Mostly Hitchless

Spent last night fixing up Christina C's computer. A complete reinstallation of OS and applications turned out to be easier than repairing the system. Mostly hitchless, but painfully slow - 500MHz and 128MB RAM. Six hours in fact.

And today, more of the same with Simon M's computer. On Friday I got it working perfectly but didn't have time to install net access or the printer. Today, I got access to the net working just fine, before plugging in the printer.

At which point, all the USB ports stopped working. Including the USB modem. As though the hub had been burned out.

Well, wasn't it convenient that my laptop was still round there. So now Simon has exactly the same system (i.e. my laptop on loan) as he had before I fixed his own computer - which I built out of spare parts for him - four days ago.

Except that the printer still won't work. If I weren't so taciturn and macho I'd throw a queeny fit and scream.
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EDIT: Christina called to say the screen keeps going blue on Windows. I think I'll have that screaming fit now.
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I finally got the freeview box, the signal booster and the video capture card set up again. with MJPEG and DivX codecs. Rather more complicated than pushing 'Rec' on a video recorder, but a lot easier for collecting samplable dialogue from movies.

So far this week: A Beautiful Mind, Gods and Monsters and Murial's Wedding.
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Several people saying my music sounded like Joy Division prompted me to get a CD of their stuff - 'Permanant 1995'. I'd forgotten a lot of it and I think it's brilliant. Experimental, exploratory, and primative - as all good bands and genres are when new.

Been listening especially to Transmission and Atmosphere, and thinking of writing something similar - except my now highly questioned skills in computer rejuvenation were called upon instead.
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According to the bathroom scales, I am now 16 glorious stone. It does not especially brighten my day to recieve this news. And there was me thinking I'd been eating and exercising better.