So you thought that old computer was all washed

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January 2000 Volume 11, Issue 1

New Deal for Old PCs

Internet Continued on page 4

John Patrick presents

“The State of the Internet”

By Jack Corcoran

Meeting Review

I

T IS ALWAYS A PLEASURE to attend a John Patrick presentation. I would go out of my way to hear him talk about running or motorcycles, or any of his other interests. But when he is talking about the present and near-term future of the Internet, it is not only a pleasure to listen to him but also an opportunity. John’s job as vice president of Internet technology at IBM is all about direction, direction, direction. He goes everywhere, sees it all, talks to everyone, listens to everything, and then, calling his unique talents into play, senses where the Net is going and articulates it masterfully.

The incredible thing is that IBM gives him the free- dom to come and tell us all about it-at least most of it.

Can you imagine what a John Patrick presentation would be like in a closed IBM executive session?

John’s presentation should be considered pure opportunity by anyone of us whose interests or livelihood is tied to the Internet. For what he does is describe the

“what” and then tie in the “who” and the “how.” Again and again he pictures the emerging scene. He goes into detail about greater content, instant messaging, expand- ing access, etc. Then, he talks about who could use this enhanced capability and how they are adapting their lifestyle to it. These are the factors we use for business decisions and career choices, as well as our investments of money and time. John lays it out. It’s ours for the taking.

John’s organized his presentation into eleven struc- tured sections. Each started with the section title displayed on a beautiful graphics background. The sup-

S

o you thought that old computer was all washed up? Ready for PC heaven? Think again! Consider New Deal, a software suite and operating system for users in need of a simpler, leaner, less-complicated computer life. This suite works with your latest Pentium and with your ancient 286 DOS machines.

New Deal will be presented at the next DACS general meeting on January 4 at the Danbury Hospital Au- ditorium starting at 6.30 p.m.

In addition to an operating system, New Deal includes an easy-to-use suite using about 10MB of hard disk space and less than 1 MB RAM. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet, database, roladex, calendar and other apps, games, e-mail, and a Web browser that en- ables users to surf the Web on a 286 machine.

If you are a power user with an unlimited budget, New Deal may not sound very attractive. But if you happen to be a home, small business or a school administrator with a tight budget, New Deal may be just the solution to breathe new life into those old

“door stopper” computers that are taking up space

and not paying their way. Many of these elder models can be revitalized with New Deal, to live a purposeful life in, say, less-privileged school districts or in fledgling computer setups in third-world settings.

New Deal is not, by the way, trying to compete with Microsoft but is a “leading-edge technology for a lag- ging-edge platform.” Its application is useful not only for America but can enable computer utilization by many people all over the world. As John Patrick reminded us at the December general meeting, many countries are still behind in computer use. It is these countries in which New Deal has broad potential worldwide.

If you want to find out about the advantages of New Deal, come to the next DACS meeting on January 4 starting at 6.30 p.m. The main presentation begins at 8 p.m.

DACS meetings take place the first Tuesday of each month. They are free and open to the public.

For more information about the general meeting or DACS Special Interest Groups (SIGs), please check http:/

/www.dacs.org or call 203-748-4330. Coming in February is Advanced Micro Devices (AMD Microprocessors).

Rejuvenate your x86’s with

this great new suite

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President’s File

Jeff Setaro APCUG Liaison

748-6748 NEWDEAL PREVIEW 1

STATEOF THE INTERNET REVIEW 1 PRESIDENT’S FILE 2 DIRECTORS’ NOTES 3

HELPLINE 3

NEW MEMBERS 4

INTERNET PROVIDERS 4 JAVA JIVEAT JAVITS 5 UTILITIES FOR THE MAC 7 SIG NOTES & NEWS 8

CALENDAR 9

NT SERVERS 10

WINDOWS 98 12

RANDOM ACCESS 13

IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial Committee Editorial CommitteeEditorial Committee Editorial CommitteeEditorial Committee

Managing Editor: Frances J. Owles Production Editor: Marc Cohen Technical Editor: Bruce Preston Public Relations: Marlene Gaberel

Contributors Charles Bovaird Larry Buoy Jacqueline Cohen Richard Corzo April Miller Cripliver Marlene Gaberel John Heckman Mike Kaltschnee DACS, its officers, and directors assume no li- ability for damages arising out of the publication or non-publication of any article, advertisement, or other item in this newsletter .

The editors welcome submissions from DACS members. Contact Frances Owles 860-868-0077 ([email protected]) or Allan Ostergren at 860- 210-0047 (dacseditor@ aol.com). Advertisers, contact Charles Bovaird at 203-792-7881 ([email protected])

Dacs.doc is prepared using an AMSYS Pentium 133 and an HP LaserJet 4 Plus

printer.

Software packages used to publish dacs.doc include:

Microsoft Windows 98, Office 7.0, TrueType fonts,

Adobe PageMaker 6.5, CorelDRAW 6.0, Calendar Creator+ for Windows

Dacs.doc file transfer security provided by AVP.

Technical Support Technical Support Technical Support Technical Support Technical Support

Applications & Hardware to enhance dacs.doc are welcome.

Membership Membership Membership Membership Membership Information Information Information Information Information

Dacs.doc, ISSN 1084-6573, is pub- lished monthly by the Danbury Area Computer Society, 12 Noteworthy Drive, Danbury, CT 06810-7271. An- nual subscription rates: $25 to regular members, $20 to students (included in dues).

Postmaster

Send address changes to Danbury Area Computer Society, Inc., 4 Gregory Street, Danbury, CT 06810-4430.

© 1999 Danbury Area Computer Society. Per- mission to reprint or publish granted to any non- profit group, provided credit is given and a copy of the final publication is mailed to the copyright holder. All rights reserved.

• • •

--ALLAN OSTERGREN DACSPREZ@AOL.COM

If you missed our last General Meeting, you may not be fully prepared to enter the new millennium. Read Jack Corcoran's excellent review of the present and future state of the 'Net that John Patrick presented to a packed audience sitting at the edge of their seats, and you may be able to sneak in through a side door. And just in case you're stopped at the entrance, bring a DACS coffee mug along with you for iden- tification.

You can get a free coffee mug by doing what many of us have been doing natu- rally. Just introduce a friend to DACS, come to three consecutive meetings, write an article for dacs.doc, run a SIG or come to SIG meetings, join a committee, or run for office or the board. It's a long list, and if I missed anything, just do something for DACS and write us a note saying, "I want a coffee mug." It's our way of saying, "Let's get organized." We had 144 mugs when Ed Heere started handing them out at the last meeting. That's just short of one mug for every three DACS members, so we may have to order lots more when this thing starts to really take off-especially for all those new members who have joined up.

I have written in this column-often to the point of boredom-on DACS' role in providing community service through its member volunteers. But I had never really understood the scope of that volunteer activity until recently.

We are in the midst of a process to renew our lease for the Resource Center at Ives Manor in Danbury. Part of the justifica- tion for that lease ($1.00 per year) is that we provide active service to the local community. Charlie Bovaird has been one of our most dedicated volunteers, so I asked him to put together a list of organizations that have received our support, either through donated equipment we helped to provide, or through technical services or instruction by DACS volunteers. The following list cov- ers most of our initiatives, but is not neces- sarily complete:

American Red Cross Danbury Americares, Danbury

Ancell School Of Business (WCSU) Bethel AARP

Bethel High School Bethel Women's Club

Bridgeport Central High School Magnet School

Danbury Dept of Elderly Services Danbury Chamber of Commerce Danbury Court House

Danbury Ives Manor Computer training Danbury Library Web site design Danbury Morris St. School Danbury News Times

Danbury Police Athletic League Danbury Senior Job Bank Danbury Ski Club

Dept. of Elderly Services office machines Dept. of Elderly Services Senior Net program Housatonic Resource Recovery Authority

Danbury Interlude

Literacy Volunteers, Danbury Mayor Gene Eriquez

Meeting House Hill School, Danbury Newtown Senior Center

Newtown Town Manager North Salem Free Library

Northville Baptist Church, New Milford Norwalk Senior Center

Ridgefield Senior Net Salvation Army, Danbury St Joseph's Church Rectory Office St Joseph's School

Stadley Rough School, Danbury Voice for Joanie

Volunteer Center office machines Westport YMCA

As I write this column, it is still uncertain whether our lease will be renewed. The city of Danbury needs to balance its budget, and it is always hard to measure the value of services in kind against the costs of main- taining public facilities. Nevertheless, it's important that we stay active in the community, not just to qualify for public space, but because computing is our special skill, and we have a human obligation to share it.

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Directors’ Notes

PRESIDENT PRESIDENT PRESIDENT PRESIDENT

PRESIDENT: : : : : Allan Ostergren (860) 210-0047 VP

VPVP

VPVPs:s:s:s:s: Gene Minasi (860) 354-9380 • Frances Owles (860) 868-0077 Marlène Gaberel (203) 426-4846 • Jeff Setaro (203) 748-6748 SECRET

SECRETSECRET SECRET

SECRETARARARARYARYYY: : : : : Larry Buoy (860) 355-0394 • TREASURERY TREASURERTREASURERTREASURERTREASURER: : : : : Charles Bovaird (203) 792-7881

Directors

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR: : : : : CHAIRWally David (203) 790-7286

Charles Bovaird (203) 792-7881 • Larry Buoy (860) 355-0394 Marc Cohen (203) 775-1102 • Dick Gingras (203) 426-0484 Ed Heere (203) 431-1500 • Bruce Preston (203) 438-4263 Marlène Gaberel 203 426-4846 • Allan Ostergren (860) 210-0047

Frances Owles (860) 868-0077 • Jeff Setaro 203 748-6748

Committees

EDUCA EDUCAEDUCA

EDUCAEDUCATIONTIONTIONTIONTION::::: Gene Minasi (860) 354-9380 • • • • • MEMBERSHIP:MEMBERSHIP:MEMBERSHIP:MEMBERSHIP:MEMBERSHIP: Don Ruffell (203) 797-8138 NEWSLETTER:

NEWSLETTER:

NEWSLETTER: Frances Owles::::: (860) 868-0077 • • • • PR• PRPRPRPROGRAM:OGRAM:OGRAM:OGRAM:OGRAM: Jeff Setaro (203) 748-6748 WEB MASTER

WEB MASTERWEB MASTER

WEB MASTERWEB MASTER: Jeff Setaro (203) 748-6748 RESOURRESOURRESOURRESOURRESOURCE CENTER:CE CENTER:CE CENTER:CE CENTER:CE CENTER: (203) 748-4330

WEB SITE:

WEB SITE:WEB SITE:

WEB SITE:

WEB SITE: http://www.dacs.org

Officers

HelpLine HelpLine HelpLine HelpLine HelpLine

Volunteers have offered to field member questions by phone. Please limit calls to the hours indicated below. Days means 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; evening means 6 to 9:30 p.m. Please be considerate of the volunteer you are calling. HelpLine is a free service. If you are asked to pay for help or are solicited for sales, please contact the dacs.doc editor; the person requesting payment will be deleted from the listing. Can we add your name to the volunteer listing?

d = day e = evening

Program Program Program Program

Program NameNameNameNameName Phone #Phone #Phone #Phone #Phone #

Alpha Four Dick Gingras (203) 426-0484 ( e)

AOL Marc Cohen (203) 775-1102 (d e)

APL Charles Bovaird (203) 792-7881 ( e)

AutoCAD Peter Hylenski (203) 797-1042 ( e)

C/UNIX/ObjC Kenneth Lerman (203) 426-4430 (d e)

Clipper Dick Gingras (203) 426-0484 ( e)

COBOL Charles Godfrey (203) 775-3543 ( e)

Dbase/DOS Alan Boba (203) 264-1753 ( e)

DOS John Gallichotte (203) 426-0394 (d e)

Electronics Andrew Woodruff (203) 798-2000 (d e)

Focus Jim Scheef (860) 355-0034 ( e)

Hardware John Gallichotte (203) 426-0394 (d e)

Interface -Instrumentation Andrew Woodruff (203) 798-2000 (d e)

Internet Nick Percival (203) 438-9307 (d )

Macintosh OS Chris Salaz (203) 798-6417 (d e)

Microsoft Access Dick Gingras (203) 426-0484 ( e)

Multimedia Ed Fitzgerald (203) 222-9253 (d e)

Newdeal Marc Cohen (203) 775-1102 (d e)

OS/2 Rich Chernock (203) 270-0224 ( e)

Paradox Alan Boba (203) 264-1753 ( e)

PASCAL Duane Moser (203) 797-2716 (d )

Q&A ver 3/4 Anthony Telesha (203) 748-4478 (d e) Statistics/Data Analysis Charles Bovaird (203) 792-7881 (d e)

SQL Server Chuck Fizer (203) 798-9998 (d )

Viruses Jeff Setaro (203) 748-6748 (d )

Visual Basic Nick Percival (203) 438-9307 (d )

HTML/Java James Costello (203) 426-0097 (e )

Windows 3.1 Nick Strother (203) 743-5667 ( e)

Directors Notes Continued on page 7

T

he Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors was held at the Resource Center on Monday, December 13, 1999, at 7:30 p.m. Present were Messrs.

Bovaird, Buoy, Cohen, David, Gingras, Heere, Ostergren, Preston, Setaro, and Mrs.

Gaberel. Wally David, Chairman, presided and Larry Buoy, Secretary, kept the records of the meeting. The minutes of the meeting held November 8th were approved.

Finance & membership Treasurer Charles Bovaird reported to- tal CD, checking, and postal accounts of

$17,458.85 plus $34,80 postage on hand with no accounts payable. He also reported current membership of 563.

Elections

The board discussed the procedures for conducting the annual election of directors at the December general meeting. It was agreed that candidates for nomination be announced from the floor at that meeting.

Honorary membership for Patrick

Also reviewed was the planned presentation of an honorary life membership in DACS and a plaque to Mr. John Patrick at the General Meeting to be held on De- cember 15. Several suggestions were made for the wording on the plaque and its pro- curement.

Resource center lease impasse

Continuing the discussion of the impending renewal of RC lease, the board learned of an apparent impasse in negotiations for re- ducing the rent increase proposed by the City of Danbury’s Housing Authority. Vari- ous methods of presenting beneficial DACS community activities that might influence the Housing Authority’s continued negotiations were explored. It was agreed that DACS com- pile and forward to city officials a compre- hensive list of these.

New members

Also continued were discussions of options in attracting new members to DACS, especially young people, with a possible change in name, focus, and/or image. Larry Buoy offered to conduct a survey of the more recent dropouts from DACS to determine if there are any com- mon and definable reasons for those dropouts that could be identified.

Mug promotion

One of the promotional coffee mugs procured as authorized at the previous meeting was examined, and a list of mem-

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New Members

11/22/1999 thru 12/18/1999 1) Brian Backman

2) Donald and Mark Damoth 3) Jackie Joyner

4) Jim Kehoe 5) Susan Margolis 6) Douglas F. Mayhew 7) Marty Milkovic 8) George Rockwell 9) Randol Webb

Local Area Internet Providers

AT&T WORLDNET 800-967-5363 CLOUD 9 914-682-0384 CONCENTRIC

NETWORKS 800-745-2747 C. P. CONNECT 203-734-6600 DELPHI INTERNET 800-695-4005 EARTHLINK 800-395-8425 MAGS-NET 203-207-5695 EROL’S 888-463-7657 GTE INTERNETWORKING800-927-3000 IBM/ADVANTIS 800-888-4103 INTERNET84 203-830-2122 INTERRAMP/PSI 800-827-7482 JAVANET 800 952-4638 LOCALNET / FAIRFIELD CTY203-425-3535

MCI 800-550-0927

MICROSOFT NETWORK800-386-5550 NETAXIS 203-969-0618

NETCOM 800-353-6600

NORTH AMERICAN 800-952-INET NETMEG INTERNET 888-863-8634 ON THE NET 203-270-6388 PARADIGM 800-664-INET PUTNAM INTERNET 914-225-3234 SMART WORLD TECH. 203-790-4600 SNET INTERNET 800-408-8282 SPRYNET 800-SPRYNET

TIAC 203-323-5957

WEB CONNECT

OF RIDGEFIELD 203-438-7650 WEBQUILL INT. SVCS203-750-1000 List for informational purposes only, not an endorsement of any service. ⁴

Further information?

Call Jim Finch @ 203 790-3654

porting displays were succinct, easily readable, and made specific points. In just the presentation media itself, we were watching an art form.

His opening set of displays projected

“the big picture.” Although currently less than one percent of the world population uses the Net, its growth has exceeded not only John’s own expectations, but even the wild hype of as little as a year ago.

The driving factors of new markets and the evolving medium reinforce each other.

Overall, he emphasized that the power of the Web is that of transferring power to the people. “Watch the people first, then design the access,” he told us.

John’s next section covered “What is really going on.” He talked about our kids locking on to chat capabilities, synchro- nous messages, the emerging presence of TV on the Web, and the impending major shakeup in the way universities will function to provide learning. He went on to new stuff, such as the weatherbox and language translation, always tying in how these things are here and now and how their evolution is changing our life pat- terns.

Going on to “millions of e-businesses,” John pointed out that while we are primarily aware of the mainstream e- businesses providing us with books, air- line reservations, and just about every other consumer item imaginable, the volume of business-to-business transactions is easily ten times greater.

John’s section on “portals everywhere” defined the purpose of the portal as providing the means to the end. He pointed out that since there is an over- supply of production facilities worldwide, a properly designed portal will identify the good ones. This casual observation por- tends a major shift in the way companies select suppliers. It also alerts us on what to look for when watching companies adapt to using the Net.

Next, John moved on to the “evolution of the medium.” Bandwidth galore is now available from cable, telephone systems, and satellites. Information is trans- mitted in packets, and the packets don’t care what they ride on. To the delight of IBM, servers are becoming the problem.

The average user in the Danbury area doesn’t see this yet, but anyone who ex- pects to earn a living on the Internet over the next few years had better think about bigger, more powerful servers, not bandwidth.

Looking into the future, but not too far, John projected the “next-generation

Internet.” While a tenfold improvement in anything else is usually enough to cause major changes, the increases in bandwidth will more than triple that and lead to en- tirely new lifestyles. John called the ex- ample he used “geo-independence.”

Businesspeople and other professionals are now spending more and more time working away from the office, tele- and e- communicating from airplanes, hotels, and virtual offices all over the world. This trend is rapidly evolving into a phenomenon that John called the “video wall,” in which people can conduct business and partici- pate in e-meetings from wherever they happen to be.

In “What is it going to be like?”, John projected ubiquitous access, with PCs taking a lesser role as the Net appears on PDAs, telephones, and satellite-driven devices.

Several sections covered what we can expect in changing lifestyles as the applications expand to a global reach and time constraints disappear. John’s message here was to think globally and use the Net to accommodate people, anywhere, anytime.

The wrap-up of the formal presentation was “How to survive (and thrive) on the Net,” which consisted of a bevy of one- liners on developing the necessary mental Net attitude to succeed in building new applications on it. These were so simple and comfortable in appearance that only in careful review can we appreciate their depth and intrinsic value.

The Q and A session that followed lasted more than half an hour. Questions covered Internet activity in China (growth is explosive, influencing politics, English will soon be a minority language on the Web), control issues (backbones are fi- nanced by the ISPs, government has a role in digital signature use, the UN is not struc- tured to play a role in regulating the Net), financial transactions (banks are dragging the development, smart cards are going great in Europe), “Is the Net going in the right direction?” (yes, generally), and so on into the night. The session would be continuing still if Jeff hadn’t interrupted with the raffle prizes.

There are two ways of doing a John Patrick presentation. One way is just to come to the meeting, be entertained, and go home with a warm, fuzzy feeling for the Internet. The other way is to consider it an opportunity. You go to his IBM Website, www.IBM.com/patrick, tab around to “current presentations,” and go through the displays twice, the first time for an overall perspective and the second time taking notes. Then you attend the

meeting and upgrade your notes from his general remarks. The day after the meeting you go back to the Website and re-live the presentation. Now you are ready to take advantage of the opportunity. You review your own quest for fame, fortune, and honor in the light of John’s insights. Your call.

This was the best meeting of the year, no contest. We look forward to next year.

[email protected] is an old, retired computer programmer who would be perfectly happy to have his lifestyle change.

Internet Continued from page 1

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Java

Java Jive at Javits

By Fred Klingener

S

UN MICROSYSTEMS came to New York City the second week of De cember to host the Java Business Conference at the Javits Center. The conference was an multiple opportunity for Sun: to announce the release of major pieces of its Java development software, to run a two-day Java University, and to host three days of conference sessions to present their buzzword-compliant vision of a portable, cross-platform, “Write Once, Run Anywhere ” future of the World Wide Web, and the way the businesses will use it to make money. Oh, yeah.

And to party.

Uppers

On the surface, there were plenty of reasons to party. The value of Sun’s stock had quadrupled over the past twelve months and split two-for-one Tuesday night. Sun was obviously pleased with the way the government’s antitrust action against Microsoft was going. It had used the occasion of the Business Conference to release the latest version of Java2 En- terprise Edition (J2EE), and had just re- leased the piece of the Java puzzle most sought after by Web developers—the Java Development Kit for the Linux operating system. Further, Java on the Web had matured past those annoying scroll- ing banners and had become the basis for sites such as Lands’ End, Eddie Bauer, ESPN Courtside Live, and Range Rover.

Finally, Sun was surrounded by its part- ners, suppliers, and a couple hundred Java True Believers in the holiday season in NYC.

Downers

Lurking just below the surface, there were a few downers to temper the party- ing. Sun hadn’t been able (in time for the release of J2EE, anyway) to get its part- ners (IBM, HP, Oracle, etc.) to sign onto the latest conditions for the branding of the Java platform, and Sun had just pulled out of its most recent efforts to get an international body to declare Java a standard. If the financial analysts at the press conferences at Java Expo were fretting about it, the markets were not. Sun’s share price went up about six points that day.

For reasons known only to the mar- keting people who dream these things up,

Java2 is the name of the third major release of the Java platform, and between the second and third release it tripled in size. In private discussions with Sun people at the Javits kiosks, if you use words like “bloat” or “bog-slow,” they get defensive. I think that they regard this as a temporary problem to be solved by faster processors, cheaper memory, faster network communications, and advances in Java technology—a predictable attitude for visionaries.

The vision

So the J2EE rollout was supposed to be such a big deal? How come? First, I have to talk about the current Java Plat- form and how it forms the foundation for Sun to realize its vision. For most of its life, Sun has recognized that “The Net- work Is The Computer ” (remember that?), and it now sees the rest of the world catch- ing up—just that “The Network” is now called “the Internet.” To (maybe) you and me, the Internet is HTML pages delivered to our desktop computers through dialup phone lines. According to Sun’s visionaries, this model will be antique in a very short time. To those visionaries, the Web will soon be extended both up and down to include the Enterprise (buzzword for

“business”) and Consumer Spaces (buzzword for mobile phones, palm computing devices, TV set-top boxes, game consoles, etc.) by people trying to get us to spend money on stuff.

Java2 platform

The structure of the Java Platform re- flects this model of the future Web. Java2 Micro Edition supports development of software for the “Consumer Space,”—

software that has limited functionality for small or nonexistent screens and tiny virtual machines to run the programs. In the middle is the Java2 Standard Edition, which supports development of the types of programs that will run on our desktops (buzzword = “client”). J2EE completes the triad, intended to build the programs that run on corporate servers and run on or communicate with corporate mainframes.

How to Make Money Giving Away Software

We’ve heard that “business-to-business” Web growth is one of the next big

things. Sun hopes that it’ll sell a lot of its hardware to corporations, and to do this they have to have the software to run on it. So they give Java away free. Contrast- ing this business model with that of Microsoft, selling expensive software and giving away hardware (well, at least giving away $400 hardware rebates to hook up to Microsoft Network), gives some clue as to why Bill doesn’t get along with Scott.

Every attendee received a free CD copy of StarOffice 5.1, an office suite that purports to perform the same functions as and be interoperable with Microsoft Office. It’s functional enough to compose this report, though I have had to Ctrl-Alt- Del quite a few times lately. It’s free. The end of programming (As we know it)

I carefully scanned the glossy press releases, and I couldn’t find the word “programming” anywhere except a single oc- currence immediately following the words

“without complex.” In the standard Vision, development of Web behavior in the future will require no programming as we know it. Developers will just use a visual development tool to assemble commer- cially available components, written by specialists and called JavaBeans.

JavaBeans The unfortunate (but apparently obligatory) coffee pun obfus- cates the fact that Beans serve the same function in the Java world as Visual Basic components do in the Windows world (a notion not even whispered during the three days of the conference). Compo- nents, or Beans, are objects that encap- sulate data and behavior and may supply translation services among the players on the Web. Beans, like VB components, are built to lead at least two separate lives. The first life is called “design time,” during which the developer assembles and links together the parts of his application using a visual development tool such as Visual Basic or Symantec Cafe. The second life is called

“run-time,” during which the application performs its intended function of translat- ing databases, receiving user clicks, or is otherwise trying to get you to spend money. Sun thinks that JavaBeans are cooler than VB components because they run on operating systems other than Windows.

Did I say party?

Judging from the laughter meter at (Sun Chairman and CEO) Scott McNealy’s keynote, everyone hates Gates. McNealy’s Top Ten theme was Broadway shows he saw during the NYC Java Expo, which included

“Little Shop of Horrors”

Java Continued on page 6

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— Microsoft’s e-commerce offerings,

“Les Misérables” — Microsoft’s legal team, “Nutcracker” — with a special guest appearance by Janet Reno.

After the roll-out press conference Tuesday night, everyone trooped into the Crystal Palace at Javits — a jazz combo, open bar, a buffet with real food, and a magical view across the river of the sky- line of ... um... Weehawken. Thursday at lunchtime, Penn and Teller performed part of their Broadway show for everyone who had ponied up the price of the conference.

XML is big news

Judging from the attendance at conference sessions and the frenzy for T-shirts (with cool yin/yang graphics on the back

— Java: Portable behavior / XML: Por- table data,) the big next-big-thing news was XML. XML (Extensible Markup Lan- guage) is an emerging Web standard that permits transmission of data along with its context in a platform-independent way.

(Sorry. I just can’t write about this stuff without using buzzwords.) One of the reasons for the rapid advance of the standard is that everyone needs it. When Gates talks about it in his keynote address at Comdex and McNealy pumps it up at Java Business Expo, it’s clear that there’s a lot of pres- sure behind it.

What is XML?

So what is XML exactly? Well, it’s a markup language (like HTML) that isn’t much like HTML at all. First, your average browser won’t render it without a LOT of help, and second, the user can define her own tags (eXtend the language. Get it?) It’s all in human-readable text, So what’s it good for? Well, because the user can extend it, it can represent data fragments without losing their context. You’ve wrestled with tab- or comma-delimited files? Seen whizzing by, “3.14159, 2.7183” doesn’t mean much, but an XML fragment such as

2.7183 </e> </mathconstants> starts to make sense, if that’s the sort of thing you’re looking for. To make it all work, though, there has to be a way to express the overall data model. The language to do this is DTD.

DTD

You’ve never heard of DTD (Document Type Definition)? You’ve never heard of something that brings up a half a million hits on AltaVista? Well, never mind, it’s obsolete. Maybe they’ll talk about “XML schemas” next year, and I’ll write it up.

Geeky?

Considering that the target of the conference was The Enterprise, the Java Busi- ness Conference wasn’t noticeably geeky, and it didn’t have that desperate feel, or the children in polyester suits you see at the PC or the Web Expos. It was kind of subdued with one or two wool suits and two or four wingtips. If the geeks and slash- dotters were there, they wore their denim shirt company uniforms, but they could be spotted because their bosses didn’t make them take out whatever those things are sticking through holes in their skin.

Disclaimer

As intrepid but mild-mannered corre- spondent for dacs.doc, I was treated like royalty by the organizers, fed hot buffet lunches, escorted to a front row seat for the keynote (I got to sit this far from Scott McNealy before he gave his talk), got to attend all of the conference sessions, and was given lots of cool stuff like leather notebook binders and rubber balls that blink when you bounce them on the floor. So you won’t get an unkind word about Sun or Java out of me.

Java Continued from page 5

FR E D KL I N G E N E R is president of Brock Engineering in Roxbury. He’s interested in using Java for technical applications. He can be reached at [email protected].

THIS IS YOUR LAST NEWSLETTER If the membership date on your

mailing label reads EXP 11/1999 You need to renew

your DACS membership - NOW

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Directors Notes Continued from page 3 ber activities for which they might be re- warded was developed during a brain- storming session. It was agreed that such a list, with refinements as may be found necessary in application, be presented to the general membership at the December 15 meeting.

Y2K links from dacs.org The subject of establishing links from the DACS Website to Y2K solution sites was discussed. The consensus was that the limitations imposed on our use of the Library’s server, combined with the time window available and the availability of other material on the subject would make such a project impractical to implement.

Ad revenues

Charlie Bovaird reported that advertising revenue from dacs.doc was diminish- ing. It was also suggested that in view of the negotiations regarding renewal of the Resource Center space, it might be prudent to consider alternative venues.

—LARRY BUOY

I

F YOU WONDER how you can keep your favorite Mac working beautifully day after day, you have two great utility programs to choose from—Tech Tools Pro 2.5 and Norton Utilities 4.0 (although 5.0 is available). A utility program is like a toolbox with many software tools, each of which can solve a particular problem—or crisis. One can repair your hard drive (files, not mechanical problems); another can recover lost or accidentally deleted files. Yet others can test the ports and the motherboard (the main circuitboard where the processor, memory, and other items that make up the computer live) and start your Mac from her internal hard drive (a requirement for some repairs) Mac when she won’t, or can’t. On top of this, most utility packages have a tool that will opti- mize your hard drive by organizing the files in an orderly fashion. These are only some of the many features available to you when you buy a Mac utility.

It had always been my belief that utilities often are more trouble than they are worth. I was not disappointed in this belief during a recent wrangle with TK. While I had apparently had TTP 2.5 running seamlessly in the background of my G3, strange things were happening. I was doing a routine housecleaning of my hard drive and had either deleted, or stored on ZIP and deleted about 400MB of data files. But I noticed that the available disk space on my drive was not increasing. What was up?

I explored me Hard Drive, to no avail. I ran the file structures and file checks in TTP. Everything appeared OK. It wasn’t until I opened the TTP Control Panel, clicked on Trash Cache, and displayed the cache files, that I discovered that TTP caches all files deleted from the trash and saves them as invisible files on the HD.

The lesson: If TTP is installed on your Mac and TTP protection is running, first open the TTP control panel, click on Trash Cache, and use the toggle to turn the darn thing OFF! A dialog box will appear asking if you want to return the cached files to the trash. Say NO! I did, and happily emptied my trash. Aha, more HD space.

Now the fun started. As far as I can figure, TTP removed other cached files on my HD in addition to removing those

Macinations

Utilities for Your Mac

TechTools Pro and Norton are this user’s picks

By Chris Salaz

cached files in the Trash Cache, (I’m speculating here). Now my Mac was act- ing very strangely. Tasks it used to do with ease now required much churning of the old HD, if they worked at all.

The first thing I lost was my Internet setup. TTP said that the GetMyIP script was damaged. After checking all my settings, I wrote a new Internet configura- tion, dumped preferences, rebuilt PRAM, and uninstalled and reinstalled from the 8.5 CD. Nothing worked. All that failing, I backed-up, low-level formatted, and rebuilt the entire system. Royal pain! It was the first rebuild I’d had to do in about a year and a half.

Anybody got SoftWindows? I lost mine (got it with a “bundle” from the local Mac shop that was good for only a couple of things, but it impressed the hell out of the PC guys).

So now I went to the Micromat site, downloaded a new TechTools update.

V.2.5.3, which fixes a bug in the Trash Cache (I know about that!) and boasts some other features. I’m still researching but will keep you posted. Please forward this to other Mac users you think it would interest. And Mac SIG members, would you kindly send me your e-mails again?

Yup, I lost my saved mail.

I

WAS PUSHING the envelope of dis covery on my G3 Macintosh one day when I did something that caused me problems for weeks to follow. The machine began performing erratically when I used it and unpredictably each time I started it up. It is disheartening when one’s trusty computer is ill. So I bought a copy of Norton Utilities for the Macintosh.

I ran NU Mac off of the startup disk with limited results, and I ran it as the startup disc with equally limited success.

After spending frustrating weeks with an erratic Mac, I tried (TTPro) TechTools Pro, which I had purchased when NU seemed unable to handle the job. Though my hopes were raised a bit, even the new utility was not able to fully restore my Mac. So I backed up many important data files before formatting my Startup disc, reinstall- ing MacOS 8.1 and running both utilities again. Between the two, TTPro has pro-

vided me with the best diagnosis and repair. My G3 Mac is up and running again.

This is not to say that Norton Utilities Macintosh isn’t any good, because it is. It managed to restore a Performa 475 of mine I had stopped using because I thought I had to buy a new HD. NU took a few diagnostic and repair runs before I was able to use it without any more hiccups. I have since updated the operating system on the Performa 475 to Mac OS 7.5.5 and networked it with my other computers.

I am now using TTPro as my diagnostic tool of choice for the G3 Mac, and I am pleased—so far.

Conclusion

If you would like to introduce your Mac to either of these utility programs, you can visit www.micromat.com to learn more about TechTools Pro and www.symantec.com for Norton Utilities Mac. Both of these programs can work on HFS plus formatted Macintosh hard drives, a format that makes efficient use of your hard drive space. Prices are $30 for TechTools Pro and $90 for Norton (before rebates). Both will work from MacOS 7.5 up to 8.6 with a minimum 5MB of RAM for TTPro, and 16MB for NU Mac. Enjoy!

CHRIS SALAZ is a CO-SIG Leader of the Macintosh SIG. He is an LTA at the Danbury Public Library, where he works with the public and with the computer systems. Most of all, he enjoys the time he can spend with his son. Feel free to e-mail Chris at [email protected] with any comments you might have.

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Special Interest Groups

SIG News

g

ACCESS We are going to look at selected wizards in January.

We will also take a look at reading or modifying a table’s definition at runtime using VBA statements. As usual, about half of each meeting is devoted to “How do you ...?” questions from the participants. Bring a diskette if you want to take the meeting’s work home with you.

INTERNET The presenter for our January meeting will be Bill Keane, Internet SIG regular, whose topic is “Linux and the Internet.” Linux is much in the news lately, and Bill has been involved with this operating system for some time.

MACINTOSH SIG In January we will demo Mac OS9, tentative to its release. At the December meeting, the topic was “Mac/

Hardware/RAM”. We discussed the meanings of the terms PRAM, ROM, SLOTS: PDS, ADB, NUBus, PCI, PORTS: ADB, Serial, SCSI, USB, and IEEE 1394 (Fire Wire/iLink).

VISUAL BASIC The December VB SIG meeting started with a great set of Random Access questions. The first one led to a discussion on techniques used to search the MSDN knowledge base. As an aside, I mentioned a really easy way to retrieve Microsoft Knowledge Base articles. If you send an e-mail to [email protected] with the “Q-number” as the subject, you will receive the article by return e-mail. In another question, a member suggested using the MS Direct Access newsgroups as a means to get direct support from Microsoft. Another question concerned a “buffer full” error where a serial port is read repeat- edly. The consensus was that an object was being created re- peatedly and not destroyed. It was suggested to place a stop at the point where the object is created to make sure the code is really executed only once. Chuck began the program with a presentation of an Active Server Pages (ASP) project developed for a client. He compared it to an existing VB application currently in use. He then discussed how the ASP program might be improved to better prove the same functionality as the VB program. The goal is to get the same “user experience” over the Web as is currently provided by the VB program on the client computer. We will see more of this project in coming months.

VOICE FOR JOANIE During the nine years it has been in exist- ence helping those suffering from ALS, Voice for Joanie has assisted 225 people in 104 Connecticut towns and eight people in seven New York State towns. At the present time we are helping 52 people. We are always in need of technical assis- tance and it would be especially helpful to have volunteers who would learn the programs we offer. These people could help with teaching, or be available to answer questions. Contact SIG leader Shirley Fredlund.

WEBSITE DESIGN The Web Site Design SIG is going on hiatus while we search for new leader.

ACCESS. Designs and implements solutions using Microsoft Access database management software. Contact: Bruce Preston, 203 431-2920 ([email protected]). Meets on 2nd Tuesday, 7p.m., at the DACS Resource Center, Ives Manor (lower level), 198 Main Street, Danbury. Next meeting: Janu- ary 11.

ADVANCED OPERATING SYSTEMS. Explores and develops OS/2, Linux, and NT operating systems. For meeting notes and notices, follow link to Don’s site on dacs.org. Contact: Don Pearson, 914 669-9622 ([email protected]). Meets on Wednesday of the week following the general meeting, 7:30 p.m., at Don Pearson’s office, North Salem, NY. Next meeting:

January 4.

EDUCATION. Coordinates DACS education classes. Contact:

Charlie Bovaird, 203 792-7881 ([email protected]). Meets as needed.

GRAPHICS. Create/print high-quality graphics and images.

Contact: Ken Graff at 203 775-6667 ([email protected]). Meets on last Wednesday, 7p.m., at Best Photo Imaging, Brookfield.

Next Meeting: January 26.

INVESTMENT STRATEGIES. Discusses various investment strategies, emphasizing careful selection to maximize profits and limit risk. Contact: Paul Gehrett, 203 426-8436, ([email protected]). Meets 3rd Thursday, 7:30 p.m., Edmond Town Hall, Newtown. Next Meeting: January 20 .

INTERNET. Acquaints DACS members with the Internet.

Contact: Larry Stevens ([email protected]) or Richard Koser ([email protected]). Usually meets on 3rd Wednesday, 7p.m., at the DACS Resource Center, Ives Manor (lower level), 198 Main Street, Danbury, a few buildings north from the Danbury Public Library. Members’ suggestions for Internet SIG topics are always welcome. Next Meeting: January 19 (no De- cember meeting).

MACINTOSH. Discusses Macintosh hardware and software.

Contact: Chris Salaz, 203 798-6417,([email protected]. Meets on 3rd Tuesday, 7:30 p.m., at the DACS Resource Center, Ives Manor (lower level), 198 Main Street, Danbury. Next Meeting:

January 18.

VISUAL BASIC. Develops Windows apps with Visual Basic.

Contact: Chuck Fizer, 203 798-9996 ([email protected]) or Jim Scheef, 860 355-8001 ([email protected]). Meets on 1st Wednesday, 7p.m., at DACS Resource Center, Ives Manor (lower level), 198 Main Street, Danbury. Next Meeting: January 5.

VOICE FOR JOANIE. Provides and supports people with Lou Gehrig’s disease with special PC computer equipment.

Contact: Shirley Fredlund, 860 355-2611 x4517 ([email protected]). Meets on last Tuesday, 7:30 p.m., at Datahr, Brookfield. Next Meeting: January 25.

WALL STREET. Examines new Windows stock market software.

Contact: Phil Dilloway, 203 367-1202 ([email protected]).

Meets on last Monday, 7p.m., at the DACS Resource Center, Ives Manor (lower level), 198 Main Street, Danbury. Next Meet- ing: January 31.

WEBSITE DESIGN. Designs and maintains dacs.org, the DACS Website. Contact: Jeff Setaro, 203 748-6748 ([email protected]). Meets on 2nd Wednesday, 7p.m., at the DACS Resource Center, Ives Manor (lower level), 198 Main Street, Danbury. Next Meeting: No meeting. New SIG leader needed.

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Janu ary 2 0 0 0

D a n bur y A re a C o m p u ter S ociety

S u nd a y M o nd a y T u e sd a y W e d n e sd a y T hu rsd a y F rid a y S a t urd a y

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 1 0 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5

1 6 1 7 1 8 1 9 2 0 2 1 2 2

2 3 2 4 2 5 2 6 2 7 2 8 2 9

3 0 3 1

December 99

S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

February 00 S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

7:00 PM VISUAL BASIC

Chuck Fizer 203 798-9996

7:30 PM VOICE FOR JOANIE

Shirley Fredlund 860 355-2611

7:00 PM ACCESS Bruce Preston

203 431-2920 7:00 PM GENERAL MEETING

New Deal 2000 Danbury Hospital

7:30 PM BOARD OF DIRECTORS

7:30 PM ADVANCED OS

Don Pearson 914 669-9622

NEWSLETTER SIG NEWS DEADLINE

7:30 PM MACINTOSH

Chris Salaz 203 798-6417

7:00 PM INTERNET Koser/Stevens [email protected]

7:30 PM INVESTMENT

Paul Gehrett 203 426-8436 Martin Luther King Day

7:00 PM GRAPHICS

Ken Graff 203 775-6667

7:00 PM WALL STREET

Phil Dilloway 203 367-1202

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NT Servers

Build Your Own NT Server

Teach Yourself Insanity in 14 Days

By Jim Scheef

N

EW BUSINESS means new

projects. New projects mean new software. New software means a new server. Right? Well, a few months ago I decided that this was, in- deed, true. For the past five years my

“server” has been a 100 Mhz Pentium system which I bought in (surprise) 1994.

Over the years this machine got additional memory and larger SCSI drives to keep it running as Windows NT Server grew from 3.5 to 4.0 and the clients on my network grew from Windows for Workgroups to Win9x and NT Worksta- tion.

Finding the Hardware So enough

history. My re- quirements are for a server with enough horsepower to run Windows NT 4.0 Server with SQL Server 7.0 and E x c h a n g e Server 5.5.

These server a p p l i c a t i o n s are needed for development

projects, and the old machine just won’t cut it. Also, when I’m ready for Windows 2000, it would be nice if the new server was ready, too.

So given my paltry budget, where, I asked myself, do I start? The answer to this question was a combination of Com- puter Shopper and the Microsoft Web site. The Windows 2000 Hardware Com- patibility List (HCL) is at www.microsoft.com/windows2000/up- gr a d e / c ompa t / sea rch /d ef a ul t. a sp . Searching through the list to the “server motherboard” section revealed a list of candidate system boards. Comparing the model numbers to the ads in Computer Shopper yielded the features and costs associated with each board. This process quickly narrowed the list, and I eventu- ally settled on the Intel N440BX system board. Intel calls this a “purpose built”

server motherboard. The features that sold me on the board are:

• Dual PII or PIII support

• Built-in video (nothing fancy here since no one ever really looks at it)

• Dual channel Symbios Ultra2 wide SCSI (important—more on this later)

• 10/100Base-T ethernet port

• 4 DIMM slots for plenty of RAM Plus it has some network management features that might be nice to learn when I get around to installing Win2k. All this came at a price that almost fit my budget.

Next I needed a case, so back to Com- puter Shopper. There are several vendors advertising in C o m p u t e r Shopper who sell nothing but system cases. I don’t under- stand why they are all out on the

“left” coast, but.... A very helpful sales- man at Case De- pot sold me on a server case with space for six 3.5" and four 5 1/4" devices, a 300W power supply, and a 4" cooling fan (with mounting holes for another!). Ahh! Room to grow! All this for $190 plus $30 shipping from Santa Fe Springs, somewhere in California. The case is very rugged and has a couple of handles cut in the interior that makes it much easier to flip the case over. The worst part of the case is the exceedingly difficult-to-remove front cover.

Meanwhile I ordered a 350Mhz PII, a couple of 9G Seagate U2W hard drives, and 256MB of RAM. When all the parts arrived I started construction. The motherboard fit the case perfectly; I just had to be sure to assemble the processor supports first. It’s also easier to identify the jumpers and other small pin connec- tors before the board is installed. I installed the first processor and a “termi- nation board” to fill the second proces-

sor slot until I can upgrade an existing machine to free up the other 350Mhz PII.

I always buy Intel “boxed” processors so I am sure to get the processor with a cooling fan already mounted. The motherboard provides two 3-pin power sockets for the processor fans.

The hard drives mounted neatly but added another twist. Ultra2 SCSI drives (also called LVD for low voltage differ- ential) require a different type of terminating resistors. Most SCSI drives pro- duced in the past few years have a built- in terminating resistor that is enabled by a jumper on the drive. Not so with LVD!

You need a special terminating resistor that occupies an additional connector on the SCSI ribbon cable. Back to the phone to order this special terminator. I use Dalco for small stuff like this. They seem to carry just about everything you’re likely to need. More waiting. When the terminator arrives I’m finally ready to install Windows NT.

An initial install went smoothly as I decided how to configure the server.

When I set up an NT server I install two copies of NT, one the “working” copy of NT Server and the other an “emergency”

or “recovery” copy. This offers a number of advantages when there are problems and you need to recover. Let’s say you turn on your server and are greeted with the “blue screen of death.” The message is that a file is missing or corrupt.

Since NT Server is normally installed in an NTFS partition to maintain security, you can’t simply boot to DOS and replace the corrupt file. This is where the second copy of NT comes in handy. You can boot that copy, and since it understands NTFS, you can replace the corrupt file and repair the problem.

The purpose of this installation is to assist in recovery in the event the main NT Server installation becomes unbootable. This can happen if the registry or a system file becomes corrupt. Since you want NT Server installed in an NTFS (NT File System) partition to keep things secure, you need another means to replace files on the NT Server partition that understands NTFS. This is provided by the installation of NT Workstation.

I prefer to install the copy of NT Workstation in a DOS bootable FAT partition. Keep in mind this must be the first partition on drive 0. Here’s how I partitioned drive 0:

Partition type Size and Format Contents

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Primary 256M FAT

DOS, NT Workstation Primary

2G NTFS

NT Server system Secondary 6.8G NTFS Server applications

The second 9G drive, formatted as a single NTFS partition will be used for the databases and other files. While we’re on the subject of the hard drives, let’s talk about the SCSI controller. Remember I said the dual channel SCSI controller was important. Each channel has a separate connector, one a 68-pin wide connector and the other the older style 50-pin connector.

This allows connecting the slower devices such as the CD-ROM and tape backup drives to the 50-pin narrow connector while the hard drives are connected to the 68-pin wide SCSI connector. Isolating the

“fast” and “slow” devices increases effi- ciency. It is especially important with LVD hard drives. If LVD devices are mixed with other SCSI devices, even ultra SCSI hard drives, the LVD drives will slow down and operate in conventional SCSI or “single-ended” mode. This cuts maximum speed at least by half. Never mix LVD drives with other types of SCSI devices on the same SCSI bus.

Hardware Lessons Learned When I started this project, the plan was to build the server using a 350Mhz PII from an existing machine plus a new 350Mhz PII. Well, guess what. This won’t work! Dual processor machines must have

“matching” processors. Intel defines

“matching” to be within one “stepping.”

What is a stepping? Apparently it is what prevents you from using a ten-month old processor alongside a new one, or one more gotcha. Another thing I learned the hard way, if you buy a “dual processor capable” machine, buy both processors when you build the system.

NT Setup Procedure Back in hard disk setup I described how I partitioned one of the 9G drives into three drives. The first step is to create the 256M partition. This is created and formatted using DOS booted from a floppy. The easiest way to make such a floppy is to make a “Windows Repair Disk” on a Windows 95 or 98 machine.

Do not “enable large drive support” when you run FDISK as NT 4.0 does not support FAT32. Once this drive has been for-

matted, boot from the NT Workstation CD and install NT Workstation into this same FAT partition. This should be a mini- mal installation and need not be config- ured for the network. Actually you could install a second copy of NT Server. I prefer NT Workstation simply because it is smaller and will install in a smaller partition. Once NT Workstation has been installed, you should be able to boot the machine to either NT or DOS. In this case I found that I could let NT detect the video controller, but I learned the hard way that I had to use the SCSI and network drivers that came on diskettes with the motherboard. In both cases the drivers on the NT4 CD would not work. While the video driver on the NT CD did work, the driver that came with the motherboard offered better performance and more features than the generic Cirrus Logic chip driver on the NT CD.

Now that you have NT running, you can use Disk Administrator to create the other partitions and do the formatting.

This gives you complete control over the type of partition and the cluster size used to format each partition. You are now ready to install NT Server.

I prefer to start the NT Server install from NT Workstation. To do this, insert the server CD and open an NT CMD “DOS window.” Use the command line to switch to the \i386 directory on the CD. Type

“winnt32 /e /n” to start the 32-bit version of the NT Server install. The options tell the installer not to make startup diskettes and to use the floppyless install procedure. You will be prompted for the source of the install files (the default will be cor- rect), and the installer will start to copy a lot of files to the hard drive. When the copy is finished, you will be prompted to reboot the machine. Take this opportunity to change the CMOS setup to pre- vent rebooting from the CD drive. When the machine boots from the hard drive, the NT Server setup will continue. As with the Workstation install, I used the SCSI and network drivers from the motherboard diskettes. When the server install is complete, the NT boot menu should show NT Server, NT Workstation, and Windows 95 (or whatever you used for that very first partition and format).

Software Lessons Learned Now the tricky stuff begins. If you have followed all the instructions so far, you may be surprised to find that NT Server is installed and running on drive E:! This is due to the way drive letters are assigned in DOS and Windows, and

NT is no different. Fortunately NT gives us a way to assign drive letters the way we prefer using Disk Administrator.

Here’s how I assign drive letters:

C:

NT Server system partition D:

Server applications O:

CD drive S:

2nd 9G drive - the data - S is for system W:

NT Workstation/DOS

When you change the drive letter for NT Server system partition, you will receive a warning that making this change can result in unpredictable behavior. Do whatever you do for good luck and click OK. You will get still another warning that Disk Administrator cannot get exclusive control of the disk, with a prompt asking if you want to make the change the next time you boot. Click OK. You will get another warning that the change you are making requires a reboot. Click OK. Continue clicking OK until the system shuts down and reboots.

When you log back on, the system will start complaining that it “does not have a properly sized swap file.” Actually, the swap file still exists, but since NT can no longer find it, you are essentially running without any swap file and you must create one. NT wants a swap file on the system partition at least equal in size to the physical RAM in the system. In my case this means a swap file of 256M, so I made that the minimum (or initial) size and set the maximum to 300M. I plan to run both SQL Server and Exchange Server on this machine, so the swap file will be active. A performance hint is to always place your swap file on the fastest hard drive. NT can benefit from multiple swap files if the drive setup is appropriate. Swap files should not be placed on RAID arrays. The ideal place to put a secondary swap file is a drive all its own. This eliminates problems with head contention (more than one process looking to read or write to the disk at the same time) and file fragmen- tation.

The last step in this process is to change all registry keys that refer to the server’s system partition from “H:\” to

“C:\”. This can be done manually in a few hours, or in a few minutes if you spend the money for a registry editor. This must be done before any software is installed NT Server Continued on page 15