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April 30, 1998
News
Information about Ty Davison straight from the horse's mouth.
News Archives
Years worth of mind-numbing details, ponderings, and events.
News Links
External URLs that have cropped up in the course of the News history.
April 30, 1998
Many thanks to Dave, Garr and Joe who showed up to chat the night away at the weekly Davison Online chat session last night. It didn't necessarily go as late as other chats have gone, but it was a great time nonetheless. If you've not done a Yahoo! Chat before, next Wednesday night offers another opportunity.My good friend Dave arrived from Oregon today, and we get to spend the next few days causing as much trouble as possible for those in the Mountain View/South Bay area. Already we've tried numerous PC games on Virtual PC (conclusion: DirectX bites), hauled my new monitor over to Saint Francis and tested it (conclusion: my new monitor bites), and watched the Sharks lose 3-2 to the Dallas Stars in Dallas (conclusion: the referee bites).
April 29, 1998
We said good-bye today to Ben, Erin's grandfather. At the funeral service (and the vigil last night) he was remembered as a man of wit, compassion, and faith, a blessing to the many people who's lives he touched in his long life. He was a bank loan officer for many years, helping those who needed help. He was active in his church and a leading member for many years in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men's fraternal organization. He outlived both of his wives, and he raised six kids. He had the wonderful fortune to play the role of grandfather for many years. In the last few years, Ben—who was adopted—even discovered a large family of half-brothers and half-sisters in Iowa and had the chance to meet many of them.In the end, he knew he was dying. At the care center he would point up at the air vent in the ceiling over his bed and tell visitors that's how he was leaving—through the air vent and on into heaven. Clearly, he was aware of what was going on. When I saw him a few weeks ago, he seemed very much at peace.
April 27, 1998
The beasty 19" monitor arrived this afternoon, and I'll be darned if my bad luck with computer peripherals doesn't continue. In short, it doesn't work with either the Power Mac 7500 or the Mac IIci—a fact which encourages my belief that I've either got a bum cable or a bum monitor. I went out and bought another video adapter just in case that was the problem, but it hasn't made any difference.Compared to all this, writing and recording an album will be a snap.
April 26, 1998
Troubleshooting and upgrading a Macintosh might sound like a strange way to have a really good time, but I spent today over at friends Shan and Heather's place doing just that.Shan and I took turns thinking up new and important fix-it techniques and by the end of the day we had their Mac Performa (1) completely free of disk errors, (2) upgraded to MacOS 8.1, and (3) putting web browser cache files into a RAM disk for faster browsing. Maybe we could've accomplished all this faster than we did, it's hard to do anything but have a lazy sort of Sunday afternoon when there's no real stress involved in the work you're doing. (The stress level would've been totally different had this been a PC, I assure you.)
Heather was out most of the afternoon while Shan and I dinked around with the Mac. Upon her return she mistakenly hailed us as dedicated and brilliant repair technicians, something Shan and I wasted no time in agreeing with wholeheartedly. In reality we did nothing to deserve such praise, but that didn't stop Shan or me from scaling the heights of hyperbole, and by the time I went to leave we were clamoring for the Nobel Prize in the heretofore unknown category of computer repair.
April 25, 1998
I'm looking for someone interested in trying free phone calls via the Internet using PGP Fone. Note that simple desire isn't enough as PGP Fone takes a fair amount of computer resources as well. For Mac, the requirements are: a 68040 processor or better, a microphone into the computer (some PowerBooks have the mic built in), the ability to use headphones for sound out (otherwise you get feedback), and a 28.8k modem connection or better. The Wintel requirements are much the same except the processor should be Pentium or better.So if you can harness this type of computer power and would like to see what free (and, coincidentally, encrypted) communications over the Internet are like send me an email. PGP Fone, in beta form, is downloadable from MIT's PGP site.
Erin and I went to the Saint Francis High School production of A Chorus Line, a ensemble-based musical. Aside from a couple technical glitches, the show was very well done, and many of the kids have impressive singing voices. I've not seen the play or the movie so I've no basis for comparison, but I was impressed nonetheless. (In case anyone's wondering how they got around this at a Catholic high school, they changed lyrics to the relatively racy number Tits and Ass into This and That. I would've preferred keeping the original words.)
April 24, 1998
I updated my treatise on Pretty Good Privacy, which now reflects my move to PGP version 5.0 and a new Public Key. Version 5.0 adds a number of nice features, including increased security and speed as well as smoother integration with e-mail programs like Eudora. An easy upgrade and it's free. [Note that the above Pretty Good Privacy link takes you into my Opinions section which is not for the easily offended.]I had the misfortune of missing the FedEx delivery of my new monitor today. That'll teach me to shower at 11 in the morning. The upside, besides smelling a lot better than I otherwise would, is that now I have time to send off the clunky 486 DX-100 and prepare Henry, my Mac IIci, a well-deserved place of honor on the desk.
April 23, 1998
Erin's grandfather Ben died today after a very long, very full life. He outlived two wives and raised six kids. He was the patriarch of a large extended family that even contained for him a few great-grandchildren. Known for his sense of humor and the twinkle in his eye, he passed away as a success in everything that matters in life. The funeral will be next Wednesday in Oakdale, California.April 22, 1998
After really getting my rump roasted on FICS (Free Internet Chess Server) the other night, I've hopped back into studying some chess openings. After Al gave me a terrible thrashing playing 1. d4, I've been studying the Grünfeld defense to see if I can't do a little better. I'll post the results in the chess analysis area.Had a terrific Yahoo! Chat tonight with Dave, Joe, Helana and Garr all popping in to say hello. It really is terrific to have so many people stop by, and even better, it's all free! Imagine what this would cost if we had to pay long-distance on it. Whew. I was on from 10 PM to 2:15 AM. That'd be a whopper of a phone bill even with evening rates. Anyway, thanks everybody for making it a great time!
April 21, 1998
Finally did the deed and purchased a whopping 19" monitor. I went with the Princeton EO 90, a monitor that's only slightly above average in terms of quality, but way above average in terms of price (at $659.07). Although I was sorely tempted by a number of super high-quality 17" monitors in the same price range, 19" monitors offer an amazing 25 percent more screen real estate than the 17 inchers, and my need is to display lots of palettes and windows, not to display graphics with world-class crispness and 100 percent color fidelity.The only bad part of this entire arrangement is that the monitor is backordered. So it looks like I won't get it until next week. But that's a small inconvenience for a good monitor at a boffo price.
April 20, 1998
I've decided to grow a goatee (which I prefer to pronounce as "goaty"), something I'm sure will cement my status as a member of the hip and trendy jet-setting crowd. I actually started a couple days ago, so my face is plenty scratchy and itchy (or itchy and scratchy, for you Simpsons fans). I'm doing the full-beard thing first; I'll move to goatee stage once there's actually something on my face to shave.Picked up HTML in Plan English by Sandra E. Eddy. It's a very helpful detailing of all kinds of HTML tags, and perhaps more importantly, there's info on cascading style sheets and numeric character values. In other words, stuff I can use.
April 18, 1998
Finally held the long-awaited, much re-scheduled dinner with friends Shan and Heather, and as expected, it was a lot of fun. Shan does design work for a solar/alternative energy company, and Heather is a first grade teacher. Conversation, as usual, ranged all over the map, from tattoos to politics to solar airplanes, and it was well after midnight when Erin and I departed. Everybody in the group is busy, making get-togethers difficult, but with luck we'll be able to have another meeting soon.April 16, 1998
You'd never know it from the amount of work she's been doing, but Erin is officially on Spring Break this week. I convinced her to take at least one day off, so today we headed to the coast. We walked along the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, hung out in a park in Monterey, and looked at the shops in Clint Eastwood's tourist-trap town of Carmel. The weather was sunny and nice, with a pleasant breeze coming off the ocean. A very nice, relaxing day.And now, back to the grind.
April 15, 1998 — Tax Day
God knows we've been nicked once again by Uncle Sam, a fact that wouldn't be nearly so grievous if so many of our hard-earned dollars weren't headed to the military. Remember: Any time there's a funding crisis, be it education, environment or whatever, it's the money we spend on the military that's the cause. There's no Soviet super power breathing down our necks any more, and while that doesn't mean the world isn't a dangerous place and that we don't need a military, surely we don't need a military even close to Cold War levels.April 14, 1998
Had a wonderful dinner with friends Brian and Debbie. Their young daughter Erin was pretty shy since it was past her bedtime, but she's definitely a cutey, sleepy or not. It was a crazy weather day here in the Bay Area, and unbelievably some areas (Brian and Debbie's was one) got a little snow! In April! In the Bay Area! Talk about weird.April 13, 1998
Saw the much-hyped Boogie Nights, with Burt Reynolds, Mark Wahlberg and Julianne Moore. A good late-70s/early 80s period piece on the pornography industry, it's ultimately a fairly uneven picture, though the acting is quite good and many of the scenes are superb.This is easily the best work Burt Reynolds has done in years, and man, I never thought I'd say this and mean it, but I've a new-found respect for "Marky Mark" aka Mark Wahlberg. He did a great job.
Boogie Nights definitely has that "indie" feel to it, which is a great strength and weakness. Unlike so many clichéd Hollywood flicks, it's unpredictable—somewhat in the vein of Pulp Fiction in that sense. But at the same time the technical level of the production is on the lower end of big picture standards. Not that film didn't try and succeed at some technically complex shots and scenes; it's just that the over all "feel" came off as rather low-budget.
Boogie Nights isn't one of the best films I've seen, but it is highly original and contains excellent acting. There's some good psychological material to ponder—a Freudian psychologist would definitely get into this—and it's a reasonably engaging story. No reason to catch it on the big screen, though. Video rental would be fine.
April 12, 1998 — Easter
Obviously a fairly festive day, we spent Easter breakfast and dinner with Erin's parents and did a nice afternoon party with friends in-between.April 10, 1998 — Good Friday
Spent a lot of time yesterday working on my ISP connection problem. At this point I can always get a connection and log onto the server, but many times after about a minute my connection drops. I'll be talking with Slip.Net again this morning.My Virtual PC review is getting good feedback. I even got a note from Jorg Brown, the Connectix' Virtual PC Product Team Leader. Apparently I had a small mistake concerning VPC and video cards versus VPC and on-board video. Basically, on-board video have the fastest screen redraws for everything except programs (games mostly) which use the 3Dfx chipset. In those cases, having a 3Dfx video card will be faster.
Just sliding in under the wire, I completed the Federal, California and Oregon tax forms today. Why is my monitor purchase delayed for another month? Ha, ha, ha! Love ya to death Uncle Sam, but get out of my life! =)
April 9, 1998
Last night's Yahoo! Chat was the most successful yet, with four loyal web readers (including me) joining in the fun. Topics, as always, were diverse and interesting, though I noted that it's a little dangerous to get together so many people who know me so well. I can really get harshed on in a hurry. Still, lot's of fun, and I hope more people will join us next week.Concerning Virtual PC, I've solved the Internet problem. My TCP/IP configuration was off. At the same time, I'm having some difficulty connecting reliably to Slip.Net. With both Mac and PC, it generally takes 3-4 calls before I get a usable connection. I never had this problem (and still don't) with Alink, so it makes me think that I've either configured something wrong, or there's a problem with Slip.Net's modems or access number. I'll talk with tech support to see.
April 6, 1998
So I spent a good bit of today playing around with Virtual PC 2.0. The short form is that on a G3 that MacBenches at least 1100, VP 2.0 runs just great, easily outpacing the 486 DX-100 I've got sitting next door. I ran a couple of QuickBooks Pro 5 reports and graphs to make sure of this, and VP finished clearly first every time.In terms of games, I installed the demo version of Hellbender (whatever the "hell" that is) and played a couple of times. I think the frame rates are okay, but I definitely didn't know how to play, so this might not have been a good test. Maybe I'll download the demo of Doom off the net and do a real test. Oh, I should mention that I'm running without a 3Dfx Voodoo graphics card, something that I've heard allows gamers to play all the latest PC stuff full-blast.
The set up to VP 2.0 couldn't be simpler. My total install time was about 10 minutes and that includes the install of Windows 95. (Connectix' made a disk image of a complete Win95 install and users load that instead of sitting through a terminally boring regular Win95 install.)
So far everything except for Internet stuff has gone exceedingly well. For whatever reason, MSIE 3.0 (which is the version bundled with the machine) gave me my only crash of the day, barfing, appropriately enough I suppose, when it tried to load my site. (Hey, the feeling is mutual!) If there's a downside to VP, this is it: You can now crash two operating systems for the price of one. That can't be a good thing.
But I'm certain I'll get this niggling little Internet problem solved, and even if I don't, I don't really care. I didn't get Virtual PC to do Internet stuff anyway. I got it so I could say, "Hey! The Mac is so much better than all those weeny PC machines that I'll not only run my software, I'll run yours too!" What a crack-up!
Concerning my on-going problems with Bottom Line, I'm happy to report a resolution. After confirming with Ritz at MacGlobal that the repair cost on the 7500 motherboard was indeed going to be $150, I received a call from David Goldman, the president of Bottom Line. We agreed to split the cost of the repair, and he confirmed that Bottom Line would pick up the UPS charges I incurred when I sent the machine to them (which is what I was promised). It's not a resounding victory for the consumer, but I think it is a "win-win" scenario, and since I expected to get totally stiffed, I came away reasonably pleased.
Now that this is over, I again have Mike Breeden of Accelerate Your Mac! to thank for his beyond-the-call-of-duty support. It's people like him who make the Mac community something special.
The Show That Never Ends
Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, the now-back-in-action, can't-be-beat, money-back-guaranteed web site that is Davison On-line. Since many of you (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!) may be wondering exactly what knocked this brilliant web site to its knees over the course of the last couple weeks, let me tell you: It was greed. Pure and simple greed. The kind that makes people lust over otherwise inconsequential (though nicely crisp) green and white paper. The kind that keeps Wall Street professionals and pseudo-investment intellectuals up at night wondering if the FED will raise interest rates. (Note: It's 3 AM.) We're talking about the kind of greed that will make a man do things, and I swear that if it weren't for Prozac and a fifth of JD, I'd be even more incomprehensible right now.
In short, my old Internet Service Provider, Alink (if that is your real name!) wanted to charge me tons of money (i.e. $50 extra a month) because the traffic on my site had increased to such an extent that I bypassed the 5,000 files per month transfer limit. Nobody I know tracks web site success (or failure) by "files transferred." Geez, my two opening pages alone consist of something like 5 or 6 files, but it's not like 2 vistors should equal 10 to 12 hits.
I called Alink to chat about this. After all, I thought getting visitors to your site was the whole idea. Turns out I was wrong. The idea is to have less than 5,000 files per month transferred. Or you get an extra $50 fee.
"How can I tell how many files have been tranferred?" I asked, "And what, short of tearing down my web site, do I do if I'm approaching that limit?"
Alink helpfully volunteered to send me weekly logs of the files transferred but was stunned into silence by the incredible logic of my second question. After briefly putting me on hold so that, I'm sure, they could assemble whoever happened to be at work for an impromtu office meeting (I picture the Office Manager calling for a show of hands in deciding what the official Alink response is), I was told I had no recourse but to take the site down when I approached the magical 5,000 file limit.
I said the first thing that came to mind:"See ya!"
So I pulled the site down and started researching. And look what I found in my own backyard: Slip.Net, an ISP that would make Mom proud, especially if she hadn't stopped reading a couple paragraphs ago. Among the Slip.Net bonuses:
- Connections at 31 to 33 kps versus Alink's 28.8k connections
- A more extensive newsgroup list
- Multiple local access numbers and so far no busy signals
- Up to 1,000 web site hits per week with no extra charge (it took me 9 months to get that many—I think I'll be okay)
- No $30 setup fee thanks to a special offer
- Only $19.95 a month; $10 a month less than I was paying with Alink
Now I'm not trying to "dis" Alink by saying all this. They were my first ISP, and as such they'll always have a special place in my heart, right next to the spot that remembers the Vic-20 as my first computer. Ah, the memories. I won't forget you, Alink! This isn't about you, it's about me! We can still be friends! (But not if you're going to charge me an extra $50 a month, we can't! See ya!)
I'm sure I'll probably run into something about Slip.Net which I absolutely can't stand, and after the discovery I'll spend the rest of the day regretting ever being born. But up until now, it's been pretty darn great, and hey, you know me, if I have any complaints, you'll hear about them. Here.—April 6, 1998
April 5, 1998
After about a year and half at Alink, I've moved my Internet account to Slip.net. So far I've gotten no busy signals, e-mail seems to be working perfect, the newsgroup list appears to be more comprehensive and my connections are typically slightly faster (33 to 31 kps versus 28.8 kps at Alink). All that remains is getting this web site running, and we'll have a grand slam: I'm paying $10 a month less.April 3, 1998
I ordered Connectix' Virtual PC 2.0 this morning. The $150 program, a Wintel computer emulator, should give me at least Pentium 100-MHz speeds. As some of you may know, that's all the encouragement I'll need to ship the 486 DX-100 sitting on my desk as far away from me as possible. So long as Virtual PC will run Intuit's QuickBooks Pro 5 at a reasonably good speed, I'm in heaven. I have almost no desire to run Windows 95 other than that, though I confess there may be some DOS games which might be cool.I had planned to buy a 17" monitor later this month, and while that's still a possibility, I'm almost more inclined now to wait another month and look at 19" displays. The only real concern I have is that Zeke's case is rated to 50 lbs. and most 19" monitors are slightly above that. (But perhaps I can build a stand. Who knows?) The key here is that I must have enough screen real estate to view a large number of MIDI and digital audio windows simultaneously. I could just get two smaller monitors, but than I'd need a video card and I don't have the PCI slots to spare. (One PCI card will be an audio card, one will be a SCSI accelerator for the Jaz drive, and the last one I'd like to use for a video in/out card in a couple years.)
I won't delved too deeply into the nightmare that is my experience with Bottom Line other than to say that I got a call from Ritz at MacGlobal today who said that the 7500 motherboard they so kindly swapped out for me is deader than a doornail. Specifically, the processor slot has had something (an accelerator card? Ooooh, the possibilities!) jammed into it blowing the slot all to heck. $150 to repair it.
Since I sent Bottom Line a working machine, the damage is processor slot-specific (the area they were working), and not something that could've been caused by "shipping and handling," I called customer service. Someone, theoretically, will call me back.
April 2, 1998
Dave and I did another Yahoo! Chat event last night, this time joined by Helana (and friend) from up in Washington. Between the three of us, we had the whole West Coast covered, and I've got to say that it was quite a bit of fun. Next week's chat time is 9 PM instead of the regular 10 PM. Hope to see you there!I didn't mention this yesterday, but I've re-christened my Power Mac 7500. Since we swapped out the motherboard and the processor card is now a PowerLogix G3, I figure Fritz is pretty well dead. Trust me when I say that the grief is much easier to deal with when your Mac runs 8 to 10 times faster.
Everybody, say hello to "Zeke."
We've not had much time to get acquainted, but here's a pretty good indication of just how fast Zeke is. I ran Adobe Photoshop 3.05, loaded a couple images, and then randomly tried about 20 different plug-ins/filters. I was unable to get a progress bar to come up no matter what I did. Zeke is too fast.
I tried a couple 24 frame per second, full-screen Quicktime movies too. They appear to run smoothly and without drops. The demos of Quake and Duke Nukem 3D run flawlessly. Even my Internet stuff seems faster.
If there's a downside here, it's that I no longer wait for the machine; that's a change, and believe it or not, it's taking a little getting used to. For example, I have to be a little more careful when I delete stuff. The gaps that used to exist between thought, action and reconsideration are gone. I can now trash a couple dozen files, empty the trash and have absolutely no prayer of hitting "cancel" before the files are all gone. This is okay, so long as I don't do really thoughtless things; I consider this kind of a forced human upgrade, if that makes sense: The machine is faster, so I've gotta be smarter. That's not such a bad thing.
April 1, 1998 — April Fool's Day
It's really amazing to me that so much could sudden go right so far as my computer situation is concerned. I'm pretty amused that it's happening today, of all days, as well. Here, then, is the resolution of my problem: As you'll recall, my Power Mac 7500, the aptly named "Fritz," refused to boot up with my faster-than-Superman PowerLogix 275/275/1 G3 card. I took everything to DT&T Macintosh Services and they told me that the Revision A (aka "VAL-4") motherboards of the 7500 series did not accelerate past 150-MHz. They were happy to install a new one for me at the budget price of $300.Their information about VAL-4 motherboards turns out to be utterly false.
Not wanting to spend an additional $300, I sent Fritz and the G3 card to Bottom Line and PowerLogix, since they claimed that the card should work with any 7500. They didn't even need to run tests to tell me that the motherboard's processor slot was missing a pin. For whatever reason, the slower 120-MHz 604 card ran fine, but this missing pin choked the G3 card.
So I turned again to MacGlobal, the guys who sold me Fritz in the first place. Earlier today they swapped out the motherboard, and what do you know I'm now MacBenching 1132. So far as I'm concerned, the MacGlobal guys—Dave in particular—are heroes. The 7500 they sold me worked as advertised (for a 7500), and they were really under no obligation to help me out. If anyone out there is looking to buy a used Mac, I heartily recommend these guys. They'll take care of you if there are problems.
PowerLogix came out of this whole snafu okay in my book as well. They tried everything they could think of to help me and were even willing to have their engineering tech look my machine over. The card itself works great, and the benchmark scores are out of sight.
Bottom Line Distribution faired less well. True, they ultimately diagnosed my problem, but if this card had not worked out, they intended to charge me a $325 "re-stocking fee," a move I would've been forced to contest through VISA. As a result, I won't be buying from them in the future, and frankly, I don't recommend anyone else does either.
Finally, I want to publicly thank Mike Breeden of Accelerate Your Mac! He really went to bat for me, and without his help, I don't know where I'd be. Certainly not running at G3 speeds, that's for sure.
