Well, we had the first accumulating-on-the-streets snowfall here in chilly Chicago, and that means it's time to buy lawn furniture!
If you didn't laugh at that, you're probably reading the wrong web site.
Apologies. Haven't done one of those for a while.
Thinking out loud. Pay me no mind.
USB mouse and keyboard should work. . . the latter plugs into the former, if I remember a'right. . . and there's the dongle lets you connect an external montor to the laptop. Don't know why you used the desktop in the first place, laptop was faster and had more memory.
Be nice if Apple made a docking station so there weren't wires running all over creation, but meh.
And speaking of wires, wireless routers are dirt cheap these days. Should be able to stick a card in the main system and just plug the MSN DSL modem into a router; the laptop has an Airport card already, right? Kill two birds with one stone that way, access to the main system without swapping the ethernet cable and can get rid of that phone cord running over the built-in in the living room. Might improve throughput without that long-ass cord mucking things up to boot.
Plus, it'll let you use the laptop with the DSL from anywhere in your apartment. Or, hell, as the super, anywhere in the building, although I can't see all of the tenants looking kindly on that. Maybe want to get to know their schedules. And, you know, not drink all their beer up.
Leave a bottle. They'll just think they went on a bender and forgot.
Duh, was thinking the main system might complain about not having a montior connected if you hook the laptop up to the one it's using, but there's already a second monitor conveniently sitting in the closet. I am dumb.
802.11b's getting phased out, but it's more'n good enough, so you might could get the equipment cheap used at Que Computers; closed Sunday, so I should'a suggested this yesterday. Again, dumb.
Right, off to shovel a parking space and pile junk in it to save it. . .
Finally (after downloading updated drivers from Realtek) got the (GigaFast WF721-AEX) wireless card recognized in Windows, and in Linux using their sort'a half-ass open-source driver, went to the local Screenz. . . and still couldn't connect without borrowing a card from them.
Jesus wept.
Well, I almost did, anyway.
Took the card back to Micro Center and exchanged it, then headed a wee bit further south to Cyberia to test it. The total babe working there hadn't ever set up a new WiFi account, but her manager managed to talk her though it over the phone.
And the card worked. Has a different serial number than the previous one, natch, starts with a "C" instead of an "R," but must still use the Realtek chipset, because Windows detected it immediately without having to install anything and the network came up flawlessly.
Spent about an hour there (I have 16 minutes left, and their network is up 24/7 even if they're not open, so I could drive into range and work from the car, but that would be, you know, totally insane), then came back to the apartment, had lunch, and tried Screenz again.
And again, flawless.
My faith in $39.99 ($9.99 after $30 mail-in rebate) PCMCIA wireless network cards is restored.
That's Windows, anyway. Linux, like I said, the Realtek kernel module and software bring up the card (as wlan0) and it detects the network, but doesn't autoconfig. And I was too lazy to read the docs on how to manually configure the network, and boot into Windows, get the appropriate info, boot back into Linux, and plug it in. Downloaded some Wireless Tools for Linux that should handle that stuff automagically, but the Realtek drivers are using an ancient version of some protocol or other, and brings the card up as wlan0 instead of eth0, so there might be some futzing involved. Not sure; got tired of sitting in Screenz playing with it, and don't have a network at the apartment to toy with.
Actually, that's not true, but I don't imagine whoever's running the WEP-encrypted network I'm detecting now would appreciate my using them as a guinea pig.
And that's enough coffee-fueled early morning rambling for one day, I think. Off to trudge through the barely-an-inch of snow to buy smokes. There's some cosmic law says you have to run out right after a snowstorm. Remind me to take that up with Management next time I speak to them.
What kind of cosmic horribleness deemed it necessary to gift us w/more snow than you? The natives can't handle it- & they become trying to the rest of us.
Cross your fingers that it will, indeed, begin melting by tomorrow.