Some days are easier than others, but then some days are Mondays.


I ended up working all through the weekend. When I got a chance, I stole away and worked on installing Gentoo Linux on my computer (see below). Initally, it seemed to go smoothly enough, considering that I didn't know what the heck I was doing. Then I configured LILO, but forgot to load its information into the MBR. FreeBSD Guru Tom bailed me out of that one.

So I was back up and running, but couldn't get my network card up; therefore, I couldn't proceed to do anything else worthwhile, not-the-least-of-which was getting X running. So there I was, running between computers, checking stuff on the net, recompiling my kernel endlessly, and getting nowhere fast.

Finally, I did something very wrong, for I rebooted and the system haulted and said something like: "ran out of data". So I started again, only this time I told LILO to load my stable kernel. Now it haulted with no error message at all.

So it seems that, if and when I get some free time this week, I will start from scratch. Well, at least the partitioning is already done.


If you didn't understand anything that I just wrote about, please do not be alarmed. I barley understand myself.



Meanwhile, I've been working on backing up/ reformating/ reinstalling XP and reconfiguring a computer for a client. This is my territory, no big deal here. At last I had every little detail working to his satisfaction; except for this one lousy program called Polaroid CSA Report Pro! What a piece of toejam it is! It would not install. Half way through installation, it would say that there was not enough free disk space (what? 25 gigs is not enough?!) and hault.

After some contemplation I realized that, due to the programs archaic nature and shoddy programming, it was trying to write files to the C:\ drive, even though it had been instructed to install to E:\Program Files (its a long story). And the company could not be contacted, as Americans were enjoying a holiday yesterday. I hope you guys had a relaxing Memorial Day!

So, I had to format again and do set up every last little thing again (only this time ensuring the destination drive received a C:\ label from Windows).

Incidently, this CSA Reprot Pro! by Polariod is supposed to be a real nightmare to work with. Its a 16-bit application, which means that it should have been exterminated a long time ago. My client is a realitor, and his organization has to use this software because someone, somewhere, decided that it is the industry standard.

Do Americans still use this thing, or do they just laugh at our Canadian realitors and take their money? I'm told that the same company has a new version with "32-bit Power" (ooooo!) for $US600 that works exactly the same as the 16-bit version.


Okay. I'm done babbling for now. Here are a couple of issues I run into a lot in the field:

Situation:
When you are composing an email, you would like to type the first few letters of the name of a contact in your address book and have their name Auto Complete for you.

Solution:
Open Outlook Express. Go to: Tools | Options | Send | and put a check beside "Automatically complete e-mail addresses when composing".

Conversely, you can deselect the checkbox if this feature drives you nuts.

Situation:
You are installing Norton AntiVirus 2002 and you get a scripting error followed by the question: "Do you want to keep running scripts on this page?". The program becomes unresponsive.

Solution:
Follow the directions here.