Index | Reply

So, what can I say that I have achieved this last week. Yes, it's Thursday afternoon again and I am "on training" if anyone asks where I am at work. South Wales and West train-ing to be exact. The week has been a bit bitty. The Mail Merge MS-Word OLE server linking to FoxPro data which I was building got canned on Tuesday (a change of heart on the users part concerning a package which has that bit built in). So I then began the next bit of some side work that I am doing for another team, an Excel OLE Server integration thingie which takes as input a variety of spreadsheets in a variety of layouts and data formats and validates them and converts them to a standard format and layout (CSV 366x48 cells).

To fill in a bit of time, we also installed Win NT Server (4.0 naturally) and the Internet Information Server, WINS, DNHP (FLA?) and all the other goodies which come with it. Grand stuff, especially all the figuring out as to how IP addresses and TCP/IP really works. Peter did most of the work, I just came up with the bright ideas like driving down to PC World and buying a book on NT Server when we had wasted half a day taking stabs in the dark and had succeeded in stabbing nothing.

We also had fun with FrontPage and getting our Intranet stuff all set-up on the NT box in place of a directory on an OS/2 (YUK) server. The current strategy within our area is to claim all unused PC's (loads of people have now left the project since CROESO was cancelled) and set them up as "servers". I could also be found late in the evening liberating good bits and pieces from the PC's and building up the PC capacity in our area (swapping G70 screens for P70's, a little bit of memory swapping and moving out the second SCSI disks out of user machines into our new NT Server box (just a sooped up PC really). We have also done the proper thing and put in a request for a 128Mb/18Gb HP Server, which will hopefully arrive before the project is complete. All our workstations are now Win95, and we are all now using Word and Excel in place of AmiPro (the worlds worst word processor) and the other Lotus junk. Next week I plan to get everyone switched over to Exchange and to trash ccMail, at least for mail within the team. The Intranet bulletin board (kind of like an Internet News Forums) is going to be great for ideas and problem solving. Now we just need to get some one to buy us a link to the outside world web. Drool.

Cardiff has been bitterly cold this week with loads of frost every morning.

And so through the magic of time travel, it is now Sunday evening, the weekend has gone and I have been kicked off a newly revived Tomcat P5-166 where I was happily doing circuits and bumps in a Cessna 185 by my youngest who is now trying (quite successfully really) to land the Cessna.

Tomcat was dead when I arrived home on Thursday. The 2Gb Seagate (sounds of crashing from the Cessna next to me) was clicking like a train on bad tracks and Tomcat was giving up at boot stage with a "Primary Master Disk Failure". Sounded terminal enough, and it was. Son on Friday morning it was off to Computronic where I swapped it for a 3.2Gb Quantum Fireball (and had to pay the 89 Pound difference in price) and then a tedious Friday doing yet another Win95 install. I really could do them in my sleep now. Why is there a maximum of 2Gb for a FAT partition, or was it caused by me only having IBM DOS 5.0 as the source of my FDISK ? Anyway, now I have a 2Gb C: on the fireball, the 2Gb Seagate D: drive and another 1.2Gb E: on the fireball. Everything is back now, and now Nicky is trying her hand at flying the Cessna from Mitchigan airfield. My first attempt at landing was ALMOST a disaster when I only remembered to put down the landing gear at the very last moment.

Maggie's birthday went off well, and although she gratefully accepted the presents, she has decided to stay 35 for the moment. Various candles both smelly and plain now adorn the house as do two woollen jerseys (actually those arorn Maggie rather than the house) and a "picture framing mounting board cutter" which I think is now in the garage. We had friends (Gary, Carol and their two daughters) around for supper on Friday night, Nicky's favourite - "Macaroni Cheese ala Ricky" washed down with some damn fine Robertson wine and Amarulla Creams and the last of the Castle's for which I have eventually found a stockist.

On Saturday we finally bought a dining room suite after months and months of umm-ing and arr-ing. It is a 6'6" reconditioned pine antique replica if that makes any sense, with 6 chairs (2 carvers), and a sideboard, also made from reconditioned antique wood. It all looks very nice and we got to specify exactly the colour and style (very smooth sanding) etc, as they make it to your specifications. The whole kaboodle came to 1200 of the Queens finest, which is pretty good compared to others that we have been looking at, but of course loads more than we would have paid in SA. We should get it in four weeks time, just in time for Xmas - so place to put all the food !! We also almost got our curtain material for the lounge curtains, but the lining hadn't arrived so we left the rest in disgust and told them to only call us when the whole lot had arrived. Maggie and I also still have to agree a style of "Valance" (a technical term for the thing up the top, the pelmet). I am also hooked on some electrically operated curtain rails with automatic timer and a remote control. It just sounds cool asking "who's got the remote control for the curtains". Maggie thinks the exercise closing the curtains will so us/me no harm.

The BMW is still behaving itself, and while waiting for Maggie and the kids at Winchester Maternity hospital (no, don't worry, neither Maggie nor the kids, but rather Sue, a friend of ours who has just had a 9lb baby girl, Emma) I finally got around to reading the manual for the Sony CD-Radio that we have had for about a year, and have set the FAD (I think it stands for fade) so that the rear is louder than the front and we can drive in harmony without the constant "turn it louder" coming from above the rear axle.

OK, I guess it is Elephant time again...

Q: Why don't elephants wear blue pin-striped suits?

A: They look best in grey.

OK, enough for now, Tomcat is free of want-to-be pilots so I will end this now and hop into the cockpit of a 737-400 and try and do a few circuits and bumps (bounds to be pretty bumpy) at DF Malan (a nice long runway with neat mountains in the distance, I guess some of you may know it already).

Bye for now...

Last 5 Visitors

© 1998 - 2009