Foxtrot...

...was the name of the game tonight. Lee went with me and we learned a pile of new steps. I am finding, however, that this form of dancing is a little like learning to fly. You can't just concentrate on the "steps," you also have to keep your eyes on your surroundings (a quality known as "situational awareness"), and must decide - on a continuous basis - just what you're going to do next to keep yourself moving and avoid running into other couples.

Like anything else in the world, it's practice, practice, practice.

* * *Galina's old Toshiba laptop, which I set up in Drew's area, did not respond to my efforts to fix it. Apparently, some software that had been installed on the unit was deleted instead of uninstalled, leaving Windows sitting there trying to load components that apparently are no longer there, ultimately resulting in some kind of memory error while loading the system, which in turn caused the machine to boot in 'safe mode' the next time it was started.

So, I formatted the hard drive and installed Windows from scratch. Then I installed the network card. Then I installed the software that came with my Intel webcam. The result was a machine that wouldn't boot at all, so I repeated the steps (hey! I'm a software person), and the second time around, I ended up with a machine that boots and arrives at some stable state after everything is loaded.

Upon connecting the network cable, all I get on the dongle LEDs is a periodic flashing of lights. When I moved the machine and connected a shorter network cable, the connection was established properly; upon reconnecting the cable I ran through the overhead plenum, I got the flashes again.

I cut off and reinstalled RJ-45 connectors on each end of the cable, but that didn't help. I plan to take along some extra hardware tomorrow and try to figure out what the problem might be. The plenum cable is only about 30 feet long, which I figure is nowhere near the maximum allowable length for such a cable.

The installation program for the Intel cam is very simple: it installs everything that Intel packaged with the cam, including the kitchen sink. While this makes installation simple, it also results in the installation of modules I'll never use (e.g., live-action video, which is guaranteed to look horrible on this slow laptop). An interesting moment came when I tried to run the software, whereupon it told me that something was broken and that I'd need to reinstall the software.

Ye gods.

Then, when I try to reinstall the software, the installation routine tells me that the version I am trying to install is older than the version on my machine! Say what, pard?!

The dialog box suggested I uninstall the software before trying to reinstall it. Fortunately, the end of the day came before I could subject myself to that ordeal again.

Come to think of it, though, all I am really interested in is the hardware driver, so that I can use Webcam32 with the unit, so I may leave the unwanted Intel software on the disk if the driver and Webcam32 play nicely together. I managed to get the latest upgrade for that program and download it on 'borg', but until I get a reliable network link between the store's network and the Toshiba (named 'demosthenes'), I won't be able to move the downloaded file (2.3 MB) unless I resort to the use of this one utility I have that will break up a file into floppy-disk-sized subfiles that can be sneakernetted from one machine to another and then reconstructed on the target computer.

* * *Drew's friend Brady had his first day at the store today. He is in training to become an employee. So far, everything looks fine. I am a little worried about the fact that Brady and Drew are friends, but it's not a pressing worry.

I am more concerned about making the deadline for my state sales tax report and the Federal withholding report, but that's not much of a concern either. Those'll get done with the proper expenditure of time.

* * *A nice thunderstorm came brewing out of the south around quitting time and did a good job of wetting the area around the house. At this rate, there may even be a reasonable chance for a mushrooming season here in about a month. Last year, Feht went up to the Wolf Creek Pass and harvested a couple of shopping bags of boletes while I was hanging out in Houston; by the time I got back, the mushrooms were all but gone. I'm not going to push to go down any time soon (nor do I think there will be any call to go; all Shuttle launches are on hold until the engineers figure out what to do about the recently discovered cracks in the propellant line jackets).

Time to veg out a little. I am tired. I may or may not try to go to the amateur breakfast tomorrow morning. I decided not to go last week. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Cheers...