Monday, January 10, 2011
Technology #$^%&*
Megan and the kids are away. So I figured I would look at some of those little mantenance issues that have been lurking in the background.
RANGE HOOD
Blanko Model BRCIS90X.
Problem: Light switch jammed.
Dismantle and discover that the switch must have had a poor contact and the switch has heated up and melted the outer cover of the switch assy.
onto the net to locate spares. Ah the internet is not working.
have now established the spare part will cost. Wait for it. $131.20 and a few days delivery. This is looking expensive.
PHONE & INTERNET
No internet. Pick up the phone. Its all buzzy and crackly. Locate old T200. Disconnect ADSL modem and the cordless phone. Plug in T200. Still buzzing and crackling. Go find a paper based phone book. Remember 1100 for service difficulties andfaults. Well now on about page 1600 you find some other number with a fancy name like service guarantee. This takes half an hour. Pick up the T200 and dial. On old and as I hold I can hear it getting better so by the time the call centre person runs the automated tests, its sort of OK. They can't find a fault of course but log it in anyway. Hang up. Re connect ADSL. Getting a bit of data through but its so slow and bursty as to be useless. Give up.
Of course this is another reason why the NBN is a white elephant even before it starts. Why would I have a wire or fiber bringing a stream of bits into my house only to have it stop evey time it rains.
GAS STOVE ELECTRIC START
Blanko Model BCG9SXF
Problem: When you push the gas knobs and electric start should make sparks and light the gas. Does not work.
Pull out the kitchen draws and have a look under the gas stove. Check power in power point - OK. Look under unit and decide that it is gas and I do not wish to tinker with gas. Fear I guess. Give up until Monday. We now have a service visit booked from Fixzit 3816 0344 for Tue 18-JAN-2011 at $79 call out and $26.40 per 15 minutes.
Dishwasher
Blanco
Problem: Trips earth leakage.
We already threw out the Blanko microwave after the connection from the turntable to the drive motor broke. Twice. And the Oven had to have its clock replaced under warranty.
Moral to this story is do NOT buy Blanko.
WIRELESS INTERNET
On a more interesting note I bought one of these. They are basically a mobile phone modem and a wifi access point coupled togeter. They have a battery in them so for a limited time they will operate all on their own. The computers and wot not connect by wifo. (Limit of 5 computers).
We even have connection in Mudjimba although yo have to get the location just so in order to make a 3G connection.
Of course Telstra and Optus have similar products:-
RANGE HOOD
Blanko Model BRCIS90X.
Problem: Light switch jammed.
Dismantle and discover that the switch must have had a poor contact and the switch has heated up and melted the outer cover of the switch assy.
onto the net to locate spares. Ah the internet is not working.
have now established the spare part will cost. Wait for it. $131.20 and a few days delivery. This is looking expensive.
PHONE & INTERNET
No internet. Pick up the phone. Its all buzzy and crackly. Locate old T200. Disconnect ADSL modem and the cordless phone. Plug in T200. Still buzzing and crackling. Go find a paper based phone book. Remember 1100 for service difficulties andfaults. Well now on about page 1600 you find some other number with a fancy name like service guarantee. This takes half an hour. Pick up the T200 and dial. On old and as I hold I can hear it getting better so by the time the call centre person runs the automated tests, its sort of OK. They can't find a fault of course but log it in anyway. Hang up. Re connect ADSL. Getting a bit of data through but its so slow and bursty as to be useless. Give up.
Of course this is another reason why the NBN is a white elephant even before it starts. Why would I have a wire or fiber bringing a stream of bits into my house only to have it stop evey time it rains.
GAS STOVE ELECTRIC START
Blanko Model BCG9SXF
Problem: When you push the gas knobs and electric start should make sparks and light the gas. Does not work.
Pull out the kitchen draws and have a look under the gas stove. Check power in power point - OK. Look under unit and decide that it is gas and I do not wish to tinker with gas. Fear I guess. Give up until Monday. We now have a service visit booked from Fixzit 3816 0344 for Tue 18-JAN-2011 at $79 call out and $26.40 per 15 minutes.
Dishwasher
Blanco
Problem: Trips earth leakage.
We already threw out the Blanko microwave after the connection from the turntable to the drive motor broke. Twice. And the Oven had to have its clock replaced under warranty.
Moral to this story is do NOT buy Blanko.
WIRELESS INTERNET
We even have connection in Mudjimba although yo have to get the location just so in order to make a 3G connection.
Of course Telstra and Optus have similar products:-
WHO | Start Cost | Included Data | Expiry | Recharge month | YEAR | Notes |
Vodafone | $99.00 | 3GB | 1month | $29 2GB 1month $49 4GB 1month | $150 12GB 1year | Share your details with the world |
Telstra | $149.00 | 5GB | 1month | $40 1GB 1month | $150 10GB 1year | Best Coverage. Telstra Shop Mt Omany 3376 3999 |
Optus | $129.00 | 8GB | 6month | $30 2GB 1month | $130 9.2GB 186days | Coverage? 1yr not available? |
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Mudjimba SAT
Megan and I went for a walk on the beach this morning. Then a coffee and next door noticed a hair dresser so nipped in for a hair cut. Had no money with me so asked if they would cut now pay leter and they agreed. Megan then went home and got the credit card so they ended up with their money anyway. Breakfast in the holiday house consisted of cerial and bacon and eggs. Marcus and Chris have been playing chess and Megan, Dan and Jemma are playing "Pardon my pxie dust" Google it!.
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Wednesday, January 5, 2011
More NCYC
VIDEO
See some video of NCYC singing here
http://ncycmusic.com.au/news/060111/live-video-online
or here
NCYC
NCYC = National Christian Youth Convention.
Megan ran the evening rally / worship events.
After Woodford, on the 3nd, I drove back to Brisbane, dropped off some gear and Chris (who went for a sleepover at Nick Wright's place) and then I headed down to the South port school where NCYC was being held.
NCYC Techos. Recognise that fellow on the right?
Apparantly there is a story behind this picture. A group of dancers arrived and as they were going up on stage they were asked (again) where was their sound track. After looking around blankly they then anounced um err ah we have the sound track on our phone. So here we see Reece holding the voice over mic to the phone.
The girl with the headset on is Elia. Keep an eye out for her. She is very competent.
Megan got this huge cross from Sven Designs.
While reminiscing, the astute reader would recognise the truss holding the lights as the home made truss from the YAF days.
I really enjoyed the worship. The band were great.
Nick Patsellis spoke well.
There was this pommie girl who also spoke well.
Christopher Wayne did his usual testimony interspersed with magic tricks. Even with close ups from the video cameras, I can not work them out.
Megan in black coordinating something.
James Erickson on Derek's camera with Jemma and Dan.
Taken just after the Christopher Wayne show. Dan and Jemma sat on the boxes that protected the lighting winch up (wrapped in red stuff) from being crash tackled by the audience. This sat them up higher than a chair and gave them a great view of the stage.
Cameron Todd on a 325. Actually Tony Pitman gave this camera to me about a year ago and when the need for live video occurred the week before Chrismas, it was pressed into service. I need a iris motor for the lens though - let me know if you have one.
Megan ran the evening rally / worship events.
After Woodford, on the 3nd, I drove back to Brisbane, dropped off some gear and Chris (who went for a sleepover at Nick Wright's place) and then I headed down to the South port school where NCYC was being held.
Apparantly there is a story behind this picture. A group of dancers arrived and as they were going up on stage they were asked (again) where was their sound track. After looking around blankly they then anounced um err ah we have the sound track on our phone. So here we see Reece holding the voice over mic to the phone.
The girl with the headset on is Elia. Keep an eye out for her. She is very competent.
While reminiscing, the astute reader would recognise the truss holding the lights as the home made truss from the YAF days.
Nick Patsellis spoke well.
There was this pommie girl who also spoke well.
Christopher Wayne did his usual testimony interspersed with magic tricks. Even with close ups from the video cameras, I can not work them out.
James Erickson on Derek's camera with Jemma and Dan.
Taken just after the Christopher Wayne show. Dan and Jemma sat on the boxes that protected the lighting winch up (wrapped in red stuff) from being crash tackled by the audience. This sat them up higher than a chair and gave them a great view of the stage.
Woodford
The blue things in the middle are the subs (Bass speakers) and the video tent is at the right. You can see video wires on the ground.
Mould is a bit of a worry.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
LAMP Ubuntu in Virtual Box under windows 7
The date is wrong - Not sure when this was originally written
We used to have a web server but as the 2011 flood waters rose, I grabbed the box and brought it up stairs. It has operated on 2 occasions since but I seem to have lost the root password and the fan on the PSU is jammed and it reports PCI bus errors. But it was handy and it hosted our photos. Since then I have hosted selected photos on my blog (thank you to Mr Google) but it is nice to have a central place to put photos especially with the demise of the physical photo and the accompanying photo albums. And we take so many digital photos and just occasionally we need to go looking for one.
So what to do. I could go and buy a new pc to use as a server or even get an old carcass going but I figured we have a powerful windows 7 pc used for gaming etc and it is switched on almost all the time. Sometimes Chris or Dan have a minecraft server running on it.
So I figured it may as well be the server.
The plan is
a) down load and install virtualbox
b) install ubuntu (A linux operating system)
c) Get the web server (apache) running on that
d) Get mysql and php running on it.
I am hopeful of getting a ubunt
http://munkyonline.co.uk/articles/lamp-ubuntu-server-on-virtualbox
http://bitnami.org/stacks
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