Last night wasn't a total waste...

[bjarvis]

With nothing else more pressing on my agenda for last evening, I had hoped to tinker a little bit on my computers, then work on some A2 choreography for Tuesday night, just on the off chance I had enough A2 dancers for a squares. Sounds like such a simple plan of action, doesn't it?



Today, my new USB 512 MB flash memory drive arrived in the mail. I was planning to use this to simplify shuffling my personal data files between the various machines I use on a regular basis; being occasionally caught with a block of time and the hardware but not the required data has simply worn on my nerves a wee bit too far so this seemed the logical way of resolving the problem. The doohickey works very well on Windows XP boxen as well as my iMac, but after several hours of twiddling, I still am no closer to having it work with either my Windows 98 machine or my RH9 linux box. I have the same problems with the USB 2.0 bluetooth adapter I use to sync my Mac with my cell phone.

Rather than waste further time on either of these little projects, my first thought was to simply cave in and finally retire Windows 98 from my network. I'd need new Windows licenses for both my workstation and my Toshiba laptop, but I hate spending money for such a trivial additional feature: Win98 works just fine for everything else I'm doing. Hell, I still use Office 97 since there's nothing in the newer versions which I find desirable or useful.

Then again, since I hardly use my Windows desktop anymore except as a place to store my documents (and 15 GB of porn), perhaps I should simply retire it from active service. I had been thinking about playing with the x86 version of Solaris 10... perhaps this would be a better use of my time & effort. If I really needed an XP box, Kent's desktop is twice as fast and only a metre away. Hmmm...

Now if only I could upgrade my iMac's USB ports from 1.1 to 2.0...


Needless to say, I spent almost the entire evening playing with the toys and hardly touched the A2 stuff. I did scribble up a few figures which I'll now test on my CSDS laptop today during breaks. Perhaps it'll even get used tonight.

Comments

Or yet another option ...

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Dump Windows98 and go to Windows 2000, unopened licenses of which can still be found on eBay if you look carefully. I'm seriously considering loading up my new home workstation with 2000 rather than XP.

Here's an amusing idea: Write A2 choreo using only Plus calls. Think Mike DeSisto. Here's a starter. From waves: "Hinge, Centers Trade" = Quarter Thru. Running through this exercise has inspired some of my coolest A2 choreo. Really.

[bearfuz.livejournal.com]

Gosh, that was far less geeky than I anticipated; I actually understood most of it.

Re: Or yet another option ...

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Good thought on the eBay license search... I'll check on that.

I'll try the A2-using-Plus choreo. If nothing else, it's a good intellectual exercise and I could always use a new stack of insights. Thanks!

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

My first draft was way more geeky. After reading it through, I decided it was geekier than even I wanted to read so I edited it for readability/tolerability.