I just had to share this to scare people that understand the implications. My desktop on my computer at home is clean. Just My Computer, My Documents and the Recycle Bin.

And if you think that's bad. My desk at work, in fact my whole work area, is clean and organized. I filed.

I did it again. When I was about to swap drives around in Pluto so I could move data around last night, I spilled half a cup of Dr. Pepper directly into it's side. Luckily, Pluto was turned off at this point. I got the spill cleaned up and got the remainder of it off the components with alcohol. It doesn't seem to have done any damage, but I was really worried for a bit.

I've been hearing how IPv6 is the wave of the future for awhile now, but never really had read anything about what it actually entails. It had always seemed like just a change in addressing. I was reading an article in InfoWorld (an IT magazine I get for free) while doing my "morning research" in the bathroom today. It had an interesting article (that I haven't finished yet) about what IPv6 entails and why it hasn't been implemented as well in the US as it has in Asia (mostly because the US got the lion's share of IPv4 addresses and everyone else got screwed). It's amazing that it requires a big shift in the way we think about networking to do it properly. But from what I've seen, there are Good Things to Come^TM.

So there I was, playing a game on my laptop while sitting on the floor in the living room. Somehow, my brain turned itself off and I ended up spilling Dr. Pepper onto the right side of the keyboard. After it dried out and I spent about 30 minutes with alcohol and q-tips, the enter and backspace keys (and a couple others, but not as extereme) don't function properly. This is a problem.

So I called up Dell a few days later to order a replacement keyboard. I may still be able to clean the one I have, but I'm afraid I'm just going to harm it more when I do it, so I figured I oughta get one anyway. I ordered a keyboard on Friday or Saturday and had it here on Tuestday. Unfortunately, apparently because I'd told them the wrong model number, I got the wrong keyboard.

I called them back and they told me they were issuing a refund and to just keep the other keyboard (to be sold on eBay, or if anyone needs a keyboard for an Inspiron 8100, contact me). The total for the wrong keyboard was aobut $48. When I ordered the right keyboard and the internal bluetooth adapter for my laptop (to connect to my new phone that I'll tell about in my next entry), it came to about $62. I have to wait a little longer, because I'm stupid, but it's going to work out alright in the end.

I just had a idea that might make my life easier in the future, but I'm really not sure how to implement it. I have three computers that I do work on. So I end up with lots of documents between those 3 machines. The documents encompass personal (i.e. non-work related) things, work related (i.e. regular job) and other work related (i.e. on the side). But a good portion of these documents are needed at any of the three computers at any given time. And there's a lot of crossover between the three categories.

Two of the comptuers are on all the time so synchronizing them could be automated. The other computer is a laptop and portable, so it's on sporadicly and not always online, so it could possibly be automated, but more likely it would be manually synchronized.

I know there are a couple different pieces of software out there that could accomplish my task. I'm thinking sothing along the lines of CVS might be the right way to go. That would allow me to track changes in files as well as provide for synchronization.

I'm sitting here, playing with Pluto. I've got Babylon 5 playing in a window. I'm compiling two programs from source. And I'm updating this entry and playing mahjongg. I've decided I need a faster processor for this computer. This Duron 700 MHz just isn't cutting it.

Rachel inherited a computer from her Dad today. PII 233MHz, 6GB hard drive, 64MB ram. Kinda slow there. They'd been having a little trouble with it, but knew I might be able to fix it. So the first thing I did was pull out the motherboard and put in the Athlon 550 and board that was Gargoyle a week or two ago. Added the extra 128 MB of ram I had lying there, installed a better video card and installed a wireless nic we just bought. Then format & reinstall Windows 2000. It seems to be running pretty well. Windows is installed, and now I'm working on the network card as we speak, so I can get everything else updated & installed. We'll see how it goes.

We went to CompUSA today too. It turns out we both have a mild Starcraft addiction. The trouble is, we only had one copy and we wanted to be able to both play on Battle.Net simultaneously. So I splurged a little bit today and bought my first legit copy of the game ever.

I went to the thrift store with Rachel today. I started wandering around and lo and behold... a 17" monitor... $5. I sat there for a moment. Thought about it. Then realized, for $5, if it doesn't work, I won't be mad. But, the good news is, it has a nice crisp picture. It was $5 well spent. It's replaced the 15" Toshiba monitor that I had on Pluto. Now all of my boxes at the house have 17" monitors, except for the laptop, which has a 15.4" widescreen display.

UPDATE: Found out the max the monitor will do is 1024x768, but that's going to be plenty for the box I want to use it on.