Major System FAIL!

Today, I am not impressed. The reason for my sour mood is two fold – firstly I have had an awful week in work and I already know that next week is going to be a nightmare due to staff holidays and me being the only one who can cover them. Secondly, I knew that my Windows 7 pre-order (thank you for the bargain eBuyer) would be dispatched on Thursday for delivery when ever the Royal Mail stop striking and get some work done, so I ordered some upgraded memory to help things run a little smoother. I very happily opened my shiny new Corsair XMS2 memory yesterday and was excited to get home, rip open the case and fit it. Upon starting up my PC I went in to the BIOS to see what voltage it was assigned – this was too low, so I upped it to the amount needed and rebooted. The next trip in to the BIOS showed that my FSB had done up to 1066Mhz thanks to the bottle neck of my old memory now being removed, as a result all the voltages required had increased slightly, but more importantly the speed of my system would finally reach its potential. I rebooted the system and allowed it to run in to Windows whilst eagerly monitoring the boot sequence to see how much quicker it was – just as the smug look of success came across my face I was greeted by that thing all PC enthusiasts dread … the Blue Screen of Death!!!

After some tinkering I decided to phone my cousin, who is a bit of a guru on these things and we ran some tests. These hinted that the problem may be with my PSU, which granted isn’t the most powerful, but it is a very good spec and from a top manufacturer. I had gambled on this PSU being enough for my machine when I last upgraded, but it seems I may have lost this one due to the faster FSB, two additional hard-drives and a fat graphics card. Reluctantly I decided to buy a new PSU, because even if it turns out not to be the PSU, I should really get one more suitable anyway. As usual I went on to the eBuyer site, but the choice wasn’t fantastic and many seemed over priced for some reason, so I looked elsewhere. It appears that eBuyer was, as usual, very competitively priced and much to my amazement PSU prices have doubled since I last bought one 3 years ago – WTF is that all about?!

The only explanation I can think of is that all the companies have jumped on the ‘Energy Saving’ bandwagon and decided that all of sudden the same heap of junk, with a bigger fan (to reduce noise) and some plugs (to allow excess cables to be removed) is now worth a fortune – I was not impressed. In the end I settled on a 600W OCZ ModXStream that ticked all the boxes, but didn’t break the bank – thanks to OCUK.

I’m hoping that it will arrive tomorrow so I can get my system stable and backup everything before I install Windows 7 and start on the next bunch of issues.

ARGHHHHH!

Converting the Stubborn

Just a quick one today.

Last night I had 5 mates round for one of the regular xBox nights we have. Traditionally we have always played Pro Evolution Soccer (PES), but this time around I have decided to move my alliance to FIFA 10, something that was scowled upon by the traditionalists. After a week of persuasion I eventually managed to get a small group of sceptics to come round and give it a try. The format was familiar, arrive with a few beers, order in a chippy tea and play the tournament – cost to enter is one pound and no ‘top’ teams are allowed. Out of the hat I picked Boca Juniors, the worst team in the draw, but as I had played the game before this would help to even things out. After setting up the controllers to the alternative format so that we had a level playing field we got in some practice.

The result of the evening was that we all filled our faces, everyone loved the new puppy and I gained 60% acceptance, just two more people to keep the pressure on, if they all have a copy by xmas then the rest of the group will have to follow suit so they can play online … the mission continues.

Is FIFA as addictive as Heroin?

Well, so far I’m only one sentence in to this post and it’s taken me four days to get this far, so you work it out …

I Think My Girlfriend Would Kill Me!

Once again Spike has delivered the dinner time laughs with a video entitle “How To Wake Your Girlfriend Up“. Now I know that any blokes reading this are expecting a video with that title to have some form of nakedness, but despite the poor victim being fully clothed, its well worth a watch!

This guy is one of the luckiest men I know because not only is his girlfriend good lucking, but she can take a joke. Enjoy the show:

Clever Thinking from Honda

Now this is what I call technology! Whilst stuffing an enormous cheese salad sandwich down my face on my dinner hour, I decided to check out the BBC website but as usual I only actually went to the sport and technology sections. For whatever reason, the world seemed rather un-interesting that day, so I decided to check out the technology section…

I was greeted by this article on the Honda U3-X, pictured to the left. Needless to say, me being a geek and also loving the way Honda operate their company, I had to find out more. It turns out that the U3-X is the third prototype device in a range of new mobility devices that Honda would like to bring to the market. If they do reach the market then I’m looking forward to watching the first new article on how several pensioners in a Florida retirement home suffered broken bones whilst using the devices!

The U3-X uses a technology that Honda is calling a HOT Drive System, this what allows for the ‘Omni-directional’ movement. It also uses the balance system used in the ASIMO humanoid project, who can be seen proudly presenting the devices in the main picture. I can see why Honda has used a mobility device to showcase this technology, but I personally think it will make its first major appearance in a military application, such as scouting or bomb disposal devices, either way I think Honda has hit on something big and hopefully this will ensure that ASIMO is around for many years to come.

Below is a video of the U3-X in action:

Aion Beta: Unexpected End of Archive Error

I received an email from PC Gamer magazine last week informing me that I had been given access to the open beta of Aion: Tower of Eternity, which seemed nice, but rather pointless, seeing as it was an open beta … ie: available to all. Regardless I decided to check out the website and see what it was all about. The game looks very impressive and worth a look, so I set about downloading the beta via their own torrent. Several hours later it was done and I attempted to open it, only to get a message through WinRAR saying “Unexpected end of archive”. This was a bit annoying, but in a 9gb compressed file I could understand that it may have corrupted during download, so I set about getting another copy from a more ‘direct source’ and did so. 2 hours later I had it (uber phat pipes ftw) and double clicked, only to have the same problem.

I did a little searching and found people simply blamed the lengthy file names or other stupid issues, non of which could realistically cause a problem. Eventually I stumbled upon a forum post that mentioned an issue with WinRAR and to try WinZip, so I downloaded the latest free trial and it worked. Woohoo … 2 days of frustration solved by using a little logic: use the program that the file was created in!

So to summarise for all those out there still banging their heads on the wall: Download WinZip (from here) if your getting the “Unexpected end of archive” error when trying to open the Aion Beta.

Enjoy!

Finally, ‘the front page’ is ticked off my to-do list!

As all those working within a small company will know, everyone needs to be able to do several jobs or nothing will get done. My role began as making a basic website, catalogue and other things of this nature when I first started, all those years ago, but I was also expected to maintain the IT systems, produce all of the certificates for the services we provide, answer the phones and deal with the resulting queries. This role has since developed to include all the Health & Safety, Quality, IT Development and provide assistance to the operations and sales staff. As a result I always have a ‘to-do’ list that is so long it resembles an American’s shopping list. Slowly rising to the top of my list over the last few weeks has been the need to do re-design the front page of the website, so it wasn’t so annoying and looked a little more like a professional site. This would have been done a long time ago, but no one can decide on the marketing angle to take and I have been far too busy doing the ‘required-by-law’ jobs to dedicate any time to coding things. But at long last I have got to a point where I could make a start…

Beginning promptly at 13:43 on Monday afternoon I decided that I would start by defining the problem. What we need is an interactive front page, that is visually impacting and doesn’t require the client to scroll, but still allows them to see an overview of our key services. After searching for some inspiration it was clear that we needed an interactive menu that changed the main image as clients clicked through the options, examples of this where plentiful, but I don’t know how to code in any web technologies except (x)HTML and CSS, this was going to be difficult.

After a few hours of searching around I found an amazing tutorial by Soh Tanaka on Design M.ag called “Create an Image Rotator“. If you follow the link you’ll see a nice simple tutorial on making a great looking ‘menu’ that not only instantly changes the main image but does so with a fair bit of style and can accommodate a descriptive box so you can give a teaser before the visitor clicks on for more information.

Using this as a foundation I began to design a similar style dynamic menu, but I wanted the ‘tabs’ to sit on top of the image so that I could have multiple layers and give the site more depth. This began by me copying the articles working code on Monday afternoon, breaking it on Monday night, fixing it Tuesday morning, breaking it again shortly after and then finally getting the code how I wanted it and working correctly just a few hours ago (Tuesday night). The problem now is that I need to style the damn thing, because it looks crap at the moment!

Any suggestions and feedback in general is more than welcome. The live version can be found here: www.envogen.co.uk.

Please make sure you all check out Soh Tanaka’s personal blog over at www.sohtanaka.com, he’s been a massive help!

2009 So Far … 1st Jan to 1st May

Seeing as I’ve lost everything on the site I thought it was a good idea to make an article that covered everything that has happened so far this year, so here goes:

2009 began with Me, Lisa and her friends taking a drunken walk back from a fantastic New Years Eve party at Shaw Hill Hotel, Whittle-le-Woods Near Chorley. This seems to have set the tone for the fantastic year ahead. Because so much has happened I’m going to do a month by month break-down, Enjoy!

January

The year started with Geoff and Mygenet’s wedding, which was all planned at the last minute. Geoff being close family and us having grown up together, I knew I was going to heavily involved, what I didn’t expect was to be asked to usher 4 days before the wedding, and then with 3 days to go I was asked to step in as Best Man due to Geoff’s uncle have an arse of a boss who wouldn’t allow him to take the day off work … on a Saturday! Despite the chaos everything went really well and pictures are available on either of their Facebook accounts.

After the wedding the next two weeks, as it is every year, was filled with birthdays. One of these was a mate of mine and as his wife was out playing we organised a Pro-Evo night for the lads. Lots of Beer, Plenty of Chilli’s and a bit of gambling ensued!

At the end of the month it was Lisa’s birthday, so being the super boyfriend that I am I sent her off to Geneva to see a good friend of hers and spend 4 days getting blind drunk. Upon her return I was in the good books and was forced to endure several weeks of no nagging, drinking with the lads, playing on my xBox and getting spoilt rotten by my lady … terrible times! hehe

February

Everyone know what happens in February, and despite the fact that I hate it, I knew that Lisa was looking forward to it, so Valentines day was in need of planning. Being as how I was in the good books though, Lisa decided that she would take me out! This did feel some what emasculating, but she spared me from wearing the dress, matching shoes and hand bag, so I realised that I could let her be dominant for the day, in exchange for an all expenses paid visit to a fantastic Japanese restaurant in Liverpool and more Tiger Beer than is required to drown a … Tiger?

Next came another batch of close family birthday’s! Towards the end of the month an unusual night out was arranged with a few friends. The venue was the local town hall and the event was a ‘mystery meal’. This didn’t mean we’d get fed something random, it meant that all the staff involved in ’serving’ us where part of a larger play that taking place before us. The plot was of course a murder mystery and the acting was superb. After the police arrived the scene changed as we, as witnesses became involved in the interrogation of the cast, with the ultimate goal of guessing who the murder was. We all had a great night and its an experience I recommend everyone should try, especially if the entrance fee’s go to a good cause.

At the end of the month my car’s MOT, Tax and Service was due, so saving was required, but I did have one night out for a friends 30th. Everyone was there and it was a chance to introduce Lisa to another group of friends who I don’t see very often now we’ve finished playing football. The night was superb and was capped off nicely by the birthday boy being sick down someone’s back after pinching some shots that were meant for other people. Quality :-)

March

Early March was spent sorting my car and attempting to get back in to a routine at the gym, which I failed miserably to do. Other than that, nothing much seemed to happen.

In mid-March it was Mygenet’s birthday, so her and Geoff to decided to throw a small a party that doubled up as a house warming. Everyone had a good time filling their faces and getting to catch up on events since the wedding.

At the end of March myself and Lisa thought it would be nice for the parents to meet, seeing as they only lived a few hundred meters from each other. We had noticed that a life soul singer was on a very nice pub that wasn’t far from where we live, so we booked it. The night was fantastic, the music was great, the food was fantastic (despite a few slip up’s) and the parents got along fine. The night was duly topped off by the taxi having to pull over to let Lisa throw up all over the grass verge right in front of my parents … classy, lol.

April

April is always a crazy month in my life, but this year I decided to do something I’d been putting off for years … I booked to go to Ladies Day at Aintree Races. We both got dolled up and along with out friends had a fantastic day drinking champagne, being merry, losing our money and eating some of the best fish & chips i’ve ever come across. Cant wait till next year :-)

Next up was the usual round of birthdays that take place, including my own, at last. I got lots of nice presents from those close to me and had a good booze up with my mates at the local.

At the end of the month was something I’ve been looking forward too for months … Andy’s Stag-do in Calella, Spain! We were due to be picked up at 04:30 on Friday morning, so being the punch of alky’s that we are, we arranged to meet in the pub at 22:00 on Thursday! The land lady kept the boozer open for us until we got picked up, and so the mayhem began. We had four fantastic days enjoying a free bar, free food and funny nights out. The highlight of the weekend was the stag getting involved in a dance-off with the locals whilst wearing a beautiful red dress with black poker-dots, matching bag and a lovely elephant cock-piece! Coming a close second was Scott’s ability to fall asleep in the most stupid places and wake up covered in permanent marker! Third goes to the bar on the beach where we all chilled out with a pint of Amstel whilst listening to Bob Marley tunes, good times!

So as you can see, it’s been a busy few months. But that’s everything up to date … job done!

Take 2: Archane v5.0 Launches

Is anybody out there?

Well there is a good chance that I’m talking to myself, but here goes anyway…

Anyone who has (appempted) to visit the site in the last few weeks may have noticed that it was broken. This was because my hosting moved and I didnt realise! As a result I have lost all the past work, due to the fact I’ve never backed it up, but this isn’t a problem because most of it was crap.

This means that I now have a brand spanking new blog to fill with non-sense and clutter up with old photos and videos.

If anyone is reading this then I hope you like the site and please feel free to join in the conversations.

Thanks

Nick