I’m in a strange place in Wellington. It’s part of the Library at the Civic Center, I think. It’s a combined Cafe\/Bank\/NZ souvineer\/internet cafe. It’s pretty cool. I’m using an eMac because it’s the only type of computers they have here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had an initial problem because HotMail.com kept coming up in Japanese characters. It turned out that the previous user was still logged in to Passport.net – I could browse their InBox and everything (it was full of garbage, nothing interesting). Now, at least, I’m back in regular roman text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is great to be wandering around Wellington, poking my nose into shops and wishing Lisa was with me to share it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wellington is now proliferated with a new Bagel\/Cafe called “Wholly Bagels” with a little red imp as their logo. I’ve bought a dozen. I’m going to have dinner with Uncle Howard & Aunt Fran at their new place on the waterfront, so I’ll bring them some. The rest can go into Mum’s freezer…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It turns out that Mum’s NEC laptop doesn’t come with Windows .CAB files on a CD. However it does have a special floppy disk that you boot from, that unlocks a secret 2GB hidden partition that wipes the disk and reinstalls Windows XP from scratch – along with all the OEM utilities. There’s supposed to be a way to convert this hidden partition into a “master restore” CD – but the utilities mentioned in the manual do not appear to be available from the Windows Start menu. It requires the presence of a CD-RW drive, naturally. Also, the manual is not up-to-date for Windows XP, it keeps talking about WinME etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had a good talk with Howard and Fran. They’ve sold their big old house up on the hill, and now have an inner-city apartment on the waterfront (street view not harbour view) and a regular sized house up in Waikanae in which they intend to spend the weekends but I understand they have not yet finished painting, or finished moving into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fran cooked pesto pasta. Pasta! How excellent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fran was interested in the “laptop for mum” project because they currently have their office set up in the apartment’s “master bedroom” space and they need a second computer for Fran. So she grilled me about Quay Computers and what decisions we made in choosing the perfect laptop for mum. I told them they probably didn’t want this model but should either look at the Shuttle + flatscreen option for portability, or stick with a more capable laptop. I also talked about networking, Pentium-Ms etc. I’m sure I sounded like a salesman!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Actually I think I talked way too much the entire evening, only slowing down when cousins Rob and Ben turned up later on. It was great to see all of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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