Well, the title sums it up.  The house has been de-Christmas'd, and now we're in Mardi Gras mode.  Work has been more crazy than usual.  I've been offshore once this week, and will probably have to go back out next week for a day or two.  In between work and sleep, I've started experimenting with Windows 7.  Even in the first beta release, I'm liking it far more than that cybernetic miscarriage known as Vista.  I had the opportunity to try it out a few months ago, and completely hated it.  XP has served me quite reliably for the past few years, and I've been reluctant to change.  I know it's cliché, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  When I heard that the new version of Windows would be available to the public as a beta test, I decided to take a chance.  I had an extra system lying around, due to the fact that I soft-modded my Xbox into a media center.  I wiped the hard drive, and with a clean slate, started to install it.  After many attempts, I learned that you can't have any auxillary cards (agp graphics, pci usb, etc.) physically installed, or Windows freaks out and keeps shutting down.  After that minor setback, I was ready to roll.  Windows 7  only requires about half of the memory and processing speed as Vista, so it runs quite well on older systems.  I'm using a P4 2.5 gig processor with 1 gig of ram, and it's holding up just fine.  The new gui format takes a little bit of getting used to, though.  However, it looks very slick, and is actually more compatible with some of my older sound cards than Vista.  I'll see how this holds up before I convert my main rig over, but it does look very promising.  If history is any indication, every other Microsoft OS (Me, Vista) is a stinker.  Kind like the Star Trek movies (1,3,5, etc.).
     
     Speaking of stinkers...
     
     Last Saturday, I found an ad on Craigslist for a Toshiba laptop for $75.  Now, Susan and I had always wanted to get her dad a laptop, so he could surf the internet to his heart's content.  I emailed the girl selling it, and said that it just died a year or two ago, and she just bought another one without ever getting this one checked out.  We figured $75 for a $800 laptop was an acceptable gamble, so we got it.  When we got home, the thing came up with no problems.  The previous owner had, however, installed America Online, and had more chat programs running than I had even know existed.  So I formatted and re-installed Windows XP.  Everything was going just fine.  That's when I did the something stupid.  I tried to pick it up. 

Dead.

That's it.  I grabbed it by the sides to move it, and the thing up and died.  Now, I have a laptop, so I know how to handle them.  They don't just go dark when you move it.  I mean, really, what good is a portable computer that's not portable??  Anyway, I did some research, and found that it's actually a pretty common problem with the Toshiba Satellite.  The only fix is to send it back to the company for far more than it was worth for them to fix a grounding issue with the cover of the laptop.  So it sits on my workbench, patiently waiting for me to fix it.  I tried isolating the ground and insulating the cover, but it still dies every time I touch it just right.  If worse comes to worse, I might use it and retrofit my old TRS80 model 3 with the screen and motherboard, and use a USB keyboard in place of the old one. 

Just what I need, another project!