Sitsofe's diary for April 2001
29 April, 2001 
Travelled back to Swansea today and on arriving I was greeted with the news that there had been shower problems. Apparently the water from the shower had been leaking into the smoke detector of the kitchen downstairs (not a good thing) but the landlord had put some filler in so it should be OK to use it tomorrow.
Introduced Gareth (James) to Black and White. He spent three hours playing it so I think he liked it. The best thing though was seeing him come to the dark side - he's such a nice guy in real life I would have never have known he could incite his creature to kick down people's houses and throw people into the fire of burning buildings...
28 April, 2001
Did a tiny bit of packing and played Bilbanan - a Shockwave Flash slot car racing game (think Scaletrix) complete with track builder. Dave (Little) popped over and the addictive two player was enjoyed.
27 April, 2001
Spent the morning watching ER on Channel 4. Ah that hospital drama is so good. I also got around to re-phoning O'Reilly about my book voucher. After pressing the last number button on the phone I noticed that I had actually mixed up the last three digits of the overseas orders number with those of the UK orders number. Ahem. After typing the correct number I connected straight away and promptly gave my order.
Links to Swansea Uni appear are back up. It turned out that a JCB working on a construction site on the edge of the University cut through a bunch of telecommunication cables and it took NTL the best part of two days to replace them.
GA586VX and 4x SDRAM do not mix
Spent the evening battling to fit two 32Mb SDRAM memory chips to Dave (Little)'s computer. The whole saga started when we realised that the memory was not sitting well inside slots and noticed that we could push them down further. However, the computer would start and only find 16Mb ram (when there should have been 80Mb). So we removed the existing EDO ram and booted again. Booting the computer made it give out a regular beeps with about a three second pause for breath between them. I knew I had seen this before - the distress cry of a PC with no memory inside. The EDO ram was fitted back in place.
Perhaps if we reset the BIOS it will detect the new ram? Unfortunately the BIOS was password protected and I only know two ways to get rid of the password - remove the CMOS battery or find a backdoor BIOS password. After downloading a small program and identifying the motherboard (a Gigabyte GA586VX) we downloaded its manual which didn't offer immediate advice on where the CMOS battery was located.
So it was another trip on to the web in search for backdoor BIOS passwords. After a few near misses we finally found a site that linked to a page with a list of known backdoor passwords to popular products. No I'm not going to link to it - I don't want to make this sort of thing easier than it already is. The page craftily hid the passwords but after a quick look at the page source the solution dawned.
So the list was printed out and I just started at the top. Rather helpfully the second password unlocked the BIOS and I was free to reset everything. Of course this didn't make life any better and just resulted in Windows having to re-detect everything.
A last poke around the motherboard revealed a resistor allowing the owner to switch between the EDO ram slots and SDRAM slots. So the resistor was switched over and another boot to see if things were finally working...
...more distress beeps. There were more glances through the motherboard manual revealed that the resistor did need to switched (we hadn't noticed this on previous readings) but also jumpers in odd positions need to be swapped around. One of the jumpers even had a mysterious +1 near to it. It was getting late and it was way past the time to give up but what if, what if this jumper would really make a difference?
An attempt to get the turbo button jumper which was unused out of the tightly bound cable grip proved to be impossible so it was a trip back home to pull the jumper off my Mum old unused CDROM drive. It turned out to be the right size, all the ram was put in the right place, the computer was finally we booted the computer.
The distress beeps were not silenced. Disbelief and horror crept across my face. Maybe it was the ram - maybe it was faulty? I took it back home with me and stuck it in my computer. It was detected. No, the distress didn't come until later when the computer mysteriously turned the monitor blank.
An exhaustive search on Google Groups revealed many people who had had similar problems across the past few years. Some blamed it on poor quality ram others the density of the chips. A technically stronger argument was found linking to a support paper on Intel's site documenting how the 430VX does not support x4 SDRAM configuration (yes the chipset to the motherboard was an Intel 430VX). A look on the ram packaging suggested that yes, it was 4x. Sigh.
26 April, 2001
Spent a while scratching my head over how I was going to implement trees and parsing for my Functional Programming assignment. It was about 12pm that after typing in (and debugging) one of the examples from the course notes that I actually had the bulk of what I needed.
Tried (twice) to redeem my O'Reilly book vouchers today but I kept being put through to an absent customer support. If I weren't getting these books for free and if I wasn't phoning an 0800 number I would complain more.
I am also unable to reach SUCS this evening. This seems to be due to the link to the Welsh universities appears to have gone down and not silver collapsing like I originally imagined. Trying traceroute to sucs.swan.ac.uk failed from numerous starting locations across the world - it would just halt midway through.
25 April, 2001
Near enough finished the Java Assignment 2. The only thing that does not work properly is the dialog box that pops up giving you the choice of whether to restart or quit. I put down the lack of events from the buttons within the Dialog passing through the action procedure like the Java 1.0 API seems to suggest they will, down to the complicated API. I have found no straight examples of using the Dialog method on the web and most people seem to have gone away and written their own or used the 1.1+ API.
The "Windows refusing to shutdown properly" problem is back. I have to admit, I think it is buggy display drivers (why did you break power management NVidia?) causing the problem but why was it OK for the past week?
24 April, 2001
Noticed that my Java Coursework 2 assignment sheet has "mysteriously" vanished from my room. Went on the net to look for Dafydd Rees' coursework site but I could not remember the URL and spent many punitive hours searching for it and trying random Swansea Uni web server URLs. In the end Jason turned up and after searching through web histories we decided it would be easier if he read it off his coursework sheet...
23 April, 2001
Freeserve seem to have got their act together and resurrected the off-peak number that ends in 2001.
22 April, 2001
Ok this Kung Fu Stick Figures Shockwave Flash animation is just too cool. All it is missing is the classic scene where the lead makes one of his enemies (who has a weapon) hit another load of enemies.
21 April, 2001
Spent the afternoon reinstalling Dave (Little)'s P120 with Windows 95a. It literally took hours to put Windows, Office, Publisher, bog standard windows patches programs back and things were slowed down by uncooperative sound card that had a conflicting IRQ that had to be dealt with manually - plug and pray indeed.
Found out there is an backup Freeserve off-peak number that ends in 4951 instead of 2001 on the Freeserve newsgroups. Using the regained net access, I discovered that Linux-Mandrake8 has been released and promptly set about making silver download both the ISOs of the CDs. It took a while to find an ftp site that wasn't being overwhelmed but a site in France eventually obliged.
After screwing the monitor cable into the back of the computer the crackling has stopped...
20 April, 2001
My monitor has been crackling more than ever today especially when it's being turned on. The last time I saw this happening, it was to Rich's monitor which promptly died so I think there's going to be a call to Simply customer support tomorrow.
Today is also the day that my Linux partition was unexpectedly corrupted :( I'm not sure what brought it on but I think it might have something to do with the 2.2.19 kernel the NVidia graphics drivers and 3D games. Why? Because after reinstalling I put the 2.2.19 kernel back, reinstalled the graphics drivers, started up Quake III. After shutting the computer down and starting it back up the partition was corrupted beyond repair. There is an alternative suggestion though - maybe I just corrupted it myself when I tried to fsck / whilst it was still mounted. The warning came up saying do you wish to continue (and of course I said no) but maybe the damage had already been done. I want ReiserFS.
Day two without net access. Freeserve are putting up a fine display of poor service.
19 April, 2001
Plans to reinstall my friend's Windows 95 machine had to be put on hold because the spare network card I had would not work in his machine. The icing on top was my inability to find a Windows 95b CD so he had to use his 95a CD.
I have yet more Freeserve rage as I have tried connecting to the net twenty times so far and each time I've received an engaged tone.
18 April, 2001
Watched the two DVDs (The Long Kiss Goodnight and Ghost in the Shell) that Dave (Little) lent to me. I really ought to have written reviews on them and stuck them on the site but those Internet Movie Database links will do. DaveB will kill me for not having watched his Jaws DVD after all this time...
16 April, 2001
Watched my first full episode of Futurama today. It was the one where some water king got drunk by the lead character... very surreal.
15 April, 2001
Started another online game of Black and White against Richard ("smerf" Hardy). Things were going well until he decided to fry one of my towns. I sent in my creature to sort him out but he promptly electrocuted it. I could not understand where he was getting the power to do this until he put up a comment along the lines of "TiME 2 sAcrIfiCE AntoHeR CHilD!". Chilling indeed but 10000 prayer points is not something that can be easily dismissed. Rich had to go before the game was finished. Various technical problems marred the online experience though. The first was when Black and White crashed after I tried to investigate someone else's game. The second was when Rich's Black and White crashed just after I tried to connect. The third was when Rich's game had graphical glitches/corruption and the fourth was the one second delays that I kept getting after Rich fixed his display problems.
It seems like Black and White is layered with what can be either seen as depth or complexity. It could be that my micromanagement problems are due to villagers becoming lazy due to never ending help. I would have never have known.
Foolishly overwrote the review I was writing about Black and White with a FAQ I downloaded. Started rewriting the review. The review seems to be turning into an analysis.
14 April, 2001
Went out for a meal with my Mum. All I will say is that scampi is not meant to be battered - it should be breaded.
Finally asked Jason for help with the system spec coursework. Turns out the time I spent trying to get things like the shift register working were wasted - they do not need to work but merely have to be declared. Doh...
My hand has started looking slightly evil in Black and White but my creature is a pillar of goodness. Worryingly, it seems to have picked up one of my traits in that it is too lazy/distracted to feed itself when it's hungry.
13 April, 2001
Finally had the shower fixed. Restored my backup because of the creature crippling bug on level five.
Found out about the Microsoft Office Paperclip site. It seems like Microsoft are making a selling point out of the fact that Office XP won't have an assistant in it. If it's true that Microsoft themselves are behind this then even Norman Cook would be impressed by the spin. Now I actually take the opposite view to most of the world on the usefulness of the assistant. Maybe it's down to the years of brainwashing I suffered using Word 97 but I actually find the assistant useful (and likeable when I get the choice to change it from a paper clip - take note LIS). The sophistication of the natural language parser is quite something and after a breaking in period starts dispensing useful information like keyboard shortcuts.
11 April, 2001
Finally managed to finish level four of Black and White. Backed up my creature and saves as there are reports of a creature crippling bug on level five.
10 April, 2001
Disappeared into to the centre of Yatton today to have a dental appointment. The receptionist talked me out of it and I went and got a hair cut instead.
9 April, 2001
Reinstalled Windows because it was hanging on shutdown. My attempts to fix the problem with a myriad of patches was to no avail.
I couldn't help but laugh when I saw Dave (Little)'s creature dancing for the first time. I'd read about it in various interviews but never imagined it was this entertaining.
8 April, 2001
Creative speakers beginning to go (conversation with Rob)? Why I date my files YearMonthDay - useit.com. If games like Black and White are no longer going to be developed on the PC I'm going to have to buy a console. Discovered that both Whitecap and G-Force have been updated. I love Whitecap (my favourite winamp plugin). Many thanks to Andy for updating them. Found out Via (my motherboard manufacturer) were pulling the wool over my eyes and were updating the drivers on a different one to the one I had saved.
7 April, 2001
Downloaded version 2.74 Winamp. Seems to have fixed the minimizing bug I was seeing in some of the previous versions.
The shower situation has worsened and now the shower is constantly leaking. To prevent a constant stream of hot water leaking out across the shower the house stop tap had to been turned off. To add insult to injury the boiler has decided to break. When it rains it pours so to speak.
6 April, 2001
Disappeared up to Cribbs Causeway and bought Black and White (in the black casing). Managed to get a discount by convincing my loyalty card owning student friend to buy it for me (but I gave him the money). Got it home and promptly sat about watching my friend play it late into the evening.
The bathroom shower leaks water when one of the bathroom taps is used. At first I thought it was my imagination (is that shower leaking more water than it was a second ago?) but tests showed otherwise.