Week of 27th July, 2015

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Monday, 27th July

MCR overtime tonght. But before that, I've got to do a bit of work on the downpipe outside the back door at Mum's house. It has a tendency to dump rainwater too close to the house, even though said water is actually going down a drain. And the drain needs a new cover. It currently has a piece of rotting MDF over it, rather than the metal grille that should be there. That cover is necessary - the drain is about 18x12 inches, and tapers down to an outlet fully a foot below ground. It's a serious break-your-leg hazard, and needs to be fixed soon. Simon was there, and we agreed he would progress the new drain cover.

So I need to get some uPVC rainwater goods to adjust the bottom of the drainpipe. My first thought was B&Q, so off I toddled. And it turns out that B&Q's rainwater goods are all 68mm diameter or smaller. The one I need is 75mm, or 3 inch. Luckily, one of the B&Q staff recognised the brand label on the outlet spout I was carrying as a sample, and pointed me to another store nearby. But I had other things to do - cash money, and cat food for Splodge - which I felt were more important. I'll sort this later this week - I'll not be good for very much tomorrow during shop opening hours.

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Tuesday, 28th July

And so it proved. The MCR shifts run from 10:00 to 22:00, or 22:00 to 10:00. I was doing the latter, and on this night all I had to do was press 2 buttons at laid-down times, and log everything - besides monitoring outgoing programme streams. No incoming feeds to line up.

Some weeks ago, I bought a bigger LED bulb for the study. The one that's there is a mere 3 watts, and while it works, it's not enough. So I bought a Verbatim 52131, rated at 5 watts, equivalent to a 41 watt incandescent, from Maplin. And unlike the original bulb, it's a bayonet fitting, rather than the ES fitting, with adaptor, of the original.

It works, from a brief test, but how efficacious it is, I have yet to find out, since I haven't used it in earnest yet.

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Wednesday, 29th July

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Thursday, 30th July

That's this fortnight over. Next is nights. Oh, joy. And I've taken MCR overtime on nights next Wednesday and Thursday. I will be completely cream-crackered by the following Monday morning. Time was, I could do this without too much problem. But I ain't so young any more...

After that, who knows? I certainly don't. But another 2½ years will see the mortgage written off. Another year after that will see off the credit cards. So I can see the light at the end of the work tunnel - and be reasonably sure it isn't a train...

The Verbatim LED bulb is a success. Much brighter than the original. It takes about a second to wake up when you flip the switch, but after that it lights up the room very well. Admittedly, the study is about 3 metres by 2 metres, so we're talking a small room, but this LED is much better than the CFL I had before, which took minutes to warm up and get to peak brightness. So that's a result.

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Friday, 31st July

The new-to-me Dell Latitude 2100 netbook is confirmed to have a weak battery - 5 minutes running time ate about 20% battery. So no more than half-an-hour life. But I knew this going in. Replacement batteries are easily available, but quality is questionable, especially at the cheap end of the spectrum. No matter, a good battery for this beast is a future task.

Today, I installed Audiograbber 1.83SE, and the LAME MP3 add-in for it. And the installers from the home site are loaded with questionable extras - the LAME plug-in came with at least 6 of them, each with a different way of refusing it. You have to read the screen carefully - in at least one case, the "no, thanks" button appears greyed-out, even though it can be clicked.

If care is taken at install time to avoid questionable bloatware, Audiograbber works well. As does MP3Tag, which is an ID3 tag editor. I ripped about 5 CDs this morning, before going out to the cafe to meet Jane, her Mum, and cousin Liz for lunch, as is our habit. I've got another 8 to do - 4 double-CD sets. I'll do those once the Dell finishes installing 141 updates - as I type, it's taken over 3 hours. And it's not done yet...

Micro$oft have released Windows 10. And despite the fact that inspiration has had the "Upgrade Windows" icon in his taskbar for weeks, and the upgrade is free, I'm not biting. Not yet. Everything I've seen suggests that Micro$oft released it too early - there are way too many bugs, and although they've dialled back the TIFKAM idiocy, the UI is still not as good as XP, or even WIN 7. But I suppose it's too much to hope that M$ will recognise that.

Their latest ploy is to nuke your preferences as to default programmes, if those programmes are non-Redmond. There are reports that a WIN 10 upgrade will replace your preference for, e.g, Chrome with Edge, the IE-replacement, or VLC with Media Player. It is possible to defeat this, but it is not easy, or obvious. I wonder what the EU will have to say about that.

Later: After 5 hours, at least 3 of which were spent "installing update 104 of 141" I decided that Something Was Not Right. So I tried a power down - press and hold the power button until there was a click, and all the lights went out. Powering up again got me the usual ungraceful powerdown screen, at which I said, "Start Normally" and eventually the Dell started configuring updates. Followed by "Failure to configure updates, reverting..." But at least the machine continues to work.

And I ripped a 2-CD set. Now to sort out the ID3 tagging. Online sites offer an automated service for this, but the results leave much to be desired, IMHO. So I'll have to edit, manually. mp3tag is my tool-of-choice for this.

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Saturday, 1st August

There are 193 updates to be applied to the Dell, and I don't know which one makes the entire process hang. I have my suspicions about the "Malicious Software Removal Tool, July 2015", because a second update run with just that and MicroSoft Security Essentials, also hung, although MSE did eventually install. So a session with Windows Update is indicated - maybe 20 or 30 updates at a time, specifically excluding MSRT.

I've also purchased a PowerPole crimp tool from SOTABeams, which is cheap for the type of tool. I suspect it'll also work for automotive-style crimp connectors, but the PPs are the most important.

With the crimper, I bought a 4-way PowerPole parallel box, which will be useful for connecting multiple things to a feed from a car battery.

SotaBeams specialise in accessories for the radio amateur who indulges his hobby outside the home, particularly as part of the Summits On The Air programme, where you hike to the top of a hill/small mountain (defined in the programme rules) and score award points by contacting other amateurs who are doing the same thing. Hiking to your operating location means that your gear has to be light in weight.

And I've bought a new battery for the Dell. Dell themselves want your arm - their 6-cell 4400mAh battery costs UKP123 and change plus shipping. I've ordered from e-Store, an Amazon affiliate, for UKP14.98, shipped. Should be here by next weekend.

<pause>

MSRT appears to have run. And WIN 7 SP1 is in the queue. So I've omitted all the .NET updates, and SP1, which leaves 164 items. And that's running.

<long pause>

And despite appearing to fail, Windows Update believes all 164 have installed. I'll do the rest tomorrow.

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Sunday, 2nd August

Well, Windows Update may believe that they installed, but the "install when you shut it down" part of WIN 7 doesn't. It is, of course, possible that the two functions do not communicate, but it's more likely that things failed. This is ungood. I'm going to have problems with this machine if the update process is borked.

On Friday, I retried the purchase of uPVC rainwater goods for Mum's house. The recommended builders' merchant requires an account, but is not strict in the matter, so I could get the necessary parts. Of course, uPVC pipework strictly requires glueing together, with a solvent glue, but we should be able to fix the bits on with self-tapping screws, because this is going to need taking off again once Simon has found the safety grille cover. He has hopes for this, but I have no further info at the moment.

 

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