Adding the Final Touches

This week I have been juggling Maths revision with adding the final touches to my new PC. Before going home last weekend I had upped the RAM in my new desktop PC to 1.5GB. I have since added another 512MB of RAM to make it a round 2GB of RAM and the difference is, well, just unbelievable. I finally have a system that is very responsive, can load Word and Excel up without having to display the splash screens for any more than half a second at the most, that can rip a CD in around three minutes flat, and that can multitask to the extent that I can watch TV while burning a CD, installing software such as Visual Studio or running Virtual PC or something. I had to replace the graphics card because the fan's bearings started to go on the one I originally installed when I built the PC. I replaced it with one from PC World with exactly the same chipset (nVidia GeForce 7300GS) but this card was made by PNY as opposed to Asus, and it didn't have a fan, which has helped to cut down on noise. Once everything was sorted, well that's when I realised I was really running low on disk space, so on Saturday I went to PC World to buy a 400GB SATA hard disk. I got it home and it was very noisy, which worried me a bit. I took it back to PC World this morning and exchanged it for another which I brought home which is quieter, but it still makes a strange clicking noise when it's shutting down. I enabled S.M.A.R.T in my PC#s BIOS but it didn't bring up any warnings when I booted up so I reckon it's just something on Hitachi drives. Luckily I have kept my Seagata 160GB IDE hard disk in my PC which I am using to hold my documents and music on so if anything should happen to my 400GB disk, I can just replace it and my data should be fine. Apart from that my PC is now completed and should, according to a university lecturer, last for a good few years now. Here's my specs, just if you're wondering.

• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz, 1066MHz Bus, 2MB Cache, EM64T
  
• 2,048GB PC2-6400 DDR-2 800MHz RAM (1 x 1GB OCZ SLi Ready, 2 x 512MB PC World)
  
• PNY nVidia 7300GS PCI-E x 16 Graphics Card
  
• 560GB Hard Disk Space (1 x 400GB Hitachi S-ATA 7200RPM 16MB buffer, 1 x 160GB IDE Seagate, 7,200RPM)
  
• MSI P6N SLi Mainboard, 1 x PCI-E x16, 1 x PCI-E x8, 1 x PCI-E x1, 3 x PCI Slots, 8 Channel Realtek HD Audio, 2 x IDE, 4 x S-ATA II, Support for Quad Core, FSB upto 1333MHz
  
• 1 x 16X LiteOn DVD-ROM, 1 x 18X Sony DVD±RW
  
• 550-watt Neon Power Supply
  
• Jeantech PHONG-II Case with Thermometer display and front and rear fans
  
• I/O Ports
  
  • Back:
    
    • 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 Mouse
      
    • 4 x USB 2.0
      
    • 1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
      
    • 8 Channel Audio ports
      
    • 10/100/1000 Ethernet
      
    • 1 x LPT Parallel port
      
    • 1 x VGA Port, 1 x DVI-I, 1 x S-Video Out
      
  • Front
    
    • 4 x USB 2.0
      
    • 1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
      
    • 1 x Headphone in, 1 x Mic in
      

I built a machine of this spec so that I could run Windows Vista now and into the future and have enough horsepower to run any program that will be needed for future ACW coursework assignments at a reasonable speed with a comfortable amount of RAM and graphics power.

The Best of Stewie Griffin

Like Family guy? Like Stewie? Check out these YouTube videos, they are absolutely fantastic. Please note that these are excerpts of Family Guy which have a DVD rating of 15 in the UK.

Click here to watch

Playing the old Waiting game

Today I went to have an assessment for nail surgery – I thought I was having the procedure done today. Unfortunately I have to wait till June 13^th to have the procedure done. I have no Idea how I'm going to be at the end of year ball with a dodgy toenail and the inability to wear smart shoes with my tux.

Using Flickr with Word 2007

I have been using Microsoft Office Word 2007 as a blog client now for some time. The only8 problem is – as you may have guessed from that last post – is that I can't actually post images on my blog using Word 2007. I use Flickr as my image provider and would like to know the settings I need to feed Word 2007 to make it go away and upload my images to my flickr account and then upload a link to the image on my page. So far if I've wanted to use images, I've uploaded them manually to flickr, gone and manually checked the location, and then used Blogger's site to create my blog post. I find it much easier to work in Word.

Just testing Word 2007’s ability to upload photos

If you can see the image of my homepage running in Firefox on a virtual Windows 98 box then I have successfully set up Word 2007 to throw images at my Flickr account.

Windows 95 vs. Dual-Core

Today, I decided to make good use of my time by messing about in a Windows 95 virtual PC. I duly started up Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 - my PC virtualization environment of choice, started up my virtual Windows 95 box, and Windows got as far as successfully loading DOS, and was just about to go into Windows until I recieved the message "General Protection Fault". Considering my personal files reside in a seperate partition to Vista and all my programs, they had not been hurt when I had upgraded my PC. Virtual PC only emulates the CMOS, the hard disk and the memory. It natively uses the host's processor, and as the last time I had used that particular Virtual PC, I had been using my AMD Athlon64 processor I had a sneaking suspicion I may net to reinstall Windows 95 so that it would work with my Intel Core 2 processor. I duly started re-formatting the virtual hard disk drive and setting about installing Windows 95. The first phase os Setup completed without any problems. It was only when I restarted the computer to complete the second phase of Setup it happenned again - another General PRotection fault. It would seem that Windows 95 doesn't seem to like my shiny new processor.

It was lucky that I have been Beta testing VMWare Workstation 6.0. I had downloaded the Release Candidate over the last weekend of the Easter Vacation, and it has been waiting on my Flash disk for me to install it, so I did. I then set about making a virtual Windows 95 box, and was given the option to only emulate one processor. I gave it a 1GB hard disk and 64MB of RAM, and started installing it. Once Windows was installed I installed VMWare tools, which makes up the driver set needed to run Windows 95 in VMWare Workstation. Once that was set up, I gave setting Internet Explorer 3 up to access the Internet through the Hull University Proxy server, and it worked.



I don't know whether they will follow this through to the RTM release of VMWare Workstation 6.0 but I like the fact that the product still supports Windows 95, even with full networked Internet access. It's funny but I could not get NAT working in VMWare Workstation 5.5 for Windows 95. It's also interesting to note that VMWare Tools is still fully compatible with Windows 95, whereas the Virtual PC 2007 version of Virtual Machine Additions is no longer Windows 95 compatible. Keep up the good work VMWare.

I can see why you still have to pay for VMWare Workstation while Virtual PC has become freeware. VMware is more advanced and features support for multiple monitors, better dual-core support, USB 2.0 support, multiple optical drives, and the ability to omit drives from a virtual machine's configuration, and most importantly, full support for the most popular Linux distributions. You can run 32- and 64-bit operating systems as guest regardless of your host OS.

Ah the memory of exam time

Yesterday I decided to upgrade my new PC from 1.0 to 1.5GB of RAM. I know I should have bought it from eBuyer but I fancied a speed boost there and then so off to the Clough Road PC world I went. £94 for 1GB of RAM!!! I thought not so I decided on the 512MB stick. I got home and fit it with no hitch - although I found that my original stick of SLi-Ready RAM that had a clock speed of 1066MHz – had a clock speed of 800MHz. Hmmmm. I think that's down to me getting the wrong memory and not being able to see the sticker properly. Anyhoo, I am very happy with the results. It's amazing just what an extra 512MB of RAM can do for you. WinTV2000 has become friendly again, which is kind of nice because I haven't got Media Center anymore (It doesn't seem to come with Windows Vista business. It plays games nicely. Before I turned in for the night I I installed demos of Sam and Max, some sort of detective game not too dissimilar to Broken Sword - but a heck of a sight more funny, and Wild Earth – Africa, a game where I'm playing a trainee photographer and have to photograph things for a magazine, and both played very sweetly.

This morning I went across to Larkin building to meet my learning mentor for tea, toast, and a bit of a pep-talk about this afternoon's exam, a reflection on this semester and discussion on what I was to do in regards to revision on Thursday's exam. It did turn into more of a general chat but we covered the basics. I then had to ring Nuance to have Omnipage 15 activated on my new desktop PC as that is what my Epson DX40000 Printer/Scanner is connected to. I had tried to activate it manually but it kept saying "Invalid Serial Key"; nuance said the same thing. They asked me to scan in and send the serial, number over the Internet to them, at which point I realised that what I had previously thought to be a number 2 turned out to be the letter Z. I can't understand why I was able to install Omnipage using that serial number if it was THAT invalid. I attempted to activate again, this time changing my serial number, and it worked! Once I had Omnipage up and running, Nuance e-mailed me back the correct serial number. Hmmm – a bit late. Had I have scanned in the CD sleeve and zoomed in first, I could have saved myself topping my T-Mobile phone up with a fiver and I could have saved mine and Nuance Technical Support's time. I do think however they ought to use a different typeface for serial numbers as I struggle being Visually impaired. Interestingly enough, Nuance are the brains behind Talks, the screen-reading program available for smartphones. Talking about screen readers, I went to the Disability office to hand them a statement in writing as to why I should have ZoomText 9.1, after which it was off to Continental Café to have dinner, and then go to my exam. This afternoon it was Software Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction. It went okay I think but I can't say until the 4^th of July when America celebrate the declaration of independence, and we (hopefully) celebrate the declaration of good exam results. After the exam, however I did go and see one of the lecturers about my Algorithm coursework, which I did for the same module; I got an A- for this work. I think I'm going to put it down to the fact that one of my colleagues and I worked it out together, and the fact that my housemate gave me my birthday present – a meal cooked by her, which was absolutely fantastic to say the least. Chinese food is always good for a good night's work.

In support of Madeline McCann on her 4th Birthday

Sorry it isn't a lot but I decided to support the search for Madeline McCann the only way I seem to be able to at the moment. I changed my blog to sort of green. Green is the Portuguese colour of hope, and I am still hoping and praying for Madeline's safe return and I urge you all to do the same.
Thanks

Slide 7 Student Conference Registration Open

On June 17-18 I will be going down to Reading for the Microsoft Slide 7 Student conference, as organised by my lecturer Rob Miles. The conference is about web development. There are two tracks running, an introductory one, and an advanced one. I will be going to the introductory one as I know very little about web development. It seems like it will be a really good day out, so I'm really looking forward to it. If you would like to sign up for the conference, please click here.

If you would like to find out more from Rob Miles, click here

Happy 50th Helvetica

I just wanted to say

 

    Happy 50^th Birthday, Helvetica

I didn't realise just how old the concept of typefaces was. I wrote "Happy 50^th Birthday, Helvetica" in Verdana because I am too much of a cheapskate to buy a font. I may do so one day however, and use it in my JayWakefield.co.uk logo. Unfortunately you can't download the Swiss font anywhere legally for free.

Offerings of Support

I would like to support the parents of three-year old Madeline McCann who went missing on Thursday, May 3^rd. I hope that the police find her alive. If we keep hoping and praying then maybe she will be found, alive and safe.

In the name of Rebecca Love

Over the weekend, a student, studying for a foundation year in Marine Biology was found deceased at The Lawns halls of residence. Although I never knew Rebecca, I just felt saddened when I heard the news about what had happened. My sincere condolences go to her family, friends and fellow students.

Vista Users getting Royal Screw Job - Again

Ai Squared has brought out Zoom Text 9.1, with support for Dual Monitors and, of course, Windows Vista. Anyone getting a new Vista PC need not worry – you will be able to install Zoom Text 9.1 and access your new investment – that is if you have been able to buy the Extended Support Plan – or you have got around $600 to spare. Now I have just got myself well into the red buying my new PC so I cannot afford ZT 9.1. Why does Ai Squared think they can charge users just to be able to use Vista? That is like saying "You're blind – therefore you cannot use Vista!" Is it any wonder people want to download pirate software and circumvent product activation when companies play tricks like that?

Please note that I do not condone the circumvention of copyright protection technologies. Unauthorized distribution of copyrighted software is illegal and can incur civil and criminal penalties to the maximum extent possible under US and International law.

I'm sure however there's something about a Disability Discrimination act in there, too though.

New PC

I got my new PC on Friday. I built it myself. Finally, (hopefully) I can run Windows Vista at the same speed I could run Windows XP a year ago. It is absolutely fantastic. It features a dual-core Intel Core 2 Duo processor and SLI-Ready RAM that has a 1GHz Front-Side Bus. It's nice to see Windows Flip-3D run without jerking. More importantly, I will be able to complete my Programming 2 Friendly Bank assignment now.

I treat myself to a new speaker system to go with my new PC, and it sounds absolutely fantastic.

The Hungry Snake

My Hungry Snake game is now available from download. You can download it from my downloads page. I wrote this game in C# for Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 as part of my Programming 1 module at University. Click here to go to JayWakefield.co.uk Downloads.

Cast Ne’er clout ‘till May be out

We have only one lecture today at 4.15 which follows a group meeting our group have got at 3.15 to work on the group coursework for Software Engineering and HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) which was launched last Friday. In the run up to the meeting I thought I'd do something constructive, so I looked for a Nokia 6280 on eBay and found one for £62 including postage and packaging that is locked to T-Mobile. I am writing this blog post on the sun terrace in Sanctuary, the Student Union bar at Hull. Hull University are rolling out a new wireless network called EuroRoam or Eduroam, the computer centre can't decide exactly what it is called. Anyhoo, I took my faithful Ergo Ensis 211 in to have it setup to access the network, whatever it's called, and I can pick it up in Sanctuary while I'm enjoying a beer and a burger. (No, Olga, I will not turn up to Rob's lecture drunk – I promise!!!).

I think it's a good idea because sometimes it's hard do motivate myself to revise or study if I'm sat inside on a nice day like today, so to be able to come down to Sanctuary and sit on the sun terrace is absolutely fantastic, especially if I have the Internet at my disposal. I remember a time when the Internet was on one PC which was tied to a phone line. I even remember when there was just the one computer at my old school, Temple Bank, that had Internet access. Interestingly enough, at one time it was the only PC that ran Microsoft Windows® 95. It just boggles the mind now to think that you can sit in a bar and access the 'net on your laptop or PDA.