Put the Vampire Teeth back in the mouth and washed the car. Tomorrow is the Ridge Spring Peach Festival and the MMC is in the parade…
In my usual cavalier manner I just went ahead loaded up Windows Vista Beta 2 on this here laptop last night.
It wasn’t until afterwards, when I realized the laptop was running real slow, that I checked to see if my machine was up to the minimum requirements for the software. It wasn’t.
It wasn’t until I decided to unload Vista that I realized that I didn’t get any restore discs with the laptop. I went to Dell.com’s support site and discovered that the recovery software was built in to the computer. Reboot, hit the Ctrl + F11 keys and I get nothing. I guess that is what I get for doing a clean install, must have overwritten that partition…oops.
Back to the support area. I tried the live chat to see what I had to do to get some restore discs. According to the CSR, because I was out of warranty I was not entitled to the discs. When I went home at lunch there was a message on the answering machine that said they were mistaken I could in fact get a restore disc, just call them. Only they didn’t leave a number.
Live chat #2 and this time they thought I should get the disc(s) right off. Ten minutes later I was told to expect my restore stuff in 2-3 business days.
The latest beta of Microsoft’s next operating system, Vista, is available for previewing from here – Windows Vista: Customer Preview Program.
You have two options, order a DVD ($6 for the disc + $4 for shipping) or you can download the DVD iso. I was going to just buy the DVD, six bucks didn’t seem too bad, but the shipping put it over a threshold that I didn’t want to cross. I tried downloading it at work, but I could never connect to the download site. Downloaded it from home, 3-1/4 Gig in about 2 hours. Trouble is I don’t have a DVD burner at home, They do have a portable at which which I borrowed tonight. Burned a disc for me and another for the DVD burner lender. Seeing as the laptop really has nothing on it but XP and some programs I decided to install it on there.
Started the install and went out for dinner. When we got back all that I needed to do was set the usual language and time zone stuff and Vista was up. Runs pretty slow, but that is because they recommend the minimum system RAM be 512M with 1G being better and the $500 laptop only has 256M (shared). It found the wireless router fine and connected to the net no problem. IE7 has tabs on the browser, what a concept. I’ve got to get it connected to the desktop for file sharing yet….
Brian the Red: I was just thinking, Web Surfer.
Web Surfer: What?
Brian the Red: We got a great life ahead, you and me, and nobody’s going to take that away from us.
Web Surfer: Why are you looking at me like that?
Brian the Red: I’m memorizing your IP Address. I want to memorize everything about you so no matter what happens, I won’t forget you.
Web Surfer: What’s going to happen?
Brian the Red: Nothing’s going to happen. You’d never forget me either, would you? That thing you said you saw in me. Something in my eyes, remember? If some day somebody came up to you, maybe a football player, and he acted like he’d seen you before, you’d notice that same thing, right? You’d give him a chance? He might be a good guy. He could even be a quarterback.
Web Surfer: I don’t understand.
After a mere 6 weeks my membership card arrived in the mail yesterday. After today’s split with Texas and the Yankee’s loss to Oakland the FRS magic number for clinching the American League East crown is 101.
Also yesterday I had a chance to see if the new tires helped make the speedometer more accurate, short answer no. The borrowed GPS unit showed 66MPH when the speedo indicated 70. GPS said 37 when the speedometer read 40. Looks like when the speed limit on the Interstate says 70 and I want to go 75, I’m still going to have to get the speedometer to read 80MPH.
Trunk Lid Update – I finally used some calipers to measure the trunk lid gaps on Friday. The left side moved in the correct direction by .013 and right by only .007, but it looks much straighter to the naked eye.
Paid bills via tandem this morning. Went 15 miles to accomplish it too, first time we have been in double digits since New Year’s Day.
Behind the Scenes – Updated to Word Press 2.0.3
…for not blogging.
The good news is the trunk is fine, just the way I looked at it was off. This morning at work I walked out to the parking lot with my digital calipers in hand. I measured the gap on the right side of the trunk lid, near the front it read .196 inches and at the rear it read .151 inches. That I could see, so now I measured the let side which I thought looked good, near the front it read .165 and near the rear it read .209 inches.
Time to do some ciphering. The difference between front and back on the left is .044 and the difference between front and back on the right is .045 meaning the trunk lid sides are parallel, but it is installed crooked. If we add up the gaps at the front we get .361 while the back adds up to .360 inches. At this point we’ll go ahead and throw out that odd thousandth of an inch because of not measuring in exactly the same spots on each side. The gap between trunk and fender should be .180 inches all around. I guess tomorrow morning I’ll go out to the garage and loosen the 4 mounting bolts and see if I can it all lined up.
For fans of higher math let’s use a little trigonometry and see what the angle of error is on the freshly painted trunk lid. The error between front to back was .044 inches or the opposite side of our triangle. The distance between front back measurement locations is 22 inches or the adjacent side of our triangle. Using my favorite mnemonic, Oscar Had A Hairy Old Ass, I know the tangent of the angle is the Opposite divided by the Adjacent. I can divide .044 by 22 and get .002, now I just have to figure out what angle has a tangent of .002, or what is the arctangent of .002. The calculator that comes with windows does tangents, but not arctangents, so a googling I go. I am led to Carbide Depot.com and their free online trig calculator which gives me an angle of 0.11459140° or if you like, 0° 6′ 53”.
Not much of an angle, but noticeable (at least on one side) to me.