My new notebook seems to be a good machine too, but it runs on Windows 7. I've heard some great things about Windows 7, most of which I didn't understand and mostly from Windows Vista victims. The general impression seemed to be good, so I was looking forward to trying out all the new features.
The first thing I noticed was my notebook had a fancy touchpad interface now which fully intergrated with Windows 7. I could "pinch" to zoom, scroll without using the scroll bar, rotate pictures, plus sometimes unexpectedly bring out a neat looking eye icon that doesn't seem to do anything other than interrupt my cursor movement (I can only do it unexpectedy, I tried doing it intentionally but it cannot be done). I suspect it could be the eye icon is for hitting the back button on your browser because I accidentally hit back on the browser a few times while writing this entry and lost everthing I wrote. This is actually my third try and I'm writing it in Notepad and pasting it into my blog textbox later.
Anyway, let's not sweat the small stuff. On with our story. The first day or so on a new computer, I need to load up all my old apps. My notebook didn't come with a CD drive, so I just plugged in my old workhorse BenQ usb external DVD writer (you had to put one of those together in those days). It got recognised and the driver installed itself within a few seconds. Sweet! At this point, I usually just stick in my old CD's and load up my old apps and drivers. All of these are 32-bit apps, so of course some installed and some didn't. Of those that installed, I know at least 1 that isn't working properly (Canon Camera Window). Anyway, I spent two more late nights looking for replacements for all my old stuff that didnt install (PHP editors, FTP clients, drivers and apps for phones, cameras).
At some point, I dont know when, Windows 7 stopped recognising the external dvd writer. I went into the Devices and Printers menu to look at it and it said it had a problem with the driver. After clicking around for awhile, I found one help menu that reassuringly said I could right click on the device icon and troubleshoot. All my past troubleshooting menu adventures have always ended up in tears, but it seemed like the most risk-free thing to try at that point, so I went ahead. After a few short minutes of detecting problems, diagnosing problems, attempting to solve problems, my computer helpfully informed me that sorry, I was out of luck.
I wanted to get on the internet to find help, but then of course my internet service provider (Telekom) decided it didn't want to provide any internet services for the night.
This morning, when the service came back on, I looked and quite a few people had the same problem. CD-ROm worked for awhile, then stopped working. You had to go into the system registry and edit one of the driver registries (the last time I heard of anyone having to do that was in the late nineties).
So now, that's done, I'm waiting to go home and try and plug in the external dvd-writer to see if I'm back on track.
Meanwhile, Canon Camera Window still doesn't work, but I discovered I could remove the SD card from the camera, plug it into the computers built in card reader, and have Canon Zoombrowser (which thankfully does work) load it up. It actually downloads faster this way, but I would still like to get the old method working as well, just to feel complete. After that, I need to test out all the other apps and drivers that seemingly installed properly, to find out what else doesn't work. And perhaps after that, I will have to live for a period with the nagging fear that any number of apps that do work may stop working at some point.
Microsoft's tagline for Windows 7 is "Your PC, simplified".
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Okay, my Google Adsense account has been approved. This got me motivated to fix up the site a little (especially the RC cars section). If you're into RC cars, go check it out . There's new-ish reviews and build ups.
I've earned 0 cents so far. My wife says I'm several years too late. We'll see. I got some fresh (I think anyway) ideas for informative content with regards to my hobbies - RC cars and machining. If nothing else, it'll keep me working on the site to keep it from delapitating.
You don't see ads on this blog and Max's blog because I'm not sure if the scripts will jive with the rest of the code and frankly, I can't be bothered to find out.
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The day Max was born, my wife and I realised that being parents is mostly about worrying. When you have a newborn in the house, you never really let yourself forget how fragile they are. I was told to make sure he slept with his head to one side, so he wouldn’t choke and drown if he vomited. This made perfect sense, yet I never would have thought of it on my own. I wondered what else I didn’t know about taking care of babies. Just carrying him seemed like something that I could mess up badly, so I made up this habit of reminding myself to support his neck, lest I forgot and broke it.
I remember the first night he came home with us. We had bought this little barrier to put on our bed, so he could sleep in the middle without being crushed by either of us. I remember waking up to check that he was still breathing, and it always seemed like a minor miracle that he still was. I’d never been responsible for anyone in my life. I’d taken care of pets and plants before, but even then, I often mishandled them – watering too much, not watering enough, feeding too much, feeding the wrong things, not knowing enough, knowing enough but doing too much. Yet, here I was, in charge of a person - one so tiny and weak, he can’t even turn his head, and I’ve been taking care of him for several hours and he’s still breathing!
It must have been around this time that I told myself things would get easier. He would grow bigger and stronger and I wouldn’t have to worry about him then.
He took his time, but he did grow bigger and stronger. Soon, he was starting to crawl around in bed. We worried that he might fall off the bed when we weren’t watching so we put some pillows around him. Soon, he got strong enough to climb on top of the pillows and promptly proceeded to fall out of bed.
After that, we stopped letting him sleep alone. Chores and errands just about came to a halt as someone always had to be on falling baby duty. My wife was still working at the time, so we had a nanny during the day. She had the foresight to train Max to climb down from the bed as soon as he was able to stand up. We thought that was brilliant - he would learn about the height of the bed, and about falling and about being careful and he’d be safe again. Things would get easier then.
He did eventually learn to climb down from the bed by himself but he never did learn to stop rolling off the bed in his sleep.
About a month after his first birthday, he got quite ill. He’d had bouts of runny nose before, but the pediatrician always put off prescribing medication and he was always able to shrug it off on his own, with help from mommy’s milk. But this time, the flu got worse and he started coughing and making this frightening sound – a sound no child should ever have to make. He needed several trips to the doctor to use the nebuliser, which he naturally hated. Feeding him his medicine was an exercise that required two strong adults and plenty of washing up after.
Another thing that became apparent about this time was that he was getting quite heavy. Both me and my wife had tired arms and sore backs from carrying him. I told her not to worry, as he’d be walking soon anyway, so we wouldn’t need to carry him much longer.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before he took his first step, but it wasn’t so much a walk – more of a drunken stagger. We were busier than ever, stooping over him with our aching backs, trying to keep him from putting his eye out on stone steps and table corners. It was just a short phase, I told myself. Soon, he’d be walking steady. Things would get easier then.
Before long, he was walking and running. More running than walking, and mostly in the direction opposite to where we wanted to go, so we started having to run after him whenever we took him out. Shopping trips started taking twice as long and became three times as tiring.
You know what I said then? I said things will get easier when he starts talking and we’re able to communicate with him.
Now he is almost two and a half, communicating well, and stubborn as an ox. He’s resistant to potty training, impossibly resistant to weaning, sits on the floor when we ask him to walk, runs all over the place when we need him to sit down, insists on eating with his hands, doesn’t like drinking water, doesn’t like drinking powdered milk or fresh milk, gets upset when he’s hungry, refuses to eat when he’s upset, only wants to wear his smelliest pair of shoes, doesn’t want to wear socks, doesn’t like to take baths and doesn’t like coming out of baths.
Still, I’m sure, things will get easier.
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I've had this vise for several years now. It's cheap and it works but the jaws aren't very well made.
Each jaw is held on by countersunk screws. Some of the screw holes aren't aligned properly, so the screws don't sit flush in the countersinks. Whenever I grip aluminium plate with the vise, the screws gouge into the surface of the aluminium. Time to make some new jaws out of aluminium.
Each side of the vise has a small step, so the new jaws will have to have a step as well. The surface of the step is curved unevenly so I need to flatten them first.
On the movable jaw, I just milled it flat. The mini mill didn't complaint too much about the hard material. On the fixed jaw, I had to grind and file, which took a long time.
After two nights and one Saturdays worth of work, I managed to fully ruin both pieces I was working on. The first one, I forgot the size of the screw holes and drilled them 1mm too big (plus I forgot to centre drill them).
On the second one, I managed to (A) cut the step 2mm too wide on the first pass, (B) counterbored the holes on the wrong side and (C) make the counterbore holes 1mm too small.
Lessons learnt: I need draw better plans than this before I start cutting, and if something doesn't seem right, I need to check my measurements.
A nice mess to clean up later. Oh well, at least that's one resolution done. Started out making something useful but ended up making something totally pointless.
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Ahhhhh…
One weekend left to the year and there are no more weddings, birthdays, house warmings, full moons, farewells, welcome home parties, annual dinners, store openings, soft launches, grand launches, religious celebrations, new years of one type or another or anything of that sort on my radar. I hope I didn’t just jinx it, but it really looks like I can sit back, relax and be totally selfish this weekend.
Not that I don’t enjoy festivities but, at the risk of sounding not very 1Malaysia, I get a bit overwhelmed by all the celebrations in this country. That’s why I am really looking forward to this weekend. In a funny way, it feels like the year is finally starting for me.
To celebrate, I’ve come up with some resolutions. Not for 2010, but for the rest of 2009. Here they are:
1. Make something useful or decorative or totally pointless on my milling machine.
2. Start the machining section of this website
3. Finish up day 2 and day 3 of the new Japan pages and put up a link
4. Find the notes to our South Africa, Cambodia and New Zealand trips
5. Write a blog rant I’ve been planning for years
6. Wire up my new RC car and take it out for a spin
7. Go for a swim
8. Bake a bread
9. Unwrap and watch The Simpsons Movie DVD
10. Learn the words to Mr Tamborine Man
I know what you’re thinking, but if you consider that I work on these things during the idle seconds of my life when I am truly alone, it’s actually quite an ambitious list.
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