Back from the North Woods

I'm back in Iowa, and connected to the world once again, albeit via dial-up until I get home on Monday. I had 287 messages in my inbox today, which caused Thunderbird some consternation at first, but I finally got most of them read and/or deleted. Now to figure out what I missed out on during the communcations blackout that results from being in a remote cabin. While setting down my luggage, I noticed the new Newsweek on my grandparents' table, and realized that it was showcasing a brand new iPod, so I immediately grabbed it to get up to date. Now to download that 10MB iPod software update that my PowerBook is urging me to get, maybe it'll update something on my iPod Mini?

Gone Fishin'

We're packing up and heading north to Minnesota today, to do some fishing. My parents, sister, and paternal grandparents will be joining us at the Maple Leaf Resort on Leech Lake for a week of fishing and relaxing. I'll probably be cut off from internet access for a week, unless I'm lucky enough to find a local dial up number for MSN or AOL up there. Holly will be coming back in a couple of days, as she can't tolerate a week of fishing, or being with her in-laws, but I'm looking forward to the break. It'll give me a chance to work on Bill Clinton's book, which is very very long...

Not what I ordered

One of my co-worker's friends saved up some money to buy a digital camera from eBay. Due to a shipping mistake on the part of the seller, he got what can best be described as a personal lactation assistant instead. :)

Fleetwood Mac

I spent much of yesterday helping Fleetwood Mac get hooked up to our network here at the University. They had 80(!) computers with them, which needed to be attached to our network, without exposing us to unecessary risk. It wound up being a major pain in the butt, since we were only given about 18 hours notice that this was going to occur, but we got it straightened out, and the geek/drummer that I was working with even got me into the show for free.

Success

I managed to get 802.1x up and running today, at least in a test Active Directory forest. And I managed to get my Mac and a Windows XP box to authenticate through it, this should give me enough to show off to the big-wigs at work so they can decide what it is we're doing for wireless this fall. The 802.1x solution is cheap, but Mac users prior to 10.3 aren't going to work out of the box, nor are Windows users prior to Windows 2000 SP4. But, when you think about it, how many people use wireless that don't meet those system requirements? Not very many...