Over the last two days, I've received weird, link-only emails from 3 different SSHG fen, at least two of whom I know to be very security-minded. I've only just let the third know about it, because I only just got that last email, but the first two were able to determine that their accounts had been accessed by someone in another country.

I'm not sure if someone is working through one of the archives or possibly the Exchange (I saw the Exchange admin email on one of the address lists, but that only means it was in the person's contact list), but three SSHG fangirls in 24 hrs feels like a pattern of some kind.

In any case, this is probably as good a time as any to make sure there's no weird stuff in your sent folder, strengthen your passwords, and whatever other reasonable measures you can think of to make sure your email account is secure. And if you get any such weirdness from me, please let me know so I can reset my passwords as well.

So, I finally, as in riiiight before the extended warranty expired, brought my laptop in for some last fiddly repairs. As it wasn't the motherboard again, I didn't actually think this was going to trigger the "no lemon" policy, however, it did. So I now have a shiny new Toshiba with way more memory and speed. Have spent much of today fiddling with settings, loading in stuff from the external hard drive backup, etc.

Goodbye, Vista. Hello, Windows 7.

I should probably read the documentation at some point. It says "Satellite" in letters that light up when it's on. It would probably be good if I had a clue what that meant. If anybody catches me tapping out a weird four-beat rhythm, though, I guess that'd be a clue. ;-)

Love the keyoard. There spaces between the keys are recessed, or the keys are more raised, or something. Anyway, less typos appear to be the result, and I just like the feel of it rather a lot.

So, the duct tape thing only worked for a little while. As I didn't want to be completely glued to electrical outlets, I called up Best Buy to see if the Geek Squad could do anything for me despite the lack of expensive warranty. Nope, they were going to ship it straight to HP. They did, however, suggest I check out One Byte since I was so against being without for 2-4 weeks, to see if they could do anything.

They did. Didn't take much. He popped the battery out to see if he could find what was keeping it from setting in properly, and in about a half second, found a broken shard of plastic.

"That can't be good," he said.

However, once it was removed, the battery went in fine. Everything now works fine. I'm sure that little bit of plastic had a purpose, but whatever it is, it appears not to have been critical. So yay!

On the writing front, characters are still being coy. *shakes them* Oh well. Maybe tonight will do the trick.