New drives, dead drives and lost drives...

Tech post again!

Recently I got totally fed up with my ultra portable machine refusing to do what I wanted it to do, when I wanted it to do it.  I had noticed that the HDD light was on for a long time whenever I tried to open an application - or after logon before the desktop was actually available to use.

So seeing as I knew the machine had a 1.8" iPod drive fitted to it (for power and size reasons) I thought that it needed changing for something with a little more kick.  I thought I'd take the SSD route.

After a few months of research (the fact that it is so small makes it really difficult to find the right one) and ordered it from Amazon.

Last week it arrived and I spent an evening imaging up the old drive, removing the countless screws, hatches and covers that hold it together - why can't they make small computers like big ones!  Fitting a new HDD to the DTR's that we have for home use is three screws and 10 minutes work.  This was about an hour to do start to finish.

Then I restored the image to the new drive. That took an age!  100GB in about 3 hours!  So I didn't really have a chance to test it beyond a quick reboot to see how it worked.

Or so I thought.  Quick was not the phrase that jumped to mind.  Mind numbingly slow...  Booting to the login screen was quick - 30 seconds or so.  Then there was a 10 minute wait to reach the point of a usable machine.  Oh dear...

Contacted the seller via Amazon, looked for tips online and asked my colleagues for help.  A bit of tuning got something reasonable - but still far to slow for the cost of the SSD drive.  And so today I decided to bite the bullet and do a full restore of the drive.

SUCCESS!!!  Installing Windows 7 from a bootable USB drive took only 15 minutes or so.  Another 30 mins for the updates needed and...  Viola!  From power button to surfing in less than 60 seconds!  That is what I was hoping for from an SSD!

Now I just have to install SQL Server, TFS 2010, Visual Studio 2010 and Office.  And that is where the lost and dead drives come in.  When I replaced my DTR I got a USB 3 drive for back-ups.  That seems to be dead now.  Nothing, followed by more nothing.  Then a little wait.  Then the wonderful 'This drive needs to be formatted before it can be used'.  Damn.  That contains my backups and install media.  I have searched my other back up drives and found other backups of the media.  What I don't have is all of the product keys.

They must be on some other backup drive that I have lost.  So I now have a super fast machine that has nothing except browser software installed.  I guess I know what I am doing this weekend!

Dev Days 2011 in Den Haag

OK, those of you not of a geeky disposition look away now - this is going to get a little technical, geeky and very possibly nerdy as well :)  (But with a hint of alcohol, public gender confusion - not from me!, and royal celebration thrown in - but not Will and Kate!)

OK disclaimer aside, here goes!

This year, for the first time, I visited the Microsoft Dev Days conference, it's held once a year and various speakers who work with (but not for!) Microsoft try and impart some knowledge and excitement about the tools that we developers use on a daily basis to make the world a better place.  Or a worse place if you are like my parents and hate using a computer :)

It started with a little gender confusion, which was wonderfully ironic!  We had 6 people that wanted to go this year, three that wanted to go to day one and three to day two.  So we brought three tickets and swapped at the end of day one.  On of the people who went on day one was female colleague - she has an exotic name that only one of the three of us on day two could pull off.  It was not, to western ears, overtly female - but it was also not western at all.  So our Indian colleague took her name badge.  This is so ironic as this is also the same guy who refuses to touch pink balloons in case people think the wrong thing of him.  We didn't continually make references to it all day, honestly :)

Once we were in the first session that we went to was for HTML 5.  The guy doing the presentation was very good.  He knew his stuff, and could bring his enthusiasm over to the audience very well.  He was talking about the simple things (making dynamic pages using HTM files instead of APSX pages - and limiting the amount of data that has to be transferred across the internet to make the users page work.

Then he went onto formatting and mark-up changes - and new features that are available in HTML 5 that will make building a site simpler (web design is still going to be difficult, but at least the building will be easier...) and moving from the desktop to mobile should also be a simpler challenge.

This seminar got me very fired up!  For the first time in a while I was really exited about a new technology - have a list of O'Reilly books to buy and will be spending some time on getting my personal web site HTML 5's over the coming months.  Now I just need to think of something to actually make of it - I find technological exercises don't keep my attention too well, I need a problem to solve...

At the end of the presentation all three of us were thinking of ways that this technology could improve our companies site, both from a business and a developers point of view.  I just hope that we can bring the enthusiasm over in our presentation to the other developers...

Next was  a presentation on ASP.NET MVC.  This is not a technology that we use, we are still using web forms.  It was an interesting presentation, but my base knowledge of the technology was not enough to get a lot of what the presenter was saying.  I see some real advantages for the company site, and may have to use it for the back end of my personal site just for the practice, but for work it would require a ground up rewrite of what we have at present and I just don't see that happening in the next 5 years.

The afternoon was spent in project management type seminars - TFS reporting (and how to get the best from it), and how to manage agile projects using TFS 2010.  As my next 4 weeks at work are going to spent installing our new server it was nice to see some best practice pointers before I started.

Lastly there was a presentation on SMART use cases.  This one I struggled with, the guy was just back from vacation (literally - yesterday morning he was writing it in Lisbon airport) an it showed.  He also rushed his talk - in a language other than advertised.  I was impressed that my Dutch allowed me to follow most of it, but I got completely lost in places.

The afternoon did make me wonder whether our company is on the right path.  The management keep saying 'SCRUM, SCRUM, SCRUM' for project management.  But I really believe that they have no idea what it involves, and how the project structure needs to be set up for it.  I am going to put my concerns down on Monday and try to speak to the relevant people about it.  I think that everyone just wants to take their favourite bits that seem to be really efficient and forget about the bits that mean they have to put some effort into making it efficient.  That also goes for the developers (I have to be fair here, the developers have been screaming about SCRUM for a while, but when you try and get them to make sprint tasks of a realistic size - that is less than 8 hours - they complain like hell about too much administration work and why can't they just work on one 420 hour sprint task).  We'll see how it turns out...

At the end of the day there were drinks.  We had a few drinks, chatted about what we had seen during the day and what we were going to take away from it.  One of my colleagues decided that free wine was too tempting and had a little too much.  Which then lead to some fun conversations whilst walking back to the train station.  He normally comes out with some...  interesting points anyway.  Once you put some alcohol inside him they get even better.  A good end to the day :)

And finally, the royal celebration.  Today is Queens Day in the Netherlands.  The queens official birthday when there is much celebration in the streets and parties in the city centres.  When it happens during a week day we have a bank holiday.  This year it's on a Saturday so we lose it (the day still happens but no holiday...).  The evening before is called Queens Night - and in Den Haag it is a massive party.  This would be good if I had not spent all day in seminars only to leave and find that there were no trams to get back to the central station.  The walk was nice but it made it a very long day - leaving the house at 6:30 in the morning and getting back 14 hours later!  I would say this weekend would be a time to recover, but my sister in law and her family are coming for a BBQ so instead it's going to be cleaning and preparing for that!

Have a good weekend all!

Oh, I did get a great geeky T-Shirt from one of the vendors (Not my T-Shirt, or photo, but close enough!):

Android App of the Month: Run Keeper

Techie post again :)

This morning I went for my Saturday morning run, even though the weather was absolutely dire here in Holland.  It was cold, wet and miserable!  But never let it be said I am a fair weather person!

I woke up, watched the mornings activity in Melbourne (go Macca's!), drank my fill of cappuccinos and caught up on blogs that I have been kind of neglecting this week due to the amount I have on at the moment.  At about a quarter past nine I got up the courage to get ready for the run and leg it into the world.

Today there was a difference.

I always run with a heart meter to make sure that I am running at the optimum pace for what I want to do - most of the time this being keeping fit and keeping the weight down.  However, in three weeks I have to run the Hilversum City Run for my company (well 'have to' is a little incorrect here, I want to run the 5km and they enter teams so I *can* run the 5km).  I don't think I am going to beat my time from last year but I would like to try and get close...

So for now I am *trying* to run at competition pace, about 160 to 170 bpm to make sure that I can keep it up for the distance required and to try and make sure that the 170bpm actually equals a decent pace.  A colleague of mine gave me a tip for an Android application this week: Run Keeper. This uses the GPS of the phone to keep track of your run for you and give you live feedback.

You start it up and put your phone in your pocket, and it gives you updates through your headphones as you go along.  Telling the time so far, the distance so far and the average time per kilometer. I found this really useful for the competition training, as I could adjust my pace to both the heart meter and my required pace (today I was going for 5 minutes per km - 30 seconds slower than my pace last year).

And using the machine, the watch and with a bit of will power I managed to achieve it!  For the first 5km's I did 5:02 average per KM.  Of course this dropped to something like 5:17 average by the time I had finished running at nearly 7 k's - but I can live with that as I am not running a 7km distance so the performance can drop after 5 without me too worried :)

On coming home I found that I can also use it to make training plans, giving it warm up times and then unlimited intervals for fast, normal and slow running.  I think that I'll try this tomorrow when running with Mrs Stace.

And finally...  When you stop your run it uses Google Maps to let you know where you went - not that much use when you run the same road everyday, but nice when you take a different route and are just running to make the time, you can see where you went for the next time (and where the KM markers are).

Anyway - just thought I'd pass it on to anyone out there who is insane enough to run to keep fit!  I thought it was a nice, free app - there don't seem to be that many out there that work this well (I have tried some in the past that were awful, and only worked if you held the phone in your hand for the whole run!)


BTW, one last thing :)  If you work out indoors you can still use it, you just have to turn off the GPS mode and work in time rather than distance I think.

Up and down

Today, as they say in football, was a day of two halves.

Due to internal politics and technical problems the morning was less than fun, in fact it had me doubled in pain during a 40 minute walk to work off stress.  But I won't go into details, they are both too raw still and it'll just be a rant (I just tried to do it once and ended up deleting the whole post as it got too long and way. way too much of a rant)

I was not happy.

But (always good to use after a phrase like 'I was not happy'), it did pick up.  We are looking into a new computer for home.  Mrs Stace is using my old laptop and it's starting to get a little long in the tooth, it takes too long to do certain tasks, and the battery is totally dead - if you unplug it it does instantly.

So I am going to do a clean install on mine and pass it on to her, and replace it with a DTR to last another 5 years.  Sony is just about to release a new line of laptops using the latest and greatest chips from Intel, with a huge amount of processing power, lots of memory and a fast disk it should be lovely to code on (and to process photo's).  We put the order in today, and should be amongst the first to get it when it's released in a couple of weeks.  Fingers crossed :)

And then this afternoon, in the glorious sunshine, we went for our office run across the country park near the office.  50mins, 500cals and 27g fat later I was quite happy again.  There were 5 of us there, me and another girl run ahead, a couple of girls running a little slower and the guy who organises it (and can run us all into the ground - I swear he didn't even break a sweat!) running between the two.

A nice drive in the evening sun, some spinach and pesto past and I'm done...

And now that this is written, I'm off to bed to carry on with 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' - it's just getting interesting!

Goodnight!

The Great CD Rip is Over

Well it's taken a week or so of swapping CD's whenever I remembered, but it's done.

244 discs
76GB of space
8+ days of music
3400+ songs
65+ Genres

It was boring as hell!

But hopefully it's the last time I need to do it, as it's lossless encoded now!  And it does sound wonderful on the new system, soooo worth it!

What does that much music look like?

This:

Stace

Fun weekend

Well, it’s been a busy weekend so far – but all good.

Yesterday morning I went for my normal run.  I have cut it to 3.5KM per day for the weekend as my knees are playing up (I could barely walk on Thursday – before I fell down the stairs in my heels ;p).  I think the problem is with my running shoes.  They are a few years old, and have had quite some use; and I think that the heels have just worn out and collapsed internally – meaning I have no support or cushioning.  So on Friday I brought new shoes.  Interesting experience.  As I can’t buy men’s shoes in my size I always have to go for women’s shoes.  The guy in the first shop was great.  He went looking for the size I needed, came back saying they didn’t have it.  Then he very nervously asked if they were for me or someone else.  Me I said.  Oh, in that case we have lots of other women’s running shoes if you’d care to pick something else.  I declined (I like Asics for running – they are comfortable and give good support) – but I thought that he handled it very well.  In the second shop it was less good.  The guy did his job well enough – but there was something in his attitude that said here is a bloke buying women’s shoes.  I think that they had a laugh about it when I left. Hoh hum.  The shoes themselves are great though.  No issues when I got back yesterday, and going for a run with Mrs Stace later today.

Then I had to go into town to get the car that I am building for my niece fixed.  I brought the bits I needed a couple of weeks ago, and I thought they didn’t fit.  A quick trip back to the model store with the car, transmitter and receiver and the guy showed me that I was being stupid :)  There has been a change in technology since I first brought the car 14 years ago and I just wasn’t up to date.

The plus side is that I now have a working chassis.  I had forgotten how much fun it was to play with.  I hope that she likes it and that it’s not too much for someone her age…  It’s a little quick, and she is going to have to practice with it to be able to control it well – mind you it’s going to be great for hand eye coordination!  Now we just have to pant the shell before her birthday.  We brought a convertible shell, are going to paint it metallic lilac, and we are going to paint a Hello Kitty on the bonnet and boot lid as she loves that.  It’s going to be quite a family collaboration to get it done.  I am going to spray the shell, and have built the chassis.  Mrs Stace is going to stencil the Hello Kitty on the shell.  My sister in law is going to fine line the Hello Kitty as she has a very steady hand, and then Mrs Stace is going to fill it in afterwards.  I can’t wait to see the finished result.

Then it was time to do some baking.  We ordered ‘The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook’ from Amazon and it arrived on Friday.  Hehe.  The recipes look amazing, mind you for the two of us there is possibly too much – I see my team getting lots of treats in the near future as I try more recipes.  Yesterday I tried the recipe for New York Cheesecake.  It’s in the fridge looking lovely at the moment – but as it had to chill overnight I can’t say what it tastes like just yet.  That comes this afternoon.  Yum.

Finally… Having played with the new speakers for a week I have found some unexpected work.  Our set up has been an iPod for background music, and the Blu-ray for playing CD’s when we really wanted to listen to something.  There has always been a clear difference between the two, but it was always good enough.

The new speakers / amplifier have spoilt us somewhat.  It’s not that the iPod sounds worse per say.  It’s that the new set-up show’s up all of the missing signal that the iPods poor circuitry, and the MP3’s poor encoding introduces.  It sounded hollow compared to listening to CD’s – and was not pleasant anymore – even for background listening.  When you know what it can sound like, it’s disappointing to have the iPod on.

So…  I have spent yesterday afternoon sorting the CD’s back into alphabetical order (something we do every couple of years as they get mixed up) and now I am busy encoding my whole collection again; for the fourth time (hopefully the last time!).  First time was encoded for MiniDisc using Sony Sonic Stage; second time was as 196kbps MP3, then 320kbps.  Now I am using FLAC – that is about half the size of a CD (three times bigger than the 320 MP3) but crucially is a lossless encoding (it sounds as good as a CD, and contains all the information of a CD – so I can convert the FLAC to any other format I need in the future).  After spending 6 hours doing it yesterday I managed to complete ‘A’.  25 albums.  That’s about 10% of the collection.  I think it’s going to take a while before the rest are complete (I’m 4 albums into ‘B’ at the moment from the 40 that we have).  I think I may need to buy more storage as well :)

Busy times…

What a week!  Seems to be the story of 2011 (at least the story so far!).  We have a project coming up for release and it’s entering the stressful period.  Give it a week and it should be fine – but for now it’s slightly less than great fun.  It has been a nice project though, and I am going to be proud of it when it goes to production.

Monday I was sick – I don’t know what it was, I got to Hilversum and suddenly I felt really nauseous.  I struggle through the morning, but after a stand-up meeting for a project where everyone else in the project group told me how bad I looked I decided it was time to call it a day and went home.  90 minutes on trains, busses and then a 2km walk wasn’t exactly what the doctor ordered and when I got in I just collapsed on the sofa and slept for most of the day.

It was a 24 hour thing though, as on Tuesday I was back at work, just very, very tired.  Wednesday I had to stay late for the something that went wrong on the project (my fault, I was supposed to copy data from production before changing data structures, it seems I forgot and had to spend 2 hours matching the old production data, with the newly entered data to make sure that the business didn’t have to spend a second day setting everything up… It was difficult, but I was actually enjoying the challenge of making a SQL statement that would do the work for me (I may be a project manager / team lead – but I’m still a geek :p) and learnt something new in the process that will save time in the future.

Thursday I was evil (as I said yesterday – I have not heard if the guy is walking without saying ‘ow’ a lot yet).

Today (I started writing this late last night…) was just non stop.

The car needed servicing.  I don’t trust garages, there is one that I just about trust so I always use it even though it's 90 miles away (I’m also the only English customer so I am always remembered and get good service – or so I thought).  It was a cheap service (you have cheap, normal and expensive services for AWD Volvos – but it’s all relative…) but I knew that the rear brakes were ready for replacement – they are 168000KM’s old.

Or so I thought.  It was the front.  And as it’s a turbo they are special brakes and I prepared for a stupid price.  It actually came back *very* cheap (10 euros more than someone on my team just paid for front brakes on a Fiat Punto!).  Oh, but the rear pads were also shot (oddly enough not the discs – another 168000KM left on those!).  Oh, and as they played with the front and rear brakes the fluid was changed at the same time.

And the alarm needing re-certifying (now a yearly occurrence) in order to keep the theft insurance valid (just because it’s an AWD the insurance classes it the same as a Chelsea Tractor re theft protection, the FWD version doesn’t need it even though it’s faster and more likely a target for the joy rider!)

All in 800GBP (less than I was expecting with the extra bits, more than I wanted to pay).  But, it took 4 hours to do all of the work.  And I had lots to do today so it put me way behind. 

I drove back and rushed the weekly shopping (thank goodness for smart phones that Mrs Stace could send the list to!) in a store I was not used to, so I was walking back and forward for longer than I wanted.

Got home, rushed lunch – which was a shame ‘cause I had treated myself to some really nice cobs that I rushed too much to really enjoy.  I was now 20 mins behind schedule and had to be out of the house in 40 minutes for therapy.  Normally that would be a rush, but since my first laser appointment I have started to wet shave as the results are far better.  So, a bit more than a rush…

Shaved, dressed (first time for a new outfit – I was over the moon with it; for one thing it fitted, which is an improvement on a couple of weeks ago)  and started on my face.  I have switched foundation this week – a local stored had a special offer on L’oreal so I decided to try the roll on foundation.  It’s wonderful stuff!  It gives a much nicer coverage than doing it by hand, and you don’t get foundation under your finger nails.

I actually managed to get ready in time (how I don’t know) looking better than normal because of doing things wrong (no time to do my hair using the brush normally, so I tried just using my hands – that didn’t work, but a quick attack with a brush afterwards looked better than normal and took half the time.  I have to practice that I think to make sure it wasn’t a fluke…)

Go to Amsterdam with no traffic issues for a change, and found somewhere quite easy to park.  And for once didn’t freeze getting the parking ticket or walking to the therapist’s office.  I got myself a winter coat.  Love the look and it’s *so* warm.  My only issue is that it’s slightly longer than my skirts.  Now this is not unusual in Holland (see it all the time at the train station – but Mrs Stace thinks that it looks a little like I forgot an item of clothing…)

The session was quite heavy this week – with a subject that I was really not comfortable talking about.  I’m glad that we did – it was what I wanted to talk about before I arrived (though he brought the subject up in the session), but it was difficult none the less.

Something light to end on…  I have gadget shopping trip coming up and have been trading mails with my ex-boss all week.  He is a Hi-Fi nut, valve CD players etc – and so I wanted his advice on how to set up my system when I get my next toys.  Got the advice I needed to get the preparations sorted (basically KISS) and found what I would like from Mrs Stace for my birthday - a FLAC server so I don't have to switch CD's all the time to get good quality music (and much cheaper than the presents of the last couple of years).  He also showed me he home network setup, and as a geek I have to say it’s very nice.  Something to think about if we build an extension to the house (as we are thinking about).

Some degree of normality returns

I think I have enough going through my head right about now, so time for some avoidance therapy :)  And a bit of a bitsa post I’m afraid…

Christmas is a couple of months away – that means that it’s time to start the cake!  My Dutch colleagues are always surprised when I say I am starting it this early.  One of them made the joke – if you start it now it’ll mature by the time you eat it.  He was surprised when I just answered ‘Yup, that’s the idea’ :)

It’s in the oven at the moment, another 3 ½ hours to go until it’s ready to come out.  I hope that it goes well – the eggs, sugar and butter didn’t mix as well as they normally do (well I say normally I’ve only made the cake for the last 3 Christmas’).  Fingers crossed!

The weather has turned over here in Holland.  It’s wet, windy and grey.  The bike has stayed safely locked in the garden for the last couple of weeks (I’m not so much a fair weather rider, but riding on damp, slippery, leaves is not my idea of fun!)  We woke up yesterday and opened the curtains to find the BBQ and bike covers where they shouldn’t be (ie not on the bike or BBQ :p) and were storing enough water for a paddling pool – if only it was hot you could cool off in them :)

The main down shot of the weather is that the cold season has begun again in earnest.  I should be preparing for a 5KM run in Amsterdam today, but as when I ran on Tuesday I could barely complete 1.5KM’s I thought it best to let someone else take my place.  I’m pleased that I did.  Over the week it’s got slowly worse – my throat is starting to go, and my nose is starting to get blocked.  Fingers crossed that it stops soon!  I could do without another winter of almost constant colds and all that goes with it!

Mrs Stace had her birthday this week.  Her father is a sculptor in his spare time and this year her and her sister were offered free reign (almost) to pick their favourite sculpture.  Mrs Stace chose an Owl in (IIRC) Italian marble.  It’s a beautiful piece and has pride of place next to the TV, we just have to find some way of illuminating it during the evening.  I’d love a strip of LED lights – but then you would see the lights which would spoil the effect somewhat.

And finally I spent the last half day setting up a new TV in the living room.  In order to create space for the Owl we needed to remove some of my toys.  The cable digi-box was the easiest to remove, provided we got a TV that had it built in (and the decision was in no way influenced by the chance to upgrade the TV ;p) An issue with someone in the shop translating Dutch to English (he was trying to be helpful, I’m not blaming him) made the job much harder than it was.  When setting up the TV he said you must use ‘Fast’ otherwise it will not pick up any channels.  There was no ‘Fast’ option, and after an hour (IT’er hanging her head in shame at that amount of time just for setting up a TV!) I found out that he meant ‘Quick’ which I found in one of the sub menus.  Using that the TV set-up was finished in about 5 seconds (it really was quick!).  And we settled down for Strictly and then watched Wall.E that my parents brought Mrs Stace for her birthday.  It’s a fantastic film, though neither of us can imagine a child sitting down and watching it all the way through.

Right, that’s it from my – time for breakfast, coffee and to catch up on what I wanted to finish in the office this week!

Stace

Quick post again... But happy.

Quick post… Been busy and have a busy weekend coming up…

Last night I had another chat with my parents. They are coming to visit soon and they want to meet Stacy. That makes me so nervous. They have said that I should expect some shock, and have to give them some time to get used to it, but it would help them both to meet the real me. I think that my dad is struggling somewhat. He’s still ultra-supportive, and has said that even if they are shocked I am not to worry as they will be there for me no matter what as long as they are alive (I’m trying to figure out when my parents got the age where they started to put that in as a proviso, it makes me uncomfortable I have to say… But seeing as they want to meet Stace who am I to complain about making someone uncomfortable?), but I think it’s harder for him to get his head around the idea than my mum, who said last night she is looking on this as a positive thing. Almost in her words: she had the blessing a son for 34 years and now has a daughter as well. She has even packed me some high quality mascara as a present. I would have smiled but was stressing about what they are going to think when I come down stairs in a skirt, makeup and with my hair up.

The busy weekend is trying to install TFS 2010 for a friend (an ex colleague) at his new company. For some reason they think that I am an expert (even after I’ve told them I am not) and have asked for my help. My boss is happy to let me do it, and as I will be installing it here early next year it gives me some practice... Fingers crossed that it goes well…

And finally… On Sunday I am finally going to a support group meeting in Amsterdam. It’s something that I have been procrastinating about for months now, but this week I finally worked up the courage to send the mail to the coordinator and so will be on my way. I haven’t decided whether I’ll be going as Stace yet… Another ‘Gulp’ moment…