Today, I'm working on fixing a bug in some software I originally wrote in 2002 that generates reports for Payroll. It was originally written using Visual Studio .NET (the first version) and has since been maintained in Visual Studio .NET 2002 and Visual Studio .NET 2003. All of my new stuff is written using the .NET 2.0 framework in Visual Studio 2005, and will soon be moving to .NET 3.0. But I have a few programs we use here at work that are written using .NET 1.1. This is the first time I've worked on one of them since I installed Vista on Dark. This morning, I had to install Visual Studio .NET 2003 to be able to work on it.

The bug I'm working on is in a report for Crystal Reports that the program uses. It's a minor error somewhere in a formula that calculates the total number of hours they should have worked based on when they started and how far into the year we are. It's off across the board by 80 hours.

While looking at the formulas, something happened that it wouldn't let me view them to edit them anymore. I decided I should install the updates for VS .NET 2003 anyway, and maybe that will fix it.

I hate annoying installs.

The battery on the car has been charged. The spark plugs have been replaced. The air filter and fluid levels have been checked. Fresh gas, with gas treatment, has been added. It still won't start, unless you spray starter fluid into the air intake. Even then, it only runs until the starter fluid burns off a moment later.

The plan for last night was to change the fuel filter on my car. It needed to be changed anyway, but we were trying to find why the engine isn't getting any fuel as well. The old filter was not connected with a quick disconnect fitting as advertised. Three hours later, we still have the fuel filter attached to the fitting.

The fitting had a plastic clip inside, which has now been broken off. It also has four metal clips that hold the fuel filter in place. They don't want to let it go. After about 2 1/2 hours, we decided to try cutting the pipe on the fuel filter to get to the fitting more easily. In the end, it's now easier to see what we're doing, but has made no difference in getting it out of the fitting.

On the bright side, we did prove that the fuel pump works just fine. The old filter seems to not be completely clogged, so this may not help with starting the engine in the long run. The next step is to take the fuel line off the engine to prove it's getting fuel up there. Otherwise, it's probably the fuel injectors.

I'm currently in the process of upgrading Dark, my workstation at work, from Vista RC1 to RC2. It's been at it for about an hour now and it's nowhere near done. Part of it might be that my web browsing and other work related activities continue as it goes, but...

I've heard from several sources that the upgrade process takes forever, but it's hard to really fathom until you've run it. Damn. It's slow. To quote the installer, "Your upgrade may take several hours to complete."

From the little bit I was able to play with RC2 on Wraith last night, I've decided it seems to run smoother than RC1, which is expected. Part of it may be the difference in processors, but we'll see after the upgrade is done. The other difference may be that Dark has a much newer video card and is using the Aero interface, which is prettier but has a higher overhead in performance cost.

Update: Total installation time was approximately 3 hours. Damn.

"Sometimes I hate the internet. Sometimes it makes me happy that 'The Tubes' has become slang for the internet so quickly."

For more information on 'The Tubes':

· The Internet is a Series of Tubes (The Song)
· Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska talking about the Net Neutrality (mp3)

Ask a Ninja: Net Neutrality

As of last night, Goblin, my desktop at home, has taken a temporary leave of absence. It all started about a month ago when the computer caught a nasty virus. The worst part was watching it happen. It was one of those that installed several others in the process. For the next couple of weeks, I kept cleaning off more and more. Eventually, I got it clean, but it wasn’t the same. Every 2-12 hours, it would get a fatal exception and crash. Apparently, one of the drivers that didn’t want to identify itself had been corrupted. I tried several methods to recover it without reinstalling, but none of them worked. So for another week, I dealt with it rather than take the time to reinstall.

Last night, I finally got fed up enough with it to finally do something about the problem. Satyr, the Media Center computer in the living room had been having issues as well, although they seemed to all be software related. After some minor surgery, all of the memory and storage from Goblin, as well as the video card with dual monitor support, had been moved to Satyr, which had a faster processor. Through the whole process, I felt a little bit like a necromancer during this whole process, so Wraith seemed like an appropriate name. Perhaps I’ve just been playing too much Warmachine.

I learned an important lesson during this process. When using a shop vac to dust out your computer, always do so in a well ventilated area. I’d used it to vacuum out some of the dust, but that wasn’t getting enough of it, so I switched it to blow the dust out. By the end of it, the cloud of dust in my computer room was so thick I could barely see the other wall. I ended up coughing for an hour or two afterward.

Next, it needed an operating system. I’ve been enjoying running Vista RC1 at work, so I thought I would install RC2 at home. Unfortunately, there’d been a problem with the disk I’d burned of it and it wouldn’t install. So I thought, I’ll install Fedora Core 6, which I’d been wanting to try out anyway. If I’d have thought about it, I would have realized that might be a bad idea. Both of the disks had been burned the same day, on the same computer. It didn’t work either. And to make it worse, my good copy of XP was sitting on my desk at work.

After sitting there frustrated for about 20 minutes, I remembered having another copy of Vista RC2 that I thought had been bad. I figured at this point, it wouldn’t hurt to try it. Luckily, it installed just fine. After three hours of bullshit, I finally had a working computer again.

I just added a few pictures I found on thefunniest.info to the Humor gallery. The site is a fun little toy. But try not to waste too much time on it.

That's an excerpt from a conversation I had in September 2004 with someone. I saved that part of it, but I can't for the life of me remember for sure who it was with. It pops into my head every now and then. Today is one of those days. But it's been a day full of odd thoughts anyway.

I blame it on the fact that I was woken up at 2:00 am by a phone call. Granted, I didn't realize I'd been asleep until about half way through the conversation. By that time, I didn't have the heart to say, "I'm going to go back to sleep now," especially after having said, "No. I was awake."

I'd only been asleep for about 30 minutes, so it made a good nap. That's probably why I ended up staying up till about 4:00. Then while I slept, I had an odd dream that I won't recount here. Usually, my dreams will have to do with something that happened that day, or something I'd been thinking about that day. This one seemed to come from left field somewhere. No idea what brought it on.

But on the bright side, I made it to work on time this morning. Although, I didn't actually wake up and start getting dressed until about a minute before my ride got there to pick me up. Now, I'm almost through my second large cup of sugar with coffee. It's making me hyper and manic, and a bit long-winded.

By request, here is Questions You Should Always Ask About an Event in Italian.

Ci sono determinate domande che dovreste fare sempre riguardo ad un evento state andando assistere a. Qui è la mia lista. (questo è stato preso ieri da una conversazione reale.)

• Quando è?
• Dove è?
• Come lungo esso durano?
• Ha costato i soldi È ci un codice del vestito?
• Devo portare i pesci?
• Devo cucinare i pesci in primo luogo?
• Deve essere cotto o fritto?
• Se fritto, che genere di olio dovrei usare? Verdura? Arachide? Canola?

Note: I used BabelFish for the translation. I don't actually speak Italian.

I borrowed a battery charger from my grandfather today. I spent the last hour or so making sure the battery was charged, which to my surprise it still was mostly charged, and cleaning out the car. The battery seems to be fine.

The bad news is that I'm probably going to have to replace all four tires. One of the rear tires is split from being flat and sat on and the two front tires are both nearly bald (from driving on them harshly, most likely). I'd forgotten the shape the front tires were in.

Tomorrow, during the daylight, we'll find out if the car still runs or not. I'm crossing my fingers.

I've been working on some layout changes for the site. I'm getting closer to what I want, but it's still missing something. Then, once I'm happy with the look, I'm planning on going back and simplifying and correcting the underlying HTML code. Currently, it's a huge mess. If you view the source for the page, you'll see how ugly it really is.

I think I really like the header this way better. It seems much cleaner. I could never get the tear to look clean without severely modifying the way it's coded. And I honestly didn't feel like doing that yet.