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Editorial

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....The following preview has been approved for all audiences.
Elsewhere on the site the link page resides where it would not be in the best interest of a Windoz fan. Fear not, this page grew too large so another link-o-rama page has begun that has items of a more general interest.
And speaking of too large don't point that thing very far, this page has come to it's maximum size. Try Editorial part deux , it's just that easy.

Š1997 1998 D2M

Hobby

hob-by (hob*) n., pl. -bies. An activity engaged in primarily for pleasure : pastime.

Since late April 1997 this has evolved into a hobby that has dusted off the grey matter and kept me away from the evening news. Not since my previous passion with assembly code on 8 bit assorted machines has this kept me occupied during those idle nights when the sun went down and TV was the usual "moving wallpaper".
HTML is one of those things (?) that should be categorized as a sickness. There is I'm sure a psycho babble name for the actual madness.
"I was up all night writing HTML", "You poor bugger, why don't you take the rest of the day off and lie down until you feel better."
The language makes almost no sense at all. One or two pieces of html make sense, "P" creates a flag for the start of a Paragraph, but how does "EM" come to mean an italic style of text?
Perhaps I should start a self help group for chronic html'ers? I know Mac users have a support system, you maybe guilty if:
- The car does not run and you suggest to hold down the shift key before restarting.
- failing that you suggest to try a restart from the CD player.
- The Mac is included in your Christmas card photos.
- You find yourself trying a "Command I" on other appliances.
You get the idea.
My limited understanding of html and Java are displayed here for your entertainment. Don't say anything. The abuse of common English is also too common and overused. If I may be so bold to say the overly used D2M image is also an abuse of certain morals. Those loose morals are rampant here for several reasons. Several sites flaunt their product or service and splash the screen of the captive audience (if only for a second) with a veritable plethora of useless and time wasting frames, sounds, music, cookies and generally huge images.
Ever been to a site where it is well written or the guy/gal had something to say and you said to yourself, "Self, now where or who was that?".
This is all fine and dandy for the corporate customer of these committee based site writers who can spew out this stuff. They are trying to keep the corporate logo in your face but the fundamental thought that comes with the standard look and comfort level is forever lost.
My opinion of a free flowing, lazy boy type of site should hold firm attention to certain details that ooze comfort. Elevators in the office building of today are an example of this thought, take a look at where the "close" button is the next time you step into one. Sometimes it is left of the rest, other times it is not even there, often only one side has buttons but it appears no 2 are the same. My meager few pages of presence in a perpetual and possibly permanently published Pformat, are going to try and appear as though the guy who wrote them was awake at the time.

The Pformat
At the top of most pages my thought is to place in the same space on the page an assortment of frequently used buttons. These would be the same buttons that you see at the top of this very page. On the previous page they will be there and on the next page, more. The amazing thing would be that the buttons that are most useful would be displayed and those that would be of no use would not. This sounds as though I have lost my mind to think of this profound concept. Imagine a navigational device that would be exactly where you left it and it would be in the same place when you next look for it! And yes kids, no frames, no fuss, & no muss. Your mileage may vary.
NOTE: The buttons at the top of the page appear differently from what was the original intent. Some browsers display them correctly and others clump them to the side. Netscape 3 was used to write & edit the result and if you have something else, perhaps they will not appear as intended.

More Importantly
Now that I have typed myself almost to sleep, lets talk about something far more important. Now if I can only remember what that was we would be there now.
During your adventure here at the D2M, please feel free to comment aloud. Also if you feel so inclined to write to us here about any subject that you keeps you awake at nights, do it quietly, I will sleep on it and get back to you.

Caution!

We don't do Windoz here.
Friends don't let friends do Windoz.
This is the approximate amount of times I hear about a windoz PeeCee that has problems and counting. (It's a joke, isn't it?) :)

Warning #2: The following text details stories of every day life of the wonderment and curious reasons why a DOS box could be useful other than to keep your feet warm under your desk on chilly days. Or to reach things on the top shelf by standing on the generally poorly crafted DOS box cabinet. This comes from a guy who for some reason finds humour and entertainment at poking holes in this journey.
Chapter ONE - I'm sure of many since there is a constant barrage of things to write about.

The Office (now that's another story)
This is the transplanted rantings from the news page

Recent news (this has been a promise for years) is they are going to get rid of all the trusty terminals and go with Wintel boxes for email and such. May the wisdom be with them to survive this.
We use the pony express (mail by courier at scheduled times) now for inter-office mail because reliance on wintel boxes to work for day to day transactions has failed. But they are going to try again.
About 2 years ago they tried the same trick and found out it failed after trying it for the first time a year or so before that. Ah, but yet they try and try and never seem to realize the fundamental error of their ways.
970831 - I see more and more each day the Wintel boxes are showing up on desktops. The Novell network has never been better (NOT), since I have never seen fax machines work so hard as they are now. The PeeCee's are password protected and nobody seems to know what they are, so what do we do? Use the fax machine, of course. Thank goodness those who design and/or purchase the common fax machine do not subscribe to the idea of passwords.
Note: Just recently I came across a goofy fax machine that did have an account code entry requirement. Now I've seen everything!
What a waste of electricity to keep the wintel machines plugged in. Again we should hang our heads in shame and at the same time keep our mouths shut to ensure job security. The Wintel crap is keeping jobs by ensuring we waste hours each day to try and get something productive out of them, and at the same time wait for work to get to those who do it. And this is just email, mind you on a huge network but just the same email.
I know I could be doing something far more useful with my time rather than complaining about the choice of office equipment, but it's so much fun. I get a real kick out of how the OS du'jour on the wintel boxes keeps the average cubical joe on his toes. The OS should be there to help you keep your data and general computational life together. But no, it seems they want to make it a exercise in futility and guarantee the life long job of tech support for an OS that is counter productive. Here in lies the real truth, (yes I have hidden the truth in the middle of my rantings) a committee has come up with the Dilbert philosophy that we must be able to control the mindless induhviduals and allow them to do nothing, but at the same time expect everything. The Etch-a-sketch method of computing is the current IT product. In other words it looks good, it reads good, the brochure is very nice, so it must be good. Ah, but does it work? Well that was not in the original budget you see. We can not take blame for how you use these tools we have so generously given you.

Y2K crap

Recently the company sent out a Y2K envelope of crap about the upcoming year 2000 scare. The horror stories contained within can be avoided by completing a simple step in the human experience, Buy a Mac. Never a worry unless you live to be 32,000 years old. Nuf said.

970901 - Well it is now six months since they promised it would be done three months ago that we would be getting work via the Wintel space heaters. How is it going you ask? We are still getting a mail bag with photocopied stuff and still no further ahead than the late-70's when they converted from handwritten to typewritten records. Hmmmm. Go DOS box they say, eh. Still works like it always has, we are still waiting! I will be retired before it happens. Oh well.
971006 - In the salt mine we had a Wintel box that would work 9 out of 10 days and now it is gone. "Hmmm, if it works we must remove it", is the IS battle cry. Actually it was the only space heater that this author has seen within the company of c.9000 that was a working model without being locked up and logged off. Imagine a machine you could actually use! Such radical thinking. I'm going to go have a rest now.

971025 - Well just before the office moved to the north end of the city there was a wintel box that actually worked. It's true it was there and working without most of the typical hassle of windoz use. I should have known better, this machine was removed! Gone to where? We have not seen it. Maybe it was after all just our imagination, a wintel box that worked quite well.

The navigation gadgets are for your convenience. Use them often.

to be continued....

And continue it is.
971101 - One quick note of humour I must add. These DOS boxes and the network that they feed from is a real source of humour. Just the other day I came across a profound technical bulletin that announced the divine wisdom could be examined further by navigating to the corporate LAN at "http://home/hfdjsdo/hj feshfsj\/\kjshdkjf//djh sis7rkjsrhsf/\sdkjdontt rythisathomefsjrf///kfs jhrnv\dejkdmd...xjchdf.doc"
The above address looks to the untrained eye as if somebody had a very restless sleep on the job with his forehead planted firmly upon the keyboard. Actually the address given is false, but the real one hurt too much to retype it here. To be honest I think the person who made up the bulletin fell asleep.

971219 - Today I was reading the company rag (dated 971215) concerning the upgrade to total DOS boxes and it is guess what, delayed once again. Surprise, surprise. It is now postponed to a yet undetermined date. I can fully understand this but at the same time why on earth can they tell themselves that this was going to work without actually trying it. They were being sold a bill of goods again! Every trade mag and report I have read has lamented tales of complete doom and grief when a project of this scope has been underway. What can I say when it concerns DOS boxes?

I have a solution though, go back to the handwritten word and distribute it by pony express then buy some MAChinery.
When I think about it we are not all that much beyond the pony express now.
The chosen machines should be purchased on one and only one condition, they must work together and apart, before a purchase is made. That is, a portable will work on its own when necessary and the desktops will work together with the other desktops and of course work with any introduced portables. Not just as mail clients but with true interactively with the general installed base fluently. Really in very much true honesty if they did not have the DOS boxes we would most likely have a smoother running go of it.
Most situations that require the DOS box to administer mail or create a data base document does so at an alarming rate of failure. Why bother, think of the millions that would be saved and the amount of liverymen we could hire. Back to basics and such with the same speed and 110% accuracy of the personally written word. No kidding, the speed of the current document to the field may take days to get it correct, up-to-date, and well written. A horseman on a good day could do the journey in just under an hour (photocopying extra).
The astounding amount of excuses that are blamed on the PC hardware is staggering! How some of these poor souls come up with these ideas can only be blamed on the platform and OS on their desk. Sad. But yet the job gets put off and we all gather again another day.
The recent article had some comment about the mainframe based mail system and it's apparent lack of functionality. Most of the current company population has no idea of what the current structure can do and has done for years. They say file attachments are not possible, fooey I say, every document created, archived and distributed as a final work is an attachment from the original. It can be edited and redistributed or the document flagged ID can be distributed, in other words if you want it go get it.
I smile and think they are getting deeper and deeper into a hole that will cause more problems than they are going to solve. It's a shame since it's my possible share dividend they are spending on useless outdated technology. When it finally works the previous project will need an upgrade, and so on ad nauseum.
Something new, to get in touch try out the WWWPage found here ICQ, hail me at the site, it's a pager.

980116 - Well as above the date has come and gone (again) when they would have abandoned the old mainframe style equipment. This is a good thing, the alternative would be DOS boxes everywhere. That would not be a good thing. I get a rash from these things.
What can I say?

980311 - Well I could take a guess how long it has been since they said the Company network would be completely re-done. If I was to lay a few dollars down I would say at least 6 years. Yesterday I witnessed the Company network in actual use. This is on the 122nd anniversary of the immortal words spoken from Alex G. Bell himself, asking Doc Watson to fetch. I am not going to wager any cash when the "real part" of the company can use the networked DOS boxes. Remember the DOS box factor.
I tried and the thing did nothing. I am not surprized.

980312 - The calendar says it is soon Spring. Today I was checking into some items for the garden and I came across some tools that would be nice to complement the job of yard work. Mentioned of course was a bug zapper to make the gardening task and of course relaxing in the garden much more enjoyable.
I have through this journey in life noticed that most products found on store shelves have more than the single use intended. Add to this idea that when this useful period has ended it is time to decide what to do next. Today the recycle, reuse, re-what-ever thought makes a guys head hurt. I found in the gardening catalog a bug trap that did not use an ultraviolet lamp but a regular 60W household lamp as a lure and a fan to trap the vermin.
This brings me to my thought on how to keep the billions of x86, 286, 386, 486 etcetera DOS boxes out of the land fills. We know that these things are fundamentally trash when they are but only a few months old and to keep the investment alive I have a solution. To keep the flying pests away from our short growing season we can use the DOS box finally for something useful.
A link to the page (with diagrams?) of explanation will appear on the project page. The project page link is at the top of every page here at D2M.

Chapter TWO
- This marks the beginning of a new era at the salt mine.
980226 - Earlier this week I witnessed something I have yet to see in all my years. A DOS box connected to the company LAN and it worked exactly as advertised! I am speechless. Well not really, after several warnings about the "destination mailbox" what ever that could be since all the mail was there. At least I think it was all there??
The above thread about the tales of "DOS in the office" will never be over because they have only just started. Some sites have a dial up connection to the corporate mail and stories are very disheartening about these. Again do I wonder, nyet.
The actual use of a DOS box connected to the LAN is at best somewhat frustrating. The almost nauseating use of cryptic and difficult to read email sig's has hit the mainstream big time. The kids in suits will not soon catch on to these before it is gone too far. Wait a sec, the suits are the culprits. The sig's are supposed to serve a purpose for a personal/corporate expression that has eluded them en masse. We (or rather they) will appear as idiots when they finally figure out they will at one time have to send a message to a client and expect it to be read. This client will take a look at the HTML'd message done in Old English at 6 point and wonder if this could be real. Kids and their toys. Hasbro should be in office equipment sales, they would clean up. Gates has.
I shake my head and wonder why I still have this pain there.

The Pformat here....
980406 - Notice the date to the left? I decided to place these when ever I add something to this page and at times the topic might change or get a little off. So when the date is there you will know I have added something.

The glee at the office is short lived. The server won't keep up with the mail. Is that any surprise? Thousands of pounds of DOS boxes and they are just used for mail. This again makes my head fizzy. The really useful things they could be doing are not done because the IS dept wants money. The response from my boss is NO, they can't have the money and he is not that far off. What is the deal with this? Why should money change departments just because the information needed by one area is needed in another so it is held ransom?
If my say was worth anything I would say to have our own IS kingdom and rule it with complete freedom of information. Aah, but this would work and we can't have that, can we. The problem here is they would spend billions and be sold a line-of-crap that won't work, pretty much like it is now.
I know this would be a crazy idea to have the information at your finger tips to get the job done. We CANNOT have a smooth running organization with all the facts known or we might be getting close to what they say we should be. Or what the TV/radio/print ad's say we are!
When I stand back and think about the DOS boxes everywhere and the notion placed in our heads about the way things will be done, we are at least ten steps backward. From only 2 (two) not 3 or 4 or any of several thousand other DOS boxes can we access our mail. When the mainframe based mail was in place ANY terminal was good enough. So I guess this makes us at least 4500 steps behind!

Gee, my neck is still sore from shaking my head.

The corporate intranet site is equally sad. Dozens of pages filled with nonsense. The facts presented are so glossed over it makes you retch. We are a "high-tech" company that is supposed to offer a "leading-edge" product line backed up with internal information that is completely unavailable. It is small wonder the client base is generally unhappy with customer service. The employees are so un-informed about their own product line they get by most often on rumours alone.

cannot connect to network
Another sad example is the company directory. This is the place where a person can look up a fellow employee and get several facts on contacting them. I looked up myself. HaHaHa.

-cannot connect to network-
-network is busy-
-try again-
-then something about rebooting, huh?-

Well next day I tried again. I only had 30 minutes to get in and look up the info. After a few attempts I was in! The facts about me are close but not near 100%.
Now how do I correct the facts? Can't be done. Then I think about this for a sec and realize, does it matter? Will it last? Will it make a difference? Nyet.
I say to myself, "The big picture is flawed, will it make a difference if just one more thing is flawed? Probably not."

Look for a new page like this rant. My free (of course) editor will only edit a <25K chunk at a time. This is very close to being there so a new page is in the works. So don't point that thing very far. Try Editorial part deux

As always this will continue..... Always/never a dull moment, you decide.

NOTE: The feedback part has moved to another page. Please click once more.

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edited: 991111

D2M Š 1997 1998 1999 MacMcLellan A graduate of Curmudgeon Emeritus.