Welcome to the web site of Memorial Church, located in Dayton, Ohio. We invite you to visit us this Sunday.

Are you looking for a church home? Have you been away from church for awhile? Or perhaps you've never attended regularly. Well ... you are welcome at Memorial!

Memorial is a friendly Christian church in East Dayton where your "personal space" is respected. If you've ever felt like you've been "smothered" at other churches, give us a try!

Memorial is Dayton's "country church" in a city setting. The sermon messages are traditionally based on the Word of God but are always fresh and interesting. We welcome you, the entire person - problems and all. We have excellent musical guests, puppet plays for the kids, support for all life situations, and much more. If you're worried about "fitting in" - don't be! Memorial is worth a visit, even if (and especially if) you don't think you like church! No demands are ever made of visitors.

Memorial may be for You. We don't mind if you are not saved yet. We don't care what you've done in the past. Regardless of your station in life or your past or present circumstances, you will find support, love, and fellowship here.

Come. Bring your friends. This simple invitation, printed in Memorial's Fifth Anniversary program of October, 1900 is as timely today as it was then.

Come... bring your friends, or bring yourself... you will be welcome, and appreciated!

By Don Wallace, Computer Support of Warren County

“It’s 11:00 – do you know where your data is?”

PC users are “preached to” by computer vendors to “back up your data regularly” in the same righteous vein as flossing regularly or changing your engine oil every 3000 miles.

The difference is this: “backing up your data” is something that you almost need to be an “IT expert” to accomplish usefully. Nobody gives the average PC user clear, obvious directions as to how to safeguard their data by making additional copies of it.

What I will do this month is to provide you with information about a really easy and practical way to back up important data. It will probably cost you a few dollars, but it will give you great peace of mind.

The point is this: the easier it is for you to back up, the more likely that you will do it. (Sounds like some diets!) And this is easy.

External, Portable Hard Drives – “Huh?”

An external hard drive is a hard drive which you plug into your computer as needed. When you plug the external hard drive in, it becomes accessible to Windows. You can then basically duplicate large portions of the data on your hard drive periodically so that you always have a backup. How large? Entire “Outlook PST” files of multi-gigabyte size, for instance.

The single great advantage of an external hard drive over other backup media such as CDs, DVDs or tapes, is that it’s seamless – there is no swapping of disks necessary when you use it. You can copy most of your PC’s data to it, and walk away until the operation has completed. Unplug the drive, and put it away until the next time you back up – or when you need to recover your precious data.

What does it cost?

I use a hard drive of the "Ximeta" brand. Ximeta’s drives can use either your network (Ethernet) or USB connector. The 80 gigabyte drive is currently available online for $99 and up, refurbished.

And What Software?

Maybe none. Because an external hard drive looks like a new drive letter to Windows, you can use the “Windows Explorer” to copy your data to the external hard drive. You can “drag and drop” files from your PC to the external hard drive using the mouse.

Or, if you prefer more handholding, there are free and commercial software programs that give structure to the process. (Google or use your preferred search engine to find these programs):

• SyncBack – a well regarded free backup program
• Second Copy – an extremely well liked commercial program
• Windows Backup – free, built into Windows – takes some patience and skill to work with.
• WinZip – bundles up your files into compressed “zip” files - requires some skill to use.

Conclusion

I have described a painless, easy way to maintain a second copy of your data that doesn’t require a stack of disks nor the patience of a saint to use in your everyday work.

Don Wallace is owner of Computer Support of Warren County. He is a veteran IT consultant and software developer with over 25 years in the business. Contact Don with any questions at 513-932-2236, contact@cedarcitysols.com, or www.cedarcitysols.com.

By Don Wallace, Computer Support of Warren County

Blogs, or “web logs”, have captured a lot of attention in the last couple of years. A blog is a web site that contains a public “daily diary” of the author’s personal view on subjects. Famous people and everyday people have their own blogs and, in some cases, large and devoted followings. It seems like “everyone” in the media, and every second or third private person you run into, has their own blog.

So, what is important about blogging for the small business person? Should you develop your own blog?

Blogs, first and foremost, are a highly personal form of outreach. “Marcom” (marketing communications) have traditionally been regimented and highly controlled in the business world because corporations are very sensitive to the public image that they develop. A blog is by nature a series of personal essays and runs counter to the usually careful practice of “marcom”. Many blogging packages allow the general public to attach their own commentary to blog articles, adding a further degree of uncontrollability to the picture (how many newspapers let you say that a columnist is “full of hooey” and make it stick?!)

If you are a business owner who is comfortable with writing and able to write on an ongoing basis, then you should strongly consider blogging as a flexible and low-cost format for publicity and image-building. Instead of calling it a “blog”, think of it as an online newsletter to your clients, prospects and the general public.

A blog can build tremendous respect among prospects and fellow business owners by allowing you to state your professional opinions candidly and in an “intimate” context. The sort of personalized material that you can post to a blog just doesn’t work as well in a formal brochure or business letter context. You can project your business’s philosophy and values effectively and convincingly. And you can write and post articles as they occur to you, not just when you have the time and budget to produce a new brochure. A blog has that “psst – did you consider THIS?” ambience that lets your readers feel that they are “in” on something interesting and unique.

I suggest that you start blogging in a low-key way. Write a set of articles – 4 or 5 – and set up a small blog of your own on your personal web site space (most internet providers give you an allotment of web site space for personal use). Ask friends and colleagues to read it and comment frankly. If your articles are well-received, consider registering a domain (dot com name) and publish your own blog to support and enhance your business.

Don Wallace is owner of Computer Support of Warren County. He is a veteran IT consultant and software developer with over 25 years in the business. Contact Don with any questions at 513-932-2236, contact@cedarcitysols.com, or www.cedarcitysols.com.

Spontaneous Assembly: a detailed product review

The death of assembly language has been heralded for decades. And, as always, the news has been premature. There has always been, and probably will always be, a real need for assembly language. Applications such as TSRs (terminate and stay resident programs), device drivers, and communications software all require the degree of control and speed that assembler provides. Also, an efficient assembler application can give an underpowered laptop or vintage PC the responsiveness of a ‘386.

This article provides some perspective on a new product that breathes fresh life into assembly language development for MS-DOS based computers. Spontaneous Assembly Version 2.0, by BaseTwo Development of Orem, Utah, provides important leverage for would-be assembler developers. This product is powerful and comprehensive enough, in fact, that it deserves careful consideration by confirmed “C heads” who had long ago written off assembler as the province of cave-dwellers.

What is Spontaneous Assembly?

Spontaneous Assembly is a comprehensive library of run-time support routines for MS-DOS assembly language development. The ‘Spontaneous’ in the product’s name refers to the fact that this product makes it possible to code assembler applications ‘spontaneously’, without research or hassle.

The problem with developing assembler applications has historically been one of bootstrapping, learning curve, and reinvention of the wheel. One has to perform considerable research in order to write even trivial assembler applications. In addition to mastering Intel 80x86 machine language, you must refer (constantly) to such weighty tomes as The Microsoft MS-DOS Programmer’s Reference if you want to do anything except access memory and registers. The MS-DOS programming environment is scattered into multiple sources of information, namely BIOS, DOS, and hardware specific details. Also, there is generally no “run time” support for assembly language. A typical assembler project will consist of re-inventing the wheel dozens of times until you accumulate a “critical mass” of often used support routines. The net result is that most part-time assembly language developers aren’t able to give their application code the attention that it deserves. This is because they must spend too much time trying to get “trivialities” such as file I/O or DOS memory allocation to work properly.

Spontaneous Assembly is a product that addresses all of these problems with a straightforward, powerful toolkit of functions.

Product Description

Spontaneous Assembly is a run-time library for assembler applications that provides the same functions for assembly language development that all commercial “C” compiler implementations provide. The product contains about 750 macros and functions.

Spontaneous Assembly is provided on four 5.25”, 360K disks. All files are packed into “LHArc” self extracting, executable archives. The source code for the libraries is provided, as are pre-built libraries in all supported memory models. Utility programs for source code extraction and building of the libraries, and sample programs, are also provided. The documentation is a paper-bound, 756 page user’s manual.

Overview of the Functions

If you already program in “C”, you probably know how many of the Spontaneous Assembly library functions work. The naming and the calling semantics of Spontaneous Assembly routines borrow heavily from generic C library style. The borrowing from “C” includes the support of a several kinds of memory heap, most of the standard “C” namesake functions such as “STRCMP” and “MALLOC”, and support for the standard memory models from tiny through large. There is much that you would expect in such a package, such as DOS console and file 10 functions. There is also much that you would not expect: structured arrays, strings, and full, automatic support of layered windows and video text modes.

Spontaneous Assembly is divided into 19 functional areas called “units”. Each unit provides support of a particular type of functionality, such as windowing or array management. The following descriptions each cover roughly one unit, and are a condensation of the “Library Overview" beginning on page 10 of the Spontaneous Assembly manual.

Full layered, text mode windowing is supported. The windowing functions allow you set up arbitrarily overlapping windows that may be updated even if they are covered by other windows. Definable shadows, borders, and a few dozen window options that govern the backdrop, the borders, etc. are supported. The hardware cursor can be automatically managed on a window by window basis.

Both console and screen I/O are supported. The “screen I/O” functions will be directed automatically to the “current” selected window in the windowing system, or will be directed to the screen if windowing is not in effect.

There are both near heap and far heap functions. The near heap manages available space in the default data segment, and the far heap lives in available DOS memory beyond the end of the program. There is also a capability for “relative” heaps. These are caller defined memory regions that the program wishes to declare as sources of allocable memory. Heaps can be re-initialized or destroyed at any time.

Array type data structures are supported. Functions are provided for array insertion, sorting, appending, stepping through the array, and random accesses.

Program spawning, command line parsing, and manipulation of the environment variables is provided. Critical error handling, DOS file I/O, DOS console I/O, and file and directory functions are included. The directory functions include the ability to merge and un-merge path, drive, and/or file specifications into full file names.

String to numeric and numeric to string conversions (integer) is provided for bytes through quad words. An integer math library that allows all four math operations on double and quad word arguments is included. There is a random number generator.

Date and time conversion functions are present. There is a facility for a “millisecond” event timer.

String and memory block operations allow copying, comparisons, searches, and token manipulation.

DOS file operations and miscellaneous functions are included, such as memory control blocks, sound generator, etc.

Memory Models

Spontaneous Assembly supports all standard memory models except “huge”. These memory models are named tiny, small, medium, compact, and large. The Spontaneous Assembly models support the same segment conventions as Microsoft and Borland languages (EG: compact implies “large” data pointers and “small” code.) Spontaneous Assembly also provides macros that replace the simplified segment directives of the Borland and the Microsoft assemblers. The segment directive replacement macros are more flexible and efficient of segment and memory usage than the simplified directives.

Calling Conventions

All of the functionality within Spontaneous Assembly is implemented either as assembler functions (subroutines) or as macros. Spontaneous Assembly is not, as the documentation notes, a pre-processor. Neither does it provide a “shell” that isolates you from assembler. You must still write all of your application in native assembler, but your code is supplemented by Spontaneous Assembly macros and routines. You are still free, of course, to write your own special-purpose routines if you feel that Spontaneous Assembly does not provide the functionality that you require.

All parameters are passed and returned in CPU registers. The stack is only used for local variables and for subroutines. The macros and functions make use of what the documentation calls a “minimum register profile”. This means that the macros and the functions make predictable use of the 80x86 register set. Registers that are not used for input or output are preserved, and input values are preserved.

The predictability and consistency of register usage avoids the “register pushing paranoia” to which most coders tend to succumb when they call assembler routines that they did not write within the last 5 minutes. (If you aren’t certain what registers are used by a subroutine, you will tend to push everything in sight.) A second aspect of Spontaneous Assembly’s register usage convention is that the functions within a unit tend to use the same register for a similar purpose across related functions. A “window handle” is always passed or returned in BX, for example. This often makes it possible to string together successive calls to Spontaneous Assembly functions without shuffling the contents of registers.

Spontaneous Assembly is also extremely consistent in the naming of the functions and macros. The Spontaneous Assembly function names fall into consistent, easily learned patterns.

The net effect of the consistency of style is that coding a large application with Spontaneous Assembly should involve considerably less “grunt work” than one would have ever expected with assembly language.

Using Spontaneous Assembly

I did not have the opportunity to exercise more than a tiny subset of the Spontaneous Assembly functions. I first built the sample program WIN.ASM which is provided as one of the example programs, using Borland TASM and TLINK. The resulting WIN.EXE displays a small pop-up window with a shadowed border, and then allows you to move the window around on the screen with the arrow keys. WIN.EXE assembled and linked with no problems, and worked as promised.

I then modified WIN.ASM to display two, much larger windows that overlapped each other. I did this in order to test three things: the ease of reworking Spontaneous Assembly application code, the speed of the windowing functions when updating a large window, and the ability to support overlapped moves. The modifications took about 15 minutes of total time. I was able to scoot the lower window around at will with no ill effect on the upper window. The windows snapped right up with impressive speed. Drawing lag was negligible even at a “Norton SI” computing speed index of 1.1. Even though I made a couple of errors and came up with a screen filled with colorful garbage characters a few times, the computer did not lock up; at least the Spontaneous Assembly windowing unit routines are “forgiving”. My modified WIN.ASM linked to an executable program of 8963 bytes.

What is Not Provided

The kinds of functions that Spontaneous Assembler does not provide is rather small, but should be noted. There are no explicit TSR control functions (except the interrupt vector manipulation functions.) There is no support for extended or expanded memory, nor is any mouse support provided. There are no B-Tree functions nor any other database type functions.

Documentation

The manual for Spontaneous Assembly is probably the best indicator of the product’s comprehensive nature. The single manual (which is essential, as there is no on-line help or “Norton Guide” file included) is hefty and is filled with useful details.

The manual is divided into six sections, as follows. Introduction; Programming with Spontaneous Assembly; Integration with C; Technical Notes, which provides an overview of the functions; the reference section, which provides the detailed function by function descriptions; the appendix; and an index.

The documentation explains the programming interface to every function and macro. Each routine and macro is clearly documented for register usage, effects upon external variables, the effect on the interrupt flag, any provisos or special conditions, and any error exceptions. The manual stops short of walking through the source code algorithms, however.

A surprising feat that Spontaneous Assembly pulled off with the version that I obtained was that all documentation is incorporated into the printed manual, as God intended. There is no clutter of last-minute README.TXT files that have to be cross-checked with the manual. Much of the value of this product is that the tedium of looking-up-stuff is eliminated and all documentation is in a single place. The lack of README files is welcomed.

Deficiencies

The greatest shortcoming to Spontaneous Assembly is its list price. I purchased the product under a mail order incentive, and I would personally balk at paying upwards of $300 (Spontaneous Assembly lists at $395.) Value is all in the eye of the perceiver, however. Most professional “C” compiler packages are in this ballpark, and Spontaneous Assembly allows you to compete, productivity-wise, with “C” coders.

A second quibble is the printed documentation that you get for the price. The single manual is rather bulky. A secondary reference card or a smaller, spiral bound reference booklet would make the product much more useable. At the price level of this product, Basetwo Development should definitely emulate Microsoft and Borland and other language—makers, and provide a similar documentation package in several parts.

A third issue is that of media. The unarchiving process for the files is well explained by inserts stuffed into the manual. However, Basetwo Development skimped on the media by requiring a second, lengthy extraction process in order to split the resulting .SRC files (one for each functional unit) into a plethora of individual .ASM files. Again, at the price level of this product, this is not reasonable.

A final, minor shortcoming is that, as mentioned earlier, there are no walk-through explanations of the library source code. However, the source code contains headers and comments. The omission of theory of operation is significant in the case of the windowing and the screen 10 unit, which involve rather complex operations. The lack of explanation is proportionately less of a problem with the simpler units. If you opt to use only the pre­packaged libraries, you will be none the wiser.

Who Should Buy Spontaneous Assembly?

Spontaneous Assembly is probably of greatest interest to software companies and consultants who would like to develop assembly language applications but who have been put off by the labor intensive nature of doing so. The classes of applications that benefit from assembly language are large and varied: games, TSR5, utilities, communications and hardware control, and applications that are tar~geted for low-end PC5. Spontaneous Assembly allows you to develop large assembler applications without becoming a self contained MS-DOS research department and also without re­inventing functions and features that you have come to take for granted in Pascal or “C”.

A second reason to look at Spontaneous Assembly is that it teaches excellent assembler coding practices. Spontaneous Assembly was obviously written to be aesthetically pleasing and sensible (as well as blindingly fast). Spontaneous Assembly would be an ideal way to learn 80x86 assembler coding techniques, and it might be useful to educators for this purpose.

Conclusion

Spontaneous Assembly is exactly what it is advertised to be, and it did not disappoint in the slightest. It is a thoughtfully crafted, well documented, thoroughly professional toolkit with great value for the money. Spontaneous Assembly currently has no competition, so it is your only choice if you do need such a product.

This product might even make you switch from “C” to assembler! That appears to be the hope of its developers, who claim that coding with Spontaneous Assembly is nearly as easy as coding in

Now, I think I’m finally gonna write that whiz-bang TSR utility...

An Introduction

The terms "contracting" and "consulting" have an aura of glamour about them that many employees in our industry relish. After spending a day in meetings kowtowing to their immediate management, or being asked (told!) to work through the weekend for yet another fire drill, who wouldn't want to call the shots in their own career? Every "Office Space" movie cliché comes to mind.

In this article we'll clearly define the differences between contracting and consulting in the IT industry and how these roles are commonly misinterpreted. We'll also explore the most important tradeoffs to consider if you choose to work on your own.

What do the Terms Really Mean?

Contractor

A contractor is a vendor and an independent operator: expendable on a moment's notice. The term "contractor" radiates a definite blue-collar image due to close association with the building trades. In any industry it's simply a label for a certain type of working relationship. (Note: if you don't like the term "contractor", just substitute the equivalent phrase "freelancer" throughout this piece. They mean essentially the same thing.)

A definition: A contractor is anyone who performs services for a client, in exchange for fees, but who is not an employee of the client. A contractor is also someone who solely determines the way in which his work is delivered to the client.

The above paragraph (simplified greatly) spells out the basic criteria by which the U.S. Internal Revenue Service allows a worker to be treated as a contractor instead of as an employee. A contractor is generally regarded as a vendor: expendable on a moment's notice.

The expendable nature of contractors is in contrast to the usual employment relationship. An employee's work is considered to be supervised by the employer, and the employee works for the employer on an ongoing basis.

Now, enter an ambiguity: One may well be both an employee and a contractor. This is commonly the case in instances when an employee is employed directly by a contract agency, who in turn hires her out to a customer of the agency. To the customer, she is a contractor, but she is also an employee of the agency.

Consultant

The term "consultant" is far more nebulous than "contractor" and has no rigid legal status in most instances.

A consultant is generally considered to be a subject matter expert who delivers advice and expert implementation guidance to his clients. A "real" consultant in the classical sense does not perform much or any actual implementation, unless it is to create an example or reference implementation for the benefit of his clients.

Many, but not all, consultants are self-employed and, therefore, also operate as contractors. Some employees have a title of "Consultant" and are regarded as such within their employers' organizations. Yet other consultants are employed by contract agencies or consulting companies.

The point is: The term "consultant" defines a functional role, not a legal nor financial working relationship.

So What is in a Name or Title?

The term "consultant" has suffered some devaluation over the years, particularly in the IT industry.

The most common error is to treat consulting and contracting as one and the same. They are not. A consultant may be an employee for "the man" and may have little autonomy or control in her work life, while a contractor often has considerably more freedom. (PS: There is nothing the matter with engaging in verbal shorthand with someone by calling all freelancing relationships "consulting", but make sure you both know what is really being discussed--especially at the negotiating table.)

A second point of confusion is caused by viewing contracting as beneath consulting in the pecking order, as more blue-collar. Contracting itself is simply a legal and financial arrangement. A savvy contractor may well out-earn a less streetwise consultant.

A third point of confusion lies in the functional role of a consultant. Unlike in management consulting, few in the IT industry are paid to stroke their beards sagely and render advice. The term "consultant" in the IT industry is used more casually than it is in management circles. It is taken to mean an expert implementer, designer, architect and/or mentor.

Finding Work as a Contractor or Consultant
If you are reading this article, you are probably interested in contracting as a career option. Secondarily, you may be attracted to the allure of being respected as an "independent consultant" (or contractor). (I will not cover working as an "internal consultant" for one's employer.)

In the past few years, both roles have become extremely difficult career options, but perhaps no more so than pursuing an appropriate full-time position in technology.

There are two distinct contracting roles that are commonly accepted by both the business community and the human relations agency industry: IT contractor and independent consultant. A description of each of these two roles follows.

Working as an IT Contractor

• Contractors are utilized by the IT industry as substitute employees.
• Contractors are, more or less, regarded as a commodity by clients, only differentiated by buzzword skills.
• You will usually work through a contract agency. You will generally work as their employee, or sometimes as their contractor. The most effective agencies find ways to recruit suitable contractors within the client businesses' hourly rate requirements.
• If you don't work through a contract agency, you will find and negotiate your own projects directly with client businesses.
• You will generally work for hourly fees, negotiated in advance.
• You will usually work on the client's site, under the same general expectations as their employees.
• As a contractor, your physical office and office furnishings may be lacking, and access to resources such as a desk phone or the corporate network may be limited.
• Most businesses bend the usual definition of "contractor" by actively supervising their IT contractors and holding them to the same standards (both technical and attendance) that they hold employees.
• Marketing for an IT contractor is almost identical to looking for a full-time position. You must have a resume, you must keep it updated, and you must display similar attributes that employers seek in employees.
• Your marketing will consist of meeting the perceived needs of clients for specific technical skills. Buzzwords (and not talent) will matter most. If you don’t know C#, and C# is the language that the client wants, then you will be at a disadvantage.
• Launching yourself as an IT contractor is a matter of finding a contract, usually through an agency. It's more or less like looking for a job. Landed a contract? Congratulations, you're a contractor!
• The market for IT contractors is very strongly tied to the IT job market. If companies are having no problem finding permanent employees to do (say) programming, then the market for contractors will be weak. The reverse is also true, as it was in the late 1990s.

Working as an Independent Consultant

• Consultants are generally utilized in the IT industry as subject matter experts and as implementation experts.
• Consultants who have done their marketing correctly tend to be regarded as having important and unique value--not as commodities.
• You will usually find your own projects. If you deal with a contract agency, it will only be for the duration of particular projects.
• You may work for hourly fees or you may work toward a defined project goal that results in lump sum payments.
• You will probably work off-site, at your own office.
• You may be treated provisionally as a member of the client's senior management hierarchy. You may even be privy to high-level gossip. WARNING: You are a visitor, and your special role is a privilege, very easily lost.
• You will probably manage the project yourself. Your client will likely know very little about the particulars of what you’ve accomplished for them. They will generally only see an end result.
• Most important: Independent consultants market themselves actively, as experts, and they work with prospects who have advanced needs, or who have no internal management structure to deal with IT projects. Marketing for an independent consultant is similar to building a practice in any professional field: your reputation must precede you. You probably won’t use a resume as a consultant, but you should have some published articles, a brochure, and/or customer testimonials, at a bare minimum.
• Your marketing will generally target either specific business needs of clients or a particular type of specialized technical challenge. Buzzwords may or may not matter but an impression of impeccable credibility will matter.
• Launching yourself as an independent consultant consists of building a reputation, a clientele, and a set of specialties. In some cases, it can take months, or even years, to realize the income that you had as a full-time employee.
• The market for independent consultants may be closely tied to the general economy and the IT industry economy, or it may be entirely decoupled from either. It just depends upon what your specialty is and who your clientele is.

Conclusion

This article is a sweeping overview of a significant segment of the IT industry: temporary professional services. This career choice is not for everyone. The risks can be higher than full-time employment but the financial upside can make the risks attractive. But if you want more control over your career, consulting or contracting may be an option for you.

About the Author

Don has worked as a consultant and contractor in IT since 1993. Don has been working in the engineering and software fields since 1980. He has over 25 years of commercial software development experience. Don has a Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering from the University of Dayton. He has been instrumental in the release of several hardware products and commercial software applications in the DOD and commercial sectors.