Projects.

Just a short note talking about the various things I’m splitting my time doing when I’m not a) doing work, or b) enjoying my family life.

• fprint support for the AuthenTec 2810 fingerprint reader. Every few days I’ll boot my computer into windows and try capturing the USB logs for the fingerprint reader. So far, this hasn’t gone anywhere because the USB snooper I could use for windows (usb-snoopy) doesn’t appear to work with WDM drivers.. or, at least this driver. No real progress on this, though i did manage to bluescreen windows a few times.
• Ubuntu support for debian-live. After my last post, I’ve been poking around the debian live-helper scripts to try and reenable ubuntu support. For some reason even what I did before isn’t working anymore. I’m also debating whether I should try and make live-initramfs work with Ubuntu, or stay with casper and just add support to live-helper. Some progress, but will need more work.
• Non computer related, I’m tracing a bit of my family’s genealogy. I’m using the open source GRAMPS program, which is mostly working, although I had to hand modify the ubuntu installed package to remove gtkspell support again because it always stalls while trying to load it. A very odd error. I’ve got a lot of leads from talking to various family members. It could be a lot of fun.
• Final Fantasy quest. Every now and then I pick a game series and try and play through it from start to finish. Since Katy and I are starting to think about little ones soon, my tiny ‘OMG I must do XXXX before I really grow up and have kids!’ thing was deciding to play through every final fantasy game starting from 1 and ending with 12. (Final Fantasy 11 doesn’t count, I refuse to pay a monthly fee to play a game, I just don’t have that much time).So.. I already have 7 and 8 for the PC, I got the PS1 version of 9 that I hope my PS2 Slim can play (haven’t tried). I already have 10 and 12 for the PS2. And for my birthday I went out and bought a Nintendo DS, and used copies of FF 1&2, Dawn of Souls for the GBA, FF3 for the DS, and FF6 for the GBA. I’m waiting for FF4 for the DS to come down in price, and FF5 for the GBA wasn’t available at my gamestop. So far, I’ve played and beaten 1 and 2, and I’m in the middle of three. The one unexpected hazard I’ve run into is that I also bought Brain Age, and my wife has taken such a liking to playing BA and it’s sudoku on the DS that it’s been hard fighting for time on the DS. I find this wildly amusing.

So, between work which keeps me very very busy, real life, and all these little projects, I think I’m set with free time for a while.