I’ve been running the 64-bit version of Windows 7 RC since June. It’s been quite painless on the whole.

One wrinkle that I ran into was with some batchfiles which launch ap­pli­ca­tions in %Pro­gram­Files% (normally C:\Program Files). Due to the magic WOW64 redirector, 32-bit ap­pli­ca­tions are actually installed into %Pro­gram­Files(x86)%—normally C:\Program Files (x86)—instead of %Pro­gram­Files%. This is trans­par­ent to the 32-bit ap­pli­ca­tions, which think they’re running in %Pro­gram­Files% (C:\Program Files).

However, the cmd.exe shell is 64-bit (unless you make a special effort to run the 32-bit cmd.exe in SysWOW64), so batchfiles see the 64-bit %Pro­gram­Files% which contains 64-bit ap­pli­ca­tions.

Hence, a batchfile that launches an installed 32-bit ap­pli­ca­tion on Win64 must use %Pro­gram­Files(x86)%, not %Pro­gram­Files%.

It sounds trivial to …continue.

I spent 90 minutes phonebank­ing for Approve 71 after work today. I called voters who had already been identified as leaning pro­gres­sive and asked them to vote APPROVE on Referendum 71 in November.

Under the recent Domestic Part­ner­ship law (SB 5688 aka the “ev­ery­thing but marriage bill”), registered domestic partners (same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples with at least one partner over age 62), and married couples, are now treated equally under the law in all parts of Washington state.

The Religious Right objected and put together an initiative which scraped together just enough signatures to be on the ballot. They’ll be voting to REJECT the bill, which would overturn domestic part­ner­ships in this state.

Civil rights should not …continue.

Paying bills always makes me grumpy. More than just the drain on my wallet, it’s also the sheer hassle and tedium.

I think it was last year that I finally switched over to using electronic billpay. (I’m not always an early adopter.) The hassle is less and I seldom write checks now.

I’d like to know why electronic payments take days, not mil­lisec­onds, to clear. More predatory bank practices, no doubt.

I wrote several checks tonight. For months I had been putting off renewing my membership in various do-gooder or­ga­ni­za­tions like the ACLU, the EFF, and GLAAD. Some I wrote checks to, others I used their online forms.

I’m going to be getting a couple of …continue.

Jack Irish is a one-time lawyer who makes a living doing odd job­s—in­ves­ti­ga­tions, racehorse hand­i­cap­ping, cabinet making—in Melbourne. A former client, who went to jail years ago while Jack had crawled into a bottle, tries to reach Jack and promptly turns up dead. Jack starts looking and what he finds isn’t pretty: corruption all the way up into the state government.

Jack isn’t stupid, but he is naïve and out of his depth for much of the book. Temple combines the Australian backdrop, social commentary, a decent plot, and in­ter­est­ing …continue.

I held my annual fundrais­ing barbecue for the AIDS Walk today. Actually, the weather was so wet this morning that we cooked and ate inside.

I am happy to report that thanks to the generosity of my sponsors, I have raised $982 of my original goal of $1000. With three weeks left until the walk, I am predicting success in reaching my goal.

In Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Dracula relocates from Tran­syl­va­nia to London. Asking themselves, what would Dracula have done in London before he was killed by Van Helsing, 18 authors wrote un­con­nect­ed short stories. Dracula meets the Prince of Wales, he is observed by the servants, he terrorizes Aleister Crowley and Charles Fort and Ellen Terry, he even takes the lead in the Pirates of Penzance.

The stories are uneven. None is out­stand­ing.

On the First Thursday of every month, there’s an Art Walk around Seattle’s Pioneer Square. All the art galleries stay open late and thousands of people wander around looking at the art.

It’s a shame then that in the four years that I’ve worked in Pioneer Square, I’ve only Art Walked a handful of times. Maura and Joseph joined us on Thursday and we spent a pleasant couple of hours talking and wandering around, mostly through the Tashiro-Kaplan building. Muhsin was supposed to come too, but couldn’t find parking as the Seahawks played a pre-season game.

There are other First Thursday events: many of the museums are free after 5pm. The Seattle Art Museum, the Science …continue.

Chuckanut Drive is one of Washington State’s best yet least-known scenic drives. Take I-5 north from Seattle for 70 miles. Just past Burlington, exit on to state route 11. The highway heads northwest towards the coast across the fertile floodplain of the Skagit valley. For nine miles, you drive past farms and fields. Then the road rises at the coast, changing character instantly.

Now you’re driving along the rocky, forested shoulder of the Chuckanut mountains. One hundred feet below as you drive along the twisty, shady road, you can catch glimpses of the waters of Samish Bay through the trees. If you look closely, you may see the train tracks, prac­ti­cal­ly at water’s …continue.

Kevin Kerney, deputy chief of the New Mexico State Police, has just inherited a high-country ranch, where he finds a dis­mem­bered skeleton.

An old-school police procedural (by a real cop) with believable characters and a not im­plau­si­ble plot. The prose is a little clumsy, but the story pulled me along.

This afternoon, I invited 200 friends, family, and ac­quain­tances to the Reilly & Bartholomew Family Journal. The Journal is the feature that we’ve been working on at Cozi for several months. It’s a light­weight blog that’s really easy to set up and post to, with straight­for­ward privacy controls.

More im­por­tant­ly, though, I invited those people to use Cozi for themselves.

I’m inviting you to read the Family Journal that Emma and I set up at Cozi. It’s a way of letting our friends and relatives keep up with us. If you see a story you like, add a smile. We hope you enjoy it!

I’m also inviting you to start using Cozi for yourselves.

Cozi …continue.