Raible Designs

RE: No Clock and Unplugged

Mark shares his frustration with the fact that he can get away from work in his No Clock post:

There is only one long continuous 24-hour day that is always work, always office, and I never punch in and I never punch out.

I hear him loud and clear. Lately, I've been working ~40 hour weeks and not doing any moonlighting - so I actually feel like I get to punch out. Except for my I-want-to-work-on-Roller (but evenings with Abbie and Julie are much more fun) syndrome, my life is completely and utterly enjoyable again. I don't even feel the need to unplug. But I probably should, as we all should. I challenge you all to follow in Mark's footsteps and unplug when you get a chance. I will be attempting to unplug this weekend when my parents are in town - but everyone is very computer-literate in my family, so I'm sure my mom, dad, sister and wife will all be checking e-mail and surfing all weekend, so it'll be difficult to restrain myself. It'd help a lot if all of you quit writing interesting stuff on you blogs. ;-) Next weekend I will be for sure unplugging as a few college buddies and I will be renting a condo in the hills and skiing all weekend.

Good Prices Galore: T68i and Apples 23" Cinema Display

I found a tip from Gizmodo today that the T68i from Sony Ericsson (I have this phone and love it) is now FREE (with service activation) at Amazon.com.

I also did a bit of surfing and discovered that Apple's 23-inch Cinema Display is now only $1999! Still a little rich for my blood, I'll wait until it hits $1200 this fall.

Back From Florida

We all survived the Florida trip and we arrived home safely a couple of hours ago. Abbie was awesome on the plane(s) and only cried when she was hungry. I'll post pictures soon. Also, it was cool to find that there was FREE wireless Internet access at the Fort Lauderdale airport. That's where I discovered this site was down, and Keith fixed it over the course of the day. It turned out to be related to the Tomcat/MySQL Connection - which was preventing the AJP Apache/Tomcat connector from starting. Restarting MySQL fixed the problem.

BTW, if you're flying Delta on your next trip - didja know you can check-in online 6 hours before your flight? You just print out your boarding pass and show it at the gate. Very cool in my book.

Blogging from the Airport

I'm at the Dallas/Forth Worth airport right now, coming to you live courtesy of Wayport ($6.95/day) and Mini-Me. I haven't been to the airport in 6 months and I can tell - some cool things have happened.

• Delta allowed me to check-in in under a minute using the e-Ticket checkin with my credit card. It was the easiest airport checkin I've ever had, which was very cool.
• Everyone at DIA discovered the security shortcut through Terminal A. It now has a line longer than the regular security gates.
• WI-FI at the airports. They had it last time I tried at DIA (March 2002), but you couldn't connect. You just got a logon screen with no way to pay-for-access. In Denver, it was $10/24 hours - in Dallas it's $3 cheaper.

So this post cost me $7 - hope you enjoy!

Happy Birthday Russ

Happy Birthday Russ - even though your birthday isn't until tomorrow here in Denver.

Speaking of Denver, it was an awesome day here - hitting almost 70 degrees in the city! Julie and I took a Abbie on her first hike at 3 Sisters Park. A good time was had by all...

Wireless Printer Server - doesn't work

I bought a Linksys Wireless-Ready USB Print Server last week. I have a Dell TrueMobile Wireless network setup that works fine with my PowerBook and my XP machine. However, I am unable to get the print server on the wireless network - it just won't show up, and the WI-FI light on the little bastard won't light up either. It works fine when I plugin an ethernet cable - but I want wireless damnit! I'm using a Dell TrueMobile NIC, but I think that should work since it works fine in my Dell with WinXP. Any ideas?

Thanks Russ!

Wooo hooo!! I made Russ's Daily Must Reads list! I must be doing something right, eh? Thanks Russ - much appreciated.

Music is for the mind

Julie and I are going to look at stereos for the new rig this afternoon. I've always had a nice stereo in my car, and she wants to get rid of the big speakers I have - too much trunk space. So I've agreed to put buy a whole new system (aww shucks), and we're also thinking about getting XM Radio. A friend of mine also recommended SIRIUS. Has anyone experienced either of these? Supposedly, you can get an XM Radio plug-in for your existing car stereo for around $200. Why am I so enthralled in music and good car stereos?

Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water-bath is to the body.

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

Marrying inside the clan

Andy asks if I married inside the clan. In a sense, Julie married "outside" of the clan. She got a degree in MIS and I'm the one who had the business and foreign language degrees. Yes, we both do computers, so I guess I married inside the clan. She doesn't program per se, but on her last project, she was writing XSDs and she has written a .NET app using Visual Studio.NET. She said it was super simple, and it just worked - sounds like my kind of software ;-). Even though she is (or was) in the industry, she doesn't care for computers all the much. I'm not allowed to touch her machine - no upgrading from Win2K -> XP and she hates the Apple, especially the mouse.

In conclusion, Julie knows computers, but doesn't have a passion for them like me. When she was working, she was the highest paid woman I know. For awhile there, she was even paid more than me! Until I told my boss I needed a raise b/c my wife was making more - and it actually worked (Julie's reaction to this like - "Yeah, that sucks! If I went into my boss and told him my husband was making more than me, he'd say 'So?'").

The Worst E-Mail I've gotten in a while

This is an awful e-mail to get when you're planning on working all weekend:

From: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, January 11, 2003 12:00 AM
Subject: 6 in. of New Snow at Beaver Creek