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Monday I Monday II Monday III Monday IV Monday V Un-Monday I Un-Monday II
When am I going to learn? Catch up on the Daynotes reading first. ...then play around with the new distro. <sigh>
I'd taken the manuals for SuSe 7.1 along with me last weekend and read all about their neat configuration utility. ...and I'd wanted to reset my resolution to 800x600 because my eyes just can't handle the higher densities on my 17'' monitor. Cool. ...also cool was the nice lapel pin from the commercial version: my St. Patrick's Day green was a lizard! Close enough to a snake for me.
So anyway, as soon as I get all the boxes and boxen fired up, I jumped into SaX2 to see what I could see. Oh, my. What a wonderful way to hose a system! It wasn't until I was settled in later at the kitchen table with the laptop that I read of Brian's misadventures with SaX...
The score as of late Sunday evening: Dan 1: SaX 2. I managed to get the resolution where I wanted it, but my rodent is still crippled beyond usefulness. Tonight's plan is to drop back ten and quick-kick. I suspect my KVM box is reporting something a little different than my Logitech scrolldent trackball; it's time to tell SaX that all I have is a simple little rodent of MS lineage.
Nothing like a little satisfying SaX to put the capper on an evening <g>...
Yep: your updated score card shows Dan 3: SaX 2. I took the rubber match (don't go there) with an absolutely brilliant application of applied logic, intuition (in Linux???), and sheer perseverance. Okay; I'll add in some dumb luck also.
Short version: if you can get to any screen at all, fire up Konsole (<Alt-F2> from the GUI to reach the 'Run' box, type Konsole) and enter Sax2 -f; that will force a re-probe of the system. One of the options is to merge the new information with your old database; that lets you make incremental changes to the system as you work your way back from whatever corner you've backed yourself into. ...at least that's what is working for me as I learn this distro.
Brian and Mark were both working with Voodoo cards as I understand things; I'm working with an ATI Rage card. The other maybe gotcha' as reported by Tom last night: there's SaX and SaX2; I've been doing all of my flailing in SaX2. ...and there's an error trapping screen associated with the test at the end of the config that's come up several times when I've been too far off base for the test to even start. But, in my case at least: So far; so good...
...and I typed this listening to Deliriou5 in Tux^2's cupholder (that reference is for DocJim). So maybe I have this thing figured out!
Hump day... As in "Sometimes you're the statue and sometimes you're the pigeon..."
Today, I think I'll get the shotgun out and wait for the pigeon. I figure if Shelley can cook up Cornish game hens...
Sheesh. Events just proceed apace some days. Right now I'm looking at the third Monday in a row this week. The good news in that? There's only two more Monday's left in the week! ...and I don't teach this weekend. Yeah! Maybe a flower-planting weekend...
I never made it back to the other site last night. ...and never even got close to stopping by here! I did get a quick composite picture up on Shelley's site, a view from the kitchen window...
...and that leads into the reason for not getting to some of the routine stuff: I'm crawling my way up the learning curve of several interrelated project components for web site development. No, you won't see Flash stuff on this site (although you will elsewhere), but you will see CSS taking over here soon enough. Hopefully I'll manage that well enough you won't notice it.
Related: a public Thank you! to Brian for reminding me/keeping my feet to the fire on the Bluefish front. Sometimes I don't keep up as much as I should and Bluefish is one of the components I mentioned earlier. Have I mentioned I like raw HTML editors? NoteTab works fine for me in the land of Windows (with CoffeeCup as a backup); Bluefish seems to fit the bill over on the Linux side. What was missing was the configurability. Uh... Thanks again Brian; I'd likely have gotten to it this summer at the coast...
I guess I can say the staff is well trained... After she was done laughing, the receptionist passed this one to me:
“Purchasing. May I help you?”The great news was Jamie recognized the scam right away. The appalling news is the total ineptness of the bozo calling in.
“Hi, this is Matt from the Catalog Store. We're getting ready to send out our new catalog on, umm..., copiers; and to make sure we send you the right one, we need to know the model number of your copier.”
“Not even...”
“Not even?” ...as he hung up.
Personally, I like the one that reads ('cause they're all reading from a prepared script), “We're taking a survey and need to know the model number of your copier.”
Either way, we burn them; if you don't, you'll end up with a case of off-brand toner on your dock a few days later. ...and an invoice for roughly three times the value of name-brand toner.
Still, it was nice to see the shields are holding. We haven't had a breach in quite some time. ...and I contract my toner in with my service agreements and the staff is aware we don't buy from other vendors.
...and Jamie? She came in laughing her tail off when she saw me hang up...
There... That's better. John Dominik wrote in this morning to let me know I was missing "Friday" from my life. ...or at least from my template. K'. In honor of how this week has gone here in the land of The Time Sink, I've changed the day's names appropriately. Whether or not I continue with this template is open to conjecture...
The week has been one long interruption. My desk is not even back to where it was last Monday V and today doesn't look to improve that situation.
I haven't maintained my posting cycle (my apologies to John, Don, and the other early/late risers) as I've been working on a bug report for a Linux program. Every time I think I have a handle on it, I find one more issue that I want to dig a little deeper on before I report it. ...and that's been keeping Brian up late dealing with my newbie questions. ...'cause this just has to be on my end. ...only it can't be. ...and I cannot believe no one's seen it before. ...so it has to be me. ...only I can A-B out segments of the chain and it keeps pointing to one program. ...and I just don't know. ...and I want to be sure before I step in it.
Yeah, I'll let you know about it in another day or two. I have test samples posted; as soon as I get it written up to my satisfaction, I'll either have the problem solved or ready for submission.
...but not tonight. After getting away with late nights earlier this week, last night turned into a 'cats and kids' night. So now I have a tired wife who'll be leaning on me. ...and I'm tired enough to want to find a wall to lean against myself.
The good news? I'm off from the teaching gig tomorrow. ...and it's warm enough to barbecue. So I think a day in the yard cooking up some ribs and sausage might be a good idea. ...except for the parboiling. If I admit to that, I suspect I'd wake up the next morning to find chicken entrails on my doorstep <g>.
Okay, we'll try the weekend thing and see how it goes... I know Shelley has a 'honey-do' list a mile long, but I just want to putter. With any luck, we may be able to plot an intersection of those two curves...
First up, light off the beast! I preloaded the firebox last night; all that's left is lighting it off. ...which is usually not the greatest idea first thing out of bed in the morning. At best, I may only singe my eyebrows...
...better to wake up first. ...and wonder around with the old Palm, now relegated to duty as a scratch pad. It's cool though; I always know where my notes are as opposed to my old notebook system...
Hey Brian, you should see it from the laptop: same deal. ...only in a slightly different spot. I'm going to do that character count...
Hey, that's all from here today. Happenings will likely happen.
I've got to be the only mainland Daynoter with a sunburn this morning... Yeah, even goofing off most of the day yesterday, I still managed to scorch my shoulders. Sheesh. ...and there are people back east still running around in snow boots. ...and winter's headed in down under.
Maybe that's a message to me to stay inside today and finish one piece of site work... If so, I'll still have to deal with the dirt I started pushing around sooner or later. Ah well, all play and no work. ..or something like that.
I'll check in later
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