So Bwana rags on me for not posting in a while, which is true. I did actually write a post late Saturday night, but I hit the wrong key and closed the browser window that contained it. Which was too bad, because I estimate that it was 8 times more fabulous than I expect this post to be. I'd expect posting to be light until early September. We close on the house on the 31st, and the movers expect to find everything packed on the morning of September 1st :-) Which is a shame in a lot of ways, because a lot of good stuff is afoot. I'll touch on the high notes, and people can ask about things they are curious about: - Doom 3, natch - I'm planning on NOT wiring the new house for networking. In preparation I upgraded from my Netgear 802.11b access point to an Airport Extreme (Apple-speak for 802.11g) base station and an Airport Express in the living room. That was a smart move on my part, because the Airport Express took about three hours of cursing and rebooting to get right. It's plug and play NOW, but getting it there was a pain. In fairness, it worked out of the box, but getting it to work with the Airport Extreme as a range extender (via WDS) was a pain. But it does work now, and I've played the PS2 online over the wireless link. I've also streamed video over it, and I've used the digital audio out from the Airport Express to stream iTunes to the stereo. - My current IDSL is a paltry 144k down/144k up line. The new house is scheduled to have 6 *MEG* down/768k up. So that makes me feel all tingly. Look for a snappier hiddenjester.com in September! :-) - The whole laptop crash took my "cancel my free Xbox live subscription" note with it, so MS managed to charge me for a year RIGHT before my credit card expired :-) So I have a real Live account again now. Debate about whether ESPN NHL 2005 should be purchased on PS2 or Xbox has officially commenced. - I've almost finished playing through Warcraft III on my Mac, and will commence on the expansion (which I never played on PC). The thing about War III is that it was "free" to me - since I can use the CD I bought for PC back when War III originally shipped. Which is super-cool but it does raise the question about how many other games could I just pull out of the closet, reinstall, and have a blast playing. It's been long enough that it's almost like a brand new game - I don't remember much of the Warcraft III storyline or play experience at this point.

So this weekend I recovered the files from my PC laptop's hd. The aforementioned adapter worked like a charm with one notable issue (which isn't it's fault.) The laptop drive was NTFS - and none of the user names translate between the computers. (IOW the "tsanders" user on my Windows PC isn't the "same" user as tsanders on my laptop.) I had two folder that this presented a problem - my user folder, and the Windows folder. The fix for this is to look at the "Security" tab for the folder - in there an Adminstrator can become the owner of a folder. But the trick is that in order to see the Security tab in XP Home you have to reboot into Safe mode. There's another layer to this which is that this DIDN'T work to change the owner of the Windows folder - there's some other trick they've used to lock it out. I could SEE the security options for the Windows folder, but I couldn't change them, nor could I take ownership. I decided I didn't need anything out of my Windows folder that badly, but it's worth being aware of! Another fun tip - Windows XP doesn't seem to read USB keyboards for the safe mode menu. I had to plug in the old-style PS2 connector in order to choose safe mode. Follow me on that - you hit F8 ON THE USB KEYBOARD, and it reads that, then brings up a menu where you can't navigate using the keyboard it JUST READ a keystroke from. I hate Microsoft.

Krispy Kreme's newest venture Which is odd enough, but it gave me a great idea! If you created a recipe for caffeinated donuts I think you have a very successful campus business opportunity! That's one hell of a cram food there. Mmmmm . . . buzzer donuts!