Fry’s can be a dangerous place. Wi-Fi hardware is getting very affordable these days – in fact, Lisa’s laptop had it built in already.  (At the VFP DevCon in Palm Desert there was a local Wi-Fi net that Lisa probably could have tapped into, had we thought about it.)

So, what with our moving around with our notebook computers more than ever, we decided to add our own little Wi-Fi cloud to the neighborhood. After we set up the hub in our closet, we sat down with our laptops and – in my case – plugged in the wireless PC Card, and started installing the driver and scanning for networks.

Interestingly, it seems our neighbours to the East next door also have a wireless network, because the net scanner in Windows XP shows three available networks: “default”, “Spacefold”, and “hishamay”. We’re pretty sure “hishamay” is next door. “default” may be a new one, or it might be Toni and Linda across the road who also have a wireless hub. “Spacefold” is us of course.

It’s all rather exciting. We’re using MAC filtering rather than WEP for security, if anyone cares.

Something about the Hulk movie – and in fact, many other films I’ve seen recently: Apple Macs have taken over. They’re in labs, on desks, people have them for laptops… I guess it’s because they look good. (Also, Product Placement.)

I want a Mac because I want to feel like I’m using a computer from the future.

As Lisa pointed out to me, much of my time at home computer-wise is spent browsing the web, newsgroups and email. Which could be performed quite satisfactorily on an Apple Mac.

I could even find an alternative diary/weblog application. The app I use on Windows, CityDesk, works, but it is hardly addictively enjoyable.

No, the real sticking point is my investment in Windows-based music software, and the fact that as long as I can work some of the time at home, I’d need a PC/Windows box on my desk as well, reminding me constantly that I am not, in fact, using computers from the future.

We’ve just spent the last three days in Palm Desert, at the VFP Developers Conference.  Palm Desert is about 4 hours drive from Las Vegas, mostly through desert.

We dropped the cats off at Creature Comforts on Saturday, then drove out of Las Vegas at about 5:00am on Sunday to avoid the heat. On the way out of the valley I had to stop and take a picture of the Moon setting behind some mountains lit up by the rising Sun, pretty cool.

We had a late breakfast at Peggy Sue’s Diner outside of Barstow. Very 50’s. Very pleasent.

Just outside of Palm Desert there is a bunch of factory outlet stores, where we stopped and got something to drink, and I bought a pair of swimming trunks (they gotta be red ones). The heat was almost unbearable, though, and we didn’t linger.

I meant to take a bunch of notes while at DevCon, but by design we really ended up working very hard with Richard.S who had basically come in from Seattle especially to work with us. I think we made pretty good use of our time there, and it was certainly good to meet up with some old friends such as Reiner from Germany.

The drive back was pretty tiring. Peggy Sue’s seemed like a good halfway point to stop, even though it wasn’t really a mealtime.

We arrived back in the Vegas Valley on Tuesday, in plenty of time to pick up the cats before Creature Comforts closed.

We’ve spent a quiet few days. The house looks great, Lisa did tell me she was getting some cleaning done, although where she found time between being sick and working, I’m not sure. We did go shopping to get some perishable food in the house, in the middle of the day – 97 degrees! Bit of a shock coming back from late autumn rain in New Zealand to an unexpected heat wave in Las Vegas. It’s not normally this hot this early.

Next day it was 106 degrees – 11 degrees above normal! Well, it doesn’t look so bad in Celsius.

Day after that, it’s 106 degrees outside. When I went to put our outgoing mail in the mailbox, my sunglasses were steaming up on the inside from moisture vaporizing off my eyeballs…

It’s back to work next week, plus, we have a trip to Palm Springs coming up for the annual FoxPro Developer’s Conference. We’ll be driving in the heat, argh.

Travelling East across the Pacific, you cross the dateline and suddenly you’re as far West as you can go and you arrive before you left. That’s what happens.

Los Angeles was a bit hectic. They let me back into the country, but you have to go through customs with all your luggage which is a nuisance.

I got on the correct shuttle bus this time, but got off at the wrong Terminal.

Tired.

I spent most of the day working on Mum’s laptop, either with her or without. I also tried to get USB support working on one of Dad’s computers, with no real success. It now has the USB support, we just didn’t have access to any drivers for any USB device we tried. There’s a good chance that the appropriate drivers are on the CD that came with the camera – but that CD is in Walter’s care.

Early afternoon I scooted up the hill to see Paul’s parents, Valerie and Armor. They were supposed to be away but had returned back early enough for me to catch up with them, which was very lucky for me, I think.

On the way back I dropped Armor at the service station where his car was being repaired, filled the Rented Rhinoceros up with petrol, and scooted across the valley to go out with Paul one last time.

We found decent coffee at a place called the Screaming Turtle in Petone. Very nice. Good brownies, will spoil my appetite but what the heck.