Bigbro's foray into the scary world of blogging
08 2005
Plentiful scenery, an abundance of weather, some sheep...
posted at: 21:14 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
Got delayed due to the one road up North being closed. Looked like a 'not good' type of accident with a car upside down in the ditch, to some degree. So back to Ullapool we went to find a pub and get Diane to break an ATM.
Four hours late arriving into Lochinver resulted in us discovering that everything closes at 8pm... so we had a healthy and nutricious dinner of prawn cocktail flavoured crisps and Mars bars.
Then I got 6 under par on golf on my phone at 2am as a refreshing alternative to going to sleep. w00t! :-)
posted at: 11:46 | path: | permanent link to this entry
...while travelling over the Queensferry bridge in Scotland on a train seems strangely appropriate.
Apart from Edinburgh train station having the main road running through it the scenery up here seems very beautiful.
posted at: 14:06 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
I find myself travelling to Scotland wearing my Proclaimers T-shirt? Coincidence? Hmmm...
posted at: 12:15 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
A surprisingly enjoyable film. Lots of action, lots of explosions, lots of cardboard characters with some aspirations towards depth. All in all, a nice homagé to the Batman character of the D.C. Comics era. The storyline amused me tremendously - a plot with just enough realism to scare, yet which doesn't hold up under any scrutiny whatsoever. As an ardent fan of the "Kapow!", "Thwap!", and "Zonk!" days of Batman & Robin, I approved wholeheartedly as a 'brain-in-neutral' sit back and enjoy film.
It's also the first film I can recall that's credited the writers and arrangers of "Happy Birthday To You."
posted at: 12:14 | path: | permanent link to this entry
I commute home from work today in the knowledge that I will not be darkening the office door for another two and a half weeks. I always have mixed feelings about leaving work for an extended period, especially when I have a number of complex and involved projects on the go. Instead of project work I now have a number of complex and interwoven holiday projects to embark on, including a tour of Scotland, a wedding in Cork, meeting friends in Limerick, a long overdue visit to Galway and undoubtedly a PotD (Pint of the Day) in Dublin with the ILUG crew. I have the whole thing approximately half planned... and no packing has been done as yet :-)
posted at: 18:21 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Generate your own Cyborg Name
posted at: 16:55 | path: | permanent link to this entry
I use a HP2300d at work and recently (foolishly) upgraded the driver on the suggestion of Windows Update. This has resulted in me suffering for the last few weeks with a completely errant printer driver which insisted on trying to print everything as Letter, despite me changing all the settings, everywhere, to A4. There is clearly a major bug in the driver code. I repaired it successfully this evening by installing an old version of the printer driver that I had archived away for my laptop Windows build. Windows is already annoying enough for printing, hiding paper size settings in at least 3 separate places - but this bug drove me (almost literally) up the wall by hardwiring everything to Letter.
The Duplex options were also crazily broken, usually only working on the second and subsequent copy of things I printed more than one copy of. Even then it would run copies together, printing the first page of the next copy on the back of the final page of the previous copy, if the print job had an odd number of pages. All in all, a really appalling piece of software by HP and Microsoft (Whichever of them is to blame.)
I would tell you what version is installed now, but Windows doesn't seem to have any method of competently version controlling files, or if it does, HP don't use it. From the .inf file: "DriverVer=02/27/2003,60.05.30.01".
HP seemed to have removed the drivers from their website, so if anyone needs a copy of the old drivers, please mail me at blog+hpPrinting@signal2noise.co.uk.NOSPAM (removing the NOSPAM bit.)
Addendum: Windows Update has offered the HP LaserJet 2300 Series update
again. Unless you use Letter sized paper for everything, I recommend that you
do not install this driver:
Hewlett-Packard Company - Printers - HP LaserJet 2300 Series PS
Date last published: 7/22/2005
Download size: 10.2 MB
HP printer software update released on June 20 2005.
My pirate name is: Bloody Sam Kidd
Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!
Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.
posted at: 14:35 | path: | permanent link to this entry
I'd like to personally thank First Metro for leaving me standing in the rain for 45 minutes this morning. It's not like I had anything better to be doing and water to the area was due to be cut off from 8:30am, so I'll consider myself lucky to have had an extra shower.
In all seriousness, please, please make your bus service competent. People like myself depend on the busses to get to important things, like work, and while I feel the occasional delay of 10 minutes is acceptable, dropping a bus that only goes every 30 minutes anyway is unacceptable. If you want the public to use public transport, make it reliable.
posted at: 09:20 | path: /rants | permanent link to this entry
I've almost got it sorted. I now have a system for writing material on my 9500, which goes with me almost everywhere. It's very useful for writing little notes, to-do lists and a myriad of other things in - and since they can later be sync'ed to my PC it actually adds value to the way I work.
My discovery of posted at: 12:43 | path: | permanent link to this entry
I'm failing to understand how my laptop can get so confused about standby. It seems to think it has some right to power itself back up and use up all the battery. Of course, I don't usually forget to bring home the PSU. Thanks for being special Compaq.
posted at: 12:27 | path: /rants | permanent link to this entry
...in Ireland now requires that you remove coats, shoes and belts before walking through the metal detectors. I wonder how long before we're required to strip before passing through?
Perhaps some enterprising Finn will figure out how to combine airport security with a sauna...
posted at: 10:59 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
I've managed to resist - for 3 whole days - pointing out to Maria that she should probably have a word with the venue owner and tell him/her to sort out the buttressing under the stage then. It's just not safe to have a performance area that's not stable when you've got a band and all their equipment on it. It'd be like playing on a boat in the high seas... though yea and verily it would indeed rock... ;-)
posted at: 10:20 | path: | permanent link to this entry
...are for winners all year round. Mmmmm! Delicious! :-)
Zero Pie Dropping Policy!
posted at: 12:21 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
@things from yon internetwebsuperhighway...
I have a dual boot laptop which runs Windows (because I need Outlook and Visio and a number of other programs for work) and Ubuntu (most recently) Linux for work development stuff while on the move. For various reasons I have about 15GB NTFS for Windows 2000 and about 25GB ext3 for Linux. Quite often, I found I wanted to be able to access the data on the Linux partition from within Windows. Up until recently I've been using explore2fs and ext2ifs for accessing the Linux partition - but it was strictly read-only.
Today I have been introduced to Ext2fsd (Extended Second File-System Driver) which allows me read and write access to the Linux ext3 partition. I am a happy camper. Thanks to diamond for pointing me in the direction of such a useful tool.
posted at: 14:24 | path: /technical | permanent link to this entry
Very, very briefly, and mostly so I remember how to do it the next time I need to:
Assume that the RAID5 volume consists of at least /dev/sdb1, /dev/sdc1 and some others. Each partition is a type 'fd' partion (Linux raid autodetect) and takes the whole disk. /dev/sdc is the disk that has failed and /dev/sdb still works (This is only important because we're going to copy the partition information from /dev/sdb.)
/dev/sdc is SCSI device 0 2 0 on SCSI adaptor 0 (Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 02 Lun: 00 from /proc/scsi/scsi.)
Finally, and this is very VERY important - this procedure worked for me, on my hardware. It may not work on yours and it may instead remove all your data, the data from your next door neighbour's machine and make all the milk in your fridge turn sour (and possibly kill your household pets.) I take exactly 0 (zero) responsibility for any loss you endure, direct or consequential for trying this procedure, modified or otherwise, on your system (or anyone else's, for that matter.) Make sure you have an tested, up-to-date backup of your entire system before trying this procedure. - thanks :-)
How to replace a failed SCSI disk that's part of a s/w RAID volume (RAID5):
...rocks. The box set is truly the house shaped DVD box set by which all future house shaped DVD box sets shall be judged.
posted at: 16:28 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
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