When It Ain't Broke...

We use login scripts at work. We support a variety of clients, from Win9x up to XP Pro. One of the usefull shortcuts we've been able to use has been the %0 shorthand for the currently running program. We were finding that certain parts of our login script, the parts using %0, weren't running properly, but only on XP Pro clients. I spent quite a while on this, and felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall. Then I found the following: A Logon Script Does Not Work If %0 or %0\..\ Calls Multiple Commands. Apparently, %0 is not required in NT, 2000 or XP, so they decided to change the way it works in XP. Not to drop support for it, just change the way it works. Why do they insist on setting these kinds of booby traps for unwitting sysadmins and developers? Anyway, at least my code wasn't at fault.

[Listening to: Red Blooded Woman - Kylie Minogue - Body Language (04:22)]

(Current) Favourite SF Novels

My mum brought me home this book from the grown-ups part of the library when I was too young to borrow books from there myself.

The latest list contains my favourite SF Novels. I may even tell you why I like them...

Star Rangers, by Andre Norton
This was one of the first SF Novels I remember reading.

Tunnel in the Sky, by Robert A. Heinlein
Another early read and a classic RAH juvenille

The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
Very Hard-SF. Counterpoint to Starship Troopers

HardWired, by Walter John Williams
Alternative Cyberpunk future to Bill Gibson's. Grittier if anything. Watch out for the Snake!

The Mote in God's Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
This has got to be one of the all-time best stories of First Contact. Who can decipher the mystery of the Moties?

Footfall, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Alien invasion epic which predates Independence Day.

Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein
A story about Why Men Fight

Time Enough for Love, by Robert A. Heinlein
An interwoven series of tales from the life of Lazarus Long. Worth it for The Tale of the Adopted Daughter

A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge
Want to see the future of the net?

Dune, by Frank Herbert

The God Makers, by Frank Herbert
My mum brought me home this book from the grown-ups part of the library when I was too young to borrow books from there myself. I read this long before Dune.

Cyteen, by C.J. Cherryh
Alliance/Union explored from the viewpoint of the bad guys. Also a murder mystery, a novel of politics and an exploration of the life of clones.

Count Zero, by William Gibson
My first introduction to William Gibson. The middle book of the Sprawl trilogy.

Robocopy Is Your Friend

Posting this from the Windows 2000 Server whilst RoboCopy is backing up 16GB of My Documents including an inordinate amount of MP3s. 16Gb is too much for any backup medium I can afford apart from a second hard drive. Interesting PCW article this month about usinging multiple geographically dispersed locations to hold backups of data. Not sure if you can access PCW articles on line... (Later) Nope, you have to pay for some content, but other stuff just isn't available. Pity.

Favourites: Written SF Series

A meeting with Lazarus Long was inevitable...

The first SF series I every bought was E.E. 'Doc' Smith's Family D'Alembert sequence. Some kindly relative bought me Volume 3, The Clockwork Traitor for Christmas 1977 or thereabouts. I was hooked on the background and the adventures of Jules and Yvette and the Circus of the Galaxy. (Note; It seems that most of the work on the series was done by Stephen Goldin. An original version of The Imperial Stars appears in The Best of E.E. 'Doc' Smith without Goldin's by line.)

Next came more 'Doc' Smith. The Lensmen series. By today's standards the writing is simplistic, but the rip-roaring adventures of Kimball Kinnison and co were just what a boy in his early teens needed. I had a tear in my eye as I read the concluding pages of The Children of the Lens.

Larry Niven came next. His collection Neutron Star lead me to Known Space, Beowulf Shaeffer, Gil 'The Arm' Hamilton, Louis Wu, and the Kzinti. I found The Mote in God's Eye which lead me to Jerry Pournelle and the CoDominium and John Christian Falkenberg.

Somewhere amongst all of this came C.J.Cherryh's Alliance/Union universe, starting with Downbelow Station, then Cyteen and the books that followed.

Robert A. Heinlein's juvenilles had grabbed me with Tunnel in the Sky. When I found the collection The Past Through Tomorrow there was reference to his Future History and I was off and running. A meeting with Lazarus Long was inevitable...

More recently there has been David Webber's Honor Harrington, along with William Gibson's Sprawl series (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive). David Feintuch's Hope series is there too.

Oh, yeah. There's also the original Foundation trilogy and the original Dune trilogy.

My most current series is by Walter Jon Williams, called Dread Empire's Fall. So far all I've read is The Praxis. Looking good so far.

Well there's a selection, from Space Opera to Cyberpunk to right wing military SF. Enjoy.

Lists and more Lists

In a vain attempt to personalize this blog I'm adding the kinds of list that seem to be de-rigour: What blogs I read, what print media I read, what I listen to and watch. Some snippets:

Possibly the best Science Fiction movie ever made is coming to DVD here in the UK -- Forbidden Planet according to Play.com

If you come into contact with the current versions of Windows (Professional or Server) you ought to have a subscription to Windows & .NET Magazine

The lists will follow shortly...

Another Brave New World

Unfortunately it appears that a 'Wireless Network Broadband Router' doesn't have any innate ability to make the physical connection to ADSL.

Decided to make a move away from my existing setup to a proper LAN (Local Area Network). Up to now I had a semi-networked setup. Two PCs connected by a crossover CAT5 cable sharing the USB ADSL modem using XP's Internet Connection Sharing (and Firewall, of course). My thought was to cover all the bases and buy a box which would combine ADSL, LAN and Wireless. I thought I'd found the solution, a Sitecom WL-122, advertised on the box as a 'Wireless Network Broadband Router'. Unfortunately it appears that a 'Wireless Network Broadband Router' doesn't have any innate ability to make the physical connection to ADSL. For that I need a seperate ADSL modem, one with an ethernet connection. Bought a D-Link DSL-502T in the end. Then found a combined box that did have all the functionality I was looking for for about £80 less than the total I had paid, at Aria. Sigh (actually this is 802.11b whereas the Sitecom box is 802.11g).

By the way. If this reaches the Blogger site then they've finally fixed the FTP bug that was stopping me maintaining the site properly. It would have been nice if they'd let me know. Especially as I had raised a support call with them about it. As long as it works...

[Listening to: Butterfly - Kylie Minogue - Light Years (04:09)]