I changed database structures when I redid my blog this week, and I have to redo all of my blog-management pages. Well, I say ALL like there’s fifty of them, but there were only a few pages. The new version will require quite a few more, because it has more tables and whatnot, and things are just getting started. I can add blog entries over the web again (as opposed to doing it in SQL Enterprise Manager, which is a pain) and it’s actually a cleaner interface than the last one was.

It’s a night for changes again tonight – I upgraded the drive in my home server, Miss Piggy, to a 60gb one so that it’s got more space for MP3’s. I keep all of my 400+ CD collection online in MP3 format to make it easy to play any CD from my computer.

And, brace yourself – I’m trying to install Linux on my laptop yet again. This time, it’s Red Hat 9 going under scrutiny. I found a few step-by-step checklist web pages that walk users through getting RH7 to work on a Thinkpad T21, so I’m hoping RH9 will be roughly the same process. I can’t believe XFree86 doesn’t support this laptop out of the box – IBM sold cajillions of the Thinkpad T20-T23 series, all with the same video adapter, and it’s not exactly esoteric gear. Already I’ve seen problems with the RH9 install, though – it totally disregarded my Lucent Orinoco Gold wireless card. Come on, man, that’s another world-standard piece of equipment. Aaargh.

So, why am I subjecting myself to this? Because at work we decided to go with Java as our programming standard, replacing Delphi back end Windows programs and the ASP front end for the web site. We tried to decide between Java and .NET/C# – I was on the .NET side, but we’ve already got a few Java developers in another office, so Java won out. Neither way is a loser, I think, but I’m not thrilled about it from a personal perspective. I’m really gung-ho on RAD tools, and in Java, I’m not seeing anywhere near the level of RAD tools that I’m used to in Windows. We’re talking about a guy whose second programming language was Winbatch, so you know I like the high-level stuff.