2010-01-06:

So the morning one was a bust. The mission was to install a wireless card into a PC. No sweat, right? Well, consider the fact it was a PII from the 98 era and you can begin to see my frustration. Put the card in, machine won't boot, at all. Take card out, boots fine. Tried it with another machine right next to it (it's a lab... of sorts) and it did the same thing. Found a newer PC with a wireless card. Traded. Machine boots, but doesn't see the card at all. Traded PCI slots with the ethernet card- picks up the ethernet card, no wireless card. I think I'm going to see about finding a router that can hook into the wireless from downstairs and go ethernet out to the 8 machines rather then (expensively) outfit them all with USB wireless adapters (which I'm not too fond of). I think such a thing exists, maybe? Then over to number two. Hilton. Yay driving! She had a weird problem and a less weird problem. The less one was just the CD-RW being busted. Replaced. The weird problem was it sort of zoning out after awhile. Did a bunch of stuff, hope that fixes it. Got home. My USB to MIDI cable ($8.99, ebay) arrived. Messed about with that. I ordered it thinking as I practiced stuff, I would record it with Garageband to chart my progress. Sadly, there's something really strange going on with it. Basically, it's backwards. You hit a key, and the MIDI says "he just stopped playing that note". Then you let the key go, and the MIDI says "He just started playing that note". So even the most simple thing you play sounds all messed up. So I have to send that back, if they'll take it back, and maybe get one that isn't so cheap. Sigh. Then over to my last one. His machine was messed up, he just wanted the HD transferred to another. Well, I thought the other was messed up too because it just wasn't working right. Turns out it was the drive! When it was plugged in the machine just got really wacky. My Mac didn't even see it, which is the sensible course of action rather then grind the machine to a halt. So I spent like an hour and a half there uselessly. Got home, got to eat dinner for all of ten minutes. Then calls. Spent two hours and twenty minutes trying to get this guy to open a website in firefox (that was printing weird), copy the URL and paste it into IE. Then print. I hate everything. Then Sean mailed and said the controller wasn't working right, again. I'll just give him mine and take his, same difference but mine is now working properly and I've used it a bunch, so it should stay that way. Did get a comic done yesterday, don't think I will today though, that two hour marathon really took it out of me. And I have to write MIDI guy. Three for tomorrow, hopefully they'll go a bit better.