A Figure of Speech

Not sure what this makes, but here's my current desktop (Snow Leopard 10.6.2) on my HP Mini 311:

My mom was requesting me to revert our family PC "back to the way it was" because she's been constantly getting flash freezes in Farmville (she started complaining in Vista, and she still complains about the freeze ups in the current Windows 7 Ultimate). 

With "back to the way it was", she actually meant "back to Snow Leopard" but given that I'm still watching my latest fave Taiwanese drama live via PPLive every Sunday evening and I'm no longer privileged with lots of free time on weekends as before (way way before), I haven't got the time to figure out a dual-boot with Snow Leo and Windows 7. She can complain all she wants about Farmville's flash issues but at least not on the limited amount of time she gets to use the computer and that's because I've bought a wireless router at last - just yesterday in fact.

It's a Belkin G Wireless Router. I'm kinda stumped with the simplicity of the naming convention Belkin has opted for - compare "Belkin G Wireless Router" to "Aztech DSL605E" (our DSL modem's model). And Belkin makes more sense actually - it's named that because it's a G Wireless Router.

Now mommy dearest can harvest, plough, plant all the broccolis she wants, milk all green cows she can milk and fertlize as many other farms she possibly can. While I can watch all the youtube vids and read all blogs I can digest from my room using the HP Mini 311.
But I'm running out of inspiration lately.
I think I've to ask myself: "Time for a hiatus?"

Good News | Bad News

I should be preparing for my report in my MA class tomorrow but instead of attempting (for the Nth time) to get some organized outline from O. Ducrot's concept of Polyphonie (whose reluctance to drop that elusive "producteur empirique" screws everything for me cause I can't really grasp how that is different from the "locuteur"), I'm updating my blog with a new post.

Good News #1 : U.fl Apple antennas have been delivered at home! 
Finally, after 18 days of waiting!
I've recently ordered U.fl antennas for my HP Mini 311 to fix bluetooth signal. If you remember, I had to transfer the stock BT/WiFi combo card of the 311 to the full height extra PCI slot so I could use my dead Mini 1001TU's Snow Leopard compatible b/g WiFi card on the half height slot and because of that, the stock antenna could not reach the BT/WiFi card where it has resided ever since.
Bluetooth would still work but I had to keep my cellphone in very close proximity (read: on top of the keyboard deck) to transfer stuff and the connection then was not even half decent.
Below are pics of my new setup:

I used glass frost film to secure the card, the length of the antenna coiled and fitted in the remaining free space in the full height pci slot.

I haven't tried experimenting with which port on the card gives better signal for BT but I started with J2, see middle pic above, and I could control the cursor on my Mac OS X 10.6.2 desktop from my desk to my bed and so I stuck with that config.

Good News #2 : My Mini MacBook 311 has its own 11.6" bag from TechAir! 

The bag supposedly retails for £19.99 but I got mine for only Php 639 (£ 8.98); and it comes with a free TechAir optical mouse too! The laptop bag model doesn't offer TechAir's trademark TechAir Protection technology, which admittedly makes this good deal not really a good one. 

But I was only looking for something with which to carry my Mini 311 tomorrow - I usually just shove it in my A4-sized clear file holder with zipper (something like this, only mine's clear) along with my photocopied reading materials for my MA class. But tomorrow, I'll be attending the christening of a friend's baby boy and I'm tobe godmother, so I need something with some cushioning and can be strapped securely to my body while I jump from church to university.

Here's my 11.6" TechAir baggie:

 

 Yay! I'm so excited to use it tomorrow!

Now for the bad news: The HP Mini 311 Darwin Project thread has been closed

Links to the project files for installation have been taken out. 

The sad thing is that I didn't back up the latest ISO booter which also contains the HF4 installer :( I'm still thinking how best to reformulate my HP Mini 311 Snow Leopard installation guide to make it adapt to available resources in the HP Mini 311 Level 1 Support thread which, thankfully, is still up and running. Also there's still the google code page.

Time For A Cool Change?

It's definitely time for change. 

New Snow Leopard 10.6.2 Guides for HP Mini 311 and HP Mini 1000.

Plus some other stuff that need overhauling to keep apace with this changing times.