Beware the Pierogi

Today is Holiday Pierog-a-rama, and the better half has friends of Polish extraction coming over. In a bygone era, it would have been babushka-ville in the house today, but the modern woman wouldn't dare.

Next Saturday, Dec 6, Joe Gagnon from WAAM will be at the store from 11:15 - 1:15. He spoke on-air about the event for about five minutes a little while ago. How cool is that? We hope the event adds a lot of visibility to the store... we could use a little Holiday Shopping bump.

Article on CW here. I think a lot of the stigma about using recycled cartridges is wearing off. People are finding that recycled cartridges aren't junk. Well, they aren't junk, and everyone to whom we've shown the process has been impressed at how detailed it is. There is a lot of there, there.

HTTP-wise, I have a fun project. The son of a local wine merchant built hisself a PC. Problem is, it developed a condition in which it won't stay on. He tried to reinstall the OS, but that didn't help. I took it back to the test rack, and what I found was a loose screw under the motherboard. The screw was causing a short to the case, and the power supply's thermal breaker would trip. Now, I just need to reconnect everything, and retest. I also noticed that he's using XP Home, and has 4GB PC-6400 RAM installed. Also has a dual core CPU. I will counsel the young lad to rethink his OS strategy, as XP won't use multicore efficiently, and its a 32-bit OS, so it won't use all of the 4GB either. I would go with Vista Home Ultimate.

As with the recycled cartridges, there is a lot of misconception about Vista. People are slow to accept new paradigms; I'm just as guilty.

Grumpy, Grumpy

Geez, but that last post was cheerful.

The day at the Ice Cube was largely a bust. One other exhibitor was there, Krishna Mallya from Batteries Plus, and we looked a bit, shall we say, random. We were just standing there, with our displays, next to the WAAM people, who did a spot every twenty or thirty minutes, and that was that. No signs, no tie-in, no obvious reason why we were there. Good Times.

And then we did go to Manchester, where it was cold, and there was some A, but no T to speak of.

I've got one PC to upgrade, when the parts show up, and a software install, which will probably happen next week. If at all.... another story altogether.

Apropos of nothing at all, go look here, if you like. I have a great interest in the effects of modern secular culture, if culture is what it is, and its effects on art are a good way to define it.

Ice and Blisters

Busy today:
* I have a booth at kid's day at the Ice Cube. Come over and see me in all my cartridgey splendor from 1-3.
* Then off to a small gathering in the wilds of Manchester. It is entirely too bloody nippy for a full-on ATF weekend, so we'll have to settle for mostly A.... maybe some T. We'll see where the A leads.
* No broken PCs to be seen, but I have two service contracts out for approval. That would be rather sweet.

For the first time in many years, maybe ever, we're not going anywhere for Dia del Turkey, and no one is coming over here. Booo. I'm glad I was able to scratch out one win in the turkey shoots over at the club, or we'd be eating cold cheese sammiches.

The hell with it - I'd honestly rather sleep all day.

Not Necessarily Better

Went to Saline Leadership today - mind mapping. Pretty cool, its the graphical representation of ideas as you drill into a concept, or take notes, or literally, whatever. If you can describe it, you can map it.

Oh, yeah, on shuffle: Zappa, I'm the slime.

Also today, went to WRN, and attended a WWBA open house at Esquire Interiors. Nice group, I'm thinking that I may join them. That would serve them right.

Yesterday, I attended an HBA meeting at G&K Flooring. They have a really nice operation, but the location is a bit challenging.

On shuffle now: Ministry, Work for love. srsly!

Question: Should I twitter? Would anyone follow, would anyone care? Is there any reason to twitter (or is it twit? A case could be made either way)?

Hey - I bought a new IT tool. Yes, I know you're too thrilled to make sense. Its Disk Internals NTFS Recovery. Very, very cool. I recovered over one million files from a client's PC. I'm not kidding - a freaking million files. Everything he ever deleted.

Think about that next time you think you've deleted something.

Shuffle: Slipknot, Opium of the people. Smashy, smashy.

Friday, I'm wide, wide open. Lunch anyone?

Like I said

Not too much new... I'll try to be interesting.

I installed a new PC over the weekend.
Returned a pair of laptops; all better now.

Our after-hours was interesting. Those who were there will agree; but I think no one is likely to openly discuss it. Like, ever.

Got a few large(r) clients for CW... every lil bit, ya know.

Like I said, I'll try to come up with something better soon...

Another what in the where, now?

We held a small get-together for some of the WRN members over at the store this evening.
A good time was had by all, but we're sworn to secrecy.

Had lunch today with the AA chamber at NetWorks at the Polo Fields. Very nice, made a few good contacts.

Tomorrow, its breakfast in Milan with the Milan chamber. They're considering putting together a Leadership course like Saline, AA, and Ypsi have. Its an interesting idea, I don't see why not.

MMmmm. Not much else. Same ol run arounds.

Nothin but chickens

So what is HTTP doing, you ask?
Get a life, I answer!
OK, here:
* Got a PC that doesn't boot. Nope. No booting here. Ya know, it is about a decade old, has WinME installed... I recommend letting it go to that great hunting ground in the sky. Just let it go.
* A laptop the runs really slow. Well, yeah, with that much RAM, I guess it will.
* A Client stopped in with his laptop. He said it will not, I mean Won't, get online to a wireless access point. So, I connected it to the completely open wireless from the restaurant next door, and he was amazed. Dude, seriously, where do I begin...

Other stuff: Tonight was the homeowner's association annual meeting and elections. I'm not running for office this year (been there, done that); maybe next year. We had it at Tri County; I was surprised to see Four neighbors (who were not on the ballot, out of 106 homes), and we had more than enough ballots to proceed with an election. Even that, 42 ballots out of 106 homes... I
mean, come on. Where's all the apathy coming from?

Thursday - WRN, NetWorks (at which I shall try a haiku!), and a WRN after hours at my place.
Come one, come all. Beer! Pizza!

Oh, and BTW, Start listening for my ads on WAAM, AM 1600.

The Shuffle

Just queued up Alice Cooper's 'Hello, Hooray'. Lovely.

So what of this week? I'll just recap today, as the shock of seeing the week in its entirety would likely burn you to a cinder. We were visited by a radio person, and we may have radio spots and beneficial mentions before long. Like really soon.

Thats pretty cool. And we may well do a live, in store event, with Joe Gagnon (oh, look it up. Yes, he really is mildly famous). I think its big stuff.

Also, in news of the planet shaking variety, I've bought a card scanner. HFS. How ever did I live without it? Coolest toy in quite awhile.

[Shuffle now: St Germain, Rose Rouge. I recommend the 'Tourist' album.]

I attended a meeting this evening to plan a fundraising event for next year. I was on last year's event committee, and this year, I am co-chairman. Oooh, err. Got the big shoes on now, don't I?

[Shuffle: Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Numbered Days]

HTTP work plods on (computers will wander off the reservation every now and then and need correction) and we're selling a fair bit of cartridges. You know you need one...

Update:
Oooh, shuffle just puked out Sex Pistols, Filthy Lucre. Don't you wish you were here?

Wrapping Up

I like Sundays, but they go too fast.

Updates on the dangling issues:
* The custom machine finds a PS/2 keyboard, and will find USB devices, but doesn't find the USB keyboard on boot. I think it needs drivers.
* The machine that runs fine for me, but not for the client, was hanging on his USB hub. He had connected the desktop, a laptop, and a laser printer into a USB hub, so the two PCs could share the printer. Um, fail. That's not how to share a printer.
* The laptop that had the wireless issue was more of a pilot error issue.

Now I have an additional laptop to upgrade, and the threat from some folks to drop off their PCs to me during the week. Could be as many as four. This week will be rather busy anyway, with several networking events on tap.

New Circuses

The busy, busy week, in review:
* A custom built machine stopped booting when it couldn't find a keyboard. I think the owner's habit of shutting it down by yanking the power cord has something to do with it. Its all better now.
* A clients machine that only works here. It runs fine here, but won't boot up at his home. I'm going there Saturday (Pinkney!) to figure it out.
* A client's laptop that won't connect to any wireless networks outside his home. Well, it connected to mine just fine, and when I've shown him how to do it, I think the mystery will disappear.
* A client lost his Comcast business connection, so he called them to fix it. Fix it they did, by sending, among other things, a reset signal to his gateway. All his network settings went away, and he called me in a panic.
* Got a new local business client, also from Comcast. They had a few network issues and a new laser printer to install. Laser - Hey, I know where they can get toner! How convenient.
* A client who would like to access some files from either of his two laptops, have them backed up, prevent out-of-date revisions, and not have to buy any hardware. His docs reside out on GoogleDocs now and he is happy.

So its been pretty busy, and cartridge sales keep inching up. I'm ready for the pace to increase.

Sudden Sickness Madlibs

I'm absolutely [pretentious adjective that means full, but is more Dennis Miller exotic] of [noun that more or less refers to mucus, but is much less attractive] and feel very [another adjective, this time meaning 'like crap', but pithier. You get the idea.]. If only I could [verb - keep it clean] with my [body part - you've been warned] I could have appreciated the Bears [descriptive intransitive adverb, keep it simple] of the Lions. At least I don't feel like Marinelli; I'll get better tomorrow.

That was fun.

Now, I'll need a good lie down. My strength needs conservation.