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https://bumpyroadtocode.com/2017/08/29/how-to-install-and-use-fltk-1-3-4-in-visual-studio-2017-complete-guide-2-0-no-cross-contamination/

I put the link at the top because I had trouble posting it and I didn’t want to lose my typing ?.

There is a more serious fault with Mr Stroustrups book.

At the very beginning he defines a custom header file that is to be included with all code examples up to chapter 20.

The header includes common library files like <iostream> and <vector> so the student doesn’t have to and it also handles common errors and exceptions.

The header is called std_lib_facilities.h and I haven’t been using it because I already know how to do what it does.

The problem comes in the chapters dealing with graphics because the main Window.h class he has written for the examples relies on code in std_lib_facilities.h

std_lib_facilities.h is a dodo.

It includes macros that Visual Studio says are out of date but compiles anyway and then it has a macro that redefines the std vector as Vector which later causes a “Vector is not a member of std:”  when it tries to use vector.

I have not been able to do any of the graphics exercises because of this and it is a major part of the book.

If anyone else fancies giving it a go the instructions and a link to the evil header are in the link above.

At least the walk through for installing fltk works so it may be worth a look.

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I got a very nice email from the deputy Conservative party chairman for Gloucestershire reminding me of how many potholes they had fixed in the area and urging me to keep the faith in the local elections.

Just 2 small points. 1. I don’t live in Gloucestershire and never have (the closest I got was 6 years in north somerset) and 2.where I DO live, in London, we are not holding local elections ?

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I found out that the system also switches sides if one computer has a more recent copy of the database than the other. I found that out because ounce I had reloaded the dead computer from disk the system switched and gave me a new alarm saying database mismatch.

Sorry to bore you with this but it was friday afternoon and I was trying to get down the pub ?

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The large ISDX’s were only avalable in 50v DC to start with and they ran off a bank of lead acid cells, topped up by a couple of rectifiers running in parallel.

The A and B computers ran in hot standby mostly governed by a watch dog timer but normally they also switched sides at 12 midnight every day.

The switch over could be disabled though which lead me to an interesting fault.

A customer had reported that several extensions had suddenly got the wrong extension numbers so off I went. When I arrived there was an urgent alarm showing on the operarors console and she said it had been there as long as she had (two years). We had only recently taken over maintanence of this system so it didnt look good.

Anyway it turns out that computer B was completely dead and computer A had an urgent fault that meant it couldnt see the hard disc. Computer A would normally have updated its database from computer B at switch over but someone had switched that off in the distant past.

The upshot was that the system had been running on computer B until its PSU failed when it was forced to switch to computer B with a database that was at least 2 years old !

No wonder some extensions had the wrong numbers and that was the least of It. Took me 2 hours to order and fit a new PSU and 6 hours to figure out why computer A couldn’t see the disk.

I thought I was going to spend 10 min swapping a few extensions about ?

 

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And they have added a new setting to focus assist, which is nice because I didn’t know such a thing existed ?

You can now block all notifications except alarms when you are using an app full screen, on top of when you are gaming or duplicating your display.

Well you will be able to when its rolled out to everyone ?

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I would quite like to try the Windows sand box but I can’t because it uses virtualisation so its for Pro and Enterprise only.

May be I will buy a new Pro key.

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https://insider.windows.com/en-gb/community-news/windows-insiders-vote-for-their-favorite-features-19H1/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=201904-NL45&utm_content=WIP_Body_19H1FavoriteFeatures

More Windows insiders news for those not on the list. A few more interesting bits this time.

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Same model then Tippon

Thats the firmware version and it is the latest one.

Seems to have caused some people trouble when it was pushed out at the end of Jan.

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Slap me with a wet kipper !

Someone(couldnt be me) had unticked the inherit from project box ?

Back to the book then.

By the way, fltk only needs wsock.lib to be compatible with W95. Works just fine without it on W10.

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Yep had a fairly good look through those and you got closer than me !

There is a lot relating to fltk on Linux but almost bugger all on windows.

I tried just removing wsock.lib from the Linker input but then it cant find kenl32.lib so it looks like I am not linking to ANY Microsoft library.

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I have found a small but massively annoying fault with Mr Stroustrup’s book.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that he devotes 4 chapters to graphics programming and thought it would be a useful extra. It turns out that he actually uses graphics programming as a major part of his explination of objects.

The trouble is he has chosen to use the Fast Light Tool Kit ( fltk pronounced full tick) library and left it as an exercise to the reader to set it up.

Try as i might I can not ! The internet is full of people reading the same book with the same problem.

I have got further than most because I have managed to get all the library’s installed under Visual Studio but I am still stuck with 1 linker error relating to wsock.lib. the linker can’t find it.

I cant see what fltk would want with windows sockets and anyway isn’t that a Microsoft library ?

Anyone else know what im talking about ?

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We are talking about the same model arnt we. The one with the single white light on the front ?

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Well thats disappointing to hear.

I have been promised a minimum of 35Mbs and a line check estimated 45Mbs.

I have also read some reviews now and they all seem to give 4 out of 5 stars.

Suck it and see when it arrives on the 26th I suppose.

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Well knock me down with a wet lettuce ?

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On a Large ISDX system you got 2 computer shelves with a PSU each and then 1 per telephony shelf. Some systems had 16 of them.

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I used to maintain Large PABX telephone systems that could sometimes run for years at a time. If we had to take one down for any reason we did it on a weekend because you could be almost certain that at least one of the PSU’s wouldn’t survive.

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I still take pic’s Les. I have an enthusiast mobo from Gigabyte and it has a setting for everything you can set ! I can store 3 CMOS profiles and I forget what I put in them too. I think one makes the tea ?

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I  noticed on my statement two weeks ago that I was paying Talk Talk £36 a month for broadband+TV which I never watch. I phoned them up last week to see to see if I could get a better deal and spoke to some snooty bint who said the best she could do was to cancel the TV for £29 so I did that.

Yesterday I saw Talk Talk advertising Fiber for new customers for less than I was paying for broadband so I phoned them up In a fit intending to leave.

It didn’t happen like that though because as soon as I questioned whether I was was still under contract I got put through to the customer retention unit.

The upshot is I will soon have Faster Fiber plus TV plus a £50 voucher plus their new router for £22.50 a month.

So on to my real question. Is their new router any good because the one they gave me last time is rubbish.

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Some people found that just entering the CMOS setup and then saving without changing anything fixed their problems but it would be a safer bet to take a note of your settings (got a digital camera ? Take pictures of them) and then pulling out the battery for at least 2min. After all its free !

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A quick trawl of the Web for “Error read and write outside HD0” came up with a ton people with strange boot problems. Sometimes the system would not see the HDD at all ask for a boot CD and other times they got odd GRUB errors. Sound familier ?

The number one answer was corrupt CMOS settings and the number one cure was to pull out the battery or just replace it.

Apparently GRUB2 does actually read those settings so its worth a go.

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