For many years, we only had MacOS machines in the house. In fact, for many years, that was the only thing we would consider letting into the house.

Part of the problem is financial - we just so little disposable income that there's not been enough to buy a new computer since the Apple IIgs was introduced (My first computers werre Apple IIs...).

So, during the 2003 winter, when a friend asked if I would mind if he gave one of the kids a computer for Christmas, I was taken aback. One, by the generosity and kindness, and two, because it violated a principle that I had held for years - Windows is a nuisance, bother, and a down right offensive environment.

However, we are forced into dealing with Windows at school frequently, and at the homes of friends, church, etc. And the machine was free, etc.

So I hesitantly said "Sure".

It's given us so much trouble over the past 3-4 months.

Not that Macs and Apple IIs were perfect. The kids frequently would screw around with preferences, etc. and end up hosing the computer up. Generally I could untangle things, but the last desktop at home that I was using was taken out after a fun night by the kids. I ended up getting a SPARC Solaris box just so I could read mail, etc.

Now understand - this windows box is not on the internet. The kids are not bringing home
programs from their friends. But it is still a pain.

For example, the machine is running Windows 98 - that's what the fellow who bought it could afford, he had some Windows 98 software he couldn't use and wanted to give it to someone, so that was fine.

But we see cases where Windows Media Player just stops - and freezes the system. The mouse has, over the past few months, deteriorated until it's nearly unusable. And so on.

I'd love to put Linux on the machine. But I don't want to screw up the programs that are there on the disk . Someday, maybe I'll break down, buy a SCSI card, and take the spare scsi internal disk I have ,
put it on the machine, and put linux on there.

Hamsters

We're learning about them at our place.

My daughter decided for her birthday to buy one .

I don't know why - turns out the hamster is a night creature, so it's seldom awake when my daughter is awake, and my daughter doesn't like listening to the hamster run around in its wheel...

Well, it looks like my setuid problem has little or nothing to do with the perl binary interpreters i am using, and more to do with the shell wrapper that figures out which binary to use. I have more research to do.

Well, just got an issue of Del Rey's Manga newsletter. Looks like they have 3 or 4 titles they will be publishing once a quarter or so. Only one is a title I recognize - Gundam SEED. However, one is a Clamp title, so that should be good.

My local library carries a number of manga titles, as well as a little english dubbed (and occasionally subbed) video tape and a bit more DVDs of the same titles.

I was just commenting over on news:comp.lang.tcl about the fact that so many of the Tcl books are now out of print. It is too bad - tcl is more fun to play with than most other languages I have tried.

Well, I just received an email from my friend in Japan. He is graciously sending me a copy of one of his latest articles on anime, along with a theater program from a new anime movie.

Here in the US, I seldom see movie programs. I don't know if that's a decision being made by the local theaters, or a decision by the movie companies, not to create the programs.

However, anime and manga are common topics for my family. The boys have become hooked on the Naruso and One Piece (I believe) English translations being published by Viz. I have been trying to read along with them. They also borrow, from friends, the Shojun Jump magazine.

As for anime, we're watching Trigun tv series, as well as just finished watching the first DVD of "Last Exile". We recently finished Arjuna, RahXephon, and a bit longer ago, Nadesco (spelling?) - the first television series. We of course watch a lot of the series on Cartoon Network and ABC Family as well.

Spam is surely annoying.

Right now, I get a gig or more a day, between my various email accounts. Due to my current life circumstances, I can't set things up to just delete things. My yahoo email account has only limited filtering and spam detection. My work id has some filtering, but not very effective. In both cases, I still have to browse the subjects if I want to ensure that something doesn't get trashed that I really want to see.

Well, I've kind of found a work around for my setuid perl problem. The thing is, it should work - others are doing this same sort of thing on the same machines.

Anyways, now I move on to fixing a different bug.

Sigh.

Well, if someone out there plays Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles, I'd love to hear from you. This is the latest craze in the house, and
we're trying to figure out how to get by various challenges.

I really hate squirrels and raccoons.

There was a time, a long time ago, when little furry wild animals were cute.

Then, a few years ago, I began battling the invasion forces of these despicable aliens. And that's when things really turned to the worse.

We've at least temporarily extracted the squirrels from the area between floors where they had created a home for themselves. Next is the attempt to extract the raccoons, or whatever it is, from the chimmeny.

I don't know if I will ever recover from the trauma of this.

One of the things with which I am struggling right now is perl. At work, I inherited this set of perl programs. One of them, used for setting up things, needs to run set-userid (a way for someone using the program to take actions as if they were some other user).

For some reason, this past week I discovered that the specialness of the program has disappeared. That is to say, when within the program I execute the command to say who I am, I'm not the userid I should be.

And so I am searching for reasons and techniques to solve the problem.

Well, first entry time. Where to start?

Let's see - my home web site has been sadly neglected due to life circumstances, which I probably won't be discussing here in public.

One of my favorite hangouts is the recent changes page at the tcl'ers wiki.

Right now, some of my favorite things are my search for life's meaning, my kids, my love to eat and cook, my tivo, my friends in the Tcl programming community, the internet, science fiction, computers and the internet.