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Summer. It will end but not today. It's been the warmest end of October for the last 200 years and the only prediction is some rain this evening or tomorrow and then more warm weather.
And we get shocked by some sunlight-saving thing. So shocking that even the sun cant's sleep and, probably bored get up an hour early.
Current temp is 21.1°C in and 15.2°C out.
I think I liked that extra hour at night yesterday. Why don't they add that every day? Time for a petition me thinks.
Hmm, it really smells like a blocked account with my ISP, I still can't log in in the morning. Problem is that I cannot really complain. Cause I don't know who to complain to.
Some when in the late nineties I got a free account at FreeGates. That is free in the sense that I didn't pay the ISP anything for the -minimal- service. Using a standard phone line I payed the telco ~Belgacom~ the normal per minute tariff and they pass on part of that to the ISP (some de-regulation and monopoly-breaking law). Some ISPs accepted that but still charged their customers, FreeGates didn't (a year later Belgacom launched it's own free service and then most other ISPs either went free or left the market). Some years later FreeGates was bought out by Tiscaly. There was, if I remember right, an offer to switch to Tiscaly by transferring your 'browser-credit-points' ~a sort of customer-binding system with presents~ to a slightly different system. I never bothered with the credit or anything so I did not transfer my account. Earlier this year Tiscaly was bought out by Scarlet, a Dutch company. They indicated that they would gradually stop the free accounts. Thing is they mailed it to the Tiscaly clients but I never got that mail cause I was still using a FreeGates account. I only found out when my neighbour called me when he got a problem switching from Tiscaly to Scarlet. Somewhat later, my brother who got a slightly different Tiscaly account, got a mail offering to switch. In stead of switching from one account to another he switched over to ADSL, first at Tiscaly but now switched to Scarlet.
Even before the end of the 'free' account was in sight I planned switching to ADSL ~I pay more for the 'free' surfing time now that I would with an ADSL account~ but I was not in a hurry. Trying to set up a firewall before connecting up, struggling with Linux, and all that.I guess I'll have to hurry up now.
Oh, yes, there is work today. More brain-killing source comparing.
And there is some running after work. Alone again and not running far. My left knee hurts, a dull difficult to pinpoint ache.
Dinner is Fennel stew. Much better today after some more stewing. And still enough left over for two sizable portions. Easy to pick out of the freezer later.
Monday 2005-10-31 (Remarks about 517 words)
It is again nice and warm and mostly sunny. But there are clouds packing and clustering together. Majestic white castles floating by, very nice, but their bottoms are black. And by evening they start to drop their load.
Current temp is 21.0°C in and 12.1°C out.
It's an official holiday here so I stay home.
Which comes in handy for working on the switch from the now account-less and useless dialup to ADSL. I have been planning to move over for a very long time now but I never actually got further than planning and re planning and sometimes shuffling hardware around. One of the reasons I was still using the old slow computer as main work station. The idea was to switch over to ADSL and switch to a faster box and a new network-layout and a new operating system. All more or less at once. I have all the hardware ready and the network laid out and mostly tested. The problem I is that I want to switch from a Windows mix (everything between Win95 and XP -excluding WinME) to Linux. But I can not get Linux working in a network. Which is kind of funny cause Linux should be ideal for networking.
But now the time of playing and procrastinating is over. I need to switch asap. So I move my new main system Alexi to my main desk. And I copy over all the data I need. With fresh installs of most of the programs I use. First on is AVG and AdAware. In stead of Linux I have Windows 2000Pro installed. The best MS system since MSDos3. Miona remains in place ~shoved a bit to the side to leave place for the Medion 17" flat screen~ for a while, till I am sure everything is transferred and working.
Apart from some minor moves later I get everything place and connected where I want. But then I can't get a signal on the broadband router (a Thompson Speedtouch). After trying everything in the installation manual (including going down to the basement with the modem and my notebook and all I realise The modem will only recognise the line after Belgacom has enabled ADSL on it from their side. And it being a holiday that's not going to happen today. (And without internet I cannot order that online.)
Dinner is asparagus rolls. The best in a long time.
Tuesday 2005-11-01 ( Remarks about 422 words)
It started raining yesterday evening and it is still raining in the morning. And at noon. With some more but irregular showers in the afternoon. And evening/night.
Current temp is 18.1°C in and 11.7°C out.
You bet. I get up as usual -05:30- log on as usual and get a connection as
usualhas not happened since Saturday evening. So my account was not disabled after all, it was just a hard server problem at the ISP. Oh, well, I started the switch so I can better go trough with it.
Work isn't going well. No problems. It's just that the deadline is coming up fast and I am not getting trough the sources fast enough.
On top of that R. comes in again for testing and of course he finds some errors. Minor details all, they won't stop the transfer even if they are not solved. But they are itching. It's like you see a mouse and chase it out of the house. No harm done but where you see one mouse the are probably more.
Dinner is lasagne with a fish-sauce. Yes, the same smoked-salmon type as last Saturday And it fits better with lasagne.
+_+
Nice music. ( www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/01/sony_rootkit_drm/ ) Nice because it's the last you hear from your PC.
I wonder how MS will take this. Up to now with security breaches of that type they first told it was the user's own fault, then, weeks or months later, they would patch up the hole expecting everybody to be happy and thank full for the patch. Now they have another company exploiting their holes and devaluating their own DRM solutions. If they now close the holes they can be sued for monopoly practices as in the good old DOS days.
Wednesday 2005-11-02 ( Remarks about 325 words)
Ha, two days of rain seems enough so we start today with a nice colourful sunrise followed by clear blue skies. And that's also how the day ends, warm, nice and colourful.
Current temp is 18.7°C in and 12.5°C out.
Work starts out pretty normal with a bit of regular simple support and a bunch of source comparing. In the afternoon it goes downhill, peaking in a chaotic last hour. Sometimes we wonder what on earth users do to break the system.
The only known way to get duplicate orders is to change the actual database structure and recompiling the whole system. Users cannot do that, they have no sources. And yet we end up with duplicates. And they know how to beat the fundamental laws of physics by shipping the same item in two different containers. Hmm, maybe if you don't know the laws of physics it's easier to break them. Maybe.
Dinner is pizza. But I don't make it myself. I go out to the Pizza Hut after shopping. They make good pizzas, and it leaves me without dirty dishes and tools ^_^
Thursday 2005-11-03 ( Remarks about 197 words)
Hmmm, it's grey outside the window. Someone booted the day with the display drivers disabled? It's only in the afternoon that we get some colour and that is only by a bunch of blue gaps between the light grey clouds.
Current temp is 20.0°C in and 16.8°C out.
Lots of support again keeping me from doing all the source-comparisons I planned. I'm getting there. Slowly.
While driving home I notice one of the back doors isn't closed well. so I stop beside the road to close it. Just as I am about to get in again the engine shuts down. And refuses to start again. This has happened a few times before in the last two weeks (since the last maintenance actually) but usually the engine would start again after a couple of tries. now it remains dead. So I call Touring, a road assistance service. Of course when the guy arrives my car starts as if there's never been anything wrong.
Dinner is mushroom soup. Normally that takes quite some time so I start with a packet of mushroom soup and add my baked mushrooms and herbs later.
O_O
Makes me wonder what those MS guys are saying really. Do they really believe another generation of programming tools is going to solve design and specification problems? ( http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27449 ) Do they know what the difference between design and implementation is?
Friday 2005-11-04 ( Remarks about 224 words)
More grayness around. With no blue to be seen all day. It does stay dry but it clearly isn't summer anymore.
Current temp is 19.1°C in and 11.6°C out.
Shopping. As usual, wine and fruit and stuff.
Before going shopping I do drop off my car at the garage for checking out the problem. When I go to get it back they have found the problem. A rev-sensor on the engine is bad, when it gets too hot it stops sensing. Of course when the engine isn't revving the fuel pump is stopped. Once the sensor cools down it works again so the engine can be started again. Simple problem. They don't have a spare sensor though so they got to order one (the have one on order already but that's not yet delivered) and they'll call me when it gets in.
The only question is how often am I going to be a living chicane on the road before it's fixed?
I also get myself a mobile phone. I have never needed one and not having one has the advantage that nobody could call me when I didn't want to be called. Now I needed one. I was lucky that the car broke down in the evening and not too far from a couple of restaurants where I could go to call.
Dinner is swordfish steak with tomato and paprika stew/sauce. And fries. Getting the right balance in the sauce is difficult because the tomatoes aren't always of perfect quality. You want them firm so you have some tomato left but you also want them to be soft so you get a well moistened and homogeneous sauce. I got the balance right by using two older tomatoes and one fresh tomato. And I didn't spoil the swordfish.
I only spoiled my sleep by eating too much ^_^
Saturday 2005-11-05 ( Remarks about 321 words)
It's a bit cloudy in the early morning but once the sun gets up it turns clear and blue. But it isn't the summer type of good weather anymore. There is a stiff wind with a chilly bite to it. Very deceptive weather.
Current temp is 16.4°C in and 7.9°C out.
Cleaning and paperwork eat most of my day.
Followed by computer rearranging. Well the computers are all in the richt place, it's just the data that I move around a bit. But when I try to get the ADSL up it doesn't work. I did ask for activation on Friday but it seems like that has not been done. Or if it has been there is a problem with the line. *sigh* why can't things work right from the start for me?
Dinner is chicken with fennel stew. Probably the last one this year. The advantage of having fennel in one's own garden is that it's fresh and much tastier than the shop varieties. The disadvantage is that you must clean it yourselves. I had to clean a tom of small slugs off ~and some big ones~ before I could start cooking it. Very tedious and time-consuming. But the end product, the stew was worth the extra effort.
Sunday 2005-11-06 ( Remarks about 222 words)
It's raining, or rather drizzling heavily. And of course grey and cheerless. By noon the rain stops but the greyness lingers. And transitions to blackness indicating an invisible sunset.
Current temp is 15.2°C in and 4.8°C out.
A problem dissected.
User calls: my labels don't print. Nothing is waiting to be printed so he didn't actually ask for something to be printed. He insists. I send a test label to the printer en it gets printed. So nothing's wrong with the printer. He tries again and it doesn't print. Digging in. I hold the printer, he prints and I see a print job arriving, release the printer, jobs runs trough yet nothing comes out. Hmm, this is getting fun. Print again, trap the job. Aha, there is no heading to initialise the printer. No wonder the printer doesn't print. Digging deeper. It's a labels for a load ... that doesn't exist anymore. Checking logs. On request I ~oops~ 'turned back' (deleted) two loads last Friday. The users cannot turn the loads back or delete orders but they can -and should- remove the movements and load lists before the turning back.
Results: user 1 should have cleaned up, I should have checked the cleanup, user 2 should have looked at what he wants to print. Result 2: 2 hours lost and nobody (everybody) to blame. Result 3: my support manual improved again. (There is always something positive if you care to look)That was just one problem. There were a we others as well.
Apart from comparing another huge batch of sources I worked out a detailed fix-transition scenario for the coming weekend. With realistic figures I can still fit about twenty hours of slack into the three day weekend. That is including everything I know that will go wrong, and some things that might go wrong. It means I have about 20 hours to handle unexpected errors.
Sleep is counted as an unexpected error. ^_^
Running goes very well indeed. I didn't run last week which gave me an extra week to recover. So now I was really in top condition and the temperature was just fine not too hot, not too cold. Whish doesn't mean much, we still needed more than 30 minutes to do about 6Km.
Another portion of fennel-chicken stew cause my brother did not eat it all. Yeah, I made sure there was way too much. Even now there is a little bit left, mostly sauce which he will probably spread on some bread.
Monday 2005-11-07 ( Remarks about 432 words)
Autumn is seldom boring. what with lots of nicely coloured and silver lined clouds in a mostly blue sky.
Current temp is 16.4°C in and 4.2°C out.
Work is rather steady. Doing well with the source-comparisons with just enough support calls to break the monotony of it. I also refined the planning a bit but there remain too many grey areas where I have no idea how long a stage will take.
Home late. Like just before 23h00.
My car has broken down. There is a rev sensor in the engine that is worn out. When it gets hot it stops working. Without signal from the sensor the computer thinks the engine is not revving and it shuts down the fuel pump. Making the engine really stop. Just waiting half to three quarters of an hour lets the sensor cool down enough so I can start the engine again. Of course five or six kilometer later it's hot again.
It took me four hours to get home. That's about 20Km. The problem is that a replacement has been ordered but not yet arrived at the garage. (it was already worn but it only over heated once or twice before). So now I have to stay home late tomorrow, till the garage opens and try to get a replacement car.
Definitively too late for dinner. --tomorrow-- .
Tuesday 2005-11-08 ( Remarks about 240 words)
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