Chaos-23

I’m going to attempt to write more often, it’s part of my to-do list. We’ll just have to see how it goes…

I have a new obsession, staring into my lavatory. I can’t help it. It’s fascinating. I bought some of those Toilet Duck Fresh Discs that you fire onto the inside of the loo and they work like those hideous old rim-block things that my Dad’s always had a vendetta against as they can easily get flushed and clog up the pipes. They’re also a haven for germs and how anyone could touch one to clean/replace it, well… eugh! These things, though, are fantastic! You push the tube towards the bowl, press the button and push. SPLAT! It leaves a jewel like disk of fresh smelling disinfectant in the bowl. It lasts about a week, you don’t have to touch it to replace it, just zap another disk on, and there’s no risk of it clogging up the plumbing. Such a wonderful idea. (I am easily pleased.)

I recently found a place on eBay selling PSUs for old SFF PCs like my old Shuttle SpaceWalker SV25. I bought one and although the dimensions are perfect, it’s not set out in the same way as the original meaning I’ll have to cut a hole in the side of the case which is not ideal.

I really thought that once I’d plugged the PSU in it’d just be a case of sticking an OS on and away I’d go. I never envisaged the nightmares! I’ve built so many machines now I’ve lost count. Both for work and home. I just wanted a nice lightweight OS like FreeBSD or Fluxbuntu. Nothing would install! FreeBSD gives me a Fatal Trap 12 and reboots every time. All Ubuntu variants have kernel panic at installing files. DSL ran fine from CD but refused to install yesterday.

Today I managed a frugal install, but it wouldn’t boot without the CD. I’ve just given up and tried Windows 2000 (which was on the machine previously) and it did get to the configuration which is further than anything else, but then it crashed. I tried about 4 times. Same outcome. I’m giving XP a go now, more for a laugh than anything else. I’m not even sure it could run XP without the hardware problems! I’ve narrowed the issue down to the HDD, but sadly it’s the only spare IDE HDD I have. I’m not buying another as it completely ruins the whole point of rebuilding this out of spares.

As for my OU Coursework, I was 3 chapters behind due to being ill, playing some time-consuming 360 games(!) and general apathy. I finished reading all about Faraday last night and went though the DVD on him today. So now I’m only 2 chapters behind, but I reckon I can get the Stalin chapter read tonight as there aren’t any other exercises for that one. Then I’m on to ‘The Diva’ from Monday getting me right back up to date again. Phew!

Just a quick post to say how much I love my download PC.

It sits on a table in my living room by a chair & doesn’t bother me at all. Every now & then I remote on (it has no monitor) and see how it’s doing. Today I found links to downloads of The Mighty Boosh Series 2, thought I’d better add them cos they’re no longer on BBC3’s website :o( only to find that not only had it found them already (gotta love RSS), but they’d finished downloading too!! \o/

Now what I really need to do is:

1) Get one of those media player things for the TV, the ones that connect to the PC via WiFi and stream whatever’s on there.

2) Sort out an RSS Feed of everything that ends up in the ‘Seeding’ directory. Will be useful to have so I can keep a check on all the stuff it’s doing. It currently e-mails me when it’s finished a download. I could probably get that e-mailing BackPackit or similar and keep a page open for that. Needs more thinking :oD

*Once again the disclaimer: Yes. I know downloading this stuff is illegal, but I only download TV Shows that aren’t available to buy, so I really can’t see the issue. It’s just like my parents recording a program to their DVD Recorder and passing it to me if I’d missed a show.

The HTPC is now alive. Not fully functional as I don’t yet have a spare HDD to run MythTV, and I’ve only got 256MB of RAM in there. MediaPortal is very nice for a free Windows app. Got it logging straight in & starting up. I just have to configure the remote I have to work with it now. Shouldn’t be too hard.

The PSP should be on it’s way from Lik-Sang shortly. The Graphite Nintendo DS should be on it’s way from Play Asia soon too. Yayness :oD It’s good to know I spent my £665 Tax Rebate sensibly!!

I only just got back from work, another late one. There is no way I should stay in the office until 20:15… it’s just stupid. I had a whole list of PC’s that needed software and only about 1/2 of them would Wake-on-LAN. Grrrr at our stupid new network.

The day started so well too, with me growling at a moron on the train who seemed oblivious to the fact I’d opened the doors for everyone since getting on and pointed out to me at Reading that “you’ll have to push the button dear, if you just turn around it’s behind you” grrrrrrrrrrrrrr I snapped his head off cos the train hadn’t even stopped moving! I was already pressing the button when he said that. How did he think those kids got out at Winnersh?

Then some little bloke ran around the corner at the station and pushed me out of his way. The trains weren’t leaving for another 10 minutes so he had no reason to send me flying. Arsehole.

Oh well, I have a tidier living room now. I went on a mission yesterday and spent 8 hours going through all my old magazines I had stacked in a box and moved the 2 PC’s I’m building into a corner. Gives me more floor space, but it’s still a tip. I’ve got so much stuff now it’s a complete nightmare trying to sort out. I wish I wasn’t such a hoarder *sigh* I now have all my Deadline, Lime Lizard and Edge magazines in separate piles. I wish I could bring myself to throw them out, but I just can’t. I am weeeeaaaak.