Journal: September 2008

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Website revamp
Fri 26/9/08 (Link to this entry)

I've spent a fair bit of this week trying to sort out my internet connection and web/email hosting. I've just finished migrating my hosting over to an independent company, having finally become tired of having my domains hosted by my ISP. The reason for doing this is to pave the way for moving my home internet connection over to O2, who should provide roughly twice the speed for half the monthly fee - not bad, I feel.

So, now that I have a nice shiny new hosting service, I've been playing around with the extra stuff I can now do (like CNAMEs for subdomains, meaning I can now point home.lamsey.co.uk at my home server's DynDNS subdomain). While I was at it, I felt it was time to give my website a bit of a spring clean, filled as it was with outdated content or plain old cruft that nobody ever reads.

To that end, I've cut things right back down to the bare minimum. Only the stuff which actually gets read now remains: the journal, the DoD guide, the Email Encrypter applet and the photos section. From what I can tell from my traffic logs, not much else was really popular, so it's all gotten the chop. If there's anything I've ditched which people would like to see back, gimme a shout and I might reinstate it!

Board of the flies
Mon 22/9/08 (Link to this entry)

I've just finished putting my room back together, which feels good after the weekend's exertions. Sadly, it involved one more task than I had counted on: cleaning the dead insects off the frame of my futon, which had been strapped to the roofbars atop my dad's car.

See, the thing about car bonnets is that they're aerodynamically designed to push air up and over the car. This means that if you put a flat vertical surface on top of the car - like, say, a futon frame - it becomes a very effective fly catcher. And we thought that leaving the tarp off was a good idea since it didn't rain and it probably saved us a bit of fuel from not having the extra drag. D'oh!

Packing up and heading home
Sat 20/9/08 (Link to this entry)

Right after I upload this post, I'll be packing up my PC equipment so that it can join the slowly-growing pile of stuff on my bedroom floor which will be transported, along with myself, up to Glasgow tomorrow by my long-suffering father. Next time I move house I must try and go somewhere closer (or organise my own bloody transport).

I'm currently suffering the usual ambivalence of being glad to be going back home whilst simultaneously sad to be leaving my second home down here. I can't say I'm looking forward to uni very much but at least I'm on the final straight now - it's five years since I became a student and I'm looking forward to finally finishing the course off (hopefully with a decent degree at the end of it all). At least I'll be back in time for the last BLBS competition of the year, which will be good fun.

Time to sign off now - not sure when I'll be back online, depends on how we get on tomorrow. Sometime on Monday is probably a safe bet!

P.S. Thanks to everyone who's been good to me while I've been down here - in particular Paul for giving me the opportunity to come down, James and Kim for letting me steal their spare bedroom, Tim for various acts of kindness, and all the good friends old and new who I've had a good laugh with over the past few months. It's been fun :-)

A heart-stopping moment
Wed 17/9/08 (Link to this entry)

For a moment I thought I'd called it too early. I had a bit of a panic attack this morning when I got up and saw this:

Frankenrouter's still dead, though, so it looks like this is just more tinkering by James. Either that, or he's all too aware of the threat posed by the Qube in the newly-created power vacuum in the house and has taken pre-emptive action. Just as well, too, since by the end of this week I'll not be around to watch his back any more...

How the mighty fall
Fri 12/9/08 (Link to this entry)

At last, I can sleep peacefully in my bed at night. When I returned from work today I was greeted with a terrible yet heartening sight. Frankenrouter had gone for James' latest half-dismantled gadget, a Cobalt Qube which he'd been faffing around with. Sadly for Frankenrouter (and joyously for me), it seems this innocent-looking box was more than the beast could handle. I found the mutant router lifeless, lying on its back with its feet in the air, as seen below:

Although it may seem like the Qube gave its life in the process of saving us all from certain world domination by Frankenrouter, appearances can be deceptive. What you see above is, in fact, the state that James left it in after his last tinkering session. I'm slightly concerned that the Qube will now mutate into a new bringer of terror and death, but it seems benign for the moment. Fingers crossed!

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