Around Cambridge, White Creek, and Jackson by Ken Gottry

I did it. I published a book!

The Cambridge Valley has always been united and divided, each community holding tightly to its identity. In 1773, the Cambridge District was formed, comprised of the current towns of Cambridge, White Creek, and Jackson. In 1788, the area became the Town of Cambridge in Albany County and was annexed to Washington County in 1791. The area was divided into the present town boundaries in 1816. The three communities of Cambridge, North White Creek, and Dorr.s Corners, though each only three-quarters of a mile from the next, did not unite into the Village of Cambridge until 1866. Today the village spans the boundaries of the three townships but still divides itself into the East End and the West End.

Ken Gottry.s ancestors, the Van Ness, Woodworth, and Hitchcock families, have been associated with the Cambridge area since its founding. His father was historian for the village, town, and church, leaving a large collection to the village archives and public library. Much of the content in Around Cambridge, White Creek, and Jackson comes from material his father amassed in the mid-1900s.

The Images of America series presented by Arcadia Published celebrates the history of neighborhoods, towns, and cities across the country. Using archival photographs, each title presents the distinctive stories from the past that shape the character of the community today. Arcadia is proud to play a part in the preservation of local heritage, making history available to all.

If you're in the area, stop by Battenkill Books. It's also available at smaller outlets (grin) online such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. If you're interested in a peek, some of the book and photos are available via Google Books.

Cambridge Celebrates its 250th Anniversary

• Podcasts I'm creating podcasts of Cambridge Then and Now. Each podcast shows a section of the village, as it looks today and as it has looked over our 250 year history. I also toss in a few podcasts of major events of 2011 such as our Memorial Day parade and our 11th annual Cambridge Valley Balloon Festival.
• Here is a chronology of Cambridge's past from 1761 to 1974
• Census reports for Cambridge
• 1790 Census This is the first census taken in the US. Cambridge was part of Albany County
• 1810 Census By now Cambridge was part of Washington County. The Old Cambridge District had not yet been divided into the present towns of Cambridge, White Creek, and Jackson.
• Cambridge Historical Society
• Cambridge, NY - photos from 21st century
• Cambridge, NY - photos from 19th and early 20th century
• Cambridge Memorial Park
• Mary McClellan Hospital - Photos and Presentation
• Mary McClellan Hospital School of Nursing 1922 Catalogue. The school of nursing opened in 1922. The nurses' residence was a gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert McClellan, brother and sister-in-law to Edwin McClellan, founder of the Hospital. This is the very first catalogue, describing the school's affiliation with Skidmore College, photos and floor plans of the Florence Nightengale building, curriculum, and entrance requirements.
• 2010 Memorial Day Parade
• History articles posted on CCS Alumni website
• O.L. (Okie) Butcher from Shushan, NY published many books on trapping and hunting, including this one in 1963 on Professional Fox Trapping. I have seven Blake & Lamb traps (with the Cambridge, NY logo) Blake & Lamb was owned by Sam Hart. Sam lived on Hart Lane, off Hickory Hill Road, that goes between RT 313 and Camden Valley Road, goes past the Ondawa Farm. Across from Yushak's in Shushan is a north/south street that goes by the firehouse. Hart sold his traps in a store on that street. O.L."Okie" Butcher sold B&L traps out of his house/store up in Camden Valley. You can find Okie all over the Internet including this O.L.Butcher T-shirt and this O.L.Butcher print
• 14-Jun-2010 presentation of the History of the Masons and Cambridge
• 10-Mar-2010 photos as I walked down Main Street to go to the bank
• The Cambridge Public Library invited me to present a four-part lecture series
  • 22-Oct-2010 The Village
  • 29-Oct-2010 The Schools
  • 29-Jan-2011 The Churches
  • 05-Feb-2011 The Fire Departments
• 1976 application and photos of the Cambridge Historical District

• CCS Alumni official web site ( http://www.CCSIndians.com )
• Each Fall the CCS 4th grade teachers invite me to give a history talk to their 4th graders.
  The next day I take the class on a walking history tour of the village. I love doing it!
• Around 1AM on Monday 18-Aug-1947 the Old School burned. Kirk Spurr, class of 1948, took these photos of the fire
• Virtual Tour of CCS, Feb-2009
• CCS Alumni Weekend Brochure - July 18-20, 2008
• Class of 1948
• Class of 1958
• Class of 1968
• Class of 1983
• What's new in Cambridge - remembering Cambridge circa 1968
• Cambridge High School (CHS) Class of 1905 - the brightest class ever? The entire class had an average over 90 percent for their four years in high school.

• WebSphere (being restored a little at a time)
• Monitoring App performance using WebSphere v6 Request Metrics (HTML or PDF)
  • WebSphere v6 introduced Request Metrics (PMRM), which unlike Performance Monitoring Infrastructure (PMI) metrics, are transaction based. PMRM can be a useful first step in performance analysis of your application. This article and scripts show how to use the PMRM records to measure the elapsed time for each request, including JDBC EJB calls.

• WebLogic
• Testing WebLogic infra (KenTest.Jsp) (PDF or JSP)
  • This JSP selects an entry from a WebLogic JDBC Pool or Multi-Pool, issues a SQL query, and returns the results to the browser. This JSP can be used to verify the configuration of all components in a infrastructure, including web server with WebLogic reverse proxy plugin, firewalls, load balancers. In addition, the JSP can be used to test various settings of WebLogic JDBC pools, such as thick vs. thin drivers, TestConnectionOnReserve delays, and OS-level authentication for database connectivity.

• WebLogic JDBC Timings (PDF)
  • When developing a WebLogic application, you create one or more JDBC Connection Pools to communicate with the database. There are several parameters that can be used to define the JDBC pools. Some parameter settings have a significant impact on the performance of the technical infrastructure. This article describes the impact on response time and throughput of the TestConnectionsOnReserve parameter.

• Solaris
• Successful Solaris Performance Tuning (HTML or PDF)
  • In this article, originally published in SysAdmin magazine in Nov-2001, I present three real-world performance problems and share some of my Solaris secrets of tuning success.

• Korn Shell Programming Techniques (HTML or PDF)
  • In this article I present my programming tips and techniques. In just a few minutes, you can learn the basics of Korn shell programming, using techniques that are guaranteed to work. This was originally published in Apr-2001 on the Sun Developer Connection website

• Shared Memory and IPCS (PDF)
  • Like other UNIX systems, Solaris implements Inter-Process Communications System (IPCS). IPCS includes shared memory, semaphores and message queues. This presentation explains what shared memory is, how it works, why you need it sometimes. It also describes how you can watch programs like Oracle and MQSeries use shared memory.

• ndd Script (Script and Sample Ouput)
  • ndd is a Solaris utility that displays and sets parameters that control the behavior of the TCP network drivers. This script dynamically acquires a list of the parameters and then displays the current setting for each.

• adb Script (Script and Sample Ouput)
  • adb is a Solaris general purpose debugger. One way to use it is to display or change the settings of Solaris tunable kernel parameters. You must have root privileges to run this script. Use with caution. Read the man pages carefully.

• Java
• Generational Garbage Collection - HotSpot JVM 1.3.1 (PDF)
  • This article, originally published in JavaWorld in Jan 2002, explains the basics of generational garbage collection. It explains how to modify the default JVM parameters to improve the throughput of large, server-side applications by 20 percent or more.

• Oracle
• Data Dependent Routing (HTML or PDF)
  • Oracle supports database clusters. In Oracle 8i they were called Oracle Parallel Server (OPS). In Oracle 9i and 10g they are called Real Application Clusters (RAC). When designing your application to use database clusters you tried to minimize database pinging by routing SQL calls for one portion of the database primarily to one DB node and SQL calls for the other portion of the database primarily to the other DB node. This application logic is called data dependent routing (DDR).

• AIX (to be restored soon)
• Infrastructure Architecture
• Using Reverse Proxies Within a Web Server (HTML)
  • A few years ago the term reverse proxy came into vogue. I resisted the urge to use the term until I fully understood it. In this article, which was originally published on Sun's Dot-Com Builder website, I explain what a reverse proxy is in general and in the context of a web server. I share some gotchas that I've encountered when adding multiple reverse proxies to an SunONE (formerly iPlanet) obj.conf file.

• Introduction to Sockets (PDF)
  • In this PowerPoint show, I explain what sockets are and how they are used.

• Socket Performance (PDF)
  • In this PowerPoint presentation, I explain how to use netstat to measure and monitor the performance of sockets. Then I explain how to use the ndd utility to set some Solaris socket tuning parameters.

• Hacking - The Edge Pieces (PDF)
  • When you start a jigsaw puzzle, you pick out the edge pieces to help you frame the big picture. This presentation is intended to give you the edge pieces of your first hacking jigsaw puzzle. Since this brief presentation attempts to discuss hacking form A-Z, it obviously can't go into too much technical detail in any one area.

• Home Networking Made Easy (PDF)
  • This article is a bit dated (2002) but it explains what cable/DSL modems are and how you can use one to build a home network in one evening for under $100. It provides a how-to about the do's and dont's of building your home network, answering the basic questions like why would I want to do this.

• F5 BigIP and 3DNS - MQ Qmgr Failover (HTML or PDF)
  • This article explains how the F5 BigIP and 3DNS products dynamically route socket connections from a remote MQ queue manager to a central MQ queue manager during (a) the normal configuration; (b) when the QMgr fails over to another host at the central site; and (c) when the QMgr fails over to the DR site.

• Performance metrics
• Using perfdump to measure SunONE Web Server Performance (HTML or PDF)
  • The SunONE Web Server includes perfdump,a seldom-used built-in performance capture and display utility. I use it to look beneath the covers to see how my web servers are consuming valuable system resources. This is Part One of Two of an article I originally published on Sun Developer Network.It shows how to activate perfdump and how to interpret its output.

• Using perfdump custom Performance Buckets (HTML or PDF)
  • Besides its basic functionality, the SunONE Web Server perfdump utility allows you to define custom performance buckets. This is Part Two of Two of an article I originally wrote for Sun Developer Network. I show how to use custom performance buckets to see how my WebLogic applications are performing.

• perfdump scripts (HTML or PDF)
  • Perfdump is a function built into SunONE web server to capture and display performance statistics (see articles above). While the online display is nice, sometimes you want to capture these statistics to a log file for later monitoring. The scripts described in this article should help.

• Charting Utility using jFreeChart (PDF (details) or PDF (overview))
  • I perform lots of performance Enginnering (PE) tests. I created this charting utility using jFreeChart library to convert XML data into PNG charts. Then I created numerous scripts to convert common PE TXT files (e.g. IIS web logs, Perfmon counters, WebSphere logs, mySQL extracts) into XML files. At the end of a PE test I run a script to convert the data into XML, then run the charting utility to convert the XML files into PNG charts. The scripts also create HTML to display and link the charts as well as build HTML Tables of avg, min, max values. The details PDF shows sample output from 10 different types of input

• Using the Excel FREQUENCY function to measure Performance (XLS or PDF)
  • Sometimes when doing analysis of performance enginnering (PE) data, statistical functions such as AVERAGE and MODE can hide significant facts. The seldom-used FREQUENCY function in Excel is a great way to group values into buckets to spot outliers that are skewing the average. This article gives you step-by-step instructions of how to use the FREQUENCY function to analyze some real-life PE data.