User Blogs

Today was a day of minor disappointments awash in a sea of ease. We visited the Sierra Botanical Gardens and Zoo hoping to see Panama's poisonous snakes, but they have no reptile house. We went to the causeway to find the yacht club, but the one we were looking for is nowhere to be found. We went to allegedly the best steak house in the nation, and found it lacking in all areas.

23.3 degrees centigrade and 67 percent humidity; I'm far from adjusting, but it's only our second day (and first morning) in Panama. The airport was about like any airport anywhere, and customs might as well have not existed for all the trouble we took to pass it. The weather is instantly reminiscent of the South in the summer, although it's not nearly as hot. The pervasive humidity makes up for it handily.

Well, I made a nice fresh install of Windows XP with SP3 slipstreamed and got 0x8024402F running Windows Update. Long story short, the Automatic Updates service was not running. WTF? Run "services.msc" (or use computer management, etc etc) and check to see if this service is operative before running through your other options.

If you install nvidia-glx-195 drivers from Nvidia Vdpau Team PPA then you may have trouble removing them later due to packaging failure ;) Actually, the problem will crop up when you try to reinstall nvidia-glx-185. I had to do this because my GT 240 is unsupported under all versions of the driver, and while it works it locks up hard on anything later than -185.

As a veteran owner of used vehicles, I am more than a little used to encountering automotive problems. When my Ford's charging system idiot light began to flash at low RPMs, I knew I had a serious problem coming my way. When it picked up to doing it on a regular basis, I realized that the problem had arrived, and unless I wanted to be buying a pair of deep-cycle batteries, I should find a solution, probably in the form of an alternator replacement. After doing a little research, I decided to install a later-model Ford alternator.