OK, so it wasn’t entirely a heat problem…. but it sorta was.

The cooling fan on the ol’ XP 2100+ bit the dust, and was only spinning at about 1700 rpm — not enough to keep it cool. In fact, I saw temperatures around 78C last night, and today when I booted the server, the temperature quickly climbed from a balmy 48C through the 50’s before I shut it down.

Off to CompUSA, and nice shiny XP 2700+ has now replaced it. It’s running at 37C, which is more like what I would expect.

My guess is that the fan has been slowly degrading for a while, and it finally got so bad it couldn’t keep up with the demand on the processor.

So, the server should be happy now!

$1.599

I was walking in to work this morning (after a particularly harrowing Monday), and watched the other people around me: heads down, walking with an intent, joyless stride.

Are people really happy at work? I think it’s possible, but I think the vast majority of workers go to work, not because that’s where they choose to spend their day, but because they’ve made the committment to trade their time in exchange for pay, and to spend that time doing as much as they can for their employer. Not a bad deal overall, right?

But, what kinds of committments? Committments to the company? Maybe, but most people I don’t think of as having that kind of loyalty. I think it’s committments to creditors and family, a desire to have a certain lifestyle, and backing into a situation where, if they were to be unemployed by their company, they would lose elements of their lifestyle.

I’m no different. I’d rather be shooting, but I can’t make a living at it (yet!), so Corporate America is where I’ve chosen to hang my hat, and is probably where I will have to hang my hat for a while.

So what makes me different from the millions of folks out there that don’t hang their coat on the Corporate coathook daily? Luck, perhaps, maybe skill or gifts, even bravery.

In my case, it’s the desire for the stability that Corporate America delivers… or at least has until the last few years. That’s my tradeoff, my sellout.

But one day, armed with lenses and compact flash cards, I will take the world by storm. Watch this space….

$1.619

So, after two weeks of work, the site now has a face lift, and looks great, if I do say so myself.

Now, I can start working on The Project, and all the scanning that entails.

Woo-hoo!!!!

$1.499

After trying for a couple of weeks to figure out some way to auto link photos for a given day to blog entries, I’ve finally stumbled on a solution.

First off, what didn’t work quickly: PHP, coding my own MT template, Javascript. All good solutions, but I’m too impatient. I would expect, in time, though, that this will migrate to a plugin.

Tonight, however, I stumbled upon an MT plugin called MTPerlScript from Brad Choate. This plugin allows to embed Perl in my templates. That means when I rebuild the site or post a new blogentry, Perl can quiery the system, figure out if there were photos for that day, insert the code and make it all nice and pretty.

So now, one of the final linkages I want between MT and JAlbum is complete.

This is really cool!

$1.629

Today, Bill Gates (aka Bill of Borg) will accept an honorary knighthood from the Queen of England. Never mind that his company seems to be lately under terribly scrutiny from all corners for their business practices. Never mind that his company is basically engineered to crush any opposition, and if that doesn’t work, acquire them, and then shelve or steal their ideas. Never mind that his company is propagating a potential computerized doomsday with its extreme market penetration and slowness to react to threats caused by that penetration.

I’m not a big fan of honoring someone for playing dirty, killing competition, lacking innovation, and being good at just those things.

So, at the end of the day, Bill can now not only buy the world, but we’ll have to say “Sir” when we ask “Do you want fries with that?”

$1.529

I finally got the photos for November, December and January on line tonight. Not a big deal, but just took a little bit o’ doing to get it all in place. As I look at what others are doing with JAlbum, I am envious, and somewhat in awe. I think my stuff is reasonably cool looking, but I see some very creative interfaces out there, and am convinced that there are better ways to display, group and index my ever-growing photo library.

Just wait ’til I get the scanners fired up, and start plowing through Mom & Dad’s photos and slides….. plus mine and Becky’s! Many, many thousands of images in all that, along with many, many months of work to scan them, I bet!

I’ve got some ideas to spruce up the good ol’ deauxmayne, too…. Keep watching!

$1.559

I finally got the mail server working! Quite a feat, and the first time I’ve set one up. Right now, it only serves one of the domains, but I’m sure getting the other two online won’t be too much work.

In fact, I’ve been getting all the old stuff I’ve been (virtually) lugging around for years on the server, and finally doing some of the cleanup that’s been needed for so long. k4sso.org is finally fully-functional, and appears to be doing what it’s supposed to. It’s badly in need of a rewrite, but I’ll take that as a project for another weekend.

colin-wright.com is still suffering from a lack of time and attention, which is a crying shame. That’s the site I want badly to start selling my photoart through, but that’s taken such a back seat to life right now. No problems with that, as life is good, but I have quite a backlog of things I want to do to the new house, the new sites, and tons of other nooks and crannies needing attention.

$1.479

In what I think is an amazing turn of events, Microsoft decided to continue supporting Win98 (and other old Windows pains) until 2006!

For the mind of The Collective to change, and at the whim of the customer…? Well, that’s unprecedented!

Seriously, I’m sure it’s great for the folks out there still relying on Win98 and the other stepchildren, and it’s nice to see The Evil Empire stand up and do the right thing, instead of using the Java rulings as the wooden stake in the heart of the old stuff.

After all, I’d hate to see somebody out there find that their Win98 is unsupported, and be forced into moving to Linux! 🙂

$1.569

Cold, cold, cold. Half a degree above zero this morning. Half a degree! I think the weatherfolk missed the call last night by a little bit!

However, there is good news today. It appears that all the DNS issues are resolved, and everything is now pointed at my server here at The Little House on the Prairie. So, watch for changes, improvements, and good stuff from all three sites!

Well, here, I think.

After a battle had with the satellite folks, and ending up without dish due to the trees in the backyard (and expecting another one over services paid for but unable to be delivered), I engaged Charter to get their cable in the house.

Getting Charter residential television services after you’ve installed Charter Business Internet services is quite a challenge… for them. From what I understand, their system won’t allow multiple accounts at the same address, so they have to pull some hijinks to make the system let them do that. I also understand that there is only one person who can do that. When she is gone, it doesn’t happen.

(Insert my dozen+ calls with Charter over the last week.)

Anyway, a week later, it’s finally done, and is it ever nice. I’m sure part of my appreciation of it is due to the cruddy reception we were getting of the locals on some external antenna in the house. However, I really believe that the picture is much, much better than we had with CableAmerica.

TV rocks, and I’m glad it’s back. Woo-hoo!