Toast
Jack's breakfast
I don't wanna
Ele visiting
Swimming
Man. Beer.
Man. Fire.
Back in Wales
Destination
August 2003 Archives
August 29, 2003
9800?
ATI Radeon 9800 or 9800 Pro graphics card? There's about £80 difference in price, but big a difference in speed is there? By getting the pro I'm future proofing myself for playing Doom 3 and HalfLife 2 at high-res, but is it worth the extra £80? Especially as I don't have a lot of money right now..... I'm supposed to be upgrading my big PC's components for web design now I've lost my study, but if I'm going to get a DVI video card I might as well get one that's top for gaming ;)
Both 9800 and 9800 Pro have 8x AGP, which will be a speed improvement when I upgrade my motherboard. Both have similar specs except for clockspeeds. It'll get overclocked anyway, which means I can clock a non-pro to pro speeds and save money, or overclock the pro and get even higher performance.
Hmm. I think it's going to be the non-pro version. Save money and overclock. Then I can buy this pretty CoolerMaster case that Kim likes so much. That'll keep the bugger cool!
August 26, 2003
August 24, 2003
Swimming
The Cardiff Triathletes went for an open water swim at Coney in Porthcawl today. More photos on their website.
August 23, 2003
August 21, 2003
August 20, 2003
Worms
Flipping heck, I wrote this entry once but it didn't get posted. Anyhoo:
We got hit by three worms today, just in our office. This on top of spending the last week clearing the Klez worm AND Kuang, which had infected almost every .exe and .com file, knackering the machine. I ended up having to save his files, format and install XP.
Today we got hit by Nachi, which is no biggie, as it's apparent intention is to plug the MS Blast worm security hole and fix your machine if it had it. If you remember, this was in the press for launching a denial of service attack from an infected machine against windowsupdate.com. One of the girls in the office picked that worm up on her home machine last week, and I know that's got Zonealarm (firewall) running on it because I installed it. her other half does have to disable it every now and then though to get VPN to work. They've upgraded to the Pro version now - that keeps the firewall up and lets VPN work.
On my machine I got a warning about the Sobig.f worm trying to kick off from my anti virus software. On 2 other machines people didn't do so well and the worm executed and started attacking other mahines on the network. And the Cardiff University network is big. I had to pull those of the net. They'll get patched when they boot up tomorrow morning.
The Sobig worm is a little sod. It starts up it's own little SMTP server and starts banging out emails to all and sundry, spoofing their source. This floods the network with what appears to be spam. A major pain in the arse. The Cardiff IT people seem to be getting a stranglehold on it. I guess most people on the network were affected, and others throughout the world too.
I can't even remember what the third worm was. It may well have been the Lovsan worm itself.
What the hell is going on at the moment? I've never had so much hassle. I remember the days when all my anti-virus software found was the odd Word macro virus that never did a bloody thing. I had to waste a load of time fixing software at home when a virus got in on a disk from work earlier this year. And I've heard that a USB memory stick kicking around the office has got yet another virus on it. Gr8.
August 19, 2003
iBook
The iBook is doing well. I've already added an airport wireless network card (bargain from eBay) and another 256MB of RAM (from work). These Macs really need the extra memory and it's running a lot faster now. OS X looks very memory hungry with all these flashy graphics and funky transitions.
I just need to get a wireless card for my server at home now to be able to use my laptop on the network and internet without cables. Great for sitting out in the garden! (So I'd better get on and lay that decking that soon then).
August 17, 2003
Mac
This new Mac is working very well. The operating system is very easy to use, and the included software is superb. Working at Cardiff University lets me use all the big pieces of software on my Mac that I use on the PC for no extra cost. The iBook screen is excellent, the battery life is indeed as good as Apple promised, and network connections at home and work have all been very easy. Bluetooth is a snap, letting me send photos from my phone to my iBook, something I still haven't got my PCs to do.
Syncing my Palm has been a bit of a struggle - it's very slow via bluetooth and keeps timing out. And transferring my email and info to Entourage from Outlook has been troublesome, which is crap since they're both made by Microsoft.
The size and weight make it very portable. In a neoprene slip case it just drops into my bike bag. A top way of transporting data around.
All in all, a very nice piece of kit.
August 16, 2003
August 15, 2003
Rabbit
Oh no! The rabbit has gone!
The owners eventually came back from their holiday. They had to ring the RSPCA to get their rabbit back, so they got a bit of a telling off. Heh heh. Some people suck, don't they? Poor little rabbit. No-one responded to the note we put through the door so no-one could have been around to feed and water him, and we've had him for 8 days.
Next time he gets out we're gonna keep him.
August 14, 2003
Photophone.
Guess who's bought a camera for his phone then? Good old Ebay.
Got a haircut too.
So I guess I'll be posting lots of crappy photos then :)
August 11, 2003
Tri Poll
Oops, I was supposed to get the poll for the choice of Cardiff Tri club champs event up last night. Oh well, it's there now. I'll have to try and give it it's own page with a few images to make up for it's lateness.
We've *still* got the rabbit. No sign of the owners yet, and we don't have a hutch or a run, so it's a bit cooped up. Poor little thing. I guess we'll have to let it out for a scamper in our hallway this evening.
Like I said on Saturday, the layout for the website I'm currently developing is finally finished. I've settled on a design I'm happy with (3rd time lucky) and the template is all coded up. I need to add the content now, so I spent a few (very dull) hours sat scanning in brochures and pamphlets. I forsee a lot of typing in my near future....
August 9, 2003
Hot
Damn it's hot today. Over 30C is unusual for us in Cardiff. I hope we get a breeze this evening.
The bunny is coping OK in the shade in the garden, but Jack's not too happy. He's asleep now, so maybe he'll stay like that til the morning.
I didn't get my iBook on Friday :( So instead of having a new toy to play with I've done some work. The layout and design of the website I'm working on at the moment has at last been finalised. My next job is to scan in a load of photos and type up some content. Not a lot of fun in this heat.
August 8, 2003
August 7, 2003
August 5, 2003
August 4, 2003
Racing
My ankle's getting better: I can walk without a limp today and I'm going mountain biking this evening (very gently). I don't think I can be arsed to do any more triathlons though. I was interested in what it would be like to do a reasonably long one, and it was great, but I'd much rather be climbing.
It served it's purpose and I haven't got too fat.
August 2, 2003
My new desk
I've been putting my new workstation together today so I can get back to work. We don't have a lot of room so I'm squeezed into my bedroom. Jeez, it's like being 16 again....
It's a bit bare so far. I've also varnished a matching shelf to go up tomorrow, and Kim's planning to repaint the room. She did a great job of varnishing the desktop (she rescued it from me).
To finish I'll be needing one of these and one of these. Yeah. Right.
August 1, 2003
iBook
It looks as though my iBook will be arriving late next week :(
I've already been sucked into the Apple world. Just look at all these nice Mac desktops.
Web Work
www.m4sport.co.uk went live a bit later than just m4sport.co.uk, so nothing to worry about there. It has been getting a few hits too, and lots of good comments. So that's a nice confidence boost!
I start work on another website this weekend, and hopefully I'll get some more interest over the next couple of weeks and get some more work.
Tomorrow I'll start on my new desk space for working at home since I've been moved out of my study by Jack. I wonder if Kim and I will be able to agree on a solution....
