For wireless I don't need ...

Here at home I use two laptops, one running XP and one running Linux. (If I had the money, I’d also be running a Mac, but that’s another story.) I have an old Dell wireless card that I’ve been trying to get to work with the Linux machine, but so far I’ve been unsuccessful. Apparently I’m not the only one; these particular cards have a bad reputation on the forums. But it’s just a matter of time – I’ll either prevail or give up and buy a new one.

Friday evening I downloaded and installed Gutsy Gibbon (Ubuntu 7.10), so I’ve been spending some time setting everything up again. I had been using Thunderbird as my email client, but this time I decided to go with Evolution, which came bundled with Gutsy. I generally use web-based mail, but I guess I should have a local email client too. I’ll just wait and see if I end up using it at all. Just for kicks I also activated Pidgin, the bundled internet messenger. To my surprise it came up and worked easily, and I like it’s simple uncluttered interface.

This morning I set up an ssh client for connecting to the AIX system at work. It’s nice to be able to log-in from home to do a scheduled item, rather than to have to drive or ride my bicycle all the way back out to the office.

While I’m in the mood, I may just poke around the desktop (Gnome) a little today. There are a lot of applications I haven’t even looked at yet. Trying to keep up with the GUI stuff and learn the command line stuff is a big job, not to mention keeping up with all the Windows stuff.

Oh, and the wireless? It still doesn’t work (YET!). But that’s ok for now because I’m almost always wired, and if really need to go wireless I can always use the XP box.

More Handles

These happen to be for a bow saw I'm making.
Yeah, I know one's bigger than the other ... they're supposed to be that way.

Wednesday's Tools

Last Saturday I went by a garage sale that didn't look too promising. There were a lot of cool things there, don't get me wrong. It was definitely a "guy's" garage sale ... lots of mechanical junk, rust, grease, wood and metal, and not a doily in sight. It was just two guys clearing out their shed. But most of it was metal-working stuff; these guys were mechanics, not woodworkers.

But after I told one of the dudes what I was looking for, he dug around and found three pretty nice little items pictured above: (1) an apparently unused Norton HM--8 black Hard Arkansas Oil Stone, (2) a good Stanley 36 1/2 L boxwood 12-inch rule, and (3) an old inexpensive Craftsman low-angle block plane. The plane was rusty, but cleaned up and sharpened up real nice.

Also, in the picture above you can see a handle I made with a spokeshave from a chunk of oak for an old gouge I had lying around. Not too shabby if I say so myself.

And last, a little 4-inch divider that I got in the mail today. It's marked S&W Co. , whatever that means (Smith & Wesson?).