Very cold this morning, 2° at 7:00am, but the ice is
gone from the streets & parking lots, and the sun is out.
It's a nice day, at least when viewed from inside a nice warm
office.
Ken Rubin, a friend from long ago, is apparently a member
of the Baltimore Composers Forum:
www.baltimorecomposersforum.org/members/rubin_ken,
while a bit sparse, seems a pretty close match.
Some years back (sometime during 1991–1993, I believe),
Ken came to Champaign; he called me up and said, “Let's
have lunch at the Courier.”
“Sure thing,” I said.
But I was mostly nocturnal then, sleeping from 5:00am until
early afternoon, and getting up in time to have a normal lunch
was harder than I thought. I was still asleep when Ken called
from the Courier: “Where are you?”
“Er…I'll be right there,” I said, and
promptly fell asleep again.
After a while, the phone rang again: “Get over here!”
“Uh, sorry…”
Poor Ken, he was hoping for a pleasant lunch with an old
friend; instead, he got an incoherent, half-asleep old friend
who showed up two hours late. No wonder he's never called me
since.
I like to visit computer manufacturer web sites
(Apple and
Dell, mostly) and go through
the buy-a-computer-online process. It's just a geekier form
of window-shopping, and lets me keep track of this year's typical
configurations and prices.
The Dell online store is much too complicated: after picking
a model (which itself isn't as easy as it should be), I'm faced
with page after page of configuration options, many of which are
duplicates of options on previous pages. I've yet to reach the
end of the process, because I get too frustrated.
The software options are particularly annoying. I don't want
rebranded CD burning software, I don't want six months of
America Online, I don't want a bunch of random shovelware, I
just want a stock Windows box. I'll install my own software,
thanks.
Don Box
said:
I don't bother to remove junkware. Rather, I simply
repave any PC I'm responsible for with a virgin copy of Windows
XP and then add the absolute minimum number of 3rd party drivers
needed to get the hardware working. I then add any apps that make
sense.
Sounds like a good idea to me.
More geekstuff: Microsoft has abandoned its Smart Display
project.
The idea was that you could carry your LCD monitor around
the house, and it would talk to your computer via your wireless
network: sort of a Tablet PC, but hard-wired to run only the
Remote Desktop Connection client, and connect only to a particular
remote machine. I'm not surprised that nobody bought one.
Microsoft hasn't taken down the Smart Displays web site
(www.microsoft.com/windows/smartdisplay)
yet, but I'm sure its days are numbered.
Upgraded iTunes to version 4.2, and the iPod software to version
2.1. I can't tell any difference in iTunes (except that it's slower);
the iPod seems to have picked up a few more icons to display, including
a big checkmark that means ‘safe to undock’.
Poor Jacob. For a third night, he cried most piteously when we put
him in the crib. (After a while, he fell asleep.) Maybe he got too used
to staying up late? Maybe he doesn't want to sleep in the crib any more?
Mysteries, mysteries.
Trouble with the garage door: it doesn't want to stay down. On the
theory that one or more of the remotes is gummed up, I have removed
all batteries therefrom. Since then, the door has stayed down.
Time for new garage-door openers, or just new remotes? And why
can't these things happen in the summertime, when it's not 16°
outside?