First, Apple released some pretty funny commercials illustrating the difference between Macs and PCs. I really like the rebooting one :). Well worth looking at in HD :)

Also, the Broomfield Apple Store is set to open on Saturday. I'll certainly make a stop either in between No Fluff Just Stuff sessions or afterwards. I'll have to be careful since I will no longer have to drive to the south side of Denver to visit an Apple Store :)

I decided to celebrate getting a new job and upgrade my cell phone. I used the same phone for over 2 years, and I felt that it was a little underpowered and under-featured for my taste. So I went all out and got the Motorola PEBL.

The PEBL itself is a a very fine phone. It supports Bluetooth, has faster Internet connectivity and it just looks amazing. It's also getting popular in the geek circles, which is a good thing.

It also has a USB port instead of the usual array of connectors found in other phones. You connect it's headset and charger to this port. This lead to the discovery that anything that provides power through a USB port can be used to charge the phone.

I was going through the normal battery conditioning process (charge the phone for x hours, let the battery drain. Then charge as normal). It so happened that the battery died while I was in the office, far away from my phone charger. I plugged a USB cable to the PowerBook and hooked the phone to it. After a few minutes, the phone turned on and continued charging.

So, this leads me to 2 conclusions:

1. No need to carry a cell phone charger with me when traveling anymore, eliminating the risk of loosing it and having to replace it (again...). A simple USB cord will do.
2. My PowerBook is indeed the world's most expensive phone charger :)

It's looking like I killed yet another Linksys WRT54G. A few days ago, I started noticing a severe slowdown when browsing to the internet or receiving and sending emails. I started iStumbler to see what might be happening. I noticed that there were some large gaps without seeing any transmissions from the downstairs access point. Pinging it also showed some wild variations in the ping response time with some significant packet loss. Thankfully, the upstairs access point kept me connected and even allowed the VPN to maintain a connection. It was time to upgrade.

A while back, I chose not to run wires in my house and went with the WDS route to bridge between the network downstairs (which supports a TiVO, the MCI VoIP adapter and the cable modem) and my office (which has my mail server, printer and a few other computers). I really couldn't afford too much downtime since I normally work from home.

Initially, I used a WRT54G as my main access point/router, and a WAP54G as the upstairs access point. I had updated the firmware on the WRT54G to support WDS (using Sveasoft at first and then using DD-WRT). Configuring the main router for WDS wasn't too bad, but I was limited to WEP for encryption purposes. This in itself was a little worrisome considering how easy it is to break WEP.

Eventually, the WAP54G died, and I decided to use the Apple Airport Express access point that I normally carried with me (never know when I might have to setup a wireless network in a conference room.) I did get it to work using the WRT54G as the main station, but it wasn't straightforward and I was still limited to WEP encryption.

So I took the opportunity to get a second Apple Airport Express access point and configure it to be the main station and to use WPA2 Personal as the encryption protocol. I used the Apple Airport Admin utility to add the existing one as a remote station (after resetting it to factory defaults). Once I chose to update the configuration on the new Airport Express, the utility also configured the office Airport Express to act as a remote station. Automatically. With no fiddling or confusion on my part. Even better, everything seems to be going faster and be more responsive. This was certainly well worth the money.

Saturday, Mollie drove the Jeep to run errands while I was being interviewed by our social worker. Her car was still downtown since she was a little tipsy after a good dinner at McCormick's Fish House.

Once the interview was over, she came back. She had the guilty look of a kid who knows that she is in trouble and blurted out "It's not my fault!" She then proceeded to tell me how she had the windows cracked, enjoying the nice weather. She heard a snap when she tried to roll the windows up, and the driver window started to sink into the door.

So I took out the driver door panel, took out what I later learned was the power window regulator and saw that the cable was no longer attached to the part that held the window. After doing some research on the web (Google and Froogle are your friends), I placed an order for a new regulator.

Driving the Jeep around wasn't too bad since we did have nice weather on Sunday and Monday. I did get nervous since I didn't hear anything from the merchant that I purchased the regulator from though. After all, we are supposed to get rain and snow tomorrow, and I did want to go to the Denver JUG meeting. It would have been very uncomfortable driving in these conditions without a window. So I called the merchant. They had just shipped the part, but it wouldn't be delivered until Thursday.

So I called a local dealership to see whether they had the regulator I needed in stock (they did). I drove down, picked up the part, drove home and installed it. It was pretty straightforward now that I had been through a learning experience on how to remove the door panel earlier.

I'll still have the extra regulator though. I guess that I'll go ahead and put it up on eBay once I receive it.

I just noticed that this blog now has two pages. It's certainly not a big milestone, but it is one. I'm certainly hoping that there will be many, many more as time goes by.