Sometime this weekend, someone will be the 10,000th visitor to this site.

If it’s you, take a screenshot.
I can associate IP address and reverse domain info with the specific visitor so even in the event of apparent multiple 10,000th visitors, I’ll be able figure it out.

The winner will be offerred the choice of one three sumptuous prize packages constructed around the following themes:

• Piles of computer junk and spare parts I have lying around! Actual functioning items may be included!
• Duplicates of comic books in my copious collection!
• Dot-com detritus! What miscellaneous marketing material can I come up with from the high-water mark of the greatest gimcrack boondoggle ever seen?

Thank you, and keep your eyes on the skies!

Cinescape is running my latest several comic reviews online again, and I’m behind in crosslinking here. So my next few posts will be linkies. I’ll copy-and-paste the first couple grafs from each.

I have a huge pile of material I’m reviewing my way through at the moment as well, so this also gives me a chance to keep you guys happy and write, all at once.

Kissy kissy. Air kisses to you all.

The silicon thermal gel arrived today – so I’m closing the keyboard back up on an experimental basis after adding it to the CPU and heatsink.

Ken: what I just said is, “I let out the clutch, now I need to test drive it.”

Apparently non-computroid persons have been having a hard time following my tale of woe.

Here’s a brief translation, with a tiny background note.

When computers overheat, they break. The older the computer, the more likelihood heat will have damaged components. Additionally, the closer together the parts of the computer are packed (as in a laptop), the more heat becomes a problem.

My server, a rebuilt-from-junk parts Mac about 4 years old, displays the symptoms of heat death.

I have spent the last week relearning the essential computer-user’s lesson, “Do it right the first time; cutting corners costs time.”

Until I can replace the part that I think is heat-damaged, inexpensively, it appears, I have implemented the mother of all temporary solutions, to the amusement of many, possibly you.

Now, will someone go get their mom to read this back and check for comprehensibility?

So. It’s the CPU. Definitely. I mean, definitely according to my Intuiton (TM).

Naturally, eBay’s only been offering whiz-bang upgrade cards, which run about $100, and I completely missed a 233Mhz card (in Seattle, yet) yesterday. I mistook myself earlier when I noted that Bellerophon has a 300Mhz CPU – it’s a 233.

I have been struggling to compile the system-level image manipulation tools that enable stuff like photo uploads, something that takes upwards of 12 hours of 100% CPU activity.

I finally have jury-rigged a contraption anyone’s grandpappy would be proud of: I opened a dead outboard SCSI hard-drive, disconnected the drive itself, and pulled out the housing fan so I can position it independently to cool the laptop’s heat sink. Then, I set up a system of shims made from cork and toothpicks to float the keyboard off the surface of the heatsink, allowing the fan to move the hot air out.

I’d post a picture, but, um…

Well, maybe I will anyway.

UPDATE: Interestingly, the other image tool I set up many moons ago, NetPBM, works fine. I think I saw where the 2.51 upgrade to Moveable Type supports NetPBM now; purrhaps I’ll look into it more deeply.

Twice in two days, the server upon which my sites reside has locked up; I will be keeping an eye on it and looking to know what’s causing this.

Step one was tightening up the firewalls on the box, so please let me know if there’s a problem you note with the day-to-day functioning here; it’s possible I will have blocked a port that is in internal use.

Step two will involve setting up some logging apparatus this week.

All of which may mean extended, mysterious outages and the like, darn it.

For work. With Spence. At an ungodly hour approximating the time of this posting.

And I get to do it again on Monday. Any drivers?

Well, it’ll still be fun. 3 hours up, three back. Six to eight on the job.

tap tap tap

squEEELpangggg!

H-hello?

‘zis thing on?

tap tap tap

now with MT two-point-fivey goodness!

(I ‘spect my perl search is broken, at the moment. I’ll make time to fix it tonight.)

UPDATE: Search repaired, and even improved a bit. Now the sidebar in the search results is updated when the page builds. Also, I think that the good people at Movable Type may have tightened up the performance of the search code per se – it didn’t feel as, uh, “draggy” (testing a plugin with those quotes, too. Shucks, no dice.).

I have let my blogrolls get out of hand.

Somehow, I must impose order.

Time for musing.

Now that I have work to do, idle blogsurfing seems somehow much MORE attractive than it did just yesterday.

Let’s see, if I were Ken, I’d…

• chew, worry, and otherwise attend to nails, cuticles, and so forth
• look to see if there were any obscure British humor shows on BBC America or maybe on ifc or canadian TV
• repeatedly pick up the physical objects associated with the assignment (notes, raw materials from the client, pens) and fiddle with them while sighing heavily
• Experience distracting itching just as I was getting into the rhythym
• seriously consider the possibility of entering an online minesweeper tourney which offers real money
• spend at least two hours writing something for the Illuminated Donkey instead of about the assignment
• undoutedly other, less savory pursuits, all in the service of not getting the assignment done

Then I’d get to work and crank out the finest piece of understated technical writing that Jersey City’s ever seen.

NOT being Ken Goldstein but rather Mike Whybark, though, I’d

• Spend several hours designing and thinking about workflow systems to allow me to to the work as fast as humanly possible
• Spend more time musing to myself (and you guys) about that than actually developing the tools I’ve dreamt up
• Start doing the work only to be distracted again
• eventualy, I’d do the work

Can you guess what stage I’m in right now?