Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

Nope, still no progress on the home network issue. I took my question to techrepublic.com.

A few days ago, my Labtec mouse stopped working properly. I could move up, down, and left, but it wouldn't go to the right. It felt as if the mouse ball wasn't rolling when I moved it to the right. I had to physically pick up the mouse and try to move the pointer. When I took out the ball, I found that the rollers were working OK. I also cleaned the innards with a Q-Tip and some compressed air.

So after my interview yesterday, I stopped at Micro Center and bought a new optical mouse for $4. When I got home, I swapped out the old roller-ball mouse with the new optical mouse and things are working fine again. Although I'm going to have to get used to using a much lighter mouse. And I hope M doesn't try to pick it up and throw it around when she uses the computer.

Now that the election is over, and the results have been announced, it's time to heal the huge rift between the left and the right, and unite as Americans. This won't be easy to do -- it never is. We need to find the common ground that unites us.

I know that not all Republicans are bad. I just have issues with the party itself and the far-right wing of the party. I should spend some time looking at, and articulating, these issues. I'll save that for a future post. I should do the same with the far-left wing of the Democratic party.

For the first time in my life, I voted for the winning Presidential candidate. I'm content.

( But first, I need to say something about the election results. )

I really want my candidate to win. But I need to be prepared for the other outcome to happen: The opposing candidate wins.

Those of you on the left: Can you live with a McCain presidency?

Those of you on the right: Can you live with an Obama presidency?

Discuss.

I can still ping both machines. But I still can't view files or share printers.

From the laptop's POV in My Network Places, I can see the desktop and the laptop, but I'm blocked whenever I click on the desktop machine's icon. From the desktop's POV in My Network Places, I see nothing, not even itself. If I try to create a shortcut and browse for it, I don't see "Microsoft Windows Network" under "Entire Network".

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling some components. I even renamed the network and ran the Network Setup Wizard on both systems. Still nothing.

I'm stumped.

Shout-outs: Happy birthday persis!

http://halloween.whipnet.net/
A very informative site on the history and customs of Halloween.

http://www.capsteps.com/radio/
This evening, many NPR stations will be playing their quarterly "Poltics Take A Holiday" special. If you're not in range of a station that's playing it, download it here. (Requires RealAudio or comparable player.)

http://www.ubuntu.com/
Ubuntu (Linux) 8.10 (aka "Intrepid Ibex") was released yesterday and is now available for download. (Warning: The file is approximaely 700 Mb in size.)

After upgrading the network card driver and turning off Norton Firewall on orac, I'm able to ping orac from both orac and tardis without the packets vanishing in to the ether. I still can't view files across my network, though, when I open My Network Places.

Which leads to another question: I currently have Norton Internet Security 2004, and only using its firewall capability. I use AVG for my antivirus protection. Do I still need Norton Internet Security? Or should I rely on Microsoft's built-in firewall? In other words, would it be safe for me to uninstall Norton Internet Security?

[Updated 22:00] I still can't see \\orac\SharedDocs on orac when I open up My Network Places. Nor can I see any systems when I try to view the computers in my workgroup. I tried making a new network place, but when I browse, I don't see "Microsoft Windows Network" under "Entire Network". I did some searching on techrepublic.com and it seems that others have had the same problem.

Tonight's project: Set up a peer-to-peer network between my desktop (orac) and my laptop (tardis) so I can share and copy files between them.

Both systems are running XP; tardis runs XP Pro and orac runs XP Home. Both have been upgraded to SP 3. Instead of a hub or router, I have a crossover cable connecting the two computers. The workgroup is named the same on both computers, and the IP addresses are set accordingly. tardis can see orac, but can't go to any of orac's shared directories. orac can't see itself or tardis when I look at my network places on orac. I've tried running the network setup wizard on orac, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything to fix the problem.

Would any of you out there have a solution? (Besides ditching Windows and switching to Linux. :-) )

"Oh drat these computers. They're so naughty, I could pinch them. --Marvin the Martian

I'll try to keep things short. I no longer have gobs of time to do rambling posts, and many of you don't have time to read such posts. So I'll whittle it down to several bullet points.

Happy memories:
* Bringing athenawindsong to her first filk con and first OVFF
* Seeing lots of my LJ-friends in person
* The foresight of one of the attendees -- I heard it was akawil -- who brought green LJ ribbons to affix to our badges
* Giving a clarinet lesson to daisy_knotwise, which got interesting when Katie tried to climb over Mommy
* Chamberfilk, which I thought came together nicely despite the limited number of instrumentalists
* Meeting (and later LJ-friending) beige_alert, hms42, and GoHs micktim and stevieannie
* The concerts I attended
* The conversations and the food in the con suite -- thank you Nick!
* The Interfilk auction -- always a fun time, especially when the Wenches are... um... deployed ;-)

Not-so-happy memories:
* Not spending enough face-time chatting with the LJ-friends I have
* Not meeting more people (and potential LJ-friends) -- despite the LJ ribbons, people didn't come up to me and introduce themselves*
* Having to miss all of Sunday at the con (because I was on daddy duty that day)

*This has historically been a sore point of mine. When people don't say hello to me, I take it as a sign of rejection. But after talking it over with athenawindsong, it seems that that's my projection. Maybe people aren't as extroverted as myself. Or they're too busy with their own lives and agendas. Or they simply don't remember me from year to year. What does this mirror for me? That I am still shy and introverted, that I often don't say hello to people. So if you're an LJ-friend of mine, and I didn't say hi to you at the con, I apologize.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, a group of protestors came to our local Pagan Pride Day. Yesterday, zorya_thinks posted an entry entitled "Such hate" which included links to two clips on YouTube featuring these protestors. (They also protested in front of a Catholic church the same day, claiming Catholicism is a false religion.) Apparently they had their own video cameras and posted their efforts on YouTube for all to see.

I simply cannot understand the mindset of these people. These are the ones I call "Xians".

( What causes people to go out and spread their version of the Gospel in this manner? Certainly not love. )

This morning and afternoon, I manned a table for the Dayton Pagan Alliance at the local Pagan Pride Day event, which was held at the Founders' Quadrangle of Wright State University.

Attendance was decent; I'd say about half were WSU students. I estimate we had somewhere between 75 and 100 people.

The highlight of the day: At noon, we had about a dozen protestors assemble at one end of the quad exercising their First Amendment rights and preaching their message of intolerance and hatred in the name of Jesus. We ignored them while Campus Police kept watch over them in case anyone stepped over the line. The protestors left around 1:00, which was when our open ritual was scheduled to begin.

"If they will not listen, shake the dust from your shoes and move on." Matthew 10:10, I believe.

One of the local TV news stations was there covering the protests. As of now, their version of the events has not been posted to their website.

When I got to my car at the end of the event, I noticed that someone left a Chick tract on my windshield. How special.