22/12/2004 11:39 PM
So I've been working on this project with Andrew for a while now. From the start it was planned as a two phase project with possibly more work if needed. We have now got more or less to the end of phase one but not quite there yet. Then rather abruptly today he got moved on to something else and so now the rest of the project is down to me. I'm kind of in a state of shock about it as it happened so abruptly. Obviously I knew that we would eventually migrate to other things but I had assumed that it would be towards the end of the second phase.
Andrew has been the one doing the majority of the work in this project and so there are various parts of it that I haven't touched and will therefore have to get my head around. This project is also supposed to go live on January 1st. Tomorrow is the last day at work before the Christmas break and I was planning that we would spend that time finalising things to make sure that the system is running stable and producing correct results, before leaving. I will still have to do that of course, but I will also have to try and fix some of the issues that Andrew was working on. Well, I'll have to look into them and understand them first, before I can attempt to fix them. I don't think it's something I can reasonably do in a day, especially in my current state of mild panic. The fact that the system of access given to us by the client is so fucking stupid and flaky, doesn't help matters either.
So, as I said, tomorrow is the last day. But rather than looking forward to the break, I will in fact be spending the day worrying. Firstly about whether I can get the system in a good state and whether or not it will run over the break. Secondly, about the workload that awaits me when I get back. 
19/12/2004 10:45 PM
I guess I was wrong about the flash drives not being a problem with the USB hub. My sister's one exhibited the same "not enough power" problems. I ended up having to buy a USB extension cable to stick into the back of the machine. Now cables themselves are not all that exciting, but the one I got was advertised as an "iMac" cable and is silver on the inside with transparent plastic on the outside. Heh. 
I got an email from Vic, so I know that she has received mine. I feared she would be as antisocial as I was and leave it for months like I did. Luckily it wasn't so. It was only a placeholder email, but it was an email nonetheless. I look forward to hearing what she has to say.
Seeing as it is the Christmas season (as indicated by the temporary insanity that has overtaken the country) we had our company Christmas Do™ last week. We went to an Indian restaurant (run of course by Bengali people 
) in Egham. It was actually really nice. The food was good. The conversation was good. The restaurant was good. The multi hour lunch was good. It was all good . They basically gave us a whole variety of dishes (curries, rices, breads) and we all got to try bits and pieces of everything. My one and only experience of eating at a restaurant selling "Indian" food (Masala Zone) was abysmal and so I was dreading going to this place but I was pleasantly surprised.
Over the last few days my computer has started making this really irritating whiny noise. It's not one of the normal noises that it makes and I haven't been able to properly track down where the hell it is coming from. My first idea was to disable some of the fans to see if that solved it. Even if it didn't, it would mean that I would at least reduce some of the noise. A quick temperature check of the system using Motherboard Monitor showed me that I had plenty of room to play with. It turns out that there are only two fans in my system: one CPU fan and one case fan. Obviously I couldn't disable the CPU fan so I killed the case one. That made zero difference to the noise level but on the plus side the case temperature only went up by a couple of degrees, so it seem the fan was pointless anyway.
All this investigation inside my machine as well as the temperature information made me realise that I could certainly afford to safely generate a bit more heat inside the machine ie. with a little more CPU power. The first option was a faster CPU. I've had this machine for almost four years and only in the last few days have I bothered to find out what the motherboard make is and what CPU type and speeds it can take. It's just something that has never interested me before. Anyway, I could have a maximum of a 1 GHz processor (currently 866 MHz). Easy, I thought. I'd just look on eBay, spend about £10-20 on a used CPU. Sorted. Little did I know. Having a browse at ebay for 1 GHz CPUs certainly opened my eyes. People are buying/selling them for roughly the £60 mark. What the fuck? What's that all about? I could buy a brand new 2.4 GHz P4 for about £70, yet these 3+ year old *used* CPUs were selling for almost this price. That makes *no* sense to me.
Having been discouraged from that path, I went down the possibilities of overclocking my current CPU. Again, this is something that has never really captured my interest so I don't know that much about it but I do know a little. I checked out my motherboard manual and found out the purpose of a pair of dip switches on the motherboard were for (clock multiplier and FSB). I had always seen them and wondered what they were. Now i know. With my limited knowledge I was only able to get the computer to show 975 MHz during the power on test (Woo!) but no actual booting (Boo!). I haven't been completely discouraged though. I have a few things to look up and I will be back, to battle with the machine.
