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Sunday, September 26, 1999

Why does this have to happen to me?

My friend Bob Thompson was over last night and I was discussing with him how BamBam was suffering some many lock-ups.  Bambam runs Windows 95-b.  We decided, what the heck, why don't you free up some disk space and install a dual boot with the addition of Windows NT Workstation?  Sounded like a good idea to me, so I went about the task of deleting unwanted or wasted space files.  I was able to move from just over 100 megs free space to better than 500 free megs.

Confidently, I then popped in the first install diskette of Windows NT Workstation and set about the install process.  Life went downhill from there.

The first problem I had was that NT networking could not see my network.   I did a little head-scrathcing and then decided to change network cards, just in the off chance something had happened simonteanously to the network card during the install.  Remember this machine and its old network card talked to the network just fine.

I then started another install of Win NT Workstation, telling the install program to make it a clean new install instead of an upgrade.  NT install saw NT sitting on my hard drive and of course assumed I had an earlier version.  I suppose it sees the directory \WINNT.  When I got to the networking portion of the install and filled in gateway, DNS and IP addresses, NY would just hang.  I started a new install and the same thing happened.  I then chose to install and tell the machine that I was not connected to a network.  This completed the installation process, at least.

When I rebooted I was stopped at a BLACK screen with the fatal message that my computer could not find NTLDR and I was doomed.  I couldn't event get back to my Windows 95 boot.  I was screwed.  Sweat began to pop out on my head, etc.   However, I was proud of myself.  I didn't start cursing, at least not too badly and I didn't throw anything.

To bring this long story to some sort of conclusion, I have reinstalled Win NT more times than I have fingers and toes and have finally gotten it to a point where I can get to Win 95, complete with networking.  The first time I got to this point I thought everything was right with the world, so I set up the Win 95 networking, got it communicating and then went about with another Win NT install with the same results.

I have finally gotten back to Win 95, so here's my strategy.  I am going to copy everything in my C:\ directory over to Wilma where at least I will be able to look at the directories and see what I have installed.  I will then fdisk Bambam and install Windows 95 or 98.  I will probably go with 98.  I am also considering one more thing before I fdisk.  After I get all of the data copied over I am contemplating at one attempt of installing Win NT Server, just to see what happens.   At least I would have everything I want on that one machine without the forced reinstall.

And here's something nice to add.  When I returned upstairs Suzy questioned me as to why I always chose to make an upgrade to one of the computers when she had something she need to do.  She uses Bambam and the Printmaster Gold program to make signs, posters, banners, etc. for her various volunteer projects.  So I am down here early his AM installing Printmaster on Wilma so she can complete here tasks this afternoon.

The kids and I are planning to head to Charlotte after church to see attend the Carolina Panthers NFL game.  We came across the tickets and wanted to go as a family, but Suzy had other commitments and in fact Katie has to be back before 5PM, so we'll probably be leaving the game early.  I think they are playing the Cincinnati Bengal's.

5:00 PM -- We have returned from Charlotte and the game -- our first visit to Erricson Stadium in Charlotte and our first Charlotte Panthers game.  The game turned out to be pretty much a rout -- the Panters were leading 27-3 with just a minute or so gone in the fourth quarter, which is when we left.   Katie needed to be back in Winston-Salem for a Junior High meeting by 5:00 and we made it with time to spare.  The kids caught a nap while I high-tailed it back up Interstates 77 and 40.

One thing I didn't mention in my update this morning.  It looks like my version of Front Page is having a little trouble communicating with pair.com.  I decided to make a directory for all of my weekly notes pages.  I moved all of the weekly notes pages the the /notes/1999 directory and published to pair.  At the end of the upload it appeared to have bombed, alerting me that I was attempting to publish with Front Page extensions when I didn't have FP extensions installed.  To the best of my knowledge I do have FP extensions installed, unless it was a major coincidence of pair removing them at the same time I made the directory change.  Anyway, I thought maybe the changes may not have taken place, but everything seemed to have been published the way I wanted it to be.   I have had the same error message appear several more times when publishing.   I haven't asked pair what is happening yet.  If I get the same result with this publish I think I'm going to bite the bullet and send them a support question, which I don't expect a quick response from them.  They're always swamped after the weekends.  Jerry Pournelle has been enjoying quite a hair pulling experience with pair.com.   Check the View from Chaos Manor.

I am also attempting an install of Win NT server on Bambam to see if it has any better luck than Win NT workstation.  Of course, I will post my results later.  This is my final attempt before I fdisk the drive on that machine and start over.  If have to start over, I haven't decided whether it's NT or Win 98.

6:00 PM -- The same thing happened on my latest publish to pair.  The idiot told me there were no front page extensions, but it appears my update successfully published.

As for my installation of Win NT server it appeared everything was going okay, but when I tried installing the networking it bombed when it tried to enter the network.  Maybe this machine just doesn't like NT.  I installed Win NT Workstation on a lesser machine the other day with no problems.  The lesser machine even had this very same network interface card.  The machine I am attempting to install NT on is a NEC Ready 9712 with an Intel 166MMX processor.  I installed Workstation successfully on a Digital Starion with a 100mHz Intel Pentium the other day.   What gives?

It looks like the choice may have been made to me.  Win NT (either server or workstation) doesn't seem like a viable option for BamBam, although I think I may try it one more time if I take the drive down to bare metal, which is what it looks like I am going to have to do.

Monday, September 28, 1999

I finally bit the bullet and fdisk’ed Bambam.

Before taking this drastic step I thought I would give Win NT Server a chance. The software seemed to be installing, but once again locked up when it came time to install networking. When I rebooted the machine I now had a choice between Win NT Server, Win NT Workstation and Windows 95. I decided to load Win NT server and attempt to add the network card and just like the workstation version, NT hung. When I rebooted I was faced with the message of death -- NTLDR could not be found. I had a decision to make. I could go through the setup routine again, choosing repair vs. a complete install or I could take Bambam back down to bare metal. The repair method had worked previously, but I was getting tired of screwing around, so I whipped out the floppy that contained fdisk and format and performed the unthinkable. However, while Windows 95 was still working I decided to copy the contents of my hard drive over a empty partition on Wilma. That way I would have all of the information and as I reinstalled programs on Bambam I could compare the directories. Sort of like backing up, only different.

The strategy of keeping a copy of Bambam’s old hard drive has already proven useful. One of the first applications I reinstalled on Bambam was Quicken 99. Fortunately, I keep copies of my quicken data on several different machines. The Quicken data would be the most difficult to replace. I am sure you can imagine this. Anyway, I reinstalled Quicken and brought back my data from one of the other machines on the network, but I noticed the link to my bank was not there. I use Quicken’s electronic payment feature and poll my bank’s server for my updated checking information regularly. The first thing I noticed missing was the link to the bank. Now this may get me in trouble, but I simply went to the old copy of the Quicken directory and copied everything back to the new directory (remember, this was after the install) and there it was. I could get to my bank records electronically.

I now have to complete the task of installing applications back on Bambam, which will fortunately give me the opportunity to clean up a lot of junk that was sitting on my hard drive. Remember, I found better than 400 Megs of wasted space Saturday evening when this all began.

I am still curious as to why I was having these problems. It does appear that both NT server and workstation themselves installed fine on Bambam, but my problem could have been with the networking function. I will admit that I am using no-name inexpensive 100 MHz network cards and maybe if I were to use a 3Com or some other name brand NIC, then maybe I wouldn’t have encountered these problems. The one thing that makes me scratch my head is that this very same NIC is working fine with Windows 9x and I installed the same NIC (not the very same card, but a brother) in the Digital Starion machine (Barney), an old 100 MHz Pentium machine, running Win NT Workstation with no problems. It found the network right away.

The issue with my attempt to find a bios upgrade for the NEC Ready 9712 with Bob's help has been well documented, both here and on Bob's TTGNET site. We could not find the upgrade. So I thought I would go back to their site and certainly I would find an easy mailbot, where I could send tech support at NEC a simple little email and ask them about the bios upgrade. Either I am stupid, stressed out or the NEC site is one step above non-functional. I didn’t find anywhere in the tech support area where I could e-mail them. I did find some telephone numbers. I wasn't too excited about the voice option, but was quite surprised at the speed at which the phone was answered by a human, afterall it was Monday, which I have to believe is a heavy day for tech support. The young lady who answered the phone asked for my model and serial number, which when I didn't have it with me offered to look for upgrades by model number. She said the only upgrade she found was for sound, but it warned that if I wasn't having programs that I should not perform the upgrade or it may fry my system board. When I informed her that I could only see 8 gigs of the 10 gig hard drive, she asked if she could put me on hold while she consulted with a senior tech support consultant. Surprisingly she came back after only a few minutes with the news there was no bios support. She offered the suggestion that the hardware vendor may have a software support device that will allow you to use all of the drive. I remember such a device from Western Digital in the past, I think it was called EZ-Setup or something very close to that. She also suggested that I partition the drive into 2 gig partitions.

I have been experiencing some problems the last several days when I publish this site to my server at pair.com.  So, I decided to take advantage of their support email system and filed the following question:

Over the past several days I have been getting the following error message  when I publish my site (tucke31 located on tenshian). It alerts me that FP  extensions have not been installed, which I know they were installed in the  past. Could they have been removed for some reason. I use FP to publish to  the <root server . Here’s the error message I am sure you are quite  familiar with:

Server could not complete your request. Contact your internet service provider or web server administrator to make sure FRONT PAGE SERVER EXTENSIONS are installed.

When clicking on the details button I also found the following in the event  it may be useful. Is something wrong on my end. I have a single channel  ISDN connection with BellSouth.

500 Internal Server Error

Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or   misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

Premature end of script headers:

/usr/local/frontpage/version3.0/apache-fp/_vti_bin/ 

 

Thanks for any help and in resolving this issue.

 

I received the following reply on Monday, which was quite prompt for pair.com's support:

The FrontPage extensions do appear to be installed for this account. What method are you using to publish? You should be publishing to www.wakeolda.com -- if you try publishing to tenshian.pair.com it will not work. If you’re trying this and are still having problems, you should have the FP extensions reinstalled. To have this done in the fastest and easiest manner, please use our upgrade system at <snip>.

I didn't send pair.com's support a reply, but if this update doesn't publish correctly I wish ask the upgrade desk to reinstal the extensions.  The only change I made on the site was to move the archived copies of these weekly notes into their own directory.

* * * * *

ANDREW HAD his first disaster since he's been riding his bike with no train wheels last evening. I was downstairs in the computer room deciding what I was going to do with Bambam when I head our neighbor's voice calling for me. I turn around and see Andrew following behind with a major battle scar on his cheek. David (the neighbor kids' dad) said he had taken a tumble in their driveway and it looked like he just had some scrapes.

We went upstairs and cleaned the scrape on his cheek and checked for any other damage. Luckily we didn't find any bones protruding out of the skin, but did find some additional scrapes on the knee and shoulder, both of which had been protected by the Lee Pipes and his sweatshirt.

In checking Andrew over, I couldn't resist. I had him to open his mouth so I could check his teeth. Upon the initial prodding in his mouth I exclaimed a big Uh oh like I had found a loose tooth. The neighbors gasped and Andrew exclaimed that he had that loose tooth before the accident. He's about to lose one of the main choppers any day now and I wanted to see him smile.

I waited for Suzy's return home for any pain medication to be applied. She made the application and I heard no screams of terror. The little guy was a real trooper. There were no tears until after the neighbors had left our premises.

After cleaning the wound with some warm water I fixed an ice pack and tried to get him to hold it to his cheek to cut down on some swelling. When he held the ice close you would have thought he had been shot. Screams of pain and panic. Later he complained that his head hurt. David had reported that Andrew had been wearing his helment, so I wasn't immediately concerned about a head injury. Being the neophyte I am, I asked Andrew what Suzy usually gave him for a headache --was it a small tablet or was it liquid? I didn’t get a lot of help from the patient, so when his mom arrived home she also dispensed some Motrin and we didn't think any more about his headache.

He was dispatched to bed with lots of sympathy hugs and kisses.

Andrew came into our bed sometime during the night. I know this because I felt him crawl over me to get to his mother. I went back to sleep. It was later while Suzy was first in the shower that Andrew announced that he still had a headache. I mentioned this to Suzy as she came from her shower and remembered at that time that Anderw really hadn't eaten that much on Sunday. He ate only his french fries from our McDonald's stop on the way to the Charlotte Panthers games and about half of a soft pretzel at the game. Liberal amounts of Coke were consumed, however, so some would say that he had some nutrition. I then suddenly remember that during the trauma that he had not eaten any supper, so I promptly reported this to his mom.

It was while I was in the shower that I heard that unmistakable sound from a kid in the bathroom. I pulled the curtain back and saw Andrew with his head hung and praying to the porcelain gods. This was enough to send him back to bed and no school for the day. Suzy was concerned that he may be getting a virus. Headache and vomiting are his pre-emptive signs of strep throat. Suzy reports that Andrew went back to sleep, ate a little something, but still not that much and now he seems to be just fine. OF course, strep is not yet out of the question.

Tuesday, September 28, 1999

We have this leak in the kids' bathroom that I can't seem to find.   It has ruined the sheetrock ceiling above the kids' tub/shower and I expect to come home any afternoon and find the soaked sheet rock falling down into the tub.

The attic space above our second floor is only a scuttle space and I am much too out of shape and large to try to navigate this space.  Therefore, I have stuck my head through the access several times to see if I could see where the leak was coming from, but no luck.  When our insurance adjuster came out he performed a similar task and didn't see anything either, but did allow the claim.

I had a roofer out yesterday, thinking the problem was starting from the roof (logical, don't you think) and we wanted to get to leak fixed before we attempted the inside repair.  The roofer showed up and Suzy had him call me at the office.  He said he had found the problem and could fix it while he was here.  He claimed the bathroom vent had not been properly installed and when he raised the flap, "water poured out."  I gave him the authority to go ahead with the repairs, feeling very lucky.  Suzy said he went back on the roof and was back in about five minutes to collect his $50.  I was relieved thinking the roof had been repaired and we could get on the with the mess the bathroom repair will certainly make.

A little too quick to jump the gun, there sonny!  It started raining here again yesterday, so I went to check the kids' bathroom once again and I was bummed.   There was another wet spot.  It rained here most of the night, so I checked it again this morning as Katie and I were headed out the door.  A bigger water spot.   So I called the roofer on the way to Katie's school and was surprised when he actually answered the phone.  We had been playing telephone tag most of last week.   I told him that unfortunately we did not fix the problem.  He promised to come back out and check things out, but it rained rather hard today, so I didn't expect him to return to the scene of the uninvited water.

When I returned home from work it was still raining hard, so I convinced myself that I could get into the scuttle space and maybe find the source of the leak.   I heaved myself into the attic and immediately became covered with insulation.   Eased down the rafters well past where I thought the bathroom should be and unfortunately could not find any water source.  I was frustrated.  I want to find out where this water is coming from and get it fixed.  I did find out that I had no business crawling around in this tight space.  Leave it to the professionals!   There's a HVAC duct trunk duct line that runs the length of the house and unfortunately blocked me from going right the area above the bathroom.  I could not see any wet insulation as I inspected the area with the aid of a Mag-Lite flashlight.   Frustrating, yes.

OUR FRIENDS in Eastern North Carolina are catching it again.  Some towns there have not yet recovered from the aftermath and flooding Hurricane Floyd left behind.  Heck, some of the flooded rivers have barely crested and certainly have not returned to normal.  Then the area get his with another five to six inches of rain today.

North Carolinians have really ramped up the volunteer effort to help our neighbors.  There is a drive for cleaning supplies, canned food and bottled water taking place on about every street corner in Winston-Salem.  Our company has donated $250,000 to the effort and the employees have conducted several of the above mentioned drives which have netted about four semi truck/trailers headed to Eastern North Carolina from RJR.

Most of the Winston Cup race team in this area are donating the use of their road tractors this week to haul supplies to the flooded area.  Lowe's Motor Speedway has been a major collection point for Hurricane Relief Supplies in this area.

LOWE'S MOTOR Speedway finally made the announcement toady that had been expected since the accident that killed three spectators during the IRL race there back in may.  IRL racing will NOT be returning to Charlotte in 2000.  Apparently the sister tracks to LMS in Atlanta Texas and Las Vegas will continue to host the IRL events.   Only the first IRL race at Charlotte drew a "decent" crowd.  The crowds diminished the next two years, which probably was the central reason for not continuing to host IRL events.  The accident may have been the final decision.

* * * * * *

Andrew went back to school today and said everyone in his class wanted to ask him about his bike accident.  He is acting like he doesn't want this particular kind of attention.

He cheek still has one very large strawberry and it looks like his cheek is still swollen some.  I hope no one reports us a child abusers.  Never know this day and time.

Wednesday, September 29, 1999

There are some sick people out there.  Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouses have been forced to beef up its security after a couple of small explosive devices detonated in their stores here in Piedmont North Carolina during the last week.  Another unexploded bomb was found in a store near Charlotte, NC yesterday.  It's main competitor has been faced with bomb threats as well during this period according to the radio news.

You might imagine there are rumors swirling as to what the cause for this sicko behavior.  Is it coming from a disgruntled employee or maybe from some group who thinks the national home improvement centers are price gouging during these disaster times?

IT SURE WAS NICE of Mr. Clinton today to say he wants to forgive the debts owed to the United States by impoverished nations.  Why are we lending $$$ to countries we probably knew when we made the loans would never repay us.  Why are we in the banking business, anyway.  I have a few loans he can forgive while he's at it.

AND I AM SURE THAT anyone who has followed NASCAR Winston Cup racing for more than six months wasn't surprised to learn today that Hendrick Motorsports was releasing Ray Evernham from his iron-clad contract.  I have learned over the years in Winston Cup that where there is smoke there is fire.  When you start hearing rumors that this driver or this crew chief might be leaving a team, there's usual;y something going on in the background.

It will equally as interesting to hear the real facts about this story as they leak out over the next few months.  Very rarely are things just as exactly as they seem in Winston Cup racing, especially when it involves a marquee team like Jeff Gordon.  I notice that Jeff hasn't really had a lot to say during soap opera.  I wonder how strained their "best buddy" relationship has become.  I remember seeing Ray stand up for Jeff as best man when Jeff and Brooke were married in Charlotte.   The pair who was inseparable is separated.  It probably was only a matter of time.

8:45 PM (2045) -- I now have access to the full disk on the Maxtor 91000D8 10 meg drive.  The NEC Ready 9712 didn't have a bios upgrade so I used the EZ-Drive software (Maxtor calls it MaxBlast) to enable the full potential of the drive.  I chose FAT32 so I could leave the drive all in one partition.  I figure it will only be a problem for WinNT for a while.  The new version of NT should allow me to have FAT32 partitions.  In the meantime I will keep anything off this drive that I will need NT access to.  I can always go back and format it to Fat16, but I would have to break the drive up into several partitions.

Thursday, September 20, 1999

The Senior PGA Tour has arrived in Winston-Salem.  You can keep up with the latest scoring courtesy of the PGA's live scoring link.

We took a break from the office and drove out to the course for lunch.   It's really ashamed that Winston-Salem doesn't support this major event better than it does.  They were very few spectators on the course today.  In fact, we ran across the foursome of Arnold Palmer and current Winston Cup points leader Dale Jarrett and their gallery numbered only about 50 people.  Arnie's Army has dwindled to a small division.  It's really too bad.  I will give you that it was only the Pro-AM day, but heck, that's the best day to get up close to these guys.

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER is including a special page on their That's Racin' site on the Ray Evernham and Jeff Gordon split.

RYAN ZECK SENT me this email, which is the press release from Lowe's Motor Speedway announcing his first superspeedway race.  Ryan was the recipient of the first Alan Kulwicki scholarship and we became friends when he was awarded the scholarship and moved to North Carolina with his family.  I was managing the NASCAR Winston Cup program for RJR at the time.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Sept. 29, 1999) - If recent University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte) graduate Ryan Zeck has his way, the legacy of the late Alan Kulwicki will continue well into the next century.

Today officials from Lowe’s Motor Speedway and UNC Charlotte announced Zeck would make his superspeedway debut in a car painted in UNC Charlotte colors carrying number 49 in honor of the UNC Charlotte 49ers. The car and plans were unveiled today on the UNC Charlotte campus. Zeck’s, his quest to emulate Kulwicki’s on-track success begins next Wednesday, Oct. 6, during Winston Pole Night activities at Lowe’s Motor Speedway as he plans to compete in the EasyCare Vehicle Service Contracts 100, featuring the ARCA Bondo/Mar-Hyde stock car series.

A 23-year-old California native, Zeck was the first recipient of the Alan Kulwicki Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship was established in 1994 after the tragic death of Kulwicki in a 1993 airplane crash. Kulwicki was the first NASCAR Winston Cup driver with an engineering degree and won the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup Championship operating his own team.

In honor of Kulwicki and Zeck’s graduation this spring and to increase awareness of UNC Charlotte’s College of Engineering, Lowe’s Motor Speedway President H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler made arrangements to put Zeck in Dick Bahre’s ARCA car and paint it in UNC Charlotte colors for next week’s race.

Approximately six years ago, Zeck read about the scholarship in a motorsports trade publication and applied. When awarded the scholarship, he, along with parents Rudy and Pam, moved from California to the Charlotte area.

Speedway President H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler was impressed with Ryan and his family. In fact, Wheeler welcomed Ryan to the Charlotte area and even hired Rudy to work at the speedway. The former racer and automotive mechanic works on various R&D and restoration projects for Wheeler and 600 Racing.

"The Zecks are a tremendous family," said Wheeler. "Ryan is an excellent ambassador for the Alan Kulwicki scholarship and the entire engineering program at UNC Charlotte. To move everything they owned some 3,000 miles is a true testimony to their commitment to a quality education and a better quality of life." Wheeler says Kulwicki’s influence as an engineer is very evident in the sport today.

"Alan was the first race car driver to carry a briefcase through the garage area," said Wheeler. "He was the first driver to truly understand, apply and evaluate engineering principles as related to race cars and on-track performance. Now, nearly every team has at least one engineer on staff. "I am thankful that the Ryan Zecks of the world are getting the opportunity to pursue their dreams like Alan did through this scholarship program and excellent curriculum here at the UNC Charlotte College of Engineering."

Zeck began racing go-karts when he was nine years old and collected two championship titles along with several other honors. He then moved to mini stocks in 1992 and finished second overall while claiming "Rookie of the Year" honors. For the past seven years Zeck has been competing in late-model stock cars. To date he has won six races and racked up a multitude of top-five and top-10 finishes.

"I am very excited and honored to have this opportunity to combine my education with my aspirations of racing professionally," Zeck said. "The support I have gotten from my parents has been incredible. And I really appreciate everything Humpy has done for me as well. I can’t tell you what it means to have someone like Humpy behind me."

"We’re very excited at UNC Charlotte to have an alum of our Motorsports Engineering Program and a Kulwicki Scholarship holder make his big-time racing debut at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, said Dr. Robert Johnson, chairman of the mechanical engineering department in the UNC Charlotte College of Engineering. "This is a great moment for our motorsports program."

Wheeler is making sure everyone at UNC Charlotte has the opportunity to watch Zeck and the UNCC car race next week. Anyone presenting an UNC Charlotte ID badge may purchase a Winston Pole Night ticket for $5 in advance or $10 at the gate, a savings of $10.

"Heck, we’ve even invited Bobby Lutz and his 49er basketball team out to be honorary crew members," said Wheeler. "They’ll see pit stops that will make a 35-second shot clock seem like an eternity! I hope we have a sea of UNC Charlotte green in the grandstand cheering Ryan on."

Good Luck, Ryan.

THERE WAS A REPORT in the Dallas Morning News that Bruton Smith, Chairman of Speedway Motorsports, is trying to buy the National Hot Rod Association.   Bruton has two tracks that run NHRA events (Bristol and Sears Point) and during the Inaugural Winston No Bull Showdown at Bristol this rumor was really flying around hot and heavy.

IF YOU'VE GOT A calculator handy and your green eye shades, Microsoft's annual financial report is available online.  Just how many shares does Bill own and how much is he worth today?

NETSCAPE HAS RELEASED version 4.7 of the Netscape Communicator. Communicator claims to feature 56 bit encryption as standard.  The other hot release of the week is DirectX7.0 from Microsoft.

Friday, October 1, 1999

Tom Syroid came up with an idea that he could assemble a group of web'sters who keep journals on the web into one neat collection.  daynotes.com is now up and running a features a groups of keyboard pounders, many of which are writing computer related books.  I am probably the off guy out here.  I wouldn't consider myself a "go-to" guy if you have a computer question and I am not writing a book.  Bob Thompson suggested I start this notes page when I put my web site up live.  I thought at the time I would only include something here once in a while, but I have found that I contribute a musing much more often than originally planned.  Anyway, Tom has included me on the page.  I also have most of these guys listed on Wakeolda's daynoters page.

5:00 PM -- One thing I forgot to mention yesterday.   While at the Vantage Championship I got to meet Jesse Haddock.  Now if you are not a golfer the name probably will not mean that much to you. Mr. Haddock has been the golf coach at Wake Forest University for probably more years than I am old. He has coached every great who has gone from Wake and on to the PGA Tour.  I think he was still coahing three golfers who were particiapting in this year's Vantage Championship.

He didn't coach Arnold Palmer at Wake, but they were in school there together.  Jesse told some knee slappers while we sat and enjoyed lunch. Some of his stories included Arnold and some included Bones McKinney.  Everyone at the table who either knew Bones or had made his acquaintance nodded their heads in agreement that Bones had this way about him that just warmed a room when he entered.  Bones McKinney, as I remember, could be funny even when he wasn't trying.

Jesse remembered this one story where a professor questioned their (his and Arnold's) lot in life and their likelihood of success.  I think he said something like the professor may have questioned whether they had it to graduate.  Of course when Arnold returned tot he campus a few years later after winning at least his second Master's title, the same professor waxed on about how Arnold was one of his best and favorite students.   We call that convenient amnesia in the business world.

WHEN TOM SYROID  [tsyroid@home.com]considered including me in the daynotes.com group I sent him the following note:

Sure you can include me if you like.  I don't feel like I measure up to you "real" writers, but you will have to blame Bob Thompson.  He's the one who got me going and suggested that I include an occasional note, which has turned into "day Notes", well almost day notes.

Look forward to seeing my link appear on the page if you think I am worthy :-(

I received this follow-up from Jan Swijsen [qjsw@oce.nl]  today:

I am probably the off guy out here.

You're not alone.

I don't write books either. I am a regular programmer, with the traditional 5 to 9 job :-)

The only thing I would fit the "go-to guy" designation would be for people with RPG question on an AS/400. This IBM AS/400 is not a system you find often out there in the wild.

Together we can call the rest of the gang to order if they become to engrossed in their book crafting. Or they may pull us into the writers guild.

Well, you are one up one me.  I'm not in the computer business either.  However, I have enough equipment in my "supply" closet that I should consider myself in the business.

Saturday, October 2, 1999

Every once in a while I wish I had the capability to fax from home.   With all of the computers we have in this house there is no reason to have a stand alone fax machine.  I have an extra channel on my ISDN modem, so I wouldn't have to worry about leaving some fax machine or fax software up '.

I went to C|Net's download.com and searched for a shareware fax program and found ElectraSoft's 32 bit fax program.   It was one of the more frequently downloaded programs, so I download it to check it out.  I got an extra bonus in the download.  This software will work as a fax server, which will allow me to fax from more than one machine.  Actually, they offer two products.  The 32bit Fax and one called FaxMail Network for Windows.  I loaded the 32bit Fax first, but uninstalled it and later downloaded FaxMail.  The ElectraSoft website says it can run FaxMail as an NT service and I just happen to be running a Windows NT (4.0) network here at home.  I have FaxMail installed now and have been able to successfully receive faxes.  I have not attempted to send a test fax outbound yet.  Will more than likely send myself a fax to the office over the weekend and check it out on Monday AM.

The FaxMail or 32bit Fax doesn't have the advanced cover page editing features of something like WinFaxPro, but it does offer some very simple cover pages which is really all I need.  The one thing I do like is that you can fax a Word document right from Word by selecting the fax from the print menu.  You can also use the Send To button on the file menu.

I will check this product out for the evaluation period, but my first experience is that it may be all I need.

Here is a direct link to download the 32bit Fax and FaxMail.

I HAVE LEARNED MORE about generators and power than I ever thought I would want to know recently.  Our exhibits that we erect at the Winston Cup and Winston Drag events are self-contained, including our own power source.  At the Winston Thunder Theater we generate enough power to light a small town.  This exhibits carries two 125 KW and two 105KW generators.  One of the is dedicated to our sound and projection system.  We are using very sophisticated equipment, including two 70mm Christie projectors and more than 30,000 watts of amplified sound.  One of the issues the company that operates the sound and projection portion of this exhibit has is to make sure we are getting constant and clean power.

This need for "good" power has created a discussion of the frequency of the AC power these machines are generating.  At the last couple of races we started measuring the frequency of our power on a mode intense basis and found that one generator deviated much more than the other.  Same make and size generators, but one was much better than the other.

As we were sitting there watching the frequency bounce around from about 57-58 Hz to 61 Hz I asked:  "If you plug this meter in at your home, what would it measure."  The answer was that if sit right on 60 and never move.   Wanting to continue my own investigation into the power frequency issue, I asked the technical folks at our office if they had a meter that I could use for a while that would measure AC electrical frequency.  I explained what I was up to and they came up with a Fluke 787 ProcessMeter.  I think this thing will do more than I ever imagined, but it has a neat feature that allows you to record your measurements.  As an example when testing frequency this meter will you to scroll the display for the minimum, maximum and average frequency.  It also measures the current frequency.

Now you know what's about to happen.  I brought the meter home and thought I would measure the frequency of the power that Duke Power was providing to the Tucker home.  I was surprised.  The constant average frequency runs between 59.99 and 60.01, much what you would expect.  However, the spikes are quite surprising.  Here are the details:

These results are from today's test.  I also tested last night, but thought my eyes were fooling me.  I don't remember all of the numbers, but do remember the high number being around 74.  Needless to say these high and low spikes have to be for milli or nano seconds, so the human would never notice them.  It probably wouldn't affect any equipment, but still I was surprised by the results.

I AM STILL having trouble with the publishing of my website.  I had pair.com reinstall my Front Page extensions because when I published I was getting a return message that my job was not completed successfully because Front Page extensions were not installed.  Well, they were installed and have now been installed again and I am getting the same error message.  And to top that, it appears all of my changes and updates have been saved to the web site when I get this message.  I guess this means another message to the support folks at pair.

Email Steve Tucker