April 14, 1995
Dear Everyone:
You may have heard me mention "The CAP Server" from time to time. "CAP"
stands for "Communications Application Program", or something like that.
Bottom line:
This is what allows a lot of
Users to dial into the
Versatile
system via a modem and a Remote Control software like
pcANYWHERE or
REACHOUT (or a
CARBON
COPY, or PROCOMM,
etc., etc., etc.). If it's a
mystery to you, it's an even bigger mystery to me and (brace yourself!)
I'm in charge of it.
Every time someone has trouble calling into the Server, they call me.
And wouldn't you know, when that
happens, the Server is in San Francisco and I'm in “Livermore”, which
means I can't just trot down the hall and take a look at the Big Box and
all the modems hooked into it. If
you think the back of your TV or PC looks like a
Medusa, with cables
going everywhere, try a dozen modems, each with its own PLIM Box (Phone
Line Interface Module), complete with 4 phone lines and cables, all
tangled up at the back of the table, not to mention extension cords
stretched across the room because we have far more plugs than outlets.
And it's even harder to deal with
from across the
Bay.
So I was delighted when the company that makes the CAP Server contacted
us about a Technical Seminar that would help teach us about the Server;
how it works and how to fix things when they don't work.
It was fairly inexpensive, as
these things go, so I dragged our Technical Support person, “Daisy”,
with me. We spent all day at a
hotel near the
SF Airport,
along with a few other CAP customers and a bunch of consultants and
re-sellers.
Unfortunately, “Clyde” was also there. “Clyde”,
a consultant of some sort, sat next to “Daisy” and me and just about
drove us crazy. He's one of those
people who want to get their hands on the keyboard, dashing in and out
of screens, paying no attention to the instructor, too busy going
through steps at
Warp
Seven to bother with letting the rest of us see what's going on.
Plus he had a co-worker with him
and they talked so much we must have asked them to be quiet, so we could
hear the instructor, a half-dozen times.
“Clyde” notwithstanding, I picked up a lot of clues and tips that I
think will help me at work. Like
when someone calls and says, "I can't get through.
The phone just rings and rings."
This means the modem isn't
responding. Question is:
Which
modem? Up until now, you had to
go down the hall to the Server (assuming you were in San Francisco) and
eye-ball the modems, looking for the one that seemed to be locked up.
This often involves actually
pulling the monitor and keyboard out of the master card and plugging
them into each card until you found the one that was locked and
rebooting it. If you were in
“Livermore”, you called everyone you knew in San Francisco until someone
answered the phone. Then you sent
them down the hall to call you back from the Server Room (so-called
because it has three Servers in it) so you could walk them through it
("tell me what you see").
Now, I know how to use the CAP system to find the errant Card and reboot
it from wherever I am. I also
know how to go in and watch what people are doing in the system.
I can actually attach a Card and
take over it, if I need to. This is power.
Movies…
Saw
Rob Roy
last Sunday. The film is about
the legendary Scottish outlaw,
Rob Roy
MacGregor, who lived at the turn of the Seventeenth Century.
According to my encyclopedia,
MacGregor was forced to become an outlaw through no fault of his own, a
common occurrence when the laws were written largely by and for the
mostly English nobility. He soon
discovered that he was really good at being an outlaw, and the Highlands
abound with stories of his escapades, robbing from the rich (English)
and giving to the poor (Scottish), narrowly evading capture, or
brilliantly escaping if caught, however briefly.
Rob Roy
concerns itself with just the first part of this career.
Liam
Neeson (Schindler's
List,
Darkman,
High
Spirits) has his work cut out for him because he has to play a
larger-than-life character, but at the same time, make him
down-to-earth, an ordinary guy who just wants to live in peace with his
family if those pesky redcoats would just leave them alone.
This is the rock that all the
other characters either cling to or dashed themselves against.
Jessica Lange
is wonderful, as always, as his wife. John
Hurt portrays the local lord who can't quite understand why all
these peasants are so troublesome. Tim
Roth is terrific as the dastardly, bored-to-depravity fop who causes
most of the trouble. I read where
the actor kept holding back because he was afraid of "going over the
top". "Nonsense," said the
director.
"There is no top!"
He's right. Roth's character is
the kind of guy who has to flip a coin to decide whether to kill the dog
and rape the wife, or…kill the wife and rape the dog.
The accents are what you might call "Scottish-Lite".
Clearly a brogue, but clearly
understandable. And you get a
real feel for what it must've been like to live in the Highlands 280
years ago. You can also feel very
glad that you weren't living
in the Highlands 280 years ago. I subscribe to Mother's opinion that one
of the greatest conveniences of modern time is when you turn a tap and
hot water comes out. Indoor
plumbing and central heating come to mind, too.
There is an extremely authentic sword fight near the end.
It consists of about 30 seconds
of swinging and banging, followed by 2 minutes of heavy breathing as
both sides get ready to go again. As
for who wins? You have only to
look in the nearest encyclopedia. Or
go see the movie.
Love, as always,
Pete
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