OK, this is my first blog of the new year and it is already the 24th of January, but I have some fairly good excuses. I decided that I would take December off from blogging since I was taking vacation and December is generally a busy month. When I returned from vacation all refreshed and everything, my laptop (which is the machine I use at home, where I blog) decided to take its own vacation. It decided that it was only going to start if it was docked in its port replicator. Apparently, the sensor for the port replicator got flaky; the laptop would sometimes think it was docked when I was home. Since the laptop requires more power when attached to the port replicator, the laptop will not start when the power adapter is disconnected. The battery alone is not powerful enough to power the replicator. Also, the normal power adapter does not supply enough power to run the replicator so it needs a different adapter and the laptop detects when the wrong adapter is connected. All this has worked great for almost two years but a flaky port replicator sensor means the laptop will think it doesn't have the correct adapter connected and it refuses to start. All this means I was computer-less at home during most of this month. A truly painful experience.

So, now I have a new laptop. I decided to go with a Toshiba Tecra Tablet PC. I have always wanted a tablet and now I have one. I don't find myself using the tablet capabilities much but I believe I will over time as I get used to it. Switching laptops is a pain! The biggest pain used to be installing all the software I use. Now, with the most computers coming Office preinstalled, there is less I need to install. I had to install Visual Studio and RSS Bandit and then I was pretty much done. The biggest pain was transferring My Documents folder and remembering all my internet passwords again. This brings me back to my excuse (embarrassing as it is), I forgot the password I used for my own blog! Obviously, I figured it out, but it took me a bit. Now I am up and going on my new laptop, I will try to get back on a regular blog pace.

With this entry I am also starting a new category, Meta. I will use it to discuss the blog itself, so don't expect much technical content in this category.