View 545 November 17 - 23, 2008 (original) (raw)
Monday, November 17, 2008
For news about my current activities, seeyesterday's View.
For the beginning of the Mail failure story, see also yesterday's View.
Mac experts tell me that Mac Mail does not fail, and thus I must have done something wrong. I suppose that is true: what I didn't know to do was go to Mail, Preferences, Account, and discover that me.com had been added as a server to my list of servers. I did not add that myself. When I set the the iMac the account was mac.com.
On that page I had checked, and have had checked since April, a box that says Use Only this server. (Referring to mac.com I guess.) Unchecking that box produced instant results: my mail was working again.
Of course a smarter user would know that once Mac OS updates the system you must go to Mail Preferences Accounts and examine that; in that sense I guess the accusation that I don't use my Mac enough is valid. So the moral of the story is that if you use a Mac, you must give it a lot of attention. Or be a lot smarter than me.
[ALL RIGHT: it turns out that checking or unchecking that box had nothing to do with making the Mac Mail work, but by changing a setting in preferences it forced the Mac to refresh its DNS, and that instantly fixed the problem. I would think that an automatic refresh of such things might with some profit be built into the update, but that's just my view.]
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The Great Global Warming Swindle.
<http://www.garagetv.be/video-
galerij/blancostemrecht/
The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle
_Documentary_Film.aspx>--- Roland Dobbins
Despite the inflammatory title, this is a very well reasoned report, and I recommend it to everyone here. It's a matter of some importance. It goes to primary science sources. It will take a while to watch this, but I urge you to do so.
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Network Reconstruction:
Vista doesn't play nice with networking, and I don't understand its various settings. Symptoms will be that XP computers vanish from the list that Vista can see; or a Vista machine can see Orlando, the T42p ThinkPad, but attempting to connect to it gets a message that I am not authorized. Other such problems surface from time to time, all with Vista machines.
The Apple side of the network works pretty well. It went screwy for a few days as Apple updates from .mac to .me, and I suspect we are not through with the problems as Apple tries to synchronize everything by use of the cloud, but the Mac side of the network, although a bit less convenient than the Windows side, does work.
When the Windows side works, it works well. For one thing I can map drives, so that Orlando is seen by Bette the communications Core 2 Quad 6600 as O:, and I can do things like xcopy C:\winword o:\winword /e/s/d/y and it will automatically copy all and only updated documents form Bette to Orlando. I can also use that with Norton Commander, which still works with Vista; I can build batch files to synchronize different directories on various machines. I know no way to do that with a Mac, but the new .me cloud system is trying to make that happen. We will see.
I am fairly happy with the Windows kind of networking -- when it works. But every now and then, always following an Microsoft Windows update, various Vista machines can't see each other, or can't see XP machines, or can't see one of the Mac systems. This is usually remedied by shutting down both machines, restarting them, and waiting a while; but it's annoying.
As a result I am about to stand down from the Windows 2000 Server Active Directory system I am using now. Peter Glaskowsky says my network is bizarrely complicated. I don't believe that: when I take the trouble to tool up on using Active Directory it allows me to do all kinds of things rather easily, including setting permissions levels for users. All during XP it worked just fine. Now Microsoft has "updated" the networking protocols for Vista, and the result is a lot of confusion -- and it changes each time Microsoft "updates" Vista.
Example: for most of this year I could connect to Vista machines from Imogene the iMac 20 and Khaos the MacBook Air simply by logging on as me (just using username) with my system password. That worked just fine, and once connected I could access any part of the target machine, move files back and forth, and so forth. I have yet to find a convenient to use command equivalent of XCOPY that will let me transfer all and only later files in specific directories, but I can live with that limitation. Then Microsoft Updated Vista: and now, in order to log on to a Vista system from a Mac I have to do so by typing in username@domainname.jerrypournelle.com; the previous system didn't require @ signs at all. This isn't onerous, but it is annoying. And sometimes when Microsoft does updates I have to shut down darned near every machine in the house to get the network going properly again.
At PDC and WinHEC Microsoft was pushing Server 2008 and Windows Home Server. As it happens I acquired an HP Windows Home Server box. I have a machine that would accommodate Windows Server 2008. That same machine would also accommodate Clark Communications network management under Linux; according to Phil Tharp who runs Mac systems, Windows systems, and Virtual Windows systems on Macs, this works just fine: the network runs wonderfully. It will also serve as router and firewall. That last is not for me plus: I like the D-Link Gaming Router, and it makes my system invisible according to Gibson Research Shields Up. I don't really want to replace a router with a Linux PC.
So my choices are:
1. obliterate the existing Active Directory system, put each computer into a Workgroup, and allow the D-Link Gaming Router to take over all the network management including URL assignments. This would take an afternoon's work to get familiar with setting up the router, and another afternoon reconfiguring each computer, and I admit a tiny bit of confusion as to the order of events -- if I nuke the Active Directory Server how will the individual machines be able to come up and log me in -- but I am sure that an hour's study will make the procedure clear.
2. obliterate the existing Active Directory system, buy Clark Communications Linux package, install that on the Dell, attach each of the machines to that. This has the great merit that I'll have access to an experienced user who has his system set up just as I want mine set up.
3. obliterate the existing Active Directory system, and get Eric to come over and help me set up the Dell with Windows 2008 Server, transfer the Domain to that, and with luck all will go well. Eric has experience with this stuff, and I'll learn a lot from watching and I don't mind asking him stupid questions and he doesn't mind answering them.
4. obliterate the existing Active Directory system, and install the Windows Home Server box, with or without transfer of domain. Roland tells me I'll regret this: it won't be easy or simple. He's very likely right, and I'm daunted, but I will have a look at the manual for Windows Home Server.
5. Do nothing and continue to muddle through: which isn't really an option, because everything is dependent on a very old machine that's due to fail, and which has vary small resource. I currently use a Box of Drives for backup. Not an optimum solution, and this is necessarily a temporary situation.
I've got a couple of days, and some studying to do. Expert advice appreciated here, but please, don't bombard me with speculations and feelings, or opinions about how good Apple is and how Awful Microsoft is, or why you are prejudiced toward or against Linux, or --- . I have plenty of such messages, more than I can read, and just now I'm low on time. Please.
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Mac Mail
Another setting to watch out for: the checkbox that tells the mail program that, after you have downloaded your mail successfully, the program can delete that mail from the main server.
I have had this setting change by itself to a default where it does NOT delete the mail from the server. I found this out only after my provider informed me that my server mailbox was full.
Tom Brosz
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As to politics, I watched 60 Minutes Obama interview last night, and I learned:
1. Neither Obama nor CBS knows the difference between President Elect and President Designate or Presumptive President Elect. Obama does not become President Elect until the Electoral College meets and casts ballots and those are opened and recorded in the Capitol.
2. Obama will close Guantanamo; and he will forbid use of waterboarding by US agents. In an hour of interview that is all I got on specifics. Barrack Obama is good, excellent, at giving reassuring speeches without much in the way of content. I heard him on the finance issues, on military policies, on a whole bunch of stuff, and I was unable to determine what he is going to do. I also didn't get the impression that he understands what will happen when the ravenous wolves -- Democratic Committee Chairmen -- begin their pressure. (Ravenous wolves was Jimmy Carter's description of Congressional Chairmen; note that these were Democrats.) I don't think Obama will be able to resist them.
3. He has been reading Lincoln. I got the impression he was reading an autobiography, but I am not aware that one exists, so I probably got the wrong idea. Perhaps he is reading Lincoln's letters, possibly in conjunction with a biography. I'd love to know whose biography.
4. I don't think he has been reading Amity Schlaes The Forgotten Man, which in my judgment is essential for understanding the Great Depression and what effects The New Deal had (and didn't have. Roosevelt was not an ideologue. He thought himself a pragmatist. Most of what he did did not work as planned; we are stuck with the remnants of many of his measures, one of which, Fannie Mae which transmogrified from the rather successful FHA into a monster that triggered the crisis.
5. Obama is good. It was a good and reassuring interview, and Obama came off as a pragmatic and charismatic leader. I can just hear him saying that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. What I don't know is what he will actually do.
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Regarding fixing Mac Mail:
[ALL RIGHT: it turns out that checking or unchecking that box had nothing to do with making the Mac Mail work, but by changing a setting in preferences it forced the Mac to refresh its DNS, and that instantly fixed the problem. I would think that an automatic refresh of such things might with some profit be built into the update, but that's just my view.]
My thanks to Peter Glaskowsky who continued to tell me I was all wrong in my theories.
It's clear the local network must die. The question is what will replace it.
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