| Wednesday,
November 29, 2000 Today I try to
catch up with nearly a week's worth of selected mail. I'll see what I can
do about organizing it, but it's going to be Short Shrift indeed. By the
way, I got that wonderful phrase from Steve Allen a very long time ago, on
one of the programs he hosted. With that wonderful sincerity of his he
looked at a guest, pointed out that the time was late, and said,
"Well, for you, we have -- short shrift." I laughed like crazy.
That must have been 30 years ago. Steve Allen was a gentleman, and one of
the most interesting conversationalists I know of. In fact his program,
"Conversation", featuring characters from history put into a
panel discussion, with Jayne playing Marie Antoinette once, and Lucretia
Borgia another time, was wonderful. He also used to have Jacques Barzun as
a regular. Anyone who can appreciate Jacques Barzun, and did so for the
last 40 years, has to have been more of an intellectual than all the
talking heads I see on TV now put together.
I missed Steve Allen's good sense after he
stopped being a regular. He and Jayne were great as guests in a
"Homicide" episode a few years ago. This nation could use a lot
more like him in the "entertainment industry".
I am afraid a picture that was on a website ( www.mcarthurweb.com
) that I got to from a link that was on your page has given me and
my colleagues just too much fun!
Maybe some folks there may get the same amount of
amusement.
--- _._ Dominick A. Trascritti, "Cogito Ergo
Swoon"
Dear Dr. Pournelle, I was reading "Windows NT
Security" written by Charles B. Rutstein (for the National Computer
Security Association, McGraw Hill 1997) on the topic of... securing an NT
install. On page 103 under "Trojan Horse Attacks" the author
lays out a scenario for an attack that replaces a common Windows utility
with a dummy that forwards all input to the real utility. The utility used
was, of course, Notepad. The particular example had to do with
administrators needing to A) use NTFS, and B) change the default
permissions for systems utilities so that a non-Administrator can't change
these common files. Sad to say that the author's assertion that this type
of attack was almost impossible to resist came true.
Cheers, Warren Pettingell
Yes and it gets worse. We are now convinced that
the Trojan got into Chaos Manor through my wife's modem connection, and
drifted from there to machines linked to hers through our LAN. That
bypassed the security of my Linux box, which I think remains secure so
far.
In Washington state they recently switched to a new
ballot system. Formerly, the state used punched cards, with chads and all;
now they use a system that is much better.
A ballot is a very stiff piece of paper (or maybe a
very thin sheet of cardboard) with ovals printed next to candidate names.
Using a black pen, the voter colors in the oval. The ballot is about the
size of a sheet of office paper (8.5" x 11") so there is lots of
room and no need for weird butterfly ballots; also both sides can be used.
No special "Votamatic" machines are needed; small stand-up
privacy-screened desks are available for the voters to use.
After a voter is done voting, the ballot is fed into
a counting machine. The machine immediately scores the ballot. If the
voter has voted for multiple names in one position (e.g. both Bush and
Gore for President), the machine kicks the ballot back out... and the
voter gets a chance to do it over! When a ballot is accepted, it is
counted by the machine and falls into a storage box under the machine.
When the polls close, they take the machines, hook
them up to phone lines, and the machines report the vote tally to the main
computers.
Note that no matter how many times a ballot is
handled, black ink marks will not fall off or mysteriously appear. I'll
bet you could recount these ballots over and over and get pretty much the
same result each time. (This will be tested soon, as there will be an
automatic recount in the Senator race between Gorton and Cantwell.)
This system is so close to perfect that I cannot
imagine ways to improve on it. Easy to use, quick to score the results,
robust in recounting. I fear any kind of Internet-based or computer-based
voting system; I want it to be as hard as possible to steal an election.
P.S. This system has been used in two election years
now. The first time, they gave us permanent "Sharpie" felt tip
markers, and I have never voted so quickly in my life! This year they gave
us ordinary black ball-point ink pens, and it was more work to color in
the ovals completely. Next time I'm bringing my own Sharpie. -- Steve R.
Hastings "Vita est" steve@hastings.org http://www.blarg.net/~steveha
Seems very sensible to me. I have always been a
bit wary of punched card -- the first time they were objected to was in
the 1964 election when they were said to have confused Goldwater voters in
Orange County, then heavily Republican. There was no recount, I think. And
when I managed the Yorty campaign for Mayor of LA, I had some computer
savvy people go down and examine the counting programs since all it would
take would be assigning 10% of unpunched ballots -- there are usually a
lot of them -- to the other guy to change the election. Something well
known to anyone who studies the problem. A lot of people do not vote for
the top of the ticket. Who knows why? They never admit it in exit polls,
although they will sometimes tell you privately. "Never vote. It only
encourages them."
I understand McAfee virus signature update 4102
which Network Associates calls a .DAT file is a resource hog when Virus
Scan is run resident. Published solution is use a newer one.
I understand changes beyond the virus signature
which NETWORK ASSOCIATES calls a SuperDat are not necessarily cumulative
as explained in the SuperDat readme file. Therefore the SuperDat can
update some files which are then not compatible with existing old files.
This will require a boot to safemode or otherwise accessing the system to
adjust the files or disable load on startup. Some combinations will
produce a blue screen of death. The readme file suggests appropriate
adjustments if the readme is read after installing but before rebooting
when reading the readme becomes an easy option (if not previously read
from the website by itself).
I might criticize Network Associates on this, but
instead I will praise them for a business model that continues free
signature support but not indefinite free software version update for
quite some time after retail sale or distribution even though it means
supporting many variations of the software. If there were no new sales
then all support goes away for everybody, but even without new sales there
is extended support. I was confused by the McAfee site discussion of
search engines for version 4X and version 5X of the software myself.
Personally I deal with the security and convenience
issues by going dual boot on distinct physical drives - just as many
machines are now dual bios for backup - so I may be able to easily
manipulate files without loading from a panic disk or maybe not. I keep
McAfee on one operating system and Norton System Works on the other - not
asking them to play nice together.
Switching to operating systems, I notice a pendulum
swing in Linux office suites and user shells. Reminds me of DOS 15+ years
ago when there were shells like Top View and Geo competing with the
nascent Windows. Similarly there is now an effort to associate shells and
office suites in Linux distributions rather than make everything work
together and allow full user choice. Speaking of user choice I hear lots
of Windows 2000 installations in the enterprise are being locked down with
the user denied administrator or super-user rights on the person's own
assigned machine. ASP as a return to the glass house anyone?
Clark
As I understand it, McAfee is the old Dr. Solomon
virus detection system. I had not known this; I thought Alan Solomon was
bought out by OnTrack, but the OnTrack people said to me at COMDEX that it
was McAfee who now had the Solomon engine. Does anyone actually know?
Solomon's was the best of the lot, but of course part of that was his
tenacity in analyzing new viruses as they came out; they were always the
first with detection and fixes for new infections.
Using both McAfee and Norton System Works (but
not on the same machine) is probably a good idea. I need to think
about it but my first impression is, yeah, why not? Good way to have a new
string for your bow.
Dr. Pournelle:
At the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute's
webpage, under the Heritage Archive Images by Subject( http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/subject.html
) there is a link entitled, " A Mote In Hubble's Eye."
Can't imagine where they came up with that.... :-J
V/R
Steven
Heh. Thanks.
Jerry, You mentioned:
"It will be an interesting test to see (1) how
many subscribers read this and say something, and (2) how many new
subscribers I get who cite this possibility as the reason for
subscribing."
I spend a lot of time here because of the views
presented, both about computers and national or world issues. Not
everything interests me, but a significant portion (probably 80% or more)
does, and I'm very willing to pay to:
1. Get Dr. Pournelle's views, as I respect your
accomplishments, clear thinking, and desire to present both sides of the
story.
2. Get the perspectives of others who lurk here, as
they tend to be intelligent, clear thinking, and typically with differing
opinions, but rarely express them to others in a demeaning way, although I
realize and appreciate that you sanitize that a bit before we see it,
Jerry.
3. Participate in the discussions myself.
I read Byte to get input, but post my responses to
Byte articles here. The same would most likely be true for new
Intellectual Capital articles, or any other venue.
Tracy Walters
Thanks. I put yours up as representative of most
of what was said. And I seem to have a wave of new subscribers. I have, I
hope, got to acknowledging all of them, but I haven't done a decent
mailing in a while. Real Soon Now I guess...
And sort of related to that:
Jerry,
I'm slowly learning my way around Chaos Manor, and I
must say that the more I see, the more I like. Book reviews, space tech.
updates, social commentary, ARR, ARR, ARR! (the Tim Allen "Home
Improvement" grunt)
Trademarked grendels??? Who do these folks think
they're kidding? I didn't get to Beowulf until a 9th grade British Lit.
course, but the public schools were already in decline by 1980. (BTW, any
plans for Beowulf's Grandchildren?)
If you think there's trouble over the anthrax
vaccine in the ranks of the Active component of our armed forces, just
wait until the Foggy Bottom Folk get around to trying it on the Reserves.
I'm currently at 16.5 years, and am an E-7 infantry Drill Sergeant. Career
reservist: 2 months active duty for "boot camp" (1984 summer
vacation between 11th and 12th grade of high school) 2 months active for
infantry school (after HS graduation) and two months active (stateside)
during the gulf war. Things sure have changed.
Website recommendations:
www.tighar.org
is the site for The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery. I
like these guys so much that I joined. Great site, well laid out and easy
to navigate. Earhart Project section has FAQs, current research bulletins,
LOTS of pics, AND puts a tidy end to all the various conspiracy theories
that've been lurking about for 60+ years.
www.constitutionparty.com
is the website for (duh) the Constitution Party. (formerly the US
Taxpayers Party) This might be especially popular given the chaotic
current state of politics. If "libertarians with morals" seems a
contradiction, then just think of them as being libertarian in thought,
but with an eye towards reversing the attendant tendency towards hedonism
that Roger Elwood mentioned in the tales of New America all those years
ago. As an extra plus, their most recent presidential candidate was Howard
Phillips, who claims to have been involved in SDI from the very beginning,
and is a huge advocate for a space based missile defense.
www.oakislandtreasure.com
is the site for pics and anecdotes about Oak Island, Nova Scotia. That's
the place mentioned in those public school 6th grade weekly readers back
in the late 1970's where there's a pit dating to the late 1700's that
fills up with water whenever excavation is attempted and is thought to
contain cleverly boobytrapped pirate treasure. The story was recently
fictionalized in the rip roaring adventure novel Riptide by Douglas
Preston. I rank it right up there with Steven Pressfield's "Gates of
Fire" as one of the best non-SF novels I've read in the past year.
Sorry for being so wordy Doc; blame my folks- they
taught me to read when I was 4, and I've been loving it ever since.
Anyway, you have a great site which I have recommended to lots of friends.
Thanks, keep up the great work, and Happy Thanksgiving.
Dave Porter, Lincoln Park, MI
I recall reading about Oak Island when I was in
high school, and being fascinated with it ever since. But then my great
grandfather McKinney actually got some of Lafitte's treasure, with which
he bought the Florida East Coast Railway system which my grandfather
managed for him out of Fort White. A very long time ago, but it's why my
mother graduated from Florida State Normal School in Gainseville.
Gates of Fire is pretty realistic. There are
parts I'd quarrel with. But I confess I am not entirely rational on the
subject. Standing there on the knoll and knowing you are standing at the
Grave of the Three Hundred does that to you. Or did to me.
Hi Jerry,
Have you tried the Google search engine? I use it
almost exclusively now.
They allow you to use their engine on your web site
for searching for information. You might want to have a look at it some
day.
Google http://www.google.com
There is a spot on the bottom blue bar "Add
Google to your site"
- Paul pdwalker@quagmyre.com
Indeed I think I do want to look at it some day.
When I get a Round Tuit. Which is when I recover from this crud and catch
up. But I have heard good things about it before.
Jerry,
I have recently had to move our office into the
third bedroom (box? room - 8' x 5') to allow our daughter to have some
more space as she is now hitting those teenage years.
For the first time I have had to deal with seriously
packing away lots of things and storing them in the loft, so I can at
least move around in the new office.
I realised pretty soon that I needed to minimise all
of the hardware. Not only this but the noise from the running equipment is
terrible in such a small area.
Have you ever tried to find out if anyone sells
cases that are diminutive in size, that muffle the sound from the
internals efficiently, and contain whisper quiet power supplies ?
The ideal piece of hardware that comes to mind is
the Apple G4 Cube, but I need an x86 PC format machine.
I have mailed many different manufacturers regarding
this issue and have had little success.
Have you ever considered running an article on this
subject ? Or do you know of any companies that build cases relatively
small, with a greater thickness to the structure and containing a quiet
power supply ?
Regards,
Matthew Soul
UK
I confess I live with considerable fan noise and
it doesn't much bother me; it's "white noise" to me, and I soon
tune it out. But then I have been partially deaf since 1950.
I think this was more a press release than a
letter but I saved it anyway:
In case you get this message and it interests you.
There is a company by the name of Interface Security http://www.keyghost.com/securekb.htm
that makes a suite of products called KeyGhost. It's a simple hardware
keyloging system.
I know that writers are paranoiac about loosing
their work. They offer 2 kind of products, a keyboard pass though that you
put between your keyboard and your PC or an integrated product that
consists of a keyboard with the Keyghost hardware.
As a "backup" tool for writers it could be
invaluable....
Good Luck!
Vick Sweeney Quebec, Canada
On this one I plead "ignoramus". My
backup consists of saving everything in a lot of places, early and often.
Greetings Jerry!
Always enjoy(ed) reading your column (now and in the
[alas!] now gone BYTE magazine.) Yours was the first column I read in the
magazine each time I received it.
Thought you might like to know that your column
[#241] on the QAZ virus/Soyo motherboards had an error in one of the
links. You mention both the SOYO motherboard and the BTC-DVD drive and
give separate links. They can BOTH be accessed at the SOYO link. The link
given for the BTC (www.btc.com) is for (are your ready?) Oriental
(Chinese?) site named "Brain Trust Company" that lists PORNO
Videos!!! Whoops!
Just thought you'd like to know.
Cheers, Rudy -- rwengjen@WestminsterResearch.com
"The beige box is around because it's an
industrial product. There's no value added by making it look like a
banana." Mark Bregman - IBM
Oops! I think that has been fixed...
I think that one of the tips floating around is to
turn of System Restore in Windows Me in order to reclaim the CPU cycles
and resources associtated with it.
This is done from the System Control Panel,
Performance Tab, File System Button, Troubleshooting Tab, and it is the
bottom option on the menu.
But once you have disabled the "feature",
the next question is.. What does one use to replace the functionality
with?
I listen to a local radio show here on Saturday's on
WPHL 1210am called the Computer Show.
The moderator Rich Levin, has written a couple of
great programs (ala Steve Gibson) which address this.
He has a program called WinBak which is currently in
a 1.0 version, and works on Windows 95/98/Me with a new version about to
be release shortly.
It is currently listed as shareware, but I believe
he intends to release the next version as freeware..
He also makes a program called Space Ace III, which
is a disk cleaning program that purports to clean up unwanted files from
the hard drive. I haven't used this yet, so I can't comment..
But I use WinBak and run it every couple of days, or
just before I've installed something new..
The website address is:
http://www.rblevin.net
I can't say I agree with all the advice he dispenses
on the show, but this program is useful..
Regards, Al Hartman http://www.geocities.com/alhartman
Join the Macintosh Emulation List... http://www.topica.com/lists/Macemulist
Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for
your life. - William Blake
I have not noticed any reason to "speed
up" things, but I have not bothered to "upgrade" older
systems to ME, and all the new ones with ME on them are 900+ MHz systems:
the hardware is fast enough that no "speed up" would even be
noticed.
I now have a bunch of Intel Pentium III systems
from 750 to 1.5 gig and it's pretty hard to tell the differences among
them...
Dear Jerry,
In your Comdex Wrap-up article at www.byte.com, you
wrote "The only real problem with CompactFlash is that it's almost
too small; it's hard to keep track of a device that's about the size of a
thick postage stamp. Lexar gave me a special wallet to keep mine in, but
that's too big. What I need is a shirt-pocket CompactFlash holder."
May I suggest a compact flash PC Card adapter. I know Lexar makes them;
I'm sure others do also. Obviously it is the size of a PC Card, sturdy,
and you can access images from your camera on your laptop without messing
with cables. Plus, if your laptop sees these devices as a drive, a simple
batch file could transfer images to the hard drive with a double click,
handy when you are taking a lot of pictures quickly. You shoud be able to
find one for about US $10.
Greg French Greenwood Nova Scotia Canada
Yes, I wrote about those in my PCEXPO coverage
last summer. But I don't think carrying one of those card converters for
each Compact Flash is the right answer. Still they do fit in a shirt
pocket and they are cheap. Thanks.
Jerry,
I am using an optical Microsoft IntelliMouse on my
Belkin KVM switch with no problems at all! I have discarded all of my ball
mice by now, hate them!
Anker
Yes, I am using optical mice with both Belkin and
ICU-124 KVM switches now, and I have no problems with them at all. Can't
think why I said they didn't work; sheer lag, and I think I really mean
with Spirit an ancient server.
Jerry:
I recently tried all the KVM switches available from
my distributor (TechData) to see if I could find one that would support
the thumb button on my 4-button Logitech mouse. None could, and phone
calls to the support organizations confirmed that (I should have called in
the first place, instead of buying one of everything!).
Along the way I discovered something: the Linksys
KVM switch is (other than front panel) identical to the Belkin, and is
less than *HALF* the price of the Belkin.
Also, for your personal fund of knowledge, the Cybex
"Switchview" KVM's will work nicely with the opticals you called
"red light" mice.
Hope this helps,
Tom Keiser
Hmm. thanks.
Jerry,
You've given a strong endorsement of Belkin KVM
switches in recent week. I wanted to make sure that you got some feedback
on that. Over the last year, I have (through my workplace) owned
approximately 40 Belkin switches, from 8-port pro models to 2- and 4-port
ones. I have experienced approximately 30% failure over 6 months. They
seem pretty good to start with, but sooner later, the switching features
fail on one port or another. Additionally, even on Belkins that haven't
suffered a permanent disability, I've noticed a number of mouse
disconnects and occasional keyboard disconnects. (By disconnect, I mean
the thing doesn't work until you power cycle everything)
The Belin switches may be better than cheapo
switches (in the <$50 range), but they aren't all that good. If you're
serious, I recommend buying a Cybex or Apex switch. The swiching speed is
faster, the video doesn't have ghosting that you sometimes see on a Belkin,
and they don't fail quite so much. I believe it's a false economy to buy a
$500 switch that's going to fail when you can buy a $1000 switch that you
will love.
And as an added plus, my Cybex Autoview 200 doesn't
make that loud clicking sound every time you switch. (Not to mention that
you can hook up two consoles to share the 8 servers connected to the
switch)
I love your column and value your insights.
Thanks, Josh
I can only say that I have been using Belkin KVM
switches for over a year without any problems of any kind. But then the
only problem I had with the ICS switches was its inability to pass video
from one machine. I still don't understand that one. But the Belkin solved
that problem. If I have difficulties I will report them, but in fact the
Belkin units have work quite well.
Jerry
Interested to read your reactions to EDS's
advertising at Comdex. I'm surprised you haven't been aware of them
before; EDS is probably best known outside the tech world for being the
means by which Ross Perot became wealthy enough to contest the US
presidential race as an independent. I am told (and it may be apocryphal)
that in the days when he ran the firm (which I believe he founded) the
office walls were covered with Big Brother-esque posters of Perot
exhorting his staff to work harder.
I'd be wary of pronouncing on the quality of the
post-Perot EDS based on their PR at a show; they've been involved in
several high-profile failures of IT projects for the UK government in
recent years.
regards
Martin Smith
This communication is for informational purposes
only. It is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or
sale of any financial instrument or as an official confirmation of any
transaction. All market prices, data and other information are not
warranted as to completeness or accuracy and are subject to change without
notice. Any comments or statements made herein do not necessarily reflect
those of J.P. Morgan &; Co. Incorporated, its subsidiaries and
affiliates.
Actually I was told that was Perot's old outfit,
but I wasn't at all sure what THAT had actually done; it operated in
places well beyond my Micro world.
They sure spent money on good will at COMDEX.
This was over in VIEW but it is worth repeating.
It is wonderful:
Jerry: This is an incredible image of the earth at
night. Scroll over and look at the difference between North and South
Korea!
Regards, Chris C
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights_dmsp_big.jpg
Dear Dr. Pournelle, When trying to upgrade a W98 installation to a W98
Second Edition installation - for a friend who is not too computer
literate - the process apparently worked but the modem -an old model-
refused to make a connection saying there was no dial tone. On trying to
reinstall the modem drivers the setup program demanded the Win98 S.E. CD
and then began to give a series of file not found messages. The file names
were "fileexfer.cnt", "fileexfer.exe", "fileexfer.hlp",
"fet.dll", "wexe32.dll" and "wsw.vxd". The
setup program seems to think that these files should be in the CAB file
named "PRECOPY1.CAB". Searching that file with EXTRACT produced
no problems but no sign of these files. The CD in question was purchased
at the MS store by my friend's son who is works at MS. Two other friends
at my request searched the "PRECOPY1.CAB" file in their CDs -
locally bought from MS agents - with the same negative results. The
supplier of the modem supplied a driver disk that got the modem working,
but even after this, every time the machine was started it would try to
install a driver for the modem and report the same files missing. A second
reinstall with the W 98 S.E. CD with the new modem driver disk solved this
problem. and the machine boots ok now. This was last week yesterday
another friend ran into the same problem as he was upgradeing his machine
to W98 SE. There was no modem on this one but the scanner -again an old
one- wouldn't work. Again a reinstall with new drivers solved the problem.
There seems to be something wrong or at least incomplete with W98 S.E.
installer. It looks as if when it cant find appropriate drivers it expects
to find generic drivers or some other help in these files - only the files
are not there. Does anyone know what is happening here? Yours sinecerly
Ramesh Nayar
Apologies but I can't read this. You sent html to
me, and outlook doesn't seem to know how to paste special to make it work.
To All: the proper format is do nothing except be sure to double space
between paragraphs and where you want a real line break. That works, and
is easy for me to deal with;
And one I have not had a chance to look at (and
also formatted impossibly):
Dr. Pournelle, >From the CNN website, also
reported by CBS News: http://www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/11/27/gulfwar.brain.reut/index.html
George Laiacona III <george@eisainc.com> ICQ
37042478/ 28885038 "You can fool some of the people all of the time,
and all of the people some of the time...and that should be enough to get
you through." "You can kill some of the people all of the time,
and you can kill all of the people some of the time, but you can't kill
all of the people all of the time...because then who'll grow the
food?" -Excerpts, King's Men Political Manual
To: Jerry Pournelle From: Chris Morton Subj:
Military Ballots in Florida
Dear Dr. Pournelle:
Here's a bit of preemptive advice for you if anyone
ever complains to you that the Palm Beach canvassing board didn't have
enough time to do the manual recount and should have been granted an
extension.
Just ask them if the crew of the USS Cole took
Thanksgiving off the way the Palm Beach canvassing board did.
Chris Morton Rocky River, Ohio
That requires no comment. Thank you.
Dr. P:
For the nearly 30 years we've been together my wife
has eschewed science fiction.
A couple of months ago she was desperate for a book
to read, so I somehow convinced her to try the Mote. Low and behold, she
thoroughly enjoyed it.
Last night I was reading to her the very succinct
and well done description of the malaria organism (Plasmodium falciparum)
in the 20 October issue of Science (Vol. 290, box on p. 435). About two
thirds of the way through she exclaimed: "Moties!"
Regards,
PMP
Great! Thanks. Greg Bear tells me the next big
technology breakthroughs will be in biological engineering and I believe
him.
(Regarding
social sciences) Jerry,
Haven't given much thought to any of this for a
while, but it does recall for me the two usefull things I retained from a
brief stint as an interdisciplinary social science major. The first from
an introductory class professor:
"Clinical psychology is akin to tarot cards and
astrology."
The second as an intro to a statistics book:
"Statistics is a body of methods for making
wise decisions in the face of uncertainty."
Both have served me well. I don't remember much of
the rest. Thanks for being here, stay well.
Paul rphampson@earthlink.net
I have no quarrel with either of those aphorisms.
It is precisely the lack of real statistical analysis, particularly
Bayesian analysis of the value of more information prior to acting in
Global Warming, that is one of our largest problems. We KNOW HOW to make
proper decisions in the face of uncertainty, and we can determine whether
we ought to ACT NOW or GATHER MORE INFORMATION given the probabilities we
already have and the payoffs positive and negative from acting or not
acting NOW. These are straightforward Bayesian analysis and with modern
computers it's easy to solve those equations.
But no one does it, and the politicians yammer
and yammer.
You might want to be aware that there are at least
two nice freeware programs called Notepad+ whose executables are called
notepad.exe, and are over 100K. Usually they are in their own directories
though, not Windows.
>>To find out if you have been hit by QAZ, do a search for
filenames and folders containing the word note. Now click on
"size" in the result so that they are sorted in reverse order,
largest files first. Look at NOTEPAD.EXE, and if that file is larger than
100K you have been infected, and you will probably find a file called
NOTE.COM that will be about 50K (depending on which version of Windows you
run). The presence of NOTEPAD.EXE larger than 100K is the real clue.
<<
I fear I sent a rather impolite reply to this
beginning "You might want to be aware that Notepad.exe is a
copyrighted program and it is almost never a good idea to replace programs
distributed with the operating system; better to give the
"replacement" it's own name and change the associations
accordingly."
Which is still true. And I say again, if you have
a Notepad.exe file larger than 100K you are probably in trouble; if you
have replaced the notepad.exe Microsoft sent with your own, you are on
your own, but are you SURE that the one you put is is the one that is
still there?
I should apologize for the irritated tone I took
with my correspondent, though.
Mr. Pournelle,
Have you played Everquest since the upgrade to
DX7.0a? If so, have you had any problems with the sound on any of your
machines? I know I've played the game since it came out in March or April
of 1999, and have had nothing but problems with the sound since the major
patch before last. I was just reading one of the EQ boards, and found out
that I'm not the only one to have this issue.
Here's the link to the message board: http://boards.station.sony.com/everquest/Forum1/HTML/005635.html
There was only one reply back from a moderator on
this and his reply was a threat to quit moderating this message board. I'm
very disappointed with the poor quality of customer service that they are
giving to their paying customers.
I'm writing this in hopes to bring some media
attention to the issue and hopefully get Variant to give us players some
answer.
Thank you for you time,
Jim Ramsey Sr. Systems Engineer Viva.com http://www.viva.com
I have had no problems with sound, but I continue
to be irritated by being killed while inside an Inn with the door closed.
Apparently some players were "running into inns" to escape
monsters, and the omniscient gamesmasters decided that was a form of
cheating.
Now in the real world, and innkeepers who
operated in places with monsters would, I suppose, take care to defend
their customers. They might charge them money for that, but how is it
"cheating" to run to a place of refuge to escape being killed?
While I understand the concern about "cheating" given the
experiences on Diablo multi-player networks, this is quite different.
Another example that annoys me: Varant has
decided that since some people cut off their machines to escape death,
they will allow you to be killed even though it is their servers being
overloaded and dropping you off that caused the disconnection. There are
fairly heavy penalties associated with suddenly being
"link-dead" (including loss of many magical items), and these
are applied whether this is voluntary by the player or imposed on him by
the inadequacies of the Everquest hardware. This is the kind of arrogance
that loses customers. So far they seem to have escaped the wrath many of
us feel, but I suspect that competition may change some of that.
If players not involved in player vs player
contests seek to escape the consequences of their actions by volutary
reset of the machine, thus losing many minutes of play and having
tediously to restore the connection, why must those who did not do this be
penalized just because the Everquest programmers can't figure out how to
differentiate between voluntary disconect and the failure of their own
hardware?
Sure. Their servers get overloaded. That in
itself makes play painful sometimes. Why in the world must they impose
their view of "what is enjoyable" on their customers? Heck, if
someone wants to "cheat" by resetting his system before being
killed by monsters, (in essence feigning death) that doesn't hurt ME, nor
do I see how it harms Everquest in general. And I certainly do not see how
it is "cheating" to run into a building in the game in the
expectation that when you are inside with the door closed lions cannot
come in with you...
But I have had no problems with sound.
I'm sure that you and many of you readers have seen
this poem before, but it never hurts to read it again to remind us of the
sacrifices some make for their country. This is for my Dad and everyone
else who has served... Thanks.
'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, HE LIVED
ALL ALONE, IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF PLASTER AND STONE.
I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY WITH PRESENTS TO
GIVE, AND TO SEE JUST WHO IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.
I LOOKED ALL ABOUT, A STRANGE SIGHT I DID
SEE, NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS, NOT EVEN A TREE.
NO STOCKING BY MANTLE, JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH
SAND, ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.
WITH MEDALS AND BADGES, AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,
A SOBER THOUGHT CAME THROUGH MY MIND.
FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT, IT WAS DARK AND
DREARY, I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER, ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.
THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING, SILENT, ALONE,
CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.
THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE, THE ROOM IN SUCH
DISORDER, NOT HOW I PICTURED A UNITED STATES SOLDIER.
WAS THIS THE HERO OF WHOM I'D JUST READ?
CURLED UP ON A PONCHO, THE FLOOR FOR A BED?
I REALIZED THE FAMILIES THAT I SAW THIS
NIGHT, OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.
SOON ROUND THE WORLD, THE CHILDREN WOULD
PLAY, AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.
THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM EACH MONTH OF THE
YEAR, BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS, LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.
I COULDN'T HELP WONDER HOW MANY LAY ALONE, ON
A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.
THE VERY THOUGHT BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE, I
DROPPED TO MY KNEES AND STARTED TO CRY.
THE SOLDIER AWAKENED AND I HEARD A ROUGH
VOICE, "SANTA DON'T CRY, THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE;
I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, I DON'T ASK FOR MORE, MY
LIFE IS MY GOD, MY COUNTRY, MY CORPS."
THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP,
I COULDN'T CONTROL IT, I CONTINUED TO WEEP.
I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS, SO SILENT AND STILL
AND WE BOTH SHIVERED FROM THE COLD NIGHT'S CHILL.
I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE ON THAT COLD, DARK,
NIGHT, THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR SO WILLING TO FIGHT.
THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER, WITH A VOICE
SOFT AND PURE, WHISPERED, "CARRY ON SANTA, IT'S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS
SECURE."
ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH, AND I KNEW HE WAS
RIGHT. "MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT."
This poem was written by a Marine stationed in
Okinawa Japan. The following is his request. I think it is reasonable.....
PLEASE. Would you do me the kind favor of sending
this to as many people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some
credit is due to our U.S. service men and women for our being able to
celebrate these festivities.
===== Chris Levesque clevesqu@yahoo.com
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness." -- U.S. Declaration of Independence
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