Upcoming vacation and 80th birthday

Two days ago it was the 80th birthday of my last remaining Grandmother.
In one week I am going to start my vacation, then I can go and visit her in Windhoek.
A friend of mine who is working at a newspaper in Windhoek has got his vacation on nearly the same dates as mine, and he is coming here to Cape Town.
Windhoek is going to be the usual baking oven this time of the year, and very quiet since everybody is at the coast during this time of the year.

House buying issues

Buying a small house these days is not affordable to any of the locals here (myself included).
The real estate prices are over inflated, the foreigners buy up the bigger property and push up all the other prices even more, while the local population cannot even afford the most simple of houses, sicne most have a problem getting with their small amoutn of money through the month.

Missing graphics card

Yesterday evening I finally started rebuilding my old Pentium 1. After getting many cuts from replacing the power supply, I discovered that the main graphics card was missing. That PC has got two graphics cards, the second card is designed as an add-on and not a standalone card.
The search goes on.

Sunburn issues

Last weekend at the beach was great, it was nearly as great as the sunburn that I got (and wanted to get). Now everything is sore and itching at the same time.
Before I go to visit my family, I need to get a few more of these sunburns, otherwise it will be nasty when I get there.

Pokemon fever returns!

I did the ultimate sin: I started playing Pokemon again. That game is highly addictive. On Saturday I introduced a friend of mine to that game, now he is stuck on that as well.
It isn't a plain simple game like some people would think, it has adventure, RPG, puzzles, strategy, combat, humour and exploration. I would recommend it anytime.

John Foster from Sun Microsystems at the UCT in Cape Town

Last night, John Foster from Sun Microsystems gave a presentation to the Cape Linux Users Group (CLUG) at the UCT in Cape Town. The presentation was very enlightening and informative. Future developments look great and a lot of things make more sense now.
The presentation contained technical information from mobile, to the desktop to high end server clusters.

Nearly a car accident on wet road

This morning on my way to work, I ended up sliding out of a sharp turn and bumped with the tyre against the edge of the road. The road was wet and water was everywhere. If it wasn't for that pavement, it would have been a costly thing, since I came at a 45 degrees angle towards a solid wall.

Secondhand vehicles in South Africa

A friend of mine bought himself a secondhand vehicle last week. Shortly afterwards the alternator broke. Last night he wanted to visit me, then it broke again.
According to my experience, secondhand vehicles can be extremely risky, annoying and expensive.

Hard drive death and Windows XP SP2 sound card driver problems

Yesterday my 27 Gb hard drive died. Since I was expecting this to happen sooner or later, I got another drive ready. Since I could risk installing SP2 on that PC, I went ahead with that.
Then I found, that SP2 is giving issues with my Sound Maker Live 5.1 drivers. Those drivers cannot install, which means that I cannot use my sound card, which means that I cannot use my TV tuner card, which means that I have to install an older version of Windows just to watch television, or use Linux to do that, which means that I will not be able to use the remote with the infrared port. Currently affording new hardware is going to have to wait several months at least, and software is generally even more expensive than hardware.

Brake problems

It is that season of the year again: brake pads need replacement
These things always come at the worst possible time.
Money and time are both scarse, and they tend to never come my way.
My small home business is improving a bit in terms of enquiries but the actual cashflow is still near non-existent.

Business picking up, war & hell

Recently I have been getting a lot more enquiries for my small home based business. Maybe it is season and weather related or maybe it because of soem more changes I have done to my website. My normal work is a matter of too much to do and too little time, resulting in lots of stress. Cash is a rare item currently due to expenses.

On other matters: I managed to reach hell in Doom3, what came before that was a walk in the park. I also played a bit more on Command & Conquer General Zero Hour, which is a bit nasty on medium and too easy on the easy setting.

Business looking a bit better

Most likely due to weather and other factors my small home business has made some all-time high income, but it is not anywhere near to what I was hoping for, but it is a good start.

LAN gaming weekend coming up and birthday parties

This weekend will be the every couple of months gathering in Jakoville, where PCs collide.
Hopefully there won't be the usual network dilemma again (yet again). too many ignorants when it comes to the simple setting up of a TCP/IP network.

What is also happening is the Spiderman themed birthday party for a 3 year old. I have to pick up the Spiderman costume this evening and give it a good wash before it is being rented out. hopefully splitting it up didn't make it look too terrible.

Birthday and another birthday

Today (10 September 2004) is my mother's birthday, so I will have to reschedule the monthly long distance phonecall, since I will call her this evening after work during the cheaper rates, before I go and visit somebody else.

On 18 September 2004 is another birthday of a 3 year old and the theme for that birthday party is Spiderman. Now I am hoping that my Spiderman costume will be back from repairs in time.
It hasn't been decided yet who is going to wear it, but I hope it won't have to be me, since the costuem is a bit small for me, and I have never worn something that tight in public before.

The week of Mondays

So far every day this week has been a bad Monday gone horribly wrong. Fortunately today is Friday.

The silenece after DOOM3

After playing a few hours of nasty single player DOOM3, the sudden silence afterwards is highly disturbing. That is some freaky horror movie!
After playing that game, I have different thoughts when walking down a dark corridor at the office...

Weekend blues

This last weekend was far too short (as usual).
The Diablo II LOD progress was good in multiplayer, single player will be slow again.
Last night I found a dead mouse in closet and there is still one more running around in my kitchen. My place is small, but that little bugger has got many places to hide. I found a possible nesting site, but it wasn't fully set up as a nest yet.
Hopefully I can get my PC upgrade today, which was planned for two years.
I still have to take photos of the german carnival to friends of mine who came with me to the costume party at the carnival.
Hopefully I won't run out of cash this week. since this month only ends next week.

German Carnival in Stellenbosch

The 30th anniversary of MATIEKA in Stellenbosch didn't have such a great turnout as previous years. This was mainly due to no one seemed to know when exactly the festivities would take place.

Some people said the first weekend of August, others said two weeks after the school holidays finish. This year (2004) it was at the end of July and beginning of August.

B.K.E.

Old Tennants

Last night an ex-tennant came around who used to live in the main house where on the same yard as where I am staying. This time it is only one of many but when the entire family was living on the yard a lot of bad things started happening. He seems to be looking for a place to stay. Currently other tennants are occupying the premises and they do not cause problems.

B. K. E.

Bad day

The public holiday yesterday was full of problems. The first thing was trying to sort out a sudden sound muting problem on Windows 98, which turned out to happen when the PC speaker volume of the Sound Blaster 16 goes a bit over the halfway mark, then everything else becomes really soft.
The day before was a long story to get the ethernet card to be the first out of five devices on Windows 98, since Windows 98 doesn't know about routing.

Yesterday afternoon the fun continued with a total system freeze, installing a new version of Nero, just to find that it is an immediately expired demo after it made sure that my old vrsion from my original CD is unistalled and I didn't have that CD with me. The system freeze was finally resolved by reseating the DIMMs since the memory was reported as half of what it should be when I tried to install Linux to get at least some CD burning going, since Windows wasn't able to do it on that drive. The BIOS and Windows never reported the memory problem, so I had to use Linux to figure out what is going on.

B. K. E.

Content

Matieka German Carnival
The german canival in Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa, had its 30th anniversary this year. Due to a slight marketing flaw the turnout wasn't as good as previous years.
Many people only heard about it a few days before.

B. K. E.

Flattery fun alias Battery fun

Lots of fun and expenses have struck again: I had to buy a new car battery and the cheapest was only 395 Rand. Together with other expenses this month that comes down to the point that I will have to yet again use my emergency funds until end of month and I only managed to put 200 Rand towards PC upgrades, which by now have been delayed by yet another month.
At this rate the upgrades will only be next year since I also have to finance another bus trip and another car service.

TV Tuner and modem issues

Last night was another round of pain when installing hardware and software.
The Linux isntallation went smooth, except for the expected non-booting of Windows, which was easily rectify in /etc/lilo.conf by changing /dev/hdb1 to /dev/hda1.
Multiple different applications could immediately use my TV tuner card without problems.  The modem drivers need some files for compiling which I haven't got yet.
Installing the TV tuner in Windows was a major hassle, especially when that stupid annoying baloon help pops up every few seconds "New Hardware Found".   ):-(
The modem installation worked at least smoothly.  Afterwards I found that the ancient TV tuner viewer which responds to the remote actually works better and starts a _lot_ faster than the totally buggy PowerVCR2 Version 3.

Rental enquiry

On Friday I added two costumes to my list of frequently requested costumes (for which I had to wait six months).  And today (Monday) I already got a request for those.  Hopefully my small costume renting business gets mre customers now.
http://costumerental.bkernst.net/ 

Weekend laning issues

This previous weekend was another bad disaster, first on my PC the profiles were gone, after a few moemory dumps, one minute reboots (lsass related) and other issues.
I checked for virues, found none, no spyware, and no other weird stuff sitting on my PC. Currently I am suspecting hardware. I even checked for a lot of common viruses which the virus scanners don't pick up. At 2AM, I decided to reinstall Windows and fell asleep, so I continued that in the morning. At around 12 I had all the basic stuff installed, so I started getting ready to visit my possinle future brother in-law for a LAN party/session. Many hours of UT2004 later, I got my PC into my car and tried to start the car: nothing. The lights still worked, so I thought it could be the starter. Since there was a downhill, I could easily get the car started in the second gear, and drove home. At home, the car did start since there was still a charge in the battery. The next day it wouldn't start again, so I checked the battery water which was quite empty. After filling that I hooked up the battery charger and continued with the hardware installation of my PC while waiting. At least now the car starts fine. In the afternoon I drove to a friend to continue on Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction on Hell difficulty. Then I discovered that my most recent saved characters are gone, so I had to replay a short piece, due to my frequent backups. This evening I still have to install the modem, tv tuner card and Linux.

The under construction darkness tunnel

The fun continues at the new chemical engineering building at the UCT since the building still needs to be completed. I got there early for the usual CLUG meeting and somebody tried to set the light so that they don't blind everybody. After pressing a few non-functioning and non-descripted buttons, there was a delay, and then the room was suddenly pitch black.
Later once the talk about tunneling with Linux started, the lights wouldn't respond at all, so we all ended up being blinded rather nicely.
I head something very interesting about the major overhead of Microsoft's PPTP, which explains why my already slow dial-up internet connection is so slow, due to the huge amount of wasted bandwidth.
Another thing to note is that after two years I finally got some piece of clothing that I ordered a while ago. Good quality always takes times.

B. K. E.

Memory dumps

Yesterday, luck struck again with a new set of weird things happening on my PC.
First the sound acceleration were modified, then a memory dump happened, then Windows got stuck for a long time on startup. Before the login screen a message about a memory dump appeared followed by me having to set a long scandisk event.
Maybe a full format is requried, but the timing is bad due to the upcoming weekend.

B. K. E.

ISP dial-up connection issues related to Windows XP

Last week my trusty PC (running Linux) with my modem died. Until that PC is rebuilt, I attempted to move the modem to another PC (running Windows XP Professional). Windows XP had a hard time detecing an installing my old modem, and he modem had problems in any case, so I bought a new one.

With both modems I tried to connect to the internet (two different ISPs). In both cases the exact same error code. One modem was internal, one modem was external on USB.
My ISP made an effort to help, but still no luck.

I woldn't be surprised if I have to enable some redundent service to get my internet connection to work. This problem has never occured in Linux, but the 'user-f(r)iendly' Windows gives these issues.

B. K. E.

Damage report

Things went wrong yesterday ater coming back from the CLUG meeting at the UCT.
First my one PC was dead. My second PC and my father's television were on, which meant there was a power failure, since both were supposed to be off.
The dead PC is still dead, it had lots of dust, the Power Supply might have blown again.

After that discovery the toilet sewage pipe was blocked again. It was blocked last week already. It turns out, that the place where the five toilet pipes come together has got a hole at the bottom, where toliet paper gets stuck. Fortunately only the toliet paper get stuck and not the stinky stuff.

After cleaning out that mess, I had a long fight with my modem from the dead PC. The modem used to have problems where the ine wasn't always picked up properly. A few years ago, its speaker died as well. In Linux the modem was easier to control, in Windows I just had a major fight with it last night. After finally managing to dial out, the hardware always dropped the line. This means I need to finally get a new modem.

B. K. E.

Finally things are beginning to happen

After a long time of waiting for various companies (six months), various companies are now finally starting to do what I asked them to do, hopefully these things will be completed before the deadline in August, especially since that deadline cannot be extended.

B. K. E.

Getting more stock for a business before a deadline

For my own home based business I am trying to get some extra sock in before a big event in August this year. Most suppliers either don't ship to most countries, or they are also waiting for stock, or both. Many do not even bother to reply to enquiries and their websites are very vague when it comes to where exactly they do ship to. Others do mention on their website that they ship to various countries, but after placing an order it turns out that they do no do that and they don't bother sending an email to mention that small detail.

Then there are those companies that use stalling techniques which go on indefinitely with promises that they are getting stock and other things.

How do these companies ever want to sell anything?
They can just as well close down if they do not want to sell what they are trying to sell as well as giving no or a terrible service.

To all those annoying companies out there: If you are not trying to sell anything via the internet, then get rid of your online shop on your website!

B. K. E.

The end of June bank account blues

It seems like there are still a lot of people who haven't verified their bank account details yet. End of June 2004 is the cut-off date and anyone not having verified their residential details will have his/her bank account frozen. The topic is already causing heat and bank queues. The banks make an effort to make the process smoother, they have to get the details since the government decided so due for the sake of reducing illegal activities. Next month a lot of people will probably cause some major heat when their accounts are frozen, so I do not want to be inside any bank within at least the first week after end of this month (June 2004).

B. K. E.

Bank Dilema Number Next

The previous bank issue has finally been sorted out, this was related to my small costume rental business which still will take a while to get properly going. Last Saturday I went to the next bank for confirming my residential details due to a new govermnment legislation where everybody needs to confirm their residential details or get their bank account locked.

The fact that this is a convenience to most people and that few actually know about this is yet another major annoyance. Those that do not confirm their details will get some bad shockwaves at the individual bank branches. A lot of hot air will be vented soon and people are annoyed about the whole verification process.

B. K. E.

Mad Duck Disease

Mad duck disease is least remembered by those who have forgotten it. As the name states, it includes duck. Not to be confused with the existing cow variant.

B. K. E.

Foreign contacts

Today I was in contact with friends of mine in Germany and Taiwan, while I am in South Africa. Somebody from Germany is coming here for a student exchange programme and he needed advice for cell phone usage here.
My friend in Taiwan wants to send me a music CD, it would be interesting to see just what that CD is. If the address of her is still the same, then I can send her a nice looking postcard but the postage costs are high.

B. K. E.

Advertising agencies

Costume renting issues: Today I was contacted by an advertising agency which was looking for a black Gorilla suit. I only have a black Gorilla mask available, but no costume. The closest costume I have available is a Chewbacca costume, of which the colour isn't black, and the mask does not look like a Gorilla.
These specialised queries are always a problem, since it is a matter of very close, but yet too far.
I still need to expand on the womens range of costumes, but there is the problem of what to get and what size should it be.

B. K. E.

Business stalling techniques

A business from which I ordered some products in January still hasn't sent me the products and they know it. Whenever I asked once a month, then they said that they are still waiting for a big shipment which is still being held up by customs.
I have sent a demand for an explanation and the mention about cancelling the order if I haven't gotten a decent answer by this Friday (11 June 2004). If still nothing happened by then, then I will make sure that various business rating websites get to hear about this. These stalling techniques cannot go on!

B. K. E.

Business contact details adjustments

Last week I found out yet again, that somebody tried to phone me on my home number, when my website clearly stated, that the number is for after office hours or they should leave a message. The other contact options are the feedback form, email and SMS.
Maybe the information is still not clear enough and website adjustments need to be done.

B. K. E.

USB Flash drive data corruption

As part of an ongoign experiment with a 64MB USB Flash drive, I am still testing wether data corruption occurs when the drive gets filled using the FAT32 file system. On the original FAT file system, there seemd to have been some problems. Maybe the drive was just lying in the shelf for a long time.

B. K. E.

PC and Mac gaming issues

Today (Friday) I saw how Diablo 2 looks like on the Mac. Since I do not know how the standard Diablo 2 without the Lord of Destruction (LOD) expansion pack looks like, it seemed a bit very different. The expansion pack also adds a new resolution to the game plus two new characters and new items. Monday should prove very interesting indeed.

B. K. E.

Costume renting

Today I told a friend of mine in Johannesburg about my small home based costume renting business. He was laughing about the story where somebody was looking for a chicken suit so that his girlfriend wouldn't recognise him. It is very amazing to hear what kind of requests are sometimes coming. Unfortunately I do not have anything chicken related in my costume or mask collection, and I have only seen expensive ones for sale. Very soon I will have to update that website again. I have been delaying that image gallery, due to lack of decent images, and no inspiration on a nice layout.

B. K. E.

Gamer's Nightmare

Dear Stupid Game Developer...

Could you please be so kind and stop putting a CD check into every game during startup, since I am not prepared to risk damaging my valueable original game CD in my CDROM drive. A full installation is supposed to stop having to read from the CD. It is so much much to watch how a game chokes and croakes just because I have to wait for the CDROM drive to spin up to speed just to read something tiny and then it spins down again. This is utter stupidity. SO. . . For every game I buy, I need to check the version number, download various patches, since the out of the box game doesn't actualyl work due to bugs, then I have to go and search all over to find a NOCD (no CD!!!) fix of the patched executable. And while you are at it, please get rid of the ten thousand and one startup animations and logos, since they really piss me off! A game plastered with those does not deserve to be played, since those thigns already heighten the annoyance factor and the loading time before the main menu was even sighted. Those of-so-nice video clips which try to hide how terrible the gameplay really is do not always do any good. If a game is fun, then I will play it, otherwise it can remain on the shelf.
Since we are on the shelf topic... those prices are too high, which are a major incentive not to buy a game. Since the high prices reduce sales and increase piracy, of course then the prices are pushed up again to counter piracy. Rushed games also do no good, jsut like havign to register a game is bad as well, since not everybody does have the required expertise to do that, and not evrybody does have an internet connection which is in any case needed to get patches before the game is even started since it won't work otherwise.

Signed
B. K. E. (the horrible)

Banking blues

Today I tried to transfer a bit of money overseas to a film studio from which I had ordered something. To bypass long queues at the bank and to get easieer parking, I went during my lunch break, knowing that I would have to spend up to ten minutes to find parking back at the office.
Due to the new laws where everybody has to confirm their contact details in writing before end of June, because of money laundering and terorrism and other things, etc, etc, I did that as well.
After waiting in the queue, I waited quite a while since the person helping me with the transfer had to ask questions everywhere. After half an hour I finally found out that I need to get more exact contact details.
All I was trying to do was to pay for a realistic looking human mask which I want to wear underneath a costume at an upcoming costume party so that my face is not recognisable since everbody always wants to take my obvious mask of to see who I am. Those people shoudl make an effort dressing up as well, then they wouldn't be jealous of other people and se how they look like.
Two years ago I went to that big event as Batman, last year I heard two afterwards about it, this year I didn't decide yet what to go as and it depends on the theme (once I know that). Mabe I will go again as Batman.

B. K. E.

The concept of "Nothing happening soon!" explained

The basis and simplicity of the above named concept relies on the presence of everyday factors:
delays
more delays
laziness
...and anything related to the above.

Too many things take a lot more time than needed, and because of that a lot of things planned do not actually happen. For example, somebody ows you money, which that person in turn still has to get from somebody else, or there are transportation problems which do tend to happen for various reasons. This same pattern occurs everywhere in life which is most noted as having to wait for what should in theory be quick.

Practical example: I was giving a friend of mine a lift the other day, and he had to get a phone number from his sister who phoned him about the number. Instead of giving him the number during that honecall, I ended up dropping him of there to get the number, and I had to wait for him to come back to the car. Instead of him just getting the number at the door, his sister still wanted to talk to him about many things, when she knew from the phone call that he doesn't have time for that kind of thing. Because of the talking that could have waited until a few days later, a lot of valuable time was wasted and both of us were tired due to work related stress and ong working hours.

Example number next: Clients that cannot make up their mind. Something is recommended to the clients, and the client want something else, then the work is done. Weeks later they say that they never wanted what was done, so in many occasions they end up back with what was proposed originally. The delays to get feedback from the client are yet another concern, since that can also easily take a week or more, even when they wanted the project done urgently and before a specific date.

B. K. E.