[d] enclosed in brackets chaotic perfectionist for hire

I posted this on plurk, but wanted to open it up a little more.

Any suggestions on a 1st sock pattern...? I'd like to do toe-up, and have two skeins of Järbo Garn Mini Raggi and size 3 dpns (if that helps).

In looking around, I've seen a lot of different patterns. The part I'm stuck on (which is pretty much how things go for me) is the casting on for the socks. Do I use Judy's magic cast on? Or this one on wiseNeedle?

Once I've figured that out, I think I'm just going to do plain stockinette through to the heel and standard ribbing through to the top. They're for me anyway (my wonderful wife got the yarn and needles for me), so I thought I would start simple... and toe-up, unless there's a compelling reason to start cuff-down instead.

Now that I think about it, any suggestions for the pattern, cast-on, heel, or other parts would be greatly appreciated. I've heard that socks are an addictive project, but I'm willing to find out how true that is.

I signed up for another service. (wait for shocked looks to fade)

It's lifestream.fm, and so far I like it. This started from mentioning that I was posting to about 10 different places - I actually got one reply, and she mentioned that she used this service. The idea is what I wanted to do here, but a) haven't tried too hard, and b) haven't looked that much into it. For example, the following shows the last seven updates for my lifestream page - and there are definitely some duplicates from using ping.fm, but that's ok:

I like that I can see what I've been doing in all those places I post various types of content to (and hope I'm not spamming by doing so). Sure, it's not a really new idea, but it works and it's usable. What else are people using, and how do you keep track of what's going on?

We needed a system to monitor our phone system and do some basic reporting. Simple, right?

All it needed was some basics... and it needed to have Windows XP. Easy enough, I've done a few (150+) installs of Windows, this just isn't the imagewe normally use. This time it was using the actual CD and install it. I forgot how awful Windows is right out of the box, and how much of a pain it is to work with before you're "ready to go."

Step 1: Install from CD. It went normally, and I even got to put in the CD key! Ick. Once that was done, I found that there were no drivers for the video, audio, USB, or ETHERNET. Great, no way to get to the Internet. Even better is that it offers to go online to look for drivers. Better still is the nag screen for the activation, which tries to have me go online.

I was able to get some updates on one of my other systems, and copy/install them to the PC. No luck on all three... I had to "reinstall" the already non-existant driver and try three different places to get it working. Once that was done, I restarted and was able to get to the Internet.

Step 2: Patches, patches, patches (insert "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" reference here). I was able to get to Windows update and get the latest version of... the updater. RESTART. Come back up, then connect again, and install SP2 - I will admit, that went smoothly as far as the install. RESTART... into 640x480 4-bit ugliness. wtf. Windows offered to adjust my monitor settings though. Sure, thanks... but it did *nothing*. I had to go into the Device Manager and update the drivers for the video, audio, and USB. It worked, oddly enough, with only a little fighting. Dont't worry though, I had to restart before any of it really worked correctly.

Step 3: Getting SP3. That's where I am now. It failed once (after taking almost 15 minutes of "verifying files"), and I really hope it works this time.

All of this makes me appreciate the OSS (open source software) I use, and how far it's come along.
</rant>