Work has been continuously meh this week, although something called Nessus has proved interesting, which is a vulnerability scanner.
Last night was good - we went out in a group and ran the upcoming 5k route to practice. Fortunately the weather remained OK and we got round fine. I had to walk about a minute after the first hill because I think I was a little optimistic and went too fast, but after that I got around fine. Em and I did it in about 37 minutes while the others were about 31-33. Not exactly world shaking times but a good basis for improvement.
It was supposed to be running class tonight, but it rained continuously all day long, and my legs were still feeling it from last night, so I wimped out and came home and had a nice geeky evening. I was experimenting with sharing disks from a Windows Server 2012 machine to both the Windows 8 Alienware and the MacBook Pro. I really wanted to play with iSCSI since it sounds interesting and should work well over gigabit. This worked well with Windows 8 which connected straight up to a shared disk, and performance was surprisingly good.
Annoyingly though Apple doesn't include an iSCSI initiator with Mac OS X, and while there are third party ones, they aren't free. Oh well. NFS was a pain due to Windows being a bit shit at supporting it but eventually I got the Mac talking to a standard Windows share. While this works though, it isn't as fast as iSCSI or NFS. Oh well. All good fun. I also found the rather childish way that Apple represents Windows PCs in Mac OS X - as an old fashioned CRT showing a blue screen of death. It seems fairly typical of the arrogant attitude that Apple has developed over the last decade or so though.
It's interesting to compare Mountain Lion to Windows 8 though. It basically feels the same that OS X always has done, ever since the original version, which I had running on an old iMac. Windows has changed several times since then, although Windows 8 is clearly the most different. I'm still a little ambivalent about it - it's been improved a lot underneath but the new interface is just a little odd if you aren't using a touchscreen.
Wednesday 31 July 2013
Sunday 28 July 2013
So many screws...
Yesterday was another bike ride with Andy. We decided to go a different way this time, heading up through Henllan. Sounded good in theory, but it was quite a long haul up to Henllan, then there was a massive drop out of the village. This led to a truly ridiculous hill, which was horrible. We got nearly to the top and then had to turn off and make our way to St Asaph along some back roads, which was actually really nice. Once we got to St Asaph we did our usual route around back to Denbigh, but we were knackered because of the earlier hills, and we screwed up nutrition so we were really tired.
In the evening it was Rob's birthday meal, which was in the Guildhall Tavern in Denbigh. It was a well attended event with nearly 30 people, and was really good fun. The weather finally broke, and when people were leaving it was absolutely chucking it down.
Today has been a fairly lazy day so far. Fortunately the little toolkit I picked up with useful screwdriver bits turned up, so I was able to disassemble the MacBook Pro with the annoying T6 screws. It's now got a larger faster hard drive with a clean install of Mountain Lion, and fresh thermal paste on the heatsink. I had to take it apart twice though as I accidentally tightened the heatsink screws too much the first time, so when it booted back up the CPU was idling at 100 degrees...ouch! It's running much cooler now than it did originally, with the CPU idling at around 45 degrees and the GPU at 59 degrees, which seems pretty good for these machines as they apparently run hot by default. It's definitely running cooler than when I first got it. I think someone had tried to regunk the heatsink before, but not done a very good job.
The first time I took it apart, it took ages as I was meticulously following the iFixit guide and keeping track of all the screws. The second time I didn't care and had the logic board out in about 10 minutes, but I still got it back together with no leftover screws. These older MBPs are a bit of a sod to take apart, wonder what the unibody ones are like.
Ah well, so far so good. Next is to put some more RAM in it assuming I can find some suitable DIMMs. At the moment it only has 2gb, and the maximum for some weird reason is 6gb. Odd. I'd also like to put an SSD in it as putting them in my other machines has definitely made me a convert.
Forgot to mention that the car had some more work done. The whining engine was cured by a couple of new pulleys and the chugging noise was a disconnected pipe. The snapped rear seatbelt was replaced and also the seal on the top of the fuel tank. It's definitely getting there...
In the evening it was Rob's birthday meal, which was in the Guildhall Tavern in Denbigh. It was a well attended event with nearly 30 people, and was really good fun. The weather finally broke, and when people were leaving it was absolutely chucking it down.
Today has been a fairly lazy day so far. Fortunately the little toolkit I picked up with useful screwdriver bits turned up, so I was able to disassemble the MacBook Pro with the annoying T6 screws. It's now got a larger faster hard drive with a clean install of Mountain Lion, and fresh thermal paste on the heatsink. I had to take it apart twice though as I accidentally tightened the heatsink screws too much the first time, so when it booted back up the CPU was idling at 100 degrees...ouch! It's running much cooler now than it did originally, with the CPU idling at around 45 degrees and the GPU at 59 degrees, which seems pretty good for these machines as they apparently run hot by default. It's definitely running cooler than when I first got it. I think someone had tried to regunk the heatsink before, but not done a very good job.
The first time I took it apart, it took ages as I was meticulously following the iFixit guide and keeping track of all the screws. The second time I didn't care and had the logic board out in about 10 minutes, but I still got it back together with no leftover screws. These older MBPs are a bit of a sod to take apart, wonder what the unibody ones are like.
Ah well, so far so good. Next is to put some more RAM in it assuming I can find some suitable DIMMs. At the moment it only has 2gb, and the maximum for some weird reason is 6gb. Odd. I'd also like to put an SSD in it as putting them in my other machines has definitely made me a convert.
Forgot to mention that the car had some more work done. The whining engine was cured by a couple of new pulleys and the chugging noise was a disconnected pipe. The snapped rear seatbelt was replaced and also the seal on the top of the fuel tank. It's definitely getting there...
Friday 26 July 2013
It's been a week of ups and downs. Work has been rather meh due to the ongoing issues from the penetration testing.
Monday evening was running, which was hard. It was stupidly hot and I went there intending to do 12 laps of the track which is nearly a 5k, but I ended up doing 7. Not great, but I lived with it.
Tuesday was DnD at Rob G's place. Em joined us for lasagne before heading off, and it was a really good evening. Had an unexpected encounter with another jelly beast, which was eventually dispatched after a fierce battle.
Wednesday was running class. This time they took us around a road course, which was two 13 minute runs with a 2 minute walk in the middle. The first 13 minutes were fine but I found the last 13 minutes a struggle, spending at least half of it convinced I was going to puke.
Yesterday and today have been uneventful.
In a somewhat rash move I picked up an elderly MacBook Pro a few days ago. It's a mid-2007 17" model with a 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo, 2gb RAM, a 120gb hard drive and the troublesome Nvidia 8600gt graphics chip. Other than a few cosmetic dings and some minor pressure marks on the screen, it works fine. I'm intending to put a spare faster 250gb hard drive in it, and hopefully upgrade the RAM, although it has a curious limit of 6gb.
I also really want to replace the thermal paste and clean the fans out to make sure the graphics chip is kept as cool as possible. However, like the white MacBook I experimented with a couple of years ago, I find that MacBooks get their solidity from being bizarrely designed with lots of different weird screws. Also at the moment it's running Lion, which apparently is a bit rubbish, so I want to put Mountain Lion on it which is apparently better.
It's weird to use a Mac again after so much time. My reasoning for finding a MacBook was that I've been getting increasingly hacked off with Linux. It's great for servers, but on the desktop it's a clusterfuck of different GUIs, audio systems, etc. I keep reading that people really rate Mac OS X for Unixy stuff, so I thought I'd give it a go. I do like the feel of the MBP though, I always thought the original models looked a lot nicer than the unibody models that followed them.
Monday evening was running, which was hard. It was stupidly hot and I went there intending to do 12 laps of the track which is nearly a 5k, but I ended up doing 7. Not great, but I lived with it.
Tuesday was DnD at Rob G's place. Em joined us for lasagne before heading off, and it was a really good evening. Had an unexpected encounter with another jelly beast, which was eventually dispatched after a fierce battle.
Wednesday was running class. This time they took us around a road course, which was two 13 minute runs with a 2 minute walk in the middle. The first 13 minutes were fine but I found the last 13 minutes a struggle, spending at least half of it convinced I was going to puke.
Yesterday and today have been uneventful.
In a somewhat rash move I picked up an elderly MacBook Pro a few days ago. It's a mid-2007 17" model with a 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo, 2gb RAM, a 120gb hard drive and the troublesome Nvidia 8600gt graphics chip. Other than a few cosmetic dings and some minor pressure marks on the screen, it works fine. I'm intending to put a spare faster 250gb hard drive in it, and hopefully upgrade the RAM, although it has a curious limit of 6gb.
I also really want to replace the thermal paste and clean the fans out to make sure the graphics chip is kept as cool as possible. However, like the white MacBook I experimented with a couple of years ago, I find that MacBooks get their solidity from being bizarrely designed with lots of different weird screws. Also at the moment it's running Lion, which apparently is a bit rubbish, so I want to put Mountain Lion on it which is apparently better.
It's weird to use a Mac again after so much time. My reasoning for finding a MacBook was that I've been getting increasingly hacked off with Linux. It's great for servers, but on the desktop it's a clusterfuck of different GUIs, audio systems, etc. I keep reading that people really rate Mac OS X for Unixy stuff, so I thought I'd give it a go. I do like the feel of the MBP though, I always thought the original models looked a lot nicer than the unibody models that followed them.
Sunday 21 July 2013
Fun weekends
Last weekend in Kent was really good fun, had a great time. The party was really good fun and carried on into the night. We eventually ended up walking back up to Jane and Wes's house at midnight. My bloody cricket bat as part of my Shaun outfit did get some attention...oh well. Sunday was good, we hung out, watched Wes open his presents and then sat down with crazy amounts of pizza and a rather terrible movie called The Last Stand with Arnie trying to pretend he isn't past it. The journey back on Monday was fine, and we got back in good time.
Wednesday running was not good after two weeks. It was cross country as well, and I found it far too difficult, not least because I had a mild cold that initially I thought was hayfever. But afterward I felt better enough to do some more laps of the track. We went again on Friday, which was very hard because it was so hot.
Yesterday went for a bike ride with Andy and Steve. This turned out to be the longest one yet, clocking in at between 36.2 and 37 miles, depending on whose phone you believe (the 37 mile one obviously). Again I found it quite hard but fortunately there were some clouds in the sky for a change, which made it a lot more manageable. My chain came off at one point, which also slowed me down. I was struggling somewhat at the end, but I felt OK once I'd come home and had a shower and a lie down.
In the evening it was off to Ed's for his birthday BBQ, the first one for a while. It was really good fun, a good mix of people, and various shenanigans. The highlight was making everyone wear Andy's Harry Hill mask, then taking pictures of everyone from below in groups and then trying on Vicky's blonde wig. Really good night all round.
Today it was off to Wrexham with Rob and Em. Rob had his archery club session, so while he was doing that, Em and I went to Sports Direct to get me some lighter exercise gear, although we were too early for the shops so we had breakfast at Frankie and Benny's before heading to the shop. After that we exploited PC World's iPads to get a map back to where Rob was, and then headed over to see what was going on. The archery club was actually quite fascinating, with people using all sorts of different bows from longbows to one of those massively complicated ones with cams and cogs and all sorts. After Rob was done we got back on the road, stopping off at the OK Diner for food, which was pretty good. I've been past that place loads of times and never been in there.
This afternoon has been less fun, doing some stuff for work - updating some servers and stuff. Oh well. It was helped by Joe Satriani doing his thing, so there we are.
Back to the grindstone tomorrow and then running in the evening.
Wednesday running was not good after two weeks. It was cross country as well, and I found it far too difficult, not least because I had a mild cold that initially I thought was hayfever. But afterward I felt better enough to do some more laps of the track. We went again on Friday, which was very hard because it was so hot.
Yesterday went for a bike ride with Andy and Steve. This turned out to be the longest one yet, clocking in at between 36.2 and 37 miles, depending on whose phone you believe (the 37 mile one obviously). Again I found it quite hard but fortunately there were some clouds in the sky for a change, which made it a lot more manageable. My chain came off at one point, which also slowed me down. I was struggling somewhat at the end, but I felt OK once I'd come home and had a shower and a lie down.
In the evening it was off to Ed's for his birthday BBQ, the first one for a while. It was really good fun, a good mix of people, and various shenanigans. The highlight was making everyone wear Andy's Harry Hill mask, then taking pictures of everyone from below in groups and then trying on Vicky's blonde wig. Really good night all round.
Today it was off to Wrexham with Rob and Em. Rob had his archery club session, so while he was doing that, Em and I went to Sports Direct to get me some lighter exercise gear, although we were too early for the shops so we had breakfast at Frankie and Benny's before heading to the shop. After that we exploited PC World's iPads to get a map back to where Rob was, and then headed over to see what was going on. The archery club was actually quite fascinating, with people using all sorts of different bows from longbows to one of those massively complicated ones with cams and cogs and all sorts. After Rob was done we got back on the road, stopping off at the OK Diner for food, which was pretty good. I've been past that place loads of times and never been in there.
This afternoon has been less fun, doing some stuff for work - updating some servers and stuff. Oh well. It was helped by Joe Satriani doing his thing, so there we are.
Back to the grindstone tomorrow and then running in the evening.
Saturday 13 July 2013
Kent
It wasn't a great week this week in work, and it's shaping up to be truly pants until the end of July.
No running on Monday evening due to the mad heat. Tuesday evening I went round to Steve's and we had BBQ burgers and sausages before playing some split-screen Alien Marines or something on the Xbox. It wasn't the greatest of games, but it was nice to play split screen for a change.
I had to stay late in work on Wednesday due to work on one of the storage arrays, so I missed the running class, which was frustrating. Thursday was not badminton as usual, instead it was a BBQ at one of the member's house, which was stunning as always, and made even better with the weather being nice enough to sit outside.
Yesterday it was time to pile into the car with Rob and Em and head down to Kent for Wes's 30th birthday bash, which is today. It's shaping up to be a great bash, and is of course fancy dress. I decided to be Shaun of the Dead because it's relatively easy to do and I was able to borrow Steve's cricket bat. The weather is ridiculously good too.
No running on Monday evening due to the mad heat. Tuesday evening I went round to Steve's and we had BBQ burgers and sausages before playing some split-screen Alien Marines or something on the Xbox. It wasn't the greatest of games, but it was nice to play split screen for a change.
I had to stay late in work on Wednesday due to work on one of the storage arrays, so I missed the running class, which was frustrating. Thursday was not badminton as usual, instead it was a BBQ at one of the member's house, which was stunning as always, and made even better with the weather being nice enough to sit outside.
Yesterday it was time to pile into the car with Rob and Em and head down to Kent for Wes's 30th birthday bash, which is today. It's shaping up to be a great bash, and is of course fancy dress. I decided to be Shaun of the Dead because it's relatively easy to do and I was able to borrow Steve's cricket bat. The weather is ridiculously good too.
Sunday 7 July 2013
Fecking electrics
Thursday was OK, badminton was annoying though, due to a presence of someone who has come a few times. She seems to have issues remembering the rules, despite being told several times a game. We weren't sure what was going on, but she seems to have genuine mental issues, and last week at least, doesn't seem to actually enjoy playing. It's the Evil One who brings her, and I think she's not helping.
Friday evening was a walk up Moel Famau in the evening with a load of people from work to highlight Steve P's birthday. We set off at 8pm and got back to the cars for about 9:30pm. It was really good fun, but I'm always surprised at how far it is, and the last section is always tough. I think the running and cycling has really helped though as I definitely coped better up there than the last time I went up there a couple of years ago. Afterwards we drove down to the Druid in Llanferres and had a few drinks, and as it was Dave L's local he persuaded them to make us some chilli, even though they had stopped serving food. It was really good too.
Saturday Morning was the Lions game, which was good as they won, definitively. Then after that, Andy and I headed out for a bike ride, only a short 12 miles. It was bloody hot though. After that I came home and watched some Doctor Who, the first of the rebooted series after I picked up the boxset a couple of weeks ago. It's been a while since I've seen them, so I was a little surprised at how ropy the early episodes are in places, especially the CGI effects in places.
Today I headed out to get some supplies and then came home and had a bonfire of some stuff that needed burning, which was nice. The youngish cows we have on our fields at the moment were a pain as they are very nosy things and thought I was putting something out for them. They certainly got a shock when I lit it though. Then I watched more Doctor Who.
The car is still going OK and today it hit 285 miles since I filled it up. This is the point that the Accord would have been running on fumes, but the 206 still has well over half a tank left. This is good. What's bad is the typically French electrics - the indicator stalks and the driver's door both need attention. But due to having bought the thing and having it serviced, I'll have to wait a bit to get those sorted out. There are workarounds though, so it is liveable with.
There must be some car out there which has this kind of economy and decent build quality too. I wonder what it is, but I bet it's not French.
Friday evening was a walk up Moel Famau in the evening with a load of people from work to highlight Steve P's birthday. We set off at 8pm and got back to the cars for about 9:30pm. It was really good fun, but I'm always surprised at how far it is, and the last section is always tough. I think the running and cycling has really helped though as I definitely coped better up there than the last time I went up there a couple of years ago. Afterwards we drove down to the Druid in Llanferres and had a few drinks, and as it was Dave L's local he persuaded them to make us some chilli, even though they had stopped serving food. It was really good too.
Saturday Morning was the Lions game, which was good as they won, definitively. Then after that, Andy and I headed out for a bike ride, only a short 12 miles. It was bloody hot though. After that I came home and watched some Doctor Who, the first of the rebooted series after I picked up the boxset a couple of weeks ago. It's been a while since I've seen them, so I was a little surprised at how ropy the early episodes are in places, especially the CGI effects in places.
Today I headed out to get some supplies and then came home and had a bonfire of some stuff that needed burning, which was nice. The youngish cows we have on our fields at the moment were a pain as they are very nosy things and thought I was putting something out for them. They certainly got a shock when I lit it though. Then I watched more Doctor Who.
The car is still going OK and today it hit 285 miles since I filled it up. This is the point that the Accord would have been running on fumes, but the 206 still has well over half a tank left. This is good. What's bad is the typically French electrics - the indicator stalks and the driver's door both need attention. But due to having bought the thing and having it serviced, I'll have to wait a bit to get those sorted out. There are workarounds though, so it is liveable with.
There must be some car out there which has this kind of economy and decent build quality too. I wonder what it is, but I bet it's not French.
Wednesday 3 July 2013
Long time
Keep forgetting to update this thing.
Notable events - Friday was an Italian meal in Rhyl and going to see Man of Steel for Rob G's birthday. The meal was good. Man of Steel had bits where it was good, but the last third was bad. As Wes said, when it's good, it's great, but when it's bad, it's Transformers.
Running is progressing OK. We did a bike ride on Sunday which wasn't too bad, and then did some more running on Monday evening. For whatever reason though, I really struggled. Tonight's session was a lot better though - up to 8 minute runs. At first I didn't feel like it, but towards the end I felt fine and could have carried on. My calves still complained and I got a mild stitch again, but on the whole I think my body is getting more used to it.
The 206 has had it's service. It cost more than I expected, but still within what I budgeted. It needed a tyre and a wheel bearing, amongst other things. It definitely runs better now. It still has a whine which they said is the power steering pump and can wait. There are also a few bushes and things that will need checking out at some point. On the plus side, my road bike fits in the back of it perfectly with the front wheel off, so that's a relief.
The Accord has gone - my Dad and I took it to the auction on Monday, and hopefully it will have sold last night. The journey there reminded me forcefully of what a nice car it was, but it had several issues and the fuel economy was so terrible. I discovered it used oil quite badly as well. On the plus side, the ABS light stayed off that whole day, after being on for at least a month.
Watched 8 episodes of Game of Thrones season 3 - not going to say anything about it but I've really enjoyed it. I was going to start the books, but I chickened out and have started a reread of the Hunger Games books.
After a couple of months about being dubious about the Ibanez BTB07LTD bass I bought, I've decided I rather like it. The shape is big, but it looks great and is very ergonomic and it has a nice slim neck. The 35" scale was a little odd, but I've got used to it now. The finish with the matt green and the so-called 'Wild X' across the front is a bit dubious though. I've noticed that where that finish is chipped off, it's red, so I reckon they had a load of spare bodies and necks and made a limited edition to get rid of them. I'm not too keen on the electrics though, so I have vague plans to rip it all out and put a pair of passive EMG pickups in and rewire it. I even thought about stripping the finish off and repainting it in the same flip paint I did the double neck in, since it would probably work quite well on the shape.
But any projects like that will have to wait some time as I'm now skint after getting the 206, and I need to sort out my savings and things for a few months.
The Germans have adopted the word 'shitstorm'. Awesome.
Notable events - Friday was an Italian meal in Rhyl and going to see Man of Steel for Rob G's birthday. The meal was good. Man of Steel had bits where it was good, but the last third was bad. As Wes said, when it's good, it's great, but when it's bad, it's Transformers.
Running is progressing OK. We did a bike ride on Sunday which wasn't too bad, and then did some more running on Monday evening. For whatever reason though, I really struggled. Tonight's session was a lot better though - up to 8 minute runs. At first I didn't feel like it, but towards the end I felt fine and could have carried on. My calves still complained and I got a mild stitch again, but on the whole I think my body is getting more used to it.
The 206 has had it's service. It cost more than I expected, but still within what I budgeted. It needed a tyre and a wheel bearing, amongst other things. It definitely runs better now. It still has a whine which they said is the power steering pump and can wait. There are also a few bushes and things that will need checking out at some point. On the plus side, my road bike fits in the back of it perfectly with the front wheel off, so that's a relief.
The Accord has gone - my Dad and I took it to the auction on Monday, and hopefully it will have sold last night. The journey there reminded me forcefully of what a nice car it was, but it had several issues and the fuel economy was so terrible. I discovered it used oil quite badly as well. On the plus side, the ABS light stayed off that whole day, after being on for at least a month.
Watched 8 episodes of Game of Thrones season 3 - not going to say anything about it but I've really enjoyed it. I was going to start the books, but I chickened out and have started a reread of the Hunger Games books.
After a couple of months about being dubious about the Ibanez BTB07LTD bass I bought, I've decided I rather like it. The shape is big, but it looks great and is very ergonomic and it has a nice slim neck. The 35" scale was a little odd, but I've got used to it now. The finish with the matt green and the so-called 'Wild X' across the front is a bit dubious though. I've noticed that where that finish is chipped off, it's red, so I reckon they had a load of spare bodies and necks and made a limited edition to get rid of them. I'm not too keen on the electrics though, so I have vague plans to rip it all out and put a pair of passive EMG pickups in and rewire it. I even thought about stripping the finish off and repainting it in the same flip paint I did the double neck in, since it would probably work quite well on the shape.
But any projects like that will have to wait some time as I'm now skint after getting the 206, and I need to sort out my savings and things for a few months.
The Germans have adopted the word 'shitstorm'. Awesome.
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