Computer notes and asides...

When I tried to install a flash memory card into the eSlate's PCMCIA slot down in Houston, the result was not what I expected (a brief pause to install a driver, and then having the flash card appear as a new drive under MyComputer). Instead, it triggered a series of demands for me to install a driver - several times no less - which in the end won't work because the memory it wants to use is already being hogged by something called 'system board extensions for PnP'. What's more, the lack of this driver is keeping my network card from working, so I'm making do with LapLink. I suspect the "cure" for this is to wipe the eSlate clean and reinstall Windows from scratch, but when I next wipe the eSlate, it won't be to install Windows...

It took me a while, but I finally figured out that in order for the "front" machine in the store to hit the Apache server running on the store's "back" machine, the front machine actually has to go out and connect to our local ISP. This smells of a routing table problem to me...

I have a huge job coming in that's going to take a lot of ingenuity to complete on time. Ah, well... Ingenuity 'R' Us.

Cheers...

O, frabjous joy!

A few moments ago, I translated the last sentence of the ethnographic text that I've been struggling with the past few weeks. The subject matter was not difficult, per se, certainly not like that unfortunate environmental impact statement I did about 6 years ago that just about did me in (my progress there was positively glacial, as I had to look up nearly every second word... but I digress). So that leaves me wondering... what was it that made this one so hard?

Perhaps it was my having worked with this client before, and having gone for weeks without hearing from him, leaving me free to procrastinate? I don't know. I do know that I've finished ahead of our renegotiated deadline (this Friday), so I feel a little better about the whole deal.

Anyway, the process would have gone faster tonight had Galina and I not watched Chocolat with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. Great film, I thought.

Little time to reflect, other than to note that I have a huge new translation job on hand that I'm going to have to put a large dent in before leaving for Houston (and finish it there, natch). As far as the ethnographic item, I'll look at it tomorrow morning to do a spell check and run my eyeballs over my, um, deathless prose, and then send it off. The ball will then be in my client's court (he's promised some editorial changes, and based on past experience, they ought to be genuinely helpful).

Come to think of it, I may have to put off the start of the new translation until tomorrow night, as Caleb has jury duty and Drew will be off doing his third day of school, which means I'll be helping Galina in the store tomorrow, probably for most of the day. That'll still leave me Thursday, Friday, and (in Houston, already) Sunday. The item is due next Thursday morning, so I ought to be able to manage quite well.

Anyway... time to go examine the inside of my eyelids for a few hours.

Cheers...

Cryptic postscriptum: Today is day 4. Sasha had a bad day.