[These journal entries were originally sent by plain-text email to my faculty sponsor and my family. Text that was emphasized with asterisks has been changed to italics, and links have been added for explanation.

For some context - that I didn't have at the time I wrote this - read my summary of the internship first.]

Ben Stallings
Noyce/Intel Summer Internship

Daily Journal, May 21, 1996

I am sitting in a basement room in Brook Park, Ohio.  My computer is temporarily set up on a card table while I sit on one of five chairs in the room.  In front of me are two pieces of exercise equipment and a stairway that leads upward.  Also in front of me is the doorway to the laundry room, where I have a sink and toilet of my own as well as the washer and dryer.  To my right is my bedroom, where I recently spent a few hours scrubbing mold off the walls.  I can hear my landlady's TV upstairs and the fan drying the bedroom walls.

I drove to Brook Park from Pittsburgh this afternoon; I was in Pittsburgh to see my sister's commencement and to pick up my parents' car, which I'm renting from them.  When I arrived here, Elsie (my landlady) was still away on a fishing trip to Canada, but my boxes were waiting -- even though I intentionally sent them "the slow, cheap way."  The basement rooms are really rather nice, considering that I'm only paying $50 a week.  They're carpeted with a patchwork of rugs, the bed is comfortable, the temperature is considerably cooler than outdoors, and thanks to the multitude of air fresheners and chemical dehumidifiers scattered about, the air doesn't smell bad, though I lost little time getting rid of all the mold I could find.  Elsie lets me use her kitchen and bathroom upstairs, and once her TV gets fixed I'll have one down here to go with the VCR she bought for me.  Although I'm only a mile or so from the airport, I can barely hear the planes going over.  All in all, a nice place.

Soon after I got in, I called Tim Connors at NPTN to let him know I'll be in tomorrow morning.  He says we'll take "a long lunch" for orientation and briefing.

After I finished unpacking and Elsie got home, I went out for groceries to a huge shopping center near here.  It covers approximately a square mile and reminds me of all the reasons I dislike suburbs.  I found almost everything I needed at the grocery store I chose to patronize, but due to its extremely poor service and lack of organization I don't plan to return!  On the way there I passed one of the Metro Parks -- I'll have to make a habit of visiting the parks on Saturdays, with or without my skates.

Shortly after calling NPTN I connected to my Free-Net account and sent messages to other people who might like to know I arrived intact.  The phone line to CWRU (where the Free-Net is located) was very noisy, though, so all the messages I typed had bad characters in them.  Plus, the Free-Net wouldn't let me telnet to Grinnell like I thought it would, so I'll probably hold off on sending this until I have a real Internet connection at work tomorrow.  Tim said that NPTN will loan me a faster modem so that I can use a SLIP connection to dial into their network once they set up an account for me.

Daily Journal, May 22, 1996

Today was my first day at NPTN.  I got up at 7:30, intending to allow half an hour to get to Solon by 9:00.  It took me more than an hour to get to the office, however, because a wreck on the Interstate prevented me from getting off on the right section of Bainbridge, and on top of it I had mistaken NPTN's zip code for its address, so I went several miles out of my way and back again before stopping for directions right in front of the office building!

Tim and John set aside more than an hour before lunch and an hour at lunch to bring me up to speed on NPTN's past, present and future.  It seems that the future is no longer what it was in March, mainly because one of their two major partners backed out a week ago, in clear violation of contract.  Several people at NPTN are working to find a replacement partner, but this has set plans back so far that my internship will have ended by the time the "new format" (even the code name is a secret!) is ready to be implemented.  This means the only business trip I'm likely to take during the whole 8.5 weeks will be to set up a new Rural Information Network (RIN) in the indefinite future.

Naturally, this changes my plans.  The only "before/after" technology assessment I'll be able to do, if any, will be at the RIN, but on the other hand I'll have more time to study the Cleveland Free-Net in depth.  I'll also get first-hand experience with the RINs -- I started today attempting to configure three new RIN servers so that they all work ... more difficult than it seems, since the software is very poorly documented.

I had flashbacks of my spring-break internship at ACORN when I started asking whether I could borrow some old equipment: they practically threw stuff at me.  I now have an extended keyboard and mouse and a 14,400 baud modem -- which I unfortunately didn't test before leaving the office; I've only gotten it to dial once.  I also have keys to the office, an alarm code and password in case I stay after hours, and my very own IP number on their local network: ben.nptn.org.  Once I get the modem working properly I'll have full Internet access from my apartment!

Rigging up a modem connection downstairs required a lot of fooling around with phone cords, since the existing phone was spliced directly into the wall.  I borrowed a crimping tool from NPTN and (with Elsie's permission) attempted to install RJ-11 jacks on the wire, but the wires are the old, round kind and wouldn't crimp, so I wound up splicing in the ends of one of my own cords.  Whatever works!

Thursday, May 23, 1996

Today I spent essentially the entire workday getting the three aforementioned RIN servers working with version 4 of NovaServer.  I started out intensely disliking this software, but once it started working I realized it's the best thing to happen to BBSes since ANSI color graphics!  ResNova built a windowing environment on top of HTML, so that individual documents can be viewed with Netscape or Lynx (and so people with plain-ASCII connections aren't left out), but users who download a copy of the free NovaTerm viewer can see the BBS in all its glory.  It's really quite ingenious.  My next task is to familiarize myself with version 4 so that I can accomplish the transition to version 5 singlehandedly as soon as the upgrade is available.

Yes, singlehandedly.  It seems that right now I'm serving as a temporary replacement for the RIN director, who left in a huff a few months ago without passing his half-completed projects (including plans for my internship) on to anyone.

This morning I enlisted Jim's help in getting my SLIP connection working.  Unfortunately, Jim felt it wouldn't hurt anything to repeat modem commands several times in the initialization strings, so that although it worked in the office (?), it didn't work when I got it home.  It took me two hours of trial and error this evening to get it working again... I don't think I'll disturb it anymore!

I forgot to pack a lunch this morning, so rather than brave the crowds at a restaurant, I helped myself to complementary snacks at the office, worked through lunch, and left early.  Leaving early enough to beat rush hour is a good thing; I may do it more often.

Well, so far all my work has been technical in nature.  I'll do some library research on Saturday and make an effort on Monday (Memorial Day) to study the Cleveland Free-Net.  I'll also be sure to get some exercise over the weekend; I've been picking up groceries on the way home from work and therefore not walking anywhere at all.  Tim has given me an open invitation to visit his house over the weekend, since he only works three days a week at NPTN and stays home with his kids the rest of the week.

Friday, May 24, 1996

Today very little happened.  I officially spent the entire workday studying NovaServer, but in actuality I found a number of other distractions, one of which is a bug in the supposedly flawless (who at ResNova hired somebody who would pronounce a product bug-free??) NovaTerm client software.  At John's direction, I reported the bug to our contact at ResNova, and Tim called into work to congratulate me on helping to prove that NovaTerm still needs work... evidently I've stumbled into some sort of longstanding but friendly argument.

I came home with a spare monitor -- I plan to do some serious fooling around this weekend and can use the extra "desktop" space -- and decided to backup my hard disk.  That being done, I tried running Norton Speed Disk on it, and Norton rudely informed me that I would have to initialize the disk and restore from backup.  So that's how I spent my evening ...

I just put together a map of the office, as recommended by the internship guidebook.  I'm attaching it to this message; please let me know if you're not able to open it.

Tomorrow I plan to go into the city to do some research at the libraries and get some exercise.

Saturday, May 25, 1996

Today I set out to do some library research and get some exercise.  I definitely succeeded in both endeavors.  I took the Rapid from Brook Park to Tower City, which Dad and I visited when we were in Cleveland before.  The public library is less than a block from the Tower.  I was able to actually get my hands on about two thirds of the books I found in the computer catalog ... like the catalogs in Chicago's Harold Washington Library, those in CPL lack the ability to tell you which cart a book is lounging on while waiting to be reshelved.  In the Science and Technology room alone there were at least 200 books waiting on carts in random order.  But for every book I couldn't find, I found another equally good one that the catalog hadn't shown me nearby on the shelves, so it turned out all right.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a library card because they use the Miracle on 34th Street system of identification, and I haven't yet received mail at this address.  So I plan to return next Saturday with either a piece of mail or my laptop.  I collected about a page of notes from a few books.

By the time I was finished at CPL, it was about 2:30.  I decided to walk to the CWRU library, whose catalog indicated that it had additional useful books, and get lunch on the way.  Had I known that CWRU has not one but many libraries and that they would all close at 5:30, I wouldn't have bothered.  Had I known that eastern Cleveland is known as a "bad" neighborhood, I would at least have had second thoughts.  In all, I walked five and a half miles in about two hours.  By the time I had walked four miles on Superior Avenue, I was about to collapse from hunger and exhaustion, so I stopped to eat at the only restaurant in the neighborhood.  Only after I had spent fifteen minutes there collecting my wits did I realize I had stumbled upon the local Nation of Islam community center.  It was the little things I noticed: the lack of pork and caffeine on the menu, the way everyone called each other "Brother," the way everyone stared at me, the big flag hanging behind the counter ...

This evening my landlady told me that I was extremely lucky to have not encountered trouble in eastern Cleveland, since it's the most dangerous part of the city.  She related a series of horror stories about muggings and drive-by shootings and cars that "fence in" other cars at stoplights.  Apparently the "white flight" in Cleveland happened as a consequence of forced bussing, and now that bussing is being deregulated she expects to see whites move back into the city -- seeds of gentrification are about to germinate.

At any rate, the CWRU collection is so inconvenient for me to access that I probably won't return unless I find that they have something really vital.  I rode the Rapid back to Brook Park and got home to find that the high-speed modem NPTN lent me has stopped working again, even though I haven't changed anything since this morning, but I don't really feel up to fooling with it just now.

Tomorrow I'll go to church in Shaker Heights and visit Tim at his house.

Sunday, May 26, 1996

This morning I drove to Shaker Heights to attend First Unitarian Church.  In the process of finding out whether and when a young adult group meets, I met Greg Stewart, the RE director who starred in a recent issue of the World.  There is indeed a young adult group, but they didn't meet this week.  I'll be sure to attend their meeting next week.  The service was also quite satisfactory, not as conservative as I had expected from a church that size.

After church and coffee I stopped by Tim's house, where he and his wife, brother, and sister in law were preparing (at a very leisurely pace) to take their children to the zoo.  We chatted quite pleasantly for about an hour.

On the way back from town, I swung by Best Buy to pick up a modem -- in order to see whether the problems I've been having with the modem(s) I borrowed from work are a function of their speed or their brand.  USRobotics loses.  Unfortunately, unless I can think of a clever way to return the new modem, I lose too... $65 plus my $15 gift certificate.  I can't really say I'm unsatisfied with it; I'm just unsatisfied with the price.  Plus, while walking from a nearby ATM to Best Buy's parking lot, I slipped on a grassy slope (some 60 degrees) and fell on the asphalt, scraping up my left hand and back and chipping my glasses!  All in all, not a bright move.

So I've spent the rest of the day reading the Sunday Plain Dealer (not a minor feat) and studying the Toy Story Web page.  I'll do real work tomorrow.  :-)

Monday, May 27, 1996

Today being Labor Day, I had nowhere to go and actually didn't leave the house all day.  I slept in, then did some preliminary study of the Cleveland Free-Net and the Blacksburg (Virginia) Electronic Village (just for comparison).  Elsie came downstairs for a while to find out what all the fuss was about, so I gave her a crash course in the current state of computers and the Internet.  Then I studied some of the information I had already collected until I got absolutely sick of sitting in a cold room with a computer, so I went into my bedroom with a space heater for a few hours.

As I go through the existing studies of "computer-mediated communication" and other such catch phrases, I'm putting together a list of questions I'd like to ask users of the Cleveland Free-Net.  They're not questions, actually; they're theories and opinion statements with which the users could agree or disagree.  It might be useful to compare CFN users' responses with those of RINs such as the ones I'm setting up in the office and even those of the Blacksburg Electronic Village.  BEV is 100% World Wide Web-based, and the newer RINs are similarly graphical ... while CFN is 100% text.  That may make a difference not only in who uses the system but in how and for what they use it.

After looking over BEV, I'm thinking that it might be very important for me to interview some of its users.  If its publicity is to be believed, it's phenomenally more successful than either Free-Net system at getting people involved in their community, even though it offers full Internet access.  NPTN's theory (with the exception of Drew's personal vision) has been that only by restricting Internet access can users be made to focus on their own community.

I'm also wondering whether I'll be able to convince myself to conduct any interviews in person.  I suspect that interviews conducted by e-mail are likely to be biased, though I can't predict which way, but after seeing how infernally spread out Cleveland is, I'll be reluctant to interview anyone in person!

Tomorrow: back to work on learning NovaServer.

Tuesday, May 28, 1996

Today marked the completion of my first week here, and accordingly I paid Elsie a week's rent.  In the future I'll probably wait and pay two weeks at a time.

At work I finished going through the NovaServer 4 manual; now all we need is the new version (5) of the software.  It seems that somehow NPTN convinced ResNova to take responsibility for converting our demo server setup so that it will work with NovaServer 5; apparently when they shipped the software a few months ago it wasn't compatible with all of the files produced by version 4, and it was supposed to be.  The down side of this is that we have to wait on them to fix the problem, and quite a few RINs are waiting for our servers!  Meanwhile NPTN is short on cash, and today one of our creditors demanded $2000 ... Tim was not pleased.

Autumn and I had a conversation today about NPTN's financial situation.  She agrees with me that Drew has very little idea about the situation because he himself is well paid.  Perhaps if he came to the office more often he would get a better idea.  Meanwhile, he's one of the major people trying to find us a new business partner.

While I'm waiting for our customized copy of NovaServer 5 to arrive, I've started working on the Teledemocracy Web pages, which have seen very little modification since the director of the Teledemocracy Program left several months ago.  Tim and John want me to organize the links to government sites in a more logical fashion and possibly spiff up the appearance a bit while I'm at it.  I'll see what I can do.

Tonight I tried to see if any of my high-school friends are online during the summer, since I won't have much time to see them when I'm in Oklahoma.  It looks like at most three have logged in since the semester ended.  However, it also looks like both my Grinnell friends who live in Cleveland Heights have logged in recently, so I'll try to get in touch with them soon.

Wednesday, May 29, 1996

This morning I felt sufficiently competent with NovaServer 4.03 that Tim and John encouraged me to write to ResNova technical support and ask them for the new version -- which is 4.04, not 5 as I wrote earlier.  No sooner had I sent this request than things began going wrong with our flagship server, and so I spent the rest of the day tracking down the problems.  One turned out to be caused by about 30 files having been deleted from the server, which is odd because if their absence was the actual cause of the problem, they must have been deleted at about 11:00 this morning!  Of the other two problems, one only shows up on my own computer, and the other is a rather unfortunate security glitch in NovaServer itself.  Well, if not a glitch, then at least an inconsistency in the design which would tend to make sysops accidentally give their users the power to seriously mess things up.  A tech supporter named Reeves and I exchanged about ten messages each during the course of the day.

On my way to work I swung by a Kinko's to get some slides scanned for one of the Web pages I'm working on.  Although the person I'd spoken to on the phone said they had a slide scanner, what they actually had was a color photocopier that can copy slides.  So I got the slides enlarged and printed for $3.50 each and scanned them in myself this evening at NPTN.  I hadn't originally planned to come back to work after picking up the prints, but as I was driving away from Kinko's I realized I had left my computer's power supply at the office, so rather than be without it I decided to return to the office for a few hours.  I'm glad I did; not only did I get the photos scanned, but I found and fixed the deleted-files problem and got to lock up the building and set the alarm, so in all it was very satisfying.

Tomorrow the new version of NovaServer and its manual will arrive from ResNova, so I'll have my hands full.

Thursday, May 30, 1996

I am currently seething because Reeves at ResNova decided that the problem I've been having with NovaTerm on my laptop is due to my using an obsolete copy of NovaTerm, so without asking first he emailed me the installer, and Eudora Light won't allow me to cancel the transfer of just that single message, so if I want to read the rest of my mail I have to wait for it to finish.  I was using the latest version of the software; I downloaded it from their Web site a week ago!!!  Grrrr.

Today was basically spent waiting for ResNova to send us the new NovaServer software, which they didn't do until after I left for the day, so I read up some more on the old version and did some work on reorganizing the Teledemocracy Web pages.

Tim took me to Pizza Hut for lunch, though I ended up paying my own way.  We talked about a variety of non-work-related topics as well as the dynamics of power between NPTN and the Cleveland Free-Net.  I was not surprised to learn that Drew was overly optimistic about the chances and advantages of NPTN wresting control of the Free-Net away from CWRU, nor that the Free-Net is currently controlled by a small group who are pleased with the status quo and see CFN's 40,000 users as a clear indication of its superiority.  But have they asked the users what they think of it?  Tim warned me to use my Free-Net account, not my NPTN account, when communicating with CFN users.  Ah, politics.

After work I went to Strongsville (south of Brook Park) to get an estimate on some repairs for my laptop.  A new port cover will be $10, and I can install it myself as soon as the old cover wears out.  The technician agreed with me that my lack of sound quality is caused by a problem in the logic board rather than the speakers, and he can replace that board for free as soon as I prove that the computer is still under warranty.

During dinner I got a call from a friend in Texas, and we talked for about an hour, so I'm feeling a little less lonely for a while.  I really hope to make some friends in the young adult group on Sunday.  I might conceivably meet people through the Free-Net once I start doing some real investigation there.  There are some younger kids on the block here, but they seem fairly established in their groups, and we probably don't have any interests in common, but I may meet a few of them as time goes on.

Well, tomorrow I really will start working with NovaServer 4.04, at last.  Tim has invited me to dinner with his family on Saturday evening; I'll go to his house after I finish at the library.  It looks like Saturday will be the first and last good weather for a while, though, so I may take the morning to explore the local Metropark.

Friday, May 31, 1996

Today, as I had expected to do, I installed the NovaServer 4.04 bundle that Jim (at ResNova) sent yesterday.  It works quite well ... it's very stable (well, it did cause memory problems once), and Jim made some aesthetic improvements to our custom menus.  But it wasn't worth the time it set us back.  He apparently didn't check to make sure all the menu items actually worked; about one link in ten points to an invalid location.  So I spent the day tracking down missing links and cleaning up some of the bad HTML my predecessors wrote -- in the absence of any professional control I've essentially been given free rein to finalize the new RIN interface!

It shouldn't take more than two more workdays to get the pilot system working smoothly.  At that point, after getting Tim and John to approve it, I'll copy the whole mess onto a second machine and customize the first so it's ready to be plugged in and turned on at its new home.  Customization will involve setting it up to work with the phone lines and/or Internet connection at the rural site and altering the login screen and main menu to say "[town name here] Free-Net" instead of "RIN Demo System".  No word yet on whether I'll be traveling to help set things up or just putting boxes in the mail.

After work I had an experience reminiscent of The Divine Comedy.  I went to Best Buy to return the modem I bought on Sunday, because it was making a shrill hissing noise whenever its power was on, and the good folks at Zoom said that wasn't normal.  After consulting among themselves about whether the five-day return period was inclusive or exclusive, the customer-service representatives decided that they'd let me exchange the modem for another, but I'd have to pay an additional $4 because the one I bought before was discounted and the ones they have now are not.  I said I'd rather have my money back.  This sent them into another round of discussion until they decided they'd return in cash what I paid in cash, but they'd give me a $15 gift certificate to replace the one I used before.  Never mind that there's nothing in the place that I care to buy.  I'll try to sell it.

I remembered calling a used-computer store about 10 miles away; at the time I called they had promised a used 14,400 baud modem for $55, and compared to Best Buy's prices that would be a bargain.  So I drove down Pearl Avenue, looking in vain for addresses on buildings, and on a whim I happened to stop in the correct parking lot.  Born Again Computers has been in its present location for two years now, and it still hasn't put up its sign.  The owner says he likes it that way ... it weeds out the wrong kind of people!

The owner of Born Again Computers is a very large (but not fat) man with a Caribbean accent and charcoal-gray skin.  He walks around the store in his bare feet, carefully stepping between the computer entrails which are scattered all over everything ... the floor, the tables, the walls.  There is a general pattern to the place, in that complete systems are near the front of the store and pieces near the back, but everything else is disarray.  In one back corner is a pile of modems, drives for various storage media, and power supplies -- everything totally unlabeled as to its speed, age, or functionality.  On one counter there was a pile of memory cards, totally unprotected from static, dust, coffee, or anything else, a very very far cry from the place just down the road I patronized last night, where the man who opened my PowerBook wouldn't even let me watch for fear that I'd somehow damage something.

There were three other people in the store while I was there.  Two, a teenage boy and a college student, seemed to be employees but may merely have been groupies of the owner; in either case I can understand the attraction.  The third was a middle-aged man who had just bought a PowerBook 140 from the owner and was installing software on it.

The owner gave me my choice of three 14,400-baud external modems.  The first was the aforementioned $55 unit, an elderly USRobotics, which, unlike the Sportsters I've tried to use with this laptop, actually was able to establish a connection ... but no faster than 2400 baud.  The other two, a Hayes and a Zoom, were missing power supplies, and they gave no indication what type of power they needed.  I decided to go ahead and buy the Zoom, not only because it's essentially identical to the highly reliable one I returned to Best Buy (an earlier year, with lots of redundant lights and a switch instead of a button), but also because it doesn't require a bizzare 3-pin power cord like the Hayes did.  Bought it for $42.80 with a 9-month satisfaction guarantee, as opposed to Best Buy's best offer of $99.95 with a five-day reluctant guarantee.

Of course, then I had to come up with a power supply.  I got the thing home and experimented with my "universal" AC/DC adapter ... no luck.  On a hunch I plugged in the power supply from the Sportster, which I haven't yet returned to work.  Voila!  The difference?  AC vs. DC.  If someone had told me an hour earlier that a modem could run on alternating current, I wouldn't have believed it, but hey, I guess at least two brands do.  My next step will be to contact Zoom, ask them what power supply I should really have (the Sportster's supply may work in spite of the wrong voltage or amperage) and find one to buy so I can return the Sportster to work.

In any case, visiting Born Again really made me feel more positive about the human race in general.  It's easy to forget after visiting a Best Buy or a Computer Site (where I went last night for repairs) that there are people who rely on skill and empirical knowledge and the Metaphysics of Quality rather than bureaucracy and superstition.  I would rather buy equipment from Born Again than Best Buy just as surely as I'd rather trust a car to a dirty mechanic than a clean one.  Robert M. Pirsig would be proud.  Elsie, on the other hand, did not understand my enthusiasm.  I don't know whether she was turned off more by the owner's disorganization or his color.

Tomorrow, if I can haul myself out of bed early enough, I'll try to explore the local Metropark a bit before heading to the library for the day.

Saturday, June 1, 1996

This morning I got up as early as I could stand, walked to Big Creek Metropark (which must have been named by the same guy who named the Rapid), and roller skated on the path there for about 20 minutes.  Thus braced for the day, I came home and packed a lunch.  The weather here has finally gotten warm, at least for a while ... next time I go somewhere for exercise I will definitely bring a canteen.

The Rapid will be even slower than usual for the next few days (weeks?) since they're doing repairs, and in many places the trains must share their tracks with the trains coming the other direction.  It took about an hour to get to Tower City this morning and an additional hour and fifteen minutes to go from there to Shaker Heights this evening.

As planned, I spent all afternoon in the library.  I took a break for lunch, walking out to where I could at least see Lake Erie, though I was still a good half mile from the shore, separated by a freeway, a football stadium, and some sort of museum.  But the sky is definitely larger there.

I found quite a few more books on this visit, mainly because the ones I tried to find last week had found their way onto the shelves.  It's become clear to me that a technology assessment, at least of the usual type, is not what I'm trying to accomplish here.  TAs are generally prescriptive, done before the technology is in place.  My study of the Free-Nets will be almost entirely descriptive.  Besides, I don't have the resources or the time to do anything as ambitious as the TAs described in the books I found.

I also encountered a few more books on computers and their effects on society, including Cliff Stoll's Silicon Snake Oil.  In an ideal world, I would have checked it out and read it at a leisurely pace, but (a) I have no library card, (b) the book has no index and no table of contents, and (c) if I want philosophy buried beneath eloquent anecdotes by a former college professor with lots of hobbies, I'll reread Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  So I skimmed it in 20 minutes.  Summary: maybe the Internet is good for society, maybe it's not.  If he said anything more conclusive, it's well hidden.

I finished at the library at 5:00, called Tim to warn him that I was on my way, and proceeded to wait on the Rapid for an hour and fifteen minutes.  Tim and I then drove to Cleveland Heights to get Thai take-out, but the restaurant had had "an incident in the kitchen" so we got Indian food instead.  He and his wife and I (their daughter being already in bed) had a pleasant dinner and conversation while he played parts of his extensive music collection for me.  At about 9:00 he drove me home to spare me the Rapid ride, but unfortunately I forgot that I had left my car at the station.  Elsie did not forget, so after her TV movie ended she drove me to the station to pick it up.

Tomorrow I'll return to First Unitarian Church and hopefully meet some like-minded young adults, then come back here and read some more of the information I've collected.

Sunday, June 2, 1996

Before boarding the Rapid this morning I made the wise decision to buy a Sunday paper.  It lasted me through my three hours at the whim of the RTA and considerably longer... I finished it less than an hour ago.

Today's church service was given by the graduating high-school class, and I was struck again by the impression that Unitarian Universalist youth have a better understanding of and commitment to their beliefs than do their elders.  I met several of the seniors before the service and "talked YRUU" with them but didn't spot any young adults until after the service was over.  Five of us met in a prearranged meeting spot, waited for about 20 minutes to make sure no one else was coming, and then went to "brunch" (at 1 PM?) at a diner.

All four of them are in the 25-35 range, and they definitely look like they've outgrown their college phase ... the two who aren't currently in grad school at CWRU could pass for a yuppie couple and probably do when they're not in the company of liberals.  The other two were a man with very stereotypically gay mannerisms (but his body language became so defensive when the topic of sexuality surfaced in conversation that I gather he's not "out") and a doctoral candidate in biochemistry who spends most of her time in the lab.  These latter two are members of the Cleveland Free-Net and expressed attitudes opposite to those I've heard from other users (that is, positive ones!), so I'll probably be interviewing them later.  Other than that, I may not see them again until the last Sunday in June, when we'll spend the afternoon hiking.

I got home at about 4:30, having stopped for groceries on the way home from the station, had a nice conversation with Elsie while I ate, watched a bit of TV, and read through more of the articles I collected from the Web.  I have only one more secondary source -- an OTA survey of "Rural America" which will help me tune my configuration of the new RINs -- before I'll be able to turn my attention at last to primary sources.  I've actually already collected some data in the form of "bulletin board" discussions from the CFN, but I have yet to begin reading through them.

Tomorrow I expect to work all day on preparing the RINs for customization.

Monday, June 3, 1996

Today I spent the entire workday getting the RIN demo system ready.  At first I was just going through the screens (I would estimate there are over 500!), looking for and fixing hypertext links that pointed to invalid locations, but as I did so I realized that the system as a whole was almost frighteningly disorganized.  When I mentioned this to Tim, he explained that not only had Denny left NPTN abruptly without leaving notes about what he was doing or where he was headed with the RINs, the demo had originally been produced in a rush to put something together to show off to potential philanthropists at a conference.  Now he tells me.  I reorganized the HTML files, putting them in folders by category and deleting several duplicates, while taking care not to confuse any of the 8-10 files named "index.html" with each other.  Rearranging those files, of course, meant that I had to spend the rest of the day fixing their links to each other ... it was sort of like trying to move a spiderweb from one corner of a room to another and then having to put all its filaments back in place to satisfy the spider!  It was worth it, though, since people who use the system in the future will be able to find the files they need to work on.

Great news!  Drew told Tim and Tim told me about a book that is now on sale, New Community Networks: Wired for Change, by Douglas Schuler.  This book not only talks about the same issues I'm addressing, it actually makes a case study of the Cleveland Free-Net ... so it's clearly a must-read for my research.  Tim promised to buy a copy for the office and lend it to me.  In the meantime, I've downloaded and read the preface of the book and abstracts of each chapter from the author's Web pages.  I sent Dr. Schuler a piece of e-mail to let him know the URL of ACORN's Web page to add to his online bibliography (he had other organizations' Web pages listed, but ACORN's is only a few weeks old, so he just listed their street address), and I mentioned that I'm doing research on CFN and a few other systems, so I expect he may reply with some very worthwhile information!

At home I got several hours of reading (research) done, even though I got distracted by e-mail from friends, a TV show, and an astoundingly annoying friend of Elsie's.

Tomorrow I hope to finish my work on the RIN demo system, send a copy to ResNova for a bit more work, and begin customization (graphical menus) for my first completed system.

Tuesday, June 4, 1996

This was the first day since I've been at NPTN that I actually felt "stressed."  Suddenly everything was happening at once.  Jim wanted me to send a finished copy of the Demo software bundle to him (in California) so that he could reconfigure it to become our new master server.  Meanwhile, another guy at ResNova wanted a list of all the "keys" to NovaServer we could find so that he could replace a set of incorrect keys that had gotten sent to us by mistake and create a new key for one of the systems that needs to get finished this week.  So I went through two filing cabinets and the current master server looking for these keys, each of which is a piece of software that tells NovaServer which server it's running, with a short name (such as NPTNFreeNet) and an address (such as 10:1:1).  In this way ResNova hopes to limit the number of copies of NovaServer that are used at any one time, since (theoretically) no two machines can use the same address at once.  In practice, it's a very insecure system.

Anyway, I tracked down all but about five of our keys, and it turned out that the ResNova guy had those five in his own records.  So right before I left for home he sent the new keys, and all's well in that department ... except that he made a mistake in naming the new key.  We'll just have to live with it!  The bundle I sent Jim was more than 20 megabytes larger than the one he sent us last Thursday (72 megabytes instead of 50!), mainly because the server has been online for five days and has accumulated the contents of about 25 Internet newsgroups.  And speaking of large files, before I replace the contents of the master server I have to back it up on tape ... I started this process at 3:00, and it hadn't finished by 4:30 so I left it going.

I have to wonder what the people at ResNova think when they find out I'm a college student instead of a full-time employee.  In most cases it's probably better if I don't tell them (since relations between NPTN and ResNova are precariously balanced), but when The Key Guy spoke with me on the phone today, my employment status just sort of came up in the conversation.  I wonder whether he told the other tech-support people as soon as he hung up.

When I mentioned to John that I was feeling stressed today for the first time since my arrival, his response was, "You haven't started learning First Class yet."  First Class is the server software which was the standard for RINs before NovaServer became affordable. There are still about 50 (a wild estimate) RINs using First Class, and at some point during my stay here I'll need to figure out how to make some changes in their setup.  I'm not looking forward to it!

At home, I'm still trying to hack my way through an OTA report on Rural America.  It's not doing a good job of keeping my attention, and it's difficult to skim satisfactorily with Netscape.

Tomorrow I'll get the keys in their rightful places, begin to turn the first demo system into the Washington County (Ohio) Free-Net, and, if Jim returns the 70-megabyte bundle, I'll perform a serious spring cleaning on our master server.

Wednesday, June 5, 1996

Today Autumn (the secretary) approached me and confided that she's worried about the organization, primarily because Tim and John don't seem to her to be taking their work seriously enough.  Her experience has been very different from mine; while I was taken aside on my first day and told everything I needed to know about what was going on, she has been told as little as possible ever since she arrived in January ... yet she's been given more responsibility than I.  Along with answering the phone and handling paperwork, she's taken on most of Academy One since the real director left.  Because she answers the phone, she's acutely aware that many of our affiliates have been waiting as long as six months for services they paid for with their $2000 yearly dues.  Some of these things are only a few pieces of paper away, yet it seems Tim (the only one with the authority) has been sitting on them.  She's also tried to take on more responsibility for editing the Web pages, but John prefers to do all of that himself, even if it takes a week or two for him to get to it.  Autumn and I talked for about forty-five minutes while Tim and John were at lunch, and I agreed to go to lunch with Tim tomorrow and suggest that all of us have some sort of meeting, all in the same room.  Autumn is hesitant to discuss anything with Tim one-on-one because she doesn't want him to think she's being critical of him.  At the same time, though, I can't be relied upon to communicate her message correctly, so a meeting is probably our best bet.

I got some e-mail back from Douglas Schuler's computer; it seems he's on vacation for a while but plans to answer all his mail when he returns.  By the time he replies it may be too late for his comments to affect my research, but on the other hand, it gives me time to read his book before writing to him personally!  Tim hasn't bought it yet.

Installing the correct "key" files in the RIN servers caused InfoLink (NovaServer's proprietary protocol for sharing message forums and file libraries) to start working at last, so I spent most of the day figuring out how to get the servers talking to one another.  I also finally figured out what Denny (my predecessor) meant by some of the cryptic notes he left for himself, so our master server has "aliases" working at last.  (Now that I know what he meant to do, I also know that he went about it all wrong!)

At home I let my fingers do the sitting in traffic and lined up some more errands to run later, some tomorrow after work when I go into town and some when I head south to put my laptop in the shop, whenever that may be.  I may be able to get a power supply for my modem for less than $5, and I may be able to plug a tape recorder into the phone line here to do interviews without driving across town.  I get the feeling, though, that driving across town would be more educational somehow.

Thursday, June 6, 1996

Today, as promised, I went to lunch with Tim.  John came along as well, adding an unexpected complication to the conversation. Autumn's concerns didn't come up naturally, but it could have been worse.  I think I got the point across in a clear but not impolite fashion, but I'm afraid the whole incident planted seeds of mistrust that needn't have been sown.  After all, for all Autumn's denials, she was talking about them behind their backs, and for all her flawless intentions she is accusing them of laziness.  I think I handled the task well (by my standards anyway), but I wish I hadn't offered to do it.  If I had just talked Autumn into approaching Tim herself, it could have remained a private issue and not turned into paranoia.  And the results?  If there will be a meeting at all, it will have to be in more than a week, since Tim will be gone Friday, Monday, and Tuesday at a conference and Friday of next week at another. Bad timing on my part, I'm afraid.

I spent most of the day waiting for Jim to return our master server bundle from California.  He didn't.  For all I know, he didn't even come to work today; he didn't answer any of my messages.  So I tried to find out the IP addresses of the RINs using NovaServer that are already in service and downloaded Apple's System 7.5 Update 2.0 so that I can install it tomorrow.  Finally I got tired of waiting and decided to try setting up the master server myself, but I didn't get time to test it.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll hear from Jim.

Due to the long lunch, I stayed at work until 5 and then did some errands downtown, so I didn't get home until nearly 8:00, and I haven't gotten any research done tonight.  Saturday ...

Friday, June 7, 1996

I was really expecting Jim at ResNova to return the "master server" bundle to me today, but he didn't, so I found other things to do.  I upgraded four of our servers to System 7.5.3 (better for me to do it now than for individual sysops to attempt it later), cleaned up the RIN systems a bit more (there were ghost message forums, left over from more experimental times), and helped negotiate with members of the organizing committee of one of the less cooperative RINs.

It seems that the people in this community had plans for their Free-Net that NovaServer simply couldn't realize.  They expected it to have a file system similar to that in UNIX or VMS, where each user has a personal file area and can set the access privileges on individual files so that other users can share them.  They expected it to host their public library's entire catalog and their community's master calendar.  It seems to me they expected it to be a VAX, and the lowly PowerMac 7100 they received just didn't do the trick, particularly not with "toy" software like NovaServer.

Believe it or not, that's the good news.  We were expecting much worse, because this is the first time anyone at NPTN has gotten the story from them uncontaminated by blind frustration and spiteful anger.  Earlier communications from them had been along the lines of, "Thanks for nothing!  Your software doesn't work!  We can't make it do anything!" without any explanation of what they were trying to make it do.  Tim asked me to try to talk them into giving NovaServer a second chance now that we've got it working reliably, but after hearing their plans I agree that NovaServer really isn't the right software for them.

So what are they going to use instead?  Brace yourself.  Microsoft Windows NT.  They're going to install Windows NT on their PowerMac, because it does all the things they want it to do, and the man who's going to play sysop understands it better than he does Mac OS.  I'll be very curious how it turns out.  Curious is all I need to be, because if they don't use the software provided by the grant we gave them, we're under no obligation whatsoever to help them make it work.

It has been brought to my attention that I haven't written much about the people I've met here.  I'll try to write a little more on the subject without overstepping the bounds of e-mail security.

Elsie, my landlady, is somewhere in her sixties or seventies, I would guess.  She used to be a mail carrier, but she hurt one of her legs and now lives off a pension.  When she stopped walking several miles a day and started watching TV every night she became rather overweight, so the house sports a variety of torture devices which I have heard but not seen her use.  Her accent is unidentifiable; I would have guessed either Chicago or New York City (very nasal), but she claims it has something to do with her first language being German.  She has lived all her life in Ohio.  She had two sons and a daughter by her husband, whom I assume has passed away.  All her children went to college and graduate school, but she has only a high-school education.  She has at least one brother and sister, and her mother is still alive.  She has a lot of friends in town who call (on the phone or in person) during the day, including one who is possibly the most annoying person I have ever met.  Elsie's political views are left of center and admirably tolerant, but she holds a lot of prejudice against Black people.  The neighborhood where we live is entirely white.

Tim is a lawyer by training, educated at Michigan State University.  He worked in a law firm in Cleveland before he was hired by NPTN in February.  He has very short hair, brown turning gray, and he is starting to develop a belly, but I would guess his age as 30-35.  He likes "alternative" music such as punk and grunge.  His wife, Kathy, is also a lawyer, but she is naturally pretty enough she doesn't wear makeup.  They live in a large, two-story house in Shaker Heights with their toddler, Kate.  Tim works three days a week and Kathy works two so that one of them can stay home with Kate.

John is 55-60 years old and overweight.  He comes to work before 8:30 and stays until at least six, and then he goes home and works some more, even on weekends.  He is the only person at NPTN who has been with the organization since its beginning.  He is a very pleasant conversationalist on a variety of topics, but he never talks about his family.

Autumn is about 25 and will be celebrating her second wedding anniversary next weekend.  She is thin and has very big hair.  She was hired in January through Kelly Temporary Services, but her contract with Kelly has now expired.  Due to the time of her hiring, she knows slightly more about the circumstances of NPTN's executive turnover than Tim does.  She does a phenomenal amount of work as the organization's secretary, but she finds time to read several vacuous Usenet newsgroups.  She is very good with office equipment but has a lot of trouble reading maps.

Jim (not to be confused with Jim-at-ResNova) actually works for American Cybercasting Corporation across the hall, but his office is in NPTN's area.  He has short red hair and a red beard, and he is considerably more overweight than John.  Jim is a UNIX wizard, the maintainer of our main workhorses (nptn.org and news.nptn.org) and formerly the brains behind the Metropolitan Information Networks (MINs) distributed by NPTN.  Since his transfer to ACC, the MIN program has been officially passed to John, but Jim still does much of the UNIX work.  Jim has a great sense of humor and is well-read, but I rarely have an excuse to talk with him.

After enough transfer of e-mail, even the techs at ResNova seem to have personalities.  Reeves is the head of the support department, and his grasp of Internet communications extends only as far as e-mail, so he has a tendency to send inappropriately large files by mail.  Jim, on the other hand, has a sense of humor and a talent for making computers work correctly, but he assumes that the existence of an e-mail account in my name means that I log into that account at least once a day to get my mail, so he sends important messages that I don't receive for several days, if at all -- today I found out he sent some vital information to an account I deleted because I didn't expect to need it again.  Oh, well ...

That's all I can think of for now.  Tomorrow I plan to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, since the weather will be too cold and wet for the zoo.  After that I really must catch up on my research; I need to finish with secondary sources (other than the Schuler book, which is currently on order) so I can move on to primary sources.  I know that's what I said last week ...

Saturday, June 8, 1996

Today I rode the Rapid downtown, having called the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's answering machine to verify their opening hour and (gasp) ticket price.  $10.99?  Well, I heard it was worth it...  As I exited Tower City, I was asked for money for the first time since spring break.  The man was very courteous, and he said he wanted it for food.  I considered giving him my sack lunch, but since it was crunchy and he had no front teeth I offered to take him to a restaurant instead.  He chose Fuddrucker's, so I ended up spending $6.10 for a burger and fries, but we had a pleasant conversation about homelessness and Cleveland.

When I got to the lake shore, I saw that there's a large boat anchored next to the Rock Hall's parking lot, turned into a museum on the Great Lakes shipping industry.  I wandered around inside until the management told me that, although there were no signs to indicate the existence of an entrance fee, there actually was one, so rather than help them buy a sign I left.  Good thing, too ... entrance at the Rock Hall costs $12.99, not $10.99.  Ack!  And cameras must be checked at the door.

The museum was very much worthwhile, and most of the displays couldn't be photographed anyway.  It was crowded enough that I didn't get to use any of the interactive (touch-screen multimedia) exhibits.  By the time I made my way to the fifth-floor entrance to the Hall of Fame, the crowd was packed tight and not moving, so I decided to skip it.  The museum alone was worth the fee, so I don't feel like I missed out.

This afternoon and evening I managed to catch up entirely on my research, including the parts of the Cleveland Free-Net I harvested last time I logged in there.  That means that tomorrow afternoon I'll be ready to do some more reconnaissance.  I think I should thoroughly study CFN -- not my survey questions yet, but the stuff that's already posted -- before looking at other sites (functioning RINs and the Blacksburg Electronic Village).

Tomorrow, if I wake up in time, I'll investigate another UU church.

Sunday, June 9, 1996

This morning I attended the Unitarian Universalist Society of Cleveland, on Lancashire in Cleveland Heights.  The congregation meets in a former synagogue, quite comfortably large.  The service was provided by a guitarist and consisted of music and stories from around the world -- some stories came directly from history books, while others were folktales or writings of philosophers.  The musician was quite talented at playing the guitar, but his singing voice left a lot to be desired, and the professional soprano seated in front of me was offended that he even attempted to sing.  About 30 people attended the service, while about five adults minded the 15 or so children downstairs.  After the service there was a reception to commemorate the departure of their RE director.  Several people struck up conversations with me, but on the whole I felt no more welcome there than at First Unitarian.  Which church I attend on a given Sunday will probably have more to do with the scheduled service than the atmosphere.

In the afternoon and evening, after observing the Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by reading the paper, napping, and watching TV, I spent two solid hours copying "bulletin board" conversations from the Cleveland Free-Net.  About 20% of this information is worth reading, and only 1% or so is relevant to my research.  My strategy has been to find people who comment on the quality of entertainment or other services provided by the Free-Net and document those comments -- who (Free-Net ID and sex only, no name) said what, when and where (which 'board).  Additionally, whenever I found 'boards whose declared topics matched some of the questions I want to ask, I discretely posted them ... no more than one question to a single 'board, so as not to confuse the conversation.  I say "discretely" because I gave no explanation of why I'm asking, other than personal curiosity.  After I catch up on all the relevant 'boards, I'll contact all the people I've quoted so far, explain that I'm doing a research project, and arrange to ask them the full list of questions, by e-mail or telephone or in person.  Any suggestions on my method, or does it sound good?

Tomorrow I hope to finish setting up the first two RINs.  Jim will hopefully have finished the "master server" so I can make sure InfoLink is working appropriately, and John will have produced the custom login screens for the individual RINs.  After those pieces are in place, the last step will be to change the computers' settings so that instead of working in our office they'll work in their new locations, where Internet connections may not be installed for several years yet.  I'm looking forward to getting the first two out the door!

Monday, June 10, 1996

Well, it had to happen eventually.  I got all the way home before I realized I forgot to put my laptop's power supply in my backpack, so my computer time tonight will be limited by battery life.  Currently that looks like about two hours.  I'll just have to find other things to do!

Today was pretty hectic, with a dead spot in the middle.  I arrived at work to find that both the NovaServers that were turned on over the weekend had "frozen" in an odd fashion.  While I was waiting for Jim to get back to me on a reason for this, I started up another RIN-to-be and found that its TCP "nodes" had disappeared and couldn't be recreated, so although NovaServer was working perfectly otherwise, it was impossible to log into it over the network.  When Jim finally did get back to me at about 12:00 (hence the dead spot), he confirmed that the latter problem is due to a mistake on ResNova's part -- they gave us an incorrect "key" that didn't include the right to create TCP nodes -- and quickly solved the former problem by telling me to turn off Open Transport, which is part of the new System software I installed on Friday.

Over the weekend John modified the graphical menu of the RINs to display the name of each Free-Net instead of "NPTN/RIN Demo System".  This was something he assured me he would have to do; there was no way I could do it myself.  Unfortunately, by the time he had decompressed and recompressed the images, they had suffered a visible loss of quality to the point of looking tacky.  I discreetly fired up Photoshop and customized the menus myself, working from an uncompressed copy of the original that I found.  I think John may have noticed the difference in the font when he saw one of the menus later, but if so he didn't say anything.

I'm still waiting for the help screens that Jim promised to send; the screens we've been using are left over from NovaServer's predecessor, NovaLink, and are therefore confusing.  It turns out he actually sent them several days ago, but they were among the messages he sent to the account I had prematurely deleted.  Somehow he didn't notice my responses at the time: "Hey!  Wait!  There is no Ben@rural.nptn.org!!!"  So he's redoing the help screens (I'm glad to know I'm not the only person who deletes things prematurely) and will send them again to an address that exists.

Meanwhile, the natives are getting restless.  Autumn received an angry phone call from the future sysop of one of the two RINs I'm struggling to finish.  He threatened again to drive up here and pick the thing up so that his children can set it up.  I don't think that's necessarily a bad idea, but I haven't talked to him myself.  John and Tim, who have both spoken with him before, assure me that it would be worse for NPTN if this man got the computer home and it didn't work properly.  If I get the help screens tomorrow and solve the one remaining InfoLink glitch, I should be able to totally finish that system tomorrow, and we won't have to risk having it kidnapped.

That's all I really have to say about today.  I'll do some more reading of Free-Net forums until my batteries run out, and then I'll find something that doesn't involve computer time.  Tomorrow, with luck, my first Free-Net will be completed.

Tuesday, June 11, 1996

I spent far too much time today waiting for ResNova to take action.  Even though I wrote them e-mail and made a phone call to California to make sure they knew that we really would like those files today, they made no response other than to say that they would send them today.  Which, of course, they said yesterday, and it was no more true today.

In any case, I eventually got tired of waiting and decided to get everything ready to pack.  I made up a packing list of all the parts bound for each of the (presently) two locations and their serial numbers ... it's truly a mountain of stuff when all put together: a computer, monitor, keyboard, "uninterruptable" (self-interrupting is more like it) power supply, and nine modems for each site, plus the manuals for the hardware (memory and serial cards) and software that we preinstalled.  It all went without a hitch except for one small detail -- when my predecessor shipped the systems he configured, he apparently made no attempt to match the serial numbers on the outside of boxes and manuals with the serial numbers of the hardware inside ... and so John and I no longer have the option!  Augh!!  Some companies' technical support departments will not provide support if a serial number is wrong!  Or so I hear. It's not that the techs aren't human, it's the bureaucracy they serve ...

This evening I bought a new cartridge for my external hard drive so that I can use it with one of NPTN's computers while my own is in the shop.  I spent more time than I should have watching a silly movie, but I managed to sift through a lot more Free-Net chatter. Things are looking promising in that department as well.

Assuming that ResNova actually does send those files tomorrow, both RINs will finally be out the door on Thursday, and I'll be ready to start on the next pair.  Tomorrow is also the one day this week when Tim will be at the office, so I may go to lunch with him to hear about the conference he attended.

Wednesday, June 12, 1996

I'm writing this earlier than usual today because after work I'm going to drop my laptop off at the shop, and I won't have it for about 24 hours. The main thing that happened today was that I got the first RIN packed and shipped. You'll recall that I was waiting for Jim at ResNova to send me some files which he claimed to have already sent me several times. This morning I happened to log onto the server I was setting up, and voila -- there they were. He had been sending them to my e-mail account on a server that I was about to unplug and put in a box, one that was using a temporary IP number, one that didn't even really belong to NPTN!! He says he thought it was our permanent server (Rural), so that explains why he was consistently telling me that he was sending them to my account on Rural, even though there wasn't an account by that name on that machine... Aargh! At any rate, once I had them it was a matter of minutes before everything was ready to go. That doesn't mean nothing else went awry. After I had already taken the boxes to UPS, I remembered I had planned to enclose a sheet of instructions for setting the system up, so I had to fax it. And after that, while interrogating Jim about why one of our modems here isn't working, I remembered that I had neglected to include ResNova's special modem cables in the box with the modems themselves (normal cables do not work properly with NovaServer), so those will go out tonight in their own box. Still, not bad for a first try. Next time everything will go flawlessly... At lunch today Tim told John and me about the conference he and Drew attended in DC. The conference was held by and for the FCC, which is trying to decide what position the government should take to encourage schools, hospitals, and libraries to get online. NPTN, of course, feels that the government should fund organizations that help communities start their own computer systems, and then the schools etc. could join those networks rather than forging their own links to the Internet. Apparently they made quite a splash; Peter (who used to direct NPTN and now works for Netscape) has been called in to "testify at a hearing" regarding the policy in a few days. I had better get going so I can get to the computer place before it closes.

Thursday, June 13, 1996

Today was my busiest yet, but not my most stressful. I didn't succeed in dropping off my laptop at the shop last night, because I left here too late and didn't make it there before they closed for the day. It was just as well, though, since I was able to make thorough backups last night and then do a trial run of surviving without a laptop today before actually going without it. The strange modem problem that showed up yesterday disappeared just as inexplicably this morning, so while everything was still working I disassembled and packaged the second RIN -- and this time I didn't forget anything (as far as I can tell). UPS should come to pick it up tomorrow. The third and fourth RINs-to-be are now being "burned in" -- I'll leave NovaServer running all night to make sure they're working properly. The fourth machine came straight from the box, so I had to install more memory and serial cards to make it NovaServer-ready. This was not as simple a process as I had expected. I'm not sure whether the PowerMac 7100 is just a badly designed machine or whether this specific machine was put together by a totally unskilled worker, but it was without a doubt the most unpleasant experience I've ever had with a Macintosh. I had difficulty opening the case, removing the CD-ROM drive, removing the power supply, replacing the power supply and CD-ROM drive, replacing the case, and then (worst of all, really) plugging anything into the back. That last problem is worst not because it bruised my fingers the most (removing the power supply was the most painful and removing the CD-ROM drive the most frustrating) but because everyone else who ever uses this machine will encounter it. I actually had to shave part of the case to make a hole bigger so that the ethernet cable could plug in. The problem seems to be that the motherboard was mounted crookedly in the case, and there's nothing at all I can do about it. Grrrrr. In other news, the ACLU vs. Reno decision (regarding the legality of indecent material on the Internet) made a big splash here. Tim obtained a copy of the entire ruling and put it on our Web site. Dan the Key Man at ResNova also had some good news for us. When he sent the new set of NovaServer keys last week, there was one that none of us here could identify; it was named "GeorgiaFreeNet," and there is no Free-Net by that name. So I asked Dan what site it belonged to, and today he called to say that a place calling itself the Georgia Free Net (no hyphen) had independently ordered a copy of NovaServer, and he had just assumed they were an NPTN affiliate, so he gave them a key subordinate to our master server. That means that if they ever decide to start using the InfoLink protocol, they'll have to go through our master server... and we don't let anyone but our affiliates do that. So Dan has taken it upon himself to persuade the Georgia Free Net to become an affiliate -- which means they'll send us $1000 a year. I guess that must seem easier to him than admitting he made a mistake and issuing them a new key... :-) Well, now that I'm on a roll, things should be going pretty smoothly with the RINs for the next few workdays. There's not really any reason why I can't get the third and fourth RINs shipped tomorrow. After that, since the other sites haven't been chosen yet, I'll just be configuring machines and putting them back in the storeroom. At home tonight I'll start reading Douglas Schuler's book.

Friday, June 14, 1996

The big news today was that the sysop of one of the RINs alerted me to a major security hole in NovaTerm.  On his Free-Net, they've been having trouble with kids getting online and causing mischief by sending annoying e-mail messages and crashing chat rooms (in the social sense, not the computer sense) -- without fear of punishment, because they give no information about who they are or where they live, and as soon as their accounts are deleted they create new ones.  How are they able to do this, you ask? Because NovaTerm has mail and chat functions built into its pull-down menus, making the access levels specified by the sysop worthless.  If someone logs in with NovaTerm, even if their access level is 0 and they belong to no privileged groups, and even if they have to be a Sysop with an access level of 1000 to join a chat group, by simply pulling down that menu they totally bypass the security.

John and Autumn and I (Tim being in Boston) were predictably scandalized by this news.  The fine folks at ResNova were predictably unflustered.  They consider it a feature, not a bug.  But Reeves was good enough to write a script that prevents unverified users (that is, users whose addresses and phone numbers have not yet been checked by the Sysop) from logging on with NovaTerm.  I forwarded it to all the RIN sysops, and all is well again.

Compared to yesterday I got remarkably little done today.  After I struggled with a modem for about an hour, John made it work by plugging the phone line into the other port.  Eep!  Could it be this is why I've had such lousy luck with Sportsters all along?  How embarrassing!  I got another new Mac out of storage and set it up, since the third and fourth RINs-to-be are ready to ship. Unfortunately, their future sites aren't ready to receive them yet, so they'll be going back into storage for an indefinite length of time.

After work I picked up my laptop from the repair place.  They weren't able to replace the hard disk after all because the replacement was far more defective than the one I've already got.  There's even some doubt about whether there's anything wrong with the one I have; the flakiness could be explained by incompatibilities between Norton Speed Disk and System 7.5.  They did replace the logic board, but it made no difference in the sound quality.  Ah, well, I'm no worse off, the shop is a few bucks richer, and Apple is that much closer to financial ruin...

I spent the evening doing more research.  Yesterday Tim gave me a newsletter from the Community Technology Center, an organization very similar to NPTN, only instead of establishing Free-Nets they set up community computer labs, where anyone can use and learn about computers free of charge.  Last night I went through and circled a bunch of stuff I wanted to research on the 'net, since most of their resources are online, and there's much more out there than I expected.  It's interesting to find a movement so parallel to NPTN's, but not touching at all -- there are no references in the newsletter or any of the Web pages to NPTN or its affiliates.  Stranger still that both movements have outposts in Marietta, Ohio, funded by grants from Ameritech!  Likewise with Columbus; I may have to visit more than relatives when I go there.

Tomorrow I plan to call my relatives in Columbus to figure out when I'm going there.  In the morning, if the weather cooperates, I'll visit the Metroparks Zoo.

Saturday, June 15, 1996

This morning I slept in, had a larger than normal breakfast, and went to the zoo.  The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is best known for its Rain Forest building, which is so popular it's individually accessible for people who don't want to visit the rest of the zoo.  I think every exhibit was as good as or better than the equivalents I've seen at other zoos, with the exception of the penguin exhibit, which couldn't compare to the one at Chicago's (otherwise unspectacular) Lincoln Park Zoo.

The Rain Forest itself is very well done, though I have to wonder how realistic it could possibly be while the creatures are kept separate.  Many of the displays harp on the importance of biodiversity, how the plants, insects, birds, fish, and mammals all depend on each other ... and yet only in a few parts of the building do any two of those groups coexist.  The general tone of the building is inspirational but simultaneously depressing -- in addition to the huge LED counters indicating world human population and acres of rainforest, there are parking meters with which visitors can purchase pieces of forest.  A quarter buys 900 square feet ... and the meter runs out in less than a second.

The weather was perfect, and the zoo was packed with young parents (many of them younger than I) and Mennonites.  I overheard a shocking amount of misinformation as parents and children alike misinterpreted the displays.  The worst was when a boy, after seeing a model of a piece of rainforest "fade" (by virtue of a two-way mirror) into a similar model with the trees messily removed, exclaimed to his father that "The trees are being cut down by magic!"  Nooooo!

I spent much of the afternoon finishing off a Web project whose deadline is next Wednesday.  Then I slept a bit and did some more research.  I called my relative in Columbus, and he'll get back to me about when I should visit.  I may settle for visiting the Community Computer Center and Free-Net in Columbus while I'm there, since Marietta (which I mentioned last night) is much further away.  I guess I haven't told you yet that Tim plans to send me as a consultant to some of the nearby RINs which have been having technical problems, but he doesn't yet know for sure when or where.  It's unlikely that the Free-Net in the South Pacific will need assistance while I'm here, so Tim and John will have to decide that one between the two of them.  (I am not making this up.)

Tomorrow I plan to return to the Unitarian Society in Shaker Heights and then do more CFN research.

Sunday, June 16, 1996

This morning I revisited the Unitarian Society for their Fathers' Day service.  The readings and sermon were done by a professional social worker.  She says she realized lately that while she tells children that it's OK to have no father, she tells adults that there's no substitute.  What happens when the children grow up?  Interesting problem -- do you make them happy with their current family, or prepare them to make their own kids happy?  A trio of musicians provided a variety of parent-child-themed songs to fill in the gaps in the service.

The most significant thing that happened in the rest of the day is that I spent three hours online (while Elsie was out of the house) investigating the Cleveland Free-Net and some more Web pages related to my topic.  The Cleveland Public Library has a rather distasteful but very useful page at http://www.cpl.org; it gives access not only to the CPL's own catalog and the catalogs of other libraries, but to the Free-Net and more than 200 other free computer systems around the world!  This was news to me ... since the library's own terminals use lynx as an interface, that means the Cleveland Free-Net is accessible from any of the library's terminals, effectively providing access to people who can't afford their own computers.

Of course, nobody actually knows this.  The link to CFN is three menus deep from the main library menu, and it's not labeled in a way that you could find by accident.  Plus setting up a CFN account involves writing out a statement, signing it, mailing it in and waiting two weeks ... that effectively weeds out the impulse users.  And if anyone on the Free-Net had known it was possible to logon from the library they would (I assume) have responded when I asked them that very question a few days ago.  So the good news is that the potential exists for people who can't afford computers to join the CFN if (a) someone tells them it's desirable to do so, (b) someone tells them it's possible through the library, (c) someone explains how to do it from the library, and (d) they have the patience to wait two weeks before being able to do anything.

This afternoon was also the first time I posted anything unrelated to my research; I jumped into a few discussions.  Before posting, though, I reread each message several times to make sure I didn't say anything that might bias another user's responses to my questions when I send out surveys later.  Playing anthropo-sociologist cramps my style, but considering my past interpersonal history, that's probably for the best!

I spent the evening outdoors, reading downloaded Free-Net posts at the picnic table while the neighbors' family had a small riot under the auspices of a cookout.  The air outside is much warmer and less smelly than that in the basement.  Someone called today while Elsie was out (and I wasn't using the phone line) to say that she's interested in renting the basement for the month of August, since the apartment she's currently using is inconveniently far from NASA.  I told her she should come take a look for herself, since it's not to everyone's taste.

Tim wrote to tell me his daughter is sick, so he won't be in tomorrow or Tuesday.  I don't expect anything different to happen in those two days; I'll just keep configuring RINs-to-be and putting them back into storage.

Monday, June 17, 1996

Today, as expected, I got the third and fourth RIN systems repacked and back in the store room, and set up some new machines to "burn in" overnight.  John followed through with his threat to mail a large number of White House press releases to my account on Rural so that I could manually copy and paste them into the message forums that are shared between all the RINs.  I hadn't really expected 160, but it only took about an hour and a half.  In the future he won't let so many back up.

For reasons I can't pretend to understand, Rural suddenly decided to send all the mail it had been hoarding for the past few weeks, so the other RIN sysops and I got a note from me saying that the system would be down for about an hour on June 7th.  Lovely. This is something ResNova should explain.

Before I left work, I called Computer Rennaissance (a competitor to Born Again Computers) to see if they had any external SCSI CD-ROM drives.  The man who answered the phone at first said they didn't, but then he asked his manager and found out they had one ... a portable model!  Exactly what I wanted -- and at about half the price of a new one.  The salesman was upset with his manager for not telling him it was there; he would have liked to buy it himself!  Unfortunately, after I got it home I found out how much was missing: one of the two $14.99 batteries (with just one it can play audio CDs but not CD-ROMs), one of the two manuals, the audio cable, and (worst of all) two of the three software disks.  The ironic thing is that if I had a DOS machine I'd be all set, because I do have the interface card (useless on a Mac) and DOS software.  But without the Mac software all it does is play music on headphones or provide faint background music on my little speaker.  It's possible that I still may be able to get the software by "registering" the copy I supposedly already have, but the offer is nearly two years old so it may no longer be good.  I'll have to make some phone calls tomorrow.  I have a week to return the drive.

Tomorrow: more of the same.

Tuesday, June 18, 1996

While reading Douglas Schuler's book a few minutes ago, I was distracted by thoughts of my own research.  My topic is already (necessarily) much narrower than the one stated on my learning contract, but I think it needs to be even narrower.  My main reason for thinking this is that I've made so little progress so far.  I've read the preface, appendices, and most of chapter one of Schuler's book, but there are eleven chapters in all.  Every new source points me toward three to ten more.  I'm having trouble keeping up with the Cleveland Free-Net's bulletin boards, and I haven't yet begun investigating any other community networks.  Tomorrow my time here will be half gone.

I think it may be wisest for me to study only two or three Free-Nets.  After all, my internship is with NPTN; studying networks that are unaffiliated with NPTN would be off topic.  That's not much of a limitation; if I keep CFN (and I plan to), I could easily take on a relatively or absolutely new rural system -- maybe even one of the ones I work on in person.  Then, at the recommendation of Tim and John, I might cover one more, either a metropolitan system that's more advanced than CFN or a rural system using the old First Class software instead of NovaServer.  That spread would give me a good feel for the kind of work NPTN does, the kind of systems we produce.

This means disregarding the Blacksburg Electronic Village, at least for now.  Schuler covers it lightly, so if I read all of his book I'll get to it.  Schuler's network of choice is the Seattle Community Network, which is a Free-Net; perhaps by reading the book I'll get my fill of medium-sized networks and want to address only the two extremes.

Today I spent most of the day fooling with the proto-RINs.  One of the sysops has been complaining about difficulties in getting InfoLink to work between his server and ours, and until this afternoon I was pretty certain the problem was on his end because all the systems I set up were working.  But at about 3:00 I duplicated his problem -- entirely by accident.  And now I don't know how to fix it.  Perhaps tomorrow it will work ... that's been my experience with InfoLink so far!  I ended up rearranging the storeroom to put all the empty boxes along one wall, the RIN stuff along another, and unrelated miscellany in the back.  It's much improved as long as all we want to do is work on RINs; I pity anyone who wants to get to something in the back, but I don't know that anyone will feel that need until we get at least some of the RINs shipped out.

Speaking of which, the man in Indiana who has been responsible for choosing the next upteen sites for RINs called Autumn today to say he's got his list.  Unfortunately, with Tim ill, Autumn didn't know what to say.  It's my understanding that because my predecessors made off with several thousand dollars in grant money, we can't afford to buy more keys to NovaServer, and so we can't ship more than two machines until we make the money up with other grants or affiliate dues.  On the other hand, the sites have to do months of preparation before we even consider sending them a machine; that's why there are still two waiting to go.  The call, however, is Tim's.

I also spent considerable time today trying to learn the story behind my new used CD-ROM drive.  After nearly an hour of Web research and about six phone calls, I've pieced it together.  The drive was manufactured by Media Vision, which then went bankrupt and was bought by a manufacturer of PC sound cards.  The offers of free customer support that came with the drive are therefore worthless; the new company only gives support through their 900 number.  Replacement parts for the drive, however, are handled through a third company with an 800 number, but the parts themselves now cost about 30% more due to the change of hands. Meanwhile, the software that was supposed to come with the drive is from FWB, which is still in business but has moved to a different location and phone number.  They will send me the new version of the software at the discount upgrade price and the shipping cost indicated on my upgrade card, even though shipping now costs $2.50 more.  The bad news is that upgrades are now handled by yet another company, so I had to change the address on the business-reply envelope, and I don't know how the Postal Service will take that.

The best news, though, is that I checked the cost of a new portable CD-ROM drive and found it to be more than twice what I paid for this one, so even if I buy all the accessories I should have had to begin with I'll come out ahead.

At any rate ... tomorrow we expect to see Tim, and I may go out to lunch with him and John again.  Other than that, more of the same.

Wednesday, June 19, 1996

Today the future seems a bit uncertain.  Jim announced that he'll be leaving in about a month to work on Carnegie Mellon University's computer staff , leaving a gap in American Cybercasting's personnel but a relatively larger (if unofficial) one in NPTN's. Since he was essentially working for NPTN for free, we can't presently afford to hire a replacement.  John will have to take over most of Jim's responsibility in running the UNIX systems.  Since John will also be taking over for me when I leave, this seems a little unfair.

Strangely enough, NPTN seems to have enough cash blowing around to send me to Porstmouth for a few days to help the sysops there get their NovaServer system working again.  I don't know yet whether I'll leave tomorrow morning and stay until Friday evening or wait until Monday.  I can't leave before I get to the office tomorrow, though, because I have again forgotten to bring my power supply home.  Two hours of battery life left, and counting...

I wasn't able to make any progress in configuring proto-RINs today because Jim-at-ResNova didn't solve the InfoLink problem that sprung up yesterday.  I thought perhaps NPTNFreeNet's instability might be due to a bad spot on its hard disk, so I backed it up and erased it, reinstalled everything from originals... and it still didn't work.

I did, however, make progress in addressing a RIN sysop's desire for current news, weather, and sports to supply to his users.  I found him two very good Web sites ... unfortunately, only users with NovaTerm can view the pages unless they're copied from their Internet server to the local RIN.  So it's not an ideal solution, but it'll have to do.  Right before I left I got a call from the recipient of the second RIN I shipped -- that distraction is what made me forget my power supply.  He's very happy with the system but chose to call me for help before reading the manual.  It was fun to be able to help him, since not only did I have an identical system on my desk, but I could log into his over the Internet using the account I set up in advance.

Once Jim-at-ResNova and I get the InfoLink problem solved, preparing RINs for shipment will cease to be such a priority -- John found something more urgent.  It seems that before the director of Academy One (NPTN's educational branch of "cybercasting") left to start her own competing, commercial service, she modified all the Web pages on the RIN systems to direct users to her system.  I hadn't noticed ... actually I had, but I had assumed the links were supposed to be there.  John says they're not.  I need to get rid of the references to her service -- first on NPTNFreeNet, then on all the other machines both here and in the field.

As a further example of the continuing crisis, today I turned on our First Class server's monitor to find a "System Error" message on its screen.  The monitor had been off for nearly a week.  When the computer finished restarting, First Class didn't automatically start up, and no one remaining at either NPTN or ACC knows anything about it, so I had to guess which two programs had been running before the crash.

As far as my increasingly independent research, Tim and John gave me a list of rural Free-Nets that allow telnet access, so I'll be able to choose one or two to study.  I was planning to do it tonight, but without power I won't be able to stay online long.

Well, better get to work.  If I go out of town tomorrow, I probably won't have Internet access until Friday night.

Thursday, June 20, 1996

I'm sitting in one of two beds in a room at the Ramada Inn in Portsmouth, Ohio.  This room, which could quite comfortably sleep four of me, was thankfully not paid for by NPTN, but rather by Shawnee State University.

I came to work today prepared to stay overnight, even though I hadn't yet spoken to Greg Dandio about whether my presence would be necessary.  At 10:30 I got him on the phone, and in a few minutes he had me convinced that I would need to help out in person, so I packed some equipment into the car, and by 5:00 I was in Portsmouth.  I stopped for lunch at 2:00 at a Waffle House in Columbus, and by 10:00 I was glad I had chosen to eat lunch so late.

From 5 until about 9:30 I worked with Tess Medkiff, the head librarian at SSU, and Greg, the main computer guy, trying to figure out why the Greater Portsmouth Area Free-Net is not yet ready for prime time.  Half the reason is that they never received their special ResNova modem cables.  The other half of the reason has yet to be determined; the symptom is fairly clear-cut, but I've ruled out basically all of the ResNova software as a cause!  I'm narrowing down the possibilities by copying GPAFN's files individually to one of the ready-to-ship RINs that I brought with me.  When we quit at 9:30 I had finished copying essentially all of the NovaServer files, yet the new system doesn't exhibit the problem and the old one does.  Tomorrow I'll be a little less subtle -- continue making the new system into an exact duplicate of the old until it messes up ... and if it doesn't, I'll have a backup all ready so I can initialize the offending system's hard disk.

I'm a little reluctant to try reformatting a hard disk after what happened to Rural yesterday ... it just hasn't been the same since.  I left it turned on this morning with the intention of leaving it running all weekend, but it crashed before I got to Portsmouth.  I'll try to use that technique only as a last resort!

Greg and Tess took me out to a fancy dinner after work and then left me here at the hotel.  I'll meet them back at the library at 10:00 tomorrow morning.  I really must get some sleep... I wasn't planning on staying out so late!

Friday, June 21, 1996

Today my internship is officially past the halfway mark -- thirty-one days gone, thirty to go.

This morning I had a leisurely and unexpectedly expensive breakfast and met Tess at the library at 10:00.  There I finished copying (incrementally) all the software from their hard disk to the new computer's disk, and still the old one didn't work and the new one did. So it's not a software problem, and ResNova is (for once) 100% blameless.  At noon Greg, Tess, and I decided that the machine they had struggled with for five months is simply a lemon, so with John's permission I left the working machine there and took the fussy one home with me.  I'm using it at this moment ... running off the hard disk in my laptop but using all other parts of the offending machine, thereby demonstrating that they work.  Disk First Aid and Norton Disk Doctor found a few cryptic errors on the disk, but none of them specifically affected the NovaServer files.  Since the problem only shows up when logging into the server from the Windows client, I won't be able to test whether the disk repairs fixed it until Monday.

I think the trip to Portsmouth was very worthwhile.  If I had not gone down there, Tess and Greg would have continued to struggle with the NovaServer software, and they would have continued to make no progress because they didn't have another Macintosh with which to systematically compare parts.  Likewise, ResNova tech support and I wouldn't have been any help over the phone.  I think -- unless the problem is something simple that I've overlooked -- that the method I used was the only one that could have put them in business so quickly.  And they are in business -- they could have opened their metaphorical doors this afternoon to TCP users, and on Monday (when their cables arrive) they should be able to receive modem connections.  This, after five months of beating their heads against a wall!

I, however, now have one more machine to diagnose.  I didn't need that.  Rural (aka NPTNFreeNet, our master server) has gone belly-up, and without it I can't be sure that the other systems I'm configuring are working.  I'm tempted to pull another Portsmouth and just substitute a functioning computer for the troublesome one, but that only postpones the problem.

Well, I have a weekend ahead of me.  Rather than go anywhere tomorrow, I'll change the oil in the car and then spend the day doing research.  I can rotate between reading downloaded CFN posts, spending hour-long stretches on the CFN itself, and reading Schuler's book.  That way maybe my eyes won't threaten mutiny.

Saturday, June 22, 1996

I managed to get quite a bit done today, though not as much as I would have liked.  In the morning I changed the oil in the car, then downloaded stuff from the Cleveland Free-Net until Elsie demanded her phone line back.  What I downloaded was the first half of the outline of the CFN's menus.

I figure that to balance my qualitative measures of the CFN's success (obtained through interviews -- today I wrote to all the people whose posts have caught my eye in the past month) I should generate some quantitative measures.  The most obvious indicator of Free-Net usage is the rate of posting to various bulletin boards, so I've begun a comprehensive survey.  I estimate there are 200 bulletin boards on the CFN, so I clearly won't be able to read them all, but I can at least compare the traffic on the ones I don't read to that on the ones I do.  And to put the numbers in context, I'm converting to HTML the menu diagram that the CFN automatically generates.

The conversion is necessary for two reasons: it makes the document more navigable, and it gets rid of redundancy.  Most of the Free-Net's menus do not contain links to other menus at higher branches of the hierarchy, but a few do ... most notably the Mensa Forum and the Medical Arts Building.  This spaghetti hierarchy confused the program that automatically generated the menu map I downloaded, with the result that some parts of the Mensa Forum were repeated 6 or 7 times in the document, making the Forum look much bigger and more important than it is.  I guess sometimes life imitates stereotype.

Manually converting the diagram is useful also because it gives me the opportunity to discover parts of the CFN I missed before. Unfortunately it's taking so incredibly long that I don't know if it will be worth my while.  Once I download the other half, the complete diagram will be too large for even Netscape to open without an extra megabyte of memory.

It goes without saying that I haven't yet chosen a rural Free-Net to study.  Perhaps tomorrow evening I'll sit down and do that.  While I'd like to study a smoothly-running NovaServer system, my recent experience indicates that that may be an oxymoron.

Sunday, June 23, 1996

I spent this morning at the Unitarian Society again ... the sermon was on Thoreau, but the music was jazz flute!  After church I did some sightseeing downtown (since I didn't have my camera when I explored before) and visited a Japanese grocery store.  The wonders I bought there include SuperCola It's So Wonderful Candy (with citric and trataric acids to painfully simulate carbonation), Plain Yogurt Chewing Candy; Chelsea Mix (the Taste of Old Scotland) butter scotch, yogurt scotch, and coffee scotch; Botan Rice Candy with a digestable inner wrapper, coffee candy and coffee caramel, and a self-proclaimed Unidentified Flying Object which turned out to be instant ramen in a styrofoam bowl.  Although the lid does fly like a Frisbee, it's polystyrene and so I don't think it would withstand many landings.

In keeping with my new Sunday tradition, I spent most of the afternoon reading the newspaper, but at about 4:00 I sat down to work. I decided last night that I had been wasting my time converting that menu diagram to HTML by hand, so in 15 minutes I whipped up a program to do the conversion for me.  I still have to go through it line by line to identify the useful bits and remove redundancy, but now I don't have to do all the tedious insertion of HTML tags.  I got through a considerable hunk of the document, but I'm not yet a quarter of the way through.

Three of the people I sent surveys to have already responded with long answers, and one has sent a blank message.  I don't know whether this was an honest mistake or a smart-alec response to my threat -- "If you do not respond to this message, I will attempt to contact you by phone."  I'll wait another day before asking him.

I also took a few minutes to try to log onto the functioning RINs that allow telnet access, in order to choose one for further study.  I was stymied... the one NovaServer system that I know is working well doesn't allow new users, and the one other NS system I was able to log onto allows new users but doesn't let them see anything useful.  Besides those two, the only RIN I found that seems to be doing well is using First Class, and that software is so incredibly cryptic (without its graphical interface, which I don't have) that I wasn't able to figure out how to do anything but log back out.  Most RINs, due to their rural locations (surprise!) don't have Internet connections, and using them long-distance would run up an incredible phone bill.  I wrote to the above-mentioned successful RIN to ask for an account, and tomorrow I'll get a copy of the First Class client.  If neither of those options comes through, I may not be able to study a working RIN during my stay.

Tomorrow, unless something else comes up, I'll probably spend the whole day figuring out what's wrong with the four troublemaking Macs.

Monday, June 24, 1996

Today I again spent most of the day waiting on ResNova tech support.  It's infuriating to work with people who don't get to work until noon and go to lunch from 3 to 4:00!  We should all just use Central Daylight Time all the time.

I got to work to find Rural frozen 75% of the way through starting up.  I restarted it without extensions and after a while realized that the hard disk was full.  It seems NovaServer (like most large applications) needs a certain amount of room to turn around, and when I replaced the NS folder from scratch while keeping a backup (as well as Adobe Photoshop and a few other behemoths) on the same disk, I infringed on that breathing room.  When NS tried to do its routine maintenance (adding new stuff to a file before removing the old stuff) it ran out of space and crashed, then restarted the computer.  Apparently this repeated a few times until eventually there was so little space that the computer couldn't restart.

So deleting 200 MB of files solved that mystery.  Running Disk First Aid and Disk Doctor on the former Greater Portsmouth Area Free Net seems to have fixed its image problem as well (though I would challenge anyone to explain why!), so the only problem that remains is the fact that InfoLink still isn't working.  If Jim-at-ResNova can't help me figure out how to make InfoLink work, we'll have to find some way to make the RINs appealing without it ... before I leave.  Jim doesn't seem at all apologetic for the grief ResNova's buggy software has put us through, but he's willing to help poke the bugs with wet noodles ... after I've left for the day.  If he hasn't come up with anything by tomorrow, I'll start seriously looking for other alternatives.

After work I ran an errand downtown, then did more research on the computer.  The sysop of Aroostook (Maine) Free-Net kindly set me up with an account, so I paid his server a visit... and found it totally dead.  I wrote back to ask him whether it's actually opened yet.  I also just finished downloading the First Class client so I can try out the Great Lakes Area (Michigan) Free-Net without (hopefully) having to learn to speak gibberish.

Tomorrow is up in the air.  I'll finish installing serial cards and SIMMs in the two remaining PowerMacs and probably start modifying the HTML pages on the Rural server to get rid of references to people who never worked for or no longer work for NPTN.  Around lunch time I'll be able to start pestering Jim again...

Tuesday, June 25, 1996

I really can't say I didn't get enough done today.  While waiting for 9 AM to reach California, I finished installing memory and serial cards in the three remaining computers and began going through the HTML documents on NPTNFreeNet to get them closer to up-to-date.

Jim and I fooled around with our servers and tested hypotheses over the phone and eventually came to the realization that NPTNFreeNet had quite simply never been configured for InfoLink.  That is, it had all the software it needed, but it had to be specifically told to share specific forums with specific servers.  The manual did not say this; in fact, it said that doing so was not necessary. But as soon as I told it to share a forum with Jim's machine, the problem was solved.

Well, sort of.  It will only share messages that are posted after it's been told to share, so everything that was posted before today will have to be distributed by some other means.  There are some ways around this, but none of them are particularly elegant.  So my next step is to go through all the message forums and file libraries, telling NPTNFreeNet to share with all the other servers in its InfoSeek domain, then put all the forums and libraries whose contents have changed between last August and today into a new file library, so that the forums and libraries themselves will be transferred in their entirety to the other servers.  Like I said, not elegant.

After that, the next step (after notifying all the sysops of how to use InfoLink) will be to finish updating the HTML documents and put them in a file library so that all the servers' HTML files will be automatically updated.  This will be trickier than it sounds, since I've already changed which files go where to fit my taste, and individual sysops may have done the same ... so I'll have to find a way to strike a balance between my own inconvenience and the sysops' combined inconvenience!

John and Tim have informally made me a very curious offer.  They'd very much like for me to continue to be NPTN's NovaServer expert after I leave, since they don't know how long it will be before they can hire someone to take my place.  In order to answer NovaServer questions, I would have to have my own copy of the software -- my own functioning Free-Net.  John indicated today that he and Tim have considered the possibility of lending me one of the PowerMac 7100 systems for the indefinite future, since it's not clear how long they'll be sitting in the closet otherwise.  While there would be benefits to having a separate machine to run NovaServer on, shipping would be a major hassle ... but the major drawback would be the distraction.  I've dreamed for years of running my own bulletin board system, and I don't think I could have one without encouraging others to use it.  I'm certain I could get the Grinnell 2000 Foundation interested enough in hosting a Free-Net that they'd take care of the phone lines and Internet connection to the College, but NPTN has quite a lot of hoops set up for potential affiliates to jump through, and they're all there for good reasons. In short, if I had an entire Free-Net system of my own, I wouldn't be able to resist setting it up incorrectly.  So I think a better solution would be for NPTN to buy me some sort of external hard disk to hold the software, and then I can plug it into my laptop when I need to use it ... that way I won't be tempted!

This evening I read an hour's worth of Schuler's book, watched a really bad movie that I thought would be really good, and converted the menu structure of the CFN Medical Clinic to HTML.  I had feared while watching the Clinic scroll by that it was as self-referential as the Mensa Forum, but it turned out it's just massively redundant.  In other words, there actually are 1000 lines of menu items that call the same 100 files, not just 20 lines repeated over and over by confusing the diagram-generating program.

Tomorrow I'll do all that stuff I mentioned above.  :-)  I just remembered -- today I've been here five weeks.  Whew.

Wednesday, June 26, 1996

It's safe to say I had a bad day today at work.  Shortly after I got done configuring NPTNFreeNet to share all its forums and libraries with InfoLink, and only fifteen minutes after I sent a message to all the RIN sysops telling them it was working ("I've tested it thoroughly"), it stopped working again.  I spent most of the day struggling to fix it so I could save some face, and Jim-at-ResNova struggled at my side (as much as it's possible to do so from three time zones away), but we weren't able to fix the problem.

Here's what's happening now, and what I suspect has been happening all along.  Say NPTNFreeNet has three new messages to send to all 16 member servers.  It represents them in a queue, each message with its list of destinations.  When ThomasCounty connects via InfoLink, it checks to see whether it needs a message, requests it, then sends a "delete block" telling NPTNFreeNet to remove its name from the distribution list for that message.  If ThomasCounty already has the message, it indicates that it doesn't want to see it again by sending a delete block instead of a request.  The current version of NovaServer gets confused by this and duplicates the message's entry in its queue.  So if there are four messages in NPTNFreeNet's queue before the connection, and ThomasCounty already has numbers 1-3, after the connection ends there will be seven messages, since numbers 5-7 will be duplicates of 1-3.  This duplication continues every time the two computers connect -- if another computer connects, it receives multiple copies of the messages because they're listed multiple times in the queue.  If you only make a few connections with a few messages and a few servers (as I did yesterday) everything's fine.  But if you share a lot of messages (as I did this morning) the copies build up in the queue until the system stops working altogether.

Jim was determined to find the problem and fix it, but by 3:00 he hadn't done so.  At 4 I called to see if he was back from lunch and got James on the phone instead.  I had never worked with James before, but since he was available I described the problem, and he immediately said, "Oh, yeah, we've known for several months about that.  It's a bug in NovaServer.  We'll fix it in the next version."

I told Tim and John about this, and Tim said, "Well, darn and yippee.  Darn that it doesn't work, but yippee that we now have more reason not to pay these clowns."  To explain that remark I need to back up a bit ... before my predecessor left NPTN, he made a written contract with ResNova saying that in return for technical support provided directly to the RINs, NPTN would buy a certain number of copies of NovaServer within one year.  That year is almost up, and we don't yet need the remaining copies of NovaServer ... and we no longer have the money to pay for them.  Tim's strategy when confronting ResNova's sales department has been to say that we don't want more copies until the copies we have are working properly, and so he's been seizing upon the difficulties I have as "ammo."  He hasn't told anyone at ResNova that we can't pay, but the truth has gradually leaked across.

What kept me incensed for a good two hours after the phone call to James was the thought that Jim may have been deliberately leading me on about InfoLink in order to make us think that the software was working properly so we would buy more copies.  I could see that happening as a result of Tim's own deceit, but it hurts everybody -- not only did it take time away from Jim and me, but it has delayed the RIN program by approximately two weeks ... not an insignificant period in the length of my internship.  If the RIN program is going to continue -- and the future of NPTN depends on it -- we have to cooperate with ResNova, not fight them.  At this point I don't think anyone at either organization trusts anyone at the other.

In other news, I saw a caravan of seven identical Lincoln Town Cars following a Ford Club Wagon on I-480 this morning.  I thought they might be Al Gore's caravan, since he's in town right now, but none of the vehicles had passengers.  Weeeird.

This evening I did an experiment in multitasking.  I attempted to take notes on Schuler's book in SimpleText while converting 20-screen chunks of the Cleveland Free-Net's menu diagram to HTML by copying and pasting them in and out of HyperCard from WriteNow.  The computer handled it much better than I did.

I've got an account on the Great Lakes Free-Net in Battle Creek, Michigan.  It looks like a very healthy and popular system, with essentially the same menu structure as the CFN, but it's running on a single Macintosh instead of a network of Sun workstations.  This is the one that I said a few days ago was prohibitively difficult to use without the graphical interface, but now that I have the First Class client software it's every bit as easy to use as a NovaServer system.  The only problem is that it will take 2-3 weeks for me to obtain full user privileges, and in the meantime I'm not allowed to enter certain parts of the server.  Membership in the Worth County - Sylvester, Georgia Free-Net is also pending.  This internship will be busy right up to the end... and probably beyond.

Tomorrow I'll dedicate my efforts to getting the HTML files up to date on NPTNFreeNet.  My strategy will be to proceed as if InfoLink will not work, forming some other system for distributing files, but not burning any bridges in case Jim figures something out.  Now that I've seen the way the game is played between NPTN and ResNova, I don't want to play anymore.

Thursday, June 27, 1996

Today was at least better than yesterday.  I got some work done on the HTML pages for the RINs.  I decided rather than trying to update the files myself, I'd just use the ones John has already updated on the NPTN Web site.  Trouble is, the pages there are horribly disorganized because they've changed webmasters three times in the past year (for example, there are two directories named "academy_one", one inside the other, and both contain a "special" directory, but the contents are different), so to make the RIN pages' organization coherent I'm having to change most of the hypertext links by hand.

I spoke with Jim-at-ResNova, and he was as surprised as I had been to learn that the InfoLink bug was already documented, so I guess my fears of foul play may have been unfounded.  He located the official bug report and sent it to me, along with a suggestion for how we might convert incoming mail messages to message-forum posts.  This can be done by inserting a line in the header of each message, then naming the resulting file "Messages Temp" and putting it in NovaServer's folder.  NovaServer will think it's one of its own temp files and digest it, posting the messages to the specified forums.  If I can get this system to work reliably, I could create a Messages Temp file every time there's a wave of posts and send it to each of the RINs by e-mail.

The problem with this system is that it's very labor-intensive.  After studying the various files NovaServer uses, I think I could write a program in HyperCard or possibly AppleScript to actually convert a mail file (a user's mailbox) to a Messages Temp file, with the appropriate destination forums automatically specified.  The main danger I see in this is that Bad Things could happen if both HyperCard and NovaServer tried to use the mail file (or the Messages Temp file) simultaneously.  AppleScript could avoid that problem with its file-management skills, but I suspect its text-manipulation skills aren't as good as HyperCard's.  With HyperCard 2.3 I could use a combination of both languages.

The question becomes, is it worthwhile?  It might take me two or three full workdays to get the process automated, just to serve as a replacement for InfoLink -- and only a partial replacement, since actual posts made by users to the forums wouldn't be shared between servers.  I'll have to talk it over with John tomorrow.

Tim asked me today whether I'd be able to go to Indianapolis on July 19th to conduct a training session for the new Indiana RINs. The 19th was to be my last day at NPTN, but as I told Tim, it would be a great way for me to leave -- riding off into the sunset with a carload of equipment!  Here's how I imagine it would go: I would finish preparing the RIN hardware a few days in advance and work out some lesson plans and materials for teaching NovaServer.  On the 18th, I would either fly (having shipped the computers early) or drive to Indianapolis, set up, and stay the night.  On the 19th (Friday) I would teach nine (I think) new sysops how to op their syses.  Then I would return to Cleveland on either Friday night or Saturday morning, pack my stuff on Saturday, and depart for Pittsburgh on Sunday.  Alternatively, I could pack before leaving for Indy, stay with relatives there on Saturday, and go directly to Pittsburgh on Sunday without returning to Cleveland.  In any case, the part Tim is afraid of comes on Monday morning, when nine sysops call NPTN for help and I'm not there!  So far this training session is still hypothetical, but I expect it will happen.

Speaking of support after my departure, I talked with Tim about the possibility John had mentioned of my taking a NovaServer system with me when I go.  He says the cost of buying me a hard disk and a legal copy of NovaServer is certainly minimal compared to the cost of hiring a new RIN director.  There's been no mention yet of whether I'd be reimbursed at all for this consulting.  On the one hand I feel that I would deserve to be paid since this grant will have expired, but on the other hand I'll need to use Grinnell's Internet resources, and I already know how fussy GCCS is about commercial use!

Autumn came to me today with more concerns -- the office's paper supply had run out, and she had no access to funds to buy more. She told me she's very concerned about NPTN's financial situation, and she'd like to help in any way she can, even if it involves donating money or getting her friends to do so.  She says a friend of hers has offered several thousand dollars.  I listened to her but maintained that I couldn't tell her what she should do ... I recommended that she talk to Tim.  She did, and he laughed at her. Neither of us was expecting this.  He explained himself later by saying that NPTN needs several hundred thousand, not several hundred.  I then mentioned the pile of checks waiting to be cashed that Autumn had told me about but which Tim somehow hadn't noticed, so he took those to the bank and the crisis is no longer so imminent.  Apparently Drew is on the verge of landing us a million dollars from the same two companies he was negotiating with before I got here.  (One of the two players backed out just before I arrived, and that's why I'm not traveling as much as expected.)  This is contingent on the FCC's decision regarding "universal access" to communication technology; several current and former NPTN employees have been testifying in the ruling.

This evening I read through Vy Barkauskas's first week's worth of journal entries.  Vy is interning in Atlanta with a Noun grant, and she's sharing her journal with anyone who cares to read it.  It was interesting to read another internship journal -- she ends every day's entry with a list of things she learned, questions that remain unanswered, and concerns she has.  I think I cover all those points, but not so explicitly.  Also this evening I did some more HTML conversion of the CFN menu diagram, roller skated, and took a badly needed nap.  I really must be more disciplined about reading Schuler's book.  I can't count on getting to it on the weekends.

Tomorrow I'll work on those Web pages and talk with John about alternatives to InfoLink.

Friday, June 28, 1996

By the time ResNova tech support arrived at work this morning, I had discovered to my delight that the InfoLink echoing problem can be avoided if the flow of information goes only in one direction.  That is, if NPTNFreeNet distributes all its messages to the member systems and the member systems passively accept it without sending anything of their own to NPTNFreeNet, nothing goes wrong. This means our "cybercasting" plans can be carried out, but members of RINs will not be able to share their conversations with members of other RINs.  All in all, good news.

I passed the word along to Jim and Reeves at ResNova and got their help in getting RINs to send e-mail through NPTNFreeNet -- a handy feature for those RINs that have no Internet connection.  As Dad pointed out tonight on the phone, InfoLink is a lot like FidoNet, the international network of homespun bulletin-board systems.  The major difference is that InfoLink is proprietary and incompatible with FidoNet.  And parts of InfoLink don't work!

In the afternoon I whipped up a HyperCard stack that automates the process of modifying message headers in order to direct them into NovaServer message forums.  So far it only handles one message at a time, but on Monday I expect to fix that.  Tim and John joked that I should sell the stack to ResNova for $2000 a copy!  It turns out that's what NPTN has been paying for its NovaServer software ... and that's a heavily discounted price.

Other than working on HTML files some more, that's all that happened today.  Amanda O'Connor, a new Grinnell alumna and former UC now serving as User Services Specialist at Oberlin College, has given me an open invitation to visit her.  I estimate Oberlin is less than half an hour away, so I may take her up on it.  Near the end of the day, one of the RIN sysops wrote to Tim with a list of frustrations, and when I wrote him back I made a factual slip that he found insulting, so I had to grovel to make up for it.

Tomorrow I'll follow through on my threat to call the people who haven't yet returned my CFN surveys.  I may go downtown to watch a movie in the new Omnimax theater; I hear it's quite spectacular.

Saturday, June 29, 1996

I got quite a bit done today after a slow start.  I spent all morning and early afternoon trying to find a way to record telephone conversations.  At first I bought a "pickup" that attached with a suction cup to the receiver, but when I plugged it into Elsie's tape recorder its output was inaudible.  Thinking the problem was with the recorder (which was designed for karaoke), I shopped around and bought an $80 stereo Walkman -- there are cheaper recorders with microphone jacks, but they only work in mono, and I wanted something that I could use for more than just interviews.  (The recorder I borrowed from the anthropology department has a built-in microphone and no jack.)  I paid in cash because I'd had my credit card for less than 24 hours and forgot that using it was an option!  The main problem I have with the Walkman is that Sony has begun using a proprietary power-in jack, so it won't work with my "universal" power adapter, and the only way to get an adapter with the right size jack is from Sony by mail order, so I'll have to use batteries.  I tried taking the recorder apart to get at the wiring, but the screws are ornamental -- the case is glued together.  I filled out the provided comment card with some frank descriptions of how this makes me feel about Sony.

When I got the recorder home, though, it still didn't work with the pickup, so I took the whole mess (including the phone) back to Radio Shack and challenged the desk clerk to make it work.  He couldn't, so he gave me a refund on the pickup.  I ended up taking the phone receiver apart and sticking the Walkman's clip-on stereo microphone into the earpiece.  It's tricky to hear when talking on the phone, but it plays back quite nicely.  The biggest problem is the racket from the blower of Elsie's air conditioner, which she turned on for the first time today.  Since the only door downstairs is to the bedroom, I can't get away from the noise.

While the phone was in pieces, Great-Uncle Dave called from Columbus to say that he'd be pleased to have me visit next Friday through Sunday, but he's not doing anything  of interest on the Fourth (Thursday), so I'll attend the Unitarian Society's potluck.  I'll have to find some space in my schedule to accommodate a weekend vacation!

I called up one of the people who didn't return my survey -- a police officer in Euclid who co-moderates the Baby Boomers area of CFN -- and interviewed her.  In my usual headstrong fashion, I took a devils' advocate interviewing strategy and asked questions that were skewed in the direction opposite from what I expected her to say.  She reacted very strongly to this, so I got some terrific quotes.  :-S  I'll try to be a little less inflammatory next time; it was the first time I'd ever given a telephone interview.  It took about 70 minutes to transcribe the 30-minute interview.

When the temperature outside began to drop back into the tolerable range, around 6:30, I took my laptop and Schuler's book outside and read and took notes for about an hour and a half.  Then I had the itch to do something active, so I roller skated about three miles to the local Metropark and back.  The sidewalk that leads to the park is uncomfortably narrow for skating uphill, but on the way back it's downhill and quite pleasant.

While watching TV I finished converting the CFN menu outline to HTML; now I just have to remove the redundant sections from and add annotations to the latter half, and I'll have a really useful and valuable resource.  Pity it's taken so much trouble.

Tomorrow I'll attend First Unitarian Church again, in the hopes that after the 10:00 (summer schedule) service the Young Adult group will meet for lunch again.  Last time we met that was the plan, but I lost the phone numbers of the people who know what's going on, so I could be left standing after the service.  In any case, I'll find my way downtown to verify something at the library and possibly watch the Omnimax movie -- I didn't make it downtown today, although with the amount of driving I did to and from Radio Shack I might as well have.  At 4:30 I have an appointment to interview one of the Young Adults over the phone.

Sunday, June 30, 1996

I'm getting really sick of that air conditioner blower.  I just finished transcribing my second phone interview, and I had to take three half-hour breaks from it just to keep from getting physically violent ... during most of the interview, the high drone of the blower was louder than the voice I was trying to make out.  Next time I'll turn off the AC before turning on the recorder.

This morning I attended the 10:00 First Unitarian service.  I drove there because I wasn't able to get up early enough to take the Rapid.  I was afraid I'd be underdressed, but everyone there was dressed down because the AC in the church isn't working.  There were large, noisy fans in the back of the sanctuary.  After brunch with the two other young adults who showed up, I went to see the Omnimax film on the lakeshore and then walked from there to the library, but it was closed.

The area from the lakeshore to downtown was absolutely mobbed because of the Grand Prix.  On my way from where I parked to the science center, I passed at least ten ticket scalpers.  Above the airport there were planes towing banners and a Goodyear blimp, and I saw three "mobile billboards" advertising a union boycott of Firestone.  Even the panhandlers -- usually in short supply -- were out in force today.  The Omnimax theater wasn't full, though.  The movie was great, though the picture was a little distorted near the edges since it was recorded in a flat-screen format and displayed on a dome.  I don't understand why the image wasn't in sharper focus; surely if every point on the screen is equidistant from the lens it should be a breeze to focus!  I was also expecting the chairs to be inclined more to allow us to see the screen without straining our necks.  The much-touted 30-degree tilt isn't much more than that of an airplane seat.  The rest of the science center looks very promising ... I wish I could be here when it opens.

The second interview went very well in terms of content if not sound quality.  The subject was a CWRU student, so many of his views differed from those of yesterday's subject, who was inclined to blame the Free-Net's mismanagement on the university.

That's about all I got done today, which is why I'm so frustrated!  Maybe I should cut back on the TV shows ... but that's my only recreation!  Tomorrow I'm back to work, to pick up where I left off on the InfoLink substitute and HTML documents.  June is now over, and the end of my time here is quickly approaching.

Monday, July 1, 1996

After today I have only ten more workdays left at NPTN -- it's more or less official now that I'll be heading for Indianapolis on the 18th, and there's no work on Thursday or Friday of this week.  I have yet to call the Indianapolis relatives to find out if I'm welcome to stay there on the night of the 18th and/or 19th.

The impending end of the internship caused me to restructure my priorities a bit.  My first priority -- more important at present than even getting the seven computers ready to go to Indy -- must be to make sure someone will be able to take over from me after I leave, so I've started documenting everything I do, and I'll keep that up until I leave.  The next priority is to get the seven computers ready in time to ship them two weeks from today.  I'll probably take two of the seven in the car with me just in case the others don't make it in time.  After the five machines have been handed over to the UPS, I'll have a few days to figure out what I'm going to teach to future sysops.  I don't yet know how much time I'll have.

Today at work I modified my HyperCard stack to handle multiple mail messages in a mail file.  Unfortunately I couldn't put them all into one output file, though, because ResNova's idiotic file format requires a "null" character (ASCII 0) between messages, and that's the one character HyperCard is unable to produce.  So the stack produces a separate output file for each message in the input file(s), and the human user must then rename them as "Messages" and/or "Messages Temp".  What a pain!  And the ResNova techs have no sympathy at all.

I also spent a lot of time on the Academy One HTML files, but I barely made a dent in the work that needs to be done there.  It's very challenging to compare two nonlinear structures; the "web" analogy is very accurate.  It's like trying to compare two "granny" knots and then attempting to make one match the other.  The best I can really hope for is to get it close enough that John can finish it after I leave.

After work and before dinner, I spent a half hour exploring the Worth County Free-Net.  It's a NovaServer system, and it has a lot in common with the RINs I'm setting up, but it was developed without NPTN's financial assistance.  Many of the structures, such as Academy One and the health clinic, show clear NPTN influence, but others are truly unique.  In the half hour before my time for the day ran out (the sysop is none too generous) I took several "screen shots" of the graphical interface and recorded most of the menu structure -- it's much simpler than the CFN!!  I should also have been doing the same with the First-Class-based Great Lakes Free-Net, but I've fallen behind with that.  Rather than spend time on GLFN tonight, I got in another hour of reading on Schuler's book.  I'll have to bring it with me to Columbus; it's something I can do while away from the Internet.

Tomorrow, just more of the same.

Tuesday, July 2, 1996

Today I spent most of the morning answering e-mail and fixing a bug in my HyperCard stack, then spent the entire afternoon working on HTML files.  Nothing really notable happened.  The final word on whether I'll be going to Indianapolis on the 18th is being delayed by someone's vacation, but we should know for sure in a few days ... Monday, I assume.  I discovered another limitation in NovaServer, but it can't be considered a bug because ResNova never claimed it worked.  In fact, the manual recommends against it, but I did it anyway, so I really shouldn't be surprised that it doesn't work reliably.

I just realized that my plans for the Fourth of July are up in the air -- I was planning on going to a potluck with the Unitarian Society, but I just looked through the papers and realized I don't have any notes on where or when that's taking place.  And the church office closed at 9:00 tonight and won't reopen until next Tuesday!  I'll do what I can to find out, maybe calling people at random until I find someone who knows, but if I can't find anyone, I'll end up going to the First Unitarian gathering instead ... though that would be little better than just wandering down to the lakefront.

This evening I called all the people I still need to interview (the air conditioner is turned off today) but didn't manage to reach any of them.  I collected another half hour's worth of information on the Worth County Free-Net and about forty-five minutes' on the Great Lakes Free-Net.  I must say I prefer the First Class client interface (used by GLFN) to the NovaTerm interface with which I've become so familiar.  First Class is appreciably faster, more sophisticated (if less Mac-standard) and more customizable -- it has a much larger repertoire of icons, which seem to be assignable more or less at will.  NovaTerm is slow and simple (as in "simpleton"), and the only icons that can be chosen by the sysop are those of HTML files.  Its foundation on HTML is probably NovaTerm's greatest strength (as a potential asset without any perceptible advantages) when compared to the First Class client.  Now, NovaServer as compared to the First Class server... there's no contest!  I've already complained about how obnoxious First Class is when used with a text interface... and from the sysop's seat there's nothing but a text interface.

Sorry about the technical dissertation, but it was on my mind.  I'll probably end up writing a section like that in my report, since I believe the software can make a real difference in people's use of a Free-Net.

Speaking of which, once I get a feel for how WCFN and GLFN are laid out, I'll have to identify people to survey just as I did with CFN.  Unfortunately I won't be able to begin on GLFN until my account is verified; I don't yet have the privilege of sending e-mail there.

Also tonight I read Schuler's book for another hour and made more progress on the CFN outline.  I still have quite a bit more research to do on CFN.  I may end up spending most of Thursday online; Elsie will be away from the house.

Great Uncle Dave called from Columbus during dinner to say that he'd like me to come down on Friday morning instead of that evening, so I probably won't get any work done on Friday.

Tomorrow I'll try to get as many of the HTML files finished as possible, and I'll see if I can contact someone in the Unitarian Society!

Wednesday, July 3, 1996

Today seemed to last forever, partly because I did nothing but work on HTML files and partly because I had two cans of Pepsi instead of the usual maximum of one.  We had a little going-away party for Jim; Autumn bought a cake and ice cream and Tim and John bought and gift-wrapped an enormous quantity of candy.  Jim made a lot of jokes about how he'll have to get a vendor's license for his desk at CMU and beat off the grad students with a stick.  (The chocolate baseball bat would not be effective.)

I called about five people tonight before getting hold of the person who's hosting the potluck tomorrow night. None of the other people knew the time or place, so I don't expect it to be very crowded!  I hope the farmer's market is open tomorrow so I can buy fruit for a salad.

I also called everyone on my interview list and got through to three, one of whom wants to be interviewed next Monday night, another promised to type up her survey this weekend, and the third refused to be interviewed at all.  It's a shame I haven't been able to interview anyone while the weather's been cool; by next week the AC may be on again.

I spent another half hour on Worth County and nearly an hour on Great Lakes, and I was struck again by how much nicer First Class's interface is than NovaTerm's.  I'm not sure what sort of computer Great Lakes is using for a server, but it's almost certainly older (and slower) than Worth County's, yet it has half the response time with twice the users, and it lets you load several things simultaneously without becoming unstable.  Those features are what I'd expect from NovaTerm rather than First Class, since the former is based on HTTP (the HyperText Transfer Protocol, the foundation of the World Wide Web), but it quite simply doesn't deliver. I'm starting to think it's a shame that NPTN has committed itself -- and now I've committed myself -- to supporting NovaServer.  It has its advantages over First Class, but they're fairly distant from the end user's experience.

My menu outlines of all three systems are coming along very well.  I expect Elsie to be gone most of the day tomorrow, so when I'm not sleeping in or fixing a fruit salad I'll be online gathering more data.  The potluck is set for 5:00 ... what is she thinking?  The fireworks won't start until after 10.  Is she going to show us vacation slides or something?  :-S

Thursday, July 4, 1996

I'll have to make this quick, since it's already midnight and I'm planning to get up at 7.  This morning my internal clock woke me at 7, and once I convinced myself that it was OK to sleep in, I slept until 10 (I had been needing that), so I didn't end up getting much work done.

I went shopping in the morning and bought fruit for a salad which people complimented profusely.  I did laundry and packed and backed up my hard disk (Norton Speed Disk still claims there's a bad spot, so I may get the disk replaced next week) and had about an hour and a half to work before leaving for the potluck.

Roxanna, the hostess, is a divorcee in her late 40s-early 50s who reminds me very much in her appearance and mannerisms and general attitude of a slightly younger Gail Huggett (Mom's musical partner).  Also attending were her boyfriend -- a black man in his late 30s -- and her 19-year-old daughter, who is nearly 8 months pregnant and matches Gail's daughter Kelly in mannerisms only. I'm not sure whether the other black man who attended was the daughter's boyfriend or just a good friend.  All the other guests were white middle class, and most of them were Unitarians.  I had no trouble making conversation about my internship, Grinnell, or Oklahoma.  A few of them were shocked by stories about Grinnell's liberal approaches to sex and drugs, so I'll have to be sure to steer clear of those topics at the cocktail party tomorrow night!

Most of the guests left around 9:00, but the rest of us bundled up -- the temperature dropped about 15 degrees during the evening -- and headed to the intersection of Belvoir and Shaker, where the fireworks were set off.  The display was phenomenal; I've never seen a better one... but then, I've always been in either Bartlesville, OK or Montclair, NJ.  All in all, a truly pleasant evening.  I'm glad I didn't go to Edgewater Park by myself instead.

Tomorrow will be a long day, so I'd better quit now.

Friday, July 5, 1996

In spite of a late night last night, I managed to get up at seven this morning and hit the road by 8. I had an extraordinary bit of deja vu when I stopped for gas just north of Columbus -- I stopped at the same gas station where I stopped two weeks before on my way to Portsmouth, and the precise same sequence of events occurred: I neglected to write down the amount of the purchase before going in to pay, then bought a can of pop in addition to the gas, and the clerk forgot to give me a receipt at first and so gave me one that said only "cash" and the amount without specifying how much of that was the pop, and by the time I got back to the pump someone else had already replaced my data with their own. It wouldn't be so frustrating if it hadn't all happened before...

I got to Great-uncle Dave's condominium at about 11:30, and we took some time to relax and chat before going out to eat and picking up his son Jeff and Max the Enormous Slobbering Dog. Jeff lives in an absolutely huge house in the country. Well, it wouldn't be huge for a family of six who entertain every weekend, but it's just him and Max. The four of us went for the usual hike at Flatrocks (the family piece of land in Lancaster) and walked back to the car through the neighboring field, where we ran into the neighbor boy (now about 26) and two of his friends, all of whom were driving pickup trucks and sipping beer. One of the friends had a truly extraordinary accent which Jeff guessed as rural Carolina.

After the hike we dropped Max off at the house of Karen (a cousin of Jeff?) and her (ageless -- eight?) daughter Sarah and continued into Lancaster to meet the other half of the family -- Dave's sister Henrietta, her husband Robert (Bob) and son Rob. Aunt Dully is still recovering from retinal surgery and did not make an appearance. Karen and Sarah joined us for dinner and conversation that lasted until after 10:00. Then we picked up Max and drove back to Columbus. Tomorrow the plan is that Dave and I will meet Jeff and Max at their house, and the four of us will head to a nearby lake with a truck and boat to spend an hour or so waterskiing. I've never done it before, so Jeff plans to start me with a "knee board" and try not to jerk my arms so hard that I won't be able to hold a cocktail in the evening. At about 2:00 Karen and Sarah will come here to use the pool and chat for a while. The cocktail party is at 6, so I'll have some time to recover from my introduction to water sports.

-----Addendum for family-----

Dave seems to be doing quite well, though he still brings up war injuries in every conversation. Jeff has lost an incredible amount of weight since my last visit 3 years ago, to the point that his shorts look uncomfortably loose! Max is unchanged. So is Flatrocks, for the most part. The "neighbor kid" we met is Chris (last name eludes me), who at age four was reportedly coerced by his father into lying to a judge, to say that Jeff's brother Mike's dog had attacked him, since Mike (as I understand the story) pressed charges after Chris's father shot the dog. Chris's family plans to sell the land (with the pond on it; you know the land I mean) in the next two years, in 2-acre plots for development. Before then they plan to tear down the old fence between the two properties and the surrounding vegetation in order to put up a new fence (since the old one is falling down) so they can more effectively graze cattle there. Henrietta and Bob look great -- Bob says he sometimes walks off without his cane long enough to forget where he put it. Rob is marketing a technique for quick epoxy welding aided by radio-frequency radiation. I didn't get the chance to talk with Karen, but I'll be sure to do so tomorrow.

Saturday, July 6, 1996

I woke up this morning after a night on Dave's guest bed and found myself thinking that waterskiing would have to be every bit as much of a physical strain as Jeff and Rob had warned if I was going to be in more pain at the end of the day than at the beginning. Now the soreness in my neck and shoulders has nearly gone away and has yet to be replaced by a new pain ... but there's always tonight.

After breakfast Dave and I picked up Jeff and his truck and boat and headed out to a dammed-up stream -- not the one near Jeff's house, which is a reservoir on which speedboats are prohibited, nor the one down the road, which is crowded on weekends, but a much more remote location.  We tooled around in the boat for a while, then Jeff showed me the rope, so to speak, while Dave drove. I started out on my stomach on a very buoyant board, then tried skis twice but got pulled out of them both times, and ended up back on the board until my hands lost their grip.  It was a very neat experience, and the exercise (and/or the endorphins that followed) made me feel very good.  But I don't think I'll be going out of my way to try it again soon.

After lunch, we returned to Dave's condo to find Karen and Sarah all prepared to spend the rest of the day at the pool ... and they did.  Sarah was in the water from 3:00 to 9:00, with only a few short breaks.  The 6:00 "cocktail party" I had been warned about turned out to be a July-4th-style poolside dinner party thrown by the condominium management, with styrofoam plates, beer instead of cocktails, and shorts instead of slacks.  All of us attended, including Jeff and (briefly) Max.

After the relatives left (Karen and Jeff say hi to the family), Dave took me out for low-fat ice cream (interesting concept) and then went up to bed, leaving me downstairs to write and send this.  Tomorrow Dave will get me up around 7:30, and I'll head north when he leaves for church.  In a few minutes when I get online I'll find out whether I'm stopping in Oberlin to visit Amanda O'Connor on my way back to Cleveland.

Sunday, July 7, 1996

I woke this morning with the promised soreness in my arms as well as the expected crimp in my neck and shoulders.  After a quick breakfast Great-Uncle Dave and I said our goodbyes, and I drove straight back to Brook Park, since Amanda didn't write to tell me where in Oberlin to meet her.  I got back to my basement at about 11:30.

After lunch I conducted another telephone interview.  It was much easier to transcribe without the AC blower in the background, but I still think I shouldn't try to do more than one per day if I value my sanity.  I spent the rest of the afternoon going through the Worth County and Great Lakes Free-Nets, mapping their menus and guaging the activity of their message forums.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to help making a lot of errors in my rate calculations -- the program I wrote to convert dates to days relies on my ability to remember to change the current date before beginning and my accuracy in copying numbers from one screen to another -- so I'll have to regard all the calculations as approximate and take new measurements of specific forums if I need accuracy later.  None of the numbers should be so far off that I can't still find a use for them.

Other than finding out why it's not recommended to leave pasta sitting in cold water for 20 minutes while the cook goes out to buy milk, nothing else of note happened.  I'm writing this early so I can watch Awakenings from 9 to 11.  I did not buy a Sunday paper today on the grounds that if I had a TV listing I would watch TV... but I took a glance at Elsie's, and I've been wanting to watch this movie...

Monday, June 8, 1996

I spent most of the morning setting up the NPTNFreeNet machine to share its message forums with the Manistee Universal Free-Net, since that system's operator volunteered to try receiving InfoLink broadcasts.  I also sent him a new copy of the standard Main Menu background picture and script, since his had gotten corrupted.

While I was in the computer room, Tim came in and explained to me the last bits of the NPTN puzzle -- why its founder left the organization, and why things have been so tense (interpersonally, organizationally, and financially) ever since. Unfortunately, it's one of those things I'm not supposed to repeat.

When Tim checked his e-mail this morning, he found a threatening letter from ResNova's management, saying that if we don't pay for the other 10 copies of NovaServer that we were supposed to have bought no later than September 1995, they will bring in third-party assistance.  So Tim spent most of the day carefully writing a reply: we can settle this disagreement amicably without a chaperone; NPTN hasn't followed through with its part of the contract because ResNova has yet to deliver software that functions properly.  He enlisted my help in documenting the bugs I've found, and he ran the final document by me to make sure the facts were straight.  I think the major flaw in the position he's taking is that we don't have a copy of the actual contract for reference ... it's in the same place as the other documents that have been missing since Tim's second day on the job (this is part of what Tim told me in the computer room).  I think he should ask ResNova for a copy of the contract before proceding.  Other than that, I'm much more comfortable with his stand against ResNova than I was before this morning.  Now that I know how far out of Tim's control the situation has been since he arrived, I can only admire the control he's established.

I spent the entire afternoon working on the Academy One HTML files.  It looks like I should get finished with them by Wednesday afternoon, which is just about perfect -- that leaves me Thursday and Friday to get the seven RINs ready to go to Indiana.  That's assuming, of course, that I'm going to Indiana ... if Tim found out today he didn't tell me.

After work I visited three used computer stores looking for an external SCSI hard disk suitable to hold my own copy of NovaServer, but none of them had such a thing.  (Amazing how SCSI has fallen so far out of favor in just a few years!  It's like trying to find a Betamax VCR.)  I'll call the other stores in town tomorrow, and if none of them has one, I'll have to order from a catalog.  NPTN will pay.  Whether I'll get reimbursed for my time when I work during the school year depends on whether Grinnell offers adequate SLIP/PPP access; if they don't, I'll be allowed to charge for my services and my use of a local ISP account, but if they do, I'll use their network connection for free and pass the savings on to NPTN.

I got home at about 6:45, which left little time for research.  I conducted a very satisfactory interview of a man who disagreed with most of what my other subjects have been saying.  For example, he feels that e-mail is useful for all types of conversations (most people say there are exceptions), but CFN does not benefit neighborhood communities, and it's in so much trouble that it won't be around in two years.  It's hard to believe that such a popular system could be so close to collapse, but he's right that the danger comes from within (CWRU) rather than without, and so its popularity is irrelevant.

Other than that and reading another chapter of Schuler's book (I really must finish it soon), I didn't get anything done, though I didn't take any breaks. I haven't even transcribed the interview yet, and it's after ten.  Tomorrow I'll work through lunch and come home at 4 in order to get more research done.  I have to prioritize, though; anything that can be done over the Internet is (somewhat) less pressing than making local phone calls or reading the borrowed book.  I had hoped to get all my research done before leaving Cleveland so that I could devote my "vacation" to writing the research paper, but it looks like I'll still have a few days' worth left to do after I leave.  At some point I'll just have to call it quits -- I can't do a year's research in two months, so my report will just have to be less than authoritative.  Once the paper is turned in and the grade is earned, I'll be able to complete my study of the Free-Nets at my leisure.  But if I leave it unfinished when the semester starts, it will probably remain unfinished, and I'd really hate for that to happen.  This is one of those points at which it would be really good to have a faculty sponsor.

Tuesday, July 9, 1996

Except when I was answering a ridiculous number of e-mail messages which filtered in a few at a time, I spent the entire day working on the Academy One HTML pages.  The problem is worse than I thought -- there are multiple copies of many of the files, with unrelated filenames but identical titles, corresponding to various years and levels of HTML expertise, and different pages point to different sets of them.  Straightening the whole mess out is a task more ambitious than I can attempt in the one day that remains to me, so I'll just have to do the best I can.

It is official now that my presence will be required in Indianapolis from 10 AM to 2 PM on the 19th.  I don't know yet how many systems I'll need to bring/send, but it may be as many as seven.  Not all of the communities will be taking their systems home with them, and not all will be sending their future sysops to this meeting, so I'll need to prepare written materials as well as an oral presentation.  I'll strive to finish the NPTNFreeNet system -- get it in as good shape as I can, both acceptable for the present and ready for future improvements -- before I leave tomorrow, so that I can take my time packing the systems on Thursday and Friday.

I called all the used computer stores in the Cleveland area, and none of them have external SCSI drives, so we'll have to order one by mail -- hopefully tomorrow.  I'm going to have to experiment to find out how much control I'll be able to exert over NPTNFreeNet from a distance, since I'll be largely responsible for supervising future modifications.  Apple Remote Access would help tremendously ... without it I can't access most of the hard disk.  Yet we don't want the system to be too insecure... :-)

I also called Symantec technical support regarding the error message that Norton Speed Disk persistently displays when working on my hard disk.  The tech was frustrated by my inability to duplicate the error while on the phone (since I had no way to start up off another disk), so he sent me a free upgrade to the next version of Norton Utilities.  Well, the software is free, but I had to pay $10 shipping and handling to get it here in 2-4 days.  The rush was necessary because I need to know before I leave Ohio whether I want to have my hard disk replaced under warranty -- the replacement is waiting if I need it.  (It would be nice to have the repair done on Friday, since I won't be needing my laptop then and I will next week, but such is life.)  I also called FWB upgrades and found that they have received my check, but CD-ROM Toolkit is backordered until Thursday, so they'll send it to my Oklahoma address.

This evening I read another chapter of Schuler's book (as long as I set a firm schedule for myself I can get through it) and transcribed the lengthy interview I recorded yesterday.  I think I have enough interviews that I can take a break for a few days ... transcribing is not an efficient use of my limited time here.

Tomorrow I'll concentrate on getting NPTNFreeNet -- shoddy as it still is on the inside -- externally polished and ready to duplicate.

Wednesday, July 10, 1996

Today, as I promised myself I'd do, I finished the Academy One Web pages on NPTNFreeNet.  Well, most of them.  The ones I didn't overhaul are in pretty good shape already; most of their unverified links are to decorative images (rainbow lines and such), so when you view them with NovaTerm you can't even tell anything's missing.  Unfortunately, the HTML documents that aren't related to Academy One are still in terrible shape, and I have no time left to fix them.

After getting the pages finished-as-they're-gonna-be, I took a few minutes to go over the NovaServer menus to check up on the links from there to the HTML documents -- and found that quite a few of them pointed to files that my recent changes made obsolete, so I went through and fixed them.  I also created a main Web page for the server, so that directing any browser to "http://rural.nptn.org/" will bring up something meaningful (not tonight, though -- see below).  All in all, our master server is looking a heck of a lot better now than it did two weeks ago.

Unfortunately, at about 3:30 I decided that this evening would be a perfect time to back up NPTNFreeNet's hard disk to tape.  That was an unfortunate decision because the server no longer operates in isolation ... it's a UseNet and e-mail gateway for the Manistee Universal Free-Net, which connects every night.  And although I told the backup software to restart the computer after it finished, it hasn't done so.  So tomorrow morning I'll have to deal with a miffed sysop and a queue that's overflowing with more than 2500 messages. Oops.

At John's suggestion I called CompUSA about an external hard disk for a Mac, and they turned out to be the only place in town with such a thing in stock.  The model they have is about $30 more expensive than the cheapest (generic) one in a catalog, but it's $30 cheaper than the corresponding (Apple) model in the same catalog... so I guess it's a bargain.  John was planning to pick it up on his way home, so I may have a new toy tomorrow.

The hard disk will come in handy very quickly -- the day I arrive in Indianapolis.  It turns out that there are already two of our systems at the library where I'll be teaching; they were sent there for evaluation purposes.  Rather than bringing five systems with me, then (seven was an overestimate), I'll bring only three -- two in the car and one via UPS -- and reconfigure the two that are already there.  Doing so with the SCSI hard disk will be much faster than attempting it any other way.

The Indiana guy sent me the names of the five RINs I'll be setting up, so I sent four of them onward to ResNova to have keys made -- despite all their noise, we had actually paid in advance for four keys that we hadn't yet received.  The fifth new system will use a copied key, to be replaced with a legal key when money becomes available.

The Indiana RINs will be using a strategy that's new to Free-Nets: they plan to encourage users to get SLIP/PPP accounts with local Internet Service Providers and then connect to the Free-Nets over the network.  Can you guess who's sponsoring the Free-Nets?  Hmmm...  Unfortunately, that's not what these RINs were really intended for.  They come with 9 modems and 9 serial ports, and they've got their own local copies of several hundred Web pages -- which are merely redundant if the users can run Netscape as easily as NovaTerm.  Plus, the licenses we bought from ResNova allow 2000 modem-only accounts and 2000 "universal" (modem or network) accounts. That's not simultaneous connections, that's the total number of accounts.  If everyone connects over the network, there can be only 2000 users, and 2000 accounts will go unused.  I'm going to try to talk the future sysops into buying phone lines for at least one or two of the modems so that people who can't afford SLIP connections can still call in. (NovaTerm is so ghastly slow that the ISPs, charging by the hour, will greatly benefit from this "free" service if only network connections are allowed. Something tells me the ISPs know that.)

After work I took a nap (physical exhaustion is starting to set in) and did some more of the research that's become routine.  I've finished outlining the menus of the Worth County Free-Net. That's the one where I've been limited to 20 minutes a day.  And I'm still working away at Great Lakes, where I have unlimited time.  That says a lot about how much use the two systems are getting!

Tomorrow I'll copy the contents of NPTNFreeNet to one of the proto-RINs, the one that will be sent by UPS on Monday.  After configuring it to be subservient to NPTNFreeNet, I'll copy its contents, in turn, to the next system... and so on until quitting time on Friday.

Thursday, July 11, 1996

Today went really well until I left work.  I restored NPTNFreeNet to working order, then installed some software that allows it to be an FTP server (so I can do considerable maintenance over the Internet) and in the process broke it again.  I ended up having to start off the CD-ROM and run Disk First Aid, which "repaired" the problem by deleting all the files I had just installed except for the preferences file.  (It didn't tell me that was what it was doing.)  After another unsuccessful installation, I discovered that the preferences file was bad, so I deleted it, reinstalled, and everything is now fine.

I then copied selected contents of NPTNFreeNet to the system that will be sent to Indiana via UPS on Monday, bringing it up to speed with all the new files and menus and such.  That system served as a master template for the rest of the day, for two other RINs and the external hard disk that John picked up last night.  It turns out he had to wait at CompUSA for an hour and a half to get it, because Autumn made the P.O. out in my name, and I'm not listed in their records as a qualified purchaser or something.

After I had a few of the RINs set up, I tried to view their spiffy new Web pages over the network with Netscape ... and learned the hard way that we didn't purchase the Web Publishing option for them.  That's bad news for several of the sysops, who asked me previously whether they would be able to publish Web pages once they got connected to the Internet; at the time I told them they could.  I called ResNova and learned that the Web Publishing option costs $300 retail but only $100 to NPTN affiliates.  Only.  That inspired me to ask for a retail price list, which I have before me now.  If I wanted to buy a key for myself, with all the functionality of the RINs I've been setting up but only one user account, it would cost $1923.50.  That's without Web Publishing.  I suspect that Tim will be able to talk ResNova into giving us the key for less than $100, since I intend to use it to provide tech support.

Whether and when that key will get paid for is a different question.  Autumn told me today that NPTN hasn't paid Kelly Temps for her services for several months, and Tim said he would have to decide between that and the rent.  Autumn is worried, not for herself (she gets paid by Kelly until they turn in her resignation), but for the survival of the organization.  I'm still confident it will survive somehow, and if it doesn't I'm determined it won't be my fault!

Since the Web Publishing option is rather pricey, I looked into alternatives and found that the same software I used to turn NPTNFreeNet into an FTP server (NetPresenz) will turn any of the RINs into a Web server -- with or without a $10 registration fee. The only hitch is that it's peculiarly picky about the files it serves ... in ways other than those in which NovaServer is picky.  I fooled with it enough to determine that in order to use both NetPresenz (for nonusers with Netscape) and NovaServer (for NovaTerm users), it would be necessary to maintain two hand-tailored sets of files.  That extra $90 might not be so bad as an alternative to the time investment.

You'll recall I said that the day went well until I left work.  At 3:45 I started NovaServer shutting down on the external hard disk, which was patiently demonstrating that it can tie up a 68040 processor quite as effectively as a PowerPC chip.  At 4:15 it was still shutting down, so in the interest of hitting the road, I forced it to quit.  That little evil deed was followed by an entire evening of bad karma.  I got home to find that my Norton Utilities disks had arrived, so I could finally find out whether there was actually anything wrong with my laptop's hard disk.  Like a fool I tried to find that out before the computer store closed at 7, and I must have flubbed something up on the Disk Doctor Startup Disk, because no matter how much memory I gave it it complained that it didn't have enough until I gave up and (after cooling my temper over a batch of spaghetti made with canned whole tomatoes because I bought the wrong can by mistake) started off my EZ drive instead.  The good news is that there's nothing wrong with my hard disk.  By that time it was 8:00, so I spent the rest of the evening taking notes on a particularly good chapter of Schuler's book while watching a beautiful sunset ... only when I came back inside, my laptop crashed, and thanks to SimpleText's idiotic saving practices I lost the latter half of my notes and had to restore from last week's backup.

Well, I'm having trouble staying awake, so I'd better take the hint.

Friday, July 12, 1996

Today was very frustrating at work.  I got the one RIN ready to send by UPS on Monday, but I didn't get any other systems set up.  I spent a lot of time working with the sysop of Manistee Universal Free-Net on InfoLink... it's still not working quite right, even as a medium for broadcasting and e-mail.  It's all the more frustrating because if I don't figure it out before I leave I'm not likely to be able to figure it out at all -- many aspects of NovaServer simply can't be administered long-distance.  I've shut off NPTNFreeNet's access to newsgroups in the meantime; there's no sense letting 10,000 messages build up in the queue over the weekend.

It was very quiet in the office, since Tim had the day off and Autumn called in sick.  John and I and our problems had the place to ourselves.  It seemed at the time that I did a lot, but it was all picky, irritating details that don't benefit from retelling.  John and I went out to lunch, and he explained to me more of the details of NPTN's financial situation which explain why Tim hasn't been taking action on quite a lot of issues which seem urgent.  He also told me that NPTN will survive one way or another, since if they run out of money he'll move the servers to his house and run them from there, but due to the details of the situation it's not reasonable to move out of the office building until absolutely necessary.  It's really a shame that I'm not allowed to talk about it; it's such a diabolical plot twist that it would make a great story.

I brought the new hard disk home with me ... all but two of the four feet, which I assume fell off in the office.  If I can't find them I'll have to replace them with something less detachable.  The weather was perfect for reading outside, but Elsie followed me and talked nonstop for half an hour until I gave up and went skating.  When I came back I didn't feel like reading (or otherwise working) anymore, so I played some of the new games that came with the hard disk.  The fatigue of working all day every day for two months is really catching up with me.  I let Becca know that I won't be visiting her in Pittsburgh this weekend, since 6 hours of driving would be 6 hours spent neither working nor resting.  I am planning to go to lunch with Amanda in Oberlin tomorrow, though; it's less than half an hour away, so it's no worse than going to work.  It'll be good to talk computers with someone other than Tim or John, someone who's living with a totally different set of problems.

Saturday, July 13, 1996

This morning I slept in until nearly 10:30, catching up on some much-needed sleep.  At 11:30 I drove to Oberlin, arriving at Amanda's apartment shortly after noon.  Her place covers about half the area of mine, but it has four rooms and twice as much furniture.  It's costing her $175 a month for the summer, but the price will double when the school year starts and it's really not worth that much, so she's trying to find another place in better repair.  She really couldn't get much closer to work, though; the computing center is less than a block away.

Oberlin's student body is about twice as large as Grinnell's, and so their computer department is set up differently.  Amanda's job is less like Deb Roepke's than she had expected, and more like those of the student interns who sometimes serve GCCS, only Amanda is a full-time, salaried employee.  The computer lab I saw in the computer center / library basement was the size of the labs I've seen at Carnegie Mellon -- some 300 computers.  But they don't have labs in the dormitories, only in the public buildings, which close after hours.

Amanda hasn't been outside of the computer center enough to know much about the campus, but she showed me around anyway.  I was stunned to see a building almost exactly like Grinnell's touted Goodnow Hall, only twice the size and beige instead of pink ... and its observatory still exists.  We also walked around the town and through a very nice park with woods, ponds, and bike trails. After we finally worked up an appetite, we went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant.

It was really nice to see someone I know again!  I had almost forgotten what it's like to have a friend my own age!!  :-)  It was also neat to see another college campus and wonder what things might be like if I had gone there instead of to Grinnell.  Amanda has a great bargain ... instead of paying $2800 a year to attend classes at Oberlin, she gets paid by the college and can attend one class a semester free of charge!  While we were walking in the park she was debating what class to take this fall.

After I got home, I wrote a letter, took a short nap, and then settled down to read a chapter and a half of Schuler's book.  There are only two chapters remaining, so I should get it back to Tim on Tuesday or Wednesday.  I've found quite a few errors in the book, a few technical but most simply careless, like captions that don't match the figures they caption.  That makes me wonder how useful the quotes I'm collecting may be; if their references are wrong I might intentionally misquote someone when I write my paper. Maybe his Web site has a page of corrections.

While watching Babylon 5 (part 1 of 2, and I won't be here next week!  Aaugh!) and Red Dwarf (an episode I actually hadn't seen before!) I worked some more on the CFN menu outline, which is almost done.  There must have been a few extra lines of dots in the computer-generated outline I started from; my translation program got confused and inserted a few too many </ul> tags, so I'm having to refer back to the actual menus to get the outline straightened out.  After I send this message I'll check in on the two rural Free-Nets I've been studying and gather some more info.

I'm glad I took that little break today; I'm rested again and back on track.  Only 4.5 more days in Cleveland!  Tomorrow I hope to tour the Arboretum with the First Unitarian young adults.

Sunday, July 14, 1996

This weekend Brook Park celebrated its "Homecoming," an annual festival of arts, entertainment, sports, etc. which attracts former residents as well as current ones (hence the misleading name).  I didn't get to the festival at all, but Elsie attended all three afternoons and came home with horror stories about how crowded it was.  It ended tonight with fireworks, so she and I stood out in the front yard among the mosquitos in the rain to watch.

This morning I took the Rapid to First Unitarian Church, but I just missed the 9:05 train so I arrived 20 minutes late.  The service was a readers' theater mock-interview with four historically famous Unitarians, so it was rather dull.  :-)  Afterwards I went with the young adult group to Holden Arboretum, east of town.  (I wasn't driving, so I'm not sure if it's the one in the South Chagrin Reservation or a farther one.)  Along with three regulars I had met before, there was a young couple (both of them 25, and both Cleveland natives, though the husband is from the other Cleveland -- in England) who are members of the arboretum, so we all got in for free.

I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to bring a sack lunch, so I didn't and was allowed to share what the others had brought.  What a bunch of yuppies -- two of them independently brought hummus!  :-)  The arboretum is really quite impressive; the plants are well tended and well labeled.  I took a picture of the "hedge collection," which features popular hedges from around the world, but surprisingly privet is not included.  The man from England is a great conversationalist and knows his plants and animals, even though most of those in the arboretum don't live in Europe.  He sounded like the Grumpy Old Man on Saturday Night Live: "In my country, we don't have any of these fancy species!  There's only one kind of frog!  The common frog!"  Several of the signs we passed on our hike described foreign diseases -- such as Dutch elm disease and chestnut blight -- that found their way to North America and had no natural predators here.  I asked him whether there have been any North American species that wreaked havoc in Europe.  He replied, "You mean other than tobacco?"

We stopped for ice cream on the way back to town, and I didn't get back to Brook Park until 5:00.  Somehow, though, in addition to reading a chapter of Schuler's book on the Rapid, I managed to get a phenomenal amount of my research done this evening.  I finished the menu outlines of the Cleveland and Worth County Free-Nets, and I've already received one response to my survey from Worth County.  I was only able to send surveys to half the people I wanted to, because although I got their names from message forums, there's no way to get their usernames from their real names, so if the two names don't match I can't send them e-mail!  I may be able to get that information from the sysop, if I ask him very, very nicely.

All in all, the weekend was quite satisfactory.  I'm actually glad I didn't have a good time with friends earlier in my stay here; it would have just reminded me how lonely I am the rest of the time.  As it is, in a week I'll be back in Oklahoma!

Monday, July 15, 1996

I woke this morning surprisingly refreshed, probably thanks to the sound of rain outside.  It took more than 45 minutes to get to work because traffic was moving slower than 45 miles per hour all the way.

I spent most of my time before lunch working on the InfoLink queue.  On Friday night, when I found that the queue held more than 3000 messages, I shut off NPTNFreeNet's importation of UseNet newsgroups (one of the administrative actions which I thankfully can perform from a distance), so my goal today was to find out why the queue hadn't been emptying properly and remove the clog so that I could turn the tap back on.  What I found was that since NovaServer tends to "give up" on InfoLink connections over noisy phone lines and terminate them (imperfectly, almost absent-mindedly), and since Manistee Universal Free-Net calls only once a day from Maine, the connections don't last long enough to transfer all the messages that come in daily from the more popular newsgroups.  Once I established that most of the messages were now so old that MUFN was just deleting them as soon as it received them anyway, I deleted them directly from the queue, unsubscribed MUFN from the popular (and NPTN-unrelated) newsgroups, and turned on the tap again.  Everything seems to be fine now.  (knock, knock, knock)

Tim and John and I went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch so that I could interview them both.  I haven't yet tried to listen to much of the tape; the background noise may be prohibitive, but I'll give it my best shot.  I made sure to tell them that I can make any quotes they choose anonymous.  Tim gave me some good guidelines on what sort of information (particularly about CFN) should not appear in writing.  Basically, they don't want me to hide the fact that I worked for NPTN (once I've finished conducting interviews), but if I quote anyone saying bad things about CFN (or any other Free-Net, for that matter), I should make it clear that those opinions are not my own, much less NPTN's.  I don't think I'll have as much trouble following that rule with the Free-Nets as I will with ResNova Software.  I'll just have to be sure to provide a balanced view ... I do, after all, like a few features of NovaServer ...

I spent the afternoon cranking out RINs.  Admittedly, I'm behind the schedule I set for myself, but not so far behind that I won't finish. I completed one of the two systems I'll take with me in the car to Indianapolis and updated the Math/Science/Technology Center Free-Net, which I had completed and put into storage nearly a month ago.  Tomorrow I'll do the same with the other Indiana RIN and the CNMI Free-Net which has also been in storage.  Then I'll get as far as I can through the third system in storage and the four systems that still remain unconfigured.  There are three other systems in the office which will eventually become RINs, but they're currently in use for other purposes, so I'll just write up instructions so that someone else can set them up later.

I spent essentially the whole evening polishing off Schuler's book.  Tomorrow evening I'll try to transcribe the Tim-and-John interview and bid farewell to the monitor, keyboard, and mouse I've been borrowing.  I'll return that equipment to the office on Wednesday and bring the two Indy RINs home so that I can pack the car on Wednesday night and leave directly from here on Thursday morning. The early departure will accommodate a few hours of preparation and setup in the Indianapolis library before I drop in on relatives.  It turns out that Tim will also be making an appearance at the library conference, but since he's headed in the opposite direction afterwards we'll travel in separate cars.

Tuesday, July 16, 1996

Today was my most productive day yet ... go figure.  InfoLink is still broken, regardless of what I said last night; the messages that are in the queue now will not transfer, even though I can't find anything wrong with them or either computer.  I gave up puzzling over that after a while and spent the rest of the day configuring RINs.  All the systems whose destinations are known are now ready to go -- that's three to Indiana on Thursday and three more to other locations as soon as their communities are ready for them.  I also have three more almost ready; I'll put them in storage tomorrow in a nearly-completed stage with directions for how to finish them when the time comes.

In the process of doing that, I discovered one of the main reasons why the people in Medina County, OH were so unimpressed with NovaServer when they tried to run it on the demo system NPTN lent them -- my predecessor forgot to upgrade the computer's memory, so it had only 8 MB instead of 16.  NovaServer needs at least 7 MB for itself.  It may now be impossible to sell them on NovaServer.

At home tonight, rather than transcribing yesterday's interview, I took advantage of my last evening of free SLIP access for the foreseeable future by spending almost two hours on the Great Lakes Free-Net.  I'm almost through mapping their menus, but there may be another 2 hours left to be done.  The GLFN is truly prodigious ... it's my impression that there's more social life on that Free-Net than in the entire town of Grinnell!  In the first hour I was online tonight, four total strangers invited me to chat.  Granted, all of them were bored teenagers, but even in Grinnell people don't pull strangers off the sidewalk to meet them.  Nor do they on the Cleveland or Worth County Free-Nets.  (I estimate GLFN's membership at around 2000, so I doubt these teenagers are unused to seeing strangers online.)

GLFN is, as far as I can tell, exactly what I had in mind when I first started fantasizing about community networks in high school ... it has the atmosphere of the mythical elm-lined street of yore, where people gossip on their front porches at dusk.  Dozens of community organizations are represented, as well -- the post office, the YMCA, city hall, charities ...  I'm wondering whether I'd like to work in Battle Creek, Michigan next summer just to study GLFN as a full-time participant.  NPTN and the rest of the community-network movement have a lot to learn from this system.  Maybe by writing this paper I'll be able to make them take notice.  I am astoundingly lucky to have picked the three systems I did, because they are perfect examples of the three known stages in the Free-Net life cycle -- birth and growing pains (WCFN), rapid growth and wild success (GLFN), and stagnation and decay (CFN).  I know CFN passed through the previous two stages, and it wouldn't be hard to find out whether GLFN had growing pains in its first year.  The really important question for NPTN is how to make sure WCFN lasts long enough to reach the second stage!

An analogy to urban planning leaps to mind and fits almost perfectly.  I may want to address that briefly in my paper, since WCFN has been following essentially the same plan of action as GLFN but failing.  Perhaps WCFN is the electronic equivalent of Tenochtitlan -- there's plenty of enthusiasm to build a city, but they've committed to building it on a very unstable foundation!

After those two hours online, I was ready to take a break outside, and luckily the rain stopped long enough for me to walk around the block barefoot for the first time.  (I've skated around the block before, but never walked.)  I noticed on foot what I'd never seen on wheels in all the 100 or so times I've passed: the telephone pole on the corner is painted with an enormous smiley face.

Tomorrow I'll trade the equipment I've had at home for two complete RINs.  I should be able to finish off the systems I started today and still have time to tie together all the loose ends before I drive off into the sunset.  I won't be surprised if Autumn arranges a going-away party like the one Jim got ... but I'll do my best to pretend.  When I get home, I'll have a full evening of packing to do.

Wednesday, July 17, 1996

I'll have to make this quick tonight; It's already 11:00 and I'm not finished packing yet.  I'll be getting up at 7 and leaving as soon as I'm ready.

I managed to finish almost everything I intended to do today ... I got all the computers ready (with the exception of the three that are otherwise occupied) and left enough instructions for John or whomever to polish them up and send them out when the time comes. What I didn't finish was the posting of information for the benefit of the other RIN sysops, but I can do that later.  InfoLink stopped and started working again, so my current hypothesis is that it just needs constant attention.  It'll be difficult for me to give that remotely, but it'll help to have "subscriber" systems such as my external hard disk and one of the RINs-to-be that I left running in the office.  Checking up on them will mean logging into each of them every few days, though.  I signed W-2 forms so that NPTN can reimburse me for my time and expenses.

Tim and John took me out to lunch today even though I brought a sack lunch.  I talked over my fourth slice of pizza about how I didn't think I could finish off all the food I had at home, and Tim and John exchanged glances... because they knew that Autumn had bought a cake.  I wasn't surprised that they held a going-away party today, but I was surprised that they had it ready when I happened to wheel a stack of boxes into the conference room.  In addition to huge boxes of Rice Krispy treats (individually wrapped) and Oreos, they gave me a CD, two books and a T-shirt.  Wow!

The car is very full of boxes even without my stuff ... I had to remove the plastic flanges that hold up the trunk cover.  It'll take some skill to pile everything in there and still be able to see out the back window.  Hopefully I won't need to look behind me much.  I also have to load the car as early as possible, because Elsie is holding a garage sale, and people are likely to arrive early and want to get past the driveway.  Right now, looking at all the stuff I have and the one empty box, I'm wondering how I managed to pack in the first place.  Maybe I should use more, smaller boxes...

At any rate, I'd better get to it.  I most likely won't have Internet access tomorrow night, but I'll do what I can.

Thursday, July 18, 1996

I'm afraid Elsie's garage sale got rained out today.  For much of the drive into Columbus rain was falling so hard that many cars pulled over onto the shoulder.  The hours and miles passed utterly without incident -- I managed to get my luggage packed in such a way that I could still see out all the windows -- , and I arrived in downtown Indianapolis at about 2:30.

My presentation will be held in the auditorium of the State Library and Museum -- I think that's the correct name.  However, the floors I saw while walking to and from the director's office looked like neither a library nor a museum ... just lots and lots of offices.  I may have to ask about that.  The building's denizens were in a state of frustrated confusion when I arrived, since the fire alarms had just gone off for the second time in a day.  The air conditioning was also broken in most of the building, and since most of the employees wear dress clothes, they were uncomfortable.

I used my external hard disk to reformat the two machines that were already at the library and (with considerable unsolicited help from the director) brought the two other systems in from the car.  We weren't able to set them up today because the auditorium was in use, so I'll have to come in early and help with that.

The most time-consuming part of what I did at the library was preparing the packing lists for the two systems that were already here, since my predecessor hadn't taken down any of their serial numbers before sending them ... nor indeed made any particular effort to match the boxes with the equipment that went inside them.  The styrofoam packing material in many of the boxes was shattered by someone's shortsighted enthusiasm, and some of the boxes look like they've been thrown down a flight of stairs and scribbled upon with permanent marker by a two-year-old, so I feel kind of guilty to be passing these systems off as new!  I'll just have to explain that the hardware was used for demonstration purposes, but I've tested it all and it works fine ...

The director gave me some tips on what material I should try to cover tomorrow.  I've worked out a list of about 15 things I need to be sure to mention, and beyond that I'll just answer questions.  I'll try to follow good UC form and not touch the computers myself, but rather suggest actions to the users.  The hardest bit for me will be protecting these people against future disappointment with NovaServer without causing them immediate disappointment.  I may have to turn some questions over to Tim -- tag team tact!  I'm also kind of concerned that the presentation will be videotaped and distributed to the future sysops; that means that if the passage of time leads them to remember the workshop fondly as a source of valuable knowledge eloquently conveyed, they'll be able to pop in the tape and remember that it wasn't so!

I arrived at Ken and Kathy's (and Madeline and Samantha's) house at about 6:00, unpacked some of my gear, and put the car back together.  We had a positively delicious dinner and walked to the bike repair shop to pick up Ken's bicycle.  Ken and I chatted far longer than we should have, since I needed to go over my notes for tomorrow.  It's now 11:25 EST = 12:25 EDT ... which means I ought to get to bed!

Friday, July 19, 1996

I rose with the sun and the family this morning, merged with the bustle, and got to the state library (which is in fact a library, not just an office building) at about 8:15.  The director, who seems to work 14 hours a day, had already moved the four sets of computer boxes into the auditorium.  I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to set up MacTCP so that one of the RINs could connect to the Internet through the library's network.  Tim arrived around 9:00 with the fifth system.

The room was arranged with one system in the middle, with an Internet connection and a projector so that everything on its screen was readily visible.  The other four systems sat in their original shipping boxes, each system underneath its own table.  Tim and the director and I discussed what I should and shouldn't say for another half hour or so until the people started arriving.  There were one to three representatives from each of seven communities, for a total of about 20.  They ranged in computer experience from total novices to Macintosh experts to UNIX gurus.

The director introduced Tim, Tim introduced a 15-minute videotape, and then I started the actual presentation.  I had the representatives unpack their own equipment, being sure to mention a few of the picky points -- don't use the cables that come with the modems; use the ones that say "ResNova" -- be sure to put the monitor back in the box the same way it came in, or you'll never get it out again -- don't plug the UPS into a power strip or its circuit breaker will trip when you least expect it.

The presentation of the software went fairly well.  Tim and the director helped to keep people following along with the big screen, and I deviated from my notes whenever anyone asked a question.  I didn't get to everything I would have liked to cover because there simply wasn't time.  We took a half-hour break for lunch, but we went to a Marriott cafeteria almost exactly like that at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and the food was so unappetizing that I just had a large soft drink.

The biggest problem I had during the presentation was one particular man, who runs an Internet service provider and was sent on behalf of the people who will actually be running his community's Free-Net, even though he apparently knew very little about what Free-Nets are for or what sort of systems RINs are.  His expectations were similar to those of the people in Thomas County, GA, who I assume are now running Windows NT on their PowerMac.  As I related the shortcomings of NovaServer, he sat in the back of the room (thankfully), rolling his eyes and holding his head in his hands -- when he wasn't pulling Tim aside for private arguments.  If there had been two of him, we would have been in serious trouble.  As it was, he failed to rain on the other communities' parades. They are nearly as excited now as they were this morning, but they're much more prepared to deal with the challenges NovaServer will present to them.

Tim and the library's director told me that the presentation went very well, but naturally I have my doubts.  I sidetracked a lot and occasionally derailed, so I have no desire whatsoever to see the videotape that was made today.  I do hope, though, that NPTN gets a copy of the tape for the benefit of my successor(s).

I said goodbye to Tim and got to Ken and Kathy's house at about 4:00.  Until Kathy and the girls got home I goofed around, wanting only to sit down and think about nothing, especially nothing computer-related.  Kathy made a frozen pizza and fruit salad for the girls, and when Ken got home we had a larger, more interesting pizza for ourselves.  After dinner we played outside with bicycles and the neighbors' pet bunny -- though not in combination.  While Kathy put the girls to bed, Ken and I went for a short walk, shorter than we expected because my legs were tired after standing up for hours, and I was afraid I might have trouble holding down the clutch pedal tomorrow if they got sorer.  I spent about an hour teaching Ken some basics of HTML, as I had promised him yesterday.  I think the concepts stuck and will be useful to him, but the specifics are not well suited to a dyslexic mind!  If he taught himself to proofread HTML, it would be a feat akin to that of the blind man who loads the vending machines at the state library.  (It took the director 5 tries yesterday to get me a Sprite.)

Tomorrow Ken plans to take me to a Japanese grocery store which he says is better than the one I patronized in Cleveland.  I hope to leave town around 11:00 in order to arrive in St. Louis by dinnertime.

Saturday, July 20, 1996

Kathy took Madeline and Samantha out to breakfast today so that Ken and I could sleep in a bit.  He and I ate breakfast, goofed around for a while, and then went to a Japanese grocery store to stock up on curiosities.  I left the house at almost exactly 11:00.

The trek to Saint Louis went entirely without incident, and I arrived at about 4:20, but it took half an hour to find a parking space downtown that was both inexpensive (well, free, actually) and legal, partly because about half of the downtown streets seem to be closed for construction.

I saw the Arch and headed out of town at 7:00, hoping to find a hotel room, but by that time everyplace was already full ... I didn't find a vacancy until 11:00, in Lebenon, MO.

Tomorrow I'll sleep in, eat a Waffle House breakfast, and cover the final stretch.  I may not find it necessary to write a journal entry tomorrow; the internship is essentially over.

FINAL INTERNSHIP EVALUATION

WORK SUPERVISOR

Name of the Intern: Ben Stallings
Dates of Internship: Summer 1996
Work Supervisor: Tim Connors
Organization: National Public Telecomputing Network
Address: 30680 Bainbridge Road Suite 100-B, Solon OH 44139

I. Briefly describe the regular duties of the intern and any special projects completed.

Ben worked on NPTN's Rural Information Networks project.  In that capacity he had to learn a software package for community networking (ResNova); troubleshoot, beta-test, patch and otherwise tinker with that software; deal with the software company; install that software for about twenty systems; provide support both by phone and sometimes in person to some of those systems; and otherwise deal directly with the networks in connection with the program.  In one case Ben traveled to the site of a new network and provided a day of set-up, support, and instruction.  As the culmination of his internship, Ben and I traveled to Indiana where he did a day-long instructional clinic for seven new networks.

II. Was this assignment consistent with the Learning Contract agreed upon at the beginning of the internship?  If not, indicate which changes were necessary and why.

For the most part.  When the contract was signed we had envisioned that Ben would help us with a project converting a number of existing Free-Nets to a new type of system.  That project was contingent on grant funding which, unfortunately, did not materialize before Ben arrived and most probably will never materialize.  The Rural Information Network project had similar requirements and scope, and similar opportunities for an intern to learn and gain worthwhile experience both with technology and with community networking.  For that reason, it was the obvious substitute for the originally planned project.  Ben's experience would be completely consistent if the contract had two small amendments [Changes in brackets]:

"I will gain technical experience by helping to implement [new] Free-Net computer systems.  Meanwhile, I will use methods learned in sociology, anthropology, and psychology classes to examine the social impacts of [community networks] and write a report on the subject.  This internship will contribute directly to my knowledge of social psychology and to my career goals in the field of computer-aided community enhancement."

III. Was the intern generally qualified for this internship?

Yes, indeed.  Community computing requires an unusual package of technical and interpersonal skills that Ben showed us in spades.  His technical background allowed him to learn the necessary software quickly and thoroughly, so thoroughly that before long he was designing patches for software bugs and passing them along to the manufacturer of the software. His job also drew upon his interpersonal skills as well, because he had direct contact (servicing, teaching, and negotiating) with the network administrators, assorted grantors, and the staff of the software company.

IV. What qualities and/or skills of the intern were either outstanding or in need of improvement?

Ben impressed those of us here with his conscientious work, his scrupulous ethics, his willingness to attack problems that were apparently intractable, his commitment to community service, and his ability to work with other people.  I think it is safe to say that no one Ben dealt with over the phone would have imagined him to be a college student unless and until they were informed of that fact. We work in close quarters here so I can say with confidence that Ben handled his project with enthusiasm, smarts and poise.  I would be very happy to have him with NPTN on a full-time basis.

V. In what ways could this internship have been improved?

I have no complaints about the internship.  It would have been nice if either the grantor, or NPTN, or the university, or someone, had been able to provide Ben with a larger stipend... he lived on a pittance for the summer (without complaint, I might  add).

VI. Number of internship absences: None
Number of make-up days completed: None

I know that Ben sometimes worked on NPTN work during his off hours, and that many of his other off hours were devoted to his internship-related research.  Ben did not work on his research during work hours.

The definition, coordination, and supervision of this internship by the Career Development Office and the Faculty Sponsor were:

Satisfactory

I did not require much in the way of support from the career development office or Ben's faculty advisor.

VII. Would you be interested in having another Grinnell intern work with you?

By all means.

VIII. Any additional comments:

As indicated by my earlier responses, we were extremely pleased with Ben's performance this summer.  I would be thrilled to have him back either as an intern or as an employee at some point in the future.  Ben faced a number of difficult technical and logistical problems and performed exceptionally well.  If I were grading Ben's work I would certainly give him the highest possible marks.  I would be happy to speak with anyone from the career development office regarding this evaluation.