All I want for Christmas...

...is an automatic robot vacuum cleaner from iRobot! They're also supposed to come out with a version that actually washes floors later this year, but I think this one here (the 'Roomba Discovery') is the coolest version--it comes with the automatic charging homebase (that the robot returns it self to whenever it needs to be recharged) and the remote control! According to this interview of the company's co-founder [CNN], yes, it is supposed to remind you of R2-D2.

I bet Cassie and Ally would just love to have one of these around!

-Tim

More Technical Difficulties

With my desktop's main hard drive dead, I decided to try linux full time while waiting for the replacement. The distribution I'm using is Ubuntu 5.04, and for the most part I really like it, but I'm still going back to Windows 2000 when my new drive comes in.

There are several things that I really like about Ubuntu. It only needs a single installation cd, the installation process is straightforward and quick, the system comes with most of the programs that I prefer to use as defaults (including apt and synaptic for package management), and it has been relatively painless to work with in general. In fact, Tamara has been able to use it for most of the things that she normally uses my desktop for, the only thing she really misses is photoshop.

However, the system has two glaring problems; first, windows file sharing does not work, the service simply fails to start no matter what I try, and second, the whole thing keeps crashing on me! Several times a day I come back to a blank screen that refuses to wake up and needs to be rebooted. Ubuntu would be a great desktop distribution if it weren't for this. But if I ever do get around to building a file/media/web server I think it will have to use Fedora Core since that's the only distro I can consistenly get everything to work in, even if it's a bit more work to get set up initially.

Other than that, our TV is once again having that annoying problem where it doesn't actually shut off. It just blanks the screen and keeps making that horrible high pitched noise that it makes when it's been on for awhile. Usually this lasts for a couple of days and then it starts turning off properly again. And finally, the lawnmower died on my today half way through the lawn and I could not get it to restart. It's currently in the shed thinking about what it's done. Hopefully it will feel like cooperating tomorrow.

-Tim

Name Game

Tamara and I went down to the DMV and the Social Security office today to start changing her name. It actually wasn't that big an ordeal, there was a bit of a wait of course, but we were able to get her new driver's license. Now all she has to do is go and change her name everywhere else. Good thing we get free yearly credit reports now...

Also, we finally went to see Star Wars III last night. And that's pretty much all I have to say about that. Rumor has it that Lucas wants to try to squeeze out another prequel, although he does promise that he won't do it himself.

-Tim

Get S.M.A.R.T.

Or maybe, 'Another one bites the dust' would be a more appropriate title, as it looks like I've just lost another hard drive in my desktop. Fortunately, by some weird miscalculation on Seagate's part, the warranty doesn't expire for another three days! I've already sent this one back twice, so maybe the third time will be the charm?

I got volunteered to be a helper/judge at the National Science Olympiad tomorrow, should be interesting. After that, I'm heading up to the parent's for the night to hang out with Amit and the guys before he moves out to California to start his new job with Nvidia's hardware design group, and to check out my parent's new car--the Honda Civic hybrid.

-Tim

Processing Holding Pattern

So this week, Paul--the grad student I'm working with--is in LA attending his sister's college graduation. This means that I'm responsible for processing his latest sample wafer all by my lonesome...well, almost alone anyway--more on that in a second.

Predictably, the Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) system, the second piece of machinary in the first processing step, has been down for the past two days. And now that it's back up, the pent up demand has kept it busy all day. I really hope that I'm able to finish the first step tonight, it looks like the Ion Mill is free, so if I can ever get ahold of the RIE I can get through it in a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, this is going to be the simplest step.

The next three steps will all require the help of either Prof. Eckstein or Soren because I'm not technically allowed to use the sputtering system that I need. It's really just a political thing that's kept me from being trained on it. And it's even understandable from the viewpoint of the people who own the system, they're just relucant to let people outside of their group use it. But it's annoying all the same.

-Tim

Health Update

My cold from last week has hit Tamara pretty hard. She's been sick for a few days now and today she came home from McKinley diagnosed with pink eye and an ear infection.

Finals start on Friday.

-Tim

You are not a Jedi yet...

I have completed construction of my lightsaber spoon.

I assume that I am now the ultimate power in the galaxy.


-Tim

Productive Weekend

Friday: We helped Katie (another vet student) print out some of her wedding invitations on our new printer.

Saturday: Tamara led the day off with getting several thank you gifts/cards from the wedding put together and shipped. I helped, but it was really her getting it done. Don't feel bad if yours wasn't in this batch, though. We're kind of attacking them at random.

I went on to reformat my laptop with the new Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. So far, it's really alot like Panter, but it does feel a bit snappier. Qualitatively, my 800 mhz ibook now feels as or more responsive than my brother's 1 ghz ibook. Plus, as anyone will tell you, Spotlight is wickedly fast. It basically finds what you're looking for before you expect it to start looking. And since it searches inside pdfs, it will certainly be helpful with research. Dashboard is also cool, I'm sure I'll at least use the weather, dictionary (hey, I can't spell) and phonebook widgets a lot. Safari, Mail and Preview all got nice updates, and I need those all the time.

Sunday: I finally went and pulled the lawn mower out of the shed. Our lawn now looks sligthly less ridiculous as at least all of the weeds are more or less the same height. I also fixed my bike's flat tire and cleaned out the inside of the car. And believe it or not, Tamara is actually getting some studying done.

-Tim