Text 441, 116 rader
Skriven 2008-01-09 08:50:34 av DAVE DRUM (1:123/140)
Ärende: Technology Intrudes
===========================
Oh joy!

The power supply in my less than 1ghz machine (my main box) fried the other
day. That would be the one that contains my life ... all my banking,
medical, personal, etc. information. Not to mention all my Meal Masher
stuff. And my CMPQwk offline reader.

So, thinks I, I'll just take this drive and bung it into a new box. Off I
go to BLH (my local confuser recycler) where Brian offers me a nice little
DELL subcompact desktop box with a 40 gig drive, 512 megs ram and a 2.4 gig
Pentium 4 processor. U$150 out the door.

You know where this is going, right?

My drive didn't seem to like the new house I had bought for it. So, I
checked around and found that I probably ought to re-install the W2K. HAH!
Apparently the power supply did terrible things inside the old box before
it finally let all the magick blue smoke out its portals.

So, I finally unboxed and set up the DELL E310 I bought last year and began
setting it up - running Crap Cleaner, installing AVG and SpyBot, etc.
Putting in the 2 gigs of ram I bought. Learning that DVD burner from my old
box really isn't too compatible (as presently configured) with the new
DELL. All the usual, PITA things we go through setting up a replacement box -
and doing it in a hurry.

I got a lot of my standards back up and running ... my on-line banking and
my little streaming radio station among them. News Bin is up and running.
But, this box is running XP Media Center. And CMPQwk is a 16 bit GUI
application. So, it breaks on XP.

I am currently mucking about with an OLR named Bluemail which Bill McBrine
(of Multi Mail authorship) had a hand in. It ain't a GUI app ... but looks
less clunky than either BWave or Multi Mail.

Meanwhile I am downloading and storing packets. Fixing things as I come to
them. And hoping against hope that my IT guru (my best friend's kidling -
who just happens to be head of IT for SIU School of Medicine) can get my
data (especially all my Meal Monster bases) off of that old drive - now
that he has been able to get it spun up and sort-of talking to his systems.

I haven't decided yet ... but, I have not done anything with the new box
(the sub-compact DELL) ... whether to blow away the XP Pro that came on it
in favour of W2K Pro - which will let me run CMPQwk again. And probably
speed up my CD/DVD burning which seems to take twice as long on the new
(big) DELL as it did on the W2K white box ... or on my friend's Acer with
Media Centre. The determiner will be this afternoon when I try a test CD at
his house. If I burn 702 megs in half the 10 minutes it takes on my box -
using the same burner program and brand of blank media on a box with the
same OS and ram configuration.

Oh, well. Just a note to let you know I ain't whupped yet!

MMMMM----- Meal Master Recipe

      Title: Chicken Stew
 Categories: Poultry, Stews, Potatoes, Dairy
      Yield: 6

      3 tb Butter
      2 md Onions; chopped
      2    Celery ribs; chopped
      2    Carrots; diced
      2 cl Garlic; minced or pressed
  2 1/2 tb All-purpose flour
      3 lg Red-skin potatoes; peeled,
           - chopped
      4 c  Chicken stock or broth
    1/2 ts Salt
    1/4 ts White pepper
      1    Bay leaf
     10 oz Pkg frozen corn kernels;
           - thawed
      1 lb Chicken breasts; boned,
           - skinned, in bite-size pcs
      1 lb chicken thighs; boned,
           - skinned, in bite-size pcs
      1 c  Half & half
           Sweet paprika

  It's cold outside. You need delicious dishes to warm you
  up and stick to your ribs.

  In a dutch oven, melt the butter over medium heat. Sauté
  the onions, celery, carrots and garlic until softened and
  onion is transparent, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle in the
  flour and cook, stirring constantly, until flour is
  incorporated and there are no lumps.

  Add the potatoes, chicken stock, salt, white pepper and
  bay leaf, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low,
  cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.

  Add the corn and chicken, cover, and simmer for 25 minutes.
  Stir in half-and-half and simmer just until heated through,
  about 3 minutes. Remove and discard bay leaf. Sprinkle with
  paprika just before serving.

  Check seasonings and add salt and pepper, if desired. 

  Makes about 6 servings. 

  FROM: Texas Cooking Online's Weekly E-mail

  MM Format by Dave Drum; 05 January 2008

  Uncle Dirty Dave's Archives

MMMMM

ENJOY!!!

I no longer prepare food or drink with more than one ingredient.
-- Cyra McFadden
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