Rambling of a Coder

Tech Work

Wednesday 17 March 2010 at 5:18 pm

Been repairing a LOT of laptop’s recently, Mostly Virus/Spyware related breakage. To which i do the only sane thing, and flatten it and reinstall. Unless I’m told specifically that they need X and Y off it, then i pull out the ole trusty USB->IDE cable with my spare 80Gb laptop HDD, and the ole 16Gb USB key with my linux install on it.  Really can’t go wrong with that, fire it up grab all the files and then proceed with flattening.

People ask why i don’t just remove the offending software, I never really have a straight answer. Mostly for me is because it just saves time. I don’t really want to spend a whole day removing virus’s and spyware from someone else’s computer when i can spend 5 minutes starting a fresh install. Plus well I don’t repair computers for a living, so when I’m doing it its as quick and painless as possible for me. Mix in the fact i never really trust a install that's been compromised anyway. Occasionally i will just do a quick repair, but its has to be for very specific reasons. Mostly like i don’t have the install CD’s required with me >:D

So if your looking for me to repair a laptop take note of these points

If you have something you want kept SAY SO, don’t just assume i will.
If you need X software reinstalled after too, please tell me when giving me the laptop. I can’t read minds… yet.

That's basically all i like to know.

Plus one last note on the subject, if i say i don’t want anything for fixing your laptop/computer. I really don’t want anything.  If i think the repair was worthy of getting paid for. I’ll freely say how much you owe me.

The attached image i thought was fitting, G’s Buzz Lightyear’s “Laser” stopped working. and it was me doing a quick switch for a new LED. Seemed fitting somehow.

Specis | ¶ | Electronics | One comment

Busy Month Ahead

Monday 06 April 2009 at 5:59 pm

Yup, as the title states April is going to be a very busy month for me. Got 2 assessments to start and finish this month alone, and both are due around the 25th too. So I've got to get onto those. Throw in the fact that Garion's at home most of the month too due to school holidays, means its definitely going to be an exciting time. Plus we're actually working towards getting G into school for a whole day too. All of which just means more distractions.

On top of the two things mentioned above, I've also recently "Finished" a little program that displays the latest Eve-Online Wallet entries on my G15's LCD. So i also want to fire on through and clean it up, remove unneeded/wanted processor usage and just overall make it more presentable and fire it out there into the ether and see if anyone uses it. Knowing me this will take most of the month also. Been working on another little "for fun" project too, Takes your twitter feed, and you can link your friends to Xbox-Live Profiles and it takes there avatar and displays this right into your desktop with whatever they've said, or said to you. Kind of a nice little visual Avatar group/conversation. I know, it's a kind of pointless program and serves absolutely no useful purpose. But i don't really care. Its something fun to-do. I'll get around to posting screenshots of both of them at some point this month also.

And now the real project that I'm going to focus on through the summer/autumn. Radio and Computer interfacing. As I've mentioned before Amateur Radio is a sort of hobby of mines. Its always drawn my attention and imagination. And finally I'm in a position where i can actually do something with this interest. It's going to be fun, for me at least. So expect more on this through the summer months especially when my first course wraps up in the next month or so, which will give me some more time to devote to it before i start the third in august. Lets just say that i wont be buying any prebuilt equipment beyond the power supply which i already own and there will be a lot of computer interaction with it. I dare say this one is going to be a long haul project, but I'm eager and excited and willing to learn whatever it takes to get to where i want to be with it in the end.

I'm also going to be hopefully doing some more work within my current house, my small computer room has been great. BUT! I'm quickly running out of room in it and that's just with my course materials, which I'd hedge a bet and say are only going to be getting more plentiful as the course ramps up in difficulty through the years to go on it.  So i need to start thinking of shelving and some more actual work space. as you can see from the recent picture its getting pretty cramped. Maybe move the wall, or remove the wall and replace it with a half height partition. Either way, something has to be done about it. But i still feel the need to keep the equipment separate from the rest of the room.  What i really need is a larger house, but that'll come! Also need to plan out and build a decent computer area for Garion. He seems to prefer a full sized desk and chair these days over the smaller ones that are more aimed at his age.

So that's my very rough plans for this summer and what i want to get done. Isn't as much on that to-do list now that I've written it all down. But course I'm not taking into account all the good weather were sure to get and the endless afternoons of sitting in the garden with a book basking in the sunshine. *wonders if its still sleeting outside*

Specis | ¶ | Coding, Education, Electronics | Two comments

random today

Friday 20 July 2007 at 7:21 pm

I've encountered a few things of intrest on my usb searches, Especially the numerous embedded processors out there with USB capabilities already built into them.. i think this one is an especially good path i might follow down further. I also liked Shadee's idea in my comments from the previous entry too. Both viable options.

I noticed on the news earlier that england is suffering from quite bad flooding once again this year, Glad i dont live down there. The extent of flooding in this local area has been the same as every other year.. about 1 inch of water covering the road by the train station. But as they say, Look on the bright side.. I doubt they'll have a hosepipe ban this year.

Potter mania has sweeped the nation too *sigh* (oo i wonder if this is why shadee has gone offline for a week!) With all sorts of rumours surrounding what happens at the end of the book. Personally who cares? why try to ruin it for yerself and everyone just buy the damn book and read it.

Anyway, I think im going to make myself a Electronic Weather station. Might be handy if/when we move up to Skye (Hopefully soon), Know cos looking out the window just doesnt cut it these days. And to go with it im also going to build myself a new PC before we move, Im still leaning towards AMD and course 64-Bit and it'd be kinda pointless at this stage not to go dual core. So that kinda limits my choices right there :D Probably a AMD Althlon 64 X2 6000. And stick with Vista course.

I found this free Searchable PDF creator on my travels in cyberspace today, No idea why i was even looking for it but i was. Supports Vista x64 so yay.

Updated the Links section of this front page, Split them up a bit. Removed the Images and just generally cleaned it up a tad, Also made the comments easier to identify on the individual entry page. I'd never actually noticed before today that there was no seperation between the bottom of the Entry and the First Comment. I also stole Morduun's Libary link he found and posted on his blog a while ago. Course using my own books instead, Well the ones that were within reaching distance of my computer anyway.

Specis | ¶ | Electronics | Five comments