I’ve been getting really annoyed at how slow the Vista start menu is, navigating “All Programs”. I discovered a way to speed it up drastically. Customize the start menu and un-check “Highlight newly installed programs”.

The navigation will get much faster. Now if I can just figure out how to get the program folders to expand outside of the start menu, like Windows XP did by default.

Last year (I think) I posted about how hooked I am to the internet. Two years ago, we came up and I discovered high-speed wireless in the condo (for a small fee). I was totally stoked. Then, last year I couldn’t connect to it. Thought it was maybe a temporary issue with hardware or something. This year, I can’t connect at the condo again. It pisses me off.

So, here I am at Moxie Java, having a coffee & getting my fix. I don’t know how I’ll get through the week.

So there you have it. If you don’t vote, you waive all rights to have a political discussion with me. If you don’t vote and still wish to discuss politics, you’ll have to accept a slap to the face before the discussion.

If that’s not motivation, I don’t know what is. And despite the outcome of tomorrows elections, there is one thing we know we can look forward to. Relief from political yard signs and misleading television ads.

In a fit of frustration, after it had done this ten times in a 30 minute period, I ran off to Walmart and bought a new modem. Things seemed to be better for a couple weeks, then it started again. When the cable company was of little help, I found that Motorola modems provide some data through a web interface at http://192.168.100.1. I started plotting graphs of Power Level, and Signal/Noise ratio using rrdtool. I was hoping to find a correlation between the disconnects and these values. Today I was looking at the graphs and noticed a strange boost in the upstream power level:

I’m not sure what these values mean, but I would think that higher is better. I didn’t notice any disconnects during the period of improved upstream power level. Anyone know what these values mean?

I’ve got a few new Mac OS X tips, as well as some other things rolling around in my noggin that I’ve been itching to write about. My impressions of IE 7 and Mozilla Firefox 2.0. My thoughts on Microsoft Vista– having been testing it over the past several months.

Stay tuned. I’m not dead, just busy .

-Chris

I really like this device. It’s not nearly as bad as a phone as I was afraid it would be. I’ve been able to be much more reponsive to email than I was without it.

Now, all of the little breaks in my day I can use productively. Filling up the car with gas, bathroom breaks, smoke breaks, and waiting rooms are all productive. Now, when I get back to the office I don’t have to spend 30 minutes catching up on email… I can get right to work.