Ageing (dis)gracefully!
Archive for June, 2006
I’m a resolver!
Jun 26th
Did the personality test on the BBC website just now. Apparently I am a ‘resolver’.
The four aspects that make up this personality type are:
More about Resolvers
Resolvers are independent people who quietly learn how things work by analysing large amounts of information. Should a problem arise, they solve it with as little fuss as possible. Resolvers are only interested in abstract ideas, if they can be used to solve a problem quickly.
Resolvers like to take risks: Many of them seek jobs and pastimes that put them in harms way and guarantee an adrenaline rush.
Resolvers have changed jobs most frequently since leaving full-time education, according to a UK survey.
Resolvers are often tolerant of behaviour different to their own as long as their values aren’t compromised. They sometimes give the impression that they agree with other peoples’ viewpoints because they don’t actively disagree.
In situations where they can’t use their talents or are unappreciated, Resolvers may become cynical, negatively critical or put off decisions. Under extreme stress, Resolvers could be prone to inappropriate, tearful outbursts.
Resolvers are quiet and sometimes it is difficult to get to know them; however, they often talk freely about subjects they understand well.
Resolver Careers
Resolvers are often drawn to hands-on jobs that require an analytical mind and careful organisation of large amounts of data.
Considering I am a Support Analyst for a living,?then this test seems to be quite spot on! – apart from the bit about being prone to tearfullness under stress …thats a load of bollocks! 
JV releases a single!
Jun 25th
I almost spat my tea across the room when I heard about this! F1 driver & former World Champion?Jacques Villeneuve has released a single!!!
Immediately my thoughts turned to John Macenroes stint at trying to launch himself as a rock star after retiring from tennis, how awful was that?
With much trepidation I decided to check this single out. First listen my thoughts were ‘oh no!’ ..then mysteriously I listened again, and again! and strangely I am quite liking it.
French vocals add to the mystery, although I would have preferred some words I could actually understand. Apparently he has a whole album ready to release, with the majority of the songs being English. You can kind of imagine he could be quite succesfull with this when his driving career ends. Even if it is just in his home country.
Check the single out here: http://www.myspace.com/jvofficial
Access all areas!
Jun 21st
Been getting into (Microsoft) Access over the last few days. Am building a small database for a project I am involved in at work, so am learning as I go really! enjoying?it muchly too! I am also still learning SQL off and on …..has made me realise, as sad as it sounds! I quite enjoy working with databases 
Am starting to think about doing some proper courses and get some qualifications under my belt ….watch this space I guess!
James Allen finally speaks sense!
Jun 18th
I am not a James Allen fan …infact I would say that I pretty much hate him and hate most of the words that come out of his mouth. BUT, he was asked a question recently, and for the first time in my memory he gave a balanced and informed answer! The question was regarding what he thought of the F1 ‘engine development freeze’ planned for 2008.
“It will save a huge amount of money, but so would racing GP2 cars or Formula Renaults. The trade-off in F1 is getting the right level of technology and development to keep F1 cutting edge, while at the same time keeping the costs under control.
Some of the manufacturers feel that homologating the engines is a step too far because it takes away all the challenge from engine building and would mean that teams would lay off dozens of skilled engineers because they would no longer be needed.
My own view is that F1 needs to get back to building cars with which the drivers can race each other, as they did in the days of Mansell and Senna. That should be the starting point and the goal behind every rule change in? F1. After that costs are important because they keep the independent teams in business.
The public doesn?t get to see what goes on inside an F1 engine, so it?s wasted money in many ways, but it is vitally important that F1 remains at the cutting edge of technology from an image point of view. GP2 is great racing but the stakes aren?t high ? it is just GP2 racing, not the best drivers in the world with the major manufacturers behind them, all battling for supremacy.”
I suppose even the most hardened Schumacher lovers need to take their tongue out of his arse for long enough to make sense every now and then
PC Woes – Part II
Jun 17th
The problems that have been plagueing my main PC ’seem’ to have been resolved. I went down the drastic route of backing everything up and then doing a full format of the HD. The format took 1.5 hours! (it is a large disk tho). Reinstalled windows and spent most of last night/this morning reinstalling apps and updating software …. and all seems to be fine thankfully!
All I can say is, thank heavens for the server, or I would have been without net connection or a working pc for the last 4 days.
PC Woes
Jun 15th
Big?PC problems at the min. My main pc has ground to a halt over the last few days and I can’t figure out why. Ran various bits of diagnostic software but could find nothing wrong. Paid particular attention to the RAM, and that has checked out fine. It’s really frustrating as the PC is virtually unusable.
At the moment I am moving any important files and my entire MP3 collection over to the server ….this is painfully slow aswell though …something isn’t right at all. I intend to do a complete format of this PC tonight as it has been quite a while since the last format… drastic action I know, but its got to be done.
Server Relocated
Jun 12th
Due to the recent heatwave it has become almost impossible to sit at the PC. I had two PC’s stacked ontop of each other, right next to me! The heat they threw out was unbelievable! So I decided to find a new home for the server, seeing as it only needs power and network connectivity. I initially placed it across the other side of the spare room, next to the bed, but it looked out of place and also obstructed access to the window (it is a really small spare room).
In the end I hit upon the idea of putting it ontop of the wardrobe. Tha main problem with this is it’s a canvas covered wardrobe! I was worried about the canvas getting hot and potentially burning. I had the idea to place two shelf sized pieces of wood along the top of the wardrobe to act as support (spreading the load) and keeping the server away from the actual canvas.?It actually works a treat, as the following pictures show
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The wardrobe is actually?a wooden structure covered by the canvas, so is very sturdy.
Anyway! Heat output is greatly reduced and I can sit at the PC in (relative) comfort once again I was considering using a wireless network connection for it, but we only have 1 dongle and lucy uses this for her laptop….. wasn’t too much of a pain to route some network cable to it though …I have tons of it.
