The fruits of my labor.

I just burned an entire afternoon and evening trying to get my home network file sharing working. Since I finally figured it out, I decided to post about what worked for me in the slight chance someone with the same problem will read this.

I have two Windows XP machines, a desktop and a laptop. They both connect to the Internet fine, and can ping each other. The problem was that the laptop could access the shares on the desktop, but the desktop could not access the shared resources on the laptop.

After many hours, I figured out the problem, at least for me. Here's the solution:

1) On each computer, click Start->Run, and enter "regedit".
2) Navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetBT\Parameters.
3) See if there is a NodeType or DhcpNodeType parameter (for more info, see this site.

In my case, the desktop didn't have either parameter (the default is 1), but the laptop had DhcpNodeType = 8. To make them match, I deleted the DhcpNodeType value on the laptop.

4) Reboot the PC that you made the changes on.

Worked like a charm for me. As we learned on LOST a couple weeks ago, destiny is a fickle bitch, and apparently so is Windows networking.

JavaOne 2008!

If you're reading this, I am hopefully already at JavaOne 2008 in San Francisco's Moscone Center, drinking some coffee and waiting comfortably for the keynote to begin.

Hopefully, I am not still asleep in San Jose. Nor am I waiting in some interminable line for my pass. Nor am I wandering the streets of San Francisco, because I was somehow unable to get into the keynote address and the Pavilion isn't open yet.

Why wonder what I'm doing when you can find out? I will be live blogging my first trip to JavaOne (after eight long years looking from the outside in) on my Twitter feed.

Playing Catch-Up

Almost two months since my last post. I suck at this.

Let's hit the high/lowlights of March and April:

• I started Twittering (Twitting? Tweeting? Damn Web 2.0 doublespeak). Well, in any case, Twitter is sort of like a mini-blog, where you can post short entries about anything, no matter how mundane. My three most recent "tweets" are in the sidebar on the right of this page, or you can sign up and "follow" me. I have been spending a lot of time on this lately, probably slowing down my blog output.
  
• In sports, out with college hoops season. Out with Ben Braun. In with Mike Montgomery. In with baseball season. Out with Giants' playoff hopes, then back in. (Same for entertainment value of 2008 Giants.) Out with Warriors' playoff hopes. In with Cal NFL prospects, out with little remaining faith in the 49ers' front office. Lastly, out with Sharks hockey.
  
• Democrats still haven't picked a player. Starting to wonder if an election seemingly ripe for the taking will go by the wayside. Hilary doing McCain's work for him. Obama unable to close the deal. Sigh.
  
• Back flare-up two weekends ago. Using leaf blower and doing actual work apparently through me all out of whack. That's all gone now but still some nerve impingement in my leg, and I think that is still causing me some weakness (although the pain is mostly gone). I am convinced the extra thirty pounds I put on after my wedding is causing all this, and I need to lose at least twenty. So all-you-can-eat ribs tonight were probably a bad idea.
  
• Layoffs on the way at Sun. What else is new? Seriously, I love working at Sun so I'm hoping that I (again) will make it through unscathed. I think they are on the right track and were just stung by the sluggish U.S. economy. I put full blame for our current stock price on the guy in the white house on Pennsylvania Ave.
  
• I have four (yes, four) fantasy baseball teams this season, including two in 20-team leagues. That is taking up far too much of my time.
  

That's all for now. See you in ...July?