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GRAFFITI -- August 23, 2004 thru August 29, 2004>> Link to the Current Week <<Last Week << Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun >> Next Week Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable. About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message. |
 
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August 23, 2004
0646 - Good morning. Not quite on pace still, but I'm making good progress, and might be done in time. You can see some of the underside cabinet construction details at left, and all of the cabinets, desk surfaces, and hutches (lacking only the backboards) at right. That's all I have time for, as I'm off to work, hopefully to finish up early enough to get through the backboards, sanding, and into the staining tonight. Whew. I'll sure be glad when this project is done...!!! Have a great day!
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August 24, 2004
0737 - Good morning. And I'm thinking to myself, why am I still so tired. I didn't get *that* much done last night... then, "Oh, right, I only worked on the office remodel project for 6 hours after work, instead of for a full 14 hours." Still, the work surfaces are stained, the cabinets are sanded, the back boards are cut and sanded, some installed, and I did a sturdiness modification to the hutch design. Now, BIG note to self. Today is the day to cut cable access holes in the desktops. Now or never... Okay, time to get to work. Have a great day!
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August 25, 2004
0732 - Whew, that picture was taken shortly after midnight. Tonight I clean up some, put her office back together just a bit, pay the stack of bills, and relax. I'll tell you more about it another time. I'm whacked! Have a great day!
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August 26, 2004
0710 - Good morning. You can see I've got Marcia's major (non-sewing) systems up and running. The only oversight that required a trip back to the woodshop last night was ... argh! A keyboard tray! So I whipped one up using the slide bits from the old Sauder desk. It's not perfect yet, and needs to drop an inch to clear the MS Natural keyboard. But all those bits on the desk are operational, and that's a good thing. Then, for fun, I swapped in my new laptop hard drive.
Last week Larry and I bought 60 gig, 7200 RPM drives for our laptops. More space (always a good thing), but that spindle speed is important. I knew going in it would be good for me, as the stock drive on this Sony was a 4200 RPM sluggard. But I tell you now, it rocks. Here's how I did it... I picked up at TCP a 2.5 - 3.5 HD connector adapter, during the day. After I finished Marcia's office up to the point shown above, I shut down Goldfinger, and using the adapter, connected Gryphon's old drive in place of the CD device on Goldfinger. Powered up, I mounted Gryphon's sole partition in the /mnt spot. Then I typed:
$ cd /mnt
$ tar -cvpf /home/backup/gryphonback.tar .
That got everything. When tar was done, I shut down the system, swapped in the new Hitachi drive, and first ran cfdisk to setup the swap and data partitions on the new drive. Then I ran mkswap on the new swap partition, and mkreiserfs on the new data partition. Finally, I mounted that partition on /mnt, and ran the command:
$ cd /mnt
$ tar -xvpf /home/backup/gryphonback.tar .
Now everything was on the new drive ... It's just not bootable yet. So I installed the new drive back into the laptop, booted with the Xandros Installation CD, pressed [Shift] during the boot process to get the list of troubleshooting options, and selected Rescue Console. Once in the Rescue Console, this sequence of commands got me the rest of the way:
$ mount /dev/hda2 /instmnt
$ chroot /instmnt
$ mount -t proc proc /proc
$ mount -t devfs devfs /dev
$ mount -a
$ lilo
I rebooted, popped out the disc, and boom - a faster Xandros is rockin' along. Now I need to rock along, too. I've a half day of work to put in before I go to the airport to pick up Marcia. Have a great day!
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August 27, 2004
0659 - Good morning. Marcia's home, and all of us are happy! There's much more to say, but I haven't the time, I'm driving round the horn today to be at a site by 0800, so technically I'm already late! Sigh. Have a great day!
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August 28, 2004
0857 - Good morning. Lucy has found her literal niche in Marcia's new office setup - the lower shelf space in the left hand slot. So we called her out, threw in her office blanket and she immediately jumped back in. One happy dog accounted for. At least she was happy then. This morning, she's getting a bath while Molly road trips with Marcia. Lucy will be horribly jealous over that, even though Molly's going to the vet for followup shots. Lucy hates going to the vet, so she isn't. Instead she gets a bath while Molly gets hypos. Lucky girls all around.
Time for a technical linkfest... First up, this pointer for tunneling the Windows XP Remote Desktop Connection via SSH. I used this at a client site yesterday to solve the problem of conflicting VPN connections - one RDC client workstation goes in via VPN, the other by SSH. It helps, of course, that I've got a Linux box inside there to provide an endpoint for the tunnel. Next, there's the Interface Hall of Shame. A great collection of write-ups on what NOT to do. Next time you have to write a GUI, think about dropping by here and making sure you don't do what others have done wrong in the past. Now, Latex for secretaries. Sounds like a pron site, doesn't it? Nope, LaTeX, as in document layout program. This good LJ article is an intro to Latex that might be useful for you too, it was for me! That's all I've got for now.
Time to go, for now. Have a great day. See you here or there later, I'd guess.
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August 29, 2004
0939 - Good morning. Yesterday was finishing touches day, in a way. First, Marcia took Molly to get her follow-up shots while I gave Lucy a bath. Then I started my career as a lion tamer by working up to the big event slowly: I tamed the wild hedge! But seriously, around the back deck there are boxwoods that aren't nearly as dire as the old ones I tore out in front. I had not trimmed them all season. So I got out the shears (no electric hedge trimmers for me) and trimmed the hedge down nicely, then cleaned up the mess.
Then we went shopping for a few items needed to complete the transformation of Marcia's office - blinds and a nice simulated wood grain storage unit to sit under the TV. Those are installed and built. Then I replaced a couple of dying plants out front, watered the world, and relaxed for a little while by playing Doom3. Late in the evening, we stopped and watched some TV, then I played with the dogs for a while (as you can see, above). No, I'm not very good at just relaxing - that was far too small a part of my day. I don't have much on my plate for today yet, but the day is young. We've shopping and laundry to do, at least. Have a great day!
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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.
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