It is that time again – time for the annual re-install of Windows. Seems like I need to re-install Windows on my PC pretty much once a year, every year. As a developer I occasionally have to do rude things to my machine, and eventually something goes wobbly, and it’s time.
The machine was running Windows XP Pro, and I was looking to (re-)install XP Pro, so I wasn’t expecting any difficulty. Wrong. The installation gets to “34 minutes remaining” and (apparently) setting up devices … and stays there forever. Re-booted to see if the second try would detect the prior attempt and go down a different path – nope. Re-booted and tried the “repair” option – nope. Installed Linux (Ubuntu) without trouble, and then re-tried the XP install – nope. Installed Windows 2000 without trouble, and re-tried the XP install (in case upgrading from Win2K might do better) – nope.
Wish I had some idea what was tripping up the XP install. With Linux I can Alt-Shift-F1 into a console and poke around while the install is running. Something similar in Windows would be a help. The hardware is pretty generic – a Shuttle XPC SN43G box with 1GB memory, a 120GB ATA disk, and an ATI Radeon 6800 with dual DVI driving two Dell 2405FPW panels.
Argh. I am seriously tempted to install Linux, and use VMware to host my build-and-debug environment for work on Windows software. One big (REALLY big) advantage with VMware is the ability to revert to an earlier snapshot. I might never have to re-install Windows again. 
Update: Did figure this out (much) later. The power supply was overloaded. Shuttle offers upgraded power supplies for these boxes. Ordered, installed, and the problem went away.
The new garage doors were installed this week. The old slab-wood doors originally installed by the builder were not in the best of shape – in fact one was starting to crack. Could not quite justify replacing them before. After all … doors – if they open and close … (shrug).
Looked up the quietest openers in Consumer Reports, went around to four different places (a fifth was closed) to look at door prices and models. Settled on insulated (quieter) double-walled steel doors (more durable) designed not to amputate fingers, and no windows (tacky). The new doors – they go up, they go down – very quiet though. Going to have to paint the walls now, as the doors make the garage look much nicer.
Total with installation was well under $3K. There was a moment when one of the installers stopped and looked at the car in the garage, puzzled. Perhaps he was wondering why I was installing doors worth more than the car. Amusing.
Another major item off the list of things the house needs, about which I am unreasonably pleased. As to the rest of the house…
Rita Rudner:
“Most men don’t even live like people. They live like bears with furniture.”
… which is not far from the truth. Too much mess …
CNN.com – Senate plans no probe of NSA spy program – Feb 17, 2006
“An investigation at this point basically would be detrimental to this highly classified program and our efforts to reach some accommodation with the administration,” said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas.
This is the news I was dreading, and hoped would not come to pass.
Spying on US citizens at home is a line that should never be crossed, and the critters in Congress do not care. For what some foolish reason I thought this was just too much, even for a much-compromised politician.
First we have the Washington Post proving that the product of “professional journalists” can be very badly wrong. So much for “professional fact-checking and editing support”.
The Coming Tug of War Over the Internet
Companies like Google and Yahoo pay some fees to connect to their servers to the Internet, but AT&T will collect little if any additional revenue when Yahoo starts offering new features that take up lots of bandwidth on the Internet. When Yahoo’s millions of customers download huge blocks of video or play complex video games, AT&T ends up carrying that increased digital traffic without additional financial compensation.
Um … I am pretty sure the companies providing network bandwidth to the Internet are already fully compensated. Cannot claim that I know the details of contracts between Google (and the like) and their network providors, but from what I have heard, they pay for every bit of data they send out. So AT&T is exactly compensated for each increase in traffic. I have never heard of a network company carrying bandwidth for free.
To the network providors, a bit is a bit is a bit. They cannot distinguish between bits from iTunes downloads or bits from some obscure weblog. That is – they cannot distinguish without adding the equivalent of speedbumps and choke points to the Internet. In other words – they have to spend money to slow traffic down!
ongoing · WaPo Still Screwing Up
So this “journalism” thing… it’s a profession where you can just make random shit up and print it whether it’s right or wrong, and ignore feedback, and you just don’t do those “retraction” or “update” or “apology” things?
Helga Kvam “Lighting my way home”
Very much worth viewing larger.
The Normal Family
Sung to the tune of “The Adams Family” theme song.
” … it’s the Normal Family …”
This Art (if you can call it that) was put up for potential buyers of new homes in Foothill Ranch. Just their way of letting you know this was a classy family-oriented area.
Absurd. Have to get some better pictures.
PCWorld.com – Search Engine Traffic Soars
MSN saw the steepest drop-off as its share of searches fell to 10.9 percent from 14 percent, Nielsen/NetRatings says.
The fact that Microsoft sets the default search engine to MSN has always bugged me. What this means is that for the majority of non-techie users, switching to another search engine may not happen as often as it should. In effect MSN has an unfair advantage in the competition between search engines. To hear that – despite their advantage – MSN usage is minor and dropping, seems like justice.
Arthur, my little brother died at 8 AM on February 10, 1999.
He was riding his motorcycle to work when a car slowed,
he didn’t,
and a few minutes later he was dead.
Someone once asked, if you could go back in time, what would you do?
Only one answer came to mind.