Chris Crockett – Gaming and Computer Geek

Not Windows 7, as much as I now think I should have downloaded the beta, but Windows Live Writer.  It’s very strange to me to realize that I actually like Live Writer more than using the dashboard interface of my personal weblog.  You might notice that my posting frequency has increased in the last week or so.  This has to do with my decision not to remove Live Writer from my Netbook Rebuild.  Thanks to the folks over at Lifehacker I decided to give the app a chance and I’m amazingly happy with it.

I simply started the app, gave it the URL of my blog, supplied my credentials for login and Live Writer interrogated my site, figured out exactly how to interface with it and gives me an interface I like more for posting.  I think the biggest reason I like it is that I can use Live Writer while offline (in those rare instances that I have my Netbook with me but no internet connection) to compose entries, then publish them when back online.  I also don’t worry as much about losing data should the browser window crash or the server suddenly become unavailable.  Lots of people "live in the browser" these days and Firefox goes a long way toward keeping my work safe but it’s not 100%.

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I’m an IT guy, growing up to be a System Administrator for a fairly large company.  I have a blog and I have several technologically inclined friends, one of whom is also a System Administrator for a, different, fairly large company.  Despite all of these facts, this blog will not be filled with posts detailing things that happen where I work.  There is a reason, and if you know me personally, you know what that reason is.  If you don’t know me personally, just know that there won’t be much shop talk on this site.  On the other hand, I’m getting tons of experience administering Windows Server 2003 in a unique environment.  I imagine I might have a few insights to share from that perspective.

I shall admit that I believe that any computer running Windows, any version, needs a serious cleanup once in a while.  Sometimes they last two or three years, sometimes only six months.  In any case, my newest laptop, an EEEPC has just been rebuilt completely.  I had the presence of mind to take an image of the final installation, or at least mostly final.  All of my critical apps, the things that feel like appendages, are installed, all useless and suspect apps removed.  Most significantly this time, no Adobe products.  Not even Reader.  Frankly, like Microsoft, they’ve gotten big enough and popular enough to become a target for exploitation.  Microsoft has done a fine job of locking down the OS itself so now viruses target third party applications.  Things that feel a lot like OS level addons but aren’t.  Adobe Reader is just such a target these days but Adobe hasn’t shown the same level of commitment to fixing errors as Microsoft.  I know, you read that sentence and scoff.  It’s really just my own opinion, but it’s an opinion based on the fact that a major vulnerability exists in their flagship product, exploitable on any Widnows machine that gets e-mail or reads the web with Acrobat Reader installed, but they don’t feel it’s important enough to fix as soon as possible… they’ll get to it in a couple of weeks.

I might install Flash Player eventually, so many sites like to use it, but for Acrobat Reader, plenty of other readers exist.  I can recommend Foxit Reader.

It’s that time of year again, spring cleaning.  At least, spring cleaning for my laptop.  With the idea in my head that my laptop, actually my netbook, is not running like it used to I have taken an image of the previous installation, tossed in the System Restore disk and reset everything to factory fresh.  This means I have to strip out all of the stuff I don’t use, go through a few rounds of updates (in progress), install my critical apps again and then, using my brain this time, take another image of the hard drive so that I can go back to a good state again any time in the future without so much work.

?????? ?????I now know exactly what it feels like both to need, and to get, a root-canal.  Let me tell you, it’s awesome.  A week of fuzzy headed lightness followed by three days of utter, jaw-shattering, agony followed by a man you’ve never met before diving into your face with a full assortment of dental tools along with what appear to be a fistfull of misshapen thumb-tacks.  Actually, I thank my endontist for being a perfectionist, and for eight shots of novocaine (the last four delivered directly to the nerves in question via the convenient new hole drilled in my tooth) and for making the process as quick and painless as possible.  He also did his best to hide the terrifying details from me, which is not hard to do when he has me laid on my back, feet above head, staring into the ceiling and the small, nova-burst like, light aimed into my face.  Nevertheless, I did manage to catch the occasional reflection in his glasses of the yawning void that had been created in my tooth.  A hole that seemed unlikely to fit within the physical constraints of my mouth, much less a single tooth.

This is why such details are hidden from the patient.  The natural tendency to amplify any such information to unbelievable heights of gibbering fear is bad enough without forcing the patient to experience the complete, horrifying, details.  I didn’t really need to know what length the fillings were being cut to, I just knew that if that drill didn’t stop going in soon, it was going to come out the other side… and then where would we be.

>коли под наемy, my world is now bereft of my little weasel buddies.  About two months ago Puck sufferred a brief insulinoma siezure, followed a month later by one much worse.  Bad enough to require the ultimate decision.  Sadly, his big brother Oberon has recently (yesterday) succumbed to the same issues.  It was a sad day but I can celebrate the fact that they had a long and happy life for ferrets, eight years or so, and that they brought a lot of fun into my life.

But now, my apartment is empty of the pitter-patter of ferret feet.

In the coming time of elections we may think that there is too little difference between the candidates.  Worse, our favorite candidate might not even be a viable choice.  I’m not writing this to express my feelings on which candidate is right, or which one I support.  I’ll say that I am a conservative but not a religious zealot conservative.  To say that my choices seem to be a rock and a hard place would not be far from correct.  Even worse, it seems like none of the available candidates supports anything like what I see as the best future course for this nation.  Nevertheless, I believe that all of this makes it ever more important to vote.  It’s not about who is right or wrong, it’s about demonstrating to our leaders that we will hold them responsible for those choices.  The thing is, it’s not even very hard to vote these days.  Sure, getting out to your polling place on election day can be rough, especially if you, like I, have to work on that day.  I for one am solving this problem by using an absentee ballot.  My state of residence allows every registered voter to do so without even bothering with any explanations.  It only took a few moments to fill out an online form requesting it.

The fact is that low voter turnout enables our leaders to do whatever they choose because they know that no one will be holding them responsible.  Low voter turnout demonstrates that no one really cares.  Even if your candidate loses, put the fear of responsiblity into the victor’s thoughts by giving them a slim margin on a 90% voter turnout.  Nothing will make politicans more responsive than knowing that we’re all watching them.

I am now officially dual-booting my EEE PC 900.  I’ve got Windows XP running on the internal SSD and Ubuntu rockin’ the SD slot.  Admittedly, most of this work was done by the fantastic folks at Ubuntu (which demonstrates that Linux is getting pretty close to general purpose usability) but there was a little bit of “off-the-map” configuration needed.  I started by following the instructions on the eeeUbuntu page to install Ubuntu to an SD card (a 4GB SDHC card for now but I’ll probably upgrade to a 32GB when the price drops a bit) but I did have one problem (okay, two, but one was a badly burned Ubuntu CD so that doesn’t count).  It seems that the “optional” step nine of upgrading the kernel is… less than entirely optional, at least on the model 900.  Maybe I just didn’t wait long enough for the generic kernel to scan the system but my first boot attempt on my EEE PC hung.
Fortunately, I was able to boot my desktop PC from the SD card and upgrade the kernel from there.  Now, I’ve got an entire second operating system for my EEE PC stored in the SD card slot.  Can I just say, that’s fantastic.

I’m not one for pomp and circumstance, drawing out simple statements into big productions so I’ll say this the only way I know how.  I’m getting married.  There are no details yet as we’ve not made any decisions but both of us have some life goals to get in order that basically puts the timeline at a year to a year and a half in the future.  I’m looking at a promotion with transfer to an as yet unspecified location and she’s got a Ph.D. to finish.  More information will be forthcoming as it develops.

A long time ago in a city somewhat far away I came into the possession of a document.  This document was recieved by a very good friend of mine at his place of business.  That business specialized in coordinating public speakers for venues, and or venues for public speakers… I can only imagine they went both ways on that actually.  This business did, by its nature, come into contact with a variety of celebrities, including current and former Congresscritters and so it was only of slight surprise that my friend found several copies of the linked letter on the company’s fax machine one day.  Slight surprise, that is, until he actually read the document.

For your education I present a digitally remastered, but entirely faithful, rendition of that document, which is titled: Mr. Congressman: PLEASE CHALLENGE ME TO CATCH A STEROIDS VAMPIRE.