Home Graffiti About Sitemap Visual DevWork Email Brian GPG Key

GRAFFITI -- December 11, 2006 thru December 17, 2006 >> Link to the Current Week << Last Week << Mon   Tues   Wed   Thu   Fri   Sat   Sun >> Next Week Search this site : 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.

MONDAY    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
December 11, 2006

0829 - Good morning. More or less, anyway. I'm feeling better than I did over the weekend, so I guess that's progress. Along with the shopping, we got our Christmas cards all done yesterday (and when I say "we", I mean Marcia, this time). Little else to report. Work is, so I'd best be about it. Ciao!

Top  /  Email Brian

Mon    TUESDAY    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
December 12, 2006

0743 - Good morning. Better today, I think, thanks. I didn't sleep very well, but still I feel a bit more together. Focus yesterday was a problem, but I still found a a way to get my assorted tasks done. And last night, in prep for getting the final formatting done for Jerry's latest column installment on CMR, I found the solution to a printing problem that a reader had found. With some prodding by others, I finally located the data I needed to setup a separate media=print CSS file, and tested it until it's right. To see for yourself, either print or print-preview one of the columns or mailbags on the CMR site. Same content of the page, but some parts are omitted and others restructured by the CSS for printing. Very cool stuff, actually. I'm glad that I finally figured that out. Years after everyone else, of course.

Today is meetings, along with all the usual stuff that comes my way in the normal day, so I'd best be about it. Have a happy Tuesday!

Top  /  Email Brian

Mon    Tues    WEDNESDAY    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
December 13, 2006

1135 - Good morning. My project list keeps growing, but there seem to be fewer hours left in each passing day. Meantime, yesterday's Black Tuesday came and went - patches for Windows and for the Windows Media Player (important, please do apply those on systems running Windows), but unfortunately, no fixes for the two recent Word vulnerabilities. So the Microsoft recommendation should stand: Don't open Word documents... I presume they meant with Word, as I feel pretty safe opening them with OpenOffice under Linux. Works For Me (tm).

I lost focus, and went to work on some release notes. I guess the take-away message is that I once again don't have much to say at this time, although there's plenty going on. More details another day. Ciao!

Top  /  Email Brian

Mon    Tues    Wed    THURSDAY    Fri    Sat    Sun   
December 14, 2006

0804 - Good morning. I got halfway through writing Release Notes yesterday. Today I want to finish the other half. I also have some new hardware to qualify and start implementation on. Plenty to do, not enough hours in the day. Later...

Top  /  Email Brian

Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
December 15, 2006

No Post.....

Top  /  Email Brian

Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    SATURDAY    Sun   
December 16, 2006

0937 - Good morning. Don't anyone rush to ask me why I set my weekday alarm last night. I probably hit the snooze three times this morning before I remembered it was Saturday and I could just shut it off. Sigh.

Yesterday was our holiday luncheon. We had a nice meal at a place called Timpano's near the corner of Montrose Road and Rockville Pike. Good food, and I'd give you a link, but their site has some of the nastiest usage of Flash that I've seen in a good long day, so no links for you, Timpano!

Serial console port redirection was the bane of my existence yesterday. There are so many interactions between cable, multiple different menu BIOS settings, serial port program (I was using Minicom on CentOS) ... very frustrating results. At least until I found that I had a repeatable bug in the software that was writing to the serial port at the other end. Then we could talk with the developers to see if they had an idea of the issue. Less than an hour later, problem solved and I could wrap up my day.

Today I'm installing Solaris 10 x86 32-bit on my testbed system here. While that's going on, I'll get ready, then Marcia and I are heading over to G Street Fabrics to finish up my Christmas shopping for her. Later today, I may finally get started on patching the walls that I invaded while running CAT5e throughout the house last in October. Wish me luck...

Top  /  Email Brian

Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    SUNDAY  
December 17, 2006

1242 - Good afternoon. The patching of the walls is officially postponed yet again. I'm still fighting a low-grade bug, and just don't have the enthusiasm necessary to do that gig at the moment. We did get the shopping done, and Linda's coming over tonight for a hang-out session with Marcia. We may or may not watch some Buffy.

• Maj. Megan M. McClung, 34, of Coupeville, Wash., died Dec. 6 while supporting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Cody G. Watson, 21, of Oxford, Ala., died Dec. 6 from a non-hostile incident in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Staff Sgt. Thomas W. Clemons, 37, of Leitchfield, Ky., died Dec. 10 in Ad Diwaniyah, Iraq, from a non-combat health-related incident.
• 1st Lt. Nathan M. Krissoff, 25, of Reno, Nev., died Dec. 9 from wounds suffered while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Sgt. Brennan C. Gibson, 26, of Tualatin, Ore., died Dec. 10 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• Spc. Philip C. Ford, 21, of Freeport, Texas, died Dec. 10 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• Spc.. Shawn M. Murphy, 24, of Fort Bragg, N.C., died Dec. 10 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• Lance Cpl. Budd M. Cote, 21, of Marana, Ariz., died Dec. 11 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Cpl. Matthew V. Dillon, 25, of Aiken, S.C., died Dec. 11 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Clinton J. Miller, 23, of Greenfield, Iowa, died Dec. 11 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Master Sgt. Brian P. McAnulty, 39, of Vicksburg, Miss., died Dec. 11 when the CH-53 helicopter he was riding in crashed just after takeoff in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Sgt. Brent W. Dunkleberger, 29, of New Bloomfield, Pa., died of injuries suffered when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle during a convoy security mission in Mosul, Iraq, Dec. 12.
• Maj. Gloria D. Davis, 47, of St. Louis, Mo., died Dec. 12 in Baghdad, Iraq, from a non-combat related incident.
• Spc. Nicholas P. Steinbacher, 22, of La Crescenta, Calif., died of injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV in Baghdad, Iraq, on Dec. 10.
• Pfc. Albert M. Nelson, 31, of Philadelphia, Penn., died Dec. 4 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, of injuries suffered from small arms fire while conducting security and observation operations.
• Pfc. Roger A. Suarez-Gonzalez, 21 of Miami, Fla., died Dec. 4 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, of injuries suffered from small arms fire while conducting security and observation operations.
• Pfc. Paul Balint Jr., 22, of Willow Park, Texas, died Dec. 15 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his unit came in contact with the enemy using small arms fire during combat operations.
• Staff Sgt. Theodore A. Spatol, 59, of Thermopolis, Wyo., died of a non-combat related illness in Thermopolis on Dec. 14.

My heart goes out to the families of the fallen.

Top  /  Email Brian

Last Week << Mon   Tues   Wed   Thu   Fri   Sat   Sun >> Next Week

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.

All Content Copyright © 1999-2011 Brian P. Bilbrey.


Except where otherwise noted, this site is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.