Talk about time lapse!

I plugged in my Toshiba that happens to be running Slackware-current. It's been off awhile and I noticed that the time was an hour or so behind, so I ran the below:

root@toshi:~# ntpdate ntp.nasa.gov
Looking for host ntp.nasa.gov and service ntp
host found : ntp-nasa.arc.nasa.gov
18 May 19:23:05 ntpdate[2185]: step time server 198.123.30.132 offset 4042.874524 sec
root@toshi:~# ntpdate ntp.nasa.gov
Looking for host ntp.nasa.gov and service ntp
host found : ntp-nasa.arc.nasa.gov
18 May 19:23:09 ntpdate[2188]: adjust time server 198.123.30.132 offset -0.000203 sec

I know this thing has a CMOS battery. Why the hell did it lose that much time??

I also got a Dell Precision 220 from work yesterday. They were going to throw it out. It's a decent system, but a coworker stripped the RAM before I got ahold of it. Unfortunately, it requires RAMBUS RAM. I'm looking now on eBay for some cheap RAMBUS RAM. The machine is dual proc capable but has one 667MHz Pentium III CPU. It is all IDE instead of SCSI like my Precision 410, but that's OK. It's internal layout is nice for a flat case. It has 2xUSB ports in the back. It has 5 PCI slots, so I can add a USB 2.0 PCI card when I get the chance. It has an integrated NIC (10/100) and came with a V770 PCI vidcard. It also has a Zip Drive. It has space for two hard disks and a CD drive. I have spare hard disks (all SCSI though). I may add SATA technology to it, though. I also grabbed a 17" CRT monitor that was about to be trashed also, and a bunch of CAT5 (that was golden, as CAT5 is expensive). I only need to decide what OS/distro I'm going to put on it...maybe NetBSD, as I already have a FreeBSD and an OpenBSD box). I also need to decide what duties this box will perform. The box has some life left, as it will take a gig of RAM and the CPU is upgradable to 1GHz.

I now need a big rack, as my systems are starting to pile up and my computer room looks horrendous!

A Dell rep or contractor will be showing up at my home tomorrow to repair my Inspiron 8500's monitor. Tomorrow is the last day of its service contract. I may renew it, as that laptop is my powerhouse machine, the most high-end system I have. My self-built tower probably has more raw horsepower (it's my gaming machine) but the Inspiron is troublefree and does indeed have a serious power at 2GHz. I usually watch my TiVo'd movies on it, crunch data on it when I boot into Slackware (it's a dual boot machine), or watch DVDs.

I'm still eyeing a Mac laptop or maybe even a Mac mini. Funds are the issue. We shall see what the near future holds for me. ;)