(No Title)
Well, back for the new semester. Things look good, even though you can never really take the temperature of expected workload until a few weeks into the semester.
I’m going to say that the “test phase” of the blog is now over, and I’m going to shoot toward regular postings, with the ultimate intent to distribute the URL to friends.
It’s about time to renew my faith in Linksys publicly after the August 25 blasting. The router incompatibility was all OU’s fault. It worked great in an office that I set up over the break. (More on the OU router situation later.)
This section of the post is about blasting SBC. Let’s go through a little chronology of my experiences with them over the break while setting up the aforementioned office: (1) DSL guy lied about when he would show up and delayed several days, (2) when DSL guy finally arrived he acted as though we had not requested a static IP address and said the renewed service order would take 7-10 days to process, (3) it took longer than that, (4) in the meantime another tech said that the modem would plug straight into the (aforementioned) Linksys router and work great with one minor and already-known configuration change, (5) the modem (upon arrival) was actually a modem-router combo that completely messed up the pre-existing router that I had configured, and (6) upon calling tech support about the issue they did not know if a regular off-the-shelf modem would even work with their own service.
So, I STILL can’t find a way to get rid of that router!
Speaking of routers, I have a software one running up here on a Linux machine that’s serving a wireless access point perfectly. Linux is absolutely not easy to get complicated stuff going, but when it starts working it’s heavenly.
Concurrently, OU blocked my laptop’s network card because I was suspected of having the MSBLAST worm. Little did they know, the MSBLAST worm disables itself when the system clock passes January 1, 2004. I’m on my fourth day waiting for reconnect. I’m sure they’re amazed at my Zen-like calm as I tell them daily over the phone that the delay is no problem. I neglect to mention I am running a bootleg router and access point. Not their business.
Kristin’s doing well. She’s taking a fun educational math class that is going to be one of the easiest things she’s ever done but may be pretty helpful. She thought she had Heisman-winner Jason White in her literature class, but that’s not happening.
I think I’ll put down the “pen” now pending an updated O’Reilly-esque “Unresolved Problems” section. It’s a pity to have to shower for a one-class day (the big lab was cancelled for the first week), especially when the percentage of men in the class is literally about 90-95%. (The second tier of upper division Mechanical Engineering – not a chick magnet class.)
I have responding thoughts to Remyn’s blog that I’m drumming up, and there will be more zany news and rantings about the service industry. All this and more…after Design of Mechanical Components.