No, I was wrong. More boring than copying stuff off old floppies to dvd is troubleshooting the whackaloon install job the local shop did on the SO's new hard drive. We put in the shop so as they'd image it for us and we wouldn't have to deal with the installs. A day and a half later, after many many broken deadlines, they tell us Dell's got some proprietary junk on, and they can't image the drive. So they install the new drive and stick the old one in an enclosure, which we could have done ourselves.

At some point in the install, after jacking with a frelled up Thunderbird, we've corrupted the pagefile. Microsoft's two solutions involve Intel something something Accelerator, which we downloaded, but doesn't apply to our chipset, and setting NTFS permissions which we can't do, because this hd came with XP home and only has simple sharing enabled.

I'd install XP pro, but I can't figure out where that particular disc went, and he'd restore from his system discs, but that requires a...no, wait...lemme see...

Please help me before I do bodily damage to people.

I have a Toshiba laptop. It recently broke and I sent it off for repair under my extended warranty. Those bastards used the restoration disk and set me back to zero. I have been trying for DAYS to do all the frelling microsoft updates. When it gets to Service Pack 2 the thing hangs on the reboot. I'm currently operating in safe mode. I have restored prior to service pack 2 and it wanted to redo the update. It STILL hangs in reboot.

I don't know what to do. I google searched before but didn't come up with anything that seemed that promising. I may have been doing it wrong. I think I need the sp2 in order to get the stupid DST patch, non?

dp, you can download SP2 manually without going through the Microsoft Update control panel. If you install it locally instead of relying on the control panel there is a strong chance you will be able to bypass the hanging issues--but I can't make a promise, since I don't know your setup and I'm not there to do it myself. *grin* Anyway, it's another option to try: [link]

SP2 is what I would consider an essential upgrade, DST patch or no; but yes, you need SP2 to get the patch to the best of my knowledge.

I got my Harmony 880 today! (Finally! This DSL@home thing where DSL passes the package to USPS sucks. I paid extra for the non-free shipping, only to get delayed by the delivery method. Grr. Argh.)

Will now play with it to the detriment of my school planning!

ETA: Okay, seriously, this is the best thing EVER. It plays with my TV, my receiver, my PVR, my Xbox, my PS2, and my Macbook Pro flawlessly. I've set it up to play PS2, play Xbox, play a DVD off the PS2, watch PVR, and listen to music played off of Airtunes (though I had to set that one up pretty manually, after pretending I was listening to radio rather than digital music so it wouldn't try to switch inputs on my laptop) all in about an hour. Rock.

am trapped without internet. is it possible to connect two dells directly with a network cable? i.e. can they detect thatt hey're not on a router and compensate, like macs can?

eta: Nebbermind (was setting up network for a friend).

YES!!!

The Universal Church of Harmony is spreading!

GodDAMN this thing is awesome. I don't even use the home entertainment system nearly as much as my roommate, I got it just for the fun gadgetry. And it does not disappoint!

I should really be lesson planning. Damn.

I really need to replace my TV.

I could come over, get drunk, stumble into it, knock it over and break it, if it helps get you a new TV that plays well with a Harmony.

Just sayin'.

FAQWife\'s cell phone contract is just about up and I\'m thinking of using the opportunity to join the aughties and get myself a cell phone as well. There seems to be a really good deal going on right now with Amazon (via Wirefly) where I can get a Blackberry Pearl 8100 for minus $50 (free plus a $50 rebate) with a two year service contract. Service is with T-Mobile. The service plans look comparable to other carriers\' plans. Here\'s the deal: [link]

My questions:

• Is this a good deal? Am I missing something?

• How\'s T-Mobile compare to Cingular, Virgin, etc.

• Will FAQWife be able to move her current phone number over to another carrier? I thought there was an FCC regulation about this, but i can\'t find any information on how she would do this.

As I\'ve been writing this, I\'ve started to wonder if I might be better off with a pay-as-you-go plan for now. Especially since I don\'t know how much I\'ll be using my phone (answer: probably not much since I can use my office phone during the day). Even if I had to pay for the phone, PaYG might be a better deal for me.

• What are some good PaYG companies? I think tommyrot uses Virgin and is happy with it, yes? Anyone else have suggestions?