frolicking on insanity beach

Drum Roll..........

Fanfare.............

Chorus of Heavenly Angels................

It is complete. The beast is purring quietly beside me in all it's black shinyness (with blue neon lights). Vista (ultimate 64 bit) is installed and working. All is well. Well sort off. I had unexpected expenditure in the form of a new modem, because my impeccable planning missed one tiny element. Interested then pull a up a chair and I will regale you with the story (if not read NLPH's blog as listed at the side because that is funny) For those still with me it goes something like this. I had downloaded all the drivers required for the graphics card, I had ensured that all the software I had was compatible, all system disks present and correct. Loaded Vista, went like a dream, loaded drivers, super smashing great, loaded system disks excellent, plugged in all the peripherals (printers etc) recognised them first time, brilliant. Attach Broadband modem....umm why is there only 1 red light when there should be 2 green. Attempt to load software, no joy, use a variety of geeky tricks nothing, zilch, zero. Last ditch ring orange (my Internet provider, used to be called wanadoo and prior to that freeserve). Nice lady called sue answered. Somewhere south of Bombay. Ahhhh. Very Helpful but.... After some protracted discussion, it was finally established that Vista doesn't support my modem or vice versa. I was informed that I could try XP as it would work with that. I put the phone down. Got the car keys and drove to the nearest PC World. One round trip later (50 miles) new router/modem plugged in, installed and surfing to my hearts content. I consider myself quite tech savy and genuinely thought that as the modem was only an external device designed to enable my phone line to be broadband compliant that it would work irrespective of the operating system employed. Wrong with a capital W. It only goes to show that there is always something to learn. And yes, I did indeed swear a lot and curse microsoft, but I should have checked. I also bought Office 2007 (not the complete version because that is, wait for this FIVE HUNDRED QUID!!!!!!!. It was bad enough shelling out £99 for the abridged home office version. Who on earth spends £500 on an office application (probably the same ones who spend a fortune on their computer. (Yes it is an emoticon but I couldn't figure out a way of me going um, er ).

Anyway I am now typing this incredibly slowly on a really fast computer but thats progress.

Keep well

 

The beast is built, but it still sits idly. The reason. I have, of course, changed my mind. I decided to go down the Vista route and I have therefore purchased Vista Ultimate. It is the OEM version (no manual, one machine install only and no on-line support from microsoft) but it is a fraction of the price compared to PC World et al. It would be similar in principle to the disk you would get if you were to purchase a complete system from a manufacturer (normally termed recovery disk or something like that). It will hopefully arrive tomorow and then we shall see. I have also downloaded all the latest drivers for the other bits onto my dongle and everything is ready to go. I merely await the postman (or delivery company). I am again, of course, not holding my breath.

Away from the geeky tech world that I sort of inhabit, I had the most pleasuarable of experiences today. My daughter had rung up asking if we could babysit (see previous entries re:insufferably cute grandaughter) so of course it was a yes (she and her other half are building some sort of rockery for the other Grannie). Baby duly arrives, and, as she who must be obeyed is busy doing work for her business I was appointed chief babysitter. We played with all the noisy things, we had an orange (most messy and sticky), we went for a walk. Then she decided that enough was enough and it was time for a nap. So with her asleep in my arms I watched the telly. I can safely say there is nothing like holding a sleeping baby to bring a feeling of utmost calm and peace to yourself. I think maybe that world leaders, fanatics (are they the same thing), and other such types should have sleeping babies placed in their arms and hopefully instead of ranting and destroying each other (and the world) they would experience calm and contentment. But probably not. I think you would be hard pressed to find a mother willing to let George Dubbya hold her most cherished or allow some ranting cleric within 10 miles of  a tiny tot, but I think it is quite a good theory.

Well must go, peace and well being to everyone........(fades to the sound of the coke advert jingle "I'd like to teach the world to sing......."

Well all the bits for the beast are now here and I have started assembling it. I have not made my mind up whether I should install Windows Vista (Premium) or stick with tried and tested XP. The graphic card I have purcgased is a new 8800 card and the drivers for Vista are still a bit iffy, so I shall probably wait until Service Pack 1 for Vista arrives and then install it. Aside from the new computer build I have also taken down she who must be obeyed's website. The reason for this is that she and her partner have a whole raft of new stuff so I have put up a temporary site until I have decided on the layout and content of the new site. I have enrolled on a Dreamweaver and Flash course for this and hopefully by the time I have finished, their new site will look vaguely professional. The temporary web site is at www.temparia.co.uk and I would like any thoughts on it's layout etc. Any comments good or bad will be greatly appreciated. All this is of course has left me little time for anything else, but I did have good news this week. I had a 3 month blood check and my glucose control is excellent (the doctor's words!!) my cholestrol is 4.8 (should be less than 5) and finally, I have dropped below the 14 Stone mark (been stalled thre for a while now). The only bad bit was that he advised me to keep off the alcohol for another 6 months (a year with no beer!!!!!!!) this was purely for dietary and sugar control reasons and not becuase he thought I was an alcoholic.

Well toodle pip until next time.

As I said previously what could possibly go wrong. It would appear that the PSU I wanted is not in Stock So I have changed it for a 620W modular model. This was early on Friday morning and as I was checking later to see how the order was now progressing I was informed that the cooling fan I wanted was also out of stock. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I duly cancelled the fan so that they could complete my order and get the rest of the bits out to me, so they should be here Monday. By the way, for those interested I have ordered a new fan ( A Big Typhoon which is exceptionally large and shiny). So hopefully fingers crossed and small children duly sacrificed I should have the bits by Monday, Built Tuesday Night, Software in Wednesday night and super high speed 3D-o-rama surfing Thursday night. I am not of course holding my breath.

Toodle Pip

The time has come, as it must, in every geeks life. The time to upgrade. I have flexed the mighty card that is for credit (it bent a little bit so it must be allright) and have spent some, much, lots of money, depending on who I am talking too. For other geeks it is lots, for the other half it is some and for the rest somewhere in between. I have purchased a new case, PSU, mobo, processor, Graphics card, memory etc. Hopefully the bits will have arrived by friday, Saturday to put it together and Sunday to install all software and updates. Monday write blog to tell how swimmingly it all went. Yeah right. Without doubt some great fly will undoubtedly land in the soup and drink all the best bits knowing my luck. Even so, no matter how goochy and blindingly quick it is, it will not improve my typing speed, nor will it make my blog anymore interesting, but it will do these things stonkingly quickly with 3D surround-a-gore-allsinging-lightshaded-physicsenabled-directx10-effectamongous beauty. I shall also be recycling the old machine to ensure that I behave in an ecologically sensitive way (the new machine also has green components with type A efficiency ratings). Yes it maybe a bit drastic to play solitaire at lightspeed but I have finally bit the bullet and gone down the dual core route. The real reason I have decided to upgrade is quite sad and it runs a bit like this. I was walking round PC world as you do and saw they had a bargain bucket software shelf. Quick mosey through the range and I noticed "URU. Ages beyond Myst". Now some of you might remember Myst it was a very visual adventure game with a series of quite hard ( at least I thought they were) puzzles to solve. I liked Myst, this is only £4.99 I will buy it and play it. Duly bought said item took it home and installed it. Attempted to play it Computer says NO. Tried again. Computer says NO. Switched off anything and everything that might be running in Background. Computer says NO. AAaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggghhhhhhh. £4.99 released in 2003 and my present machine says NO. So that was it, Teddy completely thrown out of the Cot, new computer on order all for the sake of £4.99. Well must go the other half is enquiring just how much some actually is. Well you know a bit more than thruppence but most definitely good valus and look at the speed and what a nice colour and.........

I try, in general, to be as green as I can possibly be. I turn off all lights that are not needed, I try (where the other half permits) to turn the heating down to a minimum. I recycle all our glass, papers and tin cans and all the cuttings etc go in our brown bin for composting. I walk most places (unfortunately I need a car to go to work, 60 mile round trip, with little or no public transport as an alternative), and yes we did go to New York for a holiday but a flight every decade is probably not over doing it. I raise this point because there are a lot of people in the Highlands who would like to recycle plastic. I am aware that this is difficult and quite costly, because there are so many different grades of plastic recycling. So with that in mind the question was raised if there would be a plastic recycling facility between the 2 councils of Moray and the Highlands, apparently not, too expensive was the reply. So what did our illustrious Council and Scottish executive do? Spend 16 million quid on Gaelic ( a language that is spoken by less than 3% of the population), we can have dual language road signs but I can't recycle plastic. I am all for preserving cultures, but at what cost. I feel the planet could probably do without a TV channel devoted exclusively to Gaelic, but another landfill site full of plastic bottles it most definitely doesn't need. As it happens due to the lack of landfill sites the rubbish that isn't recyclable is driven by very large lorries from Inverness through to Aberdeen ( a round trip journey of some 200 miles) every day. Very green I don't think. I am sure that given the chance, and with a bit of mandatory law thrown in, people would recycle most things. As we became more aware of the waste, the pressure would grow on the supermarkets and manufactures to stop wrapping everything in a ton of plastic, less plastic use, less chemical and oil and coal  use (see wikipedia entry for how plastic is made). The longer then would our natural resources last. I am not a miltant tree hugger, but I like to do my little bit, and if everbody did a little bit, I am sure that it would soon amount to a very big bit. Anyway I am now preaching.

Cheerio

An entry so soon after the last one, this one I think is more thought provoking and certainly more worrying than most. I like to surf the web and I have a variety of sites I like to visit (no, not THAT sort), one of them had this link of an American Artist who has used some quite mind boggling statistics to produce his art. The link is HERE .