Well, I last left you, teetering over the ege of June, and falling into July, which just so happened to be the worst month of my life, on record, ever. Ever. It started as bad as it was going to get.

JULY 2009

I’ll try to keep this short, and I’ll probably fail miserably. Following on from my earlier sunburn issues, I thought I’d make the situaltion worse by going back out in the sun and attending the Hartlepool dockfest, in order to get some photos. The photos were successfully obtained, but after waiting in a queue for at least an hour for what I thought was goingto be an action packed opening ceremony, it turned out to be the worst thing I’ve waited for in the whole history of anything ever. Infortunately, the damage was done, and I spent the rest of the two days walking around like an embarrased lobster. the fact I was wearing a bright white t-shirt never really helped matters.

Mid July was next, and I happened to be pointing the camera out of the window, to record the black clouds on the horizon, as shown in this photo, the first time it’s been shown.

OK, technically, those clouds aren’t on the horizon, neither were the clouds directly above my head. I was personally depressed about the fact that I hadn’t gone abroad this year. There were a few reasons behind this that couldn’t be changed, but I still felt that it was something to do with me, and spent a good few days moping about it. Obviously this was infinitely insignificant compred to what was about to happen.

Maybe there is such a thing such as fate? The day that we were “due” to go away (as in, the day that we’d gone away on the previous two years, and originally planned to this year), my dad suffered a heart attack. At this point, I went into “offline mode”, meaning that the rest of July was totally written off.

The Google car did visit Hartlepool too.

AUGUST 2009

Computer problems dominated August, with Beastbits constantly switching off. I thought I’d found the cause of the problem after inspecting the video card in Beastbits, and its broken fan. In this never-before-seen photo, you can see that the lead on the graphics card had became disconnected.

Actually, you can’t. That’s a really shit photo.

I didn’t do much in August. I was still off work for the first few weeks. I had only been back at work a few days, when we all learned about the sudden death of Stu, the security guard, of a heart attack. After what had happened in the weeks previous to that, it hit home. Hard.

On a lighter note, I met up with Chad the prolific troller who haunts this site with witty anecdotes (sarcasm), and long forgotten, often embarrasing memories of our childhood. Saying that, it was nice to see him after all of these years.

SEPTEMBER 2009

Quite literally, nothing happened in September. There were a few site issues, and a day trip to York. That really is it. There’s nothing in either the blog archive or my flickr account to show that anything happened at all.

OCTOBER

The occasional site problems continued into October, though the whole month appeared to be dominated by a hunk of metal and magnets. Yes, that was the month where that bloody Samsung hard drive arrived, and spent a good few days trying to get it working.

Photograph-wise, it was even more barren than September, with a mere 91 photos being uploaded to flickr, though one of these was part of my “bargain of the century”…

I went to a radio rally with Daddykins, and met one of my Flickr contacts, which was nice. I also got “knocked back” at Asda, and no matter how cheap their buns were, the humiliation meant I never returned there for over two months.

NOVEMBER

The flickr meet I attended at the Historic Quay was the highlight of the month, even though there were only a few photos that were actually any good. It was good to get the camera out for the first time since September and actually get some shots took. My computer problems officially ended when I gave Beastbits the right royal kicking it deserved, and it is now an ex-machine – its parts used to update and repair the scribcam.co.uk server.

The old video card from the server was a bit broken…

… well, it was after I’d finished with it. The new machine gave me my first glimpses of Windows 7, and… well, it’s not Vista, so that’s a plus point, I suppose.

DECEMBER

December has seen something we don’t usually se a lot of this time of year – snow. It also became the month where it occured to me, that I am officially old.

You are officially old, the second you look out of the window, see snow, and instead of jumping up and down like a kid, you slowly turn away from the window and think “If I go out in that, I’m going to break something”. Instead, I stayed in the confines of Mercuryvapour Towers, and took plenty of photos of it.

It takes a lot to get something hanging from a wheely bin to look insanely festive, but I think this manages it quite nicely…

Although at the time of typing, it’s actually Xmas Eve (thanks to the wonderment of scheduled posts, you’ll be seeing this a couple of days later), I doubt anything else is going to happen within that time, so this leaves me to wish both of my readers a very happy 2010, and I hope that it’s a much better year than what 2009 was.

Technorati Tags: new year, review

Well, I have been summonsed by Glen Adrian of Obscureinternet (change your avatar, ffs!) to write a detailed review of my 30th birthday. I’ll start from the day, because it was a much better and more exciting day, for you see, I went bowling!

The first part of the day was spent watching stuff that had been collected on the Sky+. this involved several episodes of Countdown. Unfortunately, there wasn’t going to be a lot happening in the early part of this particular day, as the car was in the garage after it snapped a spring or something, thanks to the state of one of the local roads.

Onto the night, then. Plans had been made with most of the people from work to attend the bowling alley on Brenda Road. It was the first time I’d been bowling since November 2005

I arrived at approximately 7:30, to find that the place was absolutely packed, but I was the only one there out of the proposed group. Oh, great. Things start going through my mind, like “Am I on my own? Is anyone else turning up?” I decided to wait outside, just in case anyone was going to ring my mobile. It was noisy inside.

Thankfully, the cars did indeed start pulling up, and before long, we had a group of about 16 of us. Unfortunately, Tuesday is apparently semi-pro night, so we had to wait until about 9 before we got a game. The price was £3 for the hour. It closed at 10, so we’d just got in. It was at this point, I began to fling my camera around in the hope to catch some epic shots. Unfortunately, this failed miserably, though I did think Matt got a good strike here:-

Unfortunately after I got home and checked the video, he hit the rail first. So technically, it didn’t count.

I finished last, as you can probably gather, though I did manage a strike. I might have to start going there, if I can find someone to go along with. there’s no point playing on your own.

After the bowling, we made our way to Lloyds, in Church Square. And yes, I really did wear this shirt…

Some random barfly stated that I looked like Timmy Mallet. Out of all the times I’ve worn that shirt, it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to a compliment. Unfortunatelty, there’s a button fallen off it, so that’ll give me an excuse to never, ever wear it in public again. Awww.

After sharing a jug of some odd drink bought by Matt (possibly to celebrate his non-strike), it was time for everyone to begin departing. Some people had work in the morning, and some people wanted to attend the Indian. Guess which category I fell into.

So, the initial group of 16 had dwindled down to 4, and we headed off to the Dilshad for a load of grub.

As usual, the meal was delicious, and just as we were finishing, the clock struck midnight. Yup, I was now 30 years old. Daddykins sent me a text.

The second person to wish me happy birthday was Wayne, at an impressive 2 minutes past midnight, though obviously I didn’t get it until I got home. His email made me quickly realise how much of my life had disappeared…

“You are now twice as old as you were when we had our first talk on CB”.

He was right. The CB days were now half my life ago!

The 4 of us finished our meals, and headed off home in our respective taxis, and a good night was had by all. Well, certainly by me, at least, and I made my way up the long, winding gravel driveway of Mercuryvapour Towers at 1:13.

And now, onto the day itself. It started off early, around 5AM. This was mainly because I could feel the vindaloo on the move, and it was only a matter of time before it was indaloo (actually, alloverdaloo would be a better description). So, I was wide awake after only 4 hours sleep, and with an arse like the flag of Japan. I logged onto Facebook, and watched the happy birthday messages scroll past. Thanks to all of you who left a message, and for those who tried to talk to me, Facebook Chat is being a tart at the moment, and although I can see who sent me a message, I can’t actually see it. I’ve gone back to an earlier release of Firefox. That might help it.

Anyway, the morning consisted of my usual “Woo! I’m off work!” ritual – lie on the sofa and watch “Homes Under The Hammer”, followed by “to Buy or Not To Buy”, then “Cash In The Attic” (as long as Jenny Sodding Bond isn’t presenting it), followed by “Bargain Hunt”. Andy The Iridium Fan popped round during the preceedings, and dropped off my birthday card. He stayed for a few hours, and was amazed to find that he also liked amplifying the ends of songs just to get every last note out of them. An “interest” of mine which I thought nobody else shared. A bit like streetlights. He also helped me dispose of the large boxes that Beastbits2 had came in.

ATIF stayed for 3 hours, 22 minutes and 45 seconds, and after that I began watching some more stuff that had accumulated on the Sky+. I was absolutely knackered, as I’d only managed a couple of hours sleep, and decided to go to bed “for an hour”. This was at 4PM. Next thing I know, it’s 10PM. I must have been more knackered than I thought. The day was finished off with the obligatory “few cans”, and I headed off to bed some time around 4ish.

So, that was the story of my first full day of being into my 4th decade. Not bad going considering I wasn’t actually going to blog about it. And now, I’m off to take photos of a pothole, or I might wait until the chippy is open, and kill two birds with one stone. Pothole photography and chips. Being 30 is AWESOME.

Technorati Tags: atif, Birthday, bowling, curry, email, phone, sms, telly, text, vindaloo, wayne

I know it’s a while since I’ve posted about anything other than my ongoing computer problems, but today, Beastbits really did go the proverbial journey, due to a hardware failure in another machine.

The scribcam.co.uk server popped its video card earlier today, so the machine couldn’t boot without beeping a diagnostic code. (AMIBOIS, 1 long beep, 8 short beeps for the record).

I had an old Radeon 9200 which I’d been given at some point. I’d put that in, only to get the same series of beeps. Bugger.

It was then I remembered about Beastbits, and it’s Geforce FX5200. I knew that definitely worked, so in it went. Machine came right up. And, because Beastbits was definitely goosed without its video card, I also moved the RAM over, and the DVD writer.

In other news, I attended my second flickr meet on Sunday, at the historic Quay. I enjoyed it, as there were a couple of people there who I knew, and a couple of people I’ve been wanting to meet for a while. Unfortunately, out of 113 photos, there were only a couple that were any good…

This post may not be suitable for anyone under the age of 18. I’m going to shout and swear a little. This post does not contain a solution to the issues listed below… yet. It does, however contain a load of technical jargon that nobody in their right mind will understand. Ah yes, I’m going to to off onto one of my little rants about the state of computers. Or rather, just my computers.

Whilst at work a few days ago, I decided that my little MP3 server at home could do with a bit of a boost. It’s currently running 2 IDE drives, 1 60Gb IBM Deathstar, and a 200Gb Maxtor. The 200Gb drive is completely chock full of stuff, and the Deathstar is ancient and noisy, I really didn’t fancy putting anything on it that I could risk losing.

Off I toddled to my normal place of computer hardware purchasement, Ebuyer. I noticed that they had a Samsung 1Tb drive for sale. A Spinpoint HD103UJ, should you care.

Now, I’ve had “trouble” with Samsung drives in the past. My first 500Gb drive was a Samsung, and it began to show signs of dying within 3 months, though this technically may not have been the drive’s fault. This 500Gb still serves a purpose, however. its magnets are now used to keep the oven door closed since the handle snapped off it.

I ordered the drive, after deciding to give Samsung another chance, along with a few other things… another keyboard, which I intend to use at work, and a SATA/IDE to USB adaptor.

Despite the fact I paid nothing for the “super-saver” delivery, it was delivered within 36 hours of me placing the order. The doorbell rang, and I hurriedly rushed downstairs, met the UPS guy with a grin from ear to ear, ran back upstairs clutching the afore-mentioned parcel, and ripped it open like a kid on Christmas day.

I’d just finished nights, and the drive was cold, so to avoid any possible condensation damage, I decided to leave fitting the drive until I’d had some sleep.

I awoke at roughly 6PM, looking forward to the procedure of opening the machine, taking the old 200Gb drive out, connecting the new 1Tb one, then connecting the old drive via USB, copying the data over, ghosting the 60Gb system drive, writing the image to the 200Gb drive, making the 60Gb redundant.

It all sounds so very seemples (squeak).

Firstly, i disconnected Beastbits so I could use the power cables and the monitor so I could actually see what I was doing. I took out the old drive, fitted the new one via SATA, and powered on the machine. The SATA detection screen came up…

“No devices found”.

Confused, I checked my connections, and sure enough, I’d not connected the power cable to one of the molex connectors. Bohh, fucking idiot.

In it goes, reboot, aaaaand, yes, “No devices found”.

This was the shit that I’ve always dreaded. It means that the drive is a SATA 3.0Gbps, and my motherboard is a SATA 1.5Gbps. According to the scrappy little pice of paper you get with the drive, “you should switch your drive to SATA 1.5Gb/s speed with a software which we are providing via www.samsunghdd.com”

Um, OK. I couldn’t see how a piece of software could possibly help if the hardware can’t actually see and detect the drive. I played along, and found the appropriate software on the Samsung website. It came as an ISO image. And, the only machine capable of writing ISOs in the whole of Mercuryvapour Towers is Beastbits, which was sat on the floor, totally disconnected.

Almost in tears, I swapped the computers back, and burned the ISO to a DVD, and swapped them back again. Lo and behold, the Samsung software totally failed to recognise the drive, so it was impossible to change the settings.

Now, I’m not disfamiliar with the whole “SATA 1.5/3.0″ issue, and I know that all of my other drives have a jumper you can change to allow it to work. This particular drive does indeed have a set of jumpers on the back…

Unfortunately, these are undocumented. Nothing on the label of the drive, nothing in the shitty little scrap of paper you receive.

I spent the next 20 minutes looking for a hard drive with the jumpers still attached to it, so I could use one of these. Turns out both jumpers do absolutely nothing to rectify the issue, and the drive still remained undetected.

OK, fair enough, I couldn’t do anything with that computer. It was a lost cause, so I thought I’d try and connect it to Beastbits to see if I can get it to detect. Success! Er, sort of. It would get as far as the SATA detection screen, and it would hang.

Note how the first drive has the size printed next to it, but the Samsung drive doesn’t? Yes, that’s because there’s a known issue with the SATA controller on my motherboard with drives over a certain size! JOY! It’s well documented here.

Seems like the only solution is to get a SATA controller card and hope for the best. and there wasn’t as much ranting as I’d originally planned. But for now, I have a 1,000Gb paperweight. Tits.

Technorati Tags: a7n8x deluxe, asus, freezing, hard drive, HD103UJ, not detected, problems, samsung, sata

As promised, here’s a shot of the Google Street View Car, visiting the streets of Hartlepool…

I believe this is Eldon Grove.

Acoording to the mail, the images should be online “at the turn of the year”

EDIT Feb 3rd 2010… Well, the year has turned, we’re into the second month, and there really hasn’t been any update on the Street View situation. Unfortunately, I’ve not got any new info to add, though some of the major motorways hav been added, as long as parts of Durham. Literally, only parts. I will keep checking, however.

Technorati Tags: car, google, google street view, hartlepool, map, street view