Righty ho, time to attack Vista, I've not done it for a while;

http://www.philoking.com/2007/01/13/windows-vista-one-month-in/

"The memory is usually around 40% and I have seen it spike to 50% when idle, but that’s pretty rare."
Right then, you're a happy camper because Vista consumes 40% of your RAM looking pretty. OK then, cept 40% of this guys RAM is 400Mb, sometimes half a gig. To run the desktop. Nothing else. Just eye candy.

Gah, these people make me mad; "its not that bad really"; yes it bloody well is.

You can get all that lovely 3D gumpf in Linux with or without the beefy 3D graphics card for free on your current hardware.
You can get trippy Apple-esque GUI's on your current hardware for free using Linux.
You can get anything you like for free on Linux.

http://adju.st/2007/01/love_the_linux_weenies.html

You will not be able to watch content on Vista unless you have a valid, up to date (checked over the internet) license for the media. Period.
Microsoft has jumped through hoops to ensure the content providers with their Mafia style muscle groups (RIAA, MPAA etc) stay onside, instead of looking out for the consumer.
Apple is no better, they've got there faster than MS (iTune tracks that play on nothing except iTunes player or the iPod ... monopoly anyone?)
Linux? the BSD's? Free. Absolutely 100% free. OGG Theora, OGG Vorbis, PNG, MNG, FLAC, Oasis Document formats, SVG. All free. No DRM, patented ideas, locked down protocols here. We can't work with it, we'll write a new protocol or go round it.

Free. Linux. Is.

It seems the samwagon has a guardian angel; I can, for comparatively little cost, replace the brake pipes, indicator bulb, and offside panel in one go.

This is excellent news.

I've several lines of attack available; I've found a brake pipe replacement kit on ebay for ~£30, I've ordered a haynes manual for the car and a scrap merchants just got back to me about supplying the rear panel and pipes for £15. £15. I've emailed back asking about the brake pipes and if theres indicator bulbs going.

Updates soon ...

The folks from hippygeek's LUG fixed the problem with me not being able to get at hippygeek.co.uk, it seems a router somewhere running hippygeek doesn't work properly and blocks part of the TCP information package, causing a hang. Nice to know we move forward with technology.

I'm still looking for a new car, or a cheap method to repair the corroded brake pipes in my car, along with the rear driver-side panel thats on the limit of passing. It really needs to happen in the next week otherwise my insurance runs out. I'd be in the same sorta position as last year. It could be time to stop driving as its getting ridiculously expensive to run. Gah, I don't need this at the moment.

I've not got anywhere near half the stuff I wanted to do over the christmas period, but I'm relaxed and refreshed for the slaughter that is an EECE degree course.

Apologies to peoples I didn't see over the holidays, but sitting in lichfield on my own away from my work was beginning to drive me nuts. Sorry anyway :-/

There are a number of companies popping up that "finds, tracks and monitors your personal information online." Having read a BBC article on it (sorry, I've lost the link!) I decided to give it a go for the free month or so.
So, personal details entered (Name, age, email address, home address ...) and sit back to watch.

Few weeks later I get an email about my "Data report" from http://www.garlik.com. OK, goto the website and check it.

For those who want to stop reading, the upshot is; it was full of crap.

It listed I live in Carolina, Texas, somewhere in Poland, Kidderminster, Melbourne, Pennsylvania (where I'm 80), Lincolnshire, Lichfield and London. Right. You have my address and tell me I live in the USA???

I feel safer knowing you can google for my name and find nothing, then use this site and still find nothing

Only Microsoft could turn a grammar checker into a highly critical rated security hole.

Also, try visiting http://hippygeek.co.uk/
Everyone except me seems to be able to view pages on the site. Except I can see 404 errors (page not found to non geeks ) and http://rover.hippygeek.co.uk This isn't just firefox thats playing up; svn, telnet, links all fail. aLinux can't connect either, yet Windows and Ubuntu can see it.
I'm about to try Zenwalk, a slackware based distro, to see if its only slackware's tools that are affected, or its something else.
The fact that I can read rover.hippygeek.co.uk fine leads me to believe I need to debug something with my lump hammer, probably hippygeek's servers.

Update @ 16:00:
Zenwalk doesn't work with hippygeek.co.uk, but works with rover.hippygeek.co.uk ...

Long live the samwagon?

Yeah, it happened. It failed the MOT
Brake pipes excessively corroded, advisories on the rear offside wheel arch and possible oil leak.
£250 worth of work to replace the brake pipes that are currently corroded, with it "being an ongoing problem"
Damnit.
Its not a simple operation to replace em either; specific equipment is need to bend, shape and flare the pipes correctly ("akin to a central heating system" said the mechanic).
Damnit.
The thing that worried me though was the oil leak; it had oil in it when I checked a month ago. This probably means the engines on its way up the creek, which would be stupidly expensive to replace.
Damnit.
So, I'm trying to find a replacement car in the next few weeks; I'd prefer a Fiesta again even though they are rustbuckets, but from the looks of eBay (all hail!) Peugeot 106/107's are cheap and lower insurance ....
This, at the moment, is a pipe dream; I have to wait till next week for my student loan, and I'll probably have to get the CCTV cameras paid for by Chasewater as well.
Damnit.