Weblog Quotes

I have just spent the last several hours attempting to connect to my own wireless network. Why?, you ask. Because.. I don’t actually know. :/

During Saturday early-evening, I set about making a few twiddly changes to the router settings; up-dating MAC addresses in the filter; the access key; typical networkie admin st00fs, and then I left for the weekend. No texts or calls about “the internet isn’t working”; or “the page won’t load”; or anything else, so I feel all is well.

That is, until I come home. For some un-explained reason, I was un-able to connect from my main desktop. That’s okay, not a problem. I’ll just ‘repair’. Nope; still red. Even if the internet is down, the router can still be accessed. So I turn off the router; and try a re-start. Nothing. Scratching my head leads me to turn another machine on, which connects perfectly fine.

Confused? Most certainly. After a brief look through the access list, I see nothing wrong; so end up pulling the dongle out of the desktop, and jabbing it back in. I guess it became angry at that point, as it just wouldn’t connect. Having re-arranged my room slightly some weeks before, I thought the change of ports may have caused a hiccup; as, after booting up, the device would scan for a few moments before connecting. Something it never performed whilst in the back of the machine. This thought led me on to stuffing the installation disk in; but I had forgotten how annoying the damn thing could be. After un-installing; re-installing; preventing boxes popping up; setting XP to manage the network; fixing the XP log-on; and re-starting the machine, the stupid little icon was still red.

I was not a happy kitteh. Looking through the router settings again, I decided to turn off access control; and see what happened. Nothing happened. The next step was to turn off the access key. That changed nothing either. So I growled a bit; well, a lot. I also up-dated Ubuntu at this point, as it asked nicely for me to do so; and since the machine was on and connected to the router, I thought “Why not.”.

Making myself a cup of tea, I stood, rather confused, wondering just why one machine wasn’t connecting; when it had been perfectly okay two days before. My next thought was location. Since I had moved the XP desktop further away from the router, I decided to move the router closer. This yielded little results, and led to further pulling out and plugging in of the dongle. It began to become frustrating, until life sprung into the little red icon.

Yes. We had a green icon! But don’t celebrate too early. The green soon became red again, after I re-activated the filter list; and the access key. .. At least this act narrowed down the issue; or so I thought. Another half hour or so was spent disabling the key, and prodding the dongle; which allowed the little red icon to sit in the tray, mocking me. It wasn’t fair. :’(

Thinking about my options, which consisted of either running a fifteen foot Ethernet cable from the router to the desktop; or from the router to the xbox, I started to trouble-shoot step by step. I knew distance and location where no longer an issue, as I was picking up networks perfectly fine. The dongle just wouldn’t connect. I turned off the filter; and still nothing. I checked the key; and it was the same on each device. I turned off the key; and still the red icon laughed in my face.

I was ready to give up at this point. The thought of it being one really small; in-significant change causing all of the grief entered my mind. After I moved the router back; tidied up; and re-booted the desktop, I pulled out the dongle; and sat for a moment. Not doing anything. Around seven minutes past by, and I lazily plugged the now hated stick back in. To my surprise, the not-so-funny red icon is replaced once again by a green one.

Well, “This is great!”, I thought. But me being me, I wouldn’t be satisfied until I had figured out what the issue was. And me being daft, that is what I set out to do. Knowing there was no security on the router, I set about turning pieces back on. This was where I noticed a change. A weird change. The channel which the router was using was some-how set to eight. Hmm. .. Poking it back to eleven, I saved the settings; and watched the little green icon dis-appear, and then come back again. .. So far so good. Moving on to the MAC filter list, I turned it on; and re-saved. Everything was working well. The little icon was still green; and we where rolling along.

At this point, I looked at the dongle; and shook my head slightly. It couldn’t possibly be. Placing the eleven back on to eight, I re-saved the settings once more. My nice little green icon vanishes; but comes back red! .. NEVAR!! So, it seams, after countless time and seemingly pointless actions, I had painfully deduced that my wireless dongle does not enjoy utilising channel eight of the router. At this point, I just felt like screaming at it.

Having switched back to channel eleven, I re-saved; and the icon became green. Success. Turning the key back on prompted another save, and rewarded me with yet another green icon. Everything was now working as it should. Fantastic!

So, from now on, if I am ever in a rush to head to the hospital again; I will never; ever; ever, manage my network before I leave. .. I need a stiff drink; and an hour of Glee. Woo!

Reading through the GAME website as I sometimes do, I came across WET. For most games, I mostly read the description first; and then move on, but with this I decided to look at the website for it; and spent some time watching the videos.

The visual action reminds me slightly of Stranglehold, with the slow motion; points for kills; reticule targeting; and acrobatic type dives. Although a martial arts master isn’t all that acrobatic.

The last three videos on the site where trailers for the game, which I am yet to see on television. Out of the three, the final one is the funniest; and worth a silly YouTube embedment:

I have since added the game to my wish list, and will keep an eye on it after release. It might be slightly enjoyable.

Well, I think I’m a prime example of why men are stupid. I’ll set the scene for you: *pulls curtains closed; fluffs pillows; dims lighting; rubs cream..* wait, what was I saying?

So anyway, there I was talking to Kezzie (<3) and attempting to turn my phone on. It wouldn’t work, so I tried again, and it managed to squeeze some life out; but only lasted a few seconds. I knew the battery was fully charged, as I had just had it plugged in.

At this point I cried to Kez, who told me to put it in the microwave. Hmm, I don’t have one, what about the oven? *sticks battery in the oven*

*forgets battery is in the oven*

*cries*

There, we suck!

I’m thinking it is a phone related issue and not the battery, since I’ve had it for six years now.

This seems to be the perfect excuse to buy a new one, but I don’t exactly have any money to spare.

Loading up trusty old Google for a little search time I noticed a few new icons kicking about near the results. “Hmmm”, I mumbled, “Are those something pointless from avg or something?”. Becoming intrigued I decided to click on one that just so happened to be next to my websites listing. Whaaat?

Nothing really happened, just my name appeared underneath and an arrow went green. This made me search for answers to this new feature, and I’m slightly surprised to learn it’s just a giant bookmark system.

You no longer need to bookmark 500 pages in your browser, just keep 20 search terms and let Google store everything for you. … actually, that’s a good idea; we won’t inadvertently loose any bookmarks after a bad browser crash and not backing up the bookmarks file like we’re supposed too!

This whole system has no effect on other peoples searches, it’s just there for you to keep the best, more informative, sites on top. Clicking the up arrow moves the result to the top of the list, and you can remove ‘bad’, less irrelevant, ones.

I like the idea of this, as it ensures the information you want stays within reach; if it doesn’t warrant a bookmarking. Mainly when you think you’ll never need something again and later realise you do and just can’t find it.

Students could find this useful, when they research at home they can promote a result; then login to Google at Uni/College and the sites are there waiting, without the need to write them down; especially useful when creating a bibliography! (Shame this feature wasn’t released when I was writing one).

A nice addition to the Google search.

Now if only I had things to search for . . .

A couple of days ago my mam was sent a brand new desktop from university to allow her to complete the degree course she’s on. This came about when they told her the current (now older) machine wouldn’t handle the software required for the course.

Just glancing at the new box we feel it’s worse, spec wise, with a smaller monitor; no wireless card; and Vista basic. I doubt there is a graphics card; bigger hard disk; and more memory. There was no spec sheet and I don’t want to prod about inside just yet.

Basically the university paied over-the-top prices for a poor machine. All we had to do was add a few additional sticks of memory in the previous box.

Not to worry though, when the time comes I’ll jiggle bits about. The previous machine has now been allocated to my step-dad, and his old one (and I mean old) has been scavenged by moi.

From back when XP decided to assassinate my old machine I have had various bits floating about, so have decided to take three machines and build/re-build them into two.

I choose to re-add everything back into my first case, the Dell Dimension 5100, as it’s extremely quite. So, unplugging all external components; opening all the cases; setting myself on the lino; and grounding myself to thin air I proceeded to remove optical drives; hard disks; memory; floppy drive; and graphics card.

Box1: My first, the Dell Dimension 5100
Box2: My newest, a custom case with donor parts from Box1
Box3: The old machine, now a donor to Box2

With all the bits spread across the lino, I began to fit the Box2 hard disk; memory; and optical drive into Box1, with the optical drive and 512MB of memory going back ‘home’. I then took the floppy drive and a CD re-writer from Box3 and placed them into Box1. I have left the graphics card as the screw holding it to the case (preventing theft) is actually doing a perfect job (preventing theft that is), the screw head has been stripped so I can’t use a screwdriver. I shall need to find a set of small pliers to take the bugger out.

With those parts now in place, I began to add the hard disk and DVD ROM drive from Box3 into Box2. With all but the graphics card and processors shifted about, I hit a bit of a snag.

Initially, I wasn’t planning to swap the processor from Box2 back to Box1 as Box3 would cover it. I was wrong. Although it is a pentium4, the processor in Box3 has pins, but the plate thingy in Box1 doesn’t have holes. Since Box2 had the processor from Box1 I deduced Box3’s wouldn’t fit Box2. (I hope your keeping up, with all my colour schemes). This meant I had to move the processor back to Box1, which is fine, but I now had to move the hard disk and optical drive back to Box3, and put the processor back in. Yes, I had taken it out by this time.

After some more un-screwing, and cable prodding, I had Box1 re-built; Box2 half empty; and Box3 re-built. When I have an in-flux of money I need to buy a stick of memory and a processor to build up Box2, as Box3’s memory is DDR and won’t fit DDRII slots. I will keep the heat sink from Box3 as it was spotlessly clean (I’ll swap it into Box2), and aim to have the graphics card out over the next few days.

The motherboard; power pack; and cables will be used as spares, along with the noisy heat sink from Box2. I have no use for the processor and memory so they’ll be up for sale if anyone is in need, just leave a comment or use the websites contact form.

All in all it was a decent evening.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I’m typing this from Box1.

I’ve just received a message from Vodafone, my mobiles network provider, stating that i have now got 100 minuets of call time to use over the next 30 days.

As a thank you from Vodafone you now have 100 FREE minuets to enjoy over the next 30 days – you don’t need to do anything.

Now, this is normally where the scam radar kicks in, but the message is from Vodafone and I have checked my credit amount, £1.89 terrible. The young lady, who seems really pleased with herself actually and sounds like she’s on a sugar rush, tells me I have 100 minuets left on my pack.

Nice. Free stuff for doing nothing.

Why today though? It’s the 22nd, why not wait until the start of next month? Ah well, I now need people to phone, shame it wasn’t 100 texts.

As promised yesterday, I have decided to do one of those live bloggie things, where you blog as it happens. For this I shall review the Inspiron 1525, killing two chavs with one bottle as the saying goes.¹

I decided to call this a live entry due to the fact I’m using the laptop to write it. So during this time I shall review it on the ease of key use, as well as everything else.

To start off with I’ll give my systems specifications:

• Manufacturer: Dell (UK)
• Model: Inspiron 1525
• Op Systems: Vista Home Premium (SP1) + Kubuntu 8.04
• Display: 15.4″ Widescreen (1280 x 800) with TrueLife
• Hard Disk: 160GB SATA (5400 rpm)
• Memory: 2GB, 667MHz, Dual Channel DDR2
• Graphics: Integrated Intel Media Accelerator X3100
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T5550, 1.83GHz, 2MB, L2 cache
• Optical Drive: 8xDVD +/- rw
• Wireless Card: Intel pro wireless a/b/g
• Ports: 4xUSB; 1xSD/MMC; 1xModem; 1xEthernet; 1xPS2; 1xCamera lead; 1xData lead; 1xExternal Monitor; 1xMic; 2xHeadphones, yea two.
• Additional: 2.0 mega pixel camera; custom chill design; 6-cell battery; built in wi-fi catcher; uk keypad; bundled crap ware.

Now to the good stuff. The machine itself is generally quiet, especially when sat idle. If the fan whirs you will hear it for a few moments, but it’s never constant. The hard disk goes through its clicking cycles when it’s working, but I find that to be relaxing and it isn’t really noticeable unless you listen for it.

The built in keyboard is within nice reach, nothing too stressful to use other than the delete button is in the top corner, it would be better situated near the bottom as I need it often. There is a slight space between several of the keys, for example: the menu key has space on both sides; and the home, page up, and page down keys have space to their left. This space looks out of place, and could of been used to spread the rest of the keys out a millimetre or two more. For general typing the keys are great, and don’t require any hard presses like a desktop keyboard.

The touch pad is where all the fun is had. After tweaking the settings to prevent the slightest breath of air clicking everything it’s a snap to use. Widening the scrollbar area makes things that much more easy to scroll through, and dragging files about is nice and easy. The buttons underneath don’t intrude with what you’re doing; sit at the same level as the cover; and require a slightly heaver press than the keypad keys, which prevents accidental pressings.

As I have the 6-cell battery and use power saving, the battery life is around four hours without intensity. If you started to watch videos; play games; listen to music the battery will drain quicker, I can’t really review battery life since my computer usage is different to yours. Plus the machine is plugged in cheating anyway.

Temperature wise, there is heat given from the bottom, and the area around the touch pad gets a tad warm to the touch. There isn’t really any ventilation on the bottom, so suffocating it on your bed will make the sheets warm. Across the top of the base, just below the screen are ventilation holes that, when looking aren’t all “open”. Having had the machine on for 29 hours there isn’t a noticeable difference in the temperature, It’s as warm now as it was yesterday and still sat on my bed.

The volume controls are touch strips, so no weird buttons sticking out where they shouldn’t be, and are very easy to use. The num lock; scroll lock; and caps lock strip is similar, except they are lights run via the keypad keys. All of these lights are blue when lit, with the volume control lights fading back out, which is brilliant. As a designer you can’t go wrong with blue.

Opening the optical drive, like all laptops is as simple as pressing the button on the “drawer”; waiting a few seconds for it to pop out; then pulling it further out. I have always found this feature annoying in laptops, I guess it’s just the fear of damage.

This laptop comes with two speakers, situated either side of the built-in web cam, and since I’m used to heavy bass lines from my mini sub, don’t give a poor performance but don’t give a great one neither. To have an idea what they sound like turn the bass down on your desktop speakers, either the sub like me; or within the sound settings, and you will have a high pitched sound. Now go higher and that’s somewhere near the laptops speakers. They could do with a bit of an umph, but they are quite adequate. I may plug the sub in and see what I get out.

The screen resolution of the machine is 1280×800, and is a 15.4″ wide-screen. It’s actually a nice wide-screen, and I prefer it to my desktop monitor at 1024×768 and 15″ square. I also have the TrueLife feature on this, which I didn’t want but couldn’t refuse, and it gets quite annoying when the sun shines all over it. That’s just the TrueLife though, the standard screen would be fine.

The built-in wi-fi catcher works a treat, just switch it across; give it a flick; and the machine scans for available networks. The wireless also works in Kubuntu without issues, whether that’s due to installation I don’t know but the Inspiron 6400 (my sisters and the one I planned to buy originally) didn’t run on the live disk.

I played with the camera briefly and for 2 mega pixels isn’t all bad. There is a small blue light which shines at you when the camera is on, whether this will become annoying I can’t say. It will however, give a visual representation that the camera is on so you don’t do something regrettable.

Using vista, the 2GB of memory is diminished to having just over 800MB left for Firefox. There isn’t any delays in the response times for programs, mostly due to the core 2 duo processor strolling through everything, and vista runs smoothly.

Overall this laptop is great, and I recommend it to all of you looking for something general for every day office type work or web browsing. For those of you gamer-nating, go for something designed for gaming or beef up the components.

I’m going to be lame and give a score: 9/10. Only 9 due to the delete button; the odd space between keys on the right side; the speaker quality; and well that’s it. Nothing else to complain about. It was a great purchase, and apart from the original order being stolen I’m happy I bought it.

If you have questions feel free to ask in the comments, Ill try and answer whatever you ask.

1: It doesn’t actually, it’s two birds with one stone but teh burdehs outrank teh chavz0rz!

Yayyy.

I have finally managed to receive my brand new laptop that I had ordered exactly one month ago today.

It took a few days longer than I had initially hoped, for the replacement to arrive, but apparently the carriers phoned me to arrange a time. Not by my phone records they didn’t.

If you have been following this weblog closely for the past few weeks you will know of my previous laptop delivery being stolen by someone un-known to me. This made me angry and I set off after Dell to have a new one sent out, to which they eventually agreed to do.

So here I am, sat on my new toy, blogging. How cool is that?

At some point tomorrow I shall write up a small review for it, just because really. Everyone else does it so why can’t I?

I’m actually tired now and want to sleep but I just can’t, I’m all excited; eating toast, which is cold.

Well what an eventful week. I shall be writing a series of entries over the next two days about everything that has happened.

Topic five: Hospitality.

OMG! I just found out earlier tonight that my mam is going to hospital.

She has some sort of problem with her eyes, like a cyst or something. I’m always last to know everything, and I wouldn’t of found out if I never phoned.

I would go with her but need to wait for my laptop if it arrives tomorrow, and not over the weekend.

I now have to put up with my sister for 10 minuets before she goes to school, then I get to play with teh kittehs all day.

Thinking about it, I haven’t been round for a while. I haven’t been to my grandma’s either. I’ll have to go sometime.

Well what an eventful week. I shall be writing a series of entries over the next two days about everything that has happened.

Second topic: Replacement laptop. Woo

As you may have read I ordered a new laptop a few weeks ago, only for it to be stolen on delivery.

Well, some good news has come at last. Having been in contact with Dell for the entire period trying to get something resolved, they decided to initiate an investigation.

During that time I had contacted the police to try and find the stolen laptop, to no avail, and they closed the case; twice.

I had also been in talks with a solicitor, who was supposed to send a letter to Dell asking for a replacement. The letter was never sent.

Having phoned Dell various times I was informed the investigation was to end last Friday (30/05/08) and I had to phone back Monday (02/06/08). Phoning back on Monday I was told, to my initial surprise, that I was being sent a replacement, due the the delivery company not replying to Dell. Wow.

They did try, however, to send the order to the same address as the first time. Stupid people, it went missing once it’s bound to happen again. I managed to have them send it out to my mams address instead, to which I need to go tomorrow as no-one will be in to sign for it.

I informed my solicitor of the latest development, who seems pleased he doesn’t have to do any work, and will close the case when I’m happy with Dell and my replacement.

I’m yet to contact the police, but if the stolen one is found in a drug raid or something I won’t complain.