Silicon Patch Work Journal

Journal For Week of December 25, 2000

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Monday December 25, 2000

Merry Christmas

The following, while not song lyrics typical of this holiday season. They are a bit of a reminder that it is not a happy season for all. For some it is a lonely time, for others a financial burden etc etc...

You're Only Human (Second Wind)
by Billy Joel

You're having a hard time and lately you don't feel so good
You're getting a bad reputation in your neighborhood
It's alright, it's alright
Sometimes that's what it takes
You're only human, you're allowed to make your share of mistakes
You better believe there will be times in your life
When you'll be feeling like a stumbling fool
So take it from me you'll learn more from your accidents
Than anything that you could ever learn at school

Don't forget your second wind
Sooner of later you'll get your second wind

It's not always easy to be living in this world of pain
You're gonna be crashing into stone walls again and again
It's alright, it's alright
Though you feel your heart break
You're only human, you're gonna have to deal with heartache

Just like a boxer in a title fight
You got to walk in that ring all alone
You're not the only one who's made mistakes
But they're the only thing that you can truly call your own

Don't forget your second wind
Wait in that corner until that breeze blows in

You've been keeping to yourself these days
Cause you're thinking everything's gone wrong
Sometimes you just want to lay down and die
That emotion can be so strong
But hold on
Till that old second wind comes along

You probably don't want to hear advice from someone else
But I wouldn't be telling you if I hadn't been there myself
It's alright, it's alright
Sometimes that's all it takes
We're only human
We're supposed to make mistakes
But I survived all those long lonely days
When it seemed I did not have a friend
Cause all I needed was a little faith
So I could catch my breath and face the world again

Don't forget your second wind
Sooner or later you'll feel that momentum kick in
Don't forget your second wind
Sooner or later you'll feel that momentum kick in

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Tuesday December 26, 2000

Back from my visiting just in time to have a bite to eat and then catch some Z's before heading off to a short work week in the morning.

Christmas day was fun, even with most of the kids and a few adults being sick. Things really lived up in the evening with many hours of card playing and having a few drinks. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much. A few times I thought I might hurt myself I was laughing so hard.

Today was birthday celebrations for a one year old and his grandfather who turned 89. Home made clam chowder and chocolate birthday cake hit the spot.

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Wednesday December 27, 2000

So much for a slow easy week at work to do projects. Printer problems started the day off, then files for one of the machines out in the plant were incorrectly posted to the network. Moved onto files on the network which were damaged by one of the computer viruses we got hit by last week. The only good thing about this is that it forced me to dig into Arcserve's options to find the filters which make restoring selected file type possible. This was a good thing but the way Arcserver execute the restore with filters bites. The restore goes through every file one by one as it goes and is not fast about it, which makes for a very very slow restore.

The on going saga of printer problems got me looking at the one thing I know has changed, which is the bindery context on the primary Novell server. I found a few errors which seem to have creeped in with all the changes I have made lately. So I cleared the context settings, then rebuild it using a batch file I have been using to make changes when needed.

Several inches of snow welcomed me home tonight. The snow combined with the warmish weather made getting up the back alley impossible. I almost made it but came up just short of the parking pad behind the house. So I backed up down the hill and took at loop around the park, thus building up some speed to carry up the street next to mine, and entered the back lane from the top of the hill. This got me parked, and if the weather man is right, there is more of the white stuff to come.

Ouch!! Too much sitting around the past few days, combined with an active day and snow shoveling this evening has made my back sore. I think it is time to setup the rollers in the basement so I can ride my bike and stretch my back some.

Finally got around to installing Activesync on Windows 2000 this evening. Activesync would not see my Pocket PC till I installed SP1 for Windows 2000. Once the service pack was installed and I rebooted the PC everything worked as it should. I also had to reset the Pocket PC for the first time today. I have been having trouble with the Today screen not coming up correctly, which the reset seems to have fixed.

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Thursday December 28, 2000

The printing puzzle continues. For the last couple of weeks I have encountered a few Dlink print servers which have unexplainibly stopped to the Network via NDS. Now today while cleaning up the Admin department print objects, and labeling the printers, I successfully was able to get several Dlink print servers to work with NDS. Oh what a difference it makes to be able to look in a NDS context and not see a mess of object names which are related but the naming convention does not lend itself to the observer seeing that a relationship may exist. Now that is no longer true with many of the objects relating to printing being renamed in a logical manner.

Stopped at Staples on the way home to pick up an extra mouse and keyboard. Picked up a cheap mouse and keyboard for emergency spares, and a Microsoft Optical Wheel Mouse for everyday use on the Windows 2000 box. It's a USB mouse which Win2k detected and installed a driver for right away. Then as I have noticed more of lately a reboot is not always necessary for some changes, but instead logout and the driver will become active and the device will work, which is exactly what happened with the new mouse. Also picked up a nice 3M mouse pad, and cheap pair of computer speakers to be put away for one of those days that I need speakers for a spare PC.

I have found a good use for Christmas cards. Use them to make sure I have people names spelt correctly in my contacts list, plus collect the names of peoples extended families. One buddy has kids with him from his first wife, the new girl friend already had kids, plus they just had a baby together. Basically he has his own mixed slow pitch team. Now I have a mostly complete list of all the players.

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Friday December 29, 2000

Oh! the printing Gods must be smiling on me as today, as all the problem printers were trouble free today.

Work was quite today so the boss allowed us to head out early. It felt strange leaving early, but there were no pressing issues so an hour less time on the job is not going to do any harm. I used the extra hour of free time to do some shopping for my Windows 2000 Server project. I got 3 128 Mb DIMMS, another CD Rom drive and a study guide for the accelerated exam I have to right. Good deal on the book as I had to renew my Chapters book club card, and the discount on the $104 book paid for the renewal and still put $20 back in my pocket. I also checked out Microsoft's MCP site and registered to get a voucher to write the exam free.

I have been doing a little searching for a serial cable so I can sync my Pocket PC with my PC at work. I would rather have the serial cable instead of a second cradle as it is more portable. So far either it is not carried, or is out of stock every where I look. Now I have been thinking about just getting a NIC instead. I could use it to sync at home and at work, a NIC would be a lot more money but also makes for faster file transfers, and opens the door to using the Casio for web surfing, and other things.

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Saturday December 30, 2000

Cleaning day today which means I still have the same amount of stuff, it has just been shuffled around. Some is now in the garbage, some is now in the basement. Made enough room on the work bench for the old laptop so I can get it working again.

I finally located Novells forecast for product life cycle here. Bookmarked it for future reference, and sent a note to my work address so I can have the information handy when I need it. Now if I can just find info on upgrade specials.

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Sunday December 31, 2000

The calendar says it is Sunday, but it sure doesn't feel like it. Since tomorrow is also a non work day it doesn't really matter what day it is, other than the middle day in a three day long weekend.

The old 486 laptop is now functional again. I have no idea what I did different but Windows 95 is even working with the Xircom parallel port ethernet adapter which is a first. In the past I have always had to setup the adapter in dos and then launch Windows. I can logon to my Novell server and access the internet, but I had wanted to use Opera as a web browser, but Opera does not work very well on this PC for some odd reason.

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