interesting car ad

click on the link and check out the ghostly car ad; I found the link on the coasttocoastam.com web site.

campus wireless access

Our campus is now set up so that there's wireless internet access all over the place, but you need to set up your notebooks for that access. If you're a student, your computer will pick up the student network and you can log on using your campus email address. The notebooks won't even pick up the faculty network since it's encryted.

Today I went to the IT Help Desk to get my computer set up for internet access. Wouldn't you know it; it took about two hours to set up my computer for access. First the tech took it and tried to set it up for access. I'm not a student, so he had to set it up the faculty network access. That's when the problems started. The computer wouldn't pick up the network. He tried different settings; nothing worked. In the meantime two or three students came and had their notebooks fixed for access. Finally he called someone who asked if it had a centrino chip. Then he had to download a special driver. And then I had to change my password for some reason. Finally, after about two hours I had access. So now I can go just about anywhere on campus and still have internet access.

Last year the tech at the library took my computer and set it up in no time for wireless access at the library. The network was a secured network, and he had no problem setting up my computer, so I wonder why the tech at the IT Desk had so much trouble. Anyway, whatever the problem was, it's solved, so now I can access the internet with my laptop on campus again. When they started putting up access points all over campus, the library's network was no longer available, so I had lost access there.

Something weird-a few days ago, I tried to access the windows update page. My default browser is Mozilla, so to access the updates, I go to the Start button, then programs, then click on the Windows update link. That brings up Explorer and I can check for any updates I haven't automatically downloaded. When I tried to check for updates, Explorer started and went to the site, but nothing comes up in the browser. This keeps happening everytime I try this, so I wonder what's causing this to happen. I think that this happens with whatever site I'm trying to access with Explorer. I guess I need to think about this awhile and then start troubleshooting.

So the Texas Book Festival is coming up in a few days. We'll probably be attending; we hope to get bracelets to will allow us into Bill Clinton's session, but I don't know if we emailed our request for them too late. The Festival should be pretty interesting anyway, even if we don't get to hear Clinton.

dolphin puzzle

This was a decoration carved out of fruit at SPI Convention Centre last Friday.

Serenity

I went to the first showing of Serenity yesterday. I guess there aren't too many Firefly fans in this area since the long lines I expected weren't there. Anyway, I was the second one in the theater. In about 10 minutes, several others arrives. Long haired people, geeks, nerds. One was telling a girl a quick synopsis of Firefly (there were only about three females in the audience); others were talking about video cards. I think the guy in the row in front of me was surfing the web on his phone. I think that except for the girl who'd never seen the series, the other 14 of us in the theater were fans of the scifi series, Firefly.

Anyway, I really liked the movie. It's one I'd probably like to see again, and with the senior citizen price for any showing, I don't mind paying once again to see it over. It begins with a look into the recent past, when the doctor (Simon) breaks his sister (River) out of a school (it seems like a prison) run by the government (the Alliance) for those special people. All the experimenting has fragmented her mind, so her telepathic abilities are kind of out of control, erratic. The two fugitives end up with the crew of Serenity, still chased by the Alliance. The rest of the movies is about the Alliance chasing them and their efforts to escape from their grasp. You get some sense of what caused the war (The Rebellion) and some origins of other problems (like the Reavers). There's a great bar fight that you really expect to see someone like Wolverine doing some fighting, but in fact, it's another deadly weapon created by the Alliance.

The movie is a lot like the series, but there is a lot more violence and more in-depth character development.

Now I'm looking forward to a sequel.