Now, THAT'S some kinda download!

I just checked my Linux box and found that all 677,961,728 bytes of the first Redhat 7.2 "Enigma" installation CD were transferred in 9.12e+04 seconds (25 hours, 21 minutes to mortals like you and me).

This beats my previous "personal best," back a couple of years ago when I downloaded a 54-MB software upgrade over a 3 kB/sec phone connection while down in Houston, which took overnight, if memory serves.

I think I will try to connect to a mirror site for the second disk and see if it's any faster. This transfer averaged 7.3 kB/sec, which is nowhere near what the DSL connection is capable of doing, speedwise. OTOH, I can't complain about not being able to do mail or browse the Web, either.

* * *Drew goes in for his root canal tomorrow. He has to be in Durango by 7:30 am. I hope everything goes well; I recall my boss had to have additional surgery done to correct a problem caused by one of her root canal procedures (something about going after some bone fragments that had been left, or something). I'm going to try not to think about it.

* * *Spent some time yesterday with Huntur on my arm while Galina oversaw the preparation of the borshcht. Huntur follows the dogs with her eyes whenever they are around. She seems a little anxious when Sasha is around, though she doesn't seem to mind Ming much at all. I took advantage of her attention span to point to the animals and repeat "dog... dog... dog..." several times to her as she tracked them around the kitchen and in the dining room. I also repeated the Russian word for "dog" (transliterated, it's "sabaka") several times, just for good measure.

And by golly! Huntur sang out with "sa-ba..." once and "dog" (oh, so very clearly said!) twice!

I missed moments like this the first time around.

* * *I've finished editing a short piece and am about to go over to check the stuff I did over the weekend and get it out today, too. Then, if I have any time left, I'd like to get started on the last 34 pages of the assignment. I've not been given a formal deadline, but still, the client assumes it'll be done in a timely manner, and I feel "behind."

* * *My quarterly piece for The SlavFile has been edited and I've returned it with just a couple of last-minute tweaks. I have to make sure I get my proposals for ATA presentations for this year's conference in Atlanta in by Friday. One will be on the fascinating subject of export controls, while the second plans to be a session along the lines of "Everything you ever wanted to know about Cyrillic fonts." Both are rather ambitious, methinks, but I have my mind on the editing I have to do, and thus may be overestimating the effort required to do a workmanlike job.

To work!

Cheers...

What a difference a mirror makes...

I can't say the rate will be maintained, but I went to one of the RedHat mirrors for the second ISO image of the 7.2 version of Linux, and have downloaded just over 140 MB in two hours. That sure beats my 7.3 kB/sec download rate I "attained" from the RedHat ftp site!

Cheers...