How do you like that for a double negative?
This has been a very busy week, with not much to show for it. But it looks like things are settling down just a little bit. I've spent most of the week getting the new laptop up-to-speed (still working on a nagging security issue with my connection to the Cleveland Company) and also have lost a lot of time on Nate's mp3 player issues.
Nate's Creative Zen V Plus was a great little player. Until it stopped playing with our computers. I found the Creative site to be no help at all with his particular issue. The player would not be recognized by either Napster or Windows Media Player. Even Creative's firmware that I downloaded fresh would not see that the player was connected. After losing several hours and plenty of hair, I finally toted it to Best Buy.
That ended up being a happy experience. When I bought the player last summer I paid for a Product Replacement Plan...not a "performance" plan. So when I showed them the player, they sent me to pick out a new one for the same price. They don't carry Creative anymore, so I chose an Insignia player (Best Buy's own brand) with 8GB of memory. And so here we are now with a happy guy and a nice mp3 player.
Nate's car is also being repaired and hopefully it will return home late next week. He has to have a new hood, headlight, radiator and air conditioner condenser. The original estimate called for many other repairs because they couldn't get the hood open so they made wild guesses. Once Mensa Boy and Nate popped the lid with crowbars, the damage was re-assessed and the repair bill went down $1000. So the total cost of the project will be $1600 and Nate will pay half. That will double the value of his car to us. We paid only $1800 when we bought it! But since it has a fairly new engine, it seems like a wise decision.
And this morning I'm finding myself to be pleasantly surprised by Windows Vista. I've been skeptical of the whole operating system. I never really felt like I had heard much positive about it. It is true that it's a nag, but you can control many of the nagging bits off. What I found this morning that I like is the parental controls. With Nate's new mp3 player only being usable on my computer right now (his computer needs some desperate overhauling), I'm having to set up a user account on my computer for him to use Napster and Media Player. I found that Vista allows me to control everything the guys can do on this computer, including which programs can be run. So I set up an account for them that is not password-protected that will only allow them to use those two programs. They will have to use their own computer for everything else, including surfing the net.
So. That's my story. Today I need to work on some accounting and then I can start doing some paying work. OH! I'm going to be covering the Track team! I guess I'm the "running writer" now.
