I wanted all the ‘puters in the house on a network so that I could remotely maintain them using Timbuktu, without the delay horrors of dial-up. I didn’t want an extra wire going into the iBook – that would just worry mum and I hoped that slotting in an Airport card (and hence making no visible change to the iBook’s external appearance) would do the trick. I didn’t like the implementation of WEP in OS9: it only allows for a ‘WEP password’ rather than the various flavours of WEP my router offers and in the end I only got network connectivity by switching off WEP! Also AIrport cards are now getting past affordability. Time to try OS X!

I have installers for OSX 10·2 and 10·4. 10·4 won’t work on this iBook. 10·2 failed to install and properly update: I had installers for 10·2·0 which worked fine. Software update to 10·2·8 also appeared to work. However the second round of software updating to give the bells and whistle fell over, leaving the machine unbootable. This happened 3 times (each time after deep-erasing the hard disk) so I suspect that the wee hard disk (6GB) is just getting too full of temprary files and falling over. I do have a spare 30GB HD but I don’t want to take on this surgery: I’d only get the blame if anything went wrong. Also, the implementation of WEP in 10·2·8 (sans bells and whistles) is no better than that of OS9.

So back to OS9 and wired connectivity: the router is next to my dad’s PC, on the right of mum’s desk. I strung an ethernet cable from the router, under the desk and into the port on the left-back corner of the iBook. So the cable was mostly hidden and the bit that was visible wasn’t obtrusive.

For a while (i.e long enough to install OS 9.1 and other applications [including downloading updates] and then restore mum’s data), the ethernet port on Mum’s iBook worked. It’s now ceased working. Airport cards are getting far too expensive. I am able to take control of it via Timbuktu if I get mum to establish a dial-up internet connection but that’s painfully slow. (However it has the advantage of me not needing to leave a hole in the router’s NAT firewall).

I’m about to set up Timbuktu on my dad’s XP box… wish me luck, please

I don’t know whether it’s worth doing similar for my sister’s windows 98 PC, not least because it isn’t on the home network yet. I’d need to buy another piece of wireless kit and get that to link into the network I’ve set up or persuade my folks to run an ethernet cable from the router to the PC. The former is more expensive (and I don’t really have money to splash around on kit) but would be a fun wee task.

The main issue back here has been my sister’s unfair dismissal by Morrisons on 24th September 2005. Apparently on that day she was cleaning the sweetie area when she was asked to come to the store office ‘for a chat’. In the office, a local HR person asked her to sign a folded-to-A5 blank piece of A4 paper*. She was then escorted to the staff locker area, instructed to clean out her locker, hand over her staff ID and leave the store.

The next day she phoned in sick (and there’s no way our mum would let her get away with feigning sickness) but was told that she was ‘never to set foot in Morrisons again’. Mum intervened in that call (or was later phoned by the store management) to say that Susan had been sacked for pilfering. The story has been changed since then: they now seem to be saying:

• Susan was ‘allowed to resign’ to save her the ignominy of being sacked.
• She was seen to pilfer a sweetie by a security guard.
• She spat out the sweetie onto a table.

Susan maintains she took nothing (and she is well aware that pilfering is an offence liable to summary dismissal for ‘gross misconduct’), spat nothing and in no way resigned. She knows that without a job, she has no income** and if she was being sacked, even summararily, she should have first been told why at the time and been allowed representation at any proceeding.

After months of non-communication from Morrisons, Susan was invited to a ‘grievance hearing’ on Tuesday at 10am. She and her MENCAP advisor arrived at 9.55 and were told that the person who was to run the hearing wasn’t available. Instead a Morrisons store manager from Aberdare (and so not part of the aggrieved or aggavator’s line-management, as you would expect) who had had 90 minutes to become acquainted with the case, tried to run things. After Susan and her MENCAP advisor had been kept on ice for 90 minutes, he asked them to reconvene next Tuesday since ‘key people’ weren’t currently available.

*However, during the hearing, the paper was shown. Someone else had written a resignation letter above Susan’s signature. (The Morrisons people agreed that the actual letter was in someone else’s handwriting.) When the MENCAP advisor asked for a photocopy, she was told that photocopying facilities weren’t currently available. I’ve just made sure that Dad’s scanner will work with my laptop and so will be able to block that loophole on Tuesday.

**Not sure whether or not Susan gets income support, jobseekers’ allowance or any other benefit. The local dole office (can’t recall what they now call themselves or which government department runs them) has sent Susan a stock reply saying her entitlements are (at the very least) reduced because she ‘voluntarily’ left her job ‘to pursue other career opportunities’ (a phrase which is byond Susan’s vocabulary!). To add insult to injury, she’s just received a tax form stating that she owes the Inland revenue over £1400 in overpaid tax credits.

Right now I’m trying to sort and file all her documentation…

I spent monday morning cleaning even more, moving the cooker back into place and tidying. I also called my ISP, my phone provider, BT and my utilities provider to arrange the final bills. I have to read the meters on the morning I depart – please don’t let me forget!

I then spent 4 hours teaching my fairtrade colleagues to maintain our website. It’s not hard (after all, I can do it!) but they were until then completely unfamiliar with the concepts behind the web. They had to understand enough of these, then learn to add entries to the directories and then create new pages for each meeting’s minutes, then set up the links between them and a listing page. I’m sure they’ll do fine – they all have at least degrees and one has a doctorate. Also, they’re some of the nicest people it’s ever been my pleasure to work with and in my relatively short life, I’ve been lucky enough to meet a lot of fine folk.

I then spent the evening making this place really tidy. The front room, especially, looks father soul-less and unlived-in: there’s just a table, two chairs and a sofa. The only signs that I lived here are the two racks of sockets along the wall, the neat clipping of cables to the skirting-board and my ADSL router winking on the table. That will disppear with me.

This morning I applied edging strip to a piece of furniture for the first time ever. If you look closely, you’ll see it’s not a professional job but it looks good from quite close and makes the piece look much better. I did this while waiting for a rental agent to arrive: apparently her PC had gone down and she therefore didn’t know she had an appointment for 10am, so had booked another one. She eventually arrived about 11, took some notes, told me what to do next (prepare an inventory) that was it. It’s already on their website.

Next thing: sign some papers amalgamating my two pension schemes into one, then back to the fairtrade leaderine’s place to sort a few inconsistencies in the sidebars and check that the changeover of signatories form was correctly completed, then sort a few things on the leaderine’s mac. The bank told me that while I had completed the form OK, I needed the photocopy of the new Vice-chair’s passport to be notarised.

‘How do I do that?’
‘Get someone in a position of authority to write on the copy that it is a true copy, sign their name, give their job description and their phone number.’
‘Who is in a position of authority?’
‘Teacher, local councillor, JP, social worker,…’
‘Her husband is a social worker. Can he do it?’
‘Yes’

Just my luck that both our Vice-chair and her husband weren’t in this evening.

I was then picked up by our new treasurer so I could transfer the files for our bank account to his PC, show him how I ran the accounts, get his PC to pick up email to
treasurer@fairtrade-standrews.org.uk and pass to him the task of getting the change of signatories form completed.

So that’s it: my duties with the St Andrews Fairtrade Town Campaign are over, possibly forever. I’m quite sad: we achieved a lot, I spent some very enjoyable times with some very good people. I just hope I can find another nice in which I can use my skills to make things better for someone somewhere.

Tomorrow I have to buy travel insurance, chase up my tickets, replace the seal behind the kitchen sink, get some vaccinations and get some curtains sewn nicely. Toodle pip till then

Back at the parental ranch after an uneventuful journey (and what was for me an emotional ‘au revoir’ to the usual suspects.

After unpacking, the first thing to do was to set up my router on dad’s broadband account and get the computers all online.

• I put the router in the place of dad’s DSL modem, backed up its settings to my Pismo and then changed the settings to use dad’s account. Bingo: Pismo was online!
• Strung an ethernet cable from the router to dad’s PC and pulled out the DSL modem. Started it up and Bingo number 2: the PC was online.
• Strung another ethernet cable from the router to mum’s iBook. Er, no joy: the router claimed there was no physical connection between it and the iBook. Used the same cable to connect my Pismo to the router, disabled wireless on the Pismo. Pismo behaved fine, so the cable and router are OK.
• Put the Pismo’s airport card in mum’s iBook. Bingo number 3: iBook is online.
• Tried upgrading the iBook to OS 9.1 (it was at 9.0.2) to see if that made a difference: NO
• installed Timbuktu on the iBook to be able to control it remotely. Works by IP but I’m not yet sure I’ll be able to reach through the router’s NAT to get at it.
• put my airport card back in my Pismo so Timbuktu’s no longer an option anyway!

So here’s how it went:

• woke around 8.30 and checked out internet banking
• was phoned by one of the prospective tenants just as I emerged from the shower. Told her I’d phone back after speaking to the rental agent
• tried to phone the rental agent but was only able to leave a voicemail
• met with my lawyer to hand over the documentation I’m leaving with her
• was called by the rental agent and then called the prospective tenant and a gas engineer to get the flat checked for rental safety
• bought a fluorescent tube for the storage space
• bought the curtains
• bussed to Ninewells
• had my second rabies and Japanese B encephalitis vaccinations
• waited the rescribed 30 minutes to check that the latter had no immediate ill effects
• waited even longer for a photocopy of my treatment sheet (to convince doctors in Worcester that I only need the third vaccinations for rabies and Jap B)
• bussed back to Dundee City Centre
• realised it was now 3.05 pm and that I now had no chance of getting back to St Andrews in time to sign on at 3.25!
• phoned the job centre and was told that they were on strike this afternoon and hence I need do nothing – I’d just signed on by phone!
• arrived home, fitted the fluorescent tube and hung the curtains, then realised I hadn’t done everything I meant to do in Dundee. BUGGER BUGGER BUGGER

Then a yeehah-moment: a while back I’d emailed Roy Harper’s record company

Dear Science Friction/royharper.co.uk

I’m lucky enough to own Once, HQ, In Between Every Line, Loony On The Bus and Burn The World on vinyl and Descendant Of Smith on cassette. Is it OK to transfer these brilliant pieces of music to CD and then put them into an iPod or similar? Failing this, will Once come back into stock soon on CD and will Loony on the Bus/Commercial Breaks ever be re-released?

Many thanks for keeping Roy’s work as available as possible – the negotiations with all the other labels can’t have been fun!

Bruce Ryan

—
Bruce-wotsit (you only get a whoosh with a …, cheesy as anything)

I’d given up on a reply but today I received an electronic missive from the great man’s colleague:

hello bruce,

thanks for your email. roy and i have no problems with you transferring formats for your own personal use.

kindest regards,

tracy

Better than being touched by a noodly appendage!

Not just a chance to refer to an obscure Pink Floyd tune*, it’s also a chance for you to influence the final look of Mycelium Mansion.

I’ve finally bought curtains for the lounge – here they are in situ.

Do you think I should

1. leave them as they are
2. iron them, then hang them as now
3. replace them with the darker orange ones you can see in the bottom-tight corner
4. introduce one orange curtain between the two white ones
5. have two orange curtains surrounding one white one
6. do something else?

even more curtains
I have to admit here that in the rush to try to get back to St Andrews in time to sign on (see next entry), I forgot to pick up the curtains for the storage area entrance, so I have to go back to Dundee tomorrow morning. Aarrgghh!

* should that be ‘obscured-by-clouds tune’?

Spent yesterday morning dissembling the Pismo, putting the old 30GB hard disk back in, erasing it completely, installing OSX on it and seeing if the known good 80GB hard disk will work in my firewire enclosure. The 30Gb works fine inside the Pismo (and works when in my USB enclosure or when in my firewire enclusre but attached any mac apart from my Pismo). The 80GB hard disk doesn’t mount when in the firewire enclosure yet it’s been behaving perfectly as the Pismo’s internal hard disk. So there is something about the firewire enclosure that just doesn’t like my Pismo!

Reassembled the Pismo and went to collect my prescription for anti-malarials. I’d forgotten my chequebook so came away empty-handed. Thence to rental agent to complete some paperwork and confirm to her that I was happy with wither set of potential tenants.

Then to fairtrade leaderine’s to try to diagnose the problem with her wireless network. She has an 12″ iBook G3 with a ‘brand-new’* airport card just like mine and my Pismo does detect the wireless network emanating from her router straight away. So I put my airport card in her iBook and instantly it went online. I put her airport card in my Pismo and couldn’t pick up her network anyhow. Restoring our respective cards to our own machines restored the original (dis)functionality. So at least we know it’s her card that’s stuffed and that it can go back to the dealer who sold it to her.

Back to the doctor to collect my prescription, then to other friends to while away the evening in a fun manner. I was treated to William Shatner’s latest oevre, Has Been. You should also check out Amazon’s reviews.

Today, I’ve got near to buying curtains for the lounge and put tiles up behind the new cooker. The old one had an eye-level grill and so the wall behind it was vaguely protected. The new cooker has an in-body grill and so splats from pans on the hob would wreck the paintwork. I’ve prempted this wreckage by putting white tiles up. Now to complete the disaster by attempting to grout between them!

*brand-new to her, that is. Apple stopped making these cards a while back and they’re getting increasingly rarer. They now make cards that play 802.11b and g but these don’t fit into older machines. Well done Mr Jobs!

http://www.psychedelicrepublicans.com/cards/index.asp

More on my attempts to become an evil landlord:

my contents insurers better than expected – they’ll contact the policy underwriters and should have the next step ready to go by close of play tomorrow. Kudos to Gavin Willis at Clydesdale Bank home insurance for his professionalism.