Merry Christmas, people. Not Happy Holidays; not Season’s Greetings. But Merry Christmas. And may you put aside the Xbox 360s, the Quad G5s, the cell phones, Palm Pilots, and Rainbow Brite ponies, and read Luke 2. It’d be good for you.
Quote of the Moment
Kitchen girls are a camp sponsor's best friend. I rest my case. -SethSwiss Army LiveCD
If you’re going to fix a computer, never be without an Ubuntu LiveCD. In a pinch, it can be used to download drivers, recover data, or even change settings to get Windows back up and running. I’m posting this now from just such a LiveCD. The Windows installation on this machine is trashed; so badly, in fact, that it can’t even boot into Command Line mode. I tried a Repair installation of Windows, which did nothing. So what’s to do about saving this computer’s data? It doesn’t even have an Ethernet jack!
Simple. I just booted an Ubuntu 5.10 LiveCD. In three clicks, the hard drive was mounted. I then plugged in a Compaq HNE-200 that I keep around (it’s a USB -> 10/100 Ethernet adapter). On Windows, this requires the installation of a huge and buggy driver. On Ubuntu, I hear the CD spin up for about 5 seconds, and then all of a sudden the lights on the adapter come on, it picks up an IP from my home net, and I’m in business!
All I do now is transfer the data I need over the network to one of my storage boxen… then I can wipe the drive and put on a fresh copy of Windows!
Previous methods of recovering data like this involved installing a different hard drive with a preconfigured copy of XP on it, setting the old drive up as a slave, and copying data. Then swap drives and repeat. Can you guess which way is easier?
Away, ye vermin
Nate and I went to Best Buy today. It’s becoming more and more distasteful to shop there; if you go into a high-dollar area (computers, TVs, car audio) you are immediately descended upon by half a dozen sales reps wishing to impart their opinion (which is neither unbiased nor even knowledgable most of the time) and make the sale. Even though they “don’t work on commission”.
Then there’s the force-feeding of the “Product Service Plan” at checkout. No matter if you say you don’t want it; they tell you about how good it is and make some ominous threats about “the product failing” if you don’t buy their plan. Well if it fails, I’ll go send it to the manufacturer and they’ll fix it. Fancy things, those lifetime warranties that reputable manufacturers offer.
It’s gotten so that when I enter a Danger Zone of salepeople, I’ll just pull out my cell phone, put it to my ear, and continue on my way. Magic. It’s as if I had a “Do Not Disturb” field around me. I don’t have to be saying anything… the phone-to-the-ear is enough. Salespeople then leave me alone.
I should really make a t-shirt that says something like:
I know what I’m doing.
Leave me alone.
But even then it probably wouldn’t work. Thank goodness for cell phones 
New room
Oy, after 5+ hours I’m finally moved over to my new room in Couch Center 3. Due in no small part to the extreme helpage of Sam. Pictures later, but I’m so tired. Must go to bed.
(Yes, I ended up staying another day instead of going home. I’ll go home tomorrow.)
Free
Done with another semester. Going home. Back later.
In this case, by the way, being free mainly refers to the freedom one feels to turn out one’s light when one wants to, without being harrassed by creepy roommates who like their light on late into the night, while watching movies or playing video games while one is trying to sleep. It also refers to freedoms such as these: freedom to set the thermostat to a comfortable temperature instead of ridiculously cold, freedom to have the door closed instead of open all the time, freedom to NOT have to listen to video game sound effects, freedom to be clean without worrying about the slime molds taking over the room, freedom not to have random words shouted at you or to be randomly talked to for no apparent topical reason…
…and freedom to run around without clothes. Oops, you didn’t want to know that anyways.