The Net Monkey

[This article has been retroactively posted from my Kuro5hin Diary.]

“So okay, I don’t want to be a traitor to my generation and all but I don’t get how guys dress today. I mean, come on, it looks like they just fell out of bed and put on some baggy pants and take their greasy hair - ew - and cover it up with a backwards cap and we’re supposed to swoon? I don’t think so!”
– Cher (Alicia Silverstone), Clueless (1995)

• I was told yesterday afternoon that Cummins has decided to extended my contract even further, beyond June to around August. It feels good to finally have some job security again, but I am still baffled as to what they will have me do here since we’re wrapping up this packaging work.
• The first suspected case of SARS in Indiana has been reported today. The State Department of Health says that the public is at no risk.
• Last night I stayed up late attempting to install and boot NetBSD on an old PowerMac 5400/180, with relatively good results. The operating system installed flawlessly, but required a little tweaking for it to boot. The only problem is that console access can only be obtained via a serial port. I’m uncertain if this is permanent or not, but it may not be an issue once I figure out its role on my network, if any.
• I’ve spent all morning so far trying to figure out why FileMon and RegMon from SysInternals won’t operate under a non-privileged user in Windows XP. Duh! Of course they won’t run! They require administrator access! SysInternals says so. Well, at least those are two more packages I don’t have to handle later down the road.
• Last night I attended my first meeting of the Indianapolis Computer Society. Their monthly meeting included a presentation from Scott Jones who is the Chairman, President, and CEO of Escient, which is the Indianapolis-based company who owns Gracenote (formerly CDDB). He gave a good and interesting presentation regarding their company and the growing “convergence” market. Anyway, the meeting was full of a bunch of gray-hairs (old people, to you and me) and people asking questions about why their Windows XP won’t boot, during the technical support session prior to the main presentation. They also raffled off a few Windows-centric goodies, but I didn’t win shit. I haven’t decided if I’m going to attend the next meeting.