When I began writing my Elementai story, the ideas that flowed from my mind - plots, subplots, characters, and scenes - were like the waters flowing from a broken dam. It took some time, but these ideas had been sorted and channeled into individual books.

I am pleased to announce that the first book in the Elementai series, entitled Allegiances, will be released sometime in October 2009.

The plot of the book and series is as follows:

Thousands of years ago, a group of feline, canine, reptilian, and avian species - collectively known as the Charzin - had been enslaved by a civilisation known as Shadows. Over time, an underground group of fighters and scientists devised a form of organic viral nanotechnology that would be used as weapons. These were called "nanolinks", because they linked the host with natural energies, such as electricity or gravity, and thus enabling them to use such forces and energies to repel their enslavers. After an uprising that took many lives, the Shadows were banished from their world. The Charzin continued on, living in peace, using their nanolinks to enrich their lives and rebuilt their civilisation.

But now a spatial tear has been found moving towards the planet, carrying with it a fleet of Shadow vessels. But when the fleet reaches the Charzin's world they vanish, along with a random scattering of individuals on the planet's surface.

Meanwhile, Joshua and Kali Reed are living with their father in Australia. Life is quiet for them, until the day arrives when a Japanese man runs into their lives with an international terrorist group, the Obsidian Syndicate, on their heels in pursuit of an old piece of technology called the Understone.

Joshua and Kali learn that they are Elementai - humans selected by a enigmatic "Sentinel" to prevent a infiltration by the Shadows into our world. The Sentinel tells them that if they choose not to risk their lives and find the Understone, then the world will be enslaved by the Shadows within a few months.

Making the task more difficult is that the Syndicate routinely leave false evidence behind to implicate the Elementai in their activities. They do, however, have the assistance of a few Charzin who lend their nanolink abilities in the goal to defeat the Shadows.

With the Syndicate seeking to kill them on one side, and the International Terrorism Intelligence Commission trying to arrest them on the other, Joshua and Kali have to make a choice - side with the Charzin and risk their lives in defending mankind, or cease being on the run and become a Shadow.

The choice they make will determine the survival or destruction of two civilisations.

I will be publishing through Lulu.com, which prints in the United States and ships worldwide. It will be available in paperback, hardcover, and electronic versions. If you are interested in this book series, then keep an eye on my journal or subscribe to my blog at [link] in order to receive updates.

It will also be great if you could spread the word about my book to your friends. Feel free to quote or link to this journal entry. If you would like to read a sample of Elementai: Allegiances, a couple of chapters will be uploaded today for your free viewing.

^{Elementai, Charzin, and the International Terrorism Intelligence Commission are trademarks of P.G. Palmer. All rights reserved.}

Okay, now that moving house is "officially" over (glances mentally at all the boxes and bags to unpack), and I'm feeling much better, I've decided to challenge myself. I've entered myself into a month of plenty of typing, risking RSI and late nights in order to achieve a goal.

Yep, I have entered the National Novel Writing Month [link] , as "pgpalmer", of course. Even though there is no monetary award, I'd certainly get a lot of self-satisfaction.

So for the next two weeks I am going to brainstorm and try and think of a good plot.

I certainly hope I do well!

The computer screen stared at me, pleading passively for it's life. On the screen, the GParted partition editor was open, and waiting for me was the begging plea, as it pleaded for me not to erase the partition.

But I showed no mercy.

Laughing, I punched the 'Apply' button and the OS's life was scrambled.

Okay, maybe not in such an insane fashion *whistles innocently*.

This is my story of setting up my laptop computer, a Thinkpad T30, to triple-boot Windows 98, Windows XP Professional, and Linux Mint.

---

Step 1/3: Windows 98

First, I erased the partitions using GParted and created a 2 GB slice from my 40 GB hard disk. Then I put the Windows 98 disk in (I knew that the easiest way to have Windows and Linux work together is to put Windows on first) to boot from.

Enter snag number one - the computer wouldn't start.

Lacking any operating system, the computer didn't know how to run itself. And apparently Windows 98 (or at least my copy) wasn't bootable. Simple enough, I thought. I'll just make a boot disc. So I went online on my work computer and searched for boot discs. And I found a lot of them, plenty of tutorials and programs that'll make you a floppy disc you can boot from, boot about, and use as a coaster for your coffee.

Enter snag number two - the laptop had no floppy drive.

This one stumped me, but I found a quick solution by using the Acer startup CD from my sister's laptop. I put it in, booted from it, and flashing on the screen were the words 'THIS WINDOWS XP DISC IS FOR USE ON ACER SYSTEMS ONLY!' "Yeah, yeah," I muttered as I removed the disc. "I don't want your Windows XP. I just want the startup files."

In goes the Windows 98 disc, and a quick copy of the entire disc to c:/windows/options/cabs. Go into said directory and run setup. Everything goes fine, until it asks me to restart. I comply, and it reboots to a flashing underscore.

"Uhhhhh..."

Switch off. Reinsert Acer disc. Reboot.

Flashing underscore.

"Uhhhhhh...."

I'd need something a bit better than a startup CD. I needed something like DOS on there.

So what do I do? Do I hunt around online for free alternatives?

No. I raid my supervisor's CD wallet (which I'm allowed to, BTW). In it, I find a burned CD labelled "Recovery CD". Nice, I think as I grin and boot from it.

And it is a great disc. But on it I discovered a free version of DOS. "FreeDOS".

Jump on the Internet. Search for FreeDOS. Find website. Click Download.

Click Download.

Click Download.

Click Download.

Enter snag number three - the Internet at work suddenly becomes slow. For just me, apparently.

Fast-forward two hours, and I'm finally able to download FreeDOS. Thankfully, it installed without a hickup and I was able to boot into a DOS-like environment.

Let's try this again. Insert Windows 98 CD. Copy over files. Go into directory on hard disk and run setup.

SUCCESS! The system now boots into Windows 98!

But the issues had only just begun.

Step 2/3: Windows XP Professional

I knew that I owned a copy of Windows XP Pro, for I got it as a pre-installed disc image when I bought the computer. And promptly got rid off.

I was advised that any copy of Windows XP would do, as long as you enter a valid license key. So I tried that on a newly-created 3 GB partition and it refused the key.

Enter snag number four - one cannot install Windows XP Professional without a Windows XP Professional CD-ROM.

Goto Microsoft.com. Lodge an email request. Unfortunately, this was on a Friday so I went an entire weekend without my computer.

The next week, found reply in e-mail, confirming my situation. Asked me to fax them a copy of the license key, which I did. After they received it (after my phone reminder), they said they'll send out a "replacement OEM media", and that it'll take three to five business days to arrive. Cost to me: about AUD$42. And this was on a Wednesday, so I had to wait ANOTHER weekend to get my computer set up.

Arrive at work on Monday. Check mail. YAY! IT ARRIVED! Put in computer, install, and smile as the OS Choices screen gives me the option of "Microsoft Windows" (98) and "Microsoft Windows XP Professional".

Step 3/3: Linux

Insert Linux Mint CD. Boot up the Live CD and go staight to Install. Let it use the rest of the 33 GB on the hard disc. Installed.

Restarted, and found that Windows XP wasn't listed. No problem. Open Terminal. Enter "sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst" Copied the lines from Windows 98 and pasted below, just editing the lines so that it specified XP in the title and pointed to the right partition.

Restarted. Chose Windows XP from the OS Choices meny and "ohhhhhhh, darn...."

NTLDR is missing.
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.

Enter snag number five - Windows XP was broken before I'd even used it.

But after searching through online forums, I found that it was because there were a couple of files missing. So I run the Windows XP Recovery Console and type

copy d:\i386\ntldr c:\
copy d:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

to transfer those missing files across.

Smiling, I restart the computer and get faced with ANOTHER error message.

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
c:\windows\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

And the first thing that ran through my mind was: I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Enter snag number six - my computer was threatening to turn into a homocidal machine.

Was this revenge for me killing it in the first place?

Quickly, I looked online for this and found that the source of my issue was a missing boot.ini file, and nothing to do with hal at all. So I loaded the Windows XP Recovery Console and ran

bootcfg /rebuild

to create the boot.ini file. Restarted, and smiled as my SYSTEM CAME TO LIFE!!!!

Conclusion

So now I have a fully-functional triple-boot system, one that can use Linux (still my main one), Windows XP Pro (for compatibility), and Windows 98 (for backwards-compatibility with my game designing).

And I am pleased with the results.

Okay, for the past thirty days I've been taking measures in reducing my water consumption. The main steps I took are:

* Reducing my shower times (I was stunned when I discovered how much water 30 minutes of showering uses!) by half; and
* Capturing grey water from the shower and laundry and using it to flush the toilet.

Here are the figures at the end of the month. Figures may be a bit off because a lot of it was using a set L/min or L/sec rate, but I believe that it's no more than 10% inaccurate.

Total water used (before conservation) per month: 3228.4 L
Total water used (during conservation) per month: 1988.2 L
Total water conserved/recycled: 1240.2 L (38.4%)

Water consumption cut by a third? I'm quite pleased with that result - I was expecting it to be only about a quarter. Using grey water in the toilet accounted for about 10% of the saved water - the rest is from cutting my showers from 30 mins to 10-15 minutes.

Given that there are only a few years left in Australia before dams run dry, unless this drought breaks, I feel that this is a good way I can contribute towards conserving resources. So I'm going to continue in this conservation (I just won't collect data from here on).

April 2007. One year after I had purchased my laptop (or notebook, whichever term you prefer) computer. The warranty was over, which means I was now free to make whatever adjustments I wanted.

Hooray!

It was in serious need of a rebuild. First, for some strange reason that I can't comprehend the 40 GB hard disk was divided into two partitions of about 18 GB each. This meant that with my programs and files on there the c: drive was almost out of space while the d: drive had about 5 GB of free space - and this was with my largest files and programs on the d: drive! I had shortcuts everywhere and it was getting very irritating.

Second, Windows was clogged up with programs. I had read online that the half-life was Windows XP was 9 months, so it was overdue for a tuneup.

Anyway, in a style similar to How to install Windows XP in Two Days or Less, I give you:


HOW TO REBUILD A LAPTOP IN 24 HOURS


1. Started the timer at 4.10 PM and grabbed a spindle of blank DVDs.

2. Went onto download.com.

3. Searched for backup programs. Filtered by freeware. After scanning the Editor's Reviews and User Reviews I selected Simply Safe Backup 2005.

4. I opened the backup program. Started the wizard. Selected all the files that I wanted to backup. Backup onto CD/DVD, thank you.

5. I removed the wireless PC card to prevent viruses getting past the now-disabled anti-virus software.

6. Began backup process. The initial scan reports that I'll need 3 DVDs. Fine by me - I began the backup.

7. Began building the ISO image for backup. Timer at 37 minutes.

8. Waiting... waiting... waiting...

9. Waiting..

10. Timer at 1 hour, 12 minutes. The backup program aborted at 31% 'due to an error'.

11. I opened My Computer and checked the properties of c: drive. It showed a total amount of free space of 2.69 MB. Guess that's a good excuse for an error.

12. Opened Add/Remove Program.

13. Uninstalled OpenOffice.org.

14. Reboot.

15. Uninstalled Presto! VideoWorks. Got a error.

16. Began uninstalling the Java Runtime Environment.

17. Waiting... waiting... waiting...

18. Waiting... waiting...

19. Why does it take so long to remove a couple of hundred megabytes?

20. "Please wait while Windows configures Java (TM) SE Runtime Environment 6 Update 1."

21. Sing along to a couple of songs on my PDA.

22. Waiting... waiting...

23. Finally! Java is gone!

24. Uninstalled Firefox. Sorry, Firefox, but you'll live once again.

25. Went into VideoWorks directory. No uninstall utility. Whatever - I wiped the entire directory.

26. Cyberlink PowerProducer? Why wasn't that in Add/Remove Programs?

27. Ford Racing? To the trash you go.

28. Ran Disk Cleanup on c: drive.

29. OpenOffice: 390 MB. VideoWorks: 233 MB. Java: 160 MB. The ability to do a backup: priceless.

30. Checked the free space on c: drive. It is now at 1.14 GB.

31. Began the backup program again. The timer is now at 1 hour, 43 minutes.

32. Found myself yawning around 37%. Put on a movie to pass the time.

33. Timer at 3 hours, 36 minutes. Partway through the movie I got the same error. Gave up on the backup program.

34. Opened NTI CD & DVD Maker.

35. Dragged files to the DVD.

36. Began burning.

37. Finished the movie. Began watching TV.

38. Verifying... verifying... verifying...

39. Drum fingers on laptop casing.

40. Finished the first disc. Began the second disc.

41. Finished the second disc. I hate backups - why do they take so long?

42. Feeling so very tired...

43. Timer at 8 hours, 29 minutes. I am so glad I did this while keeping my mind occupied.

44. Why do backups have to take so long?

45. Yawn

46. Yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn.

47. Finally finished disk 3 and the end of the backups! Timer is at 8 hours, 49 minutes. The clock is showing 12.58 AM so I am off to get some sleep. Paused the timer and I am so going to sleep in tomorrow.

... z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z...

48. Back at the task at 11.15 AM.

49. I rebooted and went into BIOS. Changed the first boot drive to CD/DVD.

50. Put the System CD into the drive.

51. Press F10 to Save and Exit.

52. Yes, I want to save the configuration and restart the configuration.

53. Reboot to the System CD.

54. I'd like to read in English, please. It makes life a whole lot easier.

55. I'd like a full recovery.

56. "Once you have confirmed your selection, the operating system will be installed. Note: All data on the first partition will be destroyed!" That's the idea, isn't it? If I didn't already know that that happens when you recover a system, then I am an idiot for doing this.

57. Pressed OK.

58. Changed the System CD for Recovery CD 1.

59. System started recovery. Timer at 9 hours, 27 minutes.

60. Put in CD 2.

61. Put in CD 3.

62. Put the System CD back in.

63. Reboot.

64. "Please wait." Okay.

65. Ah, the startup wizard! Okay, I live in Australia, I use Australian English, and I have a US keyboard.

66. I live in the GMT+10:00 timezone, near Sydney. Automatically adjust for daylight saving time.

67. Ah. The End User License Agreement. "The End User License Agreement is a legal agreement between..." zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

68. Wake up and skim over the EULA as I've read it before, and accept.

69. Turn on Automatic Updates.

70. Give my computer the name of 'ACER-LAPTOP'. Gee, I'm original, aren't I?

71. Yes, I will connect to the Internet, but not at the moment.

72. No, I don't want to register with Microsoft.

73. Pressed 'Finish'. Sorry - not quite there yet.

74. Auto-installing SIS Graphic Utility. Auto-setting font. Auto-installing NTI CD Maker. Auto-installing eRecovery Solution.

75. "Your computer might be at risk - Anti-virus software might not be installed." Yes, there's no Anti-virus installed. No, I'm not at risk because there's no Internet connection. Closed the popup.

76. "Your computer might be at risk." Yes, I know. Closed the box.

77. "Your computer might be..." I know!

78. Reboot.

79. Auto-updating Acer eManager.

80. "To enhance system security Acer highly recommends installing an Anti-virus application." Don't worry, I will.

81. "Your computer might be..." Sigh.

82. Installed the wireless PC card driver.

83. Reboot.

84. Inserted the PC card. "Found new hardware." Hard disk light flashes away merrily. "Your new hardware is installed and ready for use."

85. "Choose a wireless network." Clicked on my router. Clicked Connect. Typed in the lengthy network key. Clicked Connect.

86. Start menu. Run. 'cmd'. 'ipconfig'. Well, I've got an IP address. 'ing google.com'. Hooray, I've got an Internet connection!


87. Went to avast.com. Downloaded and installed Avast! 4 Home Edition.

88. Reboot.

89. Ran a deep-level virus scan. Timer at 10 hours, 37 minutes.

90. "Your computer might be at risk. avast! Anti-virus might be out of date." Yes, I'm getting to that, but thanks for the warning.

91. Updated the Anti-virus definition file.

92. Registered with avast! and entered the registration key.

93. "Windows found 2 updates." Installed them.

94. Reboot.

95. Updates still installing in background.

96. Went to download.com. Downloaded BootIt Next Generation.

97. Went to openoffice.org. Downloaded the latest version of OpenOffice.

98. "Windows found 79 updates." Okay, I'll install them. The timer is at 12 hours, 30 minutes.

99. Installed Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications.

100. Updates completed. Reboot. Timer at 12 hours, 45 minutes.

101. "Downloading update." Wait, there are more?

102. "Could not install security update for Flash Player." Forgive me if I'm wrong, but could the fact that Flash Player isn't installed have something to do with it?

103. "Windows found 1 update." Man, it doesn't give up, does it?

104. Went to adobe.com.

105. Installed Adobe Reader 8. No, I don't want Photoshop Album Starter. Nor Google Toolbar.

106. Installed Adobe Flash Player 9. No, I don't want the Google Toolbar. I accept the Terms of Service.

107. Installed Adobe Shockwave Player 10. I speaka de language of English. No, I don't want the Google Toolbar.

108. Installed the Flash Player security update.

109. Installed OpenOffice.org 2.2. Custom setup, please. I only want Writer, Calc, and Draw. Associate with Word and Excel documents.

110. Installed the Java Runtime Environment 6 update 1. Accepted the EULA.

111. Sigh. No to Google Toolbar.

112. Java finished installing. Timer is at 13 hours, 31 minutes.

113. Installed Game Maker 7.

114. Searched through e-mail archive for registration key. Couldn't find it. Made mental note to get another copy of the key.

115. Ran BootIt Next Generation.

116. BootIT NG created a DVD boot disc.

117. Reboot.

118. Removed the d: partition.

119. Resized the c: partition to its maximum size - 34.32 GB.

120. Reboot back into Windows XP.

121. Defragmented the drive.

122. Waiting... waiting... waiting...

123. Waiting... waiting... waiting... waiting...

124. Waiting... waiting...

125. Finished defragmenting. The timer is at 17 hours, 4 minutes.

126. Installed Mozilla Firefox. Yay, Firefox!

127. Applied the Metal Lion Vista theme to Firefox.

128. Installed HTML-Kit, my HTML editor.

129. Installed Imagicon, an icon-creation and image resizer tool.

130. Installed DNJ Clip Color, a tool that grabs a color and gives you the different color values.

131. Installed iTunes.

132. Installed Mp3 My Mp3, an MP3 recording tool.

133. Installed Terragen.

134. Installed Wings 3D, a 3D modelling program.

135. Installed yWriter 2, a writing program for authors.

136. Installed Anim8or, an animation program.

137. Installed Tweak UI.

138. Ran Tweak UI.

139. Do not beep on errors.

140. Disable tooltip animation.

141. Disable tooltip fade.

142. Disable help on Start menu. It's useless, anyway.

143. Don't allow web content on the desktop.

144. Lock web content.

145. Don't put the 'Shortcut to' prefix on new shortcuts.

146. Use Classic Search in Explorer.

147. Remember 2000 folder changes, rather than 400.

148. Changed the Places bar location to Desktop, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, and a custom Downloads folder.

149. Group any application with at least 2 windows open.

150. On the desktop, show My Documents, My Computer, and Recycle Bin. My Computer appears first.

151. Show Control Panel icon in My Computer.

152. Disable Auto-play for removable drives.

153. Disabled the Bitmap Image, Briefcase, and Wave Sound templates.

154. Exited Tweak UI.

155. Removed the desktop shortcuts that I don't want.

156. Navigated to the Start menu in Explorer, and created folders called Multimedia, Internet, System, and Office. I then moved everything into their respective categories (eg, now OpenOffice is in Start - Programs - Office - OpenOffice.)

157. Went onto deviantARt and downloaded my chosen wallpaper.

158. Went to Control Panel.

159. Display Properties. Set the wallpaper to the image downloaded in step 157, centered, and with a black background. No screensaver. Chose the silver colour scheme.

160. Ah, it's looking better already!

161. Taskbar and Start Menu Properties. Group similar taskbar buttons. XP Start Menu. Customise. Disabled the e-mail link. Display My Computer as a menu. Display Recent Documents.

162. Add/Remove Programs. Uninstalled Java RE 6, keeping the update in place.

163. Date and Time. Fixed the time. Disabled Internet synchronisation.

164. Power Options. Do not prompt for password when exiting standby. When I close the lid, do nothing. When I press the power button, hibernate. When I press the sleep button, stand by.

165. User Accounts. Disabled Fast User Switching.

166. Restored backups.

167. Installed ActiveSync.

168. Went to microsoft.com. Installed Windows Media Player 11.

169. Custom Settings. Display media information. Retrieve media information. Do not download usage rights - I've already got them. Do not save history in the player. Do not add Quick Launch shortcut. Don't set up a store.

170. Windows Media Player updated the library.

171. Installed the Pulsing Colors visualisation.

172. Finished restoration. Time is 21 hours, 39 minutes. The clock shows 12:49 AM.

It was a full day but finally I have a system that is fresh. My hard disk has a solid 24.8 GB free space.


So what did I learn from this process? First, don't use backup programs if you can't fit a DVD onto the hard disk. Second, plan a lot of engaging activities to pass the time.

Well, I shouldn't need to do another rebuild for another six months. And the next time round should take a much shorter time.