This post is mainly to make sure the blog is still bworking after redoing a bunch of the table, adding, and history stuff. I’m having a slight problem in that my idea of using an id number doesn’t scale well to different permission levels and categories, and the fact that MySQL and PHP like to handle timestamps in different ways. That’s okay — this isn’t supposed to be easy. I just want it to work.

I got a Plextor 48/24/48 CD-RW for my computer for Christmas. I tried installing it this weekend, but had problems getting the software installed. I want to use Roxio EZCD Creator with it, and it came in the retail package, but it’s refusing to install/patch or upgrade. Roxio’s website says I have the KLEZ virus, but I don’t. I’ve scanned the machine, updated the virus scanners, repeated. I’ve gone through and removed and deleted the EZ CD Creator 4 that was previously installed, edited the registry, added and removed and rebooted the version 5 tons of times… I’m beginning to lose hope of being able to use the software and start looking at something else.

One of the reasons I wanted the burner was to backup my system, so I could start the task of organizing and saving my data. The goal is to rebuild my desktop. Now it looks like I’m going to have to do that before I can get the CDR to work. *sigh* What I realized this morning was that I can probably build my new system with my new drive, and not have to reformat or lose any of the existing drives unless I want to later.

All of the anti-virus installing and scanning and updated reminded me that I didn’t have anything on my laptop, my main work machine. So I installed NAI VirusShield — UIUC has a site license for it. So, now, in normal operation, I have a magnifying glass and a shield icon in my system tay. VirusScan also includes an Email scanner. When I start Outlook, it apparently loads the MAPI virus scanner, and the shield icon gets a little sword in front of it. That cracks me up. It’s like the antivirus software is saying, “oh no, he’s loading outlook… the shield isn’t going to be enough. i need my sword too.”

Personifying my virus scanner might have come from me renting LoTR: The Two Towers for PS2. It’s not my typical genre of console game, but it’s amazingly well done and lots of fun to play.

Oh, and Eric thinks no one will read this entry because it’s too long. Oh well.

This just came in off one of my joke of the day email lists.

“Father Reilly,” the Mother Superior reported, “I just thought you should know that there’s a case of syphilis in the convent.”

“Oh good,” the priest replied, “I was really getting tired of the Chablis.”

When I add categories to the blog, “Jokes” will have to be one. Otherwise, this doesn’t warrant an entry.