02/16/2003

I just downloaded and installed a nifty little gadget. It’s called WayV and it recognizes mouse strokes like a PDA stylus– and performs actions based on them. For example, I can “write” an M on my screen and it’ll launch my mail program. N for Netscape, K for Konqueror, / (slash) to kill the window, and so on. Fun!

02/15/2003

Valentine’s Day was fun as always. We made heart-shaped sugar cookies with the kids. Kyra had her friend Amanda over, and they decorated them (and of course ate several in the process). We gave some to friends’ kids, and hoarded the rest.

Laralee hid little Valentine notes around the house… well, that’s not exactly accurate. She wrote the little notes, and the kids hid them. Then they’d come up to me and say things like “Dad, don’t you need to use your stapler?” When I said I didn’t really, but thanks for asking, they’d insist, “No, I think you should get out your stapler and staple something.” Lo and behold, there was a little note under the stapler. Et cetera.

And I, being the incurable romantic that I am, rented “The Bourne Identity” for us to watch. What a terrifically romantic movie…

02/11/2003

I got my “new toys” today: four brand new Shuttle SK41G small-form-factor computers, and all the little trinkets that go inside. These puppies are awesome little silver boxes, less than half the size of a standard desktop system, and they really pack a wallop.

So I spent a couple of hours putting everything together, and basked in the soft blue glow of the power-on LED and the translucent front panel. Tomorrow I’ll actually set everything up, and then (sadly) they’ll be shipped off to Boulder to act as my new faster-better-stronger web and database servers.

Now if I can just think of an excuse to get one for the house…

02/05/2003

Wow, I must really be a geek.

Today I installed the latest version of the KDE window manager, and it’s really really sweet. It has a whole new look, lots of nifty features (the kind that make you say, “now why didn’t they think of that a year ago?”), and a bucketload of functionality. But only a geek would really get excited about a new window manager, right?

Now that I have ten (count ’em, ten) desktops running, and I switch between them every few minutes, I can’t imagine why I’d ever want to run boring old crummy crashy Windows again…

02/04/2003

Continuing our five- or six-year tradition, Laralee and I watched “Groundhog Day” once again to celebrate the momentous holiday. What a great movie… very funny, and despite the obvious humorous slant of the plot it has a good message at heart.

One wonders, though, how in the world Groundhog Day got started. Is it purely an American holiday? Who came up with the notion that a large rodent seeing its shadow would indicate another month of winter? It boggles the mind.

02/02/2003

Holy cow, after about two years of procrastination (coupled with guilt) I finally got around to updating my web site. The content is largely the same, but now it’s linked to my online journal and if things go well I’ll be updating photos and other stuff to keep it “fresh”.

It’s about time.

01/29/2003

… So I’m helping a client (well, actually a client of a client) set up a web site on a new server. I talked directly with the service provider so I could get the technical lowdown about what the server supports and so on. My favorite answer was when I asked him about the type of server:

Me: “So this is a Unix server, right?”
Him: “Yes sir.”
Me: “What kind, exactly? Sun, Linux, SGI?”
Him: “It’s Unix.”
Me: “I know; what operating system?”
Him: “One moment.”
(long pause while he consults with the IT gurus)
Him: “Sir, it’s a Unix system. We support all your Unix software.”

Uhh…