Dan Birchall

Let's see... what are my tech thoughts today? I've been fixing a hosed Windows NT 4 server the last couple days, using SSIDhack and  Knoppix  -- both of which consist of, yes, bootable Linux instances. Since I've traditionally just replaced Windows with Linux, it's interesting to see that I can also use Linux to get into and fix a Windows system that can't be gotten into or fixed from within Windows. Go figure! The iBook came back. Its problem (video cable) was either fixed by being shaken around during shipping, or simply refused to display itself for the AppleCare folks. It hasn't acted up since they sent it back... there, I've jinxed myself. It's good to have it back. I installed  FileMaker Developer 6  and  VirtualPC 6  with Windows XP Pro on it last night. Today, I installed Windows XP Pro again, since last night's install had decided overnight not to work anymore. Mmhmm, now I know how all you Windows users feel. ;) Ordered (from

A week or so back, my  iBook's  display started freaking out. I phoned it in to  AppleCare , then bought a Mitsubishi  DiamondPoint NXM56LCD  15" 1024x768 LCD monitor at  OfficeMax  so I could see what I was doing. Nice unit, wall-mountable (maybe I'll wire it up as a TV someday?) and reasonably priced (sub-$400). The local store only gets a pair of them at a time, so every other one they sell is a "floor model" at a discount. Interesting practice. My  EZQuest  Cobra+ 120GB external FireWire drive came back from getting repaired (new innards). It works better now - which is to say, it works at all.  Jim Gray  has some very good ideas about the future of disk storage, and... well, I'm starting to think like him about this drive. It's like a box I can dump huge amounts of stuff into - but it's not high-reliability in and of itself, so it'll be a box I dump stuff into that I've already burnt to CD-R, no doubt. A couple days ago, the