Happy damned Hallowe’en!
Right, this just isn't funny. Fraggy and I are stuck in the Sabb office. It's almost 10pm, and we're neck-deep in PWs hell.
Meanwhile, outside, 1,500 people are either queueing patiently, queueing not-so-patiently, or inside the Union having some Tuesday-night fun.
It's just not fair - I want to go play!
Anyway, if you're appalled at the sudden drop in quality of PWs this week, please accept our sincerest apologies - we're in a rush so we can have a drink with the wicked (but good-looking) witches that just flew past the window…
(On the other hand, if you didn't notice any difference in quality - and just think PWs is generally pretty poor… Chin up! ;o)
Ok, back to work… (Edit: I can't spell “happy” - what an idoit…)
Posted by Alex on Tue 31st October 2006
If it can go wrong… (aka “Cheerleaders wanted”)
… it will. Fraggy and I are having a late-night PWs creating session after everything got left till the last minute.
He's having to learn how to use Quark on the Macbook Pro 'cos his PC's having a bit of an off day (ok, it's pretty much had its chips…), and thanks to the joy of Microsoft fonts, he's installed Rockwell on the Mac and it's managed to completely stop Quark from opening.
Plan B C D E … let's just go with plan K … is just kicking off - he's signing in as me and having to re-create all his settings on Quark. In the meantime I've been relegated to my tired-looking Vaio and I've been redesigning the PWs homepage - it might look a bit gash, but… Well, there probably isn't a but, but I really couldn't care less. No, really….
Anyway, we've been here for four hours and I haven't put a single article online yet. If any friendly cheerleaders or dance club girls want to come over and tidy Fraggy's room - no, seriously, please … it's horrible - they're more than welcome.
In Fraggy's words, “Here's to another late one, clart”. Proper bo…
Posted by Alex on Wed 18th October 2006
Eurgh, I feel dirty…
I've just paid for software. Admittedly, I've spent the last three days trying to find a way around having to pay for a program to transfer all my information from Outlook to Entourage (the Mac version of Outlook… Or so it seems) with no luck, so I've trusted Some Random American Company (TM) with my card details and have splashed out $10 on a serial number - a string of letters and numbers any self-respecting obsessive-compulsive could probably memorise in a couple of minutes - to let me use this program that so far looks most likely to save my sanity.
We'll see whether that's true in a couple of hours - it looks like it's going to take some time for this Shiny New Program (also TM) to finish slinging all my precious information out of Outlook.
Oh, and my Macbook Pro can understand voice commands. I didn't have to train it, beat it, or even coax and bribe it - apparently it just needed to be turned on. Now I can tell my laptop to do “stuff”… Exactly what stuff that might be, I have no idea - I think it means I can play hands-free chess with my computer or something…
Right, I'm off to bed. If anyone needs me, I'll be having a small panic attack in the corner of the room again… ;o)
Posted by Alex on Sun 15th October 2006
Self-defeating technology
I have an e-mail account - signinproblems@upsu.net - which fires off an automagic reply to every e-mail it receives to say “thanks for getting in touch. We're lazy, so don't hold your breath waiting for a reply” (or words to that effect).
I've come home to find that someone has e-mailed us with an enquiry. Our automagic reply has then gone to their account, which has also - probably because they too are as bored as I was when I set up my auto-reply - fired off an auto-reply to my auto-reply to tell my auto-reply that the owner of the mailbox is very sorry, but he has a life thankyouverymuch, so he might take a while to reply.
… to which *my* inbox fired off an auto-reply, saying “thanks for getting in touch. We're lazy, so don't hold your breath waiting for a reply”.
… which then received another “the owner of the mailbox is very sorry, but he has a life thankyouverymuch, so he might take a while to reply” message…
… and so-on.
This could take some time to fix…
Posted by Alex on Thu 12th October 2006
Stuffed Tigers…
So tonight's little excursion to Tiger Tiger didn't go as planned. Running a little late (hey, it takes time to look this good… Stop laughing at the back of the class), I got stuck in the queue to end all queues. Us Brits have a unique ability to stand about in order, maintaining a careful degree of personal space whilst mentally determing who might need a good elbowing to stop them jumping the queue.
In another land - let's say France as an example (not that I'm bitter at being nearly run over by a school-load of French children armed only with skis and poles while on a skiing trip at the tender age of 11) - there would be a mel
Posted by Alex on Tue 10th October 2006
Don’t wanna…
I have to write a script to spit out a list of NUS Extra cardholders.
I should have written it weeks ago. A sudden bout of procrastination has left me unable to do it. Honest…
Ok, I'll do it in a minute - I'm going for a cigarette first… Hopefully the smoking will kill me first…
This has been a Public Service Laziness Broadcast from the UPSU.net Pixel Arrangement Team.
Posted by Alex on Mon 9th October 2006
My Macbook Pro photos on Flickr
Yup, I'm that sad, I took some photos of my Macbook Pro. Click here to see them, or here for something completely different.
Posted by Alex on Mon 9th October 2006
24 hours later with the MacBook (Pro) and…
… it's great. Sorry, boring to hear though it may be, I still haven't decided that it's a waste of money.
(This post is very much a rambling stream of consciousness. Don't bother reading it. No, seriously…)
I mentioned yesterday that I'd found a problem with the construction that left a small gap between the lower case and the front edge of the wrist rest. I boxed the whole lot up today and went back up to the Apple store at Bluewater. Since I tend to dress like a tramp at the best of times, I noticed a few looks from people glancing first at my trampish look, and then at the box with the picture of the very shiny, 'spensive-looking laptop on it… And then back at me again, as if to say, “Ok, who did you rob?” (Truthful answer - the Student Loans Company, or at least that's how it feels).
The Apple Store were happy to replace the MacBook for an identical one, but the new one also has a (much smaller) ripple in the same place, as did almost every other MBP on display and in use at the store, so I suspect I won't get away from having this little bit of “personality” as part of the whole Mac experience.
So far, I've learnt…
- that illuminated keyboards are great
- it's thinner than it looks
- it looks really thin
- … and it looks really pretty
Ok, so I might just be focusing on the aesthetics a little too much here…
I've found loads of helpful pages for life-long PC users, installed a load of helpful toys, including Quicksilver (wow… no, really - Wow) and MenuMeters, managed to get iSync to synchronise with my Razr. And iCal's so damned pretty, but I think I might find out if Outlook's bundled with my copy of Office 2004 since I use it so much.
I still haven't found out if there's an equivalent to NetDrive that works on OS X, so I can edit PHP scripts on UPSU.net directly (I tend to write a line, save, then go to the browser and F5 to see if it worked or not. Slow, but usually effective), and until I can do that I'm going to have to stick with the Vaio (not that that's such a bad thing, but… y'know… New toys and all that - I wanna play!).
Front Row is really very Gucci, and the remote is a lovely little touch. Shame the slim pocket on the front of my laptop bag doesn't have a velcro flap to stop things falling out when I do loop-the-loops 'cos it would be perfect for the remote.
The speakers sound great - really crisp top notes, and a reasonable level of mid-range. There's even an appreciable bit of mid-bass, although I still prefer using my Sennheiser earbuds. It's another nice touch, and the stereo positioning of the speakers makes for some very well-defined lefts and rights.
I have to sign off to drive back to Pompey - I'm back on Helldesk tomorrow, so I need to start making a dent in the several hundred support e-mails I have to reply to. If you're in getting an NUS card this week, do come and say hi - I'll be the sleep-deprived, dribbling wreck in the corner of the room, holding an animated conversation with a chair about how cool Apple Macs are. Or something…
Next object of lust on my list: a silver 8Gb iPod Nano.
Next thing to do: get on eBay and sell everything I own.
Next thing I *should* be doing: my induction week project.
… and when it'll probably be completed: graduation week.
Posted by Alex on Mon 9th October 2006
I’m a very, very bad boy indeed…
No, not in that way. Honestly, if your initial reaction to the title of this entry was something related to smut, go take a quick look through the archives of my blog to see that there's less hope of me getting up to anything kinky than there is of my Mum's goldfishes winning Celeb Big Brother (they're way too talented, y'see…).
Anyway, I've gone to the dark side - today, mainly thanks to the generous contributions of the Student Loans Company and Her Maj's Courts Service (jury service payday), I dropped in to the Apple store in Bluewater and picked up a beeeyoooteefool Macbook Pro - the cheapest one, naturally, since my Northern heritage prevents me from spending a penny more than I absolutely have to, but even then it's a helluva toy. The Apple Higher Education discount gets me 15%ish off the price, so the laptop “only” cost
Posted by Alex on Sun 8th October 2006
Comedy inboxes
My inbox has a sense of humour. I've just come home to find 311 e-mails from today I need to go through. That's not counting the 250-odd spam messages that have already been filtered out.
Hilarious. Still, you've got to laugh… ;o)
Posted by Alex on Wed 4th October 2006