Daynotes 1999 week 9

Daynotes: Week of 1 - 7 March, 1999

Daily notes and commentary -- Week 9

* Link to: last modified 23:30 GMT+1 on 07.03.1999

Hi, welcome to this ninth week's daybook page.

himself See the update-link (above) that points where I last added some text, which should simplify your keeping up to speed. Of course, you may still have to scroll back a bit and see if I've updated more than once since you last visited, but that is easily done.

Webpages live -- i.e. content editing may at times be performed retroactively, so that some "established" content may change (updated links, new comments, etc.) or material be moved. Any such "retro-updates" (or if I write something but for some reason upload it to the site a day or two later) will be noted in the current daynote. For any thematic articles added "on the side", see separate pages off the contents page at the previous location at www.leuf.org/articles/disisay.htm .

Mail inclusions are as a rule on a separate weekly mail page -- see Mailnotes link in sidebar. The Mailnotes link beside each weekday, below, points to the corresponding weekday in the mail page for the same week.

Monday 01.03

Web update of last week's unposted notes (from Friday).

Interestingly, the Wingate proxy on the LAN self-destructed this morning. On and off during the day, attempts have been made by various more or less competent people to restart, reboot and reinstall. All in vain. No services can be defined at present. I will update over dial-up when I can.

(3 PM) The Wingate problem seems resolved, after much swearing and hair-pulling. Almost by pure chance, a control-panel setting for doamin was found to be the culprit. Maybe. This is after all subsequent to several complete re-installs of the software, so I suppose we will never really know. Anyway, it means that some of the seminar research (finding Java applets and how different functionality is implemented with Java) can forge ahead. It also means a via-LAN update of the website is possible again.

Tuesday 02.03

(Last day of my seminar. Probable web update including Monday's notes this day. I will be travelling by evening and night trains, so Tuesday material should appear sometime Wednesday.)

A summing up, was the original theme for the last day. The last two days had been somewhat split because of participants being called to meetings and whatever, and problems with J++ had made it difficult for most to do any code-level work on applets. Clas Kristiansson comes in for the rest of the week to guide the group in practical coding issues, and hopefully resolve the J++ problem.

Otherwise the group is now aiming for a demo designed website, basing the work on what they have learned during the course, which includes most aspects of Web tools, Flash, Photoshop, ASPs, Java, and what have you. The final presentation will be in two weeks time, and I will provide a link to the site (assuming it is visible externally).

Wednesday 03.03

Gee, it's good to be home.

I ran across my first y2k-hack in "general use" today. Apparently, on "yearly" things that expire in 2000, at least some places instead of expanding the date field to handle four-digit years write a date next year as e.g. "20-03-03", not the expected "00-03-03".

Some major changes happening in terms of webhosting on my part. While I was in Arvika, I started the ball rolling by adding a new domain, leuf.net, to my collection. Some serious thought and research had produced the insight that with the number of sites I'm managing, I should be hosting them myself, both for reasons of control and cost. Hence, the immediate future will see leuf.org and a few other subweb sites move and become self-hosted under leuf.net.

A further reason for this change has to do with connectivity and server response. As e.g. Geocities has grown, there have been increasing intervals of access/update problems.

And perhaps the overriding concern is the ability to set up collaboration websites with a minimum of fuss and direct access between collaborators.

Please note, therefore, that if you have bookmarks and links to any pages that do not refer to a "leuf" top level domain, these will eventually break -- (even in the leuf.org site, where the Geocities domain hosting method still shows the geocities.com URL-root once the page is accessed, which is what gets bookmarked on-the-fly).

Thursday 04.03

Some notes and links concerning loss of privacy issues worth looking at over at Bob Thompson's place. These are serious matters, especially when perpetrated behind your back. Although obviously about what is happening in the US, the situation is the same or worse elsewhere too. Here the banks have long worked so that if I happen to want to make a cash withdrawal over the counter that is "larger than usual", it can take upwards of 10-20 minutes "to process". It's anybody's guess what checking is going on behind the scenes.

Friday 05.03

Busy days. "It's a great life if you don't weaken." We should all get that engraved, in latin, and hang it above the monitor. (Actually I could make it up as a desktop image...)

Gradually getting up to speed on a number of issues, but must not neglect the family. Allocating precious time with the kids for the weekend, and a certain amount of midnight oil for myself (Tom Syroid has used up all the cyber-candles, it seems; can't find a single one, only soot and smoke).

I am requesting user comments about Outlook on my mailnotes page.

Saturday 06.03

* Ensuring adequate family time this weekend. Also took the kids to see Antz, which was a pleasurable outing for us, despite the rain. We carried a big umbrella. Due to the ongoing bus-driver strike, "public transport" options are by foot, by taxi or drive. Parking downtown is hell, especially now with no buses, so I decided we walk. About half an hour either way. Wasn't bad, almost no wind at all, just a steady moderate rain.

The kids enjoyed Antz, and with the adult perspective I kind of thought Woody Allen as an ant was cute. Could be his best film :)

However, several writing tasks must be completed now, so it's very much a matter of strict scheduling here. Hence, these daynote updates are still not quite up to normal speed.

Having also set up a new hosting domain, I have yet more things in the pipeline as well, in terms of moving content there, with adjustments, prior to shifting domains and links that currently reside elsewhere. I do like the snappy feel of the new site, however, and it is proving very useful as a shared home in the collaborative arena.

I am also trying to motivate a few outsiders to assist with reviews and recommendations of book titles in my SF section. I can tell from the click-throughs that the effort to present interesting books is appreciated.

Sunday 07.03

Nice weather for a change. I appologize to regular readers for being slow on updates lately, and perhaps a bit lean on content just now. Too much demanding my immediate attention, and I haven't been lost in the fog lately :)

News report: Stanley Kubrik has passed away. I can't say I liked all his films , all very different, but a remarkable talent for visual presentation has left us. My first experience of his filmatic style was 2001, followed by A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. If I recall correctly, he stated in an interview at one point, in answer to why his films were all so very different, that he did not wish to repeat himself, not make a sequel.

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