Re: yet another time error... ...ooops, mustn't call it an error, mustwe

[droege@snapmail.us]

Michael,

I do what I can.  I now have a nice wrist watch that is automatically set
from NBS.  It keeps time as good as can be detected.  Before each night's
run I set the computer clocks from the watch. Normally to +/- 2 seconds.

Not ideal, but I am pretty careful.  I know you could set up what is
required, but I can't.  Lots of computers on my system have their time 
set automatically, but not the Windows machines that are taking data.  For
example, mike, on which I am writing, is set by NTP.  If anyone wants to
write a program that sits on a Windows 98 machine and sets it's clock by
reading one of the linux machines, then go for it.  However, at the moment
I can read the Windows machines from the linux machines, but not the other
way around.  I also do not want the Windows machines connected to the
Internet, because then Bill sends updates in the middle of a run and hangs
the data collection program.  When Rob was here he set up the network
scheme and I have been following his set up ever since. The set up did not
include reading linux from Windows.

OK, the complainers can find another system for data.  Believe me it is a
lot of hard work to do what I do.  I try to put my effort into the most
important things.  People who complain about the time stamp just don't
understand the data.  I would put an improved time scheme at about 27 on
the list of things that would be good to do. All are welcome to step in
and improve things where they can.  Now that I am connected on line some
of you could step in and fix things like this.  You will no doubt need to
send me messages like "go to your windows machine and in the foo window
select goo and set permission x to y"

Hmmmm!  Here is a nice winter project for someone out there.  Once the
clouds roll in (soon though I ran last nigt) I could set up a telescope
with a linux computer.  Then somoeone out there could get it running under
linux.  A nice project for some of you that have always said they wanted
to help.  Since Rob is running under linux, it should be just a question
of moving his code to one of my machines.  Then we will be done with
Windoz.

I would put such a project far ahead of my manual time set in priority. 
This would then also solve the (non) time set problem.

Tom Droege


> Are you setting the time automatically now? I am uneasy with a wrist
> watch situation. I know we have discussed a myriad of solutions for
> networking and time synchronization in the past. Just curious what the
> status is. My PC clock is synchronized before each night's run so my
> data is probably time stamped correctly to within a second or less.
>
> Cheers,
> Michael Koppelman
> http://www.lolife.com/astronomy/
>
>
>