The idea sometime in early 97 (this may take a while)
It was pretty simple - When I got my PC I'd keep a diary of what happened and how I felt about it. It would either be an interesting look into the past or maybe something better. (like justification for getting a Mac back on my desk)

The Cause
The company that I work for (I have a great job for a great company - but it isn't perfect) decided that Macs would be "done away with" This doesn't make sense from any perspective, But I can't argue (I'VE TRIED BUT THE MESSAGE WAS PRETTY CLEAR THAT NO ONE WHO WAS WILLING TO LISTEN WAS WILLING OR ABLE TO HELP) Since I don't have a Government job Nasa Professionals fight all windows policy I decided to live with it.

The expansion
Then I thought - why not put it on the web? Visions of world fame were deep in the back of my mind - I though it would be really cool to say - "oh and I write a column on computers" to my friends "you can view it on the web".  It was an idea like so many others that never went anywhere.  But it did - eventually...
 

Observations so far -

Its already started

post note If you use a windows machine you NEED to read this guy.  I have no idea how people figure this stuff out but it is brilliant. I still cannot figure out why so many people who are so smart aren't smart enough to figure out what computer to use. Some folks like a challenge I guess...

I grab my powerbook - open Page spinner and whip up a this HTML page. Then I just copy the whole thing to the clip board - hit two keys to get back to Netscape and bookmark to my home page on GEOGICITES.COM (free web pages check it out!). Then I click the utilities URL I added to my home page (for just this purpose) enter my user name and password start a ne page and command V the data into the HTML page.

I promised myself that this "pet project" would not take up any work or family time so I'm going to have to continue this later. That includes starting the description correctly -If you read this then accept my apologies and check back after the 10th I will have the background etc. sorted by then. Its 10:33

Here are the observations I have made to date - I am going to try to add one a day (we will se how that works out)
 

Aha! now I see why some people actually want a windows computer.

Gottcha!

The next morning I was just starting to figure things out when one of my colleagues informed me that a disk I had given him was infected with the concept virus.

So I called in the local ITD computer doctor and he installed some virus protection. You may ask WHY were you sticking strange disks into your computer without putting any protection on?  Good question and I must say virus protection is absolutely a necessity for any responsible computer user.    BUT the IT team in Germany where I work has all their virus protection software on the server. And until I get an Ethernet connection, I can not get virus software uploaded.  Fortunately, the team at the location I was visiting  had what I needed on a disk.  Everything ha been fine since then.  Bottom line -  I lost a couple of hours work because a business class machine came without an Ethernet connection built in and because viruses are far more prevalent in the windows world than in the mac world. (any business class Mac you buy will have this and many other features as standard)
 

great definition of windows 97

You gotta be kidding me.

This is courtesy of Tipworld which is an essential tool in today's fast changing world.  Check them out!

OH WHERE, OH WHERE ARE THOSE LITTLE ICONS?
About a month ago, we ran a tip on changing your Recycle Bin's
icon. Here's a quick review: Open the Registry Editor and
navigate your way to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ CLSID\ {645FF040-5081-
101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\ DefaultIcon. Right-mouse click on Empty
in the right pane, select Modify; and on the Value data line,
type the path and number of the icon you want to use for an empty
Recycle Bin using the following format: "path, ##."

Repeat these steps for the "full" string value, assuming you want
to change that icon as well.

A reader, M. K. Hollis, writes: "How do I find out which icon I
want to use? Is there a way to look at them?"

There is a way, but the hard part is knowing where to look. Two
icon files we can point you to are PIFMGR.DLL and SHELL32.DLL,
both of which are in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder. To view the
icons in these files, right-mouse click on any folder shortcut,
choose Properties, click on the Shortcut tab, and click on the
Change Icon button. The Change Icon dialog box displays all the
icons in SHELL32.DLL. Click on the Browse button and navigate
your way to PIFMGR.DLL and open it (if you have it) to reveal its
contents in the Change Icon dialog box. (Note: If you don't see
any DLL files, open any Windows 95 window, select View under
Options, and on the View tab, select Show all files.)

You surely have other icon files on your system, depending on the
applications you've installed. You'll just need to search around
for them after clicking on Browse. (For example, the Windows
folder includes lots of icons associated with EXE files.) If you
select a file that doesn't contain any icons, you'll get a
message telling you so. When you find an icon you want to use,
just make sure to write down the path of its file and the number
of the icon. (Remember, in any icon file, the icons are numbered
from zero to whatever.)
 
 

now this thing is messing up my home life!

Folder fight!  14 October 1997

First I grabbed the document and when I went to save it decided that it needed a folder of its own.  So I created one and clicked open which promptly caused the document to be saved outside the newly created folder.  So I opened the newly created folder  and saved.  Then I noticed that I had grabbed the wrong folder - damn.  Somewhere I got back to the desktop and had to dive in all over again.  And when I click on my documents folder I can only see one row of folders at a time - so I have to slide right to find the one I am looking for dive in again and click on the folder I want etc. until I am at the layer I want.  Why do this? Because even if I search for and find the folder with the find option, I can't open the folder the document is in - I can only open the document.  This is dead easy to do on a mac.  I also suspect its easy to do in explorer - but damned if I can figure out how?

Well anyway I grab the folder and decide to move it and try to do so by dragging it to an empty space on the listing of the folder I want it it.  Poof - it disappears.  Where did it go?  Back to the find file, finding it, I see that it has been placed in another folder which was below the original in the list - I thus surmise that anything left of the folder i considered by windows to be in the folder.  I bit of experimentation confirms this - though i did have to look quite hard to notice the back through the folders to the folder I want and drag it out to the right place - making very sure that there is no folder anywhere near the place i drag it to I release the mouse.  Poof it disappears again!  Where is it this time???

Aha I learned a few day ago that when you create a new folder/file it somehow goes to the end of the file list instead of being integrated into its rightful place in whatever sort hierarchy you have selected to display your fields in.  So I scroll to the back of the list - and there it is..  I have figured out how to do screen shots in the mean time so here is a picture.

please note the toastmasters folder immediately after the Work Request document just where one would expect it to be.

While I am at it I decide that I am tired of looking for my Toastmasters folder and want it at the front of the list.  The solution us simple - add a space to the name.  Or so I thought.  Now this can be done I have evidence on my hard drive - but just try and do it again.  But every time I try this it renames it to the original file without the space and tells me the file name is the same.  No that how I interpreted it - what it actually said was - "cannot rename Toastmasters,  The source and destination files are the same".  Ok I will put a funny ascII character in front of it -

So I try a . and the answer is you must type a file name.   Hmm how about a /?

SO I decide that the right thing to do is to use the old standby that I used at UGA back in 1974 I put an a in front of the file so it will show up early in the directory.  That was when the only time I saw the files I had available was when i submitted an overnight batch job to create a printout of them!
 

Dates included!  14 Oct. 1997

Naming nonsense!

No save and no warning  - do I really have to look at the disk every time to be sure this computer saved my document?

SO...   there I am reading email (Guy's "Rules for revolutionaries"  - who says I can't talk people into writing a book for me - mail list which is worth more in terms of useful lessons than most upper level university courses)  when I com across a REALLY great one.  "I have to keep that: I think - in fact "I want to save it to the old hard drive as a separate document".  "I even know where to put it - in me speech ideas folder so I can include it in that project on paradigm shifts..."

So I do a save as from Netscape, key the title of the document and then see that I am aimed at the wrong place on the hard drive.  No problem I click on the appropriate buttons (windows silently erases the really neat name I had just keyed) and navigate until I see an alias (ooops I mean shortcut) to the folder I want to save it in.  I double click and POOF! I am back looking at the email.  "HMMMMM that was just to darn fast even for this shiny new computer" I think.

Control M to get all the windows out of the way and double-click on the shortcut to my "speech ideas" folder which is on the desktop.  I catch a brief glimpse of the hourglass and then there are the contents of the folder - no document...???  OK I go to the "favorites" folder where i clicked the shortcut to the "speech ideas" folder (still with me?)  I double click on that alias which should also take me to the place I was before (Speech ideas).   I catch a brief glimpse of the hourglass and then .... nothing......  Try again...... Same thing...... ?????  Ok the shortcut is no longer connected.

But why didn't windows see that and tell me????
 

New hard drive the hard way! 19 Oct. 1997

I haven't touched my pc in 48 hours so I haven't had any problems.  I did have one hell of a time dialing into my wife's mac. BUt that was because I was dialing the wrong number.  As always as soon as I asked my kids to try - the problem was solved - maybe I should ask them to help me with my PC when i have problems?  Or would that be considered child abuse?

Not to worry one of the evangelists has pointed out a problem I am aware of and that is worrying me even now..

From the Evangelist..   <http://www.lists.apple.com/evangelist.html>
 
 

Date: Thu, 16 Oct. 97 08:02:04 -0800
From: EvangeList <evangelist@apple.com>
Subject: Tidbit - How I Spent My Weekend -  Installing a Hard Drive

Keyword: Advocacy, Windows Daymares

This tidbit is from:

Johnmichael P.M. Monteith, <monty@1stop.com>

I ran out of hard drive space on my WinTel machine on Friday, and decided
it was time to had another hard drive. It is now Sunday evening. I now
finally have it installed.

Problem 1: How to install a third hard drive. I already have two hard
drives in the system. If you know about EIDE interfaces, I am certain you
have heard how it is possible to install more than two IDE devices. Well,
that is if your second IDE interface card can handle hard drives. Most
manufacturers put a high speed EIDE interface for two hard drives, and a
slow EIDE interface for CDROM and tape drives. Such is the case in my
machine. Therefore, hooking up the hard drive to the second card would
not be wise.

The result? Get rid of one of the smaller hard drives, and keep to only
two. (Those of you with more than 2 SCSI devices should take pride that
you bought the right computer in your Mac.) That translates to a loss of
a gigabyte, or about $100.00. But, hey, who's counting?

Problem 2: Moving data from old hard drive to new one. Since I can not
have more than two hard drives hooked up to the system at the same time,
how can I copy the data from the hard drive I do not want to the hard
drive I do? Hook them both up, boot from a Windows 95 startup floppy, and
copy the files. Easy, right? First, the system disk did not include XCOPY
(the regular copy command will not copy directories and subdirectories).
So, I re-hooked up the old hard drive, copied the files, re-hooked up the
new hard drive, booted off of the floppy ... you can see where this is
going.

Ever been in a 'discussion' with a Windows 95 user trying to explain to
them that underneath Windows 95, DOS is sitting there? They will tell you
that the DOS is actually just a part of Windows 95, and not the opposite.
Well, if that were true, and if I made a Windows 95 boot disk, you would
expect it to support long file names, wouldn't you? Guess again. Instead,
when the floppy boots up and says "Windows 95" (when it usually would say
"MSDOS 6"), you get the same old problems that were around in all of the
previous DOS versions, including the 8 character filename limit.

But, I digress. I attempted to copy all of my files from one hard drive
to the other because I can only have two hard drives. Can you guess what
happened to my files? All of the extended file names gut truncated down
to 8 characters, and suddenly none of the applications worked because
they could not find the file names they were looking for.

Problem 3: How to get the extended file names copied on to the new hard
drive. Okay, I'll skip to how I solved the problem rather than the
painful road I traveled to find the solution: Get another WinTel machine.
Install LapLink on both. LapLink the hard drive (800 megabytes of hard
drive data) from the old hard drive to the new one. In case you get the
urge, this will pretty much take up your day.

But, hey, I did it! My Mac never gives me this enormous feeling of
accomplishment after installing a new SCSI drive. I feel like I just won
a gold at the Olympics. If I installed a hard drive on a Mac, I would
have been bored all weekend long. Or perhaps, I might have actually
gotten some work done.
 
 

That's NOT user friendly 27 October

So I am surfing the web and i come across what everyone is searching for - A page with usefull content.  So Much So I print it.  A quick glance at the printer tells me that I won't get the whole page on the two shest of paper remaining.  So  I grab for the extra paper in the drawer - oops It was late and last time I filled up the printer I forgot to get some more...

By the time I get back from the room where they store the copier paper I am greeted with this dialouge box...

(to make cool screen shots of only the active window press Alt and Print screen and then paste it into you nearest friendly application.  Just print screen gets the whole screen which can be overkill)

Now that isn't what I expected.  So I tried it again. (I even followed the step by step guide that pops up....)

Same thing.

The only positive part of this is that it reminds me of the old A serous problem has occured Diagulge box on the MAC - the one where OK restarted you computer and lost all yor changes and where there were no other options. (I never got those hints with the programe switch to work)
 

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