Monthly Archives: September 2007

Bouncing batteries

2

I’m on my way into the city on the bus. Talking to J on the phone, holding pen and holding notebook open for information. Bus hits a bump then stops. A loud thudding, then some rolling noises later a woman at the front of the bus pointed and said “Look at that camera”. I was at the back of the bus and the batteries were in between. This camera has failed to learn to fly and/or learnt to land gracefully before and the batteries always fly out. I managed to get it all back together and did the “No it’s not broken” “No it’s not expensive” “Yes I really must buy a strap..” on the way back to my seat. All very embarrassing.
Took a fair number of photos in town but when I got back none are in focus. They aren’t a messy blur and I’ve taken worse but there is a fuzzy edge.

One pile of parma violets sitting on a post-it. So the macro works. But nothing gets sharp without that. Difficult to tell with ‘inside light’ so tomorrow it’s outside and take heaps. The zoom/un-zoom is working but the AF lock isn’t kicking in. Hopefully nothing is wrong – I thought that if it broke it would just break completely – but I shall discover this in the am.

Far away ink

2

I go into a stationers shop and ask if they fax things.
Yes says the lady behind the counter. I hand her 7 sheets of paper and she faxes it.
“Where is it going please?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes it does so I need to know where it was going”
“It just went to America – why does that matter?”
“It’s going further so it costs more”

The way she said it I genuinely believe she think it really does actually cost more. I wonder if she knows just how a fax works? Do the company teach her?

And I had 2 great domain ideas on the way into the city and each of the name variations isn’t available. Damn.

White, no coffee

4

Coffee-free mac returned complete with 2gb of ram. Nice.
Creative Audigy soundcard arrived, installed and now I have excellent sound.
Jade Empire installed. Game says it won’t work because the gfx card drivers are too old. But the game does run. Which is useful because the latest drivers won’t display games – which is odd. For instance in Neverwinter I can see the cursor but not the actual game screen. Not a big deal though.
Taito Legends bought for the PS2. (It was only 7 quid). So now I get to play Rainbow Islands, Bubble Bobble and Phoenix all on the TV. I have them in MAME but it’s better on the bigger TV.
Not a bad way to head into the weekend.

Blue Peter, the cat and the name

2

So the people running Blue Peter lied about the name of the cat. Regardless of all the other lies at the BBC this one really does take the proverbial biscuit doesn’t it?
They have a new cat, they want a name for the cat so they ask the viewers of the program to name it. And when those viewers do name it they ignore it on the grounds the name could offend viewers. So why ask?
What is stranger is that the BBC, Times Online, Guardian, Mirror, Digital Spy and others I trawled through did not reveal this name. The Times cryptically refers to “a variant on Puss”. It takes The Sun to come to our rescue and daringly print “Pussy“. So the kids wanted pussy and the grownups gave them socks instead. Sounds about right :)
I could understand if they’d called it ‘furry bastard” or “Mouse Murderer” and that would have said a lot about the state of the nations youth, but Pussy? Good grief even James Bond had Pussy galore. Oops, missed the capital G there :)
You know what’s next – “Here’s one someone else made earlier”.

Update!
Latest from the BBC: “The cat was called Socks after staff changed the results of an online poll. Viewers wanted the cat named Cookie.” Now someone somewhere is now lying because everyone else was singing from the same songsheet.

Maclapback

2

Insurance co rang this this morning. She said I would get a new laptop and that she needed to confirm it and arrange delivery – sounded fair enough. She then said that she would read me the name of the replacement computer and I had to agree and when it arrived even if it was wrong I would have no choice but to keep it because I was about to agree. (She didn’t use commas either). So she said it was an Apple Mac and I agreed. I made a distinct point that I wanted the 2gb of ram and she said something about that being there. Seemed odd though that they’d want an agreement over the phone. It’s easy with Mac stuff – Apple don’t believe in much choice either in model or design. But if it was a Windows machine it’d be awkward because laptops seem to cycle through models quite quickly. Anyway, it’s here Friday. Which is good.

90 over 60.

6

All I want to blog about is J’s MS and the way it’s so bad right now. I alternate between angry that no-one will do anything (Interview to be an MS Nurse. “Can you say ‘There there ?’”) and I say WILL because they say so very little and do even less that I can’t see the point in them unless there really is something they could do and the flip side from angry is sad because it’s frustrating us both.
She has no feeling in her feet, she has only gross motor movement in her hands, is numb all the right side, is increasingly numb on the left. Her BP is something like 90/60, her resting pulse is 130+ and there’s no-one to really help. She is much much worse than even 2 months ago.
Steroids are now proposed – if it’s a relapse she will improve (a relative term if ever there was one) with them (although they have their own side effects) and if it’s not a relapse and part of the slide ever downwards then she’ll not feel better. So it’s feel crap and maybe feel better.

If you are on Interferon, do not stop. Do not let a consultant talk you into stopping.

Sounds like I’m moaning or something and I’m not it’s just frustration. The same frustration that thousands of other people must feel with their ills. And it’s not wrong to feel this way. It’s not exactly productive either but sometimes bitching about something does let out some pressure.

The other day while testing the soundcard I played a few seconds of the music to Koopa Troopa beach in Mario Kart 64. We used to play that game constantly. J asks the girls to set it up and they play. Today I asked J if she wanted a game but she said she’s not very good because she can’t hold the button down to go faster. That’s sad. It’s a way of not losing too – but it’s still sad.

The MS is getting worse and the future is becoming more .. focussed, sharper. Not how things are planned but then what is?

I was so swept up in these thoughts and more I completely forgot 2 photo challenges and other work I’d got planned too. Diversions are good. I need a new gadget. And that soundcard.

The speaker thing again

17

I can’t work this out.

Problem:
Only a small amount of sound comes from the R speaker. This happens when playing Winamp or a game.

Test each element:
– Remove audio plug from back of machine and plug Zen headphones into machine. Sound is good and even.
– Plug the speakers plug into a Zen and sound comes from both speakers evenly.
So this establishes that the output from the computer is good.
It also establishes that the speakers both work when sent a stereo signal

So why does the one speaker fail to make enough noise?

If it were a sound setting in the computer the headphones would show it.
If it was a problem with the speakers the Zen hookup would show it.

I have no ideas.

Replace what to get sound?

Reply

I still have only the tiniest sound from one speaker even if the other is booming.
Every driver (nvidia, realtek) is up to date. I have uninstalled and reinstalled more than once.
Machine is clean, everything well seated.
Sound settings correct.
Headphones direct into the socket in the dead speaker work properly.
The speakers work perfectly when plugged into my zen.
I have tried everything I have found.
But I have no clue as to where sound is actually driven – motherboard or gfx card?
So what do I look to replace?

Update:
It’s hardware. Somewhere between the wiring from the headphone jack inside the speaker to the actual noise-making parts it is damaged. How on earth that happened I have not the slightest clue – I’ve never had a speaker just break before. So it’s off to a box-shop tomorrow to get some new ones. Neverwinter just isn’t good in mono through the one.
And I’m annoyed that I didn’t take it all apart and test with known good parts earlier. I’m meant to be able to troubleshoot stuff ;)