Back

I'm back online at the house. I spent most of Saturday reinstalling OSs and cleaning out the rats nest (my wife's idea) of cabling behind my desk. Believe it or not, I've recovered two Ethernet cables, six coax cables, a 100 foot phone cord, a 30 foot extension cord, a power strip, and a wall-wart power supply for some unknown device.

Admittedly, after reconneting everything it still looks like a rats nest. I had to show my wife what I'd recovered to prove I'd actually accomplished the job. (heh)

I spent Sunday re-installing much-needed apps while dodging snipes from my daughter in-law that she needed to be online, "Right now!!" (In other words, her apps rec'd priority.)

Side note: for those considering the purchase of a dual-core 64-bit system, now that the prices have come way down, there are a few things to consider (I've learned the hard way):

• there's not a lot of 64-bit OSs out yet
• some of your hardware (e.g., Digium TDM400P (rev. J)) won't like your 64 bit OS
• some of your software won't take advantage of the new hardware or the 64 bit OS

The above has lead me to triple boot my system (XP, 64-bit Linux, regular Linux) and consider offloading specific functions to a separate system (e.g., running the house mail and web servces on dedicated NSLU2's). It's also lead me to seriously consider moving some of my day-to-day functions to a dedicated service online (yeah, pay for private email/web services). Given that there are now four adults in my household, three of which use computers heavily (my son shows no interest), is it worthwhile to buy a domain and move our day-to-day needs a private domain on a hosting service? After looking at various offerings, it'd cost us a couple hundred a year and would allow us access to the services from wherever we happen to be.

Has anyone else done this? Is it worthwhile? Do you think that there's a niche market for this?