Checking In From the Sticks
Oct. 16th, 2001 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterI'm down at my parents' farmhouse now, messing with their computer. I don't know why, but it seems to be slightly messed up. I mean, it had Internet Explorer 5, Netscape 4.78, and Netscape 6.1 on it when I started. What's more, the Internet Explorer version seems to be one of those funky ones that doesn't notice when you define a proxy. So I've installed Guidescope, but I can't seem to make it work with this proxyless MSIE.
Anyway, I've removed the two Netscapes and I'm now yanking down Mozilla 0.9.5...but when you've only got a 33.6 modem connection to the 'net, there's only so much you can do so fast. I'll have to burn a CD with more recent MSIE, Windows Media, and other important installers on it for next time I come down. The thing can't even play DivXes properly; clicking on The Playa gets me a "The THEPLAYA.EXE file is linked to missing export DDRAW.DLL:DirectDrawCreateEx." I'm suspecting that it needs a slightly more recent MediaPlayer or DirectX or something. Grr. It peeves me that I went to the trouble of burning the DivX installer onto this CD, brought it down here, installed it, and it still doesn't work. Neither does Windows Update, but even if it did, this thing would still be downloading into the early morning.
35 more minutes to go before Mozilla finishes downloading...I don't even know that I'll be able to post this journal entry from here with all that downloading going on; I may have to email the text to myself and back-date it when I get home.
I hate this keyboard the parents have. It's one of those "oh, I'm soooo ergonomic that I make it hard for anyone who learned to type on a straight keyboard to get used to it" models...the kind where the left and right hands are separated by a couple of inches and twisted around at a funky angle to each other. I'm sure it's as ergonomic as anything, but it throws my rhythm off. And I type about 100 words per minute, so my rhythm is kind of important to me.
Anyway, the folks live about an hour away from me, at the old 80-acre farm/ranch where I spent my life from 4th or 5th grade up 'til I went away to college. Then I spent more of my life here after I got out of college the first time and tried to find a job...and now, finally, I'm about to graduate with a second, hopefully more salable, degree and hope that it will let me find a position somewhere that I won't ever have to live here again. Unless I want to, later on, if the parents have moved out of it by then. It's not a bad place, but for its position in middle-of-nowheresville. It's pretty country, anyway. But by golly they'd sure better have affordable high speed Internet access out here by that time!
Huh...this is pretty neat. The Mozilla intstaller has a "pause" function. So it looks like I can post this thing after all.
I expect to be back in my room within a couple of hours, and I can't wait. For all that it's messy, it does have a decent computer and a high speed 'net connection.
And my DVD-ROM drive--because as it happens, I picked up the Phantom Menace DVD today, too. More on that as I have the time to look it over.
Anyway, I've removed the two Netscapes and I'm now yanking down Mozilla 0.9.5...but when you've only got a 33.6 modem connection to the 'net, there's only so much you can do so fast. I'll have to burn a CD with more recent MSIE, Windows Media, and other important installers on it for next time I come down. The thing can't even play DivXes properly; clicking on The Playa gets me a "The THEPLAYA.EXE file is linked to missing export DDRAW.DLL:DirectDrawCreateEx." I'm suspecting that it needs a slightly more recent MediaPlayer or DirectX or something. Grr. It peeves me that I went to the trouble of burning the DivX installer onto this CD, brought it down here, installed it, and it still doesn't work. Neither does Windows Update, but even if it did, this thing would still be downloading into the early morning.
35 more minutes to go before Mozilla finishes downloading...I don't even know that I'll be able to post this journal entry from here with all that downloading going on; I may have to email the text to myself and back-date it when I get home.
I hate this keyboard the parents have. It's one of those "oh, I'm soooo ergonomic that I make it hard for anyone who learned to type on a straight keyboard to get used to it" models...the kind where the left and right hands are separated by a couple of inches and twisted around at a funky angle to each other. I'm sure it's as ergonomic as anything, but it throws my rhythm off. And I type about 100 words per minute, so my rhythm is kind of important to me.
Anyway, the folks live about an hour away from me, at the old 80-acre farm/ranch where I spent my life from 4th or 5th grade up 'til I went away to college. Then I spent more of my life here after I got out of college the first time and tried to find a job...and now, finally, I'm about to graduate with a second, hopefully more salable, degree and hope that it will let me find a position somewhere that I won't ever have to live here again. Unless I want to, later on, if the parents have moved out of it by then. It's not a bad place, but for its position in middle-of-nowheresville. It's pretty country, anyway. But by golly they'd sure better have affordable high speed Internet access out here by that time!
Huh...this is pretty neat. The Mozilla intstaller has a "pause" function. So it looks like I can post this thing after all.
I expect to be back in my room within a couple of hours, and I can't wait. For all that it's messy, it does have a decent computer and a high speed 'net connection.
And my DVD-ROM drive--because as it happens, I picked up the Phantom Menace DVD today, too. More on that as I have the time to look it over.
