RDF/RSS Feed
Atom Feed
For Orbit UK, Rachel Bach and I interviewed each other; my interview of her went up a few weeks ago (I did mention that, didn’t I? I hope?) and her interview of me is up now at the Orbit blog. It’s not specifically about Crown of Renewal but it’s a nice general thing. We were asked to pose 4-5 questions for each other–and we both enjoyed the process.
Next week (Wednesday the 27th) I’ll be Twitter-chatting with Brian Thomas Schmidt on SFF Chat for an hour (no doubt annoying my choir director, because I won’t be at rehearsal.) Schmidt, you may recall, is the editor of Shattered Shields, the fantasy anthology a new Paksworld story is coming out in. Some of you may be too engrossed in Crown to join us, but any who want to (whose Crown copy didn’t arrive?) are welcome. As you can see from the website transcripts, Mr. Schmidt has a wicked sense of humor and I will have to be quick on my mental feet to keep up with him and those who enter the conversation. (There will be more reminders about this. That’s how the writer ego works…)
Meanwhile, I’ll be setting up my new computer system to replace Old Faithful (not her name), the old XP system that has been showing signs of a) internet incompatibility and b) actual age-related disease symptoms ( “what was that noise?” and “is this monitor going to croak like the last one?” and “terminal slowness”) for months and months now. Nothing fancy, just a basic box and a monitor that isn’t over a decade old. (My current one, a replacement for the one that had outlived two computers, was used and pulled out of a friend’s barn as a stopgap until I got a new computer.) And a new keyboard because my old one lacks the right kind of plug for modern computers. (I think it’s outlasted three, or maybe four, computers. It’s a PC Concepts ergonomic one that I like a lot. I think the replacement–another ergonomic with an even wider wrist rest–will be fine.)
The immediate reason for all this was son’s computer diving into oblivion (malware) and needing to replace his before classes started for his summer session. Early attempts to repair the dead one (moved from son’s apartment to a friend’s house in the city) by replacing the hard drive and inserting a recovery OS ordered from the computer’s manufacturer failed (editing out long, boring story of three aging computer nerds, son, a house with a Linux box, a Mac, and an old Windows machine that hadn’t been used and was apparently in a snit about that, plus the dead machine, plus a flight of stairs between machines and limited time and it was late and we were all tired…)
But since I needed a new computer too, and we were at Fry’s, and because I had worn my hardcore nerd shirt (A-Kon Staff) and that meant the fellows staffing the hardware end could see potential in the fat old lady…I walked out with a shopping cart full of the necessary stuff and left behind some very helpful people. Back at friends’ house, we assembled son’s new computer with the old monitor, got it set up with Firefox and Thunderbird, then repacked everything to take to his apartment (where the remains of an earlier computer are still sitting dustily beside his desk), hooked everything up, and I drove home, arriving an hour earlier than the previous night (when it was near midnight.)
Computers that may, in the long run, save a lot of time also waste a lot of the owner’s/helper’s time in the early stages. Waiting for the machine to swallow and digest the software and emit the right burps of contentment, and then the same for another, and another…is better than getting error message after error message, but still…dull. It is somewhat frustrating that code expands to fill the space available for it, so though a newer machine always has more RAM, and a bigger drive…the OS and other more advanced software it requires also needs more RAM and more disk space, so there’s not as much more space for the owner to fill with her or his own files as owner might want. It doesn’t annoy younger computer-users, who grew up with that situation, but for those of us who started on machines where every precious byte of memory was treasured, conserved, re-used over and over because that’s all there was…we can get testy about “bloated code” and imagine how fast our old, sleek, tight-code programs would run in the vast spaces now available. (Y’all know that COBOL would run in 56K on mainframes that wouldn’t make the grade as laptops now, right? And some of you are as old as mountains, like me, and undoubtedly spent time on your knees on a floor covered with a core-dump printout, trying to find a pesky error in Assembler code. And your template for making flowcharts is still somewhere in the house or office, dusty and now brittle with age.)
While I was driving home, son had another problem with the new system, but by the time I called him about it (having heard from aging nerd #4, who lives here) he’d fixed it himself with the phone aid of aging nerd #2.
I need to clear space today to set up NewBox (and think of a name to give it for the local network) and OldBox side by side, so when aging computer nerd #5 shows up on Saturday with his fancy thingie that will transfer stuff effortlessly (?) from box to box it will be easy for him. That will not be on my desk. I think the kitchen table is required for that phase of the project. Aging computer nerd #5 is a few years older than I am, worked for IBM for a century or so, and it’s his barn my current monitor on OldBox came from. Somewhere (if it survived) there’s a picture of aging computer nerd #6 (#5’s wife) and me and my mother working on one of my earliest PCs, sometime in the 1980s–we had the cover off and were, IIRC, changing out a floppy drive, one of the 5.25 ones. My mother said of the picture that we looked like the witches in Macbeth, hunching over a cauldron and looking for the eye of newt.
Comment by J Cutway — May 21, 2014 @ 9:51 am
Brings back memories of when we were stationed in Japan(Iwakuni) in the 80’s. Ordered a Commodore 64(!!!) from Wards Catalog. Arrived with Tape recorder plugin to run programs from.
We sat and typed programs from magazines in Basic, hit Run, get Error in line…,go to line …, retype incorrect character, hit Run again, repeat till (tired, frustrated, needed by others, etc.{take your pick}). Ah for those days…Not.
Love your works, counting the days, now back to the world I live in now.
Comment by Gareth — May 21, 2014 @ 10:28 am
Actually my old green IBM flowchart template is still flexible and intact – amazing build quality in those days. I think if you leave them in the light they go yellow and brittle, but kept in a drawer they last (almost) forever.
We also just updated old home XP with old CRT monitor to snazzy new Windows 7 and bigger clearer flat screen.
Wasn’t too bad transferring files – large USB drive is wonderful.
Comment by Richard — May 21, 2014 @ 3:29 pm
http://www.orbitbooks.net/2014/04/09/sff-interview-swap-elizabeth-moon-interviews-rachel-bach/
Comment by John McDonald — May 21, 2014 @ 6:45 pm
I was sorting out a box of old computer/phone/etc. cables and parts yesterday and, down in the bottom was buried the slide rule I used going through Marine Corps electronics school in the late 60’s. That brought back a lot of memories.
Amazon does have several books available and there are websites that explain how to use one.
The first computer I worked on was an IBM 360 series mainframe, with tape drives and punch card readers. My current laptop is soo much nicer.
Comment by MaryW — May 21, 2014 @ 7:04 pm
Large USB drives are wonderful. MIcrosoft now has an application(Windows Easy Transfer) that works very well when the old and new machines are networked and the user uses the defaults. I do not use those defaults. All data is on a second hard drive. Because there are children, grandchildren and husband around most problems have been caused by helpful individuals updating the system with programs they think are necessary. This is also known as Malware, Norton Ghost is my friend.
Comment by fuzzy — May 21, 2014 @ 11:00 pm
A co-worker just offered to take my shift on the 27th so that I can read ALL day!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!
Comment by elizabeth — May 21, 2014 @ 11:12 pm
fuzzy: Hurray for your co-worker (sending virtual gold star you can pin on her/him.)
Comment by Sharidann — May 21, 2014 @ 11:17 pm
Good luck with the Computer Fixing!
I do that Dance myself every now and then, tending to only incrementally improve the current one right now, wondering how Long I can make it last before I Need to buy a new one.
Nice cross-interview too, made me curious about the writing triangle thingie. I shall check it out.
Comment by Kaye M — May 21, 2014 @ 11:42 pm
I am another aging nerd who didn’t learn to use a computer until I was 60 (15 years ago.) Last year, my 9 y.o. Dell with XP started making scary noises, so I bought a new Lenovo PC with Windows 7 and borrowed a second flat-screen monitor, set the two machines up with the USB Easy Transfer “thingie.” It took me a few hours to do the transfer, and about a week to learn to use Windows 7, but it has worked well for me for over a year now.
My copy of “Crown” should be arriving from Amazon (pre-ordered 6 months ago) in a week or two. Then I will have the whole set in hardcover!
Comment by Richard — May 22, 2014 @ 12:33 am
What Orbit’s intro doesn’t tell us is that Bach’s fantasy series are under her own name, Rachel Aaron, as is her blog and her (self-published?) “2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love”.
From a very cursory glance around, one leg of her writing triangle might be interpreted as, if one is a discovery writer, do the discovering before the writing!
Comment by jjmcgaffey — May 22, 2014 @ 1:25 am
Windows Easy Transfer works great between XP (and earlier, I think) and 7. Works poorly when going up to 8 – and not at all to 8.1 or later. Grrr! MS finally got a good, efficient, simple way to upgrade between Windows versions, and dumped it (it worked fine for my multi-hard-drive system, you just have to tell it which bits you want to save and copy over). The new Laplink thingy works very poorly (in terms of what transfers, and the information you have afterward about what transferred) and very slowly unless you buy a cable. Sheesh.
I’m recommending to my clients that are still on XP or otherwise need to upgrade to go to 7, or hold out until next year when 9 should be out. 8 is just too weird – and the fact that the whole structure of it keeps changing (8 to 8.1 to 8.1 Update (and why isn’t that 8.1.1, or 8.2?) are major shifts in function, access, what you can expect to see) make it difficult to get used to. Of course, most of my clients are not computer nerds in the least – they just want it to work and want nothing to do with internals, hardware or software.
Comment by patrick — May 22, 2014 @ 1:34 pm
Sheets of core dumps brings back memories. My first system debugging was as a UT computer lab consultant (undergrad) helping a beginning programmer figure out why his program would core dump but when he put in a print statement to see what was happening, it would work. Core dump analysis (octal, not assembly) showed the problem was with the new system loader which had a boundary error for certain lengths of executable. Got me a pat on the back (and later a nice letter of reference from my supervisor) and a love for system debugging at the bits and bytes level. That was >40 years ago.
I agree with jjmcgaffey – I replaced my XP system with Windows 8.1 recently. I was thinking that if I jumped to Windows 8, I’d have longer before support was dropped and force me to buy a replacement. I wish I had taken the more conservative approach of using Windows 7. Too many changes, more work to do simple things I used to know how to do without thinking. Oh well… at least I’m functional again and looking forward to Crown.
Comment by elizabeth — May 22, 2014 @ 2:04 pm
I lucked into two Asus Win7 boxes, one for son and one for myself (different chips, both Intel.) This morning, hooking things up, I’ve had problems with the monitor (also an Asus) which insists it’s not getting a signal from the computer. I have checked and rechecked the cable–no bent pins on either end, snugged in nicely with the thumbscrews, over and over…”No AVG signal” and it turns down to hibernation. I have the manual for it up on this computer (helps to enlarge the diagrams to something old eyes can see!!) and its final suggestion for amber light & no image is to try another monitor on the computer. First (as it’s almost 3 pm) something to eat.
I really dislike the use of tiny enigmatic engraved icons in gray on black or black on black, and switches hidden away, out of sight. Also installation directions that come with a troubleshooting FAQ. If I hadn’t had access to a working computer that was online, I wouldn’t have been able to find that little item, which is on p. 24/25 of the online manual in English.
Maybe someday I’ll have a new system that works, but the difficulties and time I’ve lost to this, (and these are less than some people do) is yet another reason why changing systems is seen as a huge big wad of wasted time and frustration. And I still haven’t been able to do anything with the new box–can’t until I have a monitor that works. There’s more time to be spent getting the system set up, downloading this and that and the other thing.
But at least it’s not Win8.
Comment by Jonathan Schor — May 22, 2014 @ 2:54 pm
Are you so wedded to Microsoft? I switched to Apple many years ago and have never regretted it.
Comment by elizabeth — May 22, 2014 @ 3:20 pm
Jonathan: People are different. Among my friends are Linux enthusiasts, Apple enthusiasts, and former-DOS enthusiasts now using Windows for compatibility with work.
Given that I can’t have the OS I really want, I would rather have Windows than any OS Apple ever made, having tried some of them. Didn’t like UNIX, though not as bad as Apple OSes….and if I’d started with Apple I might love it now. One of my friends is a crossover, former serious DOS person, finally switched to a Mac maybe 4-5 years ago and now loves it. I can use her computer for email when I’m at their house…but otherwise it drives me bonkers. Of course, Windows has been pushing my elastic limit more with every single update.
Comment by B. Ross Ashley — May 22, 2014 @ 4:13 pm
Even for us Linux kiddies upgrades can be heck … my rapidly ageing box (a Cybertron gameing machine I picked up 4 years ago) needs a new hard drive, and I’m going to have to double the RAM to set it up properly to take advantage of all the goodies in Xubuntu 14.04.
Wish me luck?
Comment by Kaye M — May 22, 2014 @ 8:03 pm
And of course, we only touched lightly on having to download new versions of programs we like to keep, and no one mentioned the need to find a driver that will work with an old printer. I finally found a driver for the whole series of HP 1300 3-in-1’s, and my printer can now do things it never thought of doing before 🙂
Internet Explorer 9-11 were so bad that I finally had to install Google Chrome to do everything that wasn’t tied to IE (Office, Outlook, and my desktop icons.) If I am still alive when Windows 9 comes out, I hope MS has learned to make what people want instead of deciding for them what they should want. But I won’t get into that…
By the way, I learned to use High Contrast mode when Shingles attacked one eye this winter and I could not see well through the cataract in the other eye. The black background with bright green text was very helpful until the inflammation healed and I got a new eyeglass Rx. Now I do not need High Contrast, but use 125% magnification.
Comment by AThornton — May 22, 2014 @ 8:07 pm
As one of the original Compu-Kids I’ve been designing and programming computer systems since ’68 and – lordy, lordy – the horror stories I could tell. 95% of which eventually collapse to: some bright spark (which was occasionally me) didn’t think things through. Leaving me to wonder how this scene:
Dragon: Are you wise?
Programmer/Engineer/Operator/etc.: derp?
would play out.
Comment by elizabeth — May 22, 2014 @ 8:35 pm
NewBox is now up and running–or rather, gulping in software and installing it. Turns out that NewBox and monitor wanted to be connected with the DVI cable, not the AVG cable (would’ve been nice to see that in the setup instruction somewhere!!!) NewBox will spend the next several hours–though maybe not tonight, as I would like to actually get enough sleep just one night this week!!!
NewProject is slogging along in the proposal phase, which I’m not particularly good at, but must do. Every time the screen says “Doing thus and such this may take awhile please wait” I dash back here and bang out some more on the proposal. Or…check in with the Paksworld blog. I am staying away from Twitter and SFFnet Webnews…well…mostly.
Also food has been eaten, which brightened my mood considerably (along with the fact that the monitor and NewBox are chatting away. Mickey and Keynes are also working. (No, you don’t get to give them formal names, but for fun…and since they’re not formal, I can change them any time.) NewBox has its formal name, as per the startup menus.
Comment by Daniel Glover — May 22, 2014 @ 9:17 pm
Yes, my “newBox” is also a “7” rather than an “8” (and I have the op disks for both) because of the transition issues that others had encountered–and I still messed it up by not writing down the first admin password on the newBox right away–at least long enough to remember it. Had to start over. But I could just let it run overnight to get through the long part too.
I spent some time swapping internet cable between boxes until I was comfortable that I could work completely on newBox. It should be nice in the end–but getting there is a chore and you have two of them at once.
Comment by GinnyW — May 23, 2014 @ 11:32 am
My mother programmed computers by moving the actual connections – until she retired to program me (and my siblings). Yes, it was a while ago. I think things are better now, but I would still like to strangle Microsoft for forcing Windows 8 on us.
I am in denial concerning transferring Windows XP to anything else.
Comment by Jonathan Schcor — May 23, 2014 @ 12:27 pm
I remember the original IBM 360 which filled a large air conditioned room. Programming was via IBM cards – first you put in the operating system, then the program.
My VIC 20 had more memory.
Comment by Kaye M — May 23, 2014 @ 12:37 pm
Our church computer still runs XP, and we are starting to get big block-lettered warning windows from MS Security telling us that our OS is an unsupported system. (Yes, MS, we know! GRRR!) and at this point, some people could easily fall for a SCAM claiming to secure your system for $$$. Don’t do it.
Comment by elizabeth — May 23, 2014 @ 1:08 pm
Kaye M. I wouldn’t, believe me. The XP box will be reft of its wifi card (which may be tried out in NewBox, now wearing a dongle for that purpose) so it can’t get to the internet and get in trouble (sorry, sir you’re now confined to your room) and maybe become my “When you must write and must not waste time online” box. Until it dies completely.
Jonathan: We actually had a small 360 at Quantico, mostly for learning how to use the OS, and it was also a test site for weird new storage media. Yes, there was a card reader (the one that didn’t like green-striped cards), and you had to add JPL cards to the front of each job, and it took quite awhile after turning the machine off before you could turn it on again, because you had to let those copper cores lose any charge they’d built up. So it was turned off at night. I’m sure you remember not only the big tall tape decks, but the washing-machine size disk drives with those giant stacks of platters in them. We also had the drum drive (a finicky and difficult thing that didn’t really catch on, due to finicky) and something else I forget. We programming people were not allowed in the actual computer room often and we were not supposed to touch. No keyboard in the modern sense, mostly flipping switches on the front of the actual box. It was in a room within a room, with its own AC, yes. And very jealous of their power computer operators, deeply suspicious of programming people. (OK, we did sometimes get their precious machine in a tangle.)
The BIG 360 at HQMC was indeed a giant box in a big air-conditioned room. I worked in another building; we had two or three keypunch machines connected by telephone to the actual puncher over there, so we’d sit there banging away on the machine, and then someone over there would take our cards, assign a job number to them, and decide when your stuff would be run through the compiler. Then you’d get the stack of cards back, along with the printout of error messages. Once you got a clean compile, you angled for run time to test the program with actual data. Eventually we were alloted some run time on an even bigger 360 in another location (ours was only a 512K; the other one was a 1024K).
Comment by elizabeth — May 23, 2014 @ 1:16 pm
GinnyW: I was in the same denial for a long time. What finally got me moving was the inability to buy yarn from my favorite online yarn supplier…of all foolish things. That and increasing problems with other online sites. ‘YOUR OS IS OUT OF DATE’ and ‘YOUR BROWSER IS TOO OLD’. And it gripes the heck out of me that this kind of thing is forced on us. It’s a tool, dammit, not a toy or a game or a plaything…make some toys for the boys who want them, and let the rest of us get work done with our reliable, stable, software that does what we want and doesn’t force learning new things every couple of years. I want to learn new things, but I want to pick WHICH.
The current problem is that Thunderbird, my preferred email client (been using it for years) is not getting the correct response from Earthlink.net on my mail account. I’ve checked and double-checked–even changed the password because my old one hadn’t been changed in a long time and did not conform to the new requirements (either for length or for required variety.) Now neither T-bird (the old one on the XP box or the new one) can get the account set up, because although I can get to WebMail and My Account in Earthlink with Firefox, using the new password, it’s not being accepted when T-bird queries Earthlink. And that makes no sense. I have been struggling with this since last night.
Earthlink’s chatline help wanted to delve into my computers and do something, but I’m not eager to have someone I don’t even known rummaging around in my computer.
Comment by elizabeth — May 23, 2014 @ 3:14 pm
And lo, aging computer nerd #2 (I think she’s #2) found the right drop-down tab for me, so the XP box’s Thunderbird is now running smoothly with the new password. Alas, NewBox is not. I’m going to take a short nap. I hurt all over and am grumpy and my eyes are burning.
Comment by Richard — May 23, 2014 @ 4:28 pm
Ginny, I think the lessons from here are (1) get a new box before your old one fails and (2) get a new box while you can still get it with Windows 7.
Last autumn I failed (1) despite months of “it didn’t use to sound like this, did it?” noises, after which I was very glad to buy my new box from a company who pre-installed the OS and sent a techie to deliver the box. (And I was a techie myself – Systems Programmer, that is installer and maintainer of the OS – on IBM mainframes from the mid-80s for over hexadecimal 10 years (that is sixteen to normal people).)
Comment by Nadine Barter Bowlus — May 23, 2014 @ 5:06 pm
Regarding tiny, dark gray, button/switch labels on black backgrounds:
Do you all remember, perhaps even still use, the donut-shaped hole-reinforcers for punched paper? Well, the second flat screen monitor I acquired, a hand of years ago, has touch sensitive controls (on/off, etc.) in the black frame, labeled with almost black characters and icons. The second thing I did when setting it up was to put one of the white hole-reinforcers over the on/off touch area. Magic area is in the central hole. Wish all tech problems/features/bugs were as easily fixed.
🙂
Comment by elizabeth — May 23, 2014 @ 6:54 pm
Nadine: My mother, years back, bought an all-in-one TV and video tape player. Black with tiny dark-gray control labels, but the buttons weren’t a bad size. I got some fluorescent tape and stuck yellow over this and green over that and orange over the other.
Comment by elizabeth — May 23, 2014 @ 6:59 pm
Richard to Ginny: Yes, I’m with you, Richard. Get the new box before the old crashes. I’ve had both kinds of machine-switching and it’s easier of Box 1 is still viable. But as you say, you can’t *always* predict. If you want a box with Win7, get it NOW, even if you install it later. I got the last Win7 box with the chip I wanted (and less RAM than I wanted, but I can upgrade that later. As well as–if the onboard sound isn’t good enough– a sound card. Already added wifi via a USB thingie for less than a wifi card.)
Comment by GinnyW — May 25, 2014 @ 11:14 am
I had to buy a new laptop (about 18 months ago), which unforturnately runs Windows 8. So I am using the laptop for the transition, and will take the desktop off-line until it dies, unless I really have to change it over to Windows 7 or 8. But since that machine is about 10 years old, I suspect that switching will be very time consuming now, and the new computer will be necessary later anyway.
My biggest issue is working out the ergonomics for using the laptop as my main computer. And trying to make Windows 8 do all the things I need it to do.
I remember as a young child going to pick my father up at his IBM office and wanting to see the computer. No go. In those days one small girl with a dirty t-shirt and sticky fingers could put a computer out of action for a week – just from the dust. Vastly different from starting up with my morning coffee in hand!
A whole new generation does not recognize the significance of “Do not fold, spindle or mutilate”.
Comment by Richard — May 26, 2014 @ 6:05 am
Ginny, I’ve just found this article: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Do-Not-Fold,-Spindle,-or-Mutilate%E2%80%A6-or-Duplicate.aspx
Either punched cards in the UK stayed in computer rooms and programming departments – I do remember them, but not the catchphrase – without straying into everyday life, or I am one of the new generation, in which case we are getting towards the third. Mine is the barcode generation.
The people who should have been kept out of computer rooms were managers. One of ours – NOT the Ops. manager – was showing a guest around once. The door had an electronic lock – to get in one either used a swipe card or asked to be let in. At the end of the tour Mr. Manager went to let himself out. Did he press the little white door release button? No, he pressed the big red one.
Comment by Ellen McLean — May 27, 2014 @ 2:29 am
I’m aging nerd #6 and I loathe Windows 8.1. My new machine has challenged #5 multiple times but he has wrestled it to the ground, finally. It is possible to get rid of that dreadful splash of opening boxes and just have a peaceful desktop.
I hope that picture of your mom, you, and me shows up. I miss her dearly.
Comment by elizabeth — May 27, 2014 @ 9:31 am
I wish I could find it too, Ellen. I know it was taken with a film camera–not sure which kind, and the house, as you know, is not in a state that makes it easy to find things.
Comment by Eowyn — May 29, 2014 @ 8:30 am
Ah bloatware. I remember the ‘joy’ of installing MS Office 98 from Floppy discs onto 4 computers (they didn’t have CD-ROM drives because the uber boss didn’t want us minions to have a computer as cool as his). 35 floppies (of which 31 were used). He came in to see me sitting there, reading a book, while doing it and started to get all huffy about my reading on the job when the computer spit out a disk and I put in the next one. I pointed out that the computer isn’t going to let me do much else while doing the install and they went fast enough it wasn’t worth the time to walk down the hall, do something for 1-2 minutes, then walk back.
I also remember moving a newsletter from MS Word which had been 7kb into MS Publisher and it magically became 21kb just because the other program put that much more formatting (no other changes). To top it off, at the time, Publisher didn’t have a spell check.
Hopefully the computer change will be boring.
Comment by David — June 23, 2014 @ 1:56 pm
NO SPOILER ABOUT CROWN.
Can we cast the (mythical) movie about Crown?
Kieri, the younger Sean Connery. I don’t know anyone the right age now.
Arcolin: Liam Neeson.
Dorrin: Sigorney Weaver.
Arian: Angelina Jolie.
Paks: LeeLee Sobieski?
Gird: Never seen.
Comments, objections?