Okay. So the Dell debacle is over.

Apparently (according to Dell) the reason they haven't been able to put a estimated delivery date on the order status is because there's a shortage of LCD screens right now. So I told them to cancel the order and refund my money. They've got a week to 10 business days to do so. I'll be watching.

Then I got dressed, got out of the house, and went to Best Buy.

I am now writing this on a HP Mini 1116. It has approximately the same stats as the Dell I was trying to get, with the added advantage of a keyboard that's actually typable. I'm still getting used to it but I'm able to touch type on it fairly well so far.

Had a bit of a mix up in getting Ubuntu NBR installed earlier. I'd already prepared a 2 gig USB drive with NBR -- or so I thought. When I tried to get this new machine to boot to it to install NBR, it wouldn't despite having switched it to USB as the first boot drive. I plugged it back into Galileo to check it since the NBR image file had checked on MD5 and loaded without any problem on the USB. Upon looking through the files I found all the file names in symbols and gibberish. Turns out the USB was formated for FAT16, not FAT32 as it should have been. I wiped it, reformated to FAT32, and re-wrote the disk image file. Plugged it into the HP and it loaded perfectly and installed without a hitch.

I think subsequent installation of Adobe AIR, Twhirl or some plug-ins for the browser may have knocked out the webcam though. Will have to look into it as it was working earlier and now is not.

Well. It's almost 8 PM now and I need to get home. Enough showing off for one night. :)