There's an app for that

Thought for today:
It isn't what you eat between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, it's what you eat between New Year’s Eve and Christmas!
(From Rachel Cosgrove’s Blog)


Mum and Dad were up at the weekend. I had a good time. Mum and I left Boyf and Dad to turn around the door to the kitchen (it’s much better now, despite a minor plastering issue we now have) and we went into town.
It was very busy, but nonetheless we got some shopping done. I got a new dress shirt for Boyf, as his old on had curry on from last Christmas’s Christmas Curry, some gifts for the boys in our lives and…
Drumroll please…
An iPhone!
I wanted one of these when they first came out on O2, but there was no way I was going back to them after the poor customer service I had a few years back. Orange have always been very good to me, and I get free broadband with them. So, I was very excited when they announced that Orange was getting the iPhone. Excellent!
I’m really pleased with it! The only (minor) issue that I had was regarding ringtones. There is a function in iTunes where you can turn a song (mp3) into a ringtone, but it’s only available in the US. Frankly, Apple, I expected more of you. However, I downloaded a (free) program which can do this for me, and so I’m now happy once more with my Imperial March ringtone, and Captain Scarlet for the Boyf when he calls. Woo!

Now I just need some more nice apps. I have one game, a Wallace and Gromit comic and the Orange apps for Orange Wednesdays and Orange online billing.

Mac-tastic!

So, two projects completed. That means seven to go! Seriously though, I feel good about having finished something finally! I’m all set for the next lot of socks, but I’m not casting on until I finish some more stuff. I’ve brought François for my lunchtime knitting. It’s just rib at the moment, it doesn’t get interesting until the crown decreases.
I don’t have any pictures of it yet, but I’m using the same yarn that I knit OH’s sweater from. It’s soft and has plenty of give, but it also copes in the washing machine (wool wash, 30˚, low spin speed, dry flat) so I’m pretty happy with that. I’m trying not to get too attached to the hat as I knit it, for two reasons. One is that it’s not for me, the other is that OH will probably lose it before winter is out. It should be a quick knit, but a couple of rows here and there don’t make a finished hat.

In other news... the new Macbook is amazing. I’m really impressed with it so far. It’s brought it home, because while I’m happily surfing the web, installing Uploadr and such like, OH spent all afternoon installing Windows onto the new hard drive, and after that nothing works.
“Hello, I’m a Mac. Is that a DVD? Would you like to watch it? Ok!”
“Hello, I’m a PC. What is this disc? What? Oh, really, a DVD? Well what do you want me to do about it?”
So now he’s got to spend goodness knows how long trying to find all the drivers for everything! Since we’re really organised, most of the discs for the hardware we have are scattered all over the house (not literally, that would be even more untidy than I really am). The Mac just does stuff. It’s fab! Plug in a mouse: it works. Plug in iPod, camera: they work. I haven’t tested my phone with it yet, but I’d be willing to bet it will work with a lot less fuss than the PC!
Pretty much the only problems I have are: the “ and @ are the wrong way round (as are \ and ‘) and the close-x button is on the other side of the window. Both of these things I am already getting used to though, so frankly that is a small price to pay for a system which just works.
Now I just have to work out how I’m paying for it. Whoops.

Shiny Shiny!

So, I told you that my PC was broken.
Well, after much some deliberation, and a trip to Maxwells in Northallerton, I now have a shiny new MacBook. It's pretty, isn't it?
It's also wireless, so naturally we've upgraded our home network to be wireless. Which means I can read my emails or surf the web (and Ravelry) from anywhere in the house.
It rocks!

However, we started off, yesterday, with a Belkin wireless router. Which was a bit intermittent last night, and then this morning it just didn't work at all. Pah. So we've swapped that for a nice Netgear one, which was much easier to set up and worked within a few minutes. Much better.

The old computer isn't completely written off yet though, we're now a two-computer household. Or we will be once OH gets the new hard drive working in the new one. Not complicated, but installing Windows takes a while, you know.

Then we'll have to set that one up to wirelessly connect too, and we'll be able to both be online at the same time!

Maybe we could get the XBox and PS2 on-line too now. Ahaha.
However, I am now appeased. And Apple are my new favourite manufacturer!

Out of kilter

OH didn’t believe my prognosis on the computer when I said it was dead and that we needed a new one (or at least a new hard drive).
So he invited The Black round to take a look. We gave him coffee and his girlf provided cake. We gave him the Dell rescue disk and the system install disk. He ran lots of Dell diagnostics which claimed that all was well (seriously?) and then the windows disk said that there were un-recoverable errors.
Man, I hate being right sometimes.

So, we’re definitely in the market for a new computer or hard drive, or possibly both. OH is pretty keen for me to have a computer of my own because I get really cross when he changes the settings on mine. And it is my computer. Actually, it’s our computer, which is tremendously difficult to acclimatise to – even though we’ve been sharing computers for the past five years or so. OH and I have different ideas about what is useful to have on a computer. So I might think that the Flickr Uploadr is pretty cool, but he’s downloaded the Ikea kitchen planner. Actually, that’s a bad example, since we both use both...

In other, non-computer news, I can’t knit fast enough for this cold weather! I’ve already decided that when I finish Mum’s cardigan that I’m not knitting anything else for anyone else (except maybe OH, or if I feel like I really want to) and I’m only knitting for me. I feel oddly gleeful about the idea. I thought “I don’t knit that much for other people anyway”, but when I look at my projects...
I have 52 projects on Ravelry.
9 are in progress, of those nine, five are for me.
5 are ugh! And 2 are snoozing. These are frogged or not happening, so they don’t count.
That leaves 36 completed projects.
Of those, 14 are for me.
That’s rubbish.
So, once I’ve finished the four projects which are not for me (one for a friend’s baby who isn’t cooked yet, one for OH, one for Mum and one for my Secret Santa) then that is it. No more nice knitter. Well, until I redress the balance a little, and I think knitting for babies doesn’t count as knitting for other people. I have really enjoyed knitting for others, but it’s just not happening anymore. I want to have nice warm cosy woolly things that I have made. In the meantime, I think I might have to go buy a new cardigan!

Two Posts in One Day...

I expect that when I said that my computer wasn’t working a couple of you might have thought “Oh no! All your stored patterns! All your photos! Your music!”
However, panic not. You see, I have a memory stick on which I had recently saved all of my patterns from the “My Knitting” directory on my PC. Phew. Thank goodness for that.
My photos are pretty much backed up too. Most are on CDs (all the Florida ones, all the France ones) and the rest are on Flickr. There are some still on the camera, but that’s okay too.
I believe that I bought my various music before the old computer died but there is some that I didn’t. I’m not sure what I’ll do about those. I might just buy them again as there’s probably only a couple of songs. I find it slightly irritating that iTunes is not clever enough does not trust me enough to remember that I have bought music from them before. I know that they do that to try to prevent file sharing. I wonder, if I email them my receipts and my sob story (boo hoo my PC died) they might let me have them again for free? I doubt it.
Also, this will then be the third PC that my iPod has been connected to. I think I’m only allowed five. That worries me a bit, because my iPod has been a darned sight more reliable than my PCs have. My iPod is over 2 years old (got it September 2006) and still in great shape! The PC came to us around May 2007 and is broken. The one before that lasted a good while though, since university! (Getting on for 5 years I think)
I wouldn’t say that my iPod gets the kind of abuse that my PC does, so it’s not really a fair comparison. But still, if my iPod continues to outlive my PCs, I’m going to have to buy a new iPod. Which seems silly to me.
So, in a roundabout way, I’m coming to the view that I should perhaps consider getting an Apple Mac of some sort (the Mini?).

RIP My Dell

My home computer has died. We managed to get to a DOS screen (of sorts) and I tried C:\chkdsk to which it replied that it couldn’t find a mountable volume. Oh dear.
So, it looks like we might be in the market for (yet another) new PC. We might be able to just replace the hard drive. I don’t know how easy that would be, it’s a long time since I did anything to the insides of a computer (not since I unsuccessfully tried to build my own PC at university!)
So, at the moment I’m not sure what the plan is. This one didn’t go “bang!” at least, it just failed to work. It’s a bit of a shame; I was all set to be impressed by our Dell. As it stands, I’m wondering if we can afford a Mac instead. My main concern with switching to a Mac is the lack of software. I wouldn’t be able to run Civilisation IV any more (the only game I play on the PC in fairness) and we’d need to find a new word processor (not the end of the world). And I start to feel like Apple are becoming almost as monolithic as Microsoft, which isn’t a good thing!

So, I’m limited to internet access at work, which I should only be using in my lunch break. No internet banking, no shopping (except places where I can use pay pal) no Ebay – it’s blocked. At least they’ve built a massive new PC World near my gym. (!)

Team Building

We went out with some of the team last night for some bowling, pool and DDR. I didn’t partake in the pool, I’m no good at it and then I get cross about losing. I did play some air hockey, which was good fun. I think OH let me win, but that’s not so bad! One of the girls who used to be on my team and I played DDR (Dance-Dance-Revolution, or Dancing Stage Euromix) which was great fun. We even managed to get some of the boys to have a go (I hope that The Black enjoyed it, as there is video evidence!)

I didn’t do too badly in the bowling, 69 in the first game and 103 in the second. I came an overall 8th (of 12) but OH came a respectable 3rd.

Still haven’t cast on the second sock. Tut. Still, we have a nice long weekend off work now. There are too many other distractions!

You might have read on Lint’s blog that there is now a tea-trolley service in our building. It’s costing me a damned fortune, because instead of having the tea from the machine (lovingly referred to as hot river water) I’ve been paying for my tea instead. On the plus side I get to collect stamps from the lady who brings round the trolley (who is lovely and friendly!) and when I have filled the card (is it 8 stamps?) I get a freebie. That happened today; I had a full card, so I got my morning wake-up brew free! That makes me happy.

I’ve been playing lots of sudoku on my DS. It’s meant to be good for me (great excuse) and keeps my brain fit. I enjoy sudoku too. I’m not the fastest sudoku-er there has ever been, (though I did score rocket speed for one yesterday). I’m 8% of the way through the sudoku puzzles available on the Brain Training game. I wonder if there are more on Brain Training 2?

It’s also pay review time at work. I expected, given my fairly recent promotion, that I wouldn’t get much of anything, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised! I rather expect to pay a massive wodge of my bonus tax, NI and student loan repayment (graduate tax, really).

Although I’ve queued BMP from Knitty, I am thinking about using the charts to make a bag instead/as well. My thoughts are for a satchel style bag with a space invaders screen on the front of the flap, and a high score table on the inside. Oh well, if it comes to fruition, I’ll post about it.

Knit, natter, and train your brain

Last night’s knit night was a quiet affair; only two of us this week. Still, I figure if we keep talking about it and keep turning up, other people will join in eventually. If not, it gets me out of the house and forces me to knit on the Manly (Rav), so why not? Funky Flower is good company anyway! (and when Blogger stops being broken I’ll add her to the Blogroll. It might be because of the filters at work?)

Outside of that, I’m afraid I’ve been a bit lax on the knitting front. I mentioned Guitar Hero III last post, which is a chronic time suck! Trouble is that once I get on there and I’m in the “zone”, I find it hard to put the controller down admit defeat and go to bed. The new wireless guitar is wicked too!
But, my company treated me to a £25 voucher to a place of my choice. (don’t get me started on slashing one bonus and then giving us another) and I have been wanting to get a Nintendo DS for ages. Since before Christmas! I have finally taken the plunge (and no, the £25 didn’t cover it by any stretch!) and bought myself a silver DS and the Brain Training “game”. I was shocked to discover that my brain age was in its 40s! So I’ve been training (for two days) and have got it down to 31. I hope to get down to at least my real age! It also has Sudoku on it, which I’ve been doing at lunch instead of my knitting. (I know, I’m sorry, normal service will resume once I cast on the other sock)
Of course, just owning Brain Training isn’t enough (oh no, I’ve unleashed another time-and-money suck!) so I’ve ordered Nintendogs: Dalmations and Learn French. At least the learning French one will be useful. The idea is to recap my GCSE French, which I was awarded ten years ago, ready for our holiday in France in the summer. Suffice to say, I’m a bit rusty. I still remember the basics, but much of the grammar; tenses and stuff like that have fallen by the wayside. I can still say “j’ai un petit pois vert avec un grande nez” which means “I have a green pea with a big nose” – not especially useful, but then most of the foreign that I know is either ordering drinks or not useful. “Konnichiwa, watashiwa Tsuki des, Samurai dewa arrimassen” means “Hello, I am Tsuki, I am not a samurai” in Japanese. Oh well.

Yes, the socks. I’m suffering second sock syndrome a little. I need to get the darned thing cast on before I lose the will to knit it. it’s the thought of all that rib! Funky Flower has sent me a link for a stretchy cast on to try, because the cable cast on (that I usually use) is a bit tight for OH. My new sock knitting book recommends the long tail cast on (I have yet to find a tutorial, mainly because I haven’t looked).
Since we have a long weekend though, I hope to get some knitting done.

Other plans for the long weekend include: more baking, move the stuff in the bathroom so there’s room for the new towel/bedding washing basket, finish the curtains that have been sitting waiting to be hemmed for about a month. Depending on the weather we might go off on a day trip somewhere. You know, usual Easter weekend type stuff.

New Widget

I’ve added another doody widget over in my side-bar. Even you non-knitters might be vaguely impressed! It’s progress bars from my ravelry site. Their resident code monkey, Casey [link only works for Ravelry users while it’s in beta], has created a widget to show my project progress and also the current picture of the project. I then did a bit of faffing with it to get it to look like that (notably making the bars pink and making it in two columns). If you read me through a reader, you’ll be missing out. I tried sticking it in the code for this post, but it didn't work so if you do read through a reader you'll have to visit!

This has left me with a dilemma. I currently have 5 projects on the go. As you can see, that leaves me with a wonkey looking side-bar. So, I’m going to have to:

1. Make sure to have pictures for my projects to prevent wonkiness that way
2. Make sure to always be working on an even number of projects

That should do it, I hope!


I also discovered This essay on how nerds work. Now “nerd” is not a word I associate with.
I’ll try to explain (though I’m not sure I can).
I am a Geek. I know I am a Geek. It is not possible to be a Geek without knowing that you are a Geek.
Being a Nerd is not cool. I don’t know why. I guess it’s a local thing. So, when I see Nerd, if it’s a funny or interesting article which could be about a Geek, I mentally switch it.
And clearly, the article is about being a Geek, not a Nerd. :-P

If Yoda was a coder...

As seen on Think Geek:

$DO || ! $DO ; try
try: command not found


If you get it, you'll be chuckling (or cackling hysterically like me!)
If not, I'm sorry.

Because I'm shattered...

Check out this post by my OH

Bank Holiday and New PC update

So, for the bank holiday weekend my plan was to tidy the house. We did a pretty good job so far, but we’re going to need to spend some more time on it. We got most of it done though, as well as a bank holiday Monday trip to Ikea (mistake) to buy a desk. We also bought a narrow bookshelf (which is lush) and a big chest of drawers for my knitting and crafts stuff so that it’s not all over the place. Woo. I’ll post a pic once I’ve finished putting all the yarn and stuff in there.

I also finished the first of the socks that I’m knitting, and I’ve cast on for the second one – still working the cuff at the moment. It’s going to be interesting because they’ll have different stripes on them, because of the nature of the self-striping yarn. I'm really pleased with the first sock. There are a few minor imperfections, but I’m not the kind of knitter who has to unravel whole garments because of one stitch! I’ve got so many other patterns that I want to knit though! Well, we’ll see how sock two pans out. I have seen, in simply knitting, a fab tip about how to go back to before a mistake without the hassle of un-knitting or the risk of dropping millions of stitches. I haven’t had to use it yet though (touch wood).

The new PC rocks: it has a 20inch wide screen monitor which is soooooo cool! It also has a TV tuner, which is brilliant! I installed CivIV which I played for most of yesterday evening! Unfortunately the pos chair Leon got us (one of them posture thingys) is really uncomfortable! Well, I find it to be, Leon likes it. I may have to splash out and buy myself a different chair! Oh well.

Tomorrow is an interesting day for me, as I will be working a split shift (oh joy). I’m getting up at 6am to go to the gym, which at least means that I can make the most of my day. After the gym I might wander around the shops until the buses get a little quieter. Then I’m off home to relax a little. At noon I’m back in work for my first part of my shift. Two hours (approx) and I’ll be off again. I may see about getting my legs waxed in the interval. Then I’m back at work again at around 5pm for the evening shift. I expect to be in until about 10pm. I’ll probably ask Leon to come and pick me up, though I could charge a taxi to work – I’d need a receipt! Should be okay though.

As I mentioned above, I’m going to put my yarn all in a chest of drawers to keep it tidy. The new chest is the same sort of style as the massive wardrobes in the main bedroom, but the colour isn’t quite the same. It’s a hotch potch of furnishings in the second bedroom anyway though. We’d quite like to get a futon for in there, the reason being twofold:

1. a double futon is almost, but not quite, as wide as a double bed – will fit into the room and make it look big enough for a double bed, and will be nicer for guests to sleep on than our air mattress is at present.
2. a futon can be folded away into a sofa, which we could sit on if we did put a second telly in that room!

So, I paid for the new craft chest with the money that we got from selling the treadmill. Basically, when we sold the treadmill my Dad gave me an envelope with the money in. I put it on top of the telly for safekeeping, and promptly forgot all about it. when we were starting to tidy the lounge, before the Ikea trip, Leon discovered the envelope. Hurrah! So, I decided to use the money in the envelope to buy a “storage solution” for my yarn, needles and other knitting stuff (including copies of Simply Knitting magazine)

Lastly, I had another driving lesson last night. We went up and down the A64 and did a turn in the road. Not bad, but I need to observe more still. So we’re doing “advanced” observations to try to make me good. it was actually quite fun, but I also found that I was getting a little distracted by the observations and missing things in front of me. I am driving again next Tuesday with hopefully more of the same.

Have a great day people, the sun’s out and even I am in a good mood!