Wednesday, November 2, 2005
Telecommute day. Backfilled journal entries for the past few days. Updated yesterday's news story for Susie. Helped Susie figure out what to do when she sees the error message "ScanMail for Microsoft Exchange has blocked an attachment." (The answer can depend on whether you're trying to receive or send the attachment in question, but one solution I recommend that works for either case is yousendit.com.) Placed an order for a memory upgrade for Joel's computer. Our office computers are roughly 3.1 years old now. Although in my professional opinion the recommended window for replacing computer hardware is 3 to 4 years, I have been asked to stretch that out to longer. Indeed, when I first arrived, the office was running very inefficiently on equipment that was 5 years old or older. Even today, we have some HP LaserJet 5 printers that are still wobbling along at 10+ years old. Fortunately, the Dells we bought 3 years ago are, for the most part, very well made, and I keep Windows XP very clean of software junk startup items (*cough* QuickTime Task *cough* Real—nobody wants your spam—*cough* SunJavaUpdateSched *cough* Adobe Reader Speed Launch) and always automatically updated with Microsoft. As time passes, however, anti-virus and anti-spyware software takes up more and more memory, so I think we're now to the point where I wouldn't buy a Windows computer with less than 512 MB of RAM. I'd probably set my minimum at 512 MB and preferred at 768 MB or more. Completed Kevin's Student Computing Priorities survey. Spent the day updating the student database on the web project. It's been a very productive day. Reviewed password security web pages. My pal Tony An has some great photos of the new de Young museum. To find his Xanga site, search Google on ynotswim. Lunch at home with Patrick: I made homemade shrimp fried rice with vegetables. Dinner at home by myself: leftover fried rice. Watched Rick Steves (Provence). Watched Simpsons (Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore and Children of a Lesser Clod) with Patrick.