The pieces are finally in place. Everything will work on both the Mac and the PC. It's now a matter of setting down some procedures to get various workflows developed. There are also some strange things going on, so some footnotes will have to come out of it. And then there's the matter of still waiting for the dual-layer blank DVDs to be released. Yup, I'm being vague here in hopes of being more specific later. Yeah, that's it.

I'm kind of at a stand-still on some things, but the externalized DVD recorder is recognized by the XP Pro box as another drive. The problem, however, lies with my ProMax 180G external hard drive. It's an FW800, or IEEE-1394b, drive, while the FireWire card in the XP Pro box is of the older FW400 variety. But try to find one of those cards for PCI! I ran into a Radio Shack-style clerk at the CompUSA in Ann Arbor on this one. He refused to believe the 1394b standard even exists! He said “Well, the

Well, what I'd built last night didn't work (see yesterday's post), so it was back to square one. I went ahead and exchanged the USB 2.0 enclosure for an ME-320X combination USB 2.0/FireWire enclosure, connected it to the G4 PowerBook via FireWire, and fired it up. But this time, I went ahead and also downloaded the beta of PatchBurn II for OS X and installed it. This changed the drive's Disc Burning status in OS X's System Profiler from "Not Supported" to "DRDeviceSupportLevelUnsupported". However

This morning, even though the dual-layer DVD media isn't available yet, I picked up a Sony DRU-700A dual-layer DVD recorder. The intent was to externalize it so I can use it with both my Windows XP Pro Box and my G4 PowerBook. The DRU-700UL external version isn't available for a couple more months, so I also picked up a Manhattan USB 2.0 external 5.25” case for the burner. The case didn't come with instructions, but putting the two together wasn't at all difficult. Total cost: $260. Considering the

Ok, I'm just not going to use the word “Help” in every subject line as someone had suggested. It's too darned difficult! I was going to head out today to pick up the necessary DVD drive for this XP Pro box, but a massive headache is keeping me home. Maybe tomorrow, if I feel up to it. According to their website, Best Buy has the Sony DRU-700A dual-layer recorder in-stock, so once I head out, that's where I'll go.

Well, with a bit of the tax return I've received today, I'll be getting a DVD drive for this XP Pro box so I can install the WinHEC LongHorn bits over VirtualPC 2004. I'm considering Sony's external dual-layer DVD burner, but only if the School pays for part of it for test purposes. Otherwise, I'll just pick up an internal single-layer DVD burner.

Yesterday was the 16th birthday party for a girl who's the daughter of one of my best friends. I got there an hour early or so to help out with setting up. This weather we've been having made the yard seriously slippery. Ever tried to carry a 6-foot sub across a slippery yard? How 'bout two of the beastly things? Yeah, I caught myself, and the sandwich was saved ... but the dog seemed disappointed in that. That little Lhasa Ahpso was chasing balloons around the yard, and every time she'd pop one

I've often thought of developing a Help viewer that could display more than one kind of Help. I'd likely start with HTML Help and MS Help 2.0 at first, especially since I already know how to build the MS Help 2.0 variety. And the related Help Object Library works with both WinHelp and HTML Help. But then I get to thinking about LongHorn.Help and how that would muck up the works, and that we really don't know how to read WinHelp file internals. Such a viewer to read all four formats would possibly

The Help MVPs are now digging into LongHorn.Help as provided in a Windows LongHorn build made available to both the WinHEC 2004 attendees and as available to MSDN subscribers. Unfortunately, as the media is DVD-based I'm as yet unable to participate. I'm looking at DVD drives, but just haven't picked one up for my Windows box yet. I'm actually looking at the new Sony DRU-700A dual-layer recorder, the first of its kind. For only $200 for the internal version, you really can't beat it, considering