Expect blogging to be light, I am off on some travels. More when I get back on my laptop.
Month: August 2005
Pluto mission
Go and add your name to a list being put on a CD and being sent to Pluto, it will arrive there in 2015.
To New York
I have visited New York on two previous occassions.
The first was right after September 11, I flew to JFK on September 28 2001, and had a look around the city the following day. This included a trip to the top of the Empire State on the day it reopened after the attacks, and then a long solitary contemplative walk from the Empire State to the remains of the WTC, still smoldering, and practically untouched since the attacks. The roads were still closed off from Canal Street down. I had actually planned on flying to New York earlier in the month, just before the attacks, and could easily have been in New York that day – though not in the WTC – I would never get up that early.
There was a certain sense of bewilderment in the air, a very odd smell in lower Manhattan, one I will never forget. Walking around empty streets, with dust still on windows, where people had written patriotic messages – photographs of missing people on street corners. I don’t think I got a true reflection of the city, more of a people still in shock.
The second was a very brief visit last year on my way to Toronto, and I promised myself I would return to get a better look around.
So I am off to visit the US before my return to university, and it happens to be around the time of my first visit there 4 years ago.
It would be cool to meet up with some bloggers from the area, I know thinkingoutloud met up with some recently – but I really don’t know any of my readers that are from that part of the world!
Give me a link if you know some nice blogfolk in NY!
That Audigy 2 thing
Blogging works for Slugger, and works for me too. And another reader.
Thank you Sascha, thank you Google. Thanks Dell, for nothing.
RSS on phones
If one thing is sure to help the spread of RSS, it’s putting it on a phone. The benefits would be immediately noticeable to a user.
To University, and beyond
Some visitors may have noticed a much decreased volume of posts in recent weeks, thanks in part to my preparations for a return to university. I am 24 now so I am going back as a mature student, starting at the end of September in Arts Year 1 in UCC.
My chosen subjects for First Year are Philosophy, Politics, Sociology and Greek and Roman Civilization. Now depending on how much work I will be putting in, blogging may or may not see a rise or fall in volume, but I expect that I will have some spare time with my trusty laptop to do some writing on here.
I intend to do my Degree in Politics and Greek and Roman, with perhaps further study after that. I would also have intentions of visiting Washington next Summer on a J1 Visa, hopefully landing a nice internship at a venerable political thinktank, magazine or some such.
I may also be asking fellow bloggers and readers for help with essays, just helpful stuff, titbits that I might otherwise not have come across in relation to the subject matter of an essay. That is with the cooperation of you all of course, I hope you can offer advice!
And who knows I might get students blogging, there are some blogs already among the faculties in UCC so it can’t be that hard to convince some people of the benefits blogging can give.
On Dell – Audigy 2 issue
Update: June 2006: THE LATEST drivers from Creative appear to work perfectly with DELL OEM Audigy 2 cards. You can get the drivers here.
Update: Scroll to the bottom for a fix that has so far worked on 5 Dell PCs, including my own.
Jeff Jarvis has generated enough bad-press on the blogosphere that Dell appear to have sat up and listened. A quote from an article that cites Jarvis’ problems:
…says it has new procedures for dealing with the blogosphere. The company’s public relations department monitors blogs, looking for commentaries and complaints–and, starting about a month ago, began forwarding complaints with personally identifiable information to the customer service department so that representatives can contact dissatisfied consumers directly, said Dell spokeswoman Jennifer Davis. The move appears to have been triggered by a series of “Dell Hell” posts penned by Jarvis about his problems with a Dell computer. Jarvis first wrote about the topic in June, and continued posting updates through the summer.
“Obviously, Mr. Jarvis’ experience could’ve been handled better,” Davis said.
Indeed.
But I have my own grief, and I have to admit it is rare I have had problems with the Dell PCs I have owned in the past. But this time Dell seem incapable of solving the problem, or at least are unresponsive.
Yes of course I could ring tech support in Bangalore, with a quick ‘Kay sa-ha’ I would be on the pigs back, but the simple thing is I shouldn’t have to because Dell are failing to do something very simple:
…post drivers for their hardware on their own website.
Allow me to elaborate. I own a Dell Dimension 8400, 3.4Ghz, 2048Mb DDR2, 320Gb SATA, 256Mb GeForce 6800, DVD/RW…yadda yadda, with a Creative Audigy 2 ZS sound card. And I ran into a big fat problem with it this week.
Following a clean install whereby I formatted the RAID 0 array and clean installed Windows XP SP2, the Audigy 2 has failed to work. At all. And being the nerd I am, since I’ve been tinkering with everything from Atari 2600’s and Amiga’s since I was knee high to a grasshopper, I always endeavour to solve these problems myself – I always think the best way of learning how hardware or software works is by fixing the problems you come across by yourself – tech support is a very last resort, and anyway I can usually predict what troubleshooting measures they will ask me to take.
Place Audigy 2 driver CD (that I got with the computer) into the drive – begin installation:
“Setup has failed to detect a Creative Audigy 2 in your computer, please ensure it is installed – setup will now exit”
Bugger. The bloody thing is installed you stupid computer.
So begins the trouble shooting process. Ensuring the card – which was not touched or moved since wiping the hard drive 10 minutes ago, is properly plugged into its PCI slot. Yup sure is. Back to CD installation. No joy. Open computer again, move the card into a different PCI slot. Try CD again. No joy.
Maybe its the CD? Maybe its the drivers? Maybe I can get the latest ones? Maybe there’s something small I am missing. Windows XP should recognise this device, shouldn’t it? Oh yes, the Audigy 2 isn’t actually an Audigy 2, its a Dell Audigy 2.
In order to save money and time, Dell get Creative to make them lashes of sound cards, with a specific Dell chipset, so my card is not supported by Creative – and their drivers won’t work on my card. I tried. So off to the Dell website I go. Downloads, Drivers, Audio…no driver. A webpatch alright, if I have the sound card already installed. Well that’s the bloody problem isn’t it? I want to install the bleedin’ thing. And your crappy drivers aren’t bloody working. Surely it makes sense to offer the full drivers…but no.
And I am not the only one having problems.
The solution suggested there I had already tried, with no joy either.
So I asked fellow blogger Rymus, who has the same Dell sound card, to pass over some info about his. But it’s to no avail, I am stuck with a rather good sound card that won’t work, Dell don’t have place for me to download drivers, the CD doesn’t work, so….what now?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Flickr/blog meetup in Cork
Ryan has suggested we all meet up for some photos and pints in Cork, sounds like a good idea to me!
Rockets hit Red Sea ports; 1 dead
It looks like an unsuccessful attack, but interesting in that in this region it was unexpected.
The ships were in port so sailors could train with regional partners, U.S. Navy Commander Jeff Breslau told CNN. “It’s very unusual for U.S. ships to be under attack in this part of the region.”
DSL Extender trial wraps up
Interesting technology from Telstra in Oz. This could be a very viable solution for parts of rural Ireland – god knows when we would see it implemented. [via Slashdot]
Telstra has finished its “DSL extender” trial and is now allowing the equipment to be used in its live copper phone network. Telstra announced a trial of the technology back in January, saying it would allow DSL to be connected to people who were up to 20KM from a central exchange.
DSL Extenders work by splitting an existing copper phone line into eight separate ADSL lines using a tiny, ruggedised remote DSLAM. The link back to the exchange uses 2.3Mbit/s G.SHDSL (Single-pair high-speed DSL). This 2.3Mbit/s speed is split up among the eight users that are connected to the micro-DSLAM. The link from the micro-DSLAM to customers’ homes is regular ADSL1, which suggests a maximum 1.5Mbit/s line speed. Telstra has confirmed that it will not be able to offer higher-speed ADSL2 or 2+ through the micro DSLAMs.