(Approx. 1,194 words)

DUFFERDOM

Tales from the Kingdom of the Ordinary User - Faxing

by David D. Uffer, a member of the Chicago Computer Society, IL

www.ccs.org

Daviduffer(at)sbcglobal.net

Obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG member groups.

It may be that there are curses saved by the PC minigods for assignment to some PC users, myself among them. Not always, of course, but just often enough to keep us humble and on edge.

Let’s review a part of a sea change that led us to where we are now. In mid-August of 1981, IBM released the original IBM PC, an “Entry Level System” in IBMese. Don Estridge <<< pic >>> was an engineer of some standing in IBM and had wangled their powers to assign him a small group (14) of developers to create a personal-scale computer with substantial backing to outshine the then-current machines like the Commodore. Estridge was himself fired-up on the potential of personal computers and was the right group leader for this special project.

IBM must have viewed his project as less than crucial since they let him depart from their traditional all-internal sourcing for parts and components. The corporate policy was that if a project needed new components or software, they would invent and patent them in due time. Using NIH parts (Not Invented Here) was a no-no. Citing urgency, economy, and ready availability of perfectly good parts, Estridge was able to skirt the NIH ban and produce the prototype that IBM accepted, manufactured, and released to the world, with open architecture so users could make their own adaptations. They did, in droves, Other makers did, in ample numbers. The essential early IBM PC was born and the world changed.

So there we were, messing about with VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, and various word processors. In those days before a graphical user interface, we assailed the black DOS screens, pecking in our little green characters and watching the results. Sometimes we messed up and lost a lot of work. A hero waited in the wings. The brilliant Peter Norton <<< pic >>> had developed a relatively easy way to retrieve and resurrect the lost–or most of it. A savior was at hand, idolized and trusted as he developed more aids and tools. We were infused with hope by the prospect of help. Or some were.

My first experience with the Norton salvation was different than expected. It was a farewell to data, by degrees. Step by step, it waved hello and goodbye. The black screen of fate. Redo the work, maybe better the second time. And I did learn the personal salvation: save your work. So for this duffer, Norton developed a tarnish early on. Later, I came to be using only the antivirus application.

The tarnish deepened and developed pits on the firewall firing line. It was near the start of their general acceptance and Norton’s Personal Firewall seemed a reasonable choice. Not for me, as it turned out, though it did protect my e-mail. It did so by gradually denying me access to mail until I had no access at all. Complete, 100% protection. Subsequently, I was told that the program was not inherently evil and should have offered me, the user, an acceptance / denial option at every point and that I must have missed them all. Maybe I did. That’s what duffers do.

But worse was yet to come. One of the ways Personal Firewall had seemed a reasonable choice was that it promised that it could be turned off. I could not determine how or where the secret exit was. OK. I could remove the program from the PC’s mind. Or so I thought. But the MS System software removal utility could not find it. Norton, now part of Symantec, had subverted Microsoft. OK. One of my unused Norton utilities was a program scrubber tool. That would do it. It did not, though it did acknowledge its existence. But Norton would not touch Norton. Maybe it was a privacy issue. OK. I found a program that vowed removal of any other program and used it against the firewall. It reduced the PC’s functionality to that of a gibbering idiot. OK, off to the lobotomy shop for total wipeout formatting. Some fun? Sort of. With minor satisfaction, I later heard I was not alone in my disgust.

Now to the present, additional interplay with Symantec, and some suggested name modifications.

Just the fax. The first stage I recall of melding personal computers and faxing was enabling PCs to send existing digital files as faxes to recipient fax machines, which printed them out as standard faxes on funny paper which was repellant to the touch. Sort of like sending telegrams on nasty paper. Users could also employ an expensive and touchy scanner and an expensive and variably accurate OCR program to read certain type fonts and convert them into digital files to send either to fax machines or other PCs and their printers using regular paper.

Then, when massive increases in memory arrived, along came the graphical interface and transmitting images was possible. Users could send pictures of any text or handwriting as well as pictures of pictures, using better scanners integrated into better fax transmitters / receivers / printers. Wow. Now, to my shallow understanding, the pre-eminent PC faxing program is WinFax PRO, from Symantec. Mine has worked reasonably well, albeit unreasonably complex, until recently. That brings up the question of a curse again.

Briefly put and in serial order, my WinFax would no longer send a fax. It would not reinstall without my uninstalling the existing program. It will not uninstall and has no recognition of itself as an entity. A search for the program under its normal name does not yield the normal icon. Opening the similarly named file folder icon unleashes a confetti burst of scores of petty parts, none of which do anything useful. Trying to install it on a second machine, which does not have any version of it, set off the same hissyfits. I suggest for at least my own usage that WinFax should be titled LoseFax and Symantec should be SighMatic since it seems to bring an automatic sigh to this duffer, who is currently considering a stand-alone HP fax/scanner/printer under $100 or the new trend in e-faxing. May the minigods please be pleased or at least compliant.

Dave Uffer has been a member of the Chicago Computer Society for somewhere near twenty years. He originated in Colorado, never skied there then or since, but came to the Midwest, settling in the Chicago area. In his varied experience he has earned several degrees–none ending in a “D”–and worked in computer-related fields as a cog of various sizes since the 1960s. He considers himself less than expert in many PC specialties but at least functional in several he believes important enough to qualify him as an ordinary user, courted and often slighted by the industry.

This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups. All other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above).