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This is coming to you via the laptop, but 7X is running! Right now it is in the process of reinstalling Windows 2000. There were two issues with booting up:

1. A couple of data errors on the drive. chkdsk cleaned those up so the drive is recognizable as the boot drive
2. Win2000 corrupt. A fresh install is taking care of that now.

I’m going to have to look into the partition of my drives because I had the c: drive/partition pretty full. That resulted in there not being enough room to clean up the files there and prompting a fresh installation over the top. The only thing I should lose is the account settings, but those are easy to recreate. Looks like I did something right when I partitioned the drive last year and put all data on one drive and reserved the c: drive for Windows and programs only.

I just spell checked the last entry. The dictionary doesn’t recognize “blogging” or “blog.” Now that’s funny.

Well, I’m blogging from work….

The case modification on Weds. went well, though it took longer than expected (I was trying to be careful and clean). Cutting out the back panel for the motherboard was the tricky part. (I’m taking pictures of everything, so stay tuned.)

The new board mounted up just fine. All the hardware went back in just fine. Boot up and enter BIOS went fine – all hardware correctly identified. Boot up to Windows, not so fine. It began the boot process then ran into a problem with the drive. I’ve got to check some hardware settings before I panic too much. However, my suspicion is that the Windows 2000 install is mucked. I think I mentioned before that it was getting a bit hinky on me and I was planning on refreshing it. Well, looks like I might be doing that from DOS.

Stay tuned for our next exiting chapter, hopefully coming to you from 7X. (That seems to have become the name of the new box.)

I’m not a big fan of Flash web sites; I find that its use usually slows down my ability to browse a site, and its use is often unnecessary (the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen web site is a classic example — flash adds nothing to the site).

There is another reason I do not advocate all-Flash sites: I can’t always access them. At work we run Windows 2000 with security restrictions — I can’t add programs. Which means that I can’t install the Flash plug-in. Which means, if you’ve created a Flash site and I’m at work, I won’t see it. And I’m not going to bother remember to look at it at when I get home.

Now, if you’ve got a business site and I’m looking to purchase something, you’ve lost my business. Accessibility is more than making sites available to screen readers, it’s making your site available to anyone who wants to see it. If you design in Flash, make sure you’ve got an alternate for those without.

With our main computer down, I setup Sarah’s laptop with our cable modem. This is the laptop she received as part of a huge Michigan technology initiative that gave every teacher in the program a computer. (Technically, it belongs to the school where she works.)

The machine basically serves as a place for her to do some work, but it has never been connected to the internet. It is almost 4 years old. Since I’ve got it hooked up via a cable modem, I thought some updates and security items were in order. For those of you with Windows machines you may be familiar with the Windows Update routine.

I logged in and there were 47 critical updates for the laptop. Yes, 47. Oy. The machine is running Windows 98 and has never had a patch, upgrade or anything else. It still had Internet Explorer 5.0.

A couple of hours later, and all is well. Fully upgraded with all of the service packs, upgraded to IE 6.0 plus some other goodies and it’s working pretty well online.

Now, as for the main machine, I think I have located the problem. The only recent additions have been a USB hub and SanDisk card reader. The hub allows me to have the USB printer, scanner and card reader (and access for USB thumb drive) all hooked up (since the older computer only has 2 USB 1.0 ports). With the scanner and card reader plugged into the hub, in turn plugged into the computer, it won’t boot. Unplug either the hub or the components hooked to it, the computer boots just fine. (Sort of. I had one, make that two, lock ups when plugging in the hub after being up and running.)

So, what to do. I’m still going to purchase the new motherboard combo tonight. If the current machine can’t handle 3-4 USB devices, I’ve got a problem. Plus, the new motherboard will support USB 2, which means that scanner, card reader, printer and hub will all run at their intended speeds (being all USB 2 devices).

So, I’m off to motherboards.com to order a new 2.8 GHz machine with 512 Mb DDR PC3200 RAM on either an Abit or Asus motherboard.

As I sat at the computer earlier finishing some freelance work, I looked out the window to see the two hawks soar in tadem just out of reach. I could hear their calls drifting on the wind as they went by.

OK, I keep meaning to post little tidbits, but they never seem important, or I forget about them by the time I log in (meaning they just aren’t important). And I really don’t think you want to read about what I had for dinner.

So how about trash? Not mine mind you, but in general.

It amazes me that on trash day every week on our street there is furniture. From couches and chairs to desks, dressers and nightstands there is always some piece of furniture on the curb. How is this possible? How are people going through that much stuff?

It seems I’ve become more and more sensitive to the amount of detritus that we produce.