Fun at Sears
We just got back from Sears where we bought a new refrigerator. This should have been a boring trip. But it didn't turn out that way.

I figured that if I had to buy an appliance, that we should enjoy the trip.

We started by having to search down salesmen. I found a little cluster that was talking quite happily. 'Hi! We have a busted refrigerator and you seem to have working ones here, is there anyone we can talk to about getting one of your working ones to our house?' That simple question got me taken to the microwave department. We met the microwave, vacuum cleaner, refrigerator salesman - the other guys were just talking salesmen that didn't seem to ever sell anything.

Once we finally got to the the refrigerator section, he asks us which one we want. Seems like we should have thought about this just a little bit more... so Maureen starts asking questions like what's different between these refrigerators? The answer wasn't too suprising: not much. The labels on the outside tell you everything that you might want to know. So we found two candidates and started to compare their labels - I had to put the labels next to each other and even then you really couldn't easily figure out what was different. So we opened them up and checked everything to find the differences.

Big differences from our current refrigerator: The new one will have TWO light bulbs and it'll be white on the outside. I can't explain how exciting two light bulbs could make me. Before we had to worry about one light bulb burning out and not being able to see it to replace it... now we'll have two - just in case. Wow. :-)

Everything turned out pretty well as we got through the pay us now part and then he asked if there were special instructions. "Dance on the lawn" - I just had to say it. He started typing and even got the 'Da' typed before he backed up and had no special instructions. :-(

Maureen even asked what would happen if the labels on each of the example refrigerators were rearranged. His answer was to not give me any ideas.

It'll get here next week. I highly recommend playing with the refrigerator salesman as long as possible.
10:13:09 PM  #     comment []  trackback []

Apple IIgs emulators and games archive
I had to chase down Crystal Quest and during my search I found:

A good archive with lots of Apple IIgs stuff is the Apple IIgs Gaming Memory Fairway.

They point to a few different Apple IIgs emulators. I happened to want to use an emulator on my iBook which is running Mac OS X, so I went to Emulation.net which has even more Apple IIgs emulators.

I'm just getting started trying out the emulators (well... tonight I hope to try out a couple). Yahoo - Crystal Quest is back :-)
4:16:29 PM  #     comment []  trackback []

I got the games name wrong yesterday, it was Crystal Quest
I was wrong yesterday about the Cassidy & Greene game. It was Crystal Quest that I had played on my IIGS. It's a game where the object was to pick up crystals from around the screen, not touching the other objects which would destroy your ship. Once you cleared the screen, then you had to get out the exit. You used the mouse to control the ship - but it moved under accelleration, so nudging the mouse would get you moving but pushing hard would slam you against a wall. Good game for mousing around a lot and neat sounds. I'll have to bring up a IIGS emulator and see if I can find the old diskette somewhere to play it again.
3:42:00 PM  #     comment []  trackback []

Pointers for when IE crashes on Windows XYZZY
A friend of mine has a Windows 2000 system that keeps dying with Internet Explorer fatal errors. This is a new PC that she's been setting up, so it shouldn't be that hard... but it keeps dying on her. So, I figured I'd chase down some possible answers (I haven't tried these yet... but I'll know more soon):

• SpyBot Search & Destroy - searches out lots of spyware type software and gives you an easy way to kill it on your system.
• BHOCop - short for Browser Helper Object Cop. This is a program from the folks at PCMagazine. It gives you control over BHO's and they have a good article that explains what a BHO is and why you might care to control them. If Internet Explorer is dying over and over - BHOCop might be able to help.

3:37:20 PM  #     comment []  trackback []

National Security Agency - Security Recommendation Guides
Did you ever want to know how to setup your PC so that it would be safe? This site has recommendations from the NSA on how to setup Windows so that it is as safe as you can make it.
3:27:35 PM  #     comment []  trackback []

C Cross reference program
LXR is a script that generates cross references for C programs. If you need this kind of program, you might want to take a peek at lxr.
3:24:56 PM  #     comment []  trackback []