Fame, Fortune and Random Things…

Fame and Fortune

Someone just mailed me to say I’m in the Peer-to-Peer section of the latest Oracle Magazine, with two guys nobody has ever heard of… 🙂

I’ll use this as a stepping stone to get my first movie role, then branch out into a music career, quickly followed by a clothing line and a his/hers aftershave/perfume line. Then, after becoming a billionare I’ll start to doubt my own ability and turn to drugs as a way of hiding my insecurities. During this time, I’ll probably do a little shoplifting, just as a cry for help. Finally, after making a number of failed attempts at rehab, I’ll clean up my act, do a comeback tour and win an Oscar for playing a has-been star who’s trying to kick a drug habit. And to think, it all started with one mention in the Peer-to-Peer section of Oracle Magazine…

Random Things (Like it could get any more random than the last paragraph…)

I nearly got wasted by a big white van this morning. On my way to work I have to drive through Spaghetti Junction and at one point, a sliproad merges into the main carraigeway on a curve. The white van driver obviously wasn’t looking, because he pulled right across and nearly smashed me into a concrete wall. Fortunately, I slammed on my anchors, and just before we were going to hit he noticed me and jerked back onto the sliproad. I felt like I needed a defibrilator for the next few minutes. They say you should do something that scares you every day. That’s today sorted! 🙂

I got the Checkpoint Secure Remote beta software installed on my Vista laptop. It seems to work fine, so that’s a relief.

I’ve bought Parallels as a replacement VMware Server, which currently doesn’t work with Vista. There are a couple of cosmetic things I don’t like about Parallels, but it works and it’s cheap. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it, or switch back when VMware get their act together.

I’m having a love-hate relationship with Vista so far. I’ve not spent that much time using it yet, but I can tell you a couple of things:

  • The searchable menu is great. It doesn’t just search the menu, it displays executables and sub-options of groups like Control Panel or Computer Management. Once you start using it there’s no turning back.
  • The amount of confirmation dialogs required for simple tasks is nuts. I use a login with an account type of Administrator, yet when I want to delete a folder I get the regular confirmation message, followed by one telling me I need Administrator privileges to perform this action, and asking me if I want to proceed. Finally, I get the User Access Control (UAC) confirmation, which blanks the screen when it pops up the dialog. This last one looks a bit like the machine has crashed at first. I tried turning off the UAC, but this makes the red shield appears in the task bar and bubbles constantly pop up saying “Danger Will Robinson”, so I turned it back on. It seems a little over the top. Perhaps I will figure all of this out once I use it a bit more. 🙂
  • The networking on Vista seems a little funky. Connections to Samba shares and other windows machines seem eratic, or impossible. I’ve seen some posts on the net about it, so I’ll have to spend some time reading and playing. So far, I’ve not got a connection to my NAS, which is a pain.

Cheers

Tim…