Meetings
I have always had meetings at work. Now I have meetings after hours and it is completely different. At work I use an earphone. At home I use an earphone. I sit at a computer for both. I use mostly the same software. It just isn't the same. At work, it is just another meeting I have to go to. At home it is “my company” I'm having the meeting for. I'm less and less pleased at my day job lately. That is to be expected considering the treatment the corporation has given its contingent staff. The home meetings make me feel like I'm doing something about my situation. I have a meeting in a few minutes. I've been looking forward to it all afternoon. It isn't even an interesting meeting. (database and interface stuff) Still, it is my company's database and interface stuff. :-)
(hour later) The meeting went well. We want to work together on the code for the new project in the same place at the same time. That means after hour work. I'm excited. The task looks daunting, but doable. The new quite keyboard worked like a champ. I didn't hear any echoes of “tap tap tap” or more like “brdrdrdrdrdrow” as it is more often.

Testing
I do allot of software testing where I work. It amazes me how a little difference in just about anything can cause a test to turn completely around. I have a large software package that takes 1.5 hours or more to install. If you play with the system you can get it down to 20 minutes, but not reliably. Some machines take longer than others. It isn't even the server/client relationship. That can cause nightmares too. I wake some nights screaming "Damn the conduit, full speed ahead!" It is to the point that a computer just doesn't exist unless it is hooked up to a network.
I'm down to five computers in my office.
1. My workstation (current model) is NT 4.0 PII 450 with a 6 gigabyte drive from 1999.
2. A Windows 2000 test computer for a specific project. My work is all but done on the project,but I keep the computer.
3. An old Windows 98 test machine (current actually) for existing workstations.
4. A Windows XP test machine based on the next version of the standard computer my company will use in six months. I test the new installations on this machine and basically use it as a workstation.
5. Last, but certainly not least, an NT4.0 license server for several software packages used world wide.
They are all on the network and they are all hot. My office is constantly stuffy. Even leaving the machines and monitors off for long periods doesn't seem to help much. That's isn't so bad. The offices down the hall got the black mold. I count myself lucky.

Linux Distributions
A buddy of mine turned up with SuSE 8.1 on DVD. He installed it on a laptop to test it out. I've only really used Mandrake and RedHat. I'm downloading the latest version of RedHat as I type. I just don't know what the benefits are from one to the other to the honest. RedHat has been around for ten years. Mandrake is going through a reorganization (or close to it). SuSE is the name I keep hearing in server meetings. I don't know if I'll move to SuSE any time soon. I will attempt to upgrade my RedHat server this weekend though. I just might update my ancient HP PII 333 SETI box too. We will see. I need to convert that old HP into a firewall for my network. With all this server crap I'm doing lately I need more than 10 ports routed. The NetGear router just isn't up to the task. One of the guys suggests Coyote Linux. I'll have to look them up.