Arachnophobia and Xmas baubles

Ok. I was going to blog before Xmas, but it got a bit hectic and so I was unable to do it then. Well Xmas was most enjoyable and as usual, we all ate way too much food and drank too much wine, but hey…It’s Xmas. It’s perfectly acceptable behaviour for this time of the year.

By and large, its been comparatively busy for this week so far, being the week before the new year and all. Hopefully the new year will see us even busier and happier than ever before. Come on down 2007!!! Yippee!

Hey check this picture out. It’s a customer’s PC with the web page on the inside of the case. It belongs to a spider that is totally up with the latest technology. I think there was another arachnid in there before the current resident, but unfortunately it looks like this little invertebrate lost a few legs trying to navigate its way across the CPU desert, or met his end while catching the USB Bus. If he did catch the bus it was surely bound to be a hard drive. But the alternative route would have made him a bit floppy. Perhaps he was sucked into the system fan whilst abseiling from the roof of the case. The inside seems warm and cosy to a spider I’m sure, but taking an eight legged stroll through a high voltage power supply unit could fry the poor little suckers hairy legs balder than Peter Garret: A shocking trip to arachnophobic hell. Speaking of Peter Garret, doesn’t he dance a bit like a spider?

Oh and one more thing... People may find this somewhat odd, but this year I have officially discovered and learnt the meaning of the word bauble. Amazing... Thanks Amber, you continue to enlighten me and improve my Xmas vocabulary. Yeah OK, I know its kinda tragic, but I think I may have lived in a kind of xmas vocab free environment as a kid. Geez I didn't even know that the tinsel stuff that you hang aroung your Xmas tree has a special name. Bizarre. It doesn't at all surprise me though, to see that there are so many words that are Xmas specific, and are not at all commonly used: in George's Funky World at least.

So getting back to the spider, it is very common to see spiders create websites, whilst the user creates them on the internet. It is a web of intrigue... I also find it quite interesting that we refer to computer owners as Users. If you drive a car you are an owner/driver. If you buy a book you are the reader, but if you buy a computer you are a user. Now in the context of interpersonal relationships, you certainly would not enjoy such a title, but in the computing world, we seem to embrace it... Bizarre really. I'm sure that we can come up with a better label. Drop me a line and let me know what you think. Perhaps we could be called computors or something like that. Maybe we could invent a nedw word to substitute the very unflattering 'user'.

Smoky day

Today was interesting in as much as the contrasting backgrounds of fire, smoke and darkness that surrounded us in Gippsland. Of particular concern, was the wind gusts that whipped through regions where bushfires were active. We have been preparing for this today though, but I don’t think that people were expecting the additional problem of fires in the Latrobe Valley area. The DSE and CFA have their work well and truly cut out for them and we are all counting on their expertise to save lives and property.

I caught the early signs of fire in the pine plantation in the Strezlecki hills just off the Strezlecki Highway about 15km N of Mirboo North. At the moment as I am writing, strong winds are fanning the blaze. There are 20 fire trucks there at this moment . I hope that the firemen are well equipped and luck is on their side, because this fire is huge. Very scary. In fact, I ended up so close to it, that I was confronted by Police and CFA firemen who advised me of an alternate route home. It was too smoky and hazardous to travel so close to the fire.

In other adventures today, I fitted out another rack with a spunky new switch and some network cabling, all ready for population by the rather sad looking HP computers (pictured below) for a certain Government agency (I can’t tell you who it is… If I did, I would have to kill you all - due to the top secret nature of this assignment). For now, lets just call them ”Control” as in “Get Smart.” Fortunately, I possess a license to root (or is that to route)… Like James Bond, you know, but in a networking kinda way. So anyway, all that I need for these sad looking computers to renew their former, glorious governmental state of confidential being, is furniture, like desks to put them on for instance.

Picture this… An undisclosed number of governmental workers (of undisclosed gender and ethnicity) sitting cross legged on the carpet with their keyboards in their laps and RSA encrypted keys dangling from their necks as they answer confidential and of course, classified questions from non-specific human resources (people). Gotta love the governmental jargon…

So would agree that this picture will never actually eventuate? Well, until tomorrow when somebody builds the desks and gives the special agent dudes somewhere to sit, this might be a sticking point for our talented secret service personnel. It may adversely influence group cohesion; inherently affecting overall stability and productivity within the core structure of the institution. (shit will hit the fan in a big way).

You see interpreting corporate jargon can be challenging, but as my good friend Gayle pointed out recently, bullshit is what drives the corporate world, so for this we should be grateful… I guess, especially if we’re the ones providing the links to the ‘Information Super Highway.’ Just as there is dirt on our streets, the internet is full of its own crap too. Don’t we all know it? I was horrified today to find my seven year old repeatedly attempting (unknowingly) to download a virus from a web page that I didn’t even know existed. Thank god for antivirus software. And although I agree that we sometimes need contingency plans to save us from our own stupidity, we also need them to save our children too. Not from stupidity but rather, from their own innocence and naivety… So out came the old content filter.

Anyway, enough rambling for today, see you on the next episode.

Sad Goodbye

When you work with an individual for a long time, you develop a certain kind of relationship with that person. You know a professional relationship that sometimes transcends the usual boundaries of the regular employee inter-relationship.

If you have ever worked in a small business for as long as I have, (more than seven years now) you will know what I am banging on about. Christ I know my workmates better than...Well perhaps better than I should. This week, one of them moves on to greener pastures (but nothing to do with the dairy industry). It leaves me with a huge void that feels just plain weird. She has been like my best friend at times, like my mother at other times and well, yes like comic relief at other times. But I have nothing but the highest regard for her. On one level, it feels as though a part of me is leaving. On the other hand it leaves me wondering how I will keep my sanity also. She was my organisational side in my times of disarray. She is my memory when I forget things (which is most of the time). She was also, an important voice of reason in the times that really mattered to us.

Every business (and every individual) needs someone in their life like Gayle. She is a voice of reason and the grounding force that keeps a business on track and organised, in a very important way. Employees of her calibre are highly sought after. They make perfect and loyal friends too. They can be brutally honest, but despite what some people think, this can sometimes be the best thing that we could ever hear, regardless of how it makes us feel... Sometimes all we need is a good kick up the butt to bring us down to Earth. This is definitely what all of us need from time to time. Let’s face it, none of us are perfect.

So if you are reading this my friend, I wish you nothing but happiness and the very best of fortune on your new path and thank you for your deeply valued friendship and support during these past 7 years. Thank you for being my friend and good luck in the future!!! Oh and don't think that this is the last that you'll hear from me either. I hope that you feel just a little bit mushy on the inside, despite the driving force behind your leaving. I am a bit sad that you are leaving and it will take a long time to adjust to the fact that you won’t be around. Ah well, I guess I will have to take up transcendental meditation or something to cope with the boss. I doubt that Maharishi himself could cope with what you are leaving me to deal with alone. :-) Well it will be strange also to see your chair empty and to miss the smell of chewing gum, or to get used to making just one cup of coffee in the mornings. Cya Gayle and God bless you!

Anyway, lately I have been listening to more and more of Paul Oakenfold, Trance style, Techno sort of stuff. I'm not sure why, but I love it! I think that I am going nuts. This may get worse in the coming months so bear with me. I have so much to say today, but I must leave many things unsaid. Sometimes we must bite our tongues for fear of biting the very hands that feed us.

Fires threaten our community this weekend and so my heart is out to all those in the line of the fast approaching Gippsland bushfires, who may have to make some very serious decisions in much haste. Also god bless those CFA and DSE workers who give of themselves tirelessly in our times of need.
Thanks for reading and goodnight folks!

Printer Madness

Well, it’s been a very busy week. As you may have been aware of, our Birch Tree in the back yard has been an issue for concern lately... I'm afraid that it had to go. It has become a source of tension between us and the neighbour for some time now. We have always considered it (the tree) a bit of a pest due to its tendency to drop leaves and pods into the gutters and our neighbour has voiced his disapproval on a number of occasions (usually in a drunken stupor). So at the end of the day and now that we can afford to remove it, we have had it chopped down and ground into mulch. It affects the landscape of the backyard profoundly, but we are glad to see it gone and the tension between ourselves and the neighbours also.

Work is well...work as usual. I got a printer in the workshop earlier this week and I thought I might take the opportunity to share a few pictures of it in the process of disassembly.


As you can see, it’s quite involved. The removal of parts must be done in a certain order as many panels/parts rely on other panels or parts as anchor points for their attachment. This is the QMS-Minolta 2300 Desk Laser. Unfortunately, she has a problem: A faulty solenoid in the paper pickup tray mechanism is stopping her from picking up any paper at all. The job of the tray 1 solenoid is to engage a clutch mechanism that among other duties, releases the paper lifting tray for paper to be fed into the printer's transport rollers sheet by sheet at precise moments.

This solenoid along with potentially thousands of others in 2300DL’s worldwide was plagued with a rather unfortunate manufacturing problem that led to their replacement en mass. This is one of the problems with technology. Rely on somebody to do the job for you and you don't always get what you bargained for. Having said this, it is increasingly common for many manufacturers to use identical parts. The most recent example of one that has been implemented with disastrous results happens to be Dell’s use of Sony Lithium Ion Batteries in their laptop range of Latitude’s (D600’s and the like). Apparently, batteries can ignite due to poor insulating materials inside the battery that would ordinarily prevent the mixture of lithium and oxygen that causes the batteries to ignite.

Anyway. My point is that all products experience common and sometimes dramatic problems that are simple manufacturing flaws that are actually less common these days due to the improvements in the overall manufacturing processes used in computer components and associated hardware.

Back to the photos though… My final picture is the reassembled Magicolour in all its unimpressive glory. I must admit, It has never won any awards for good looks. Funnily enough, Epson have used the 2300DL engine in their own line of colour laser printers. Very few companies are truly innovative today. Epson is no exception to this rule, and continue to use Minolta technology in their products under license. For more than a decade, HP have invested time and effort into development of products that were for all intents and purposes, Canon inventions or at least inventions that had been made viable by them. So this part pictured above, is the offending part anyway. It costs around $2 to buy and over $250 in labour to fit.

Cool thing about Minolta printers is the quality of their construction. It is a joy to work on them.I marvel at their overall complexity and yet, underlying simplicity. Cool stuff.