Ah technology. Following up on last weeks Wi-Fi freakout by my WET11 Bridge, I am now back in business with the WET11 after a driver freak out with the SMC usb Wi-Fi device I purchased because I thought the WET11 was belly up. I think now that I simply needed to renew all my DHCP addresses and reset my WET11. Anyway, I now have MAC filtering turned on and have engaged WEP 64 bit (couldn't seem to do 128 bit under Windows XP?).

Speaking of Windows XP, it generally is going okay on my new Dell 600m. I have disabled some of the more obnoxious parts of this OS (Personal menus, Indexing, System restore). Probably will do more reg tweaking as time goes on. I did encounter my first head scratcher. I was trying to share some files between my Win2K PC and the Dell. For some reason the machines couldn't see each other on the net even though the group was the same and and file and print sharing was enabled. I finally punted and ran the Windows XP network wizard horror. God knows what this thing does but it trundled along for a little while and finally declared all was good. Well I could now share files etc. but it also left me with this strange thing called a Network Bridge which seemed to encapsulate all my networking settings. One of those Microsoft layers upon layers they are so fond of. I did a little googling on the subject and it seemed fairly harmless but I really didn't like how it obscured the basic network settings that I like to consult from time to time. To be fair, the Network Wizard probably got excited that I had two nics (Wi-Fi and Ethernet) and felt they "must" be bridged? Anyway, I decided to just delete the bridge and see if I could share files. I did and I can. So now my net settings are easily accessed and I can share files. Whew, I think these wizards just complicate things for people that know what and how to do things.

Okay, due to my discovery of a rogue AP yesterday I have bitten the bullet and reengaged MAC filtering and am also now trying 128bit WEP for the first time. Seems to work okay so far. I'll have to revisit the Linksys WET11 Bridge at a future point to see if it is hosed or there is a work around. Maybe if a new firmware is issued I'll fiddle with it again.

I'm now using wblogger exclusively. I've got file uploads working so I can easily post photos, etc. This program works very well and as usual it's free!

Another beautiful day. Hopefully the pollen count is lower today. It's been very rough on my allergies these past few days.

P.E.I.

Another nice picture from the P.E.I. 1995 archives:

Well, my Dell 600m came yesterday at 6:15 pm. Very nice laptop. Lots of setting up to do but I ran it on batteries with Wi-Fi for over 3 hrs. and still had time left. Looks like this Centrino stuff has merit.

Speaking of Wi-Fi, I started encountering disconnects on my desktop PC connected to my WET11 wireless bridge. This had been a reliable network but as of today it started going wacky. It would connect for a few minutes and then the lights for both the WLAN and the LAN would go out and then I'd have to unplug the power and the cycle would begin again. This was really puzzling. I started to think that introducing the Dell with it's Intel Pro Wireless was causing some interference but even when I turned off the Dell the problems persisted. Much head scratching on this one. I fiddled around with the settings on my SMC WAP - changing the default channel, etc. Nothing seemed to work. I googled the net but didn't turn up anything definitive. I finally gave up and went out and bought an SMC Wireless USB adapter. This installed in minutes and is working great so far.

The even more curious thing is that while looking at all this I started to notice that there was more than one access point showing up in my area! This is quite a surprise since I am in a residential court and was not expecting to see this. After further study I have definitely confirmed the presence of a "rogue" AP that has an SSID of "Speedstream". I can actually connect to it but it doesn't seem to serve DHCP so I can't log onto the Net. I am now wondering if this is the cause of the WET11 going south? Both APs are using channel 11. Even more interesting is where is this AP located? I installed NetStumbler which picked up this AP but since I don't have a GPS unit I can't pinpoint its location.

This is a very curious turn of events.

I'm getting back into reading books. I get so many newspapers and magazines I sometimes have a hard time settling in with a book. On a whim I picked up the bestseller "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown. Reminds me of Eco's "The Name of the Rose" or the art mysteries by Iain Pears. I'm a sucker for mysteries and Leonardo Da Vinci, etc.

So it's 6pm and no UPS man? BooHoo! I know he will come today.

So, I'm killing time waiting for the UPS man to deliver my new Dell Centrino Laptop. I'm a bit excited to see how I like it. This is the first time I've bought a Dell. Since I just build my desktop PCs from parts, it will be interesting to see how the other half lives. I've got a bit of trepidation about using Win XP but I'll grin and bear it. I will install a good bit of OpenSource software to balance things out.

Listening to Sean Hannity and suffering with my allergies. It's a beautiful warm day but the pollen count must be sky high today. I took a Claritin but still I suffer. I'm sure it doesn't help that I have all the windows open.

I've been doing quite a lot of work transferring out of print LPs to CD-R. I've got a pretty good system setup to expedite the process while preserving the fidelity I require. I spent a lot of time tweaking the Music Hall 2.1 turntable I bought for this purpose. It is low-end compared to my AR-Merrill-Morch-Benz rig but it's quite acceptable. I started out using the supplied Goldring cartridge but decided to upgrade. First, I tried a Grado ZTE+ I had lying around. This was an improvement in overall sound but a real disaster in hum shielding which Grado is notorious for. I found a source of MU-Metal that is used to shield electronics. I used it years ago for other electronic projects. It was only about $20 for a sheet big enough for my purposes. I installed it under the platter using double stick tape. It did dramatically reduce the hum but still it allowed the magnetic field to increase at the outer edge of the platter. I finally abandoned the Grado and installed a nice Benz-Micro MC20E2 Moving Coil cartridge I had lying around. This is a real upgrade and I'll stick with this solution. Not very much hum now and the little left I can EQ out using a notch filter at 120hz in Vegas when I edit the WAV file. I'm now getting some very nice audio transfers to CD-R that I bet could fool some that did not know they were sourced from LP.

Sunset on P.E.I.

I've been going through some photos lately. I particularly like this one from my trip to P.E.I. back in 1995:

Just found an offline blog tool called w.bloggar. Looks like a useful tool. Let's see if I can get this to post to my website.

Snow again! Wow, this is a winter to contend with. Just now recovering from my basement flood as a result of the snow, then rain, and blockage of my yard drain tube that was blocked by snow. This may have been avoidable if I had reasoned out that the snow would backup my underground drainage system. Live an learn. I did finally have a word with my Bolivian neighbors about their runoff I've been dealing with for 15 years. Got their permission to install some piping on their downspout to route it to the back of my yard away from my house. This will have the added bonus of providing irrigation to a dry part of my yard.

Been very busy lately with household maintenance and renovation. I've made a lot of progress in decorating my upstairs den. I'm on the verge of purchasing some audio recording bits to add to my newly rebuilt computer. First I'll get some powered speakers and a USB audio card all from M-Audio. Down the road I'm thinking of adding an HDTV card to the PC. This would let me play with HDTV on the cheap. I also want to get and LCD monitor to replacing my ancient NEC CRT that still cranks along after about 10 years. Looking into getting a widescreen computer LCD (WXGA). This would be a good match for the HDTV tuner.

Also relocated my networking hub and cable modem to my utility room. I now have a pseudo wiring closet that is centralized. I should have done this a while ago but the flood cleanup forced me to tear everything up and rearrange. Good to have this stuff out of the way. Thinking of dropping in a server pc from my hodge podge of parts. Thought I might load up the Knoppix self booting cd initially and fire up VNC and then make it a headless server using my KVM switch. I could then manage it remotely. Not sure why I need a house server yet but I could start offloading WMA audio files or something for centralized access.

It's amazing how time passes by. I've been trapped inside quite a bit lately because of the weather. I had plans to go out today but the weather quickly cancelled that.

I'm getting a Starbucks near my house in the Fall of 2003. Yeah! I'll be able to walk to it. This will be a lot of fun.

Interesting article by David Stutz, formerly of Microsoft, offering advice to Microsoft and its future direction. Basically, it argues that MSFT should embrace the Open Source paridigm or wither on the vine. He makes reference to the slowness of MSFT's adoption of the Internet. I'll never forget the quote that I was told by one of the MSFT's web server team that Billg said "If there was a red button to turn off the Internet, I would push it." Interestingly, the suggestions that Stutz makes about integrating Open Source into its products is exactly what Apple is doing (e.g. Safari). I am surprised that he does not mention this?

This article also parallels a recent one by Cringely that proffers the idea that Windows is just a another windowing system and that MSFT might as well just bolt it on top of Linux. Again, this is essentially what Apple has done with Aqua and BSD.

If I had to make a prediction, I would say this has at least a 50% chance of happening at some point.