I’ve upgraded this site to WordPress 1.52. They totally screwed up the themes, and I’ve lost my customized version of Gemini. On top of that the design for themes is not what I would like. CSS scattered here and there, no help on modifying.

Well, can’t complain at the price.

Last year I got in a 2-night trip to the Yolla Bolly Middle Eel Wilderness. More on that. perhaps, later.

I wanted a personal information manager more programmable and interoperable than Lotus Organizer, 90’s era software that was good in its time but has a pre-networking attitude toward its data.

ACT! 2005 was on sale, so I gave it a try.

The first sign of trouble was the fact that ACT! relies on the .Net framework. Sure enough, it’s a sluggard. Screens open ponderously, and some operations are unbelievably slow. Deleting about 340 contact records (actually, they could not be deleted, but had to be cut to the clipboard) took well over three minutes, during which ACT! soaked up almost 100% of my 2.53 GHz P4’s processing power. Similarly, importing about 900 records from a text-delimited file took about a minute, and was interrupted midway through by a dialog telling me that there was “insufficient storage to complete the operation.” My system had about 8.33 GB free disk space on C:, which should be enough for 900 records. Maybe ACT! was complaining about the mere 1GB of RAM?

All of this, while not forgivable, would be bearable if I could move my company’s contact information into ACT! and share it among the three of us in our office. But that was not to be. More to come …

People have been speculating about how Sun will open-source Solaris – what license etc. – generally based on their own prejuduces rather than any specific information.

The fact is that Jonathan Schwartz, who seems to be the point man within Sun for opening Solaris, has said many times that Sun will use an OSI approved license. And that means something. OSI-vetted licenses differ, but the source will be freely available, redistributable, and unencumbered by restrictive terms on who can use it and how it can be used.

So if Schwartz delivers, the license will not be an issue.

Meanwhile, in this story: Novell Hints It Could Use IP To Bedevil Open Source Solaris (LinuxWorld)

Linux vendor (and therefore automatic good-guy for many zealots) Novell is all but threatening to sue Sun if Sun open-sources Solaris. Fun, huh?

I’m considering packs.

Right now I have a Kelty Tioga frame pack, and a large Jansport rucksack that is light but uncomfortable with moderate loads. I haven’t used either for backpacking, but the Kelty is an external frame pack and would be somewhat unwieldy for lightweight packing, and the Jansport has little to recommend it.

Under consideration:
Mountainsmith Ghost 3000 ci, 2 lb 4 oz
Mountainsmith Auspex 4000 ci, 4 lb
Kifaru Marauder 2500 ci, 4lb 7 oz., plus long pockets
Kifaru Pointman 3000 ci, 4lb 15 oz, plus long pockets

The Mountainsmith packs are lightweight and relatively inexpensive but have a good reputation. Kifaru products are said to be extremely robust, and their prices and weights reflect that.

I may take a few trips with the Jansport or Kelty before buying.

I tried the reflectix cozy / Grease Pot combo to cook up some whole wheat pasta while I was alone for the weekend (wouldn’t feed Julie that stuff, unless we were camping) and it did pretty well.

Boil 1.5 cups water, add 1 cup pasta, return to boil, put in cozy and cover. Wait 5 minutes and pasta is done, ready to drain and add cheese / sauce / etc.

For a full meal I’d use more pasta, but the smaller quantity is really the tougher test. Whole wheat pasta is weird but it cooks fast, and whole wheat really is better food.

It’s hard to know: has technorati accepted my blog claim?

The opening screen says not, the member profile screen seems to say it has. No clarity though.
This post will issue yet another ping.

It looks like October is gone. I have three major deliverables next week, not counting the survey script I’m working up now.

It’s not so bad, we had two great days of hiking in England, but I’d really like to get out into some wilderness before winter. Seems unlikely now, though.