Silicon Patch Work Journal

Journal For Week of January 08, 2001

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Monday January 08, 2001

I now know more about vinyl window frame welder operations than I ever wanted to know, which still leaves me unqualified to operate the machine, but some how required to offer technical support. Actually I provided support before I knew anything about the machine. Oh well such is the life of a tech support person!

Finished testing my setup for applying registry hacks remotely to PCs today. Now I have implemented it for one small department, so tomorrow I should see if my setup works well in the real world out side of my testing environment.

I have a PC to pickup at the friends house. I have no clue as to any of the specs on it, but better for me to get my hands on it that it to go to the scrap heap. It is operational, so maybe I can set it up for the rural school I have been trying to get computers for. The computer was originally owned by the grandmother of one of the kids at the school, so I seems somehow fitting that I try and see if I can do something with it so the kids can benefit from it.

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Tuesday January 09, 2001

Spent time today trying to build an updated Ghost image for the training laptops. Some small things as usual made things take too much time, but I think I have it beat now.

A new laptop owned by a sales person located at a remote sales office arrived today. I have no idea why, but this person spent big bucks on a top of the line Dell laptop, but never got the integrated modem and NIC, infact he ordered no modem or NIC at all. Why???? Then the laptop also has Windows ME installed which is not the company standard which further complicated things. I am fairly confident I could use WinME and the custom software we have would run OK. But I can't rely on my gut feelings when the laptop is going to a remote location with no tech support. If the user were local I think I would use the opportunity to trial WinME in production.

Time to go for a walk. See ya later.

I'm back, and a quick search of the Dell web site shows that 1. the sales person saved $79 on $4000 laptop by not getting the integrated modem. 2. That Dell does not offer Windows 98 as an OS option.

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Wednesday January 10, 2001

Not a bad day at all. Spent most of the day working on laptops in one way or another. Half of the training laptops are now converted to the new image which is not just as simple as putting the image on a laptop. These old Everex laptops are quirky, and will not always connect to the network via a boot disk so Ghost can be run, and the video does strange things at times when first booting the new image.

I also had a bit of a battle making Windows 98 and Windows ME dual boot on the Dell laptop that came in yesterday. My co-worker did the repartioning and setup Windows 98. I then had the pleasure of using XOSL as a boot manager which does the job nicely.

My Windows 2000 Server is now up and running, but not much configuration has been done yet. The mouse will not work, and will not see my Windows 2000 Pro PC on the network. Seems I have some configuration work to do. Though I did managed to get it on the net and installed the Seti client so that the server can process a work unit or two.

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Thursday January 11, 2001

I'm fed, relaxed and meatloaf is cooking in the oven, which adds a nice scent to the main floor. All in all a nice way to cap off a successful day.

The first order of the day was a login script change so that the new policies will only be implimented on Windows 9x machines and not Dos machines. Turns out that at least one Dos PC would not error out on the login script when it reached the line with the policy. All my testing never encountered this. After a struggle with synatx which the documentation I have been working with does not help much with, I came up with a good working script.

The next job for the day since, I was already in script writing mode, was a script to copy the data and programs off the production equipment computers, onto the network. My first thought was to make a script which would make a directory in the users home directory using the date. This way several backups could be made without overwriting previous backups. I came close, but couldn't quite pull it off. Then near the end of the day my tired brain gave me a simple great idea. Make two backup directories ( backup01 & backup02 ) in machine ID home directory, then make a script which every Monday when the user logs in, the whole C; drive is copied to backup01. Then on Tuesday a batch file will copy backup01 to backup02. This method is simple, quick, and works rather nicely. All the machine have from a few K to a few Megs of data so the copy will only take a few seconds, and the machine operators will likely not even notice. Tomorrow with the plant shut down again, if I have time I'll do some live testing, so I can put the process in place for next week.

Well the meatloaf is out of the oven ( the taste test went well ), I am caught up on most of my mostly daily web reading. Time for a little TV and a get out for some fresh air.

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Friday January 12, 2001

Well my backup process is in place and only a few minor details remain to be taken care of. I had to reconfigure one machine to connect to the network differently, which should not affect the operation of the equipment at all. Then there are a couple of machines which I found have a lot more programs on their drives than I thought. So next week I have some drives to thin out so that the backup will take less time.

Wore out a bit of shoe leather today. Our plant is basically three zones each the size of a football field, and I covered all three areas several times today. Good thing I just had new soles put on my boots or I would have been walking on the insoles.

Well a full day on my feet, testing and do this that and the other thing has me beat. Time now for some R&R.

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Saturday January 13, 2001

Ok, the original post is out and now in the bit bucket, and something new is in my mind. My mother just called to inform me that a friend of the family had slit his throat. Now no condolances are not necessary, I just have a few thoughts on suicide to air out.

Now my mom asked if suicide is a selfish thing. My answer was that when another friend of mine gassed himself 5 years ago, was he thinking about his wife and kids. NO!! He was only thinking about how painful, sorry, unfulfilling his life was, and that he no longer could find the hope, spirit, faith or what ever, to keep on going another day. So he found the were with all to take control of the one thing he could control, and that was the whether he lived or not. He chose not to live.

My mother also asked why our friend would do such a thing, and I had to answer that I was not really surprised that he had done this. Now I haven't seen my friend since 97, before I left Winnipeg. At the time, he was not happy about his life, had been drinking which was not uncommon for him, and I heard things about him abusing non prescription drugs, which likely was not helping his mental state. Now I have no idea what has happened in the years since I last saw my friend, but history lays out trail of self destructive behavior.

I have had several friends who in the past few years have chosen to not continue their lifes journey, and by their own hand ended their life. All my late friends have had different reasons for their state of mind leading to suicide. They vary from being abused, unemployment, drug abuse and a variety of, or mixture of other life challenges. What does stand out as a common factor though, is that before suicide, from what I have witnessed, heard from people who had recently visited these people, is that they were visibly depressed. They had nothing good to say about the way their lives were at the time, had no optimistic things to say about future prospects for things to get better. In one case I saw a friend reduced to tears after a private talk with our friend who would later in the year hang herself. A warning flag if I have ever seen one!

We don't always see the warning flags, or choose at some level not to see them. But they are there, and we usually recognize this after the fact. What we have to do is shatter that filter which stops us from seeing and reacting to the warning signs of suicide and help those we care about.

Well there is loads more that can be said on the subject of suicide. I'll end here by saying that if you see a friend in trouble, do your best to give them help and support.

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Sunday January 14, 2001

Morning Post: I am now on my third try at downloading Mandrake 7.2 from Linuxiso.org. The first two tries haulted at about the half way mark. I am about two thirds complete now, and am hoping to get the whole iso file this time.

Now to get some shopping done, tidy up the house some. TTFN

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