Brews you can Use

This month, I finally got around to ordering a replacement for my damaged laptop. Since I wasn't quite ready to make the switch to Apple, I opted for the rather sweet-looking "LinspireMobilePC/Fox CP10V" laptop from Sub300.com. It had a few advantages for me over going the mac route:

• Less expensive, $835 vs $999 for the base iBooks.
• It has a three button mouse! I'm rather addicted to the three buttons from years of Unix/X use.
• Smaller and lighter, less than 3 pounds.
• Linux-supported. Although I'm not a Linux user yet, I thought I would be more likely to find an agreeable hacker-friendly Linux distribution than get used to life under the hood of OS X. Better yet, the fact that it ran Linux made it more likely to run FreeBSD, my first choice.

It had a few disadvantages: a slower processor (a 1GHz Via processor vs. 1.33 GHz PowerPC) and no CD-ROM. The slower processor is not a problem for me, since I generally choose lightweight software. As for the lack of CD-ROM, USB CDs are less than $50, and the built-in CD of my old laptop was more of an annoyance (toddler pressing the button and playing with the tray) than a useful addition.

So I pulled the trigger on the 10th, and it arrived on the 15th. It was good as advertised, just a little noisier and warmer than I expected, although not as bad as my older laptop which both sounded and felt like a jet engine when it got going. The fact that the manual was printed in Chinese with no English (or even Engrish) translation was a minor annoyance, but not a show stopper (who reads manuals anyway?)

In fact, the only thing I didn't like was the OS, the Linspire distribution of Linux. It's a good slick, integrated desktop based on KDE: usable, but not what I wanted. There are no alternative desktop environments/window managers shipped with Linspire, not even twm. Worse, there's no development system or X libraries installed to let you download and compile your own software. I managed to figure out enough about apt-get to get a C compiler on the system, but ran into some package conflicts getting the X development stuff installed.

And then I killed it on the 17th. It (either Linux or KDE, don't know which, don't care) became unresponsive when I was trying to manually edit some network settings, and I power cycled the computer to get control of it. This corrupted the root (and only) filesystem to the point it could not mount it or find fsck. I ordered a usb CD-ROM drive later that day. ($39.99 CD-ROM only, no RW/DVD, from isellsurplus.com).

Over a week later, I received a notice that the drive had just shipped. Grrr.... To work off my anger, I set up a quick-and-dirty netboot set-up and got FreeBSD installed on the laptop. Woo-hoo!

FreeBSD 5.3 worked just fine on the laptop, except:

• The wireless card (Intel IPW2200) needs some drivers which are currently under development. They work, they're just not on the install CD.
• X -config doesn't generate a working graphics configuration, xorgcfg is similarly unusable. The text-mode xorgconfig works fine, but:
• Since the manual is chinese-only, the acutal video driver takes some detective work. I had to look at the CD of windows drivers to figure this out. (S3 Twister/Savage, use the savage XFree86/Xorg driver). X -config probed this correctly, but I didn't trust it at first...

Then yesterday, I was getting ready to move in to the new laptop when I noticed a vertical blue line down the middle of the screen. Argh, LCD defect. Best-case, I get to ship this back to Sub300, they send a replacement laptop, and I get to do the install and move-in process all over again (hey, at least I'll have notes this time ;-). I have the best luck with technology...

At least the new mikk.net (an Asus pundit also from Sub300) went smoothly. It's well-supported by FreeBSD 5.x. It's also very quiet, which was the main reason I bought it.

A little over an hour ago, changing G's diaper before heading to bed:

G: Lip, owie! (points to lip)
Me: Want papa to kiss it better?
G: (pauses, points elsewhere) Butt, owie!

I've finally got off the couch and started making something out of the walnut stock gathering dust (not sawdust, of course, just normal house schmutz) in the basement. Hopefully, a board-foot or two of it will become a nice little mail basket/key hook for our front entryway. It will be either that, or some firewood, depending on how bad I screw things up. My basic skills are quite lacking due to a very un-crafty childhood.

I spent a couple hours of the first day just "milling" some 3/4" walnut stock. Of course, I'm doing this without power tools for the (relative) quiet and exercise. I worked up a serious sweat the first session "milling" two 9" lengths of 3" wide 3/4" walnut for the sides of the basket. I got some extra exercise from the fact I can't aim a saw, meaning that I have to cut about 1/8" from the line and plane to the line. That's good fun on side grain, but planing the endgrain took most of the work.

It's also the weakest part of the process for me. I've managed to get an edge planed flat and square within a couple thousandths of an inch, but haven't had as much luck with endgrain. It's always pretty rounded, and I can't seem to get it flat when planing freehand. I think my next mini-project will have to be a shooting board....

Tonight, I started cutting the joinery on the side pieces, as well as cutting out some 3/4" stock for the back of the basket/to hold the key hooks. The side boards have a notch to hold the back board and a 1/4" dado to hold the bottom of the basket. I tried and mostly succeeded to cut the dado using just a chisel and a utility knife. I still blew out the ends of the dado (on the outward side, of course, grr..), and split off way too much wood around the edges but I think the joints will actually be functional, even if ugly.

Cutting the notch went smoothly at least. Cross-cut with backsaw, rough out most of the waste with a rip saw, and pare down to the line with a chisel. I can apparently aim the backsaw pretty well over a 3/4" length, and paring along the grain was quite enjoyable. Some of the paring work was actually smoother than my earliest attempts at planing :-)

And now, to sleep....

I wonder if this is what happens when spammers don't pay their shareware fees:

From: "mail15.com" <...>
Subject: %HEY%PLUSHEY


%CHILL
%DICK

%CONTACT http://www.%URL/d/1.php

%BYE
%ASSHOLE g