To pass the time, I have started watching Futurama from the beginning, having found an excellent deal in HMV last month (all 4 seasons reduced from £90 to £60, and bought with the 2 gift cards I had). Watching crustacean-aliens mate makes an excellent way to pass the time if I’m ever bored on a day off (!)

The job hunt continues, although it seems the company I worked with temporarily may have a new position coming up, so I am looking forward to hearing from them in among my other hunting.

The minor issues that have cropped up in the flat are being fixed one-by-one, and although I have to keep cleaning up (well I’ve had enough days off that it’s only fair), it’s all going well.

I’ll let you know how the job hunt goes, and hopefully I might start having some more computer and gaming related news once the desktop is fixed.

My new-year’s resolution this year is “to get a ‘proper’ job” i.e. to leave retail and find a job that I enjoy, rather than one I enjoy purely because of the people I work with. This is a challenge which I approach with a mixture of enthusiasm and dread, mostly depending on the day on which I’m asked. I have realised that, since graduating, my interests as a paid job have shifted away from purely programming, as retail has taught me how much I enjoy working with people, something which software engineering seems to give less opportunity for than other fields. Part of the reasoning behind this shift of interest is that I realise I enjoy programming in my own time, when I can work on something I enjoy seeing come together and where I can have as much input as I would like.

In the mean time, I can get back to sorting the final touches to the flat and probably sleep, as the last few weeks have left me physically and mentally exhausted.

Cau

In many other situations, this would be a condition most concerning, however the reason behind my boxes is that, on Monday, I finally move to my new flat.

If I was moving and not working, or working and not moving, I would perhaps have had time to post about the progress of each. However, attempting to do both at the same time is enough of a tightrope, without having to think up engaging ways to keep the lovely readers interested! In any case, the next time I post will be from my new flat on Leith Walk, most likely surrounded by boxes, although it depends how long it takes to get new phone and internet set up.

On a related note, the site will go down on Monday morning, and likely remain down for at least the remainder of the week, probably longer, depending again on said internet-enabling timespan.

I look forward to being able to post from a comfortable new flat, with suitably decent internet.

We put the deposit down on Wednesday and are moving in on the 14th of December (as long as we hurry up and hand in these damn forms!).

There is now much to be done before then, including making sure I budget correctly, deciding on providers for internet, power, etc. and finding my parents another router, since I’ll be taking mine away! It’s great that the long process of finding flats and arraning viewings is over, and knowing we’ll be in in less than a month is even better.

In other, almost-equally-important news, my long-anticipated PC upgrade/repair is finally finished, and I am writing this post from a Windows 7 PC containing a brand new Core i7, 6GB RAM and a Solid State Drive. It’s mind-bogglingly fast. In fact, in the time it’s taken you to read this, it’s could probably have solved crime. Forever. And made me a cup of tea.

However, I have accomplished something with these days. For starters, I now have my new motherboard and RAM. Tomorrow should bring my processor and a shiny new SSD (I know, needlessly unnecessary, but fun and cool!), and hopefully by Sunday (my next day off) I will have the CPU cooler which I had to buy on eBay as no one else seemed to have it.

This time round, I’m determined to keep the inside of my PC nice and tidy. Using the rather handy full-size picture which comes with the motherboard I have already begun working out where best to run and tie cables inside the case, and things are looking quite good.

I also discovered that it’s possible to lubricate sleeve-bearing fans. My hope is that this might quieten things down a bit.

With any luck, my next post will not be about how annoying slow the postal system is, but rather about how fast my new computer is and my own first impressions of Windows 7.

Although I am still without a permanent software position, I have managed to extend my contract at John Lewis to be full time until the start of January. I will continue to work in Aftersales on a Saturday, but will be back on the selling floor throughout the week -  a variety which I’m looking forward to.

This weekend brought a good party, and following it a day of sitting in front of the TV (a second day of that is half-way finished!), which was great fun, but once again made me regret not living in Edinburgh. The flat-hunt continues.

In server news, I have finally got DHCP working correctly, relayed from the router, so that surfking is handling all of the networking except the physical switching. Who says that TV days can’t be productive?

First, by way of an update, here is how things are going.

I now know when my last day of real work is. As of the 30th October, my temporary contract with www.casltd.com will come to an end. The system I’d been preparing went live on Friday, and I rather hope that it’s gone as smoothly as it seemed to, since I’m on holiday today. I’ve really enjoyed my time there, and I can only hope that wherever I end up next will be as enjoyable.

The flat hunt continues, with another couple of viewings this afternoon. Flat hunting is not easy, and it seems that this time of year is an especially bad time to be doing it. More updates on this as things progress.

Now for my explanation.

My computer has given up. More specifically, the motherboard has failed. My EVGA nForce 680i board, which has lasted me a good 2 years despite multiple problems being reported online, has finally succumbed to one of the problems I read about back when I bought it, and thrown in the towel. This, of course, is to be expected with a computer, especially one which is self-built, but I am more than a little annoyed that it has happened very shortly after I had transferred last month’s wages into savings (I refuse to touch them now unless I’m in dire need), and slightly longer after I had decided to defer a motherboard upgrade until next year, after I had replaced my ailing phone (yet another things going wrong and forcing me to spend money before the end of the year), and bought the digital SLR I have a hankering for.

On the phone front, have you seen the HTC HD2? It’s a lovely, lovely phone, although rather expensive to buy unlocked. Nevertheless, I fear I will still give in and buy it before 2010 is upon us.

Until next time, or until I fix my computer (whichever is soonest), I bid you adieu.

In the mean time, I’ve been working all day every day and feeling fairly tired at night. I’ve also now begun to look online for flats, perhaps finally time to stop having such a long and rubbish commute. Looking forward to that.

I’ve also remembered how good Friday night TV is when Peep Show is around. On Friday I watched Derren Brown trying to make me stick to my seat (unfortunately it didn’t work), then watched a great return to TV from Mark and Jez in Peep Show, followed by an episode of the IT crowd. Fridays are going to be good for at least the next six weeks (the length of previous Peep Show series).

You may have noticed some slight downtime in the time since the last post. This was due to my much celebrated installation of DHCP, BIND and a new network card on the server: one or several of those caused a need for some re-engineering on the network. All sorted now though!

PS. Make sure to read the tags on my posts. I often leave vital clues/information/questions there which may need to be acted upon!

In the time it’s taken me to write that and almost nothing else, I’ve been working hard, as you’ll have gathered from the long quiet period which I ended last week. I’m still enjoying work, though working 6 days a week fairly takes its toll on my energy levels. However, I’ve also managed to get bind up and running on my server, and now that I’ve taken delivery of my extra network card, I’m just about ready to set up dhcpd and host the network properly from the server. Exciting times.

(on that note, almost as soon as I’ve finished writing this I’ll be taking the server offline to install the network card, so if you try to see the site and fail, but then try again and it’s back, then I’ve probably just lied to you, and dhcpd is most likely up-and-running!)

Just a quick update today, since I have server-tinkering and flat-hunting to do, so on that note I’ll leave you.

Take care

The day of our departure began with another early rise for a delicious cooked breakfast at 8.30 and check out by 10. Our presence was not required at the ferry terminal until 12.50, so we spent the morning enjoying the sun which the island was bathed in. We took a short walk along the waterfront, to watch the ferry docking and unloading on its way past to Tiree, the same boat which would later be returning to collect us. Returning to the centre of Arinagour, we enjoyed coffee-time at the Island Cafe, which in my case entailed a lovely cup of earl grey and a cream scone, before wandering slowly back to the car, pausing briefly to buy two ice-creams at the local shop, then driving down to the ferry terminal to board MV Lord of the Isles.

Arinagour in the sun

North down the sound of mull?!

The ferry journey proved to be a most interesting one. At dinner in the hotel the previous night we had been examining with interest the admiralty charts of the area which were on the wall, in particular the fact that they, at several points, contained the words “local magnetic anomaly”. One such marking was in the sound of Mull, down which we were to sail today. With this in mind I had been sure to see that we brought a compass on board with us, and as we came down the sound we watched it intently, making sure that our heading was still reported as south-east. I stopped to adjust my binoculars and, looking back at the compass, couldn’t believe my eyes to see we were travelling north. The family gathered round with interest as we discussed this development and I took a couple of photos to ensure I had proof to present here. Soon, the needle swung around to point in what appeared to be the correct direction again, and we returned our attention to the rest of the voyage. We saw several nice boats travelling down the sound, in particular a lovely Dutch rigged ship and another nice ship moored in Tobermory harbour flying a flag which was too far away and limp for me to properly identify.

That's better...

As we enjoyed a cup of tea in the ship’s cafeteria, timed to coincide with a particularly black cloud unloading its rain above us, my binoculars were demanded at the window. A fin, of the same kind we had seen twice during the week, was swimming past us in the water. Almost as soon as I had found it, the captain helpfully announced that anyone interested would be able see a Basking Shark off the starboard side. It was great to finally have a positive identification of the same fins we had been watching earlier in the week.

As we neared the end of the sound, we spotted 2 dolphins or porpoises swimming beside us in the opposite direction. We watched as they slid gracefully into the distance. The MV Isle of Mull sailed past us on its way – I presume – to the Western Isles, providing excellently framed photos with the black clouds behind. Not long afterwards we spotted a whole school of the same sea mammals in Oban harbour, pursued, amicably I hope, by several people in kayaks.

The journey north from Oban was a slow one, partly due to the camper-vans we found ourselves stuck behind on two separate occasions. However, from Fort Augustus all the way up the glen was mostly smooth, albeit wet, driving, and we soon found ourselves in Inverness, where we would spend the remainder of the week.

It had been a lovely week, one I hope to remember for years to come, not least because of the great photos I took. I highly recommend a trip to Tiree to anyone interested in a short island break – it is a beautiful island, and one which reminded me, as I think we all need to be from time to time, how much in love with Scotland I am.

Oban harbour