A first...

A new potential client sent me an 11,000-source word document with a deadline of April 18, and I passed on it.

Upon first opening it, the text looked straightforward enough, but it's on railroad construction, and in the end, the fact that there were a sufficiently large number of what appear to be unique railroading (and railroad construction) terms all throughout the item pushed me toward saying no. When I eventually do accept an assignment from this potential client, I'm going to want to feel more comfortable at the outset.

As it stands, right now I have about 5300 words due on Monday, plus I've committed to another telecon tomorrow morning and a 7-hour stint at JSC on Saturday.

There is something on my VAIO that periodically makes a "TSH...tsh" speaker noise, and for the life of me, I can't figure out what it is. I wonder if there are any apps out there that'll tell you what Windows processes last sent output to a specific device?

More later, maybe.

Cheers...

Loads of fun...

One of the items I had hoped Galina would bring back from Pagosa was a wireless print server, so that both of us could print documents without having to sit down at my desk and plug in a USB cable. (Yeah, I know... we're lazy!) She couldn't find the blessed thing, which wasn't very surprising.

And come to think of it, considering I ran across the thing a few minutes (hour?) ago, it makes sense. :^)

I downloaded the configuration program from the manufacturer and just spent the better part of an hour trying to get the blessed thing to work. Every time I think I have it configured, I disconnect my network cable (the key thing that makes the server "wireless") and... ker-blooey! Back to square one.

I notice that although the server has the right IP address, I seem to be getting through to the unit via a completely different subnet (I have my wireless and hard-wired network connections on different subnets). I notice that the WPA password I keep trying to set doesn't take and that the WLAN LED on the unit keeps freaking out on me.

I'm not going to spend much more time doing this. I have things that have to get done.

Cheers...

Just one more time...

Now, in the real world, repeating the same actions over and over to get the same failed result is a pretty good definition of insanity. However, if you play with technology enough - and especially if you do any programming - you'll soon find that sometimes trying it just One More Time™ does the trick.

You see, the server has a "reset" button that didn't seem to do anything the previous 17.5 times I depressed it, but for some reason (or for some combination of arcane circumstances) actually reset the unit this last time I pressed it. From there onward, setting up the server was a piece of cake.

Not only that, but I learned how to clear out a print job that doesn't seem to want to go away using "conventional" methods (the way the gnomes of Redmond intended). Summarized without fluff:

1. NET STOP SPOOLER (entered from command prompt)
2. Delete the SPL and SHD files associated with the jammed job from %WinRoot%\System32\Spool\Printers (need to rely on file time stamps for this)
3. NET START SPOOLER (again, from command prompt)

Telecon tomorrow! Early start! (Good thing I napped this afternoon!)

Cheers...