Well that's that done...

Just finished my latest and final test for my current module in my degree. Hopefully I'll get a 90+ (god anything over 94% would be overwhelming).

Now to prepare for the sit down exam in October...yay...I just love those [/scarcasm]. Ah well at least I can relax for a while :)

Mac Book Pro Boot Camp and PrtScn

Well I was just doing the last part of question 3 for my latest degree test and you have to take a screen shot of your results. Ack! Mac Book pro doesn't have a prtscn (print screen) button..after a quick googling I found this.


To save you scrolling down the keyboard command for bootcamp 2.0+ is Fn+Shift+F11 (regardless of your function key settings).



If you want just the active window it's Fn+Shift+Alt+F11.

Bluej Mac OSX and Open University OUWorkspace

If anyone happens to be doing a course with the open university i.e. M255 that needs bluej and the ouworkspace but they use a mac..I found a useful site here

http://www.phasenoise.co.uk/2007/06/03/bluej-on-mac-os-x-for-the-open-university-updated

Now one alteration to this site if you want the same version of bluej as the one on the OU CD you should download bluej 2.0.5 from the bluej website

http://www.bluej.org/download/download-old.html

Another alteration is that you should put the bluej package in a separate folder inside the applications folder, because otherwise when you launch the ouworkspace it brings up an error as it scans every file/folder in the same directory..don't ask me why.

The instructions are as follows

1. Right click, or control click if you have a single button mouse on the BlueJ icon. Select the option “Show Package Contents” this will open a window with a folder named “Contents”.

2. Navigate to the userlib folder Contents > Resources > Java > userlib.

3. Pop in the Course software CD, at the root of the CD is a folder named “libraryfiles” go inside here and copy the files “bsh-2.0b4.jar” and “ou.jar” to the userlib folder opened in the last step.

4. Next navigate to the folder Contents > Resources > Java > extensions.

5. From the root of the course CD copy the jars “eaextension.jar” and “ouwextension.jar”.

6. In the finder navigate to the folder named Library in the root of your hard drive and scroll down to the folder Java, copy the same two jars “bsh-2.0b4.jar” and “ou.jar”
to the folder named “Extensions”.

Quick listing:
Inside BlueJ application bundle:
Resources > Java > Extensions should contain the following:
eaextension.jar
ouwextension.jar

Inside BlueJ application bundle:
Resources > Java > userlib should contain
bsh-2.0b4.jar
ou.jar

In the Library Folder in the Hard Drive and not in your home folder.
/Library/Java/Extensions should contain the following:
bsh-2.0b4.jar
ou.jar

Web How To

Well I made a new site aimed at teaching rachel html, javascript, css and php etc www.webhowto.org I'm going to add new pages probably every other day :)

Car insurance, a weight off my mind.

Well I finally sorted my car insurance, I checked Money Saving Expert which suggested going through all the comparison sites...ugh time consuming and still didn't give me much of a discount....then I noticed at the bottom it had a link to More Th>n drive time which is aimed at 18-25 year olds, you get fully comp insurance but if you drive between 11pm and 6am you get charged £25 for each day you drive between those hours.

Since I hardly ever drive between those hours I've gone for it, saving me over £150! :)

Well I started question 2 of 3 on my next test, nearly done it but my mum + pc = hell didn't help managed to get me stressed out so I couldn't concentrate >.< and my wrists are hurting a bit too, so looks like I'll finish it tomorrow.

*kicks technology*

one of my hard drive caddies is acting up so I move the hard drive into a spare slot in my desktop and what happens? Another drive isn't being recognised >.> now I've moved all my drives around hopefully it'll work this time.

Cooking Fat

(spoonerism) George just ate another set of headphones this time a brand new set >.> so I just ordered 2 more and while I was there I ordered another 2 gigs of ram for my desktop, should help with the video editing :) making 4gb (yes I have x64)

New blog!

Well I moved my blog over to blogger so I can integrate it with my google apps stuff :) and people can leave comments etc :)

You know I think I'm a workaholic that hates work...if that makes any sense...I've so much to do that's of my own creation (dh, my degree various other little things I seem to accumulate...trying to find another job on top) yet I don't actually want to do any of it..I've a to do list as long as you're leg (leg since legs tend to be longer than arms).



I'm still catching up from all my trips...my own fault really XD should spend more time at home managing my life instead of gallivanting around the universe trying to escape the things that if I'd done them wouldn't be around to worry bout >.> (remember the tax situation) ah well better get to nuking that to-do list! (Part 1...empty the v+box and put all the films on dvd...not exactly work but takes a while and is prettttyyyy boring)

Well today's not been too bad got a letter from the open university saying they will be sending me a certificate saying I'm certified in IT woo! The first step of my degree's done.



Slowly but surely I've rummaged through DH's code, updating how it interacts with the database to speed things up and allow for more players. Going through 300 pages is a slow and painful process but I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end.

Register globals...someone shoot them.



I understand the concept "Oh lets have all the POST and GET etc variables assigned names at runtime..." it has some loose sense to it but when it assigns them in ways you don't want and you forget it's on it's really annoying.



I don't use reg globals personally but as site I'm working on has it on and I don't want to rummage through the site to find out if it can be switched off (or at least not right now...might later), so it was assigning numeric keys to an array I was posting...I wanted them to have relative keys, but of course since reg globals was adding the numeric ones the relative ones just appended it making the array twice as big as it should be >.< god damnit

Whoever thought of adding 2 kittens into an environment where 2 three year old cats are living is a good idea is insane >.>



Dot and tabby so don't like our two new kittens and to be honest I don't much either. If we didn't have 2 cats already I'm sure I'd adore them but...

1) Our 2 cats don't like the kittens which makes me not like them

2) I had no vote in getting them, that pisses me off (pardon my french...do the french say excuser mon Anglais?)

3) They realllllly don't leave you alone when you're working >.> and of course their food and litter tray have to be 3 rooms apart so the door has to be open...oh and did I mention their food is in the kitchen? So when I want food my leg gets savaged by tiny needle like kitten claws...



So lets see what have I had to deal with since I got home...

Taxes...yay that was stressful

Server migration/upgrade...ehhh not toooooo stressful but still irritating

Catching up with endless crap on DH >.> yep pain in arse

Two kittens savaging me and my laptop every chance they get so I can't work...joy...

Car tax! Wooo money spending ...(sarcasm)



I've not even been back 2 weeks yet and things go shit.



(I apologise to anyone who is adverse to profanity but tough titties I'm irritated)

I just hand a random thought, I wonder if PA's are really rubbish at organizing their own lives? I noticed I spend far too much time organizing other peoples lives and end up never having time to do my own...irritating really :/

Weird thing happend today, I wanted to sort my files by size...the size option wasn't there, I checked by right clicking the column bar, clicking more...nope size not there....but as ever google has the answer, I found this post which told me what to do, deleting this key



HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\PropertySystem\PropertySchema\CachedSchema



(and since im on vistax64 this key

HKLM\Software\Wow6432node\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\PropertySystem\PropertySchema\CachedSchema)



Rebooted the pc and tada! It's back

Nearly finished updating dh's server, just got to wait a day or so for every one's dns to update so I can remove the duplicate copy from the backup server (done some php and apache upgrades as well as some other tweaks to increase performance)



Hardly anyone noticed downtime though next time I will wait another day for dns replication.



Found a few useful tips on howto geek for freeing RAM on vista.



Firstly, disable the superfetch service, this in my case was chewing up RAM which nero was needing when making dvd, it's supposed to preload programs into memory but for me it doesn't seem to have got it quite right.



Secondly when you run say a game aka a full screen app and you have aero on well you don't need the fancy aero stuff on, so go to your game's program or shortcut, right click it, click properties, go to compatibility then check "Disable desktop composition" this will disable aero while the program runs freeing around 30-50 megs of RAM ok it's not tons but if you have a lower spec pc it might come in handy.

Tax hell..over for now?

Well its been an eventful few days.



Finally sorted my taxes out yesterday only took 3 days of reading through "accountant speak" to do it.



Picked my next ou course! It's called M263 the building blocks of software. It shows more of how maths effects software.



Done some more work for mysecretkitchen.co.uk with some praise :) always good to be appreciated.



Ohh found a useful tip for mac and finder, if you rightclick the whitespace in a folder and click "show view options" there's a button at the bottom which can set the defaults for all folders, I.e you can have it auto arrange by name etc.



Anyway that's it for now.

Tax hell..

It's been "one of those days" you know the kind I mean, starts off good...then you get out of bed and nothing goes right.



Anyway, went to town to sort some post all went well...went to bank to close my abbey account (they finally wrote back saying my complaint would be ignored) what happens, one of the overdraft charges I have paid is showing as pending....since march!



The lady at the branch tries to reverse it and it doesn't go through so she empties my account and hands me a cheque then says she will look into it, I say how long will that be she says "how long is a piece of string"....joy so no idea how long that will be in limbo.



Next...tax... Trying to move my national insurance to my new bank...call them up...automated message "sorry we cannot answer your call at the moment..." *phone hangs up*...wtf cut off by an automated message...joy



Anyway over an hour later I get through...turns out they have to mail me a form and it'll be sorted for september...yay.



So after all that I think, "sod this I need a break" of course my laptop has a bsod while playing civ4 bts and my mac mini ejects my external drive randomly while copying...oh roll on tomorrow.