For new readers: welcome to my day journal — of sundry activities and rambling thoughts. There's a mixture of techie stuff and personal doings, so just read the bits you're interested in ;-]
You'll find previous Kronikles in the ARCHIVE if you want to catch up.
For interesting links which change every week, look at my Home Page for Life in NZ and Nice Ones.

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Monday, March 4, 2002

Our landscaper suddenly showed up this morning; he's been waiting for the correct ground-contact-treated timber to come into stock. Our pinus radiata timber (which is the mainstay of the local economy) is a fast-growing softwood which quickly turns to mush when in soil. So it gets kiln-treated with secret noxious chemicals that destroy moulds and bugs and give it a very long life in or on the ground. The wall trellis was finished, and now they are constructing a sort of stepped-up terrace into the garden which will eventually contain a box hedge. You'll get new pix only when it's finished.

I drove Joan off to the doctor first thing; she had wrenched her back and shoulder in the weekend doing something outside that she shouldn't have, so got a referral for physio treatment. I dropped her at the physio, went back home to get a bit more work done, then picked her up at 12.30 pm and we went to a cafe for a bite of lunch. I stopped at the bank, then at the supermarket for some things we had forgotten, then back home in the early afternoon.

Some more time spent researching Cascading Style Sheets and printing out useful articles; I think I can make a start -- at least on my home page -- tomorrow.

Oh yes: A really good link here, which I've entitled "A hard day at the wet office". NOTE: this page has about 20 largish pictures, so DON'T TRY THIS ON A SLOW DIAL-UP <grin>.

Tuesday, March 5, 2002

The weather is holding well -- we could have gone away with the camper after all, but the nasty weather never really eventuated. Probably just as well, as there have been things that needed attending to, that would have been delayed.

I took Joan over to Lisa Cresc this morning; Joanna needed a new cover on a couch. We carted the sewing machine and bits over, and they had a good run of work. Another morning will finish it, apparently. The landscapers came back after lunch, finished off the side garden, and then transferred over to the right side garden to remove part of the retaining wood which brings that garden up to waist height. We're going to put a wooden garden shed in the gap to take some of the junk cluttering up the garage; 'junk' translating to stuff that I haven't managed to find a use for just yet. You know how it is: if I dump it, I'll need it desperately next month.

We had a problem with a client's web site today; apparently vanished off the 'Net. It turns out that it is a .com site registered with VeriSign, and the client has had three attempts since last October to renew using three different credit cards. Each time they get an acknowledgement of renewal, but nothing happens. At least the credit card charges didn't go through <vbg>. So eventually they got sucked out of the DNS for non-payment. Ah, the joys of being registered half a world away from the action.

Wednesday, March 6, 2002

I dropped Joan into town at 10 am for her physio appointment and went straight back home. My Psion 5 suddenly has lost its screen contrast -- I had to wind it all the way up to read it. I hurriedly connected it to Sissy with the serial cable and did a full backup. I checked with Millennium Computer about servicing; they had no info. I used Google to search for 'Psion Service NZ' and found that the psion.co.nz site has vanished, and no-one seems to be doing service in NZ. Of course, Psion recently announced that they were no longer developing the Psion any further, so I suppose that's logical.

Fortunately, I'm going over to the UK in May so can have it repaired there. Of course, I won't need it with the new iPaq that's coming, but I really would like it in going order for Rebeccah. I feel she could make good use of it, particularly in her 5th form next year. She could type assignments on it at school, take it home and print through her PC -- or work on them further in MSWord. I queried son Ross in London about repairs, and he told me there would be no problem, apart from the cost. A colleague had a screen replaced at a cost of £70.

After Joan came back from finishing Joanna's couch cover, we slipped back into town to pick up the waterproofing solution for the camper-trailer (which I had forgotten to get this morning). It was ideal conditions for applying it: hot and sunny with a light breeze. The stuff is rather waxy/greasy and is dissolved in a petrol-type solvent; but brushes onto the canvas easily. I last used it when I bought the camper in 1996, so it's done quite well.

A Camera Club meeting tonight; I talked on slides, how to expose them, problems etc. Also why we still continue to take slides when good prints are so easy to be had.

Thursday, March 7, 2002

Home all day today. Russell came during the morning for help with burning a CD; which turned into a sort of PC tutorial -- as these things are wont to do.

My iPAQ 3870 arrived at last. It came with a 'free' pack of accessories: a dinky folding keyboard, a set of headphones, and a protective case. I was not pleased to find that the headphones were ordinary stereo types -- they were supposed to be cordless Bluetooth. Also the case which was supposed to be a sports zip one, was identical to the case supplied with the iPAQ. I've mailed the guy who sold me the gear (not the shop owner, but someone from Vodafone) to see if his recollection is the same as mine. If so, the person who assembled the order needs a rocket. Actually, I've just checked the Kronikles for that date -- and they say the same thing. A daily diary does have its uses <g>.

Anyhow, I diligently followed the installation instructions, first taking the precaution of doing a Drive Image of C:\ drive. They insisted that I had to have a copy of Outlook installed before starting. Now Outlook is something I avoid like the plague, as I have no need of any of its features and can do without the vulnerabilities. Oh well, that's what they wanted and supplied a copy of Outlook 2002, so I duly installed it. But because I am still using Win98SE, it insisted on installing a huge volume of system files it said it needed. And it would not work. And the system was unstable as hell.

The next step was to restore the image and start again, first installing the Outlook components from Office 97. Before going further, I clicked on the Outlook icon; it loads, then gives me an error message whinging about the OLE registration not being correct, and inviting me to re-install. This I do -- with the same result. Oh well, check the Microsoft Knowledge Base on the subject -- and find yes, there are problems which produce that error message, but with Win95 and not Win98SE. I decided to press on and install Office 97 Service Pack 1 and 2b. Same problem, no workee. Ok, I rip Outlook out, then restore the drive image once again -- thank God for this program!!

So the upshot is that I just install the Active Synch link betweek the iPAQ cradle and Sissy and switch off any attempt to synchronise. At least THAT works properly. And I've wasted about six frustrated hours.

I can report, however, that I am impressed with the clear colour screen, and have experimented with the stylus scribble input of letters. There are quirks to be learned, but no real hassle. More on this tomorrow. I have to fire up the Bluetooth link to the Ericcson T39 cellphone -- but the instructions for doing so haven't come.

Friday, March 8, 2002

I took Joan into town for her physio again this morning, and went on to Don's office to pick up some work. A client site needs some updating, and Chris (the young lad who has gone off to Uni) isn't around to do these little things. So I guess I'll be taking up the slack for a while.

At 12, Joan went of with a friend to drive to Hamilton, about an hour & a quarter's drive. The friend's husband is in hospital there, having heart tests; and Joan decided she needed a little support. They arrived back at 5.30 pm, and June stayed for tea; Joan having prepared a casserole yesterday with this in mind.

I spent the afternoon fiddling with the iPAQ, and installed the drivers for the collapsing keyboard. This is real dinky; I prefer it to the Targa keyboard which folds in four but really needs to be laid on a flat surface. The Compaq keyboard is not as wide, but feels more stable and could be used on one's lap if you had, say, a book to rest it on. I didn't get to the Bluetooth setup, but will do that tomorrow. My impressions so far, is that the stylus 'lettering' is a long way ahead of the old Palm Graffiti that I tried a few years ago. Just a few letters that need thinking about, that's all.

I'll have to load all my phone numbers and addresses by hand unfortunately; I exported the Psion address data as comma-delimited; but the Pocket PC contacts file doesn't seem to have an import facility (or I haven't found it yet). I realised that what I was supposed to do was use Outlook on the PC for this job, then synchronise. But there ain't no shtinkin' Outlook.

I had a phone call from my Vodafone contact, who assured me that I misunderstood the headphone deal and I was supposed to get a plain set, not Bluetooth ( the Bluetooth headset is way over $NZ400 alone). I questioned him about the SD memory chip and he was to get back to me with prices for the 128 MB version. I think I'll also go for the PCM card holder, which has in addition an extra battery. I have a CF holder which slots into a PC card carrier; also it gives me the option of using a PCM modem to connect via phone line rather than GSM.

Saturday, March 9, 2002

We were out at 9.30 am this morning to watch Eli and the Aorangi team playing cricket. A fine morning -- they've been rained out for the last three Saturdays. A lot different to the Kiwi Cricket they played last year: the ball is hard, it's a standard length pitch, and they are playing with rules much closer to the big boys' game. The team lost, but their performance is improving according to Don. Most of the lads are fairly small, and today's opponents were bigger -- after all, Eli is still only 8 and has another couple of years at Aorangi yet. Here's some pictures

After the game, we continued on to the Library to change books; then pick up a couple of pies for lunch before heading home. A rather lazy afternoon: watched a couple of movies which took us to tea time. I came upstairs after tea, and tried to get the comma-delimited address file from the Psion into an Access database so I can print them out properly formatted. I got one done, then found another backup which was more recent -- and completely failed to do what I had just done. Something I missed on the second run, no doubt. I'm packing in early tonight, and will read a little before bed.

Sunday, March 10, 2002

Awoke to the sound of gentle rain, which blew away thoughts of getting the lawns mown this morning. We had just finished breakfast, when Joanna rang to let us know she was taking Eli to Lord of the Rings again, and would we like to go with them? Now we had not, I'm ashamed to say, seen LOTR yet (for a variety of reasons), so we met them at the theatre at 12 noon. I would have to say that LOTR lives up to all its hype. Both Joan and I commented on how much the actors were 'into' their parts; in fact I've read somewhere that some of the actors said it required very little conscious acting on their part -- it just played itself through in their head, as it were. Like all good Kiwis, we played 'spot the scenery'; this sort of film does make us realise what a glorious country we have to live in. We do tend to take it for granted sometimes.

I got busy during the afternoon on assessing the Wanganui Camera Club monthly competition. This was a bit of a marathon, as they had lots of entries in mounted and unmounted prints, and a batch of slides to be gone through. The entries didn't arrive until Wednesday, so I only had a couple of days to spread the prints round the living area and get to know them. I like to keep revisiting prints; as I go past, something will catch my eye and I'll stop and look the print over to see what it was. I finally finished the slides by 9 pm, and emailed the results off to the Wanganui newsletter editor so she could get it out before the next meeting.

That's my lot for the night, time for bed.