Very Difficult Semester

Sorry i've not written in such a long time. I have had a right old time here at University. With all my second year modules and my Maths resit I'm in 21 hours a week. On top of that I have all of my coursework and THEN there's all the extra reading I neglected. I am running out of time and patience. I find this very difficult at the moment but hope to pull through. I have come home for the weekend though so I'll at least have a change of surroundings here.

After unlocking my Nokia 6280 so I can use my Vodafone Contract SIM with it, I have been having problems with the phone's POP-port connection, which when I want a fast GPRS connection in lectures to download notes, can be inconvenient. I found Infra-red and Bluetooth too slow or tricky for my satisfaction so I decided to trade in my N73 for a new phone. I went down to Central Entertainment Exchange (CEX) in the Prospect Centre in town in the first week of November and presented my Nokia N73, together with the charger, data cable and headphones and they tested it for me. Apart from the charger being bent and my having to replace it, I sold the phone without too much of a hitch. I told them I wanted something with at least a 2.0MP camera and 3G connectivity. They presented me with a Nokia 6288, a Sony Ericsson K800i and a Samsung U600. I tried out the Sony Ericsson and Samsung U600 to see how they performed, then decided to go with the Sony Ericsson. My Nokia N73 gave me £97 towards the trade-in which means when you add the cost of a charger, only cost me £22. I wanted a memory card for it though, so I bought a 2GB one. I was annoyed because CEX sold me a 2^nd hand M2 memory card at retail price. I should have bought it at the Carphone Warehouse instead and it would have been new. However I did bump into a couple of friends in CEX so that was a plus.

Apart from the Pop-port issues, my 6280 was working perfectly so I gave it to Laura, who wouldn't use the Pop-port I wouldn't think. She came down last week and we have had a fantastic time together. We didn't quite make it to Bridlington or Withernsea but I did go and pick her up in York and we rode down together on the train back to Hull. We went out to Asylum together on Wednesday night for the Best Tower Night In The World. On Thursday, we headed out into town where she bought some things in Primark to leave at Chez Student for when she comes down to stay with me. We then had a Pizza at Pizza Hut. We had meat feast with the Three Cheeses Cheezy bites. We loved it. Afterwards, I took her to Waterstones to buy her a copy of Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome by Luke Jackson. This is a very good read written by a lad who would now by nineteen (although he was thirteen when he wrote the book). This book gives a first-hand view into what it is like living with Asperger Syndrome, and I thought it would be a good idea for Laura to have a copy, just so she knows how to understand me. On the Friday, we went to the Aroma Chinese Restaurant on Beverly Road for a meal. We went there on our two month anniversary so we thought we'd go for the four month anniversary. On the Saturday, we went to the Now That's What I Call Asylum headphone disco. It is really quite something to be in Asylum with no loud music playing, yet with the whole club singing along to a song. Laura and I both enjoyed ourselves and we miss each other already.

Microsoft comes to Hull

On Tuesday, Ed Dunhill from Microsoft came to give a talk on the Microsoft .NET Framework, which is fast becoming my favourite platform for program (not that I program on any other platform). The idea that you can use your preferred language to program anything from a desktop or laptop computer running Windows XP or Vista to Windows-based smartphones to Automated Teller Machines to washing machines or even cookers sounds appealing. He covered Microsoft Silverlight, which is Microsoft's 'version' of Adobe Flash player. He also did some things on XNA. I really enjoyed the presentation. We were all given Microsoft T-Shirts that were originally cubes that we could put in water and they turned into T-shirts.

I write this post as I am on the train coming back to Hull. Yesterday I was in Bradford being presented with a care leavers' award for what I've achieved in university so far. It was a good ceremony but I came away early and went to my sister's house.

T-Mobile finally gave me the subsidy pin to unlock my Nokia 6280 yesterday before I set off home so I have put my contract Vodafone SIM in that phone now and I'm very happy with it.

Makeover for JayWakefield.co.uk

I have decided to make a few changes to my web-site. Firstly I have changed the theme on my home page and download section. I have also decided to change the look of my blog. This is to try to make my site and blog bear more consistency. I haven't been able to fully integrate that yet however. You'll also notice that this blog is no longer called Jay Wakefield's World. It is now called JayWakefield.co.uk blog. This is again to try and make the blog more a part of the JayWakefield.co.uk web-site. I am hoping in the future that the blog will have the same theme as my site, but for now these are the only changes I am planning to make. Please tell me what you think of these by posting onto the guestbook on the homepage, or clicking on "0 Comments" below this post and following the instructions to make a comment.

Also, did you notice the introduction animation that comes up as you access my homepage? What do you think? Dial-up users please tell me if this has a significant impact on your experience on my site.

Also if my blog is difficult for any visually impaired people to see then please let me know so I can do something about it.

Having problems with the sidebar in Windows Vista

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First Year Textbook for Sale

Seeing as I passed my Computer Systems module in first year. I am selling my copy of Operating Systems by William Stallings. If you are interested in buying this book then please click here to go to my eBay listing.

My Smartphone’s better than yours – I wish

Take a look at this tasty item. I would love this hand set. It features Quad Band, Windows Mobile 6, a 2.0 megapixel camera, Microsoft pocket Word and Excel, a full Qwerty keyboard and you can buy it on Vodafone so no more messing about with getting the darn thing unlocked and trying to teach it that it should NOT connect via T-Mobile GPRS or O2 Mobile Web. The only thing that lets device down is the lack of a 3G connection, which is rather shocking in this day and age considering some of the newer HSDPA enabled devices are able to connect to the Internet at around 8Mb, which is the speed of my home connection. Apart from this I love this device and would be quite happy to trade in my N73 Music Edition for it.

Talk To Me!

I went into town today to collect my Nokia N73. Vodafone offered me the service for free seeing as I got the phone on contract directly from them. They have performed a software upgrade on the handset and have put Talks 3.10 on it for me. I have been given the standard UK Eloquence voice. I was hoping for Zooms but it wasn't to be. I am happy with Talks however as I can still use the phone's camera while Talks is enabled. For those of you who do not know what Talks is and what it does I'll explain: Talks is a screen reader that is available on Nokia Smartphones. It reads aloud whatever is displayed on screen so that visually impaired users can access the phone. I had it installed because I find it difficult to see the font that is used in text messages. If you have a Nokia N-series or E-series phone or any other Nokia S60 phone, you can find out more about talks, and download a demo for your handset here.

Vodafone have also upgraded me from 250 to 500 texts, which I like. They have really looked after me.

Teachers’ TV Programme

I am going to be on the TV. I am going to be on a program about Looked after Children at Hanson School. It is being shown on the Teachers' TV channel on Tuesday October the 16^th at 11:15am and 7:15pm and at 1:15 in the morning on Wednesday the 17^th October. I only get a short part at the beginning and the end but I'm still there. Teachers TV is available on Freeview and Sky. If you haven't got access to Freeview, you can register with Teachers' TV and download the program here.

Please comment once you have watched it.

Romance and 8-meg broadband

I have just spent two fantastic days with my beautiful girlfriend. She came down on Monday night at 9:45PM and went home today. I had to go to lectures yesterday so she was in on her own for a while but this gave her time to do some studying. After the lectures we went into the city centre so I could purchase a wireless router so that I could share the connection with everyone else at Chez Student. We then went for a meal at Pizza Hut, after which we went to check out the new St Stephen's shopping centre. It kind of reminds me of the Triangle in Manchester, albeit much smaller. Hull now has three shopping centres in the centre of town; Princes Quay, Prospect Centre and St Stephen's Centre. Also new to Hull is Paragon Interchange. This is basically an extension to Hull Railway Station so that all busses terminate there now. I like it because it brings busses and trains together. A few months ago if you had wanted to be near the railway station and you were on Cottingham Road, you would have had to catch the Number 15 bus which would drop you off outside Argos, which you would then have to navigate your way across the road and walk around the Victoria Hotel to the train station. Now if you are on Cott. Road and need to be at the train station, you can catch pretty much any bus that is heading towards the city centre and it will wind up at Paragon Interchange. I like that a lot. The East Riding of Yorkshire know that people still do use public transport.

Today I had to wait in for my broadband, and what a day it was. It started off with a few power outages that, after a lot of troubleshooting, were found to be caused by the cooker in the room designed for disabled inhabitants. Next came the engineers who were going to 'install the ADSL socket'. Trouble is – I had already rigged up the router and had a broadband modem to hand if anything went wrong. All I needed was for Kingston Communications to switch on ADSL on my phone line. After a few phone calls, they did so, and the modem, which was connected to the computer, sprang into life. I connected to the Internet through the modem to find that it worked well. When I connected the router, however the DSL light was on but the Internet light refused to flash. I was on the verge of taking the router back to Currys Digital where I had bought it. I decided instead to just go there and find out what was wrong once I had dropped my girlfriend off at the train station. Once at Currys they gave me some 08 number to ring, which I did once I was home. They gave me the number for Tech Guys, who could help me. However, instead of ringing them, I decided to restore the router to factory settings. I followed the wizard and found that I had incorrectly entered the username the first time round. I entered in the correct one, set up the rest of the router and I am now online through my router, although my laptop won't connect to it at the moment but I will troubleshoot that later, I think.

 

Settled in and Ready for the new semester

Sorry it's been a long time again people. I have had the maddest month ever. I have passed all my exam resits with the exception of Quantitative Methods which I am doing this year. My girlfriend of two months has been down. She is called Laura and she has been really supportive of me over the last two months and has helped to turn my life around. I told Rob Miles about her and his reaction was "Wow, a computer scientist with a girlfriend". He was joking about it.

I have been helping out at International Week as a volunteer. I have been helping to move people into University Accommodation and while doing so have met a few friendly faces. I also have new housemates. I am living with two American girls who are really friendly and a lad from London who is equally as friendly. I love the atmosphere that my new housemates have helped me to create. We all pin our doors back and just hang around in each others' rooms.

I should be getting broadband shortly although it is taking its time. The thing that gets to me the most is the library now has "new" opening hours. They are only open till seven on Monday and Tuesday, till five on Wednesday and Thursday and till four on Friday. The library is no longer open on a weekend so I now NEED a broadband connection because I can't use the 24 hour center because they use 14" CRT screens which are very old and flicker and they have set the resolution to 1,024x768 and I need it at 800x600 on a 14" screen. They don't have ZoomText although that should be coming shortly. If I don't get my broadband, I fear that I cannot continue my studies at this university and will have to drop out and re-apply to a different university next year.

In other news, Vodafone have agreed to install Talks for free on my Nokia N73 which would help me although I am STILL waiting for my Nokia 6280 unlocking code, which has annoyed me as I have paid £15 for it, which I can ill afford.

I do however want to make it a good year, for it to be better than last year.

ZoomText Scripting

If you have read my blog, you will noticed that my entry about finally getting ZoomText 9.1 has had a comment made about it. This comment was from somebody who works at AI Squared about a blog called ZoomText Scripting which gives us, the users a chance to comment on the making of ZoomText and submit ideas and code. I like the fact that I have been read by AI Squared as one day I hope to write programs like ZoomText that magnify and read the screen.

Back at Chez Student

Fellow blog readers, I am back at Chez Student. I am in the big room with the bay window and it is absolutely fantastic I am on dial-up internet for the moment but I will be getting broadband in shortly. I moved in on Friday August 31^st and the day went something like this

9am – Wake up

10am do some studying

11am continue studying for a bit

12 noon take big wheelie bag, OPTi Verso camera and smaller Head Sports bag up to the accommodation office to collect the key to the room, then take the bags to my room

12:30 set off to Computer Systems exam

13:30 Do exam

14:50 finish exam, collect empty bags and head back down to my friend's house, stopping along the way to get shopping

15:00 re-pack big bag, and bring computer, VCR and cases of CDs down

17:00 take things back to Chez Student in taxi

18:30 walk back down to friend's place

19:33 Take big black back and head sports bag back to Chez Student on the number 115 bus

19:50 unpack everything in my room

20:10 walk to bus stop with empty bags

20:15 head out to my friend's house on the number 15 bus

20:40 pack remaining things that will fit in black bag and bring large boxes and Printer/Scanner downstairs.

21:00 head back to Ferens Avenue and unpack.

I finally got finished unpacking at about 1am this morning, briefly stopping to chat to my girlfriend. The funny thing is, I've still got to collect my musical keyboard and a few other items from my friend's house. Yesterday was very tiring.

ZoomText 9.1

I have got a full copy of ZoomText 9.1. I got it on Friday when I went to see my worker at the University's Disability Office. They had decided that it was necessary for me to have a copy of ZoomText 9.1 after all because I am using Office 2007, and that is what the University will be using from September. I am actually quite happy with it. I did not initially like the way it turned off the Aero user interface, but I have just reset the colour scheme to Windows Classic and ZoomText 9.1 works fantastically.

I’m Back in Hull

I am back in Hull now. I arrived on Thursday and my parents brought my things over on Friday. I am staying with a couple of friends who do computer science to revise with them for my exam resits. At the moment it is fantastic. My friends are renting a Club Easy house this year and I'm staying with them until I get temporary accommodation or until Chez Student becomes available. At my friends' place, they have decided to live communally. I want that to happen in Chez Student although I don't think that it will happen that way. It feels nice though to get up, walk out of my bedroom and have somebody say "Good Morning" to you. The doors aren't on springs like ours at Chez Student which means you can leave them open while you are in the room without breaking Fire Safety regulations. The house has a living room with a free TV license whereas at Chez Student, you have to pay for your TV license and it MUST have the right room number on or else you are treat as someone who doesn't have a TV license. I found out the hard way. Last year, I lived in Room 2 but my license said Room 1 on it, and I was sent a letter stating that if I didn't pay my TV License fee, I would be threatened with Court. I had to ring the TV Licensing authorities to sort it out.

I am hoping this year is better than last year as I really do want to do well at University because my degree is very important to me.

Long Time No Squeak

Sorry dear reader(s) that I haven't blogged in a while. It's been very busy here. I have been studying for resits in exams and preparing to go back to Hull to do the resifts. I should be back on Thursday, 23^rd. I am staying at a friend's to study, then when I do the resits, I will get temporary accommodation, and should be then able to move back to Chez Student for the start of the semester.

Last weekend I was in Malvern with my parents at the motorhome show. This was a Country & Western weekend which featured performances by country singers every night in the Malvern Showground's two stables. There was also line dancing classes that ran every night from 6 to 7, and they were very enjoyable. It was good to dance again. During the day there were cowboy shoot-outs, and plenty of motorhomes for sale. Caravanning was something that always interested me, and I always enjoyed looking round caravans. I know it's weird but hey. Some of the vehicles I saw really caught my eye and these included the Gulfstream Crescendo RV, the Auto Trail Frontier Scout and the Hymer range of motorhomes.

After the weekend in Malvern, I would like to go back to line dancing when I get back to University. I will have to find a dance class.

In the lakes again

Yesterday I went to the Lake District with The Outlook Trust. Today we have been up at Tower Wood Outdoor education center where the trust keeps the Gig and canoes. We split up into two groups to kayak and sail. It was nice to sail in the Gig again. It seems so strange but six years ago I hated every moment I spent sailing because the boat leaned. I always feared it would throw me in. After overcoming my fear of sailing, I now find that sailing in the Gig, which is actually quite a small boat, is second nature.

Appreciated by Microsoft

Last week, I received an e-mail from Ed Gibson at Microsoft Corporation. Turns out he likes my blog, my ability not just to say what's good about something but also the ability to be critical of something. It's good to know that I have been noticed by Microsoft and I hope I can continue to put up materiall that pleases everyone (that is if I do so).

This time Offcom went too far

Telecommunications regulator Offcom has made a decision that is affecting blind cellphone users around the UK. At one time, if a blind and partially sighted person was registered with the Free Directory Enquiries service and they needed a number, all they had to do was to pick up their trusty handset, dial 195, give the person at the other end a unique ID code and then request the number. The person on the end would then dutifully look up the number and give it to the caller. The best part was that this was free to blind and partially sighted users – not any more. If you dial 195 from, let's say my Vodafone Pay Monthly handset, it will go through to 118 888, and I will receive the number without having to tell the operative my PIN code. However, it will appear on my bill as a chargeable call. The reason for this is that Offcom want the mobile networks in the UK to use 118 888 and not 195, because apparently 192 and 197 directory enquiries is no longer. I knew that but come on – blind users can't suddenly use a telephone directory easily, so why has free directories been discontinued so suddenly? This sure beats me.

............ and that concludes our rant for today. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

I-Doser Application

Today I was reading the latest edition of The Official Windows Vista magazine when I came across an article for a program called I-Doser. Basically what it does is to play sounds to the user through headphones which it is claimed the sound waves will alter the waves in the brain thereby altering the mood of the person who is listening to the sounds through headphones. I was curious so I decided to download the program and give it a go. Two free doses are provided. The first one is Content, which wipes negative thoughts from your head and leaves you feeling happy and contented. The second dose, alcohol gives you that feeling when you've just had a couple of jars. I tried the Content dose (I didn't fancy feeling drunk in the middle of the afternoon at Chez Wakefield). The sound played for twenty minutes, and it did seem a little annoying at first having an annoying ringing sound playing for twenty minutes, but when it finished it did fade out rather than just stop dead, which meant your ears have time to recover. It seemed okay I guess but that could just be a placebo effect.

I'm a little sceptical of these things. I don't know how much research has been done into this, but I have a feeling that prolonged tampering with brain waves could have negative side effects, so just exercise caution.

Outlook Trust

I have now become the administrator for the web-site of The Outlook Trust. The site has already been made up but if you want to know more about the trust, or to see the changes that I will be making to the site (once I can get the log-in credentials to work) then please click here. I have also asked about becoming a helper and one of the trustees is going to look into it for us.