For all of you instant messaging freaks out there who haven’t tried Trillian yet, it is time that you downloaded it and gave it a try. The new version is out, it is free, and it is worlds better than it has been in the past. The older versions were really slow in getting new features and weren’t always as nice as their individual component conterparts. But this new Trillian, IMHO, is way better than anyone else’s IM clients. My only real complaint is that they are not supporting the Jabber protocols yet so it isn’t all that useful to me and a lot of people that I know because that is what we use. So, just because you get Trillian, don’t expect to see me on there because I am almost never on anything but the corporate Jabber server. But, anytime I AM on regular public IM, I am definitely using Trillian for all of my chatting!
I have been working hard to get as many machines as I can out of the house one way or another. We have had a number of them leave recently to go out to lease. That is the ideal situation. Nate finally, last Wednesday, took his computer home that has been sitting here in my office for over a year! And Bob took one yesterday to borrow until he is able to buy Min’s Shuttle PC (we have decided that we are going to do what we can to eliminate all machines that we own that won’t qualify to eventually go out to lease.) Six monitors left last Wednesday and I expect a number of printers and other stuff is going to leave sometime this week. My office is really starting to open up a bit. There have been so many computers, monitors, printers, etc. sitting around here idle that it has really been tough to keep it clean and neat in here. So I am glad to see everything leaving so suddenly. My desk is practically clean now and I am able to sweep the floor again. By mid-January, before I go back to Wegmans, I hope to have a ton more stuff out of here including that huge floor standing server that we have in the server room. It would be nice to have some more space available in there as well.
For anyone waiting to install the latest version, 9.2, of SUSE Linux, Novell has stated that they plan to release the latest version for download on approximately January 15th. SUSE Linux is especially nice for anyone running on AMD’s AMD64 architecture (Athlon 64, Athlon FX and Opteron processors) because it completely supports the advanced features of the 64-bit environment instead of running old 32-bit Windows on such a powerful machine (hint, hint, Nate!) If you want to get the latest SUSE software, you can check for availability by going to SUSE FTP. Just click on the architecture that applies to you.
I was supposed to have an appointment with my foot doctor this week to have my plantar’s wart hyfercated on Thursday because we haven’t seen any progress with it for over a year. In fact, over last Christmas holiday, I had it hyfercated and by the time we took off the bandages, it was worse than it had been before. I ended up spending most of this year on Cimetidine (or Tagament for those of you who only know brand names) in hopes of that helping it and that did nothing. We have tried every trick in the book to get this wart to go away for the past three years and nothing has had any affect. But in just the last few weeks, the wart has really started to go away at an incredible pace. It coincided very noticeably with my switching to Protonics for my acid reflux. I had hypothesised that the Protonics might have an affect on it months ago. My theory is that the highly effective acid reducing properties of Protonics alter my body chemistry enough – by changing the way that I digest foods – that it changes the nutrient levels in my blood stream and it must cut out a forth of nutrient that is very good for the wart. Warts are a parasitic virus that feeds directly off of the blood stream so that is very possible. I believe that that is why Cimetidine works for so many people because, for most people, it really reduces stomach acid. I happen to be allergic to it so it doesn’t work for me for the acid or for the warts. I bet that studies would also find that people with acid reflux have a highly than usual tendency to have warts. So anyway, I am planning on cancelling my surgery this week because everything is going so well with my foot!
Min and I slept in pretty late today. We didn’t get up until almost 11:00, so we missed church. Min played The Sims 2 until about 2:00 in the morning. Then she started playing again as soon as she got up today. She is addicted already. She has to get all of her game play in before this afternoon because she has to go to work and there is no way that she could play that on my laptop.
I can’t believe how warm it is, we are in January already, typically the coldest month of the year and it is raining today. Raining and warm! I can’t really remember a January that was as warm as what we are seeing now. I kind of get the feeling that we aren’t even going to get a winter this year. December was nothing. I am sure that we will have some major blizzard in a month or so, but it won’t last.
Min decided to get right back into The Sims 2 as soon as she got up this morning to get maximum gaming time in before having to go to work. She is really addicted to the game. It is pretty cool though. Just before Min had to go to work, she and I ran out and got some McDonald’s for lunch.
I spent the day working down in the basement. I pretty much didn’t leave the basement all day. I did talk to Bob quite a bit though 🙂 Andy and Miranda went up to Red Lobster for dinner. Miranda is heading back to North Bay tomorrow. And Andy has to go to work again tomorrow. I will be working in Ithaca all day tomorrow.
I took a break from being in the basement long enough to run out to Wegmans and pick up some food for dinner. I got a microwave pizza but it had bleu cheese on it and it ended up being really gross.
The latest death toll from the Indonesian Tsunomi reached 155K.
Okay, I hope to be going to bed pretty soon so I am signing off and posting. Have a good night.