Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

I'm cruising download.com, looking for new software utilities I can download for use on my system. So far, I downloaded the new version of AVG (note: AVG 7.x will no longer be able to get update files as of Wednesday! Or so they claim), WinZip, VLC Media Player, FLV Player, YouTube Downloader, Media Player Classic, Codec Pack 1, and IrfanView. I think most of these are listed in their list of top 25 downloads.

I also got Firefox, Thunderbird, Adobe Reader, Apple QuickTime Player, Note Tab Light, OpenOffice, WinMerge, Semagic, Rhapsody's player (I like being able to listen to up to 25 songs a month for free), and Winamp.

Is there anything else on this site -- or any other site -- that I should consider downloading? What are your favorites? I know I asked this before recently, but new and updated programs come out daily.

Over the weekend, I stopped at Target and picked up a Linksys WRT54G wireless router for $35. This one's been on my wish list for a while, and Target had a great price for it. I don't have high-speed internet yet, but in the meantime, I want to be able to use it as a wireless hub between my desktop and my laptop, instead of having to transfer files using a flash-memory drive.

Before purchasing and installing the router, I tried networking them together using my existing equipment -- a wired hub -- but neither machine could find the other. (I really hate the networking in XP; I can't view other machines on my network the same way I could in Win9x. Or maybe I hate it because I don't understand it.)

So this morning, after getting tired of erasing floppies, I put in the install CD and let the upgrade advisor do its work. Problem is, it's configured as if the average home user is going to use it for high-speed internet, so it keeps asking for an internet connection. I know I can log into the router directly via a web browser and examine the settings.

So...how do I do this? Can it be done? And how easy would it be to reconfigure once I get high-speed internet?

One of my decluttering tasks is to reduce the amount of floppy disks I have. I still use them occasionally, but I certainly don't need a boatload of 'em. Before I try to sell them or give them away, I want to wipe them and make sure there are no viruses on them. That may take some time.

I also have copies of old software on floppy disk, including DOS 5, DOS 6, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1. Will I ever use them again? Highly doubtful. But the packrat in me wants to burn copies of the floppies onto a CD for possible later use. (Except for the stuff that isn't Y2K compliant, like Sidekick 2.0. This stuff is so old that the local computer recycler probably won't take them. Would I ever come across an old 486 or older machine? By this time, it would be over 10 years old. I can still keep the boot disks, or if they get misplaced, grab a new one at bootdisk.com.

This is the dillemma I face. I don't want to throw out the floppies and take up landfill space, especially if the disks contain something that somebody might want.

Any takers?

Fri 6/13: Took M to a doctor's appointment in the afternoon. Then went to McD's for lunch before we arrived home for the rest of the afternoon. Having M home with me threw both my schedule and my to-do-list out the window. I received the copy of PartitionMagic I purchased on EBay, and spent some time working on reconfiguring the laptop after taking M home. I completely missed and forgot about dragon_pet's and mrs_keradon's graduation ceremonies. Congrats to you both!

Sat 6/14: Got up awfully early. Went to the Boston Stoker to do some downloading. Went to Batteries Plus to try to exchange the laptop battery I purchased on Wednesday. (It wouldn't hold a charge.) Then went with R and M to the Newport Aquarium, the Newport Italian Festival (M went to ride a few rides), and BB Riverboats. The three of us had dinner at Brio Tuscan Grille. Originally, the trip was only supposed to include the Aquarium, but I later added the dinner as a way of saying thank you to R for her appearance at the child support mistake-of-fact hearing. After arriving home, there was nothing to do, and nothing on TV was worth watching, so I watched The Natural, which I borrowed from the library earlier in the week.

Sun 6/15: Went to the UU Mens' Group and to UU Services. Today's sermon was about Michael Servetus, whom my mind keeps wanting to confuse with Miguel de Cervantes. Picked up M and we went to Splash Moraine, a local waterpark. M got to go on the big tube slide with me this time. Went to Marion's Piazza for dinner and split a large cheese pizza with her. Discovered that I developed a bad case of sunburn on my body, and smeared aloe vera gel on whatever body parts my arms could reach. Called my parents. Tried to unwind by watching the Weather Channel and making a to-do list for Monday.

Shout-outs: Happy birthday dragon_pet!

On a lark, I plugged in my wireless card to my "new" laptop (called "tardis mark III", the Dell Latitude CPx) at home, and saw that all but one of my neighbors have secured their wireless networks. I tried connecting to the unsecured network and was able to get in. Score! This afternoon, I asked one of my next-door neighbors if he had a wireless connection and gave the name of it. He said that was his. I explained that I was able to get into his network, and advised him to secure it by putting a password on it. Amazingly, he doesn't seem to mind me accessing it. I'm not savvy enough (or stupid or malicious enough) to try to get to his computer(s) through the wireless network, which was his concern. (And mine.)

So, what are the ramifications of this? I don't intend to make a habit of siphoning his bandwidth. I'll still make trips to the library, Panera Bread, and Boston Stoker for my heavy duty downloading.

After being unable to use the modem and network cards with my "new" laptop (a Dell Latitude CPx), I thought I wouldn't be able to successfully run Linux on a notebook or laptop computer. (To recap the problems I was having, I couldn't connect to the internet using either a PCMCIA modem card or wireless network card.)

This past weekend, during some housecleaning, I found the copy of Windows XP Professional I bought last year. (This was bought with a deep student discount, as I was taking a class at Sinclair at the time. I refuse to pay full price for average software for the average user.) Tonight, I installed it and it appears to be working fine. And as evidenced by this post, I can connect with my modem card.

In the next few days, I will be installing some more hardware and software, getting the latest patches, and migrating software and files from the old laptop ("tardis Mk II", a Dell Latitude XPi CD). I intend to install OpenOffice, Firefox, and Thunderbird on the new laptop ("tardis Mk III", the Dell Latitude CPx J).

I'm not completely giving up on Linux, though. My last employer scrapped a Gateway 4000-E desktop because the hard drive went bad. So I put dibs on it, took it home, put in a new hard drive, and installed Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). It appears to work great. I still need to install the network and video drivers. Maybe I can install MySQL and Samba on there.

To the Linux geeks out there, thank you for all the help you've given me over the last couple of months.

Shout-outs: Happy birthday uk_kay_kay!

I often hear people say "...It pisses me off...." when referring to something that's bothering them. The way I see it, it's not the object or stimulus that's *causing* the upset, it's the person's *reaction* to the stimulus. I know I have the choice to let something (or someone) bother me, or to not let that something (or someone) bother me. Even it's a split-second kneejerk reaction, it's still a choice.

Friday night, John (one of my New Warrior brothers) and I drove out to the Red Bird Center to do some much-needed cleanup on Saturday. Shianne was gracious enough to let us spend Friday night in one of the cabins. Despite the rainstorm that night, we woke up bright and early. I had a breakfast of coffee, hard boiled eggs, and a bagel.

The first task was to scrub the bathhouses. John took the upper one (near cabins 1-5); I took the lower one (near cabins 6-10). The sinks, toilets, shower stalls, and floors were scrubbed. (I didn't have glass cleaner, otherwise, the windows would have been done as well.) The next task I worked on was to inventory the tool shed. The next task after that was to mop up the water that had leaked into the basement of the lodge. I used a floor squeegee to push a lot of the water toward the drain, and whatever didn't get pushed got picked up by the Shop-Vac. We then broke for lunch.

After lunch, I then worked on sorting the tool area inside the lodge, pulling out all the tools and sorting them by either type of tool (hammer, wrench, saw) or function (carpentry, plumbing, electrical). After that was done, I washed one of the serving carts in the kitchen, which had accumulated a lot of dust. I then helped move furniture in the lodge so that someone else could sweep and mop the floor. The last task of the day was assembling a healing lodge (commonly called a "sweat lodge") from saplings. We had to bend and arch the saplings and tie them down.

There were about a dozen of us working that day. We got a lot of the requested tasks done. After a small dinner, John and I drove back to Dayton.

In the past couple of weeks, I've been very lax in wishing my LJ-friends happy birthdays. So, without further ado, here's who I missed. Happy belated birthday to catsleftpaw (5/17), filker0 (5/22), billroper (5/23), thatcrazycajun (5/26), doeadear (5/28). And an on-time happy birthday to wulff!

I won't be attending Marcon this year. There are a number of reasons.

1) Going to cons just costs too much these days, between gas, convention registration, and hotel fees.
2) I have to work on Saturday. (We have a deadline of next Friday.)
3) I'll be spending time with M on Sunday.
4) I've been feeling ambivalent about Marcon the past few years -- too big, the same old things every year.
5) I've had a chronic feeling of estrangement toward or by fandom.