. Apparently the Office 2000 premium suite also includes PhotoDraw 2000 which will allow you to do things like making any photo look like a hand-drawn cartoon.

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I was traveling most of last week, working both the Pepsi Southern 500 at Darlington for the NASCAR Winston Cup Series and hoping up to Indianapolis for the U.S. Nationals finals on the NHRA Winston Drag side of the street.  It turned out to be a weird racing weekend.  With Dennis looming off the North Carolina coast it didn't appear weather would be a factor in Darlington, but just after half-way the weather started creeping in and provided the unclimatic finish.  I would bet Jeff Burton wouldn't say it was unclimatic.  He pocketed the $1 million Winston No Bull 5 bonus.   It was his second No Bull Bonus of the year.  Somebody's going to have a nice Christmas.

At Indy it was just a weird racing day as most of the favorites took a tumble.   It was a day that included favorite John Force and Gary Scelzi being knocked out in the first round of eliminations.

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The big news around our house last week was the news flash that TY was going to be retiring all Beanie Babies at the end of 1999.  It is suspected that it's some kind of marketing ploy.  The kids have >100 of these little critters that started at $5 toys but soon were gobble up by the collectors who immediately took over what was once a fun pass time for kids.  Capitalism at its best.

As an employee in the tobacco industry the other piece of big news was that a Florida appeals court had ruled that members of a class action law suit down in Florida would have to go to the court on an individual basis and make their case if they wanted any money out of Big Tobacco.  This was seen as a major victory for the tobacco companies and left the Florida trail in limbo thankfully.  I think the jury had originally been scheduled back on the scene today to begin the process of bilking even more money out of the industry.  At least the Appeals court has its head on straight.

And if you haven't been following the progress of the major tobacco settlement with the state Attorney Generals it looks like most states want to use their share of the money for anything but what they originally said.  I believe they had originally said they wanted kid's anti-smoking programs, but now they want to spend the money on sidewalks, bridges and other infrastructure items and pay little attention to the agreement.  You might see and Anti's and Big Tobacco together on this one.

Friday, September 10, 1999

Well I see the computer world did not come to an end yesterday when the date read 9999.  Maybe that's a preview that Y2K is more hype than fact.  I believe it's more hype on the PC side, but there could have been some serious problems on the mainframe side.  Am I just naive?  Hope not.  I do know that a lot of people (well, some people) have made some serious coins with this opportunity.  You gotta love capitalism.

I have been putting off going to the eye doctor for some time now, knowing what the outcome would be.  I finally bit the bullet and accommodated him with my presence yesterday and I was right about the results.  I'm heading for bifocals.   I suspect that I will be a real bear for a couple of weeks after I get fitted with these new appliances.  I chose the no-line progressive model, not because I am vain, but because it seemed like the best option.  I've had all kinds of advice on this issue, so hopefully I have made the right choice and will not have too much of a stiff neck trying to finding the reading zone.

I have a pretty good case of astigmatism and a little bit of farsightedness to go along with the blur.  We discussed all kinds of options, from contacts to laser surgery.  Luckily my doc said the laser burn was great for people who are near sighted, but not yet perfected for us farsighted folk.  He also mentioned that it could make the astigmatism glow even worse.  And as for contacts, I have a hard enough time when he wants to put drops in my eyes, I can imagine stuffing contacts in there myself.  So I guess I will stick with glasses.

The temperature seems to be moderating some here in North Carolina which is about normal for this time of year.  Although our coast may be bracing for yet another hurricane in the coming week(s).  Floyd is taking his position in the Caribbean and may be heading for the warm US waters.  Let's hope he decides to turn out to sea to try to hook up with Aunt Bee.

This email from Jan Swijsen [qjsw@oce.nl]

I had a look at the statistics you have on your site. Nice to have.

I then went on to ask my hosting site (Mailbank) how I could get statistics including the number of page reads and which browsers are used etc. The Postmaster there says that she is not familiar with counters and statistics. She refers me to Amazon.com to check reference books.

What I want to know, in order to get some similar statistics for my own site is how you get your page built. I understand that you use Analog, but do you run it on the server (ISP) or do you get the log files downloaded (which files are that).

Can you guide me to some information?

 

This information is provided to me by my host pair networks and fortunately I am able to run Analog on their Unix server.  However, you can download the log files and run Analog locally to produce the same output.  Analog is very simple and does all of the work for me.   I have three cron jobs (or batch files) set up to run each of the statistics pages that you see on my site. I you get that far I will be happy to send you a sample of my cron job. Hopefully your host will be able to provide the log files.

I would also suggest trying to contact someome in support rather than the person who answers the mail.  Also, sending you to Amazon.Com was not the answer.  Sounds like they didn't have a clue.  Some web services have private newsgroups when other users are often able to give more help than the host itself.  There are a lot of smart people out there on the internet, but unfortunately some very unscrupulous ones as well.

Let me know what happens and good luck

Saturday, September 11, 1999

I failed to mention yesterday that Andrew and I would be batchelors again this weekend.  Suzy is on a camping trip with Katie and her Girl Scout trip.   This time they've chosen Laurel Ridge -- the Moravian Church's camp near North Wilkesboro.  Katie's troop is sponsored by Olivet Moravian Church.

I was speaking with Bob Thompson this morning and mentioned Jan Swijsen's problem with not getting any stats for his website.  Bob surmized and I agreed that he may be using the web space allotted with some internet accounts and unfortunately probably will not get any web stats with that account.  Hopefully for his sake we are wrong.

Email Steve Tucker