(Saturday 17th February 2007)I hope the photopage displays a bit better now, having felt like I worked most of the day on it! Can I hell work out how to put the sitemeter and email/home page links at the bottom of the page ... but at least the photos all display properly and look reasonably tidy, both in 17" monitors, and 22" and 15.4" widescreen monitors. I haven't been able to test any others (can't be bothered to get my old laptop out either!). It works in Firefox, Internet Explorer and AOL OpenRide .... and I'm now sick to death of it!
(Friday 16th February 2007)I realise the photopage doesn't look symmetrical any more - not the top line of photos anyway. I'm trying to make it work in 22" monitors as well as 17" in whatever browser people choose - no easy task and I may end up just listing them one after the other. Either way, I've decided it can wait, I'm in no mood to grapple with it tonight.
(Wednesday 14th February 2007)Well, Dad is on his way as we speak - a month in New Zealand and a first class flight to get over there. How I'd love the chance of a lifetime like that!
I've come to really, really like Vista at the moment. Nicely installed on my main PC, I think I can live with it now. Installing the hosts file has got rid of those oh-so-irritating adverts that come with Windows Live Messenger and AIM (which I'm having to use instead of Trillian unless I want to lose the aero effects). Window switching is cool :) and I don't have any major hardware problems. True, the printers are flakey but at least they both work from here and every PC can use a printer, apart from the laptop which I guess would need one plugging in locally. Surprisingly after initially failing to be recognised, now both my old scanners are working with the original driver CDs. The laptop has consistently refused to recognise any of my usb keys which is annoying but I think that will stay with XP as the major OS for a while, especially as moduslink are so incredibly inefficient at sending out my free Vista upgrade. I'm going to have to reinstall Vista Ultimate on the SFF as I recently had a mouse disaster, but that will probably only be a skeleton install at least for the time being. It may not continue to work, and other users will prefer XP anyway, so there isn't a huge proportion of space given over for Vista. But this PC - I love it. I'm not going to put XP on the ready made partition now, I'll see if Ubuntu will install - if not, it will simply be data space. Readyboost is proving useful and though bluetooth won't work (my dongle anyway) on here, there are other options for printing from my phone onto this local printer, like removing the memory card from the phone or using the cable connection. Altogether, I'm happy.
Feels strange not being at work. One thing, I work for a great company - I many have niggles and complaints, but when the chips are down, they come good and that's happened a couple of times.
(Wednesday 7th February 2007)And I am so sick of deleting the recycle bin instead of emptying its contents! Incredibly easy to do and fiddly to reset (though I'm getting good through sheer practice). I'm also getting slick at gaining access to my own folders which come up with an "access denied" message until you've jumped through an incredible number of NTFS file permission hoops (just to see inside your own pictures for instance). There is a direct route, but it's not the most obvious one and it really annoys me to click on "My Videos" only to be told I don't have permission to access that folder!
(Tuesday 6th February 2007)I feel like I'm looking after about 6 computers at the moment ... with all three here dual booting between Vista and XP, it's meant 3 new installs of Vista which still need a lot of work, plus a reinstall of XP on my main PC. I've given up on the xmas video for the time being, deciding the firefox error was too irritating to put up with, so there's now just a link to it.
I'm supposed to be having 4 weeks off on sick leave as my RA is really causing problems with my right wrist at the moment, however statutory sick pay is a luxury I can't afford. I just hope this methotrexate kicks in soon.
(Monday 29th January 2007)Our 24th wedding anniversary today ... doesn't time fly. And a very Happy Birthday to Emily, a bit belated but never mind! Vista continues to be a nightmare out of all proportion and is rapidly killing off my PCs and hardware.
(Sunday 28th January 2007)Well, back from a wonderful break in Shetland! No northern lights and Comet Mcnaught had disappeared into the southern horizon (irritatingly) but we did catch the Scalloway Up Helly Aa procession, postponed from the previous week due to atrocious weather. Not having enough space on my camera to take a decent video, I did catch what will at least be a memory of the event on my phone, which can be viewed here. Among other things we also visited Britain's most northerly post office, Britain's best bus shelter (which is also the most northerly and has a TV, microwave and sofa), and sampled Clickimin's state of the art leisure complex. The only snag to our holiday was the travel arrangements which didn't quite work as planned .... but more on all this later.
Since I got back, I've installed my Home Premium copies of Vista on the laptop and main PC. What a nightmare! Irritatingly my lower spec desktop PC scores more highly under Vista's rating system than my dual core athlon64 processor with PCI graphics card, SATA drives and 2GB RAM which only gets a 2.8! This is down to the graphics card, bought specifically for aero which is more than adequate. Luckily, my laptop's onboard graphics drivers support aero - a recent change by Intel. At the moment all systems are dual boot, which in itself has caused some problems in that partitioning my dual core PC resulted in the loss of a data drive and a somewhat faulty XP install. And Vista is lacking a *lot* of reliable drivers. For the approximately 15 gig it demands of your hard drive, I'm amazed they haven't been able to include more compatible drivers for hardware like printers and USB sticks. The printers seem to please themselves as to whether they work or not - each printer will print locally, the laptop which only accesses network printers will only recognise the old HP deskjet, my SFF will print from either, and my dual core will only recognise the Canon. These sort of niggles (and there are many) aren't convincing me to switch over completely to Vista yet by a long way.
(Saturday 13th January 2007)Not long now until Anne and I go to Shetland. Vista Ultimate is working nicely on my second PC, the timer conveniently frozen at day 30 of the evaluation period ... so far so good. Not so good to hear the deal done between OCUK and MS to ship pre-ordered copies of Vista on the 19th January has slipped, first a week and now it's going to be the 30th Jan just like everywhere else. Why am I not surprised at this?
(Friday 5th January 2007)We seem to have acquired a new cat, as Kevin from next door has decided to move in! Maybe missing the attention he used to get before their baby arrived, he's making himself quite at home. Lucy isn't exactly thrilled but being a cat lover, it's hard not to accept him, especially as he's a likeable, intensely curious 6 year old.
(Monday 1st January 2007)
I see HD DVD's AACS Protection has been cracked in just 8 days. What with that and Vista's time bomb solution, it doesn't seem like Microsoft or any of the other high profile companies involved here have really got copyright protection sussed. Watch the video demonstration. Update - the video seems to have been removed!
(Monday 25th December 2006)
Watch this video performance by Louise and Jenny which accompanied our christmas dinner.
(Sunday 17th December 2006)I don't seem to have much luck in my quest to see the Northern Lights. Resigned to seeing all our Shetland trips over the past 12 months hit the sun's lowest period of solar activity in its 11 year cycle, the recent unexpected coronal flare produced a brilliant display in Shetland apparently, but a month too soon from our point of view! SpaceWeather.com predict the following: "As soon as sunspot 930 is out of sight, solar activity will return to low levels. Stay tuned for quiet."
(Monday 11th December 2006)Thank goodness for Passware. Not a particularly up to date copy, it's just come in very useful having forgotten a vba password set on a project a long time ago! It just goes to show - you can have a very "good" password, but if you're going to put it into any Office app, it's going to be cracked within seconds.
(Wednesday 6th December 2006)Yet another banner on the site ... AntiOnline. Not enough hours in the day at the moment and Christmas is starting its relentless march. The sooner it's over the better.
(Thursday 22nd November 2006)An interesting and rather worrying proof of concept flaw has been discovered in Firefox v2 Password Manager. For a demonstration, try this and have a look at the URL when you click on the video.
(Sunday 12th November 2006)Talk about zero day warez ... Vista only went to manufacture on Wednesday and businesses won't have it till the end of the month. Home users will have to wait until the end of January, yet it's all over the internet! Sadly, activation keys aren't quite as prolific but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.
Belfast threw up unexpected networking problems when Ryan presented me with his recently restored laptop which "couldn't get web pages". My own laptop had the same problem, ie a strong connection to the wireless signal, but an IP of 169.xxx.xxx.xxx and no internet. Unfortunately I ran out of time to sort it which was a pity, as trips to Belfast to fix Emily's computer are reasonable with Easyjet but still cost money. Resetting the router back to factory defaults and reconfiguring the network are possibly going to be beyond Emily and Ryan, so for the moment we're stuck.
(Monday 6th November 2006)Off to Belfast tomorrow, with Derek, Rosie and Dad. The idea is that I fix a few problems on Emily's Windows install and generally update and do some maintenance work on her computer. It's going to mean at least a restore and maybe a complete reinstall - we'll see. Meanwhile here's a photo of the inside of the Sage and Hall One. It's a spectacular building, both inside and out, accoustically excellent and the concert we went to see, featuring Jambone and Folkestra was of a very high standard. Until she went to university, my neice played the saxaphone in the Jambone orchestra.
(Saturday 28th October 2006)Finally got round to donating a server to the Tor project. Configuring a Tor server is something that anyone interested in the project can help by contributing - it's not necessary to be an exit node if you've reservations or worries about that. At the moment the service is slow for browsing due to the large number of people wanting to use it, and not enough people prepared to help by running a server, so if you value the basic right to some anonymity on the web, then please consider it. This project was very important to lilo and he put a lot of effort into making it work on freenode. I feel happier having put a little bit back.
(Thursday 26th October 2006)Seems ages since I updated this site. Just back from a strenuous walk in the Pennines, which was a fantastic day out. Even though we battled against gale force winds, temporarily going off course and ending up having to treck through some really rough ground against horizontal rain (which made us thankful for a shelter we found at a disused mine), it was good to get out into the isolated ruggedness of the Pennines again - it's a long time since I've done a walk there.
(Sunday 8th October 2006)Back from a great week away - visiting Louise in Bath worked out well, among other things we sampled the hot spring water and took a ferry ride along the river Avon in Bristol. I stupidly managed to leave my handbag on the ferry which could have been disastrous as it contained everything of any value, ie passport, money, return tickets to the airport, digital camera, phone etc. However we were lucky - I phoned the ferry company who radioed the boat, and the bag was dropped off as the ferry made its return journey back to the place we'd got off. The number of people catching the 7.15 am flight from Newcastle to Bristol on a Sunday morning can only be described as sad, and I'm not much impressed with the climate - we landed in a thunderstorm and endured a monsoon for the rest of Sunday.
On Tuesday we went up to Embleton for a few days and among other things, climbed Cushat Law and Hodgen's Law in the Cheviots. Below are a couple of thumbnails - click to see larger photos of Hogden Law and the wonderful full moon that shone across the sea. Pity we never did manage to set the telescope up to view it, but my camera took a better than expected photo!
(Saturday 30th September 2006)These last few weeks haven't been easy, but I'm looking forward to a week's holiday. Nominet and Freenode/#tor continue to irritate me and I've come to the conclusion that my intended linux install will have to be done on the SFF, as this dual core does not seem to like sharing XP with any other operating system. I've just finished yet another complete reinstall of Windows (which in fact I seem to have completed a lot quicker than on previous occasions). Tomorrow Derek and I fly down to Bristol, then catch the train to Bath, to spend some time with Louise and see her new flat. After that, we plan to spend the rest of the week at Embleton. There's one more task to perform before I can hopefully achieve some closure on recent events - at any rate, it should be a relaxing, peaceful week.
(Monday 18th September 2006)Another page archived as this previous index page was starting to look a bit long. As the number of archived pages and separate reports grow, the text that remains on every index page is starting to make it look quite lengthy even without any edits!
(Sunday 17th September 2006)A very sad day today. Still shocked by the recent death of Steve Irwin, my mother sadly died this morning, which although not exactly unexpected, was still rather sudden and hard to take in. Then a few minutes ago I sat down at the computer to catch up on email and the first thing I read on mirc is this story about lilo :( who ran freenode and was someone I chatted to frequently in #tor.
(Sunday 3rd September 2006)Finally got some photos online and a short report of the 2006 Cheviots Challenge that Rosie and I completed last weekend.
(Monday 28th August 2006)Completed the Cheviots Challenge on Saturday - my 8th event, having taken part every year since 1998 apart from 2001 when it was cancelled due to Foot and Mouth. I'll hopefully soon be able to post a few photos and a report on the day, which was very enjoyable. At the last minute Rosie, my daughter decided to take part and finished in a really good time, well up on when she did the challenge 4 years ago. Although a training walk would have been nice, I was happy enough to finish comfortably well inside the allowed time and while still somewhat stiff, I'm not suffering from any injuries or blisters!
(Sunday 20th August 2006)I just love spending my Sunday afternoons tracking down elusive drivers for old no-longer-supported hardware made by a company which seems to have split, merged and changed its name since it manufactured that particular motherboard. In the end I've fitted a dedicated graphics card on this second hand PC for Philip and given up on the onboard vga drivers. I've eventually found a third party sound driver which works and have added a CD-RW, and with more RAM, Philip should have an adequate PC for a while.
To read more archive weblogs, click here which will take you to the previous archive, which in turn contains a link to the one before that.
