For all of my ‘fans’ out there, here’s the update you’ve been bemoaning the absence of.

Firstly, I have the week off, so a week of sleeping, getting bored and putting up all of the things that have been lying around since I moved in is afoot. I’m also booked in for some snowboarding this week and again at the end of the month, which is the cause of this month’s poverty.

I’m also saving for a big holiday sometime between summer and autumn, somewhere as close to paradise as possible. I think I’m going to need a new car this year too. I’m passed the stage where I’m learning to drive for real and the risk of an accident has passed and also because I travel 50 miles per day at ~70mph, I’m going to need something which is going to continue to be reliable. My car is just starting to get cranky now and it’s pretty old. After clearing the credit cards and a holiday, a car is the next important thing. I’d really like a BMW Mini Cooper, but they appear to start at £8,000 second hand so that’s unlikely 🙁

On a geeky note, I have been setting up the mail for my domains which is proving to be a slow process, even though I know what I’m doing. I’m having trouble finding suitable Courier-IMAP, Courier-POP3, Courier-Authlib and Exim-MySQL RPMs for FC4. I have built them from source before, but the idea with this attempt is to try to stay within the package management system. Looks like I might be back on Debian and have to host my mail at home.

This week I plan to play with Xen at last. It looks like good fun (to a geek) and could maybe make my life easier on a number of counts at work. I may also try to work out whether Linux software RAID is actually any good and whether there are any hardware ATA RAID controllers supported by Linux.

OK, I think it’s time for sleep, it’s nearly 5am.

I know this because I went out on Saturday and I felt like I was. OK, so everyone I was out with was 8 or 9 years younger than me, but thats not the reason. The reason I felt old was because my back hurt, I felt tired and I didn’t enjoy myself that much, I kept thinking I’d rather be at home.

I injured my back a few years ago playing in goal for my university football team and it’s since been prone to bouts of stiffness, normally due to lifting something very heavy, but there has been a growing stiffness for a few weeks, most probably due to being constantly seated for 8 hours of the day (which is also the probable reason why I have increased in width to the tune of about a stone and a half in 9 months). So anyway, my back hurt and I felt tired.

I also would have preferred to be at home. As strange as it might sound to my friends, I haven’t been out drinking since New Year’s Eve and it’s March. 2 months. Until last year, I was out once every weekend without fail. Before that, it was both weekend nights and when I was a musician, it was 5 or 6 nights per week. Man, how I’m still alive… But Saturday night I kept thinking I could be at home watching a film, or in bed or otherwise relaxing, instead of spending money on mindless consumables and paying £12 to get home, which I can barely afford. I’ve never earnt more or been so continually broke, I pay bills and thats it, I don’t buy anything (heh, realisation of what adult existence is like). Going out to clubs used to be my relaxation, I could just let loose, but these days I just prefer to catch up on my sleep. I need to have my head on the pillow with my eyes closed by 11pm or I’m too tired to speak to anyone for 3 days.

Man, I’m old and I’m not even 30 yet. I suck.

Above heading found here while researching this post… (For non-techies, a shell script is a small, simple program written to automate repetitive tasks, or replace minimum wage employees ;))

Yes, it’s been a while since I posted. Man, do people get grumpy when I don’t post for a while. (CARL!) I’ve been, well, dunno. I could list any one of busy, broke, tired, sleeping, but honestly I dunno, just getting on with my life. Getting up, going to work, coming home, having dinner, going to bed, sleeping double at the weekends and so on. Sounds kinda dull but I’m largely happy. I’m not the youngster I once was. I’m still cutting my groove, but my priorities have changed.

Anyway I think I’m going to get one of these. I’ve had enough of fixing other people’s PCs. You know, if you’re going to run Windows and use Internet Explorer without ever doing anything to learn about how to look after it properly, then you’re asking for trouble. I get quite a few calls a week from some of maybe the 10 or 15 people who consider me their free of charge computer repair man. Stop asking me, I have my own life to live and you’re eating all of my time and largely, you always have the same problem.

Your computer running slow? Get lots of pop-up ads you didn’t ask for? You’re infected with something. Most probably with something that is making your computer do things you don’t want, like use your internet connection to distribute itself and thats the least scary bit. Use your PC for banking? Your details aren’t safe. Have a webcam? Neither is your personal privacy.

The fact is that compromised PCs are big business and the problem isn’t going to go away any time soon while systems are insecure and their owners are lazy.

Look after your PC because I’m not going to keep bailing you out.