Dave Mancuso dot Com

Thanksgiving…mmmmm…Turkey…mmmmm…no, I won’t fall asl….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…turkey…mmmm….zzzzzzzz

So I’m installing Linux in between other things today. Start the PC with the boot CD. Click through the install screens. Stop dead at the “no network installed” message. Click backward through the screens to the network card option. Select the proper network card in the list. Stare at the next screen, “Enter parameters for the NIC.” Enter nothing. Go forward. Network fails. If I can’t install the network card, I can’t download the rest of the installation files to the PC.

Look around on the Internet. Apparently I need the documentation. The documentation is supposedly easily available, but exists nowhere in downloadable form.

Find the documentation, but you need to be running Linus already to download/install it.

Try several parameters blindly–IRQ, base address, hex numbers.

Find out later on that I don’t need to enter any parameters. Hmmm. Why didn’t it work then when I left it blank?

Later in the day, come back to click other options. Amazingly, using the Install with ACPI disabled option works. What is ACPI? A new power management standard for PCs, which seems to kill the network card. Clear as mud.

Leave it to download and continue the installation. Realize that it will fail, since I won’t be there to click through the next screen that comes up, since I’ll be home. It will drop the connection (it installs over the network).

Linux, easier than ever. Definitely a learning experience, but how could this ever be for the casual, everyday user?

I’m installing Linux one more time–the first time I’m installing it on a decent system that’s not obsolete. I think I’m going to work with KDE as the interface (for lack of a better word) rather than Gnome.

I came across this quote at http://people.etango.com/~awaite/blog/archives/000004.html:

“Then I found kde-look.org and went nuts. I practically have OSX emulated perfectly. That is a great and active community of graphically inclined enthusiasts!”

Dude, not to give credence to what Brad’s been telling me all along, but why don’t you just get a Macintosh?

Tonight Alyssa came home with us from day care acting surly. It was weird, and not like her. After a few minutes, Denise dragged out of her what was really bothering her.

Alyssa: Mommy, it’s (Girl1) and (Girl2). They’re just driving me crazy!

Apparently they each want to be friends with Alyssa, but not with each other. It’s driving Alyssa to distress.

It’s really amazing watching your kids grow up. If this is already stressing her out at five years old (six on Tuesday), what will things be like in ten years?

Contrary to local office perception, it looks like Huey Lewis is still alive and kicking!

(Later)–Yep, and he just performed a few weeks ago.

(And I’m not talking about Frodo’s sword)

So Sting is doing a deal with Victoria’s Secret to perform at their fashion show. First it was the Compaq deal and now this. Sting, Sting, Sting. How the might have fallen. Are there no depths you won’t sink to?

Is it just me, or does news affect you differently as your life situation changes? I hate to hear bad news stories about children since I’ve had kids. Each summer I avoid the news with the inevitable caught in an overhot car stories, for instance. I just don’t want to hear it.

When I was a kid and in my early twenties, I prided myself on how I could take anything without blinking an eye. I was tougher than dirt.

I was so naive and stupid. Now I just deeply appreciate what I have every day and every moment. Sometimes you have to realize how lucky you are with the life that you live. And let the people you love know it.

So Apple’s iTunes has become Time magazine’s invention of the year. How do they do it? They weren’t first to market, but they made it work. It’s just like USB–technology that was a flop until Apple made it a standard and evangelized it. Within a year, USB devices were out for both Mac and Windows everywhere.

It’s like home wireless networks. Wireless base stations were in production from other manufacturers, but they cost $1100 apiece. Enter Apple, with a $289 base station that worked like a dream. They singlehandedly created the home wireless revolution and everyone else followed suit.

My two administrators with PC laptops asked to move back to Macs this year because of the things they can do with OS X. Now it seems that Apple has decided to roll out some of its magic to Windows products. Hey, this is a company that had the precursor to Mac OS X running on PC machines (look here if you dont’ believe me). It’s a good time to be working with computers.

iTunes is available for download for both Macintosh and Windows here. Be careful about buying those dollar songs once you get iTunes up and running, though–it can be addictive.

Wow. This just in from Deborah Branscum’s weblog. Apparently “Dr.” John Gray, the author of all those Men are From Mars books, has faked all of his advanced degrees. His one degree is a high school diploma.

So the Mars guy is a fraud. Does this mean that Men aren’t from Mars? Where are we from, then?

I think most women would say men could be from the doghouse if we don’t get on the stick and get those things done around the house. Not that I speak from personal experience, mind you. It has a good ring to it, though: Women are from Venus, Men are in the Doghouse. Maybe I should publish it and make some bucks…

So Denise was telling me and the kids how she would give pills to a steer when she grew up on the farm. She would take a metal stick called a ball gun (about a foot and a half long) and load it with a pill (the ball gun had a kind of a plunger at the end for the pill). The pills were really big, as big as a three inch long hot dog. Then she would ram the stick down the steer’s throat, pop the button at the handle end, and shoot the pill down the animal’s throat.

Of course, she was telling the kids this to give Drew a choice–take his medicine, or we revive the ball gun and do it for him.

Parents are so mean. But he took his medicine right away (heh, heh).