Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Usual oatmeal breakfast. I noticed yesterday that the hallway floor outside my office is much shinier and cleaner than before. Last week some special cleaners came specifically to clean the floor and the difference is amazing. Kristina reported problems accessing her My Documents folder. Looks strange—I gave her a workaround before rushing off to the Student Computing Committee meeting. Late lunch: burrito #4 from Carmelina's. Met with a student who had trouble connecting with VPN. Finally got Meeting Maker to sync with Chris's Palm Pilot after lots of 0x50 and 0x55 errors. I had to do a very clean install: remove 2 installations of MM, remove 3 installations of Palm Desktop, clean out the U.S. Robotics registry branch, reinstall Palm Desktop 4.1.4, reinstall MM 6.0.8, then set up the config anew. It also helped to wiggle the Palm device in its cradle—the connection wasn't perfect. Helped Ena figure out what to answer for some Microsoft AntiSpyware alerts. She had the same problem Kristina had, too—her My Documents folder was pointing to the wrong place. I discovered that it's because she says Block to one of the antispyware alerts when she should say Allow. We keep user's My Documents folders on the server, but Microsoft AntiSpyware thinks me, the network admin, is trying to hijack her My Documents folder. It's certainly not Ena's or Kristina's fault they choose the wrong thing. After all, I told them, when you're uncertain, choose Block. But I could find no way to force Microsoft AntiSpyware to remember that those settings should be Allowed. One has a checkbox even called "Remember this action" but even if we select that checkbox and say Allow, the next time her machine restarts and she logs in she gets the alert again. Grrrr! Helped Melissa finish setting up Iomega Automatic Backup Pro on her home laptop. Reviewed Kirk H's edits for the SAA website. Kirk and our committee shouldn't be doing SAA's work for them, but it's worse for us if we don't. Updated the P1 schedule for Debrah. Dinner with Patrick at Xiao Loong: sizzling rice soup, clay pot curry chicken, white prawns, hot tea. We got 4 fortune cookies. Patrick's fortunes: The object of your desire comes closer—and—Be yourself and you will always be in fashion. My fortunes: Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals; Keep yourself clean and bright. You are the window through which you see the world. The curry chicken was not spicy at all and was almost melt-in-your-mouth tender. The white prawns dish is very good, but be warned that the broccoli is simply steamed and left completely unseasoned. Created a letterhalf ad for Lodestar to appear in a Saints and Sinners brochure or handout or something like that.