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Last Week Next Week Insights Index Daynotes.com Email: tom@syroidmanor.com
The weather is rather nasty today. It's raining hard, and the wind is kicking up quite a fuss. No matter. Both Leah and I were content to stay home and catch-up on a few logistics.
I got an interesting package in the mail Friday: Office 2003 beta2, plus a few "accountrements". Actually, more than a few... While I was expecting beta2, I was not anticipating the huge pile of CD's that comprise the "Microsoft Office System" Beta 2 Kit. Included is Windows 2003 Server, Microsoft Portal Server V2.0, Exchange Server 2003, InfoPath 2003, SharePoint Services 2003, plus Office 2003, FrontPage 2003, Publisher 2003, OneNote 2003, and a bunch of demo/info CD's. Do I plan to install some or all of the above? I do. Probably all. Just for a looksee. I'm curious what the boys in Redmond have done with Server 2003, especially in light of their new "security initative". And it's not like I have any shortage of disk space around here... I'll let you know.
I've got a document to read, and I don't plan to be late retiring tonight, so I'd best get after it. Be good.
The snow is almost gone. A few pockets of resistence remain, but I'm confident the sun's powerful forces will fully and completely decimate what remains ;-)
I spent an inordinate amount of time glued to CNN today. I suspect I'm not alone in my obsession for news right now...
I do not mean to Gee Whiz or trivialize war in any way, but I don't mind telling you, I was awe-struck by the coverage I watched on CNN last night. It was both revealing and historic in every sense of the word.
As you know, the US military has allowed reporters to be "embedded" in various key units in the region. Last night I watched the 7th Cavalry roar across the Iraqi desert on its way to Baghdad. In another window on-screen another reporter was detailing events as they unfolded -- again, in real time -- in Northern Iraq.
This morning I watch the US flag being raised over the port city of Umm Qasr and live pictures of oil wells burning somewhere in Southern Iraq.
Gee Whiz. This is very cool stuff. It's almost like some kind of surreal adventure movie that's being broadcast 24/7. It's not surreal of course, nor is it an adventure. It's war and the fighting is far from over. People are going to die -- indeed the US experienced its first combat casualty this morning. But it is, no doubt, very captivating to be able to watch events as they unfold, live, in a world and time zone very distant from Saskatoon.
Speaking of Saskatoon, Monday we had about 18" of snow piled in our front yard. This morning only a few clumps remain. Yesterday I sat on the steps off the back porch and quietly soaked up the warmth of the afternoon sun. Winter this year seemed to go on and on and on... it's so nice to feel warmth in the sun's rays and have the windows/doors open again. I might even be able to wash the car this weekend. Zounds.
Oh yeah, the JEdit tip I was going to pass on earlier in the week...
Everyone's got certain bits of text that you type repeatedly. Under JEdit you can store these bits as "abbreviations". Here's how:
Ta and Da. I've got most of common blocks of text I use to create these pages stored as abbreviations -- a huge timesaver. Have a great Friday. Be well, and be safe.
The "shock and awe" phase of the conflict with Iraq has yet to begin. But war is a dynamic process, and there are a number of developments this morning that could cause the US to rework their game plan. In case you haven't heard: There are reports of 3 or 4 oil wells ablaze in Southern Iraq; the Iraqi's have been lobbing "nuisance" missiles at US troops gathered in Kuwait; and Turkey has just granted the US permission to overfly their country. I suspect events are going to change, morph, and focus very quickly over the next 12 hours.
Talk about the world run amok... all I have to do is look in my own backyard to see chaos in action...
The hard drive in Leah's computer starting making some rather rude noises earlier in the week. I don't have time for the particular "duck" right now, but I'm consicous of its nip.
I had to back off the Red Hat install on my dev box to 7.3 yesterday due to a application conflict. The experience was both frustrating and insightful. I spent several hours pulling down a bazillion errata/bugfixes, culling through problem synopsis reports, etc. Frustrating because it was such a time consuming process. I've kept up with all relevant RH8 errata, but not all the relevant 7.3 packages. So I had to go through the bug reports and everything I deemed relevant to my installation. Then I had to apply all the fixes, then I had to reinstall the application in question and test it thoroughly to ensure 7.3 was indeed the cause of the failures I had been experiencing. I'm still testing, but so far, so good.
Mozilla 1.3 final is out. I installed it this morning on my 7.3 installation. The Moz engineers have once again messed with font rendering -- I can hardly read the type on the menus/interface. Bah. I'd use Konq, but Konq 3.0.3 is as buggy as hell (at least under RH 7.3), and I've yet to find a good bundle of packages to bring me from RH 7.3/8.0 KDE 3.0.x to KDE 3.1.
Onward I suppose...
The terror threat level is back up to Orange. Intelligence sources reveal future attacks on US interests, resulting in extensive loss of life, are a "near certainty". Saddam remains steadfast (expected). Military analysts predict Saddam is likely to use chemical or biological agents on US troops. France pops its head up and says if they do, that changes everything -- they'll join the "coalition of the willing". How big of them.
The world has run amok. And things are going to get worse before they get better.
Sorry about the "xxx"-rated post yesterday. I wrote a paragraph or two after dinner and got distracted by one of the kids. Problem is, I forgot to hit save before I walked away. So the text was there on the screen in front of me, but not in front of you ;-) Such is life around Syroid Manor... I'll post more later (I discovered a very cool JEdit shortcut). Right now I've got to do a clean RH install on my dev box followed by some high level application wrangling.
It has begun. Not with the wrath expected -- at least not yet. The President will address the nation in a few minutes. We'll all know more then. I, like so many others I know, will be watching CNN until I retire for the evening.
The gun is loaded, the round is chambered, and George W. Bush has taken up the tension on the trigger. War is, for all intents and purposes, inevitable. I'm beginning to think it has been for a long time. And in an abstract sense, I find myself feeling almost a sense of relief that a decision has finally been make. The diplomatic wrangling by the UN was getting old, and clearly going nowhere fast. Now we wait. The first word will come, ironically enough, not from the Oval Office but from the announcers at CNN. They'll interrupt the current story to inform the viewing public that the skies above Baghdad are alive.
Dejavu. Cirrca 1991. I was watching CNN when the broadcast was interrupted and those first ghostly images appeared on the screen before me...
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