My Favorite Milestones

Todo List

Planned:

Talk more with SGI about Futures
Write vendor liaison projects page.
Bring SGI Hang to closure
Bring SGI GNOME to closure
Revise CSTR Service Level codification.
Help move Thesis Delivery to Desktop to next phase.
Check Out SunScan Y2K stuff.
Update watchmaker job application page
Evaluate new Saurons Digest thing.
Set committment on Long Jobs Project
Get Linux Athena out the door.
Clean out Telecom
Clean out Zig
Clean out Squeak


Week ending:

31 December 1999
12/27 Meeting with Eric Celeste: Status of Archive project, and discussion of how Integration Team works.
12/28 6 month check-in with Bob Ferrara, met many goals. I'm not satisfied with my progress in codifying orshutting down Vendor Liaison work. We are both looking forward to a new goal related to Digital Archive Server project.
[MAIN]Got Private Athena Workstation Discovery Project Charter out the door.
Caught up on Squeak Mailing list! (2800 messages dead and buried. Waiting for Squeak 2.7 to be announced.)
Caught up on PMI periodicals.
Pondered my role in Vendor Liaison. Wrote some web pages capturing thoughts and project status.

24 December 1999
12/20 Owls: Can Quickstations enter renewal cycle? How?
12/20 Long Jobs Team meeting: getting restarted.
12/21 E40 Holiday Party
12/24 Holiday
Worked on Private Athena Workstation Discovery Project Charter.
[MAIN]Finished reading Philip & Alex's guide. Handed it to Larry Stone cuz he needs the details.
Began some email house cleaning. Squeak list first.

17 December 1999
12/13 Celebrate successful completion of Cease project. SGI fades starting now!
12/13 Check in with Naomi on Integration Meeting
12/13 Meeting about Athena Inventory database.
12/14 VDIN Progress reports. Sent minutes.
12/15 Release Team
12/15 IS Holiday Party
12/16 Discovery Team leaders: Talked about how to measure Discovery project performance.
12/16 llama: continued sorting out what to propose in the light of Integration meeting.
12/17 Long Jobs reactivation discussion meeting -- decided to go ahead with a discovery question: What business model, what service model, go/nogo?
[MAIN] Meetings.
MIT signed the Sun Source license. I got a requisition for it.
Helped Alex P. ponder proper relationship with Rational Software with regards to Purify.

10 December 1999
12/6 Owls
12/7 NTIP: Software release process
12/8 Meeting with MIT Watermarking researchers.
12/9 Integration meeting on Llama
12/10 Project Team Leaders Meeting. Sent minutes.
12/10 Electronic Reserves check in. Printing is not bad. Scope tries to change. Prepare for final report.
Flogged Sun Source code license.
[MAIN]Worked issues raised by Llama/Integration meeting.
Began reading Philip and Alex's guide to web publishing. (Uh oh! This will require a careful read.)

3 December 1999
11/29 Eric Celeste: more discussion of Archive Server.
11/29 More discussionof Service issues with Roger.
11/30 VDIN
12/1 Helped interview Doc Services candidate
12/2 Discovery Team Leaders
12/2 Llama
12/3 E40-space meeting: Begin stressing over how to find space for one more person.
SGI got me my case ID's. I did the searches and got my case log back where it was supposed to be.
[MAIN]Continued to press SGI for answers on the 300MHz support front.
Got Sun to explain an obscure package file suffix, and to confirm where such answers should now come.

26 November 1999
11/22 Meeting with Roger to discuss Service issues.
11/22 Owls
11/24 Release Team
Flogged SGI to get my case log data. Some progress. No resolution.
Handed my old DEC Laptop to Miki.
[MAIN]Worked issue of getting staff workstations upgraded.
Discussed how to increase skill level of team members with regards to doing the Discovery process.

19 November 1999
11/8 Owls: Learned about class participation list project. Discussed decomissioning mkserv Xterm, discussed adding memory to 3yo Sparc 5's and cluster printers.
[MAIN] Did INVENTORY of systems, and got basic db reconcile cooked.
SGI lost my case log data this week. They're trying to find it.
Met with Sun to discuss follow-on to Access Plus.

12 November 1999
11/8 Owls: Learned about class participation list project. Discussed decomissioning mkserv Xterm, discussed adding memory to 3yo Sparc 5's and cluster printers.
11/9 ACMG: Got briefing on revisions to MIT mail system, and to new experimental web service that give access control to AFS pages.
11/10 Release Team -- Cancelled
11/11 Holiday
11/12 Cease
Reviewed revision to Project Management web pages. Flagged issues in project readiness, and preplanning. Looking forward to project page template narratives.
[MAIN]Finished reading Crossing the Chasm. Wrote detailed book review which contained all the gems I found and put it in http://web.mit.edu/wdc/chasm.html
Pushd SGI for explanations on why we find out so late 6.5.4 is needed for our 300 MHz machines.
Worked on resolving bugs I found using Drive Image to restore a multi-CD Linux partition.

5 November 1999
11/1 Digital Archive meeting.
11/2 ganderso, tjm, wdc discuss Discovery help for wdc's team
11/2 OCMG: Y2k readiness
11/3 Release Team
11/3 wdc, rbasch discuss Long Jobs status and restart.
11/4 Llama
11/5 PTL
11/5 Cease
[MAIN] Reviewed Cease report, Suggested changes.
Worked at officially shifting kcr to my team.
[MAIN2]Helped push SGI on System Hang problem.
Helped push SGI on GNOME problem.
Sent out minutes from 10/18 meeting with Sun.
Made Team Athena People page more widely visible.
Checked in with Bob Ciavola on status of review of Sun source license.
Made contact with RLE Watermark folks.
Worked issue of yet another misunderstood hardware support case with SGI.
Warned someone who queried ethesis-help that their machine was infected with Happy99 virus.
29 October 1999
10/25 Owls
10/25 Follow up Sun meeting w/ John Hale. Sent notes.
10/27 Release Team Cancelled
10/28 Llama
10/29 Lunch meeting with Dennis and Avelino of Sun.
10/29 Cease Cancelled
Did back of the envelope compare of Athena versus SunRay systems.
Found out who exactly to ask about proper follow-on to Sun Access Plus and asked for help.
[MAIN] Updated Team Athena People page. Chatted with jdb about issues in making the team's work more properly visible.
Updated Sun issues page to reflect their improved relations with us.
Updated SGI issues page to reflect the degraded relations.
Converted spreadsheet of systemic failures to web page.
Helped work issue of Enterprise 250 not working with Athena Release
Continued help on working SGI Hang and GNOME issues.
Asked MSI folks for help configuring a proposed Application server.

22 October 1999
10/18 Half Day meeting with Sun engineers.
10/19 ACMG: Update on big Academic Computing initiatives.
10/19 wdc & rferrara
10/19 Athena Cluster Forum. Few users, but still useful discussions.
10/20 Release Team
10/21 Discovery Leaders: Talked about vendor relations.
10/21 Llama
10/22 Long Jobs restart meeting
10/22 Cease
Wrote up notes from 10/22 meeting and suggested next steps.
Produced spreadsheet documenting 1 Sun systemic failure and 7 SGI systemic failures.
Sent status report on efforts to improve Athena bug tracking to rar and others.
Learned that Enterprise 250's wanted Solars 2.6 5/98 instead of 3/98 which we run, that we didn't find out about it until 10/22 and expressed great umbrage about it.
[MAIN] Help shephard Athena Private Workstation Discovery project into preplanning stage.
15 October 1999
10/11 Holiday
10/12-14 Vacation
10/15 Cease
8 October 1999
10/4 Eric Celeste: [DONE] Discuss Proposal
10/5 Fall Readiness Post Mortem [DONE] -- no significant issues for Athena Release, but recent certificate learnings need to get out to more people.
10/6 Release Team
10/7 LLAMA (Layered Linux Athena)
10/8 Vacation.
Got tbelton to put Certificate stuff into a stock answer.
Cursory review of Eric Celeste's Digital Library Proposal
Talked more with SGI about Futures
Worked at getting certain X software out of SGI
Drafted CSTR: Service Level codification, received review on it from Saltzer.
[MAIN] Helped move Athena Desktop Discovery project into preplanning.

1 October 1999
9/28 Bill & Bob: discuss Linux Athena project mangement issues.
9/28 Larry Stone, Keith Glavash, me: Check in on E-thesis and other digital library projects centered at Document Services.
9/29 Release Team: Discuss Athena Desktop efforts
9/29 Team Athena: Discuss how to be more communicative, and better follow process.
9/30 Layered Linux Athena: Got started well.
9/30 Integration Checkin for Linux: All is well and happy.
9/30 Bill & Bob: further check in on Project management issues.
10/1 Lunch with Naomi to discuss project management issues, particularly Desktop and Private Athena initiatives under consideration.
10/1 Hallway chat with Vijay on Desktop and Private Athena initiatives.
[MAIN] Much pondering, discussing, and project management effort. Came to clearer sense of what to do with Library projects, Delivery of Linux Athena, Possible Discovery projects for Athena Desktop, and Private Athena Workstation.
[MAIN2] Status: CSTR Project nearly done. Electronic Thesis Submission Discovery nearly done.
Installed willow script that announces its shutdown.
Read preprint server proposal
Resent laptop out for repair; got it back; this time it works.
Produced third draft of Linux Athena Discovery announcement -- accepted!
Pondered issues of starting Discovery projects around Athena Desktop and Private Athena Workstation.
Asked Sun again for Solaris Educational Source License.
Wrote SGI Profile and submitted it to Cease team.
Asked SGI questions about future O2 direction.
Sent out two queries for contact with MSI engineers.
24 September 1999
9/21 ILEAD: Review of useful personnel things. [DONE]
9/22 IS Forum [DONE]
9/23 Discovery Team Leaders -- status reports. [DONE]
9/24 PTL -- took minutes. Mostly about IS Strategic Plan [DONE]
9/25 CEASE -- initial organization very good. [DONE]
Draft Linux Athena Delivery handoff announcement [DONE] -- issue of project management was raised.
Ask Sun for current draft of Educational Solaris Source License. [DONE]
Get new license draft out of SGI [DONE] Discussed SGI license extensively, decided to go with old license, received software; somewhat complete.
Read preprint server proposal [NOT DONE]
Sent old laptop out for repair. Still broken. Resending.
Pondered how I'd make contact with MSI engineers.
17 September 1999
9/13 Owls: one-off policies, linux Athena
9/14 Bill & Bob
9/15 Release Team
9/15 Team Athena
Got final review of SGI/Helmer reply from Vijay and sent it.
Greg/TB/WDC Linux Athena meeting: Close out and follow through on Discovery. Prepare to hand to Delivery.
Received Laptop. Installed Linux on it. Got sound working.
Enlisted another at Sun to work MSI issue.
Began formal review of what to replace Access Plus with.
Came to closure on mis-addressed SGI R10K system.
10 September 1999
9/6 Holiday
9/7 E40 Space
9/8 Release Team -- cancelled
9/8 Team Athena -- cancelled
9/8 ITIT luncheon: Network Security Team briefing.
9/8 Delivery/Service Athena planning: need to keep organizing
9/9 Brian Murphy: discuss Linux Athena configs.
9/10 Eric Celeste: review projects.
Shopped for and specified new Laptop
[MAIN]Made official contact with Sun on collaboration. Sent revised plan of action.
Began to ponder changing Weekly Status and Saurons Digest
Planned Wednesday Team Athena meeting.
Closure on Polaris IDE Disk spares situation: Polaris will supply genuine Sun spares.
Proposed Linux Athena configuration for test/cluster machines.
Proposed move of Linux Athena into Delivery.
Got feedback on SGI/Helmer reply from Sales and Service.
Got feedback on SGI/Helmer reply from Vijay.
Worked on inventory of machines for Juan.
Cleaned office and purged many useless documents.
3 September 1999
All meetings this week were cancelled.
Wrote First and Second draft of security description for Source license negotiation
[MAIN] Wrote First and Second draft of reply to SGI on our issues and future relationship.
Got Juan's Excel spreadsheet to print out so I could take inventory.
Investigated configurations for Linux Athena
Ordered an early Linux machine for Miki.
Investigated new Laptop configurations.
Determined that the CD failure in my laptop is due to BOTH a bad drive and problems with the machine.
Caught up on Email.
27 August 1999
Vacation
20 August 1999
8/16 Eric Celeste
8/17 Lunch with SGI Saleswoman
8/17 ACMG: Present Linux Athena proposal
8/18 Release Team
8/18 Team Athena: restart group meetings, many topics -- W92, compensation model, development.
8/19 Bob Ferrara: Team Athena state
8/19 IS BBQ
8/20 Vacation
[MAIN] Worked on understanding current 5year plan stuff and producing some resource estimates and Team Athena strategic plans.
13 August 1999
8/10 ACMG Software Release
8/11 Release Team
8/11 Linux Athena
8/13 Feedback to Hogue on Help Desk and Sofware Acquisition stuff he presented
6 August 1999
8/2 Handles Project preplanning meeting.
8/3 Eres
8/3 ILEAD -- Y2K, Help Desk, Software Acquisition status reports.
8/4 Release Team
8/4 Linux Athena
Read thesis containing a Digital Library archive design. Not bad for a solitary effort.
Helped Reid Pinchback get a more organized source repository through CVS on a CVS server.
30 July 1999
7/26 Owls: Print usage statistics, Linux Athena, schmooze.
7/27 ACMG: Fall readiness. Worked on network policy doc.
7/28 Release Team: quick review of release. All quiet.
7/28 Linux Athena Discovery: Business model.
7/29 Tom Cavin: How can Athena help your site?
Reopened 3 SGI service calls that were inappropriately closed.
Noticed Athena Supported WS config page not updated.
[MAIN] Revised working draft of Team Athena people and work web page.
Sent out Sauron's digest catch-up.
Confirmed progress on SGI patch issue. Still waiting for promised follow-up doc from SGI.
Inventoried staff machines for renewal.
Beat on NECX for not doing the right thing to enable people to buy the Athena SGI configuration. -- NECX NOW has everything set up.
Pondered W92 issues.
23 July 1999
7/19 efc,wdc,carlj,lcs: Discussed project status, what to do with origen, service levels, proxy service, and Eric's idea for a URL change tracking service.
7/19 Bill & Bob
7/20 ILEAD: Job reclassification update -- need to write it up.
7/21 Release Team
7/21 Libraries Strategy Discussion
7/22 W92 meeting with Jim at lunch table.
7/23 Project Team Leaders: Transition to Service.
Played with Sun File viewer: It gets spreadsheets pretty well, but doesn't do colored text.
Tried out new Amaya. I currently prefer Netscape Composer 4.61.
Reviewed status of SGI inst core dump bug. Bob and SGI are getting along ok. (Would have preferred faster reply and on-hand copy of inst with symbols matching the one released. (remember to say so in post-mortem.))
[MAIN] Analyzed SGI and Sun issues with an eye to doing an enlightened close-out of the ones not worth pursuing. Did up spiffy web page for each vendor.
[Main 2] Restarted the Sun CNBoot issue which had lost momentum.
Reviewed CSTR Project web pages update done by lcs. He did well.
16 July 1999
7/12 E40 Space: We're cramped. We hope we can build those office spaces.
7/12 Owls: Good rendez-vous between E-Reserves and Owls on subject of printing and its relationship to service offerings.
7/13 ITIT Luncheon: Interesting history of Mac Kerberos.
7/13 E-Reserves: Planned next steps. I have item to test out Acrobat.
7/13 ILEAD: 5 year Plan: Overarching Themes were discussed. They're not perfect, but they're a very good slice through the strategies, with an eye to pragmatism.
7/14 Release team: decided to push security patch and patch to renew out quickly.
7/14 Linux Athena: Established principles guiding hardware selection and support levels.
7/15 Discovery Team Leaders
7/16 W92 Space discussion
Pondered long range planning for Team Athena.
Worked on reproducing problems reported using Acrobat for E-Reserves. Formulated a theory of what went wrong and documented options to resolve.
Produced post-mortem for SGI Y2K case that criticised the timeliness and usefulness of the estimate we got from Custom Engineering.
Checked in with SGI on licensing issue. Criticised their not having gotten back to us since April.
Reviewed disaster recovery and service level plans for Memory Ultra with Larry Stone.
Reviewed staffing issues with Allison Dolan.
[MAIN] Reviewed staffing issues and strategic planning with Vijay -- drafted a document on it.
Investigated disappearance of SCSI card and SGI configurations that Athena cares about from NECX catalog.

9 July 1999
7/5 Holiday
7/7 Release Team
7/7 Linux Athena: Established what is IN and OUT of scope.
7/8 W92 architects: Discussed adjacencies that did not yet properly allocate space. We resolved to make careful review of square footage allocations.
7/8 Conference call with someone interested in "Licensing Athena Technologies". Helped them be more specific.
7/9 wdc, mbarker, rferrara on Project DB and service issues.
7/9 wdc, jweis, rar meeting on staffing and service issues.
[MAIN] Pondered more of Team Athena future, staffing, projects, vision for Unix Athena.
Reviewed project status for CSTR, Desktop Thesis Delivery, E-Thesis with Larry Stone -- need to write this up.
Reviewed our concept of where Dienst software fits in bigger scheme -- need to write this up.

2 July 1999
6/28 Owls -- cancelled
6/30 Linux Athena: Chose Red Hat distribution based on criteria we will publish.
6/30 Release Team

Helped Brain and Cog Sci with a system failure, and discussed ways they could benefit from Athena.
[MAIN] Created project notebook pages for CSTR Image Delivery project from templates and old PDB entry Sent Plus/Deltas on templates to mbarker..
Raised issue with SGI over difficulty in getting patches in without resorting to all the changes inherent in doing an Overlay.
Tried not to blow up at SGI over the annual, "You can't have the license keys you want." nonsense.
Reviewed proposal from a company to commercially license Athena software.
ASCII converted and reviewed E40/W92 architects meeting minutes. Sent corrections.
Helped SGI deal with shipping snafu.
Pondered some Athena futures with Karl.
25 June 1999
6/21 Bill & Bob
6/22 Ilead Round table: interesting stuff on Salaries. Contributed to understanding of Linux Athena work.
6/23 Release Team
6/24 Farewell Carla
Reviewed resume forwarded from DCS. Not a fit.
Attempting to wake up SGI source code issue.
[MAIN] Learned some about memory-ultra operations.
[MAIN] Checked in with Keith Glavash on stuff I'm maintaining while Larry is on vacation.
Sent out Saurons digest.
[MAIN 2]Took over has Figure Head of Release Team.
Counted Indy's. Have estimate of impact of update.
Nudged long Jobs effort.
Helped ponder what to do about service disagreement with Box Hill.
Helped schedule SGI deployment.
Granted source access to netbsd-sparc developer.
Installed Linux Applixware at home. It seems to work.
Helped ponder how to help people transition from Project DB to Project Notebooks.

18 June 1999
6/14 Owls: Discussed upcoming release and Printing.
6/15 OCLC: Luncheon and SiteSearch 4.1 demos. This looks like it will address a real need identified by the Libraries for a central information access point.
6/16 Release team: discussed current release and issues for future releases.
6/17 Discovery Team Leaders
6/18 Project Team Leaders: Surprisingly useful: Got some new insights into doing the right thing in a project to help Support prepare.
6/18 Pizza Social
Helped miki with knfs problem. Sent email to stakeholders
[MAIN] Pondered what it would mean for more visible Athena Development efforts. Discussed with Release Team and others..
Reviewed 3d Barton Request For Solutions.
[MAIN 2]Pondered issue of Print Accounting.
11 June 1999
6/7 Eric Celeste: Talked about Electronic Reserves, and future hardware support budgeting.
6/8 Fall Readiness
6/9 Wade's Walk
6/10 Watchmaker Orientation: Described our organization.
6/11 Comstock Farewell
Caught up on Z39.50 email list. Sent Larry pointer to Perl module for Z39.50 support which might be useful to Dienst.

[MAIN] Made deep contact with SGI engineer and alum over nsd. I now understand it much better, and am suggesting we investigate connecting to it directly rather than trying to dodge behind it.

Came up with proposed rationale for charging maintenance to MIT Libraries for Memory Ultra.

Found a taker for the old Ultra-2, so Sun doesn't have to take it back.

Did one more review of the Electronic Reserves year-end report.
4 June 1999
5/31 Holiday
6/2 E40 Ice Cream Social
6/3 Discovery Team Leaders
6/4 Electronic Reserves: Yes we are going to proceed.
Caught up Saurons Digest (since Jan 28!) and sent it out.
Reviewed Danillo's Usenix paper on a platform for building user mode filesystems in NT.
Wrote exegesis on The IS Competency Model for team member consumption.
Poked at SGI some more about nsd and lack of communication from them on licensing.
Reviewed Electronic Reserves year-end report.
[MAIN] Catch up on stuff, particularly status reports.
28 May 1999
5/24 Eric Celeste
5/24 Bill & Bob
5/26 Libraries/IS prioritization meeting
5/26 IS Forum
Chatted with SGI about no progress on turning off nsd.
Started focused effort to return Ultra-2 to Sun.
[MAIN] Discussed Digital Shelfspace issues with various stakeholders including Keith Glavash of
Document Services, Eric Celeste, Vijay, Bob Ferrara, Greg Anderson. and revised draft for Digital
Shelfspace Discovery project.
Began catching up Saurons digest.
Assisted in moving Linux Discovery Project forward.
21 May 1999
5/17 Fuzzballs
5/18 ACMG Pismere definition and feedback.
5/19 Release Team: Canceled for Star Wars.
5/20 State of the Institute Forum with Vest, Curry, Brown, and Backow.
5/20 Ethesis: Yes, Memory Ultra can catch 2000 theses per year for a couple years.
Received fix for 8 Bit Ultra OpenGL color mapping problem.
Took Athena 8.3 on my SGI
Investigated annoyance of Andrew sendmessage complaining about invalid destination mail hosts.
[MAIN] Sanity checked renewal pricing from SGI and Sun. Also sanity checked plans for how many to buy and where to put them.
Caught up on status reporting.
14 May 1999
5/10 Meeting with W92 Architects
5/10 Eric Celeste: Bill Comstock is leaving.
5/10 Watchmaker hiring meeting
5/11 ILEAD Visioning meeting
5/11 Took delivery of a new fridge. (They ate most of my day.)
5/12 Release Team
5/13 ITIT Luncheon: Linux with Ted T'so. (Mostly about open source)
Caught up some with Squeak email list. (Very far behind. Ain't looked at it in too long.)
Took over as treasurer for Store E40.
Helped MCC with Ultra config: strongly recommended customer buy slightly more expensive setup that exactly matches the renewal unit.
[MAIN2]Got NECX to carry new, inexpensive SCSI card for PCI Suns.
[MAIN]Sprained my ankle
7 May 1999
5/3 Fuzzballs
5/4 Bill & Greg Anderson
5/5 Release Team
5/6 Discovery Team Leaders (punted for AFS Meeting)
5/6 AFS Source control discussion meeting
Escallated with Sun: Sooner relief on 'last' truncating hostname.
Poked at SGI: Still no relief on need to turn off nsd.
[MAIN] Tested 300 MHz O2 CPU. Seems to work. Athena 8.3 seems Ok.
[MAIN2] Began working on Discovery Charter for Digital Shelf Space
[MAIN3] Began testing amaya, a new html editor.
Ordered new inexpensive PCI Sun SCSI card to test.
30 April 1999
4/26 E40 Space meeting: gotta squeeze more headcount into this space
4/27 Bill & Bob Ferrara
4/28 Release Team
4/30 Bill & Greg Anderson
[MAIN 5 items:]
Resolved SGI Dallas chip issue. It's OK!
Received patch remedying Sun m64 hangup.
Received fix for xrdb -cpp not working.
Received 300 MHz O2 CPU to test.
Thought about transition to keeping project status in project notebooks.
23 April 1999
4/19 Fuzzballs
4/20 ILEAD Tutorial on revisions to budget process. Tighter but more accurate. Maybe able to get market parity increases in.
4/20 Lecture by Steven Covey: VERY Useful to me!
4/21 All day seminar by Covey on Principle Centered Leadership. (Very little new material beyond last nights lecture, but the concepts are VERY useful.)
4/22 Discovery Team Leaders
4/22 cstrdev
4/23 Project Team Leaders Meeting
[MAIN] Investigating Sun Ultra 5/10 recall. Need to find out the real issue, and the scope of the problem.
[MAIN2] Opened bug with Sun: m64 X server hangs when you run at 1152x900 resolution
Received JDB's note closing issue of IS vs Procurement.
16 April 1999
4/12 Chat with Naomi to sanity check cluster statistics
4/12 LCS Birthday Party
4/14 Release Team
4/16 Pismere definition discussion meeting
Got property tag for Memory Ultra
[MAIN] Opened bug with SGI: How is 2 digit date in Dallas NVRAM chip dealt with? Is there a subset of the 50 recommended patches that narrowly remedies Y2K?
[MAIN2] Answered questions posed by Nat Friedman.
9April 1999
4/5 Fuzzballs
4/6 ILEAD Debriefing on Performance Appraisals
4/7 Release Team
4/8 Discovery Team Leaders
Reviewed SGI License terms.
[MAIN] Produced a document summarizing MIT's top issues for an SGI Technical Liaison
Reviewed SGI Varsity program changes. (The stuff relevant to us has not been formulated yet.)
2 April 1999
3/29 Eric Celeste
3/29 Applix conference call
3/30 Release Team
3/30 ACMG: Web based educational environments
Opened bug with Sun. 8 bit Ultra 5 has inferior OpenGL color mapping to 8 bit Sparc 5
Investigated confusion between SGI and cluster services with regard to some parts returns.
[MAIN] Reviewed relationship between Athena and Applix. Moving forward to pay to license version 4.4.1 and to see if both sides end up happy this time around.
26 Mar 1999
3/23 Release Team
3/24 rating convergence meeting
3/25 Discovery Team Leaders
3/25 Nat Freedman Meeting
Caught up on milestones reporting
Opened bug with Sun: last truncates hostname.
Further follow-up on CNBoot enahncement.
Reported to BoxHill that I think we're on same page on confidentiality issues.
[MAIN] Sent my analysis of EReserves concept to the team.
Reviewed and proposed amendments to Project DB action proposal.

19 Mar 1999
3/15 Eric Celeste: Long overdue checkin on library stuff.
3/16 Release Team
3/17 Jerry Burke Retirement Party
3/18 EReserves Pilot Post-mortem and new direction setting.
3/19 Project Leaders Meeting: Mostly talked about fleshing out Strategies and Initiatives into tangible projects.
Opened bug with Sun: xrdb -cpp does not behave as documented.
Opened bug with Sun: 'last' truncates the host name.
[MAIN] Checked with Sun on status of our CNBoot-replacing enhancement request.
Heard from SGI about a new toy to test out.

12 Mar 1999
3/8 Owls
3/9 ITIT Luncheon: Places you can apply Java.
3/10 Project Database meeting: decide what's in the DB. Uncovered some radical simplification that could take place.
3/11 Farewell to Jonathan Ives
3/11 Discovery Team Leaders meeting: Learn more about sponsorship.
Move forward on learning about Box Hill policies regarding safeguarding confidential contents of dead disks.
[MAIN] Had trouble locating Ultra 60 order. Complained to all and sundry. Found order. Have PO in hand. Helping to tune IS and Procurement communication.
Reviewed CSTR Y2K issue.

5 Mar 1999
3/2 Release Team
3/2 ACMG: Renewal presentation.
3/3 Help Review TLC product for Dibner Library
3/4 Linux Discovery Preplanning meeting. Begin planning business case.
3/5 Crosstalk: Steve Ehrmann: How do we measure impact of Educational Technology. First SANE ideas on the subject to come along in a while!
[MAIN] Submitted Preliminary Performance numbers.
Began important project: Unpack my head full of projects, and PRUNE.

26 Feb 1999
2/22 Owls
2/23 Release Team
2/23 VDI: Management stuff not VDI.
2/24 IS Forum: John Curry Guest Speaker. Questions about budget.
2/25 Discovery Team Leaders
[MAIN] Performance Reviews Gave some, had mine.
Tried installing RedHat 5.2 at home. Thought media was defective. Complained to RedHat. They were VERY nice. Turned out my drive was flaky.

19 Feb 1999
2/15 Presidents Day Holiday
2/16 Release Team
2/19 Project Team Leader Meeting
[MAIN] Ordered Ultra 60 to replace Memory Ultra

12 Feb 1999
2/8 Owls: Further Renewal Discussion.
2/8 Long Jobs Meeting: Naomi gathers customer data. Tech folk investigate AFS based system.
2/8 Bill & Bob: Ohmygod I'm behind in doing reviews.
2/9 ITIT Lunch: Y2K kerberos test realm.
2/9 ILEAD: Relating Salaries to Performance reviews.
2/10 Kicked off performance reviews.
2/11 Discovery Team Leaders Meeting.
2/12 Interview prospective UROP student.
Received official renewal reply from SGI -- surprisingly good.
Received unoffical renewal reply from Sun -- no surprises.
Prepared Owls handout on renewal reolies.
[MAIN2] Submitted proposal for small-scope collaborations to Sun CTO.
Gave good formal review to SGI Customer Relations Liaison.
Sent out gem from PMI Mag: How to limit scope creep. JDB sent kudos.
Confirmed with Box Hill that our security requirements are merely good faith, not hermetic.
Sent out Saurons digest backlog.
Found out exactly what to do to swap U2 for U60. Got quote, and handed it to Jane.
Created Squeak web pages: home and dev-project notebook page with Opportunity Evaluation, Scope Statement, and work breakdown.
[MAIN] Kicked off performance reviews.

5 Feb 1999

2/1 Out Sick.
2/2 Release team: Solaris 7: No AFS. Punt till next year.
2/3 Meeting to discuss Angrist's needs.
2/4 Discuss Project DB with Bob and Mike
2/5 E-reserves meeting with Integration Team.
[MAIN2] Learned Smalltalk well enough to deliver X Bitmap reader to Squeak team.
Got revised AFS UNIX support quote and forwarded it to Jane for payment.
Supplied actual wording to Box Hill for letter we want.
Reviewed issues of Solaris 7 and AFS.
Caught up with my status reports.
Reviewed Eres Printing with Nina.
[MAIN1] Reviewed Eres integration issues with Integration team.

29 Jan 1999

1/25 Meeting with Eric Celeste: Discussed Dibner, and E-Thesis.
1/25 Fuzzballs: Discussed RFP.
1/26 Release Team: Issues of Update screwing private workstation owners, and process whereby we wrongly thought that was ok.
1/26 ACMG: Priorities. Got bogged down in first 2 items.
1/27 Discovery Team Leaders: Learned: E-res taught us more about build/buy space.
1/28 Meeting to discuss helping Dibner Library
1/29 Out sick.
Picked up issues in Dibner Library: I gotta do quicky tech review, and maybe help find missing records.
Reported Lobby 16 QuickStations get dirt in them from stairs. Wrecks mice!
[MAIN] Made official request of Sun and SGI for their bids for the Athena Renewal.
Reviewed paper on E-res Integration issues.


22 Jan 1999

1/18 Holiday
1/19 Release Team
1/20 All day Athena Retrosspective -- You should been there! Check out http://web.mit.edu/acs/www/athena.html
Missing Ultra-2 showed up!
Discussed install project with SGI custom engineering. As expected, their model doesn't fit. SGI and I agree to redouble efforts to get a "Technical Liaison"
Reviewed Professor Angrist's Athena proposal. I have questions about how much his needs and our abilities overlap. Drafted reply.
Slapped DocuTek for desupporting UNIX.


15 Jan 1999

1/11 Owls: Discussed options around not buying any SGI equipment for the '00 RFP, and Linux issues.
1/11 SGI public rollout of NT box.
1/12 Release Team
1/12 Bill & Bob: Discuss Project Database
1/13 Prepare for Project DB discussion at Friday's Project Leader's meeting
1/13 John Curry visits E40
1/14 Discovery Team Leaders
1/15 Project Team Leaders: Got feedback on Project DB plans and directions.
Reviewed Transarc UNIX support invoice. Asked questions.
Asked Box Hill if they'd certify they make best efforts to avoid unauthorized data recovery from returned drives.
Worked on Greg Hudson's situation of hot and stuffy office. Facilities opened the ducts.
[MAIN] Ponder issues of WorkFlow and future direction of Project Database.


8 Jan 1999

1/6 Release team. Broached the subject "What would it mean to improve the Athena User Interface?"
1/6 Helped Bob think about Project DB for his
ITLT presentation.
1/7 Discovery Team Leaders
1/8 Libraries with Eric Celeste
Learned rudiments of Smalltalk so I can begin reading Squeak.
Found a Linux Hot-Sync that worked! (3 did not.)
Looked at KDE (It's BIG and the Linux Hot-Sync for it was coded to last year's library and core dumps now.) We should get someone to fetch it and build it so we can learn about it. Requires advanced version of gnu C (egcs).
Pruned 1000 Z39.50 implementor's group unread messages.
Reviewed what projects we're working on so we can tell prospective employees about them.
Began a Project DB Job Flow analysis.
Showed Vijay plans for memory-ultra replacement.
[MAIN] Worked on reviewing Sun Access Plus's value to MIT.

1 Jan 1999
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.