Friday night ramblings - mainly computer upgrade stuff, chicken etc
Well, it's Friday evening again, thank goodness, and I feel a little hyper; so I thought I'd let it out in meaningless LJ ramblings :)
1. I seem to have spent most of the last week or so up to my elbows in the bowels of my computer's hardware and software. The PC has been very noisy for quite some time, and after I did something cunning to the hard drive partitioning with Partition Magic a few weeks ago it embarked upon a course of random crashing. (It wasn't entirely random, of course, in the sense that it normally occurred at precisely the most inopportune moments. That seems to be the way of computers, though.) Unfortunately I'd also installed some additional RAM at the same time, and so it wasn't possible to be absolutely sure where the source of the problem lay. The fact that one of my drives entirely disappeared from Windows Explorer after the cunning attempt to merge and move a couple of partitions was probably a pretty good hint, though.
Anyway, and on the advice of
t_eyla , who knows everything there is to be known about computers and is happy to share that interesting info, I decided to reinstall WinXP last weekend. I decided to complicate matters by installing it on a new HD, because I was a little concerned that my existing HD might be failing, and the source of the crashing. That actually went surprisingly well, after 36 hours or so spent in determined procrastination. I only had to re-start the process twice :) When I hooked the old HD back up it worked too :) By some sort of miracle, my existing installation of Agent (my email programme) continued to work - I've no idea how that can be, since I thought it needed to communicate with the Windows Registry - and so I haven't lost my emails; or rather, I haven't had to spend hours and hours farting around dragging them from one place to another.
This evening I decided to install a new power supply, since although the crashing has stopped the noisiness has continued. That was surprisingly straightforward too, although moments of intense anxiety occurred:
Next step? A new graphics card :) I bought it this afternoon, and preliminary inspection revealed that the existing graphics card is in the top slot, and so not as inaccessible as I'd feared it might be. That's for tomorrow, though :) After that, more vidding.
2. As I type this I'm cooking a yummy free-range chicken as a treat. I've just been down to baste it and put some stuffing in the oven, and as I was in the kitchen I heard on Radio 4 that the BBC is finally dumping Neighbours after 21 years. Apparently the Aussie network wanted £3.5 trillion for it, or something of that order, and so it's moving to Channel 5. I naturally thought first of Chase and Kylie :) And after that I remembered how I used to take a sacred 25 minute break at lunchtime to watch Neighbours, when I spent a whole summer swotting for the Bar exam. And a friend of mine used to ring me at that time daily, almost without fail, no matter how many times I told him not to. I don't speak to him any more.
3. While I was in the kitchen I also heard Tony Blair on the radio doing his obnoxious 'man of the people' routine. This time he was lecturing us all on how to make a proper cup of tea. Well, I suppose it makes a change from football and electric guitars. (Makes quick dash to the loo for wee pukelet.)
4. Work is just too, too depressing at the moment :( I think I might actually hate it. I need to start buying a Lottery ticket so that I can plan my retreat to a Pyrenean villa with broadband and access to a local fresh food market.
5. The music I'm listening to is truly wonderful stuff :) Well, I think so, anyway. It's Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band singing a selection of old English hymns. The album is called Sing Lustily and with Good Courage, which seems to me to convey the general spirit of it :) It's not that I'm a religious person - I'm not - but I've always loved hymns and oratorios. These hymns are so joyous, and adrenalin inducing :) I took them on my little mp3 player when I spent a fortnight backpacking in the Pyrenees last August, and had a fabulous time singing them loudly and tunelessly as I whizzed up and down the mountains with my little tent :) Here's a sample: How Firm a Foundation.
Well, that's it for now :) My chicken is cooked.
1. I seem to have spent most of the last week or so up to my elbows in the bowels of my computer's hardware and software. The PC has been very noisy for quite some time, and after I did something cunning to the hard drive partitioning with Partition Magic a few weeks ago it embarked upon a course of random crashing. (It wasn't entirely random, of course, in the sense that it normally occurred at precisely the most inopportune moments. That seems to be the way of computers, though.) Unfortunately I'd also installed some additional RAM at the same time, and so it wasn't possible to be absolutely sure where the source of the problem lay. The fact that one of my drives entirely disappeared from Windows Explorer after the cunning attempt to merge and move a couple of partitions was probably a pretty good hint, though.
Anyway, and on the advice of
t_eyla , who knows everything there is to be known about computers and is happy to share that interesting info, I decided to reinstall WinXP last weekend. I decided to complicate matters by installing it on a new HD, because I was a little concerned that my existing HD might be failing, and the source of the crashing. That actually went surprisingly well, after 36 hours or so spent in determined procrastination. I only had to re-start the process twice :) When I hooked the old HD back up it worked too :) By some sort of miracle, my existing installation of Agent (my email programme) continued to work - I've no idea how that can be, since I thought it needed to communicate with the Windows Registry - and so I haven't lost my emails; or rather, I haven't had to spend hours and hours farting around dragging them from one place to another.
This evening I decided to install a new power supply, since although the crashing has stopped the noisiness has continued. That was surprisingly straightforward too, although moments of intense anxiety occurred:
- when I found that the existing power supply was fixed in place not only by the 4 large screws at the back of the computer (as had been promised by my How to Bully Pamper your Computer into Submission manual), but also by an intransigent and malicious small screw right at the back of the computer on a bracket, hard up against the motherboard;
- when I discovered that the wires of the existing power supply were fastened to other wires by those nasty little plastic tie things, apparenty making it impossible to remove;
- when I discovered that there are only 4 power supply white plastic gadget things attached to the new power supply, whereas the last one had (and I need) 5;
- when I couldn't get the plastic widget that attaches to the power supply to the motherboard into its place properly.
Next step? A new graphics card :) I bought it this afternoon, and preliminary inspection revealed that the existing graphics card is in the top slot, and so not as inaccessible as I'd feared it might be. That's for tomorrow, though :) After that, more vidding.
2. As I type this I'm cooking a yummy free-range chicken as a treat. I've just been down to baste it and put some stuffing in the oven, and as I was in the kitchen I heard on Radio 4 that the BBC is finally dumping Neighbours after 21 years. Apparently the Aussie network wanted £3.5 trillion for it, or something of that order, and so it's moving to Channel 5. I naturally thought first of Chase and Kylie :) And after that I remembered how I used to take a sacred 25 minute break at lunchtime to watch Neighbours, when I spent a whole summer swotting for the Bar exam. And a friend of mine used to ring me at that time daily, almost without fail, no matter how many times I told him not to. I don't speak to him any more.
3. While I was in the kitchen I also heard Tony Blair on the radio doing his obnoxious 'man of the people' routine. This time he was lecturing us all on how to make a proper cup of tea. Well, I suppose it makes a change from football and electric guitars. (Makes quick dash to the loo for wee pukelet.)
4. Work is just too, too depressing at the moment :( I think I might actually hate it. I need to start buying a Lottery ticket so that I can plan my retreat to a Pyrenean villa with broadband and access to a local fresh food market.
5. The music I'm listening to is truly wonderful stuff :) Well, I think so, anyway. It's Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band singing a selection of old English hymns. The album is called Sing Lustily and with Good Courage, which seems to me to convey the general spirit of it :) It's not that I'm a religious person - I'm not - but I've always loved hymns and oratorios. These hymns are so joyous, and adrenalin inducing :) I took them on my little mp3 player when I spent a fortnight backpacking in the Pyrenees last August, and had a fabulous time singing them loudly and tunelessly as I whizzed up and down the mountains with my little tent :) Here's a sample: How Firm a Foundation.
Well, that's it for now :) My chicken is cooked.