Heart surgery successfully performed. The computer is alive again!

...ok, off to P-Con now. I'll replace the case later.

Well, not as such. I switched it off. When I tried to switch it back on, nothing happened.

I assume it's the power supply, which had been making ominous noises for a while (as of a not-entirely-happy fan). Of course this happened after shop closing time. On the bright side, I have the exact specs and I know where to buy a replacement PSU within 5 minutes walk from here. Tomorrow. They open at 10.

This will mean skipping part of P-Con -- I'm now debating whether to go to the con first, get a full programme, and then decide what I can most painlessly skip, or whether to go to the shop first, come home, and then go to the con (home is on the way between shop and con). Well I have the whole evening to make up my mind...

What I really hope is that (a) my diagnosis is correct, and (b) I will actually be able to replace the PSU myself (never done it before, though I have swapped drives, changed simms and installed cards in the past). If that fails, I do have the number for a good computer repair service -- but that would mean waiting until Monday. Sigh.

(Now writing from the laptop, but it doesn't have everything that's on the currently-dead desktop...)

Meanwhile, cooking rice to be fried with egg and eaten with kimchi. Memo to self: in future, do not buy Junior Kimchi. It's bland. Yep: someone actually managed to produce bland kimchi. What is the world coming to, I ask?

I can't believe the battery life on that laptop is one bleedin' hour! And with screen brightness turned almost all the way down, too!

...I wonder if using wi-fi really drains it a lot. Must find out more about battery life.

The wireless connection does reach into the garden!

(Taking advantage of a brief bit of summer here...)

I'm sorting through my digital music collection (small enough). One thing I do is play all the unrated tracks (which is all of them to begin with) at random, and I get to rate them and fix descriptions etc. as I go, without getting bored to tears.

Well, the shuffle landed on U2's Silver and Gold, and I noticed that it was the flat version (from the B-sides collection). So I said, ah, let's rip the proper version, what's the point of having a sub-par one? So I took out my copy of Rattle and Hum and stuck it in the CD drive. I didn't touch nothing. It started playing all by itself, straight from Silver and Gold (track 8).

Spooky! :-)

Lately I've been busy switching software (in between being busy working). Among other things, I switched media players from iTunes back to Windows Media Player (main advantages: it scans folders automatically for new files, which iTunes doesn't; and it doesn't insist on storing my files on disk according to its own criteria, which iTunes does. Also, I don't have an iPod.)

Anyway -- lately I've started listening to a few podcasts -- mostly lectures and talks on various subjects, like history or buddhism. This is useful while I'm doing things that don't require much brainpower, but aren't compatible with reading -- like mending clothes or washing dishes. Unfortunately, unless I'm working near the computer, this means keeping the volume really high; and even then, there's no way I can hear a talk while I run the water in the kitchen sink.

So this morning I started looking at a couple of catalogues for nearby shops to get an idea of the kinds and prices of mp3 players available.

And then this afternoon I got a brainwave, and realised that I have one. It's called a Palm Tungsten E.

So I browsed around for info, installed the required (free) software, discovered that it syncs beautifully with Windows Media Player (ok, it requires taking the memory card out of the Palm and sticking it into the computer, but hey, not exactly back-breaking work...) -- and now I'm all set. Yay for technology I didn't know I had (and for brainwaves).

The other programs I switched were the web browser, from IE to Firefox (the "killer app" here is a plug-in that saves the current session, no matter how many tabs are open); and the mail program, from Pegasus Mail to Thunderbird (I love Pegasus, but it's really been lagging behind in integration with the general WinXP environment. I still think it's a *better* mail program than Thunderbird in many ways, but none of them are really relevant to my requirements, so...)

Other than that... I'm still busy with work, mostly in the form of small unconnected jobs, which is not ideal but it's much better than no work. The concert on Saturday went quite well, we could have done with more people in the audience but hey; and that's it for choir activity until the autumn.

The novel revision is still horribly stuck, only partly because of the need of devoting brainpower to translation work. I think I've got over the main sticking points in Sc 20.4, but now I'm simply not managing to jump-start it again. In an attempt to get back into the novel by a different door, I picked up revising the "epic poem" in Part II, specifically trying to fix the most cringeworthy verses: and there I hit the 11-syllable problem again. My brain seems to believe unswervingly that every line of poetry should contain 11 syllables, and that's what it produces *every single bloody time*. It goes without saying that the stuff I'm trying to revise is not meant to be in that metre. (In fact, it would probably help if it was in any set-length metre, but because of some other perversion of my brain, it's not: it's irregular, and meant to be irregular, and the bloody brain keeps trying to turn it into bleedin' endecasillabi.

And that, I think, is pretty much where I'm at. Oh, and wishing for the weather to turn sunny again.

Item 1: Sparrows and pigeons really like arborio rice. Even if it is not only raw, but in fact well past its sell-by date and in fact tasting a bit too stale for me to use to make risotto. Judging by the speed with which it disappears from my window-sill, they don't seem to mind.

Item 2: The secret to easily and firmly affix the shower-tray to my bathroom wall with suction cups (rather than having it crash into the tub after 5 minutes as usually happens) is methilated spirits. As in, cleaning the wall and the cups with it instead of with water or water and soap as I'd always done.

In other news: I just bought myself an external hard drive for backup purposes, and I'm now cheerfully geeking around to find out how to use it.

Well, that was last night. And it didn't explode much -- it just kind of went "pop" and died.

It has to be noted that I'm working on a largish job and I was already slightly behind on schedule. And one file was due for delivery first thing in the morning -- and that was ready, too, but now inaccessible due to the computer's refusal to give any signs of life whatsoever. Of course.

First I panicked. Then I went to flip the fuses that had unflipped in the corridor. Then I guessed a power supply fault. Then I tried swapping the power cable and using a different socket. Then I panicked again.

Then I checked my backups and discovered that (a) my scheduled automatic backups on USB key of the most important files (current work, accounts, novel, etc.) is somehow fucked up and the most recent copy of the file that was due in the morning was from 2 days ago -- in other words, totally useless. And (b) I couldn't do anything with the other files (due in the next 2 days) because the program I need to edit them doesn't run on my laptop (not just because it's not installed, but because this version doesn't run on Vista).

So I panicked further, and then I went to sleep because by this time it was past 1 am and there wasn't anything I could do anyway.

This morning I got up, panicked, and then called the client and explained the problem. The project manager, fortunately, was understanding. Then I started calling a number of PC repair places -- none of which answered the phone before 10 am. This is Ireland after all...

Ok -- I'll cut it short. To my complete amazement (as well as relief), I got the machine repaired by midday. I could have done without the expense right now, but well, I couldn't have done without the computer :-) It was indeed the power supply, which needed to be replaced. I'm thinking that if it happens again, I'd probably be able to replace it myself now that I've seen what's involved -- though the number and variety of output cables from it is a bit scary.

And then I also managed to get a deadline extension from the project manager -- which is just as well, and which allowed me to go to choir practice tonight instead of slaving over the translation without breaks for the rest of the evening. This was also just as well, since I was the only tenor present tonight. The basses were doing just as badly -- only one bass too. We looked a bit like the Ulysses Girls' Choir... :-) (Our new director also directs -- and founded -- the Cathedral Girls' Choir, which is why I thought of it).

I've set up the new wireless router.

The initial setup was really simple, and gave me a situation where both the desktop (XP, cabled to the router via Ethernet) and the laptop (Vista, wireless connection to router) could access the Internet, but the Vista laptop couldn't see the desktop at all, and the desktop could see the laptop but got raspberries and rude gestures if it tried to actually access it.

Then I've spent a couple of hours cursing, changing settings at random, restarting computers, searching for information online, blasting firewalls, and drinking strong green tea.

I'm not quite sure what did it[1], but now the computers can still access the Internet and can talk to each other without a glitch, tell each other stories, and share folders, meals and a beer. And I've started re-enabling firewalls and stuff, cautiously and one at a time, so I feel a bit less naked on the Interwebs.

Now the next steps will be (a) changing the router's settings from the defaults, for added security; (b) learning all about synchronization; and (c) adding a third computer, that is the old desktop currently languishing in a corner, so I can finally set up the backup/ghosting system I had been planning hmmmm.... several months ago now... (and since this is not a real priority, it could be a while yet before it happens...)

Meanwhile, the place is an unholy mess. And anybody who has seen it in its normal state will be aware that when I say this, it really means it's time to call a licensed exorcist from the Vatican... (On the plus side, it's mostly packaging and documentation for the new bits of hardware, and now that everything is working properly, tidying up should be relatively easy and painless. In any case, I do have a bell somewhere, the flat is full of books, and I have a nice collection of candles.)

(Oh, and I did go and bring the duvet to wash, I did the shopping, and I even managed to meditate before lunchtime for the third day running. The big frog is still untackled, but I have genuinely been busy, rather than pointedly avoiding it. It's ok.)

[1] Well, it must have been some of the stuff I did while following the instructions here -- but I'm not quite sure what.

I seem to have managed to link up my New! Shiny! laptop to my desktop computer through an ad-hoc wireless connection -- AND share the broadband internet connection through it! They said it couldn't be done! Bwahahahaha!!

...unfortunately, this required shutting down the ZoneAlarm firewall (Windows firewall is working), which doesn't make me too happy. But one thing at a time.

Things that I most want to beat to a pulp on Vista, #1: User Access Control. I mean, every time it pops a window, all I have to do is click "Allow". How does this make my computer safer?

Bought the laptop. It's shiny. Happy!

...further reports later. Now I have to go out and buy some food and stuff, and then come back and sort out some accountancy, and then I can start playing with it.


...shinyshinyshiny...

...today, on top of being frantic already, I suddenly wasn't able to use FTP -- I tried MSIE, FileZilla and even the command-line ftp.exe in Windows XP. Of course, I had not one, but 2 jobs to download by FTP (some of the files are too large for mail).

To cut a long story short, I found the solution on a Web discussion board, and I would never have guessed it myself. Therefore I'm going to copy and paste it here for my future reference because you never know :-) The culprit was Norton Internet Worm Protection, for whatever twisted reason of its own.

( solution of no interest unless you happen to have the same problem... )

Well, most anyway.

This morning I did the unpleasant part of the computer swap, that is the physical swapping. This involved spending some quality time with my hoover under the desk, defeating and taming the spaghetti monster living under the same desk, and some heavy lifting.

Now the new computer is where it will probably stay, each and every tentacle of the spaghetti monster is carefully labelled with its function (e.g. "speakers", "monitor", "old monitor" un so weiter), the multi-socket thingy (vocabulary blank) is nailed to the wall instead of being underfoot all the time, and the floor under the desk is more or less clean (well, the amount of dust I removed would have been enough to start a small family farm, if it had been soil).

The new computer is now the main computer in use, though it won't quite be "production" until I've installed a few other tools. Oh, and I've named it Ninja (what with being Japanese, fast, cutting-edge and dead stylish...)

The old computer is currently disconnected, but I will set it up again on the so-called "dining" table (which I never use for that purpose when I'm alone, and I rarely have guests...) -- later today. I don't think it will stay on that table: the plan is to keep it as backup only, and I will think where to put it once I'm happy that all I need is working on the new computer.

With all of that shifting and cleaning, I must have lost a few kilos... I wonder if I could launch a new fad, "Get Thin Through IT Maintenance!". There may be money to be made out of it...

Oh, and I have installed The Sims 2. It's nice :-)

I'm now online with the new computer. Happy!

In fact, in the end I gave up on getting ICS to work with the broadband connection on the old computer, and instead plugged the modem into the new computer and set up the connection to work in that direction. I t worked at the first attemtpt -- Unbelievable!

So now I've moved my mail to this machine, installed Office and SDLx (my main working tools, at least as far as the current job is concerned), and I'm now installing all the most urgent Internet software (like this LJ client and the AIM client).

Now that I know that the basics work, I think the next step will be installing The Sims 2 and see what it looks like on a significantly more powerful computer :-)

Initially, I couldn't get the two computers to talk to each other.

After trying every permutation of TCP/IP settings, I suddenly realized that it could be the effing firewall's fault.

It was. None of the instructions in the Help file or the Knowledge base, or a couple of web sites I looked at, mentioned checking firewall settings.

Now the computers are talking to each other, and I'm happy.

So I went and had some food at the nearest Italian restaurant (and found out where to go to watch the match on Sunday).

Getting the two machines to talk to each other was the most important thing, but now I'm not managing to get the new computer to browse the Web through my old one (through ICS). Progress is happening: after manually changing a few settings and running a dozen wizards, now it says the broadband connection via ICS is active. However, I still can't get to web sites. But now it tries, rather than just telling me it can't get there.

It's been ages since I've set up a new computer, and longer since I've set up networking. Hours of fun are confidently predicted.

...or something.

New computer unpacked and set up. It works!!

Now trying to convince it to talk to the old computer (the one I'm still using here). I need them to talk to each other, because I've got cartloads of data to transfer...

I got the new computer. Just brought it back in a taxi.

Still in the box though -- I need to finish some work to deliver today before I can start playing with it.

(The German is because it's Siemens/Fujitsu. And I don't know how to say that in Japanese.)

I'm getting really annoyed about this. Does anybody know of a way to convince Windows to play mp3 music loud, and interface noises at a lower volume?

What I mean is this: I want to listen to streaming music -- with Windows Media Player, WinAmp, what have you, doesn't matter. I also want to have interface noises enabled (like notifications, a little noise that confirms that the document I'm working on has just been saved, things like this): I get really itchy if I don't get audible feedback, it's just the way I've become used to working with computers. Now the problem is that in order to make the music audible, I have to turn up the volume levels to a point where interface sounds become really loud and annoying.

The problem is that media players and interface sounds all come under the heading "wave sounds" in the detailed volume controls in Windows. I can set a different volume for CDs, video, sw synth, mike and what have you: but media players and interface all go up and down together. (Of course, I have already set the media player's own volume control all the way up: it doesn't help.)

Any Windows wizards reading this? Am I really stuck?