Technology and randomness, since 2002
Neil TurnerLast week, I said:
So, with a bit of luck, within the next couple of weeks I could have a full driving license and a proper, decently-paid full-time job on the cards. We’ll see.
Unfortunately, I failed my driving test (although I dispute my score) and came ‘a close second’ in the job interview. Which isn’t much when there’s only one job position available. So I’m still a learner driver with part-time casual work.
I mentioned back in June that Hari and I inherited a spare computer, which until now has been sat in our house serving no purpose. However, I now have a reason to use it – I joined a new guild in World of Warcraft and need to run Ventrilo 2.1 to be able to take part in raids, and I can’t for the life of me get it to work properly on my Mac using Crossover.
I mentioned that the computer lacked a network card so I bought one today, and fitted it. Alas this machine is not running a nice operating system like Windows 2000 or XP, but Windows 98SE which doesn’t ship with the relevant drivers. Worse, as this machine had never been used on a network before, it was missing all of the Windows network components. Worse still, I didn’t have the Windows 98 CD, and even worse than that, the relevant files were not saved somewhere on the hard disk. Big problem.
Of course I was busy installing the network card drivers by this point and so upon rebooting I received a series of errors to do with missing .vxd files, namely vnetsup.vxd, vredir.vxd and dfs.vxd, the latter of which gives me a mental image of a double discount sofa sales. Anyway, I found a forum post on some site which I can’t seem to find again which pointed to these technical support files, namely ‘Directory Services client for Windows 95/98’ which includes these files and will happily install them for you. You can then get rid of the program through Add/Remove Programs and it’ll be nice and leave the .vxd files there for you.
Alas, these were only some of the missing files needed for networking, so while they did remove the horrible errors I was getting they didn’t actually get me on the network, so I’ve had to resort to downloading some files from a shady torrent site in the hope that I can get things going.
Ideally I would have liked to have been able to wipe the hard drive and stick Linux on this machine, but unfortunately its primary role as a Ventrilo machine means that it’s Windows or nuthin.
Well it’s October now (already…) and the first 2 weeks of it look to be quite interesting. On Wednesday this week I have my driving test – my second attempt, after narrowly failing my first attempt back in May – and then next Monday I have a job interview.
So, with a bit of luck, within the next couple of weeks I could have a full driving license and a proper, decently-paid full-time job on the cards. We’ll see.
According to this article, Bradford is the best British city for business due to its transport links. It’s a little scant on details, but it claims Bradford has good transport links and low levels of congestion.
Now I live in Bradford, and this surprises me. To start with, here’s what is good about transport in Bradford:
But there’s a lot that needs improving.
The central ring road isn’t finished, and probably never will be. Part of the missing bit requires demolishing listed buildings around the university, or tunnelling underneath it, which would be prohibitively expensive. The missing section therefore uses older roads in the city centre, which makes for a confusing one-way system on roads not designed for the level of traffic they now take.
And while the road connections to the south and to Leeds are adequate, to the north the road quality falls sharply. Anyone who’s ever wanted to drive from Bradford to north Lancashire would testify to this, as you crawl through places like Saltaire and Keighley. Leeds Bradford Airport, for example, is only accessible via a single carriageway A-road, which passes through suburbs and villages on the way. And the outer ring road is mostly a joke – it’s a series of existing roads roughly forming a ring around the city that were designated a number. Most sections are not designed for the amount of traffic they now carry, and so it’s often quicker to use the central ring road rather than try to avoid the city altogether.
To be honest I don’t have a lot to fault Bradford’s bus services on – compared to other cities they’re pretty good.
One of the local sayings here is on the lines of ‘Bradford may have 2 railway stations, but you still need to change at Leeds to go anywhere’. Unfortunately this is quite true – the direct service to London is only twice a day, and there are no long distance services, just hourly mid-distance trains which stretch out to York, Manchester, Wakefield, Blackpool and Preston.
To go anywhere else, and you have to change at Leeds or Manchester, and since the trains call at Manchester Victoria and not Piccadilly, you might as well just go via Leeds. Leeds Bradford Airport is one of the few airports in the country that doesn’t have a railway station or concrete plans for one, despite its proximity to the Leeds-Harrogate railway line. Most of the trains which run into Bradford Interchange are at least 15 years old and tend to be handed down from other companies when they get new trains – the only ‘new’ trains running into Bradford are those which serve Ilkley, Skipton and Leeds from Bradford Forster Square.
Bradford’s transport links aren’t bad on the whole, but to call them the best is laughable. There is so much that can be done to improve transport here, especially the railways.
I know there’s at least one other person here who uses OpenOffice.org as their office suite and Virgin Media as their ISP, so you may be pleased to know that Virgin mirrors OpenOffice downloads at openoffice.virginmedia.com. If you’re a Virgin Media customer, then this is the fastest way of downloading it as it should require the least number of hops.
Virgin also mirror all downloads from Tucows and possibly some other sites so it may well be worth checking out before you download, especially if it’s a big download and you’re lucky enough to have Virgin’s 20 MB broadband offering, as you’ll be able to make the most of your bandwidth.
Back in April, I wrote a list of 8 films I was intending to see this year. Of those, I haven’t seen Hot Fuzz or 28 Weeks Later, though I should be getting the former to rent sometime soon, and I haven’t seen The Simpsons Movie because it isn’t out yet.
Yesterday Hari and I killed 2 birds with one stone and saw both Shrek the Third and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the same day (taking a break in between to go for dinner). Shrek 3 isn’t quite as good as 1 and 2 but it’s still a very good film, and Harry Potter 5 is as least as good as the first 4 films. The fact that this is the fifth film in a series and it doesn’t totally suck is a testament to J K Rowling’s writing and the directors/screenplay writers – pity the same can’t be said for films like Police Academy V…
Hari and I also went to see Wedding Daze (also known as The Pleasure of Your Company) a few weeks ago, mainly because we wanted to go on a date and that was all that was on at the cinema at the time that interested us, but actually it was quite enjoyable, if rather random.
There are, of course, other films that we’re considering going to see this year:
BAA, the operator of Heathrow Airport (and a number of other big UK airports) wants to get a court injunction against members of 15 organisations who are running Camp for Climate Change in August. The injunction would mean that members of the 15 organisations involved in the camp cannot go into the airport, use the Heathrow Express or its platforms at Paddington station, use parts of the Piccadilly Line on London Underground, or use any of the airport access roads, including parts of the M25 and M4. There’s more from Greenpeace here, link via BoingBoing.
The thing is, these 15 organisations aren’t all loony liberal hippy organisations. Yes, the likes of Greenpeace are there, along with single-issue groups opposed to airport expansion. But you’ve also get well established organisations like The National Trust, RSPB, The Woodland Trust and the Campaign to Protect Rural England. The combined membership of these organisations is around 5 million people, and if the injunction is worded how Greenpeace say it is, then all 5 million of them will be banned from the airport. And as I’m a proud paid-up member of The National Trust, that includes me, and my parents.
Amusingly, it also includes The Queen, patron of the RSPB and CPRE, and Prince Charles, patron of the National Trust. And whole load of BAA’s own staff.
As it happens I have no real intention of being anywhere near Heathrow at that time, either as a protester or a passenger (although I know of a few friends wanting to do the former). But this injunction is so broad that’s almost amusing in a real head-against-wall way, if that makes any sense.
With a bit of luck, Hari and I will be picking up the keys for our new place today – we’re well into packing stuff although there’s still lots to do. One of Hari’s current housemates is donating his old computer, which he no longer needs and doesn’t want to sell, mainly because it’s rather old and wouldn’t sell for much and hasn’t got a monitor or keyboard (and isn’t able to take it for recycling). So we’re taking it.
Except I don’t actually know what to do with it.
The computer has an 800Mhz processor, 30 GB hard drive and 32 MB graphics. It’s recent enough to have 2 USB ports and an internal modem, but not recent enough to have a network socket. It also comes with not one, not two, but three optical drives – a CD–ROM drive, a CD-RW drive and a DVD–ROM drive. I have no idea what operating system it has but I’d imagine it’ll be Windows 98.
The lack of a network socket means its usefulness is somewhat limited, but adding one isn’t going to be difficult. Even then, I’m unsure what it can be used for. Its hard drive is a bit too small for a network server, and to make it into a router would require adding 2 network cards and a Wifi card if we wanted that as well. Furthermore, if it was a router it would probably have to go in the living room and I’d prefer not to have a big beige box there if possible – I’d rather have my Mac Mini, given the choice, or preferably a dedicated router which we’ll probably need to buy. A dedicated router would also use up less electricity, seeing as it’ll be on 24/7 essentially.
I can get an old CRT monitor for it and I’m sure I can pick up a cheap keyboard from somewhere so it won’t cost much to make it into a decent computer system, but I can’t imagine there’d be much demand for a computer of that vintage if I were to sell it. Hari and I between us already have 3 computers – my MacBook and Mac Mini, and her XCcube – so we don’t need another system really. So what would you lot do?
Apple has updated the MacBook range again, this being the third revision since they were launched last year. Mine is a first revision, and while there’s nothing wrong with it, had I waited 9 months I could have got (for the same price that I paid):
But never mind. It’s had 9 months of very heavy use and yet doesn’t seem to be suffering – the battery is still at well over 90% of its original capacity and everyone else seems to work fine. I guess I’m just envious.