I really like Windows XP. It spends its time doing nice things for me. But today I did something really horrible to the poor operating system. I've been chugging along with a Pentium 800 for a couple of years and most of the time it has done fine. However, if you start doing things with DVDs you pretty soon find that you need a bit more under the bonnet. That and the fact that I was in danger of having the slowest PC in the entire family - including the laptops!

So, down to Quaytech (a local bits and bobs supplier) and away with an Athlon, a motherboard, and a wodge of RAM. Then I did my horrible thing. I opened up the machine, replaced the mother board and rebooted. Windows XP starts up and finds that everything (and I mean everything) has been moved around. It is like coming home and finding the bed is now in the kitchen. XP throws a hissy fit and then falls over. So far, so good. Now I do the clever thing. Boot from the distribution CD and do a repair installation. Same kind of install, although with bits missing 'cos XP knows some of the answers already.

At the end of the install the system just boots and I'm back to where I started. Everything is in the same place and it all works. Only one thing left to do, and that is install the updates. So it is off down to windowsupdate.com (which is very upset and insists on 23 or so installs) and away we go. Slight hiccup here, in that the machine persists in crashing during the update. No matter, simply download the administrative install (which runs entirely on the machine) and away we go.

I now have exactly the same machine, only three times as fast and with double the memory. I tried something similar with Windows 98 a few years ago and lost an entire weekend picking up the pieces. Kudos to Windows XP for this

And now for the health warnings: I was pretty sure that it would just work since I had done something similar before. However, I also made quite a few backups before I embarked on my escapade, and I had a fallback position with a spare machine to get me onto the internet and keep things going. So, if you are going to try this I would say that it is possible, but remember that thing can go wrong as well as right.

 

Wot larks. We are setting up a new computing lab and for some reason I (ahem) am in charge of sorting most of it out. The builders are in and we are nervously looking at schedules and trying to make sure that everything is in a position to go live in mid September when all the students come back. It is kind of important, in that 150 or so workstations are not the kind of thing that we can easily do without. Today was something of a crunch time, in that we had to perform the timetable allocation between the four departments involved.

I was all set up for a marathon meeting and a bit worried as to whether we could sort it out between us. In the end it worked out swimmingly. Rather than a bunch of people fighting over resources and trying to get the best deal for their department we had instead a bunch of people all trying to solve the same puzzle by changing the shape of their pieces as we went along. In the end everything fitted together and we have what looks like a workable first draft of a timetable. I'm not saying it was fun particularly, but it was constructive all the way, which is wonderful in itself. Thanks folks.

 

Just got an email from a bloke called Rob Miles. And it wasn't me talking to myself (although I plan to continue doing this). He is based in the 'states somewhere and has at site of his own which is worth a look.

I'm making a few cosmetic changes to the site and I'll be adding some more material quite soon (although at the moment I'm spending most of my evenings coding). I've bought another domain name (kind of sad but there you go). Stay tuned for news of even more wit and wonder. I've been looking for a place to put all the stuff that gets left out (example - "I'm going to eat some Beef Jerky and try and keep still"). You might find it useful as a place to avoid.

 

Been writing some more code tonight. We're heading towards what I call the "iceberg moment" in the project; the point where you find out just how much work there is underneath the bit you can see sticking out of the water. In my experience,no matter how hard you plan and spec. the work, you still end up finding out there is a lot more submerged than you expected. In the really nasty projects you can have several such moments in succession as the customer slowly reveals the depths of their requirements. You learn to listen for throwaway remarks in meetings like "..and of course we need to timestamp all the entries..." which tend to come at the end and can lead to horrid amounts of extra work.

My solution (which has saved me in the past but is not infallible I'm afraid):

assume nothing. If you must assume things, test the assumptions and write down what they mean
consider everything in the light of how it could fail, and make sure this is in the spec too
use loads of prototypes (but dpn't make them work and be prepared to throw them away once you have got the spec. from them)
specify everything down to the colour of the buttons
make the customer sign the spec. and make sure they know what signing up means (and how much it will cost them to change the spec. and add things).
put into place a system which makes sure you get paid
use a system which works for you, and ignore people who tell you that you should work in their way (except me of course)

Of course none of this is guaranteed, but you should be proof against most of the really nasty possibilities if you consider these points. And remember to be lucky - that always helps.

 

Been re-living the joys of vinyl. I got my old record deck down from the loft to record an single for a friend and thought I'd MP3ify a whole bunch of old records. I'm engaging in scratchy time travel and trying to figure out when I last listened to some of this stuff. Particularly pleased that I've found my old copy of "The Nightfly" by Donald Fagan. Quality. If you've not heard it - you are missing out. I think you can even get it on posh CD these days, but my record sounds just fine to me. Later I might try to track down one of these programs that takes off all the clicks and scratches, but for normal use it is probably not worth it

If you have a DVD burner you may be interested in the September issue of PC-PRO magazine. It has a DVD burning program on the cover. They are given away from time to time, but the one on this CD, CyberLink PowerProducer, is worth a look because it will make DVD slide shows from pictures. This means that I can take all my directories of stuff from the camera and make rather a nice presentation from them, with chapter videos and a musical accompaniment if I want.

 

Been to York today for a meeting about the product that can't be named. We were in yard near the Railway Museum. As we were talking a little train was trundling up and down the sidings with a bunch of people crammed aboard taking in the joys of being pulled along by steam. I've been on steam trains before, and once the novelty of sound it makes when you get going has worn off it feels just like any other train really. However, watching them arrive in the station is really nice (and you can do that for nothing at Pickering Station).

The Railway Museum in York is worth a look if you like trains, but probably a rather horrid kind of hell if you don't. But it is free to get in. They have one engine you can walk underneath and look at all the moving bits. It is a area of technology (getting the most movement out of burning coal) that has completely vanished nowadays. Sort of like computing will be in around, oh, sixty years or so...

Isn't it funny what you fall over whilst using Google. I was trying to find a site for the Pickering Railway (no joy I'm afraid) but instead I fell over a site for Yorkshire Waste Management. They have a special offer on home composting as I write this. Enjoy.

 

Consider if you will the case of the BBQ with a happy ending. Robert arranges a small conflagration at his house to commence at around 15:00 hours. At 14:55 the chairs and tables are arranged and the BBQ is being fueled. At 15:00 the heavens open and all the land is blessed with rainfall. Cue fifteen minutes of frantic "putting things away" followed by a nervous retreat indoors. Robert postulates final proof of the existence of, if not God, then certainly the devil, in terms of the coincidental timings of BBQ and downpour. At which point the sky clears, the sun comes out and a good time is had by all. Read into this what you will. I'm off to bed.