Todo List


Week ending:

1 Jan 199
9 12/29 Release team. Thin agenda.
[MAIN] Transarc Linux and NT Licenses signed sealed and delivered on time!
Analyzed some competing suggestions for Project Database changes, and suggested some synthesis.
Purged a couple inches of old stuff from paper files.
Wrote first draft of "Why its OK to believe in Squeak".
Added MIT to list of folks who care about Sun inetd bugs involving SIGPIPE.
Bitterly complained to Sun about how 24 bit pgx configuration is done.
25 Dec 1998
12/21 Fuzzballs: Discussion with Vijay about our role and how we do work. Also discussed issues for next round of purchases: we should consider what the next Athena Port will be.
12/22 E40 Holiday party, got to schmooze with folks.
12/22 Missed ACMG with Ken Klingenstein to help a Project Database User. :-(
12/22 Helped interview another MIT Archivist Candidate.
12/24 Took the other half of the day off.
12/25 Holiday
Discussed source issues with Sun. To be continued in January.
Discussed inst issues with SGI. Next step is a chat with Custom Engineering group.
Got License stuff and Requisition through for SCO SVR4.1ES license. (A prerequisite for other source licenses.)
Heard officially that RFE has been filed for our RARP-free boot ideas.
[Main] Thrashed about trying to figure out what to work on. Decided I needed to prune and prioritize. Did manage to get everything moved a little forward. Sun, Sgi, Eres, etc.
18 Dec 1998
12/14 Came in for a meeting and went home sick.
12/15 CaseTracker Demo. It's further along than I thought.
12/15 went home early -- sick.
12/16 stayed home -- caught up on email.
12/17 Discovery Team Leaders: project checkins. Ereserves is doing well.
12/18 cstrdev meeting: Removed obstacles to processing obscure compressed image archives.
12/19 Helped interview candidates for MIT Archivist.
[MAIN] This was a light week to get over being sick. Meetings on 12/18 and 12/19 were my big value added.
Got news from Transarc: Gotta get AFS stuff locked down before Dec 31 or IBM ownership will complicate things.
11 Dec 1998
12/7 Fuzzballs: Good discussion of our role in the world. Discussed also Quickstation principles, status of latest buys, and other stuff.
12/8 Meeting with rferrara. Discussed many things, esp project status and futures for project database.
12/9 Eres programming team meeting. Did some preliminary reviewing and scoping.
12/10 Eric Celeste
Got relief on Squeak sound problem I can now use 2.3beta!
Did Saurons Digest!
Our Access Plus renewal contract got lost. I got it back.
Nudged SCO for the promised license draft.
Learned about Sun Stand-Alone CD bootkit build product.
Took delivery of test Ultra-5 with 24 bit graphics. Kicked off project to find out why it was misaddressed.
Began writing Access Plus 360 degree review.
Helped review changes to Project Database to accomodate tracking Management Reporting projects.
Updated status for CSTR, Ethesis, and Thesis to Desktop projects.
Sent suggested edits for Private Workstation Owner's guide to dryfoo.
Filled in for nschmidt answering Professor's question about why we're so inflexible with what we let people put on the net.
Tried to help SGI understand and deal with our inst memory problem.
[Main] Lots of small things: PWOG review, SGI and Sun stuff.
4 Dec 1998
12/1 Release Team
12/2 IS Forum: 5 year plan. Some disconnect between what was said, and what people needed to hear to buy in. But there DOES seem to be something useful to this year's 5yp work.
12/3 Ethesis/CSTR meeting: Took inventory of CSTR collection. Planned Ethesis web page cleanup, and discussed possible distiller service.
Did some updates to ethesis entry in Project Database
Caught up a lot on Saurons Digest and my own status reports.
[MAIN] Made big progress on Sun boot PROM and cnboot stuff.
Our CTE contact at Sun is filing an official RFE for our RARP-free net boot concepts.
And our CTE contact is going to pursue an appropriate Flash CD that will work with all platforms.
Worked on trying to get the Squeak folks to fix squeak
Received Private Workstation Owner's guide draft from dryfoo.
Forgot to say last week that I helped get Bob Basch and SGI talking about a serious IRIX 6.5 inst problem.

27 Nov 1998
11/23 Advanced Coaching Workshop: I still need practice listening for other than what I expect. But I've made good progress in getting myself listened to by being more subtle.
11/23 Fuzzballs (Missed most of it cause of Coaching.)
11/24 IT Lunch: jis on where MIT Email service might evolve.
11/25, 11/26 Thanksgiving Holiday.
[MAIN] Made contact with HP on our Jet Direct card issue. They worked very hard with us, and we learned more, but we discovered the problem is not as simple as we thought.

20 Nov 1998
11/17 Release Team
11/17 ILEAD: Allison Dolan explains salary surveys -- particularly their limitations.
11/17 Bob and Bill meeting: Don't forget to do 6 month reviews (oops), Bill sez, "I want Michael Hammer's job".
11/18 Wade's Memorial Service
11/19 Discovery Team Leaders: How can we better track projects?
[MAIN] Began working issue that Ultra 450 cannot net-install Athena. Found yet another promising new contact at Sun.
[MAIN 2] Handed off Transarc NT and Linux licensing to MIT legal. Pricing and terms are now sane.

13 Nov 1998
11/9 OGIL
11/9 Fuzzballs: random little things.
11/11 Holiday
11/12 5yp all day offsite [MAIN]
11/13 Athena IAP planning
Continued to play with Squeak!
Forgot to mention last week that we showed proof of concept for a CNBoot replacement to an engineer at Sun.
Began working some licensing issues with SGI.
Tracked down how SGI lost the Cluster Support change of address. (We have a direct contact now.)
[MAIN 2] Began working issue of o2's in 4-035 having trouble fetching software over the net. Did some testing myself. Helped orchestrate communication amongst various stake holders.

6 Nov 1998
11/2 OGIL
11/2 Eric Celeste: Think about what would mediate access to all electronic library servers.
11/2 Alan Kay talk: Practical Smalltalk is within reach. It's called 'squeak'.
11/3 Release Team -- missed it.
11/4 Transarc Conference Call checkin.
11/4 OGIL
11/4 Ethesis technical team meeting: Let's get a prototype submitter up ASAP.
11/5 E Reserves: Charted out what is to be done and who is to do it.
11/6 Further Transarc checkins.
[MAIN] Uploaded squeak. Removed roadblocks to it running. Reproduced some of Alan Kay's demos. Was hoping things were further along, but they're not too far from being ready! Learning Learning Learning!
Significant progress on Sun OpenGL bug: Elite M3 fixed by running in missing package. (Asked them to enhance so missing package would not kill machine.) Ultra-5 now works, but has wrong colors.
Significant progress on Transarc licensing, although the price is higher than we'd like to pay.
Got movement on some SGI issues.

30 Oct 1998
10/26 OGIL
10/26 Owls: talked about printing, Linux, zip drives and other stuff.
10/27 ILEAD IS Review Project -- will try to summarize sometime.
10/28 Transarc Conference call -- further progress on issues.
[MAIN] 10/28 Crosstalk: Showed off Desktop delivery of Theses and Computer Science Technical reports!
Reviewed more drafts of EThesis submission guidelines. We went public with draft 5.
[MAIN2] Worked Sun issue of Hardware Update release availability and source.
Opened bug with Sun on Open GL not working at all on Ultra-5 and Ultra-10 with Elite M3 graphics.

23 Oct 1998
10/20 Joint *MG: Discussed 5yp. Sent analysis to Saurons.
10/20 Release Team
10/21 IS Forum
10/22 OGIL: (I'm a member of the OGIL subgroup)
Sent to Saurons a clarifying translation of the note from the HR
compensation team.
[MAIN 1]Bought 2 450MHz intel boxes: build engines for NetBSD and Linux software.
Reported issues to NECX/MCC folks on difficulty I had with learning
about the products.
Reviewed Ethesis Metadata paper.
Reviewed Ethesis Submission guidelines and submission web page.
[MAIN 2] Conference call with Transarc discussing NT and Linux licensing issues.
Met with Joe Welch on test cluster. Set up install of Ultra 1 and O2 there.
Nudged Adaptec for our Site License. One is promised for week's end.
Nudged Sun on Source code, desire to criticise product line, difficulty
of getting hardware releases, and SPARC 4 hang issues.
Nudged SGI: Pick back up issues, particularly install stuff.

16 Oct 1998
10/12 Columbus Day Holiday
10/13 Release Team: very brief: 8.1.13 to go to Athena cell. Open GL definitely does not work on the Ultra. (But it does seem to work ok on the SPARC 5.)
10/13 ILEAD: Very interesting exercise where we were given a list of ficticious people, their salaries, and asked to divide up a 4% pay increase.
Bought book on Samba, so I can be better informed about it.
10/14 Was interviewed by Dani for the IS Organizational review. My main point: do more explicit change management. People are VERY gun shy about change right now.
10/15 Thesis Submission: moving forward. Draft of submission web page and processes reviewed.
10/15 Discovery team leaders: quick check-in on projects.
10/16 Joint Discovery/Delivery team leaders meeting. Short talk on 5 year plan. Longer effort talking about Team creation issues/studies.
10/16 Eric Celeste: preparing for 10/28 Crosstalk demos.
[MAIN] Read book on Samba. Gems: Microsoft SMB is not so much one protocol, as several protocols smooshed in as "extensions" of a base protocol that was never written down. It has much more complexity, and therefore is harder to security audit. It's encryption of passwords is weak. But at least, unlike NFS, it does not blindly believe lies told by clients about UID and which physical disk blocks to write.
Read CIC Z39.50 report: It's an EXCELLENT survey of systems, and what would need to change to make it easier to broadcast searching of multiple systems and get sane results back.
Talked to Naomi about where Long Jobs project should go.
Bought "Built To Last" by Collins/Poras for some management ideas.
Read interesting article in ;login: on vmailer, an alternative to sendmail. (See http://www.clark.net/~proberts/vmailer/faq.html)
9 Oct 1998
10/8 Discovery team leaders weekly: Got project status, and raised issue of priority for Thesis Submission Project
10/8 Follow up Pete Kelley meeting on Project Db server. Plan to proceed buying hardware, and to offer to work extra hard to meet Database Group more than half way in possibly supporting Oracle on an Athena-Installed Sun.
Out sick Monday, and not really fully recovered Tuesday.
[MAIN] Helped dryfoo with Private Workstation Owner's Guide section on setting up an external disk. (Walked through the notes I used for building disks on bloom.)
Got notified our Sun Access Plus is up for renewal; notified appropriate IS personnel to prepare to renew; told Sun to bill us because YES we will renew.
Asked Sun where that new source license agreement we talked about in Jan 1998 was.
Checked in with SGI on issues reopened with Customer Advocate group; The customer advocate person is changing.
Reviewed with Bob Basch where SGI and Long Job stuff is going.
Reviewed with Miki were Sun boot stuff is going.
Revised team Athena home page and people page to look better and be more accurate.
Updated (slightly) Thesis Submission project database page.
2 Oct 1998
Out Sick ALL week
25 Sep1998
9/20 Home doing bathroom rennovation crud.
9/21 Release Team
9/21 VDI: Jeff Schiller spoke about the future MIT Net architecture and the possible future enhancements to our external connectivity. Gem: Buying when we NEED to rather than far in advance helped us avoid buying into dead end technologies.
9/22 Crosstalk: Learned about the new media center -- fancy Mac based facility for multi-media development.
9/22 Electronic Thesis: Met with new players from Libraries. Thesis submission pilot in February is a GO!
9/23 Meeting with Pete Kelley very productive planning for next generation Project Database server.
Moved a little forward on question of how to tell from commands what graphics are on an Ultra. Very hard. Suggested some mods to Athena's sysinfo.

18 Sep1998
9/14 Owls: Free form. Talked about Express Printer concept, and about what sorts of things might be Athena systems in the future.
9/15 Release Team: 8.2.10 coming soon.
9/15 ILEAD: Jim described the process to be followed for this year's drafting of the IS 5 year plan.
9/18 Discovery Team Leaders: Discussion of 5 year planning process, and review of the Purpose and Strategy summary-feedback Jim sent around.
9/18 Eric Celeste: checning in on W91, and other issues.
DEC lost the warantee battery order. Reordered. Tried Mike's battery. It's the computer not the battery. Sending the computer in.
Complained that Transarc had forgotten to send us our patch for the IRIX 6.2 ld problem.
Got some SGI varsity software from MIT software Library. Asked for clarification if it was complete. Answer: Yes, but some was hidden, and 2 CD's were supposed to be in it, but will be coming soon.
Got reply frm SGI acknowledging receipt of install white paper.
Sent note to Sun Customer Relations to help motivate progress on Hardware Upgrade distribution and Source issue.
Sent note to SGI re-starting issues now that their Customer Advocate is back from sabatical.
Nudged Peter Kelly to have meeting about Arachne.
Asked Angelo of Sun how to identify which graphics adapter is in an Ultra by typing at the console.
[MAIN] Made contact with technical guys at ReadSoft, got my concerns answered. Gave them a favorable recommendation for the Subject/Teacher Evaluation project.
11 Sep1998
9/7 Labor Day holiday
9/10 VIP card training
9/11 Delivery Team Leaders
9/11 Printing Discussion meeting.
Resent the list of SGI-specific programs to DEC. Got reply that previous note was lost, and that many of the programs ARE available for the Alpha.
Got status report from Adaptec: Their legal dept is backlogged.
Slapped Sun about the head and shoulders with a blunt stick about no progress on the Sparc 4 SIMM problem, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Found out after fixing up my laptop modem that the battery is fukt. Ordered a warantee replacement.
Reviewed Larry Stone's documentation on how the Legacy Thesis Collection to the Desktop system works.
[MAIN] Tried to make myself useful here while all is chaos with bathroom rennovations at home.
4 Sep1998
9/1 Release Team
9/1 E40 Team Leaders: Discussed SPACE.
9/3 Met with new Assistant Library Director. Discussed Ethesis.
9/4 Meeting with Eric Celeste: discussed new services, and service level issues.
Called DEC looking for my laptop parts. (They were here, but the Fed-Ex tracking confused us.)
Origen replacement drive with hot-swap can arrived.
Reviewed NECX part numbers and pricing for Athena Sun configurations.
Requested some SPARC Classics for Miki for an AFS test Cluster.
[MAIN2] With Miker Barker, helped get some additional resources (to-wit some of Todd's time) to Bob Ferrara for ECAT work.
[MAIN]Reviewed Bob Basch's white paper on SGI install issues. Sent it to SGI to restart discussions about install work.
30 Aug1998
Vacation All week
21 Aug1998
8/18 release-team:
8/18 ACMG: Discussed issues around printing, current capacity, usage, and impact of Electronic Reserves.
8/19 IS BBQ: FUN. Managed to soak a few people and NOT talk shop.
8/21 Meeting with Eric Celeste: cancelled to run off to deal with plumber and carpenter.
[MAIN]There was a problem with getting parts for one of our O2's. Again we were not properly in the SGI database. Someone at SGI has volunteered to manually verify entries when we order machines.
Got RMA for Origen drive, reminded them we have 48 hr hot swap, and they BETTER order a hot-swap can for the replacement drive.
Tried out test tether. It behaves just like old tether (even with regards to failure to negotiate degraded phone lines.)
14 Aug1998
8/10 Owls: prepare for ACMG Printing discussion.
8/11 Release Team: Open GL failed basic tests.
8/11 EReserves meeting: Planned content of Discovery Report
8/14 Joint Discovery/Delivery Team Leaders meeting. Brainstormed issues for Five Year Plan about how customers perceive IS, and how we perceive ourselves.
[MAIN2}Reviewed EReserves Discovery report and suggested some new directions, and clarifications.
Closed out NT Jaz problem with DEC. Asked for Jaz PCMCIA support for DOS so I could run PQ drive Image.
Helped resolve issue of new O2's not properly being in SGI service database. Nudged NECX.
[MAIN] Did much inventory taking and proposed which machines get upgraded during Athena Renewal. Proposed memory upgrades for watchmaker and staff machines.
Beat Sun up over lack of progress on Sparc 4 SIMM situation.
There seems to be a disk failing on Origen.
Checked in with SGI to make Bob Basch a bonafide contact.
7 Aug1998
8/4 release-team: 8.2.9 going out next week. Open GL issues in hand. sshd issues in hand.
8/5 Demo of DataCap OCR software. Looked good.
8/6 Project Mgmt Institute dinner at Aquarium. Fun. Not much business transacted.
Unpacked DEC NT driver upgrade -- WHAT A MESS.
Called DEC on it. They're pondering.
Got different Driver upgrades from DEC..
Set IRQ of Xircom to 3. The Jaz drive now WORKS under NT (it worked under Linux in April...)
Caught up on Saurons digest!
Made contact with folks in Adaptec who will get an appropriate license drawn up.
Got some promo literature on a beast called IPivot which is supposed to help with redundancy, load balancing and Quality of service of network services. I should get someone here to look at it.
Helped broker a new Private deployment of an Ultra 5. (Had to make sure PROM got upgraded.)
Began helping test new Tether.
[MAIN] Got the Sun install cooperation restarted. I have an idea how to do it and have asked Miki to produce a piece we will show to Sun.
31 July 1998
7/27 Fuzzballs: Printing, the Release, SoftWindows, Review of new work.
7/28 Release Team
7/28 Demo of Contec Ereserves software candidate. BZZZT! No good. Thank you for playing.
7/29 Demo of Readsoft OCR software. Looked good, but kind of closed system.
7/31 JIS meeting: We understand the scope and timeline of our project.
[MAIN] Determined that the Suns we got have Creator Elite m3, not plain old Creator 3d cards. Reviewed issues in bringing up 70 Suns with Elite m3 graphics.
Found that named core file from May attack could prevent updates to 8.2 due to lack of space.
Was informed if issue with rolling out release: The servers STILL get swamped by it. Two classes of fix: try again with a throttling algorithm. Roll out in smaller numbers of machines at a time by having smaller clusters.
Fielded report from Greg Hudson that the changes to the release to accomodate Open GL would have broken things. My oops! ALWAYS run new features by release-team!
Asked Adaptec if it's ok for us to put one of their drivers in the Athena release.
Sent a note to DEC naming the software that is unique to SGI's that we care about.
Ordered a Sun X6540 SCSI card for evaluation.
24 July 1998
7/21 Release Team. Going PUBLIC next week.
7/23 cstrdev: reviewed prototype workflow Thesis submission
7/24 Meeting with Eric Celeste of Libraries. Caught up on stuff. Need to meet more often and more closely coordinate web service ideas.
Learned that we are entitled to run SoftWindows on our O2's. Did a little poking at SoftWindows on my machine.
Headed off problems with updates of R4400 based SGI's.
Dug out and circulated our old list of supported SGI configs.
Came to closure with NECX on making online catalog entries SGI O2 configurations correct, consistent, and helpful.
Restarted discussion with rbasch about what we should ask SGI to do to improve inst, and to document what things one should avoid doing in inst.
[MAIN] Proposed a change to the Athena 8.2 for addressing the Sun monitor shutdown issue.
Began evaluating how to provide SCSI support on Ultra 5/10.
Ordered Adaptec SCSI card for evaluation.
17 July 1998
7/13 Ereserves: discuss issues of printing overload it would cause.
7/13 Fuzzballs: discuss printing
7/14 Lunch with Andy and Eileen of SGI
7/14 Release team. Discussed 4-035 hang and other issues.
7/14 Cartel: Talked about AFS
7/15 Cartel: talked about clusters
7/17 Delivery team leaders meeting.
7/17 Lunchtime briefing on NEW ABS. Looks pretty good.
MAIN: Confirmed going to Athena 8.2 which had the relevant patch solves the problem of machines hanging in 4-035. Closure on an SGI crisis in record time!
Helped property office account for the CPU upgrades by supplying Serial Numbers of machines modified to Irene.
Opened issue of "will softwindows run on our o2's and are we allowed to run it".
Ran out of patience with NECX catalog inconsistencies with regards to SGI items.
Updated my projects page to add a couple projects and pick two: Athena Install/Update, and Library projects as primary focus.
Opened issue of disabling monitor shutdown on Solaris 2.6
Reopened issue of getting Suns to install without using RARP
Reviewed SGI supportfolio 3.0 web pages. They're ok. Resubmitted some enhancements.
Opened customer relations issue on how SGI never gives time to respond, or schedules slack to implement customer feedback.
Put Desktop Electronic Thesis Delivery into Project Database.
10 July 1998
7/7 Release Team
7/7 VDI: Certificate mediated access control added to tute.mit.edu
7/8 Saurons: CVS clue dump
7/8 Meeting with Allison Dolan to brainstorm about last open position.
Received SGI licenses
Talked to SGI Varsity program manager about our requirements. (She already had been given our requiremens by her predecessor.)
Discovered NECX's site certificate expired. Helped them notice too.
Talked to Box Hill about the RAID array and how it was a little different than I expected. They did it right. I'd misunderstood.
MAIN: Investigated problem of all but 1 machine hanging in 4-035. (Andy Shein called our attention to a patch.)
Cooked up MIT Travel voucher template for Applixware. (Eric Ding did the hard parts.) Makes ApplixWare USEFUL!
Submited Excell travel voucher template amended for Office 97 to cwis-help.
Received my O2 upgraded to a 200 MHz CPU. Send note to SGI clarifying that you don't need to reinstall software.
3 July 1998
6/29 Watchmakers Welcome
6/30 Release Team
6/30 CSTR/Ethesis meeting
7/1 Demo of Candidtate for Subject/Teacher Evaluation form scanner/recognizer software.
7/3 Holiday
Chatted for a while giving a company's marketing department clue on the evils of spam.
MAIN: Pushed SGI to find someone who isnt on vacation to renew our Compiler licenses before they expire. (Expect new keys Monday of next week.)
Dealt with dying drive on Origen. Got RMA.
Received O2 200 MHz upgrades (missing 1)
Reviewed O2 upgrade install directions, and patches.
Caught up on my status reporting.

26 June 1998
6/22, 6/23 vacation
6/24-6/26 ACM Digital Library '98 conference
19 June 1998
6/18, 6/19 vacation
Came to closure on IS pages describing Athena Supported configs.
Discovered there was a snag in renewing normal Sun software support. Too much IS personnel turn over caused it.
MAIN: Took delivery of Sun PROM fix CD. Tested it, and confirm it fixes our problem.
Began pushing Sun on issue of matching source for Hardware OS releases.
Picked up AFS file corruption bug under IRIX 6.2, escallated it.

12 June 1998
Jury Duty 6/8, 6/9, 6/10.
6/12 meeting with Box Hill Representatives
MAIN: Final push to decide configuration for CPU and RAID array for new library bit image server. Placed orders.
Heard that Access Plus Contract is signed.
Heard some feedback on Sparc 4 SIMM caper.
Switched window managers. HOW DISORIENTING!

5 June 1998
MAIN: 6/1 Hosted 4 visitors from SGI. Showed them how we do things and why.
6/2 Release Team
Worked on updating the configurations that are officially Athena supported, as published on the IS and NECX web pages.
Helped sanity check SGI/NECX order processing for O2s
Began working in earnest to evaluate RAID array and CPU candidates for new library bit image server.
Asked Sun for update on SPARC-4 SIMM situation.
Began making a big issue of problem getting Hardware OS releases from Sun.
Finally got part number for being able to order through normal channels, SGI motherboards that don't stripe out.
Pushed to get Sun Access Plus contract signed and paid for by year end.

29 May 1998
Put *MY* copy of Solaris 2.6 3/98 Hardware Update, Server edition on my shelf on 29 May. FINALLY!
Got myself added to the list of people allowed to receive hardware updates from Sun, so this problem will happen in a different way next year.
Helped out sorting through Sun A1000 evaluation.
Planned trip for Larry Stone and me to Digital Libraries '98.
Closed SGI IRIX 6.5 beta case. mediad problem fixed in FCS.
Closed SGI Indy Floptical issue. Polaris will meet our need for spares.
Continued to talk with Mike Whitson about RAIDs. Still need to pick some kind of Library Server Diskie.
Helped revise Athena Supported Configurations web page.
Put order in to upgrade first tier of 180 MHz O2's
Asked people of fuzzballs list to think about what staff machines need replacement.
5/25 Holiday (Caught up on gardening at home!)
5/26 Release team: talked about impending beta, and issues of shared libraries in locker-based software.
5/26 ACMG: Did a brainstorm of pending Academic Computer work for over the summer and did a rough consensus around the size and priority of the work -- for understanding purposes only, NOT for planning or decisions.
5/29 Delivery Team Leaders: Talked about Integration issues with Susan Minai-Azary. Talked about Hot Technologies Survey with Allison Dolan.

22 May 1998
Checked in with SGI on Blue line issues. Decided to not worry about memory questions and focus on the Demux issue: Is there a new part number, or have the rev B demuxes been purged from stock?
Got someone in Sun to HAND OPEN an order for Solaris 2.6 3/98 server.
Started working with Sun on Hardware Update release issues: How to make update smoother, what to do to train order takers.
Picked up Access Plus licensing issue again: Let's try and get it signed and paid for this Fiscal Year in time for year-end closings
Began investigating second tier of O2's to upgrade from 180 to 200 MHz.
5/19 Web Database ITIT luncheon: sent out notes.
5/19 ILEAD: Sent out notes. Update on new-ABS, and Hot Technologies Survey.
5/21 Coaching Brown bag lunch: Talked about how to make environment more receptive to coaching. Gem: coaching is about listening. Feedback is about talking.
5/21 Meeting with SGI sales rep: setting up to make Departmental Purchases of O2's smooth.
5/22 What are we Building: Discussed open positions.

15 May 1998
Investigated question of whether or not we should buy floppy drives for the O2's.
Removed log-jam in Thomas Bushnell building Andrew. (The reason why the r/w was different from the r/o was that I was testing a bug-fix for SGI Andrew Messages. (It turned out to be a bug in the R5000 cpu chip, not Andrew, so I never installed the bug-fix.)
Beat brain bloody on Jaz 2GB drive. Bottom line: there are no decent media verifications, and I have one VERY defective disk. Need to get Linux folks to not reset SCSI bus on seek timeout.
Opened issue with SGI on mediad for IRIX 6.5, and how beta caveat mis-documenting it screwed us.
Caught up on Saurons Digest.
Did weekly on time.
Updated my projects in Project DB: marked Athena Login as Completed. Updated tasks in CSTR project.
Got quote from SGI to upgrade O2's from 180 to 200 MHz.
Cleaned up my office a bit.
Got SGI and Sun quotes into the pipe for this year's buy.
5/12 Release Team: bind patch deployment schedule, krb5: need to go with collection of kludges 'cause K5-KDC wont be there in the best timeframe.
5/12 Committe on Graduate Student Policy: enthusiastic about our proposal to learn more about accepting electronic Thesis submissions. (A very collegial group to present to!)
5/13 Saurons: Pismere status, looking for LDAP and SASL work.
5/14 E40 Space meeting: Delightfully dull. Had a nice discussion of how to make sure space is sensibly allocated. Reviewed current and future needs. Not as far off as we feared.
5/15 Fuzzballs: canceled.
5/15 Library meeting with Eric Celeste: Discussed ideas in getting Libraries to become involved with "Handles", a persistent Network Resource Naming system.
8 May 1998
Out sick one day.
Opened new issue with SGI: "Is it true that there are no spares for Indy internal floppies?"
Got firm quote from SGI for hardware renewal.
Tried out 200MHz O2. Seems to work the same as the 180MHz O2's we've been getting.
Began working issue of transition from 180MHz O2 to 200 MHz.
Got laptop Jaz and Enet card working simultaneously. Was an IRQ conflict.
Continued push to resolve Sun issues for renewal.
Continued to think about hardware config for new image server.
Set up date for a couple visitors from SGI to come in.
Prepared for a presentation to the CGSP on electronic submission of Thesis pilot.
Poked at Sun to get a loaner RAID.
Poked at MIT Software Library to resolve issues of Team Athena getting their own copies of Solaris 2.6 Hardware '98.
Pushed revised list of Team Athena members to IS home page people.
Helped Larry review image enhancement phases for CSTR image processing.
1 May 1998
Played extensively with Linux networking. Got laptop on PPP, housenet, and MITNet with DHCP. Met with Sun Salesman and SE to discuss equipment renewal show stoppers.
ACMG: learned results of most recent Student Computing Survey.
Performance Appraisal open Forum:
Was interviewed about my MIT work experience.
Meeting with DocuTech: their product is simple, and does things simply without a lot of brain damage.
FuzzBalls: continued discussion of hardware renewal. We're in the final stages of preparing to buy.
Got info on Western Scientific RAID and JBOD arrays for possible image server purchase.
Sent loaner Ultra-5 back to Sun.
Did quarterly report. Need to make stuff a little more visible.
24 Apr 1998
Beat head bloody against the wall trying to get Jaz and PCMCIA to work on Laptop. Works fine under Linux. Need it under DOS for backup. Want it under NT. Worked with DEC, Iomega, and Adaptec. Bottom Line: DEC needs to release new Card Services that do the right thing.
DEC support is not bad!
Adaptec is also quite good.
Determined that Sun sends OS upgrades that I order to Bob Lang in N42 as a matter of policy and contract. I'll get Cynthia Finny of MIT to look into changing this.
Installed Microsoft Office on Laptop. Needed to install Service Pack 3. Was scary but came off without a hitch.
Cleared Tulip Demos off bloom.mit.edu. Handed it off to Libraries.
Found out that Seagate is ramping down 23GB drives and it may be a while before the 2 I ordered will ever ship. Began calling around Seagate to voice my opinion of this unacceptable situation.
Looked over Sun Disk Array. Looks like what they lent us is not what they sell these days.
Sat down with Thomas Bushnell to move forward on the EZ paste bug fix remedy.
Attended ITLT meeting on the redo of the Administrative/Business Services Team. Looks like they're pointed in the right direction.
Delivery Team Leaders meeting: Sent out minutes. Learned about the Project Management Institute.
17 Apr 1998
The laptop has been hoovering up a LOT of my time. Got Linux installed, with Beta and Alpha drivers got the combo Enet/Modem card.
Ordered Jaz drive and PCMCIA interface to do backups on Laptop.
Gave visitors from Sun AccessPlus a tour. They left with a profound understanding of what we do, how we do it, and WHY we do it as we do.
Met with Sun Engineer to talk about our needs for network install support. (a.k.a. RARP considered harmful.)
Received loaner Ultra-5.
Miki discovers NASTY problem with Net Booting. We opened a service call with Sun, and also investigated work-arounds.
Discussed equipment renewal at FuzzBalls meeting. We still don't like the Ultra-10, but it seems like the best fit. We'll probably buy a mix. I gotta get an Ultra-10 in here pronto!
Confirmed Quantum3d cancelled their PCI card.
Met with DEC sales folks to discuss RAID and Disk Array products.
CSTR Dev meeting: set goals for coming to closure on what, if any, image enhancement to add to CSTR image processing.
10 Apr 1998
Took delivery of a new laptop.
Attended a meeting to discuss the Team Athena/E40 work/team organization. Sent out minutes.
Tried again to buy Solaris 2.6 3/98
Got refreshed licenses for SGI compilers.
Investigated disk image based Windows backup systems: used PowerQuest DriveImage. Beat ghostsoft up for making it difficult to learn about their product. Both are a pain and require a DOS boot disk where YOU configure the removable drive software.
Investigated 24bit cards for Ultra-5. Raptor GFX-8M seems to be certified, and working, but lists for $850. The other card on the Sun Web pages (from Quantum3d) is a CANCELED product.
Found out why my urgent Disk Drive and Ultra-5 order was held up--MIT Purchasing apologizes.
Got Solaris 2.6 3/98 from SE at Sun.
Reviewed SGI pricing.
3 Apr 1998
Received call from someone at Sun interested in thinking about our issues with NFS migration.
Gave talk to ACMG about page image delivery projects now actively in motion.
Met with Dennis and Russ from Sun. Very productive discussion.
Attended meeting to ponder proper development/support model for Web services.
Caught up on two months worth of my milestones.
27 Mar 1998
Vacation Monday.
Confirmed that contact information is now correct for O2 servicing.
The service agreement for the O2's has been corrected.
Checked in on SIMM issue with Sun. Gregg is getting the word out and trying to get people involved in thinking about our question.
SGI wants to know if we've installed the Beta yet.
Made some effort to get SGI and Transarc to work a little more closely. Was disapointed that they weren't already in synch.
Dealt with SGI shipping wrong part. Looks like many people are working to correct hardware support process issues. We're getting bit by the last few snags.
Set up meeting with Sun Salesman and System engineer to talk about Disks and Ultra 5's next week.
20 Mar 1998
At SGI Mon, Tue, Wed.
Vacation Thu and Fri.
13 Mar 1998
Finished writing talk on Monday.
Packed and prepared on Tuesday
In California for Sun training.
Completed all my reviews on time!
Also worked to lobby Transarc to think of NT AFS collaboration the same way they think of UNIX collaboration.
6 Mar 1998
Got quote for 2 more 23GB drives from ADS. Note: Expect Seagate will stop selling 23GB in favor of 46GB soon.
Began conducting performance reviews of members of my team. Gotta get them done by my 10 March departure date.
Finished up paper work for hiring Thomas, including some rejection letters, and reviewing of candidates not chosen for possible filling of another open position.
Began looking at another promising candidate. Interviewed, and handed off to Mike the hiring.
We hired Todd Belton this week. Now down to 1 open position.
27 Feb 1998
Hired Thomas Bushnell. Now down to 2 open positions.
Delivery Team Leaders meeting.
Got emergency renewal of SGI version 7.2 compiler licenses.
Passed Sparc 4 SIMM question to Gregg Riley at Sun.
Ordered Solaris 2.6 hardware update -- got told it was too early to order it.
Began working issue of finding out why SGI insists on having a Service Engineer call when we try to order parts for the O2's. Turns out we may have the wrong kind of service contract with SGI for them.
Resolved issue of making sure Solaris 1 is covered in Access Plus support from Sun.
Checked in with ADS on when we'll get disk back. We should have bought higher grade of service for our ADS drives.
Got a quote to improve the service coverage of our ADS drives.
Began trying to write talk to present at SGI. Started with a white paper on Athena scalable computing.
Did some reviewing of Sun RAID products.
20 Feb 1998
Out sick one day.
Made plans to attend training at Sun.
Present a talk to SGI about our scalability knowledge at the same time.
Opened issue of making sure Solaris 1 is covered in Access Plus support from Sun.
Conducted interviews and did paper work to fill an open position.
Worked issues of configurations and pricing for possible big buy of Ultra 5 or 10 equipment for this year's renewal.
Attended/presented at meeting where we tried to hammer out recommendations for this year's renewal.

13 Feb 1998
Out sick one day.
Invited two from second round of HP resumees to apply.
Set up meeting between hrsupport, and cgteam.
Revised origen system disk mirroring script.
Reported bug to Sun between umount and sh in scripts.
Reviewed early interface for cstr CD processing.
Reviewed feature set of Sun Solstice Backup for applicability to origen backup.
Evaluated aspects of hardware support for origen disk enclosures.
Got O2 quotes from SGI for Athena Renewal. Got questions of alternate configurations, and support pricing answered.
Gave SGI status report on open issues. A mixed bag of good and bad news.
A disk drive failed on Origen. Salvaged data, and swapped in new drive. Sent bad drive to ADS.
6 Feb 1998
Talked to North American Sunsoft manager about new Access Plus stuff. My issues have been heard. They will not have immediate effect, but we did receive a bonafide apology for Sun's dropping the Ball. I gave green light for us to proceed to pay for new Access Plus contract even with the greater cost. I will be sharing my various white papers with this guy.
Revised white paper "On the Impossibility of migrating from AFS to NFS". Describes a change to NFS File handles that might be enough.
Got 2 motherboard replacements from SGI for stock.
Received a new version of CNBoot from Sun.

30 Jan 1998
Ordered Solaris 2.5.1 hardware 11/97 required for new Ultra line.
Understood nature and scope of Alliance Plus issues. Produced nasty-gram for use as ammunition in getting Sun to do better next time.
Got ballpark quotes from Sun for Ultra 5's. Asked question about future of Ultra-1. No end of life in the near term.
Got another new SGI contact who may help us get relief in understanding how to deploy IRIX, and who may enable MIT to teach SGI more about scalable deployment issues.
Learned about a new Sun planet: Sun Micro Electronics. They make the boards. They might be the ones to fabricate a rack with lots of Suns for a long job server.
Restarted conversations with SGI on source issues.
Set up explicit understanding with SGI about a local stock of proper motherboards for blue like caper.
<MAIN> Spent all week either in meetings or on the phone arguing with vendors.
1/26 Met with Roger to discuss W91 and other service issues.
1/26 Quick check in with Peter Kelley on issues. Need to follow up later in the week.
1/27 Release Team: we need hardware 11/97 for ultras. Need to think about which ultras to buy. Need to make a local replica of web-based Sun answer books.
1/27 ACMG/Crosstalk: Biggie distance learning presentation
1/28 IS Forum: Joel Moses: old ideas for structuring applications that have not been used effectively enough, TL/M report: here is how we see Team Leaders working, and how we encourage mentoring to go.
1/28 Conference call with SGI: moving forward on getting boards to MIT, on doing either a purge or inventory hack to tell difference between classes of motherboards, investigating engineering issues.
1/29 Transarc Conference call: AFS is recognized as a long term product!
1/29 WAMIT: web masters at MIT. Meeting to restart the group. Interesting overview and get-acquainted meeting.
1/29 cstrdev: meeting with Bill Comstock to go over new web-based file upload/download things. (They do a lot of PC work with NFS as the sharing mechanism!)
1/30 Fuzzballs: talked about equipment renewal, and a new survey of student computing use.
23 Jan 1998
Began working in earnest in getting Alliance Plus contract renewed.
Got the new contract and the new price. More expensive. Somebody dropped the ball communicating with us back in October!
Began a focused effort to work with Sun on making sure that Sun PROMs are able to gracefully do enterprise-wide net booting.
Asked Sun for ball park pricing for MIT's annual renewal process.
SGI: arranged conference call to check status of Blue Line Caper
Continuing to press SGI for help in understanding how to deploy IRIX 6.2/6.3.
Presented at ILEAD:Joanne Hallisey was out sick, so I wrote a talk that covered what she was gonna say about Mentoring.
<MAIN> Drafted first couple chapters of a White Paper on the Athena Computing environment: focus is on what the value added is of doing it our way.
Discussed state of cnboot with Sun Opcom. Came up with a strategy that will get us cnboot for 2.5.1 and 2.6, and will harmonize what MIT and Opcom want to do. Need to talk further on possibilities for a universal boot CD.
1/19 Holiday
1/20 ILEAD: present mentoring, Hear about 5 year plan: seemed less fluffy than previous years.
1/20 Brief strategy session discussing what to present about TL/M at next week's IS forum.
16 Jan 1998
Held Sun's feet to the fire analyzing our SIMM problems with the SPARC 4 50 watt power supply. Insisted on opening formal bug.
Checked in with SGI on Blue Line caper. Need to schedule conference call.
Reestablished contact with SGI inst group.
Began investigating getting a RAID Array from Sun for evaluation.
Began pressing Sun for pricing and configurations for FY99 renewal.
Received CD stackers from Kintronics for Library projects.
Learned of official patches for the Sun TCP deathgram problem.
SGI: establishing contact with Varsity program managers.
Sun: cnboot: gonna get distribution for both 2.5 and 2.6.
Continuing to push Sun on netboot from the PROMs to avoid RARP.
Got initial matrix of support issues for Library service hosts in W91.
<MAIN> Did review of Thesis and CSTR library service architecture and implentation with Integration Team. Formulated action plan with Larry Stone to address issues.
1/12 Met with SGI saleswoman and reviewed areas most urgent for relief.
1/13 Integration Team Luncheon Talk by Ted T'so on server security. Sent notes of it to Saurons.
1/14 Interviewed a promising IS candidate. (Not clear if the candidate will choose my team.)
1/15 cstrdev: set out work plan for cut-over of legacy services
1/15 Met with new head of Academic Marketing of SGI. Read traditional riot act of what SGI gets wrong.
1/15 Meeting with Integration Team. Discussed issues with cstr/thesis service implementations. Several big issues raised.
1/16 Meeting with Eric Celeste of libraries: caught him up on what Larry and I are doing. (Actually Larry did, I got stuck with some urgent phone calls from Sun and SGI.)
10 Jan 1998
Sent cd to Sun demonstrating 2048 byte problem. Got Peter Kelley inventorying origen, bloom, facade, tga support holes, gotta check back in with him on 1/16/98
Discussed CSTR/Thesis backup requirements with Larry Stone
Merged functionality of two scripts to duplicate the origen system disk on the other internal drive.
Closed out call to Vanguard over dead Micropolis bloom drive.
Began making table with all s4hang events on it.
Sent Sun repair history on Sparc 4 hang machines.
Worked on setting up interviews for open positions.
Got polite refusal from one HP invitee.
Set up interview for next week with promising candidate.
Followed up with Larry Roberts via email and voice mail on SGI blue line -- bad: been passed off to Logistics.
Chatted with SGI Customer Advocate and may have made progress in our quest for a technical liason.
Moved forward on SGI compiler licensing issue.
1/7 TL/M completion celebration lunch.
1/7 Saurons: talked about new Performance Review
1/9 Fuzzballs: Looked at Printing Statistics, talked about issues and moving forward on MIME support.
3 Jan 1998
Repaired dead system disk on Bloom with Lou Restored bloom prototypes. (Fixed bug where gifs were being fetched off de-comissioned bulb.mit.edu)
Caught up on milestones digest!
Pruned email down to 1849 undead messages.
Conferred with Lou on Sparc 4 hang caper: we're gonna keep replacing them onesy-twosey as we have been.
Made contact with manager at Polaris on Sparc 4 FCO issue.
Received 4 replies to 5 HP invitations. I replied to one with salary range info as he requested.
Reviewed Applixware HTML table spacing bug. They've logged it correctly.
Cooked up auto-restart script for SiteSearch.
Asked ops to back up facade: / and /var and to add bloom: /.
Briefly glanced at jwcoffin CGI scripts. I need more info to understand them.
Looked at bert's replication scripts with an eye to applying them to Origen.
12/29 cstrdev: saw demo of Digiment generator software.
1/1/98 Holiday