Watson Outline

"SURVIVING JOHN KEMP"

Tim Watson, Executive Director, Tennessee Association of Legal Services

Subtitle: How to Achieve Techno-Grace While Working with the Son of Satan

John Kemp Survival Kit:

	holy water, crucifix, silver bullets, wooden stakes
	horse-whip made of coaxial cable
	proctoscope
	reason and understanding
	some kind of really skanky repellant

(if it’s only mildly skanky, he’ll role in it like a dog)

_And now let us begin with our actual outline concerning many things technological and being the only outline about computers that contains the word "loins."

"The future is here... it’s just not evenly distributed." - Some dude.

I. INTRODUCTION

What it was like way back then... during the FIRST TECHNO-MERCANTILE LOVE-FEST.

"You need a twisted-pair zyg-supporter with multiplex paradigm indicators and port-specific log-in feedback buffers."

Those tech people: THEY LIKE TO SOUND TECHNICAL. THEY think it’s sexy. (Well, heck, it IS).

Proposition: If they know what they’re talking about, you can’t understand them.

Second proposition: If they DON’T know what they’re talking about, you WON’T REALIZE IT UNLESS . . . DO I HAVE TO SAY IT? You must gird your loins for battle. (This is an acceptable literary phrase.)

First, some perspective . . .

The 4004 was the first true microprocessor. Compare it to today’s Pentium II:

4004 Speed 5 Mhz Transistors 23,000 Inst’s p/sec. 10,000

Pentium II Speed 450 MHz Transistors 7.5 million Inst’s p/sec 25 million

Gone are the days when we measured everything in milliseconds. Today we think in terms of nanoseconds (one billionth of a second). Microprocessors now have circuits that are less than 800 atoms in width, with the possibility of reaching the ‘lower limit’ of 200 atoms.

In 1988, the good people at West Tennessee Legal Services, where I was born, were proud of their Northgate computers with 65 megabyte hard drives that weighed 44 lbs, 20 Mhz processors, and monochrome 14" monitors. Ten years and hundreds of thousands of dollars later, they are proud of a state-of-the-art network with fabulous desktops and peripherals, all of which will become obsolete at the same rate as the old Northgates. So what are you gonna do? According to Richard Zorza,, techno-visionary and Vice President of the Fund for the City of New York, you’re always in an excellent position to start making techno-purchases: "Time lost is time gained, because you haven’t invested in obsolete systems."

The BIG question: Where is the sweet spot? Do you buy at the leading edge, or do you make your purchases behind the curve? Reasonable minds have been known to delicately disagree on this important issue, with much resulting angst.

II. HARDWARE POTPOURRI

Processors - more than 2 dozen choices out there now:

· 450 MHz Pentium II; not an upgrade, SECC (single edge contact cartridge)

GigaHz (1000 MHz) being developed !!!

With W98, don’t go below 233Mhz

Recommendation: 300 MHz

Don’t get a processor without an L2 cache

Off-brands may lack some capabilities: MMX, USB deficient, enhanced video display

RAM: It will save your hard-drive and your sanity.

Don’t go below 64 megs. (Also, no need at the present time to go over it. Just make sure your mother board will accept a higher amount, say, 128 megs.)

Is more RAM even better? (My 80 meg machine has filled me with righteous indignation - and just enough self-loathing to make it interesting.)

Flash-RAM - still out there somewhere.

Hard Drives:
18G drives (enough to print a gazillion Bibles with all the ‘begats’)

Recommend no less than 8 gigabytes.

33 Mbps transfer rate, 7,200 rpm

MTBF rating = "mean time before failure." Look for 300,000 hrs.

Optical drives are out there.

Things (other than RAM) that can ~~save~~ extend your hard-drive and/or save your data.

	Caching.
	Optimizing.
	Backing up. ((If the group is deserving, i.e., awake, tell them the True Story of how I saved an entire legal aid project from stygian darkness, and then left them with nothing but their memories of my noble expression. Several wept openly.)
	UPS’s - Glorified car batteries.

Your Relationship with Your Mother... Board.

	What the hell is a BUS?
	The BUS is SLOW.
	And the people on it aren’t particularly polite.
	‘Chip creep’ and pencil erasers.

System Improvements:

100 MHz buses and I/O systems - they’re here! Oh frabjous day...

Memory subsystems with gigabyte throughput.

OTHER STUFF:

DVD Drives - Digital Versatile (Video) Discs, 4.7G storage (v. 650Mb)

1.385 Mbps retrieval (v. 900Kbps)

CD-R, CD-RW - overwriting is a problem.

Back-up Devices:
Tape - 5GB
Removable drives - 16G.
CD-R
Extra hard disk
DVD
Zip drives.
Backing up to the Internet.

Monitors: 17" standard. Don’t settle for more than a .28mm dot pitch. You should try for a .26 or .25. The smaller the better. Watch for video card deficits, price differential. Be ready for flat ones - cheaper, lighter, less space, less power, better viewing angle. And plastic flat ones are on the horizon.

Network adapters - 10Mbps (Mb per second) OK for most uses; 100 Mbps capability.

Printers. Ignorance can be bliss. (The stupid ones often follow instructions better.)

Infra-red transmission - Line of sight limits usefulness, notwithstanding certain Star Trek Next Generation episodes.

USB Ports: Get a front-loader.

Lap-tops: For about $12,000 you can get a really good one. 400MHz, speech recog., 128M RAM. Best sellers are IBM and Toshiba.

Modems - Buy a 56K, but make sure it meets the V.90 standard.

Vendor Service / Reliability: Based on 17,000 responses (as in PC Magazine May 26, 1998, p.108). WORST Repair Record: Quantex. WORST Tech Support: Acer. BETTER Over All: Dell.

III. SOFTWARE POTPOURRI

(I hate all software and the people who write it.)

Voice recognition. Help! My rubber meats are eroding! (This may need some explaining.)

(Editor's note: This is what Tim's voice recognition software typed in when he dictated, "Where the rubber meets the road." The only surprising thing about this is that they have a Tennessee version that can understand anything he says. jpk)

COREL Suite 8: Just one of many examples of a plague eating at the very fabric of society. (Philosophical maunderings of a jaded techno-degenerate about the after-market patch syndrome.)

W98 install problems: 80% are related to video. Check the Video Control Master. Under System Information, under System Tools. (or somewhere)

IV. INTERNET POTPOURRI

Market News: Microsoft Explorer has just edged past Netscape in sales.

A word for Managers: The Starr Report generated 25 million downloads, of which 13.5 million occurred in the workplace. At $35 per hour, the nation experienced $470 million in lost productivity.

Internet Connections (the bandwidth war):

There are a variety of methods other than your analog modem for internet connection, including:

ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) - Fast, but has a 3.5 mile limit.

xDSL (Digital Subscriber Line.) - Faster than ISDN and can go over copper wire. Same distance problem.

Cable Modems. - Also very fast, but so far, you get the speed only one way.

Satellite. Slower, and also no upstream connection.

Internet Virus Detection - Use it! A variety of vendors provide it. You can update your virus catalog from the Net.

Backing Up on the Internet. Some people think this is a good idea. There are space limitations (usually a gig), and the back-up companies are dependent upon the hardware of others.