AA batteries that you can plug into a USB slot to recharge. Not a charger for regular rechargeable batteries... batteries which you pull the top off and stick directly into the USB slot.

Would someone mind telling me why a package shipped via UPS "Three-Day Select" shows an estimated arrival time of five business days after the shipping date?

Also, on an unrelated note, eBay vendors who charge $20 to mail an item which cost a grand total of $8.10 in postage — in a box provided by the USPS at no charge — should die like pigs in Hell.

Yesterday, the parts for my Windows computer upgrade arrived. "Just a simple thing," I thought. "Pop out the old components, pop in the new ones, badda bing, badda bang, badda boom."

Badda boom, all right.

When I upgraded Theseus the last time, with all sorts of blinkenlights and gauges, I'd had the bright idea to cable-tie everything nice and neat to improve the airflow. Which worked wonders, but it took me the better part of two days to clip off all the cable ties, take out all the parts (and label the ones that had to go back in), clean out the dust, fur, and dead moth (take THAT, Admiral Grace Hopper!), put in the new hardware, rewire all the blinkenlights, and cable-tie everything back down.

And then it wouldn't boot.

It hung at "Verifying DMI Pool Data", which generally means a master boot record issue. No problem, I pulled out the XP disk, entered repair mode, and ran FIXMBR. No boot. I went to repair mode again, ran FIXBOOT... no dice.

Alas, it looks like the only thing I can do is reinstall. Which means reinstalling all the applications as well. Fortunately, I have one drive for Windows and programs, and keep all my data on two other drives, so formatting my Windows drive won't wipe out any data. Also, every time I download a new program (or an update to commercial software), I keep a copy of the installer in a directory on one of my data drives — so reinstalling shouldn't be that much of a hassle. The only thing I'm worried about is the programs that register themselves with their companies, and only permit one copy to be registered; I hope they have an easy mechanism for revoking the activations...

I was really tempted to convert it to Linux, but I do need one Windows machine around. Well, at least I can try out 64-bit XP Professional now.

I tried, I really did. I figured that with brand-new dual-core 64-bit hardware, I might as well take more advantage of the machine by putting on a 64-bit version of Windows XP.

And I suppose it's fine if you're only using Microsoft's own applications — Internet Explorer, Outlook/Outlook Express, Office, and so forth — but I do too many things that rely on 32 bits (foremost among them SONAR). Sure, SONAR comes in a 64-bit version as well, but all of my plugins — instrument libraries, convolution reverbs, audio and MIDI FX — are 32-bit, and SONAR won't use them (not to mention that there are only beta drivers available for my audio hardware).

And many other programs are markedly more unstable under 64-bit Windows than 32-bit. I've struggled for four days to get things running — including contacting tech support at Cakewalk — and I'm just going to have to throw in the towel and reformat, install 32-bit XP Professional, and reinstall all the applications again. Which is not a pleasant prospect, but it's better than bashing my head against this particular wall any longer.

I will just note that I haven't had anywhere near this much trouble running 32-bit Linux apps on my 64-bit Debian Etch machine — just a problem with GTK apps not displaying any text, which I assume is a configuration issue which I haven't been arsed to track down yet.