Journal
Skip ahead to Tue, Thu, Fri, Sun
Monday 26 January, 1998 2:15PM
This could turn into quite an expensive little hobby. Got up early this morning and checked several web site hosting firms. Ouch! Have to do a little more research. I’m not so sure about the places that offer free sites, like GeoCities and Tripod. I’ve always found GeoCities sites to be S-L-O-W, and Tripod pops up that annoying little box all the time. GeoCities will provide virtual domain hosting for five bucks a month, but it’s real basic.
Badpuppy’s free home pages are pretty static. I always thought it was laziness on the part of the site holders. Nope. It’s cause it’s a pain in the ass. You have to upload your whole site as a single ZIP file (under 2MB please) each time you want to update. OK, so what about their fee based sites? Dunno, they haven’t responded to my e-mail from a week ago today.
My ISP also hasn’t responded to my e-mail in over a week either. I didn’t expect to hear from them anyway. They usually forget to bill me, so how can I expect to get e-mail returned?
I don’t know what it is, but you’d think when someone sends you e-mail basically saying "I wanna buy services from you and I’ll give you money" you’d reply instead of dropping it in the ol’ bit-bucket.
Anyway, there’s a big difference in pricing. I looked at five places advertised in this month’s issue of Wired. I ruled one out because their server was down. (So much for their 99.5% Uptime Guarantee.) Later when their server was up, their page loaded at a paltry 10kbps.
Digression: I use Net.Medic to monitor my connection. It’s nice to know exactly what your throughput is, and it pinpoints traffic problems end-to-end. So when I experience a slowdown, I know if it’s my PC, my modem, my ISP, the internet "backbone" or the server I’m accessing. Besides, it looks cool onscreen.
Digression #2: I’m fortunate enough to have a 56kbps x2 connection to my ISP. A good server usually whips stuff in here at about 40kbps. If I dial up at 28.8, those same pages load at about 20kbps, so the overhead, 30%, is the same for both connection types. If you can get x2 service, it REALLY IS about twice as fast, at least that’s been my experience.
Before you buy, go to USR’s site and run their test program. Even if your ISP supports x2, your telephone line may not be good enough to support 56k. The test program will tell you if x2 is feasible on your phone line. If your line quality isn’t up to snuff, you’ll know before you shell out your hard earned cash.
They really want you to be satisfied with their product. I think it’s nice of them to do that. Other companies would just say, "Sorry dude, you got a shitty phone line and we have your cash." End of digressions.
Of the other four hosting services advertised in Wired, one is WAY overpriced, two others work out to the same price after you add five bucks a month to the "cheaper" one for FrontPage 98 Server Extensions. The last one, really looks like a good deal. Fifteen bucks (US) a month, 25MB storage, 1GB of data transfer, includes FrontPage Server Extensions, and their site loaded in the mid-30kbps range. They have plans at $25 and $40 a month too.
Egad! I hope the site doesn’t get THAT popular that I have to pay for 5GB of data transfer a month! (In my dreams!)
I’m getting more comfortable with FrontPage 98. Still have to buy my own copy. Don’t sic the MS-Police on me! I’m gonna be out by CompUSA tomorrow when I go to Home Depot for the new kitchen cabinets, okay? I actually DO buy all the software I use. I even REGISTER ALL THE SHAREWARE I use.
Anyway, in FrontPage I’ve figured out how to do most of the stuff I want to do. But boy, does it generate a lot of files. It seems that for every navigation bar I add, it spits out a new GIF for every button. You’d think it would use the same GIF for the same button throughout the site. I’ll have to keep an eye on it.
If I choose themes, it doesn’t give me the control over backgrounds, button sizes and stuff like that. But on the other hand, I don’t have to hand-code all that stuff either and futz around with every page. It’s a trade-off.
Downloaded Netscape Communicator 4.04 today. I’ve used MSIE at home because it’s free. On my last two contracts, (Kodak and Danka) they used Netscape. Really the differences between them are minor. Now that they’re both free, it’s a real toss-up. Try ‘em both, pick the one you like and be done with it.
I know there are fans in both camps who will disagree with me, but it’s a browser for heaven’s sake! It’s not like you’re running a nuclear power plant or launching the shuttle with it. Lighten up.
In my line of work as a computer tech, people are always trying to drag me into the "religious wars." PC is better than Mac. Mac is better than PC. NetWare rules. NT rules. I’ve got the same answer for all of them: "They all have flaws, they all break, I can fix ‘em all, SO I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU USE!" It’s a personal decision, pick what YOU like, and call me when it breaks.
Speaking of work, Citibank is all casual dress. It’ll make the morning a little harder decision-wise. My brain is the last part to wake up in the morning, so the more things I can do on "auto-pilot" the better. At Kodak, and later Danka, it was a no-brainer. Black slacks, white oxford shirt, tie. Biggest decision was which tie to wear. Don’t know what I’ll do with all my ties. I’ve got over 50 of ‘em. (Who wants to be seen in the same five ties week after week? If he’s wearing the blue tie, it must be Tuesday. Not for me.) After I’m there a few days, maybe I can come up with a new "uniform." I hope I can wear my Nike hikers.
I’m taking a $10/hour hit to get this job. But I want a track record with both Tek Systems and Citibank. I’ve interviewed at Tek Systems’ Las Vegas office already, (Dan calls me from time-to-time just to check up,) and Citibank has a BIG facility there. So I’m gambling that trading off $400/week here will help give me some cred with them when I move there. And it’s only four to six months. My apartment lease here runs through April ’99, so I’ll have time to make up the difference.
Tuesday 27 January, 1998 8:45PM
Just made it to Park Place Deli before closing. They have THE BEST subs and salads in the city. It’s been a busy day and I just didn’t feel like cooking.
So, lesse. The tile guy came this morning to start fixing the tiles in the shower. Each apartment seems to be taking him twice the time he planned. I hope he’s charging enough. Looks like mine will take three days. The walls behind the tiles were really bad. I’m going to have to find another place to shower for a few days.
Spent a lot of the day on the Web. When I wasn’t online, I was working on the site. Also went to Home Depot and got the cabinets for the kitchen. It’s starting to look like a construction site in a porno around here!
Sooooo, I did it today. Registered a domain name, I went for the entirely too boring brucew.com. Everything creative I’d thought of was taken. And I got the server space. The site will be, (it you’re reading this it already is) hosted at 9NetAve in New Jersey. Paid for a year in advance to get three additional months free, US$179.40, set-up fee, US$34.95 add that to the InterNIC fee for the domain name, US$100.00. Pretty soon ka-ching $314.35. Oh yeah, don’t forget FrontPage. The VISA took a beating today. I think I hear it wimpering. Gad, I hope I left enough room on it for the Badpuppy renewal next month. J
So, truth in advertising. 9NetAve took only 15 minutes to set-up the account. I called their toll-free number, 888/963-8283 because I had a few questions I wanted to ask a human. But you can sign-up right over the web if you want to. Because my registration didn’t get in to InterNIC until after the 6:00pm deadline for today’s processing, the domain won’t be active until Friday night or Saturday night. As soon as InterNIC switches the domain on, 9NetAve will turn on my server account.
So, I’ve got 25MB of server space, 1GB per month of data transfer, 6 mailboxes, and a half-finished site. Bruce is gonna be a busy boy for the next few weeks.
Now you’re probably thinking, why is he going through all this expense when he can get a free GeoCites site. Well, I was reminded of that earlier tonight. I was checking out some of the different web-rings and every time I hit one hosted on GeoCities I got transfer rates of between 5 and 10kbps. I’m sorry. I don’t wait around for slow servers, and I don’t think you should have to either. If this site ever loads unacceptably slow, e-mail me.
Oh, and why didn’t I go with the free account at my ISP? They gave me a song and dance about FrontPage not being a real development tool and wanted me to hand code everything using CGI scripts. Don’t think so. Goodbye.
Enough geek-speak. What else is happening? Willie my fuck-buddy came over on Saturday afternoon for a matinee. I just don’t know what to make of someone who apologizes after sex. I have a good time, usually have to scrape him off the ceiling, why all this guilt?
It just occurred to me, some people may not know what a fuck-buddy is. It’s someone you get together with just for sex. No relationship entanglements. No demands. No strings. Personally I like to have a little friendship going too, but it’s not required to meet the definition.
Willie and I are each actively seeking boyfriends, but until something comes up, well a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. J Sure beats one-night-stands!
Still haven’t heard from Johnny. I understand he goes to The Forum on Tuesday for 2-for-1. I probably should stop by there, it’s just down the block. Should probably do some socializing anyway. Didn’t go out Saturday night, Spent all day Sunday and Monday in the apartment, except for a couple minutes to fix Angela’s Mac on Sunday, and Monday I did go downstairs to get the mail.
Well, enough journaling for now. Lotsa work to do!
Wednesday 28 January, 1998 12:45AM
Yeah, like I can do any work when I decide to "Just check a couple of things on the web." Four hours online. A new personal best for a single session! Did anyone say I was distractable?
Past my bedtime, again.
Friday 30 January, 1998 9:30PM
Yes, I think someone DID say distractable. I completely forgot about a haircut appointment Tuesday at 5:00, and I forgot to go to AIDS-Rochester for the my results last night. I presume negative, but that’s why we test isn’t it? Didn’t think about either of them until this afternoon when I was cleaning the construction debris and dust from the apartment. Both notes are prominently posted on the fridge. Oh well!
Things look pretty good. Almost stunning. I did the kitchen cabinets on Wednesday and Thursday. Yeah, I know there were only four of them, but I’m out of practice with this Bob Vila stuff, okay? And since the sink/countertop is a one-piece stainless steel unit, I had to do the job bass-ackwards and work around the plumbing. A little plaster work and some paint and I can go back to my life of leisure.
Carl the tile-man finished the bathroom this afternoon. Yep, four days he was in there, no shower, and I still can’t shower until the grout completely dries. Tomorrow afternoon he says. (Same deal here as in the kitchen about plaster and paint.)
Now then, I HAVE been able to bathe. (Ewww, don’t even wanna THINK about not washing. I owned flea markets for years. Many of the dealers, (and patrons) considered bathing to be optional.) But I prefer a shower. Whenever I take a bath, I always follow it up with a shower just to rinse. Somehow the bathtub ring clinging to the side of the tub makes me feel like it’s also clinging to me. Carl put the spout back on the tub today, so I had to use the shower for a minute or two. The past few nights, it’s just been the copper pipe sticking straight out of the wall, so by crawling around in the tub, I could rinse off. It’s actually kinda fun when you turn around. J
Okay, maybe we’re getting a little TOO personal here. It’s the wine. Margie, who I used to work with, and her husband Bruce came for dinner tonight. I ran around here like a mad woman today cleaning. (Fell asleep in the tub afterwards.) AS you may recall, I live in a concrete and steel high-rise. So, when you do any demolition/construction there’s gritty concrete dust EVERYWHERE. Plugged-up two microfiltration vacuum bags, went through three cleaning towels, and my sponge is a lovely shade of gray, yuk. And there’s still dust EVERYWHERE.
My "sister", Mark came over today to take me to lunch. The first think he notices when he walks in, is a T-shirt, hanging right at the end of the rod. Yep, it’s one of the ones I decided against wearing last Friday. "Let go of my ears, I know what I’m doing." Now I don’t have a problem with being out. I never took down my "Thunder From Down Under" calendar which hangs directly over the pot in the tea-room, while Carl the tile-man was here. The fridge is plastered with (PG-rated) pics of guys from the ‘net, and there’s the rainbow triangle on it too. After all, it’s my apartment.
BUT, that T-shirt. That’s definitely pushing the discretion envelope, no? The tile-man was here four days, the super has been in and out all week, yesterday there were the two guys installing the second phone line, last night my brother, sister-in-law, niece and my brother’s best friend came to take the old cabinets for my bro’s garage. All the while, this T-shirt is hanging RIGHT THERE. No-one said a thing. Maybe they never paid attention to it? Maybe they were too polite to say anything? Who knows.
They say, the only difference between the men and the boys is the size of their . . . toys. My newest toy? THE ULTIMATE FAG-PHONE! 900MHz digital cordless, two lines, hold, conference, speakerphone in the base-station, caller-ID readout in the handset, handy belt-clip, and the icing on the cake, A HEADSET!
This is a MUST HAVE phone. The quality is excellent – no-one knows you’re on a cordless. The range is tremendous. It works in the basement, (3 floors down!) in the elevator, in the underground ramp-garage. I haven’t tested to see how far down the block it works. Although they dance around the issue in the manual, other companies claim 1,000 to 1,500 feet for the 900MHz phones. And I look like a TOTAL DORK wandering around the building with a headset on! It’s made by V-Tech and is just over US$330 including Airborne and an extra battery pack, from Hello Direct, www.hello-direct.com or 1-800-HI-HELLO. For the same price, there’s a single-line version with built-in digital answering machine, or for US$100 less, a single-line version without the answerer.
Of course, Music Choice is playing while I write, which sends me off in this direction:
I’ve had mixed feelings about the popularity of remakes of old dance hits. But there’s a new one I really like that they’ve started playing this week on Music Choice. It’s a remake of the early 70s hit "Mighty High" by the Mighty Clouds of Joy. This new version, by Revival 3000 is basically samples and loops of the hooks, breaks and chorus of the original, laid over a 90s rhythm track. It really works. If it grows on me, it could become the next "Terrorize the Neighbors" hit of the week.
Another one they’ve been playing for about three weeks now, is "Saturday" by East 57th St/Donna Allen on Polygram. The original, from 1978 I think, by Norma Jean has always been one of my favorites. They’ve done the same thing here with the samples and loops of the hooks and chorus as Revival 3000 did above. But on this one, I miss the lyrics.
Mighty Clouds of Joy was a gospel group with one dance hit off of one album. I don’t really miss the gospel lyrics in "Mighty High". The remake kept the best parts of the song. "Saturday" however was about going out and partying on the weekend after struggling through the week. (The main line of the chorus goes, "I just can’t wait ‘til Saturday.") But, I do like the pounding drum work in this remake.
So, it’s off to Muther’s again tonight to see what happens. I’m still kinda disappointed in the way things worked out last week with Johnny. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. I can come on kinda strong, even when I say I’m taking it slow. I’ll let you know tomorrow.
Saturday 31 January, 1998 2:45AM
Well, didn’t run into Johnny tonight, but I did run into Michael-the-ex. We make much better friends than lovers. I needed a laugh or two tonight, and Michael always delivers. Such a scoundrel the little fuck. I still love him dearly, but on a different level now.
Anyway, Muther’s was packed tonight. No, I mean PACKED! Some sort of Hawaiian theme night, and I left my hula skirt at home! L Of course, it did leave the "I heard you were a nice lei" line open. J
So, Michael and I ran over to Tara. You never quite know what’s going to happen there.
Ran into James. How do I describe him? Mid-twenties, porcelain-white skin, dark features, goatee, longish hair, built like a brick-shithouse, not quite, but almost too butch. As far as I’m concerned, that man is the hottest thing in God’s creation. Damn. He was there with his ex. Some custody battle over the dog. Had to appease the ex to get visitation rights.
Being the understanding guy that I am, I passed him my card, and told that I didn’t want to get in the way of any negotiations, but when he had the time, to call me.
Background: James is on the fringes of rough-trade. The longer I go without a man in my life, the more I’m attracted to that. Don’t know why, not sure I want to. We met at a Labor Day picnic thrown by mutual friends, Terry and Michael, (I gave him my card then too.) Do you get the feeling there are too many Terrys and too many Michaels in my life? I need a scorecard, do you?
James was there with his now-ex, I was there with my now-ex, Michael. James got himself worked up into a lather and his rough side started to show. In such a hot guy, I was turned on beyond (even my own) belief. So he got it into his head that he simply HAD to throw someone into the pool, (above ground.) After he asked several people, and after a polite amount of time, I volunteered. Took off my Nikes, watch and glasses. He asked if I wanted to take anything else off because I was going to get very wet. (Mind you, it was only about 60°F, 15°C that day.)
After a brief discussion of the technical issues, over the top I went. Saved the party. He was happy, (thanked me even) I had a change of clothes in the car, so I didn’t care, (Still have to get a new auto club card,) and the other guests were delighted he wasn’t asking them if they wanted to be thrown into the pool. (Later, Albert did volunteer to the candle wax thing, but he was so blasted, no-one, (including James) cared. Unfortunately, Albert beat me to it.)
So, with any luck, (not that I have any,) he’ll call. Just the way he treated me with the pool thing, I’d let him have complete control, no questions. J His words, "If you’re not into it, I’m not into it."
Yes, I’m white trash, but not common.
Saturday 31 January, 1998 11:00PM
I’m embarrassed by the above entry. Oh well, not gonna delete it. I made a promise. I will be more careful about when I write. Writing after getting home from the bars was not one of my best ideas.
Except for about 15 minutes to help my neighbor Angela upgrade the RAM in her Mac, I worked on the site for about eight hours straight today, until I got a flat spot in my butt. I fleshed out some of the rest of the site, started adding links, looked everything over, then uploaded everything to the server.
FrontPage sure is a nice tool for that. 9NetAve recommends FTP (File Transfer Protocol) uploads. They have a preferred FPT package, I downloaded it, installed it, it’s a trial version that expires on March 2nd. Never even tried the program. I use Norton File Manager which treats FTP sites just as if they were another disk connected to the PC. I’m using it just to examine the site, because FrontPage does a super job of uploading everything.
All you do is connect to the ’net, and click the Publish button. Enter the domain name or IP address of the server, your login and password. Everything else is automatic. It uploads only the new or changed files, checks the site for files you’ve deleted from the local copy, and deletes them from the site, after asking if it’s OK.
FrontPage 98 really and truly is web publishing for dummies.
I did run into a couple of problems. The domain name isn’t resolving. In layman’s terms, when you click on a link or type a URL into your browser, the domain name is looked up in a Domain Name Server (DNS). The DNS looks up the IP (Internet Protocol) address for the site. The IP address is a series of four numbers separated by dots. That whole process is called resolving. Humans work better with the words, and computers prefer the numbers. The whole thing is there to keep everybody happy.
My domain name is brucew.com and my IP address is 208.232.66.128 Both the domain name and the IP address are unique to my site. You should be able to access it either way. Every time I tried to access the site by domain name, it didn’t work. Tried the browser, tried FTP, couldn’t even PING the site by domain name. Everything works fine however by IP address.
I checked my listing at InterNIC. The domain name became active on Tuesday. The same day that I registered it. So I’m not sure where the problem is. I tried Tech Support at 9NetAve, (where I lease the server space) but the line was on eternal busy. Not a good sign.
Since the site’s not public as yet, it doesn’t make a big difference. I can still administer and test it by IP address. So I’ll wait until Monday to track down the answers.
It was a real treat to connect to the site for the first time. The hit counters started at 1. With the exception of three links where I made typos, the site ran flawlessly. You can’t test links offline, so I’m really proud of the way things came up. Works great in both Netscape Navigator 4.04 and MS Internet Explorer 4.01. The pages are loading in the mid-30kbps range, but I did have one server load error in my testing. (That’s when you click on something and nothing happens.)
Sent e-mail out to a bunch of friends announcing the site was up and asking for their help in de-bugging it and for their input on the look and content. I’m not entirely happy with the look yet, so I need some help there.
I’ve pretty much decided I’m not going out tonight. I’m pooped. And I’m having too much fun playing with the site. Eventually, the pooped part will win. I don’t want to get too tired because I start work again next week.
Looks like it’s gonna be Tuesday not Monday. Drew from Tek Systems called yesterday while I was napping in the tub. (The new cordless Ultimate Fag Phone came in handy.) Apparently all the paperwork wasn’t signed yet by Citibank. I’ll have to keep close tabs on that. Anyway, Drew is taking me to lunch on Monday as a consolation prize.
Damn. I’m making far too many typos. Time for bed.
Sunday 1 February, 1998 7:00PM
Slept really well last night. I’ve been working on the site non-stop since I got up late this morning. I don’t have much to show for it in the way of postings, but I’ve done a lot nonetheless.
Earlier today I completely trashed the Contents page. I’d made some changes, previewed it in Explorer, then switched over to Netscape to double-check it. I noticed a typo. Cursing silently for not running the FrontPage spell-checker, I thought I’d try Netscape’s Composer just to see how it works.
It doesn’t play nice with a page designed in FrontPage. Fool that I am, I saved it after fixing the single typo. I spent quite some time removing all the files it created from the web directory. FrontPage didn’t know what to do with the Contents page after that.
Fortunately, I hadn’t uploaded any changes yet, so I deleted the damaged Contents page, and downloaded the old one from the site server. I’ll tell you, the Norton File Manager sure makes FTPing a breeze. Then I was able to repeat the changes, and run the spell-check.
Here’s what I did on the Contents page: Because a lot of stuff is changing, I decided to add a What’s New This Week segment to the Contents page. That way you won’t have to hunt all around the site to find the new stuff. In it, I’ll list the last time the Journal was updated and put links for the pages I’ve updated in the past seven days. I figure I’ll just rotate stuff through so you don’t have to look at any "old" stuff in the What’s New section.
A lot of the writing I’m doing causes all sorts of introspection. While that is one of my stated goals, it soaks up gobs of time with very little output created. Case in point, the Bio page. I’ve spent hours working on it and it’s only two pages so far.
Earlier I thought I could add a few paragraphs, post the changes, write more later, post the changes, etc. It doesn’t seem to be coming out that way. I’ve decided not to post the work I’ve done so far until it gets further along.
Let me know your opinion on this: Should I update it as I go along, kinda like the journal, or should I wait and post it when it’s done? E-mail your opinion to .
I guess this is gonna be another short entry. I’m bushed. Good news though, I can start a new document in Word tomorrow. Although I posting the journal in weekly segments, I’m writing it in monthly segments. It’s fewer files to manage that way. This file in Word is now 31 pages long.
The comments are starting to come in. All very nice. Thank you. Since it’s only a select group of friends who are checking out the site, I kinda expected that.
Now, I am looking for critique in addition to the glowing praise I’ve had so far. So let me know everything, especially the stuff you don’t like. I’m not saying I’ll take every bit of advice, but I know there’s room for improvement. I’d like opinions other than my own.
Bernie said he was amazed at the amount of content here already. I’ve got news for you Bern, not including the Journal, it’s considerably less than half of what I have planned. And I haven’t filled the first megabyte of my allotted 25 on the server. Say "Hi" to Stefan for me.
By the way, Bernie took the picture on the About Me page. There’s several others, but one is fine for now.
Scott said, "Thanks for the link." You’re welcome buddy! He also said he spent several hours touring the site. Check out his sites (he has two), and send him mail. It seems Tome and I are the only ones writing to him.
Vince-the-ex said, "I cried, I laughed, I enjoyed." Vince, the saying goes, "I laughed, I cried ..." Say "Hi" to the family for me. And have Lee check out the site. I know I’ll get some good opinions out of him. Would he like a link to his site?
I’ve had nothing to eat all day, so I have to get going. The all new DreamKitchen98 awaits.
