Andrei Zmievski

So, after some googling – and I use that term just because it’s an accepted one – I am back to pre-SP4 speed. The solution involved tweaking one of the incredibly obscure registry keys, and to this point I don’t know what I did intially that could have made SP4 barf this way. But if you ever run into the same problem, edit this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Tcp1323Opts
and change the value from 0x3 to 0. People with nothing better to do can read this .

On Friday night I decided to install iTunes for Windows and see what all the hoopla is about. iTunes cried bloody murder that I was not running the latest Windows 2000 and demanded SP4 to be installed right away. Okay, I thought, no problem. Click Start / Windows Update… / SP4, wait, reboot, login.
Result: my internet connection is slower than what I had in 1992 with the 2400 baud modem. What the hell? After a bit of searching it is apparent that SP4 exhibits some “issues” on certain machines. I de- and re-installed the network adapter driver, rebooted a couple of times to be sure, but I might just as well have tried to move the moon with the power of my mind, for all the good it did. Next step is messing with MTU settings, I guess.
Any hints?

I had to fix up the link to the pictures in the previous entry: convert it from a relative to an absolute one. Someone has syndicated my feed on LiveJournal, and the relative URLs embedded in the entry text ended up pointing to the LJ server. I don’t like using absolute URLs unless I must, for a variety of reasons. Shouldn’t the syndication software take care of normalizing the links or do I need to pre-process my feed somehow?

I just scanned in some older photos that I had lying around. One of them was of my car buried in the snow after a huge storm passed through. Just looking at it makes me happy that I’ll be moving to California soon and starting a new job at this place.

I wish I could add Grey Goose to my Amazon wishlist. Or Sauza Hornitos. Alas, they have not expanded to handle that particular area yet.

Serendipity works in mysterious ways indeed. I wasn’t planning on going to PHPCon in New York, but after chatting with Sterling a couple of weeks ago it seemed like a good idea. And the management unexpectedly gave their blessings at the last minute. I should be in the city tonight – give me a shout if you want to get together.
I didn’t realize that Boston Marathon was such a famous event. I decided that it behooves me to see one while I am still in Boston, and took Monday off. Good thing I got downtown early enough, another half hour and the streets would close and I’d be stuck on Com Ave instead of right at the finish line. The crowds thronged Boylston street, and the patios of eating establishments were crammed with patrons, standing shoulder to shoulder, barely holding onto their drinks and yelling for a new one as soon as the current one was drained. It seemed the Marathon was just another excuse for a prolonged happy hour. The men’s leader was predictable, but women’s race was won by a Russian, Svetlana Zakharova. I still can’t imagine how they can sustain an almost 13 miles per hour pace.

I got sick of typing in my entries by hand, and installed MoveableType. I guess now I have something called permalinks, comments, trackbacks, and what not. Knock yourself out. No archives yet though.