Solipsism Gradient

Rainer Brockerhoff wrote:

I had some difficulty in getting the built-in Airport Extreme (802.11g) card to interoperate with my SMC Barricade 7004AWBR wireless router. I tried several things – setting the MTU to 1492, changing from fixed IP to DHCP, downgrading the Airport software from 3.1 to 3.04, and trying out different WEP encryption options. I’ve had no time to regress some of these things to see which specific one was the culprit, but it’s working now.

I took some time to reinstall all of these things and it still worked. Finally I realized I had switched from Channel 11 (recommended to reduce interference by mobile phones) to Channel 1 at some point in the process.

Testing most of the channels revealed an interesting pattern. Channels 1 to 3 work OK. Channels 4 and 5 work either intermittently or very slowly. Channels 6 to 11 don’t work at all! (Channels 12 to 14, supported on the SMC, apparently aren’t supported by Airport at all.) I’ll try to check this out on the Apple support boards – several people were complaining about similar problems, but I saw no reference to channel incompatibility.

I’ve never used Windows XP, although I’ve seen friends using it… after reading Mark Pilgrim‘s revealing post “How to install Windows XP in 5 hours or less“, I resolved to never touch it in the future, either.

…

43. Install Mozilla. Yes, I would like to make you my default browser. The world is happiness and glee.

44. “Take a tour of Windows XP!” Sigh.

45. “30 days left for activation!” Click. Yes, I would like to activate Windows over an active internet connection, now that I have one. No, I would not like to register with Microsoft. Yes, I have read the privacy statement and agree to give up my computer, my civil rights, and my first-born child. I wasn’t using my civil rights anyway.

…

53. Yes, I agree to bend over, grease up, and accept the End User License Agreement.

54. Wait. Time passes.

55. Wait. Time passes.

56. Wait. Time passes. It is getting dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

57. Reboot.

58. “Take a tour of Windows XP!”

…

It took 147 steps. Admittedly, this is a not-very-standard installation for a job he needs to do specifically on XP…

Regarding my previous reference to urinals, a kind (?) visitor pointed me at Urinal Dot Net. The “Top 10” photos are fascinating…

Herewith some more unrelated strange/interesting links, found while I actually should have been working:

The First Worldwide Annual ABSFG Gurning Contest!

Crazy Eyes (weird contact lenses)!

Reidar Finsrud’s Perpetual Motion Device!

All Your Calvin & Hobbes Are Belong To Us!

Unclean! Unclean! (AKA Web Developer Wanted)!

Well, I’m sitting here downloading Apple’s latest Mac OS X Panther beta (7B21). I’m under the standard developer NDA, so after reading the release docs I can’t say much more beyond 1) it’ll take at least two more days to get it all (5 CDs!), 2) I’m very enthusiastic about it. Seems like a great excuse to get back into full-time development work – I’ve got a couple of good ideas already, about which I’ll post more info later.

There’s nothing like a larger screen and more memory! While downloading I’m reading the documentation, backing up some stuff, checking e-mail, chatting with friends, and listening to some great new music I found on my São Paulo trip. My current favorite is John Zorn‘s “The Circle Maker“, a double album with some amazing Jewish jazz. Highly recommended.