Silicon Patch Work Journal

Journal For Week of January 15, 2001

Mon / Tue / Wed / Thu / Fri / Sat / Sun

Monday January 15, 2001

For the first time in weeks I can ftp to my web site. I have no idea what Shaw has fixed, but I sure am glad they did.

Yesterday after my Mandrake download completed, I used a demo version of Nero to burn the iso image to a CD-R. My Cd wouldn't autoboot so I made a boot disk by following the instructions I found on the CD. The install would not work via the boot disk do to a RAM disk error. I tried doing a Dos based install, which failed again due to Ramdisk errors. Looks like my CD is likely faulty, so I am now try to download a new iso image from a new source.

Finished up by backup procedure for the computer controlled equipment. Now if my email will just start to work I could show you what I did.

Plant PC Backup

The following has been added to the user login script for computer controlled equipment.

MAP r u:=cal_ho2/sys:\user\%LOGIN_NAME

; backup script01
if DAY_OF_WEEK = "Tuesday" then
#g:\public\reghacks\batfiles\backup02.bat
END

; backup script02
if DAY_OF_WEEK = "Tuesday" then
#C:\DOS\xcopy c:\*.* U:\backup01 /s /e
END

Line one maps U as a root drive to the users home directory. The second set of commands checks to see if the day of the week is Tuesday, if it is Tuesday then the backup02.bat file is executed.

Backup02.bat

u:
c:\dos\deltree /Y u:\backup02
c:\dos\move u:\backup01 u:\backup02
md backup01

Backup02.bat makes U: the current drive, deletes the backup02 directory, moves ( renames ) the backup01 directory to backup02, and creates and new backup01 directory.

The third and final set of commands checks to see if the day of the week is Tuesday, if it is Tuesday, then the entire contents of the c: drive is copied to U:\backup01.

The end result is we always have two weeks of backups on hand, and no user intervention is required for backups to be made and maintained.

Mon / Tue / Wed / Thu / Fri / Sat / Sun

Tuesday January 16, 2001

I finally made time today to take a good look at putting a production Linux box together for the barcoding system at work. After a few false starts, I went back to my test box and gave it a physical. It looks like the test box is good enough for production, so I took it off my desk and put it in the server room.

Tomorrow afternoon I hope to go to see presentation of wireless networking equipment. There is suppose to be equipment on hand so I can see wireless in action. Will be nice to see some of the equipment I have read about, and find out how well it works.

Mon / Tue / Wed / Thu / Fri / Sat / Sun

Wednesday January 17, 2001

It's just after twelve and I have just got in from a nice walk. I should have been in the sack and hour ago, but then I have already had a long nap tonight. This is the second night I have been out real late for a walk. Other than it interfering with sleep time it is a good time for me. The nights have been cool, clear and crisp. As well it is real quiet with no kids running around, few cars on the road and the only animal life is the occasional rabbit.

My Mandrake install is stalled out at the moment. I cannot get the video setup right after many tests. It will have to wait till tomorrow.

I never made it to the wireless seminar as I was tied up trying to get the software for a cutting machine working. My first impression this morning was that the the software could not see or find its data files on the network. I was mostly right, but it took all day to prove it and find a work around. The machine was connecting to the network and could see the directory where the data is stored, but the software would error out when trying to load a list of available jobs. After much futzing, including setting up a new PC, in the end the problem appears that there is a data file in the data directory that the software does not like and causes it to crash. Ended up manually moving the data to a new location and hand editing an ini file.

Mon / Tue / Wed / Thu / Fri / Sat / Sun

Thursday January 18, 2001

Today was pinball day. I was the ball and the cushions were many. I bounced back and forth between jobs, doing a little here, then a little there, only to return to job one, only to be interrupted and have to work on job 27. I am sure there are at least two things I started, and never got back to.

The PC for the saw I worked on yesterday came back to visit me today. They seem to feel that there is a problem with the software and ask me to reinstall it. First the disk they gave me was bad, the installer would only work off a floppy so my effort to copy the files to the harddrive was pointless. I got everything moved onto a new floppy, fought with the configuration, to in the end find that we have been using the most current version of the software. Thus the reinstall did not fix a thing.

About a month ago I bought a new CD-Rom drive which did not play nice when I installed it. I chalked it up to being in a hurry and maybe having used a bad cable or some such thing. Tonight I went into trouble shooting mode and find I have a lemon of a drive. Now if only I can find the packing material etc so I can exchange it.

Mon / Tue / Wed / Thu / Fri / Sat / Sun

Friday January 19, 2001

There is a computer shop just down the street from the office, so I decided to check them out during my lunch break today. They have a good selection of gear, from what I can see competitive prices, and none of the crappy products or service I see in the franchise stores.

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Saturday January 20, 2001

So far Mandrake is not panning out for me. I did get the video to work, but it was butt ugly, so ugle it hurt my eyes. Now I am using very middle of the road hardware, but I just can't get reasonable video settings to work. So I pulled the ATI Mach64 card out and put in an old Trident card. Now to Mandrake's credit, it realized that the hardware had been changed and let me accept the changes and try and reconfigure the display settings, only it would crash each time it tried this. I am now trying to do a fresh install using the Trident card.

The Trident card was no better, but I found an Intel AGP card in my Windows 2000 server. So I took the Intel card and with it have been able to get 256 colours at 1024 X 768, which is workable.

Got so caught up in working on solving the video problems and doing another Windows 2000 Server install that I nearly forgot that I had some business to take care of. The alterations to my new dress pants have been done for a week and I have yet to pick them up and I desperately need a hair cut. Just barely got things done before store doors would be closed for the day.

I have decided to make preparations to go on a bicycle tour this spring. To do this I need to do several things, get in better shape, replace some of my camping gear, and get a bike suitable for light touring. So this evening I ordered a new bike online which will be suitable for light touring and commuting to and from work. I am not sure how the online purchase will go as the system let me place my order, but elsewhere on the site it says that bikes orders are good in the US only. Rather strange for a Canadian bicycle company. I have already received a confirmation of my order, though it will likely take human interaction to verify if my order will go through or not.

Mon / Tue / Wed / Thu / Fri / Sat / Sun

Sunday January 21, 2001

Up way too late last night. I started to watch The Great Escape, planning to watch only a little and then call it a night. I ended up watching the whole thing which meant no sack time till well after 12.

Mostly a lazy day with bits of interruption to do a few chores which must be done.

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