Monday, September 27, 2010

o.O

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Dream is collapsing

Went to see Bruce and Nina last night, they invited me around for dinner. She made a chicken curry, it was not bad little

After dinner we watched TV culminating in watching the Mixed marshal arts final with Alex Reid versus Tom Watson. I expected Kaite Prices partner to get his pretty boy ass kicked in good style. In actual fact he put in an incredible fight, trading blow for blow and absorbing huge amounts of punishment. I really enjoyed it, not sure if I preferred it to boxing, but still was good savage fun.

I have to work again today, so off now back to the office.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Save Me

It is Saturday, at home a have a brand new copy of Civ 5 ready to be played. Instead I sit alone in an almost empty office, trying to hit a deadline. t least with no colleagues I can listen to some music on Spotify and eat junk tasty food from the Bakery next door.
The good news is work is progressing well so with luck I will have something ready for Monday morning.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

A Reminder

I have never been much of a fan of PayPal, they act like a bank but are not regulated as one. As I needed to download the latest version of Tortoise SVN I read this on the news page. Its seems that Pay Pal arbitrarily suspended the projects donation account for very tenuous reasons. They weren't very forthcoming when he protested. Not only that but they froze the ability to access the money in the account. A terrible way to act, imagine if the Pay Pal account were the main source of funding for the project and no money could be access for 180 days. That might very well be the death knell for some industries.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

(It's not war) Just the end of love

My old room has now been transferred into an office for my dad. We ordered a load of stuff from Ikea, it should be a very nice office for my dad. It has been a bit strange helping him plan it out given how long I lived there.

A work colleague gave me a motherboard he no longer wanted so I have replaced one of my old servers, It is now nearly silent, much better to work in the same room with. I also ordered him a new Dell Vostro, was on offer came with a monitor and free delivery. No way I could build a machine at that level for the same sort of money.

I went to the gym this afternoon, saw Becky in there she was looking healthy, whereas I was a hot sweaty mess trying to burn off a few calories on the cross trainer.

I went round to see Phil last night, he had arrived back from his holiday in Sharm El Sheikh. Sounds like a lovely holiday. We played a few games on his PlayStation 3, Street Fighter IV and Burn out. It was a really relaxed evening, just the ticket after a hard days painting and decorating.

istat

I have been using the wonderful istatpro app on my Apple for yearrs. It give a very detailed output of what the system is doing. I found out that they produce an istat server for Linux> Coupled with the iphone app it is a great way to monitor the servers.
There is a great excellent on installing it here

Friday, September 17, 2010

Windows XP Fonts

I work a lot using terminals (which look like the old DOS prompt) I have found the best font to display console output is a monospaced font Consolas. It is also very good for displaying code this was what it has been developed for. Consolas is included in Windows Vista and Windows 7 but not XP. I have found out that these can be downloaded from Microsoft. Download and install the setup and you will have consolas available.

It is part of Microsoft's clear type family and bundled with Office 2007.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

We used to wait

Turned the tables yesterday, rather than my dad help me decorate my house, I went to paint my old room. He wants to turn it into a office for himself.
Last week I was up on the roof painting on roof sealent. It is a fetching silver colour now and hopefully should keep the rain out for a few more years.
Given the amount of help my parents have given my renovating my house I owe them a lot of help. Was slightly odd painting my old room erasing the memory of me living there, but what could I expect? That they kept it as a shrine to me, no!
So my dad and I painted, Storm came to help but manage only to get paint on himself then wander round the house leaving white dog prints. Fortunately I noticed quickly and was able to clean them up.
We went on a visit to Ikea in the afternoon. I wanted my dad to think about the furniture.

As a treat for helping my parents invited me to a roast beef dinner. It was so tasty, the beef joint was succulent and flavored, and my mums gravy, yum!

Afterward I headed round to Bruce's. We watched kick Ass which I thought was an awesome and very knowing take on the superhero genre. There were so many nods to other films, like the Matirx and Kill Bill if was a real film geeks film, so I loved it!

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Crystalised

Today I should be the proud owner of the latest piece of Ienvy, unfortunately things it didn't work out that way. On Sunday I got really annoyed with my old phone and decided rather on a whim to  head to the Trafford Centre to buy an IPhone. I decided on the 3 network due to a rather good deal on international costs which would enable me to chat to Kath on her home phone. They also allow Skype.

I headed to the shop because as the website informed me that it was only able to purchase in store. In an impulsive mood I rang to confirm they had one in stock, and headed to the Trafford Centre. Time was somewhat of the essence as it was nearly 5 and the place closed at 6. I called ahead to confirm this and was told they were in stock and all I would need is my passport.

So I headed to the store, presented myself bank card and passport to the women then. Answered loads of questions. Then a pause, the credit check had been referred. Not a problem I thought I can afford £30 / month. I guessed that as a recent victim of identity fraud they might want to check some things. They did, only they couldnt today. So I left empty handed. The store assistant promised to ring me the next day...

Yesterday I sat alone in the office, as my colleague is on holiday. I called at lunch time and was fobbed off, so I called again at 3 and actually managed to speak to the right assistant. She gave me a different number to ring; this got me through to a call centre where the operator seemed to find it difficult not to refer to me in the third person, "Can I have the customers name?". - I thought what my name? "I am the customer, my name is John Cooke", "Thank you sir, may I have the customers address?"

Several minutes and a lot of security questions later I was told I had been authorised. I rang the girl back and she said "great just pop in this evening and pick up your phone, hanging up on me before I managed to say anything.


So for the second evening in a row I wondered into the Trafford Centre, the women waived to me and beaconed me over. I sat down she put an IPhone in front of me, she asked for my debit card, and my passport. Crap I forgot it, I took it out of my pocket to buy a flight to Poland. She did see it yesterday, using my password details to fill in the forms. Couldn't we skip that bit? Apparently not, at this point I gave up. My identity hasn't changed since yesterday, and had already confirmed the credit bit, I guess the universe doesn't want me to own an IPhone. I left the store empty-handed.

I arrived home to find my passport on my desk, and Kath trying to console me pointed out I could buy it on-line from three. I was so annoyed though I decided against it and headed to bed.