• Spent most of the day trying not to respond violently to a colleague’s overbearing bullshit.
• It appears our server now no longer speaks to pure MacOS9.
• Bad feeling that I upset someone I really care about last night.

… appears to have been a successful day. Read all about it! Once again, I’m embarrassed by my turgid prose.

So I finally hear that Marianne is at Birmingham’s lost piggerty office and can be collected. I will need to show them 2 forms of ID (one of which is photo ID) and pay a ransom of £3.

However, this is nothing compared to my NEED to be reunited with her.

OK, I admit befuddlement is my normal state of mind but this one has me stumped.

About 11pm tonight I noticed my powerbook was failing to connect to my ISP’s email servers and that web browsing wasn’t working. A menu bar icon told me that I’d lost wireless connectivity. The usual cause of this is my router ceasing to broadcast – restarting the router normally cures things. This time it didn’t. Several restarts didn’t help. Both OSX and OS9 told me that I had no Airport (wireless) card. When I tried an 802.11b/g wireless card in the PC card slot, normal service was resumed.

However the b/g card has two disadvantages: it takes up the PC card slot in which I use a PC SCSI card and it doesn’t work under OS9. Also the Airport card which doesn’t have these disadvantages (it fits in dedicated slot just below the keyboard) cost me money. I resent things burning out.

Time for a beer and to talk local politics with Pete & Jane………….

There were two likely causes: either the card itself had burnt out or the ariel (which passes through the hinges) had abraded and snapped. (Of course the third possible cause was that the bits connecting the Airport card to the motherboard had died. However this is too painful to think about: dying motherboard bits = time for a new powerbook. Also dying motherboard bits would manifest in other ways – like the whole damn powerbook ceasing to work!)

So I tested the Airport card in my desktop G4. Yes, just to enable me to test my Airport card, Apple built wireless card slots into desktop macs. Man, do I feel special! The Airport card worked so it looked as if my powerbook’s ariel was toast. On a whim, I put the Airport card back into the powerbook, rebooted and SHAZAM! Back to normal wireless connection.

So I’m relieved but puzzled. What caused the Airport card to stop working? Did it overheat or did it just need a holiday?

BTW, huge thanks to Pete for offering to lend me his Airport card to test the “ariel is broken” and “connection to motherboard is broken” hypotheses.

Time to go back to setting up the 520 to give away to a colleague and the 2300c to my sister.

The task: to install Mac OS 8·1 from an installer CD on a powerbook 2300c which has no functional OS on its hard disk.
The equipment: powerbook 520, powerbook 2300c, powerbook G3 Pismo, external SCSI 1x CD-ROM drive
The issues:

• I don’t have installer floppies for the 2300c.
• The installer floppies for the 520 (OS 7·5) are too early for the 2300c.
• The CD drive doesn’t have a mac boot ROM and so cannot be used as a startup device.
• The 2300c refuses to start up as an external SCSI disk on the Pismo.
• I don’t have the physical means to connect the 520’s and 2300c’s SCSI ports.

The workaround:

1. Attach the CD drive to the 520, then mount Norton Utilities V3·5 CD.
2. Expand the Norton Speed Disk image from this CD onto a floppy.
3. Dump the Speed Disk application from the floppy.
4. Copy the Finder from the Norton Utilities CD’s system folder.
5. Create a system folder on the floppy.
6. Put the rest of the files on the floppy into it.
7. Create an Extensions folder within the floppy’s system folder.
8. Because I don’t have both extensions for the CD drive on the 520 (so I’m not sure why the drive currently works with the 520 just now) but I do have them on my “mac stuff” folder on the Pismo, email them to myself. (OK, I could have connected the 520 and the Pismo by ethernet but my router/hub is in my lounge and the laptops were in my bedroom. I didn’t have another long ethenet cable and I couldn’t be arsed carrying either of them around and guddling with short cables. Nor could I be arsed with getting file-sharing going on the 520.)
9. Set up the 520 to receive email via ethernet and receive the CD extensions.
10. Copy the CD extensions to the Extensions on the floppy.
11. Shut down the 520 and detatch the CD drive.
12. Attach the CD drive to the 2300c.
13. Start up the 2300c from the floppy I’ve created.
14. Mount the OS 8·1 CD and start the install rigmarole…

update: the OS installation took a further 2 hours

When my colleagues and I return from leave at the end of September, I will begin easing out of my current day-to-day Production Management role. This is mostly to allow my colleague who will take on this role in January to ease into it now. However, according to my immediate boss, it also allows me to to take on some “Special Operations” during my last three months at Leckie & Leckie.

So
…………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………….. ……………………………………………………………..
I will be known as an S. O. B. (Special Operations Bruce). You may prefer to expand this acronym in other ways.

My reports, especially when things don’t work, will be known as “SOB-stories”.

Of course, if I’m caught out of uniform behind enemy lines, I can be shot without trial. I think this is a cunning plan by Granada Learning to avoid paying my redundancy payment. Please keep your eyes peeled for 5th Columnists operating within ITV or Granada Learning who might give me away.

Now I know why I bear such a striking physical resemblance to Tom Cruise.

It’s got me bad – anyone know of a cure?

Today a lawyer signed a document recording that I am sane.* He didn’t even need to have studied psychiatry to do this.

*OK, not specifically sane but at least able to understand what I was doing when I gave another lawyer power of attorney over my affairs in the event that I can’t be contacted.

I feel vaguely similar to how I imagine Dorfl felt when he was given a piece of paper saying that he owned himself and was responsible for his own actions.