Gentle readers,
 
This evening as I was performing more in-depth tests with IMAGE/SQL, ODBC and
Microsoft Access, I came up with a little trick that I thought I might share
with you.
 
When you access over the network a large table, you get pauses.  Sometimes
the pauses stretch out.  When this occurs, there is no disk activity on my
PC, everything is done on the network and in memory.  I had earlier installed
a small mirror behind my PC so that I may see the lights on the LAN card to
monitor the activity.  This reflection can only be seen from a specific angle
and you have to look for it.
 
I opened up my PC and looked at all the cards on board.  There are quite a
few, EIDE card, Modem, SoundBlaster, Video, Katron LAN card, etc.  My PC is
contained in a mid-tower and whilst it has hard disk, 2 floppies (3.5 & 5.25)
and a CD-ROM, it still has two cover blanks.
 
On the Katron LAN card, there is an outlet for an LED.  I bought a round
yellow LED with a long cord and dual plug for $2.00.  I took out one of the
blank covers and drilled a small hole with my Dremel motor tool.  I opend the
hole slowly with an x-acto knife until I could push in the LED.  I glued the
LED with Micro Kristal Klear (sort of a white glue used by modelers), put the
blank cover back on the front panel, connected the wire to the Katron LAN
card LED output and voila, now when the PC is talking or receiving on the
LAN, this big yellow light flashes. When I backup my PC to my 3000, the light
is almost continuously solid.  I can see this light from anywhere in the
room, and it looks like it was supposed to be there in the first place.
 
I should have done this a long time ago, especially in my early test days of
ODBC and ALLBASE/IMAGE/SQL.
 
Kind regards,
 
Denys. . .
 
P.S. I do not know if other LAN cards have the LED output, it was just
serendipity that mine had one.  I certainly did not buy it with that issue in
mind, but from now on...