I got the case from Directron.com and would be happy to build a machine into pretty much any case they have. I could probably finish the machine by April 15th so he'd have to be okay with waiting a week on his gift.

If you're in the Bay Area then Central Computers will build systems for you. Here's their choices for gaming systems, but I imagine they'll put in anything you want.

I doubt there will be love, though.

That would be amazing, ND; let me talk to the kid.

This is cool:

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts came out in 1981. Over the last decades, hundreds of artists in genres ranging from DJs to alternative to electronic have all borrowed from its ideas and claimed its influence. It is now being re-issued in a beautiful new package, with extensive liner notes and photos, and featuring 7 previously unreleased tracks from the original album and a film by influential artist Bruce Conner.

This is the first time complete and total access to original tracks with remix and sampling possibilities have been officially offered on line. In keeping with the spirit of the original album, Brian [Eno] and David [Byrne] are offering for download all the multitracks on two of the songs. Through signing up to the user license, and in line with Creative Commons licenses, you are free to edit, remix, sample and mutilate these tracks however you like. Add them to your own song or create a new one. Visitors are welcome to post their mixes or songs that incorporate these audio files on the site for others to hear and rate.

[link]

I love this album. I'll have to give this a try....

New frontiers in technical support:

Having a little fun with your customer

ND, I have a question. I know you'll be building for reliability, but what does one do when a hand-built computer does break? Would a local repair shop be able to fix it? I am a hardware dummy and do need professional support.

Hi-- I need some quick Excel toubleshooting.

I have a table with the headers Scene (a number) sub-scene (a letter) and Actor. I need them sorted by actor, and then within actor by scene and subscene.

I go to the sort menu, sort ascending by actor, then scene, then subscene.

It is all working perfectly except there are about 6 rows that will not sort properly. I have a scene series (just under one actor) going 2, 6, 10b, 14b, 7 8 9a 9b 9c. I also have two actors who are sorted perfectly, except scene 6 is at the end. I have highlight the column and changed it to "number" . I cleared the formatting. I retyped the numbers. I cut and pasted the numbers from someone else where the sort was working. They persist in sorting oddly!

Any ideas (

(x-post in Natter)

2, 6, 10b, 14b, 7 8 9a 9b 9c

I hate to say it, but mixing numbers (2, 6, 7, 8) and strings (10b, 14b, 9a, 9b, 9c), and then sorting is never going to end well.

One thing to check, though, is whether there's something in the actor or the scene columns that could be messing up the sort. Even an extra space somewhere could do it.

10b, 9a, etc. are not numbers. Or is the a,b,c the subscene and in a different column?

t edit semi-x-post.

I put the a b and c in a different column, so theoretically it should be OK.

I think I have solved it, though, filling the sctor's name down. I think there might have been a space in front of them.