Week of 7th August, 2006

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Monday, 7th August

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Tuesday, 8th August

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Wednesday, 9th August

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Thursday, 10th August

Good. That's the early shifts over for a while - my shift swap buddy is back from leave next week, and we'll set up the next swap, so that I don't have to hear that horrible beeping at 04.45.

Fun with the new ingest system, now that I've learned how to tell it that a schedule has been amended. We need to do this, becasue the new system pushes material to transmission, depending on a copy of the schedule that it keeps. And it isn't automatically amended from the transmission system when a change is made... oh, no, that would be too easy. The amendment is simple enough, and is done by drag-and-drop, but it seems an unnecessary extra task.

There have been many changes these last days, and new functionality keeps appearing. Today they fixed an annoying bug - when you browse for material (remember, this is all done in a web browser) you type the house number (our term)/material ID (their term) into a query box. Before today, you could not hit <enter> to that, and have it work. No, <enter> cleared the box. Why? This 'feature' isn't present in other entry screens.Today, they fixed it - but they broke a function in the "Media Registration" screen, where you tell the system what material IDs are on a particular piece of media (typically a tape)

I will say this - they fixed this new bug quickly. I should hope so, it's a showstopper. If we can't see what elements are associated with a particular Material ID, we can't make sure that everything is right - and the system will blindly obey what it thinks it has, which could very easily cause something to air mute. And this has already happened, because someone selected the wrong audio profile for a clip. So if we can't see what's been selected, we can't make sure it's right...

But enough of that - it's no fun any more.

We've had a call from a friend (and, in fact, former client of Jane's) Her computer needs fixed - combination of finger trouble, and an upcoming upgrade. So, this evening after work, I went round to investigate. The machine is a 6 year old Dell, with a nice big hard disk, of which 13.5GB is still free. The OS is WinME.

Friend had already installed (entirely legally, the discs were a gift from someone who didn't need them) a copy of Office XP on her daughter's laptop, including the mandatory 'activation', and then thought, "I need PowerPoint. It's on this disk. I'll install it." She had sense enough not to activate it, which would probably have clobbered daughter's copy, which, of course, left her with the "You have 50 (and counting) more invocations of this software" and a clobbered original installation of MS Word from the MS Works 6.0 Suite.

Having found this, I removed Office XP, and installed in it's place my copy of Office 2000. Which, of course, worked. Then I did a bit of housekeeping, mainly removing files that weren't removed by the uninstallers. Isn't it amazing how many files are left behind by a successful so-called "complete" removal?

It also turns out that she's ordered cable broadband from NTL, to be installed next Tuesday. Cable modems typically present to the user as Ethernet, and this Dell dates from before the time when motherboard Ethernet ports became ubiquitous, so I'll have to buy in a network card - I say buy, because, although I have several PCI Ethercards, I can't put my hands on a known-good one at this minute. I've brought the machine back to fit the card and check things out, which will mean that friend Anne has a known-working computer when the NTL man arrives on Tuesday.

Provided, of course, that I can get Jenny off Optimum - his keyboard,. mouse and monitor are shared across two *nix boxen and any visiting machines via a Corega 4-port KVM switch.

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Friday, 11th August

OK, I've got the network card, from my local computer shop. It's a Dynamode 10/100 card, Realtek-based. Then I had to visit the local library, in search of a particular reference work, in order to answer a query on the "Time-nuts" mailing list.

And, of course, the tome is in the archive, not shelved in the normal place. Should be delivered Monday, but I can't get in again before Wednesday, so that will have to do. I did find another book, with a description of a similar device, and borrowed that in order to copy the relevant pages.

After that, I spent most of the rest of the day moving boxes from old storage place to new place. A total of 4 runs moved about 60 cubic feet of boxes, emptying the smaller room at the old place in the process, and starting on the bigger room. All will be consolidated into one room at the new place, and I'll take the chance to filter out and throw some redundant things.

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Saturday, 12th August

Probably another 30 to 40 cubic feet moved today, not a little of which went straight to the local dump. After all, I'm not going to need any 14 or 15 inch CRT monitors any more - my next monitor will be an LCD - and I dumped original Tux (the DEC Venturis 90) and Porsche (the Carrera 486) as well. I'm never going to use them again, either.

Anne's computer upgrade, to add the network card went fine, once I'd worked out how to get into the case. The case Dell used for Dimension 8100s of this vintage is tool-less, but access is not obvious.

The machine woke up on my network quickly, but insisted on a reboot after it detected my (different) monitor. It then detected the new network card, and used it after another reboot.

So I patched the machine up-to-date, and updated AVG, too. Then I took it back to Anne, and plumbed it in again. I'll go back after the NTL installer has done his thing, and install the little Netgear RP614 firewall router, so that the desktop, Anne's work laptop, and her daughter's laptop can all get 'net access simultaneously. Mem: must check prices for the RP614.

<pause>

UKP33 from Dabs. So that's all sorted.

I've been researching a surveying instrument called a Danjon Astrolabe, in response to a query on the time-nuts mailing list. I know where I can get some info on it, but not before Wednesday (it's a library book, which is archived, not on the main shelves) But I did find info on the Prismatic Astrolabe, which is a similar instrument. So I've scanned, PDF'd and posted the relevant pages.

I scanned the book via Paperport 8, using the Canon D1250U flatbed scanner at 200 dpi, and titivated the scans before saving them. Then I made the PDF using PDF995. The resulting PDF is 2.6MB for 8 A5 page images. At 600 dpi, it's 14MB.

I used the sponsored version of PDF995, which pops adverts in a new instance of IE, despite my default browser being Firefox. Disregarding user's preferences is rude. It also puts up a nag screen for about 10 seconds. But registration is only $9.95, so I may spring for it, if I make much more use of the programme.

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Sunday, 13th August

The hot spell seems to have gone away for the moment, and today it rained quite heavily. Aloysius P. Murphy ensured that I was moving things from storage to storage at the time, so I got rained on. That was enough to make me declare  "Enough for today." There are probably 3 or 4 more carloads of boxes to move, and a few more things to dump. I know there's one - the old Ikea pine gateleg table that I've been storing since I brought the G-Plan dining table up from Wales after Mum died. We won't need it again, and there's no prospect of Sarah moving out any time soon, so she won't need to furnish her own place. So it's got to go - it's about 16 cubic feet in it's own right.


The security events of these last few days have given me seriously to think. With the arrest of upwards of 20 men of Middle-Eastern extraction (but mostly British citizenship) on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts, via the use of divers liquids to make suicide bombs for airliners, we have seen utter chaos at UK airports. So the alleged conspiracy has had some result - not the one that was allegedly being planned, but a result nonetheless.

Of course, if one is not allowed to have more carry-on baggage than can be fitted in one clear plastic bag - and no liquids or electronic devices (all such must be checked in for hold transit or left behind) a question naturally raises itself.

Posit: you have with you a laptop computer, your MP3 player, and several books. The authorities will insist that all such things travel in checked baggage, in the hold. And the cases must be unlocked, for ease of searching.

Someone pinches your laptop, from the unlocked bag.

Your insurance company denies the claim, because (get this) "You have taken insufficient care of the goods." Now we all know that insurance companies collect premiums with glee, and are often very reluctant to pay out, but this is ridiculous - you are ordered by security staff to check your computer, so it is, by fiat, out of your control. And, of course, the security people do not then assume the risk of theft.

The cure for this would seem to be not carrying banned goods. Which very likely means a planeful of terminally bored, dehydrated passengers, all very irritated with everyone in sight. Not a few of whom will drown their sorrows in alcohol (bought at duty-free prices on the plane) and given the tendency of young male Britons to drnk to excess and break things in drunken carousing, we may see occasional mayhem.

I pass - I'm not flying until this blows over, if it ever does. But Jane's brother Simon flies out a week tomorrow, with family, for a holiday. Good luck, say I, especially as I'll be chauffeuring them to Gatwick.

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