Thursday, January 22, 2009
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Weight training: advanced plank (5:00). To work. A fan in my Mac Pro at work began making unusual noises today. It variously spins up, shuts off, and sometimes buzzes annoyingly like an insect. There's even an identifiable but inconsistent cycle to the volume and tonal pattern of its new hum. I recently vacuumed the computer's exterior, so I know surface dust isn't a factor, but I might need to open it up and examine it. I just don't have time right now. Listserv maintenance. Cleaned out old email messages I no longer needed. Small web edits: Outlook setup instructions, graduation regalia form, request a speaker. Followup on a student's question about email and Moodle/CLE. After listening very closely to the Mac Pro, I believe the problem lies with the fan for the ATI graphics card. Deleted an OST file because Outlook told me to do so. Management work. Reported web problems to Public Affairs. Organized papers for CTS. Helped student DL set up Outlook and gave tips on anti-virus and anti-spyware. Redirected student IG to Rodney for help with Lexi Comp. More management work. Checked in with Eric D on projects. He showed me his progress on the digital asset library we're building using Montala ResourceSpace. It's newly set up and running internally. The screens are very pretty, and the interface seems pretty intuitive. Followup with Jann F about hooking our apps to MyAccess. Another problem report for Public Affairs. (Eric V found this one.) Asked Rebecca N to turn on RSS for the CSC listserv. Confirmed that we have a Flickr group and new listserv ready for one of our student organizations. Asked Susie to review my setup for listservs which we'll use to communicate to website owners and coders in the School of Pharmacy. I think one of my users has a full inbox—will need to troubleshoot tomorrow. Something weird today: when in certain applications, I see "Save Files Attached to Entoura..." followed by a spinning "busy" icon and a red stop sign. I see this when any of the following applications have focus: Finder, TextEdit, Activity Monitor, VLC, My Day. I don't see it when these applications have focus: VMware Fusion, Entourage, Adium. Relaunching Finder did not fix the problem. I closed all my open applications planning to restart the computer and eventually underneath a lot of windows I found a small window that had something to do with saving all attachments (or something like that). Once I canceled it, the problem went away. I don't know how it got there. In the afternoon, I started receiving air through my ceiliing vent. It had been off all morning, and it's normal for this air flow to exist or not exist, typically on the whim of construction crews doing work elsewhere in the building. It's not worth complaining about, and if I need fresher air, I just prop my door open with a waste bin. However, the air flow also brings with it its own white noise, and I'm wondering now if the ATI graphics card fan has been humming strangely for longer than just this morning. Discovered that I reached my quota with Mozy, so I reconfigured it to back up less data. Installed Workrave for Shirin. Organized my meatspace desktop. Dinner by myself at Bistro 9: rotisserie chicken, cous cous, french fries, hot water: $14.39 after a $3 tip. Service was very good, food was very good except that the chicken was strangely dry even though it had a good texture throughout. The bread coating was particularly tasty, and very good flavor combinations in the cous cous. I liked the rosemary sprig accent poked into the chicken straight up. One touch that makes Bistro 9 stand out for me: starter baguette is pre-sliced and served super hot. Too full for dessert. Finally figured out how to remove the f: drive on my PQI i-Stick—Dr. UFD, I couldn't've done it without you! Discovered polyvore via omiru.