Andrew's Stuff

Had a couple of ever-so-interesting tutorials today. The Computer Systems & Internet Technology module looks like it's going to at least start out to be a repeat of the A-level units that we did with Greaves and that none of us really understood very much. Stuff about processor architecture... We almost did some work in it, too! But only almost. We basically looked through the Powerpoint presentation that will be used in Thursday's lecture. I managed to arrive an hour early for that tutorial, too. I thought it was at 12 but it was actually at 1. Lovely. I had to re-download Portable Firefox, onto my personal network drive as the machines in that room didn't have USB ports on the front.. :(

Then I had a Computer Programming tutorial where we really did nothing. We loaded the program that we'll be using to code our wonderful Java programs in, got shown where we could get at its installer on the School's network and then left, basically. The installer for that IDE is about 250MB so it won't very easily fit on my 128MB flash drive so I'm going to have to bring the USB cable for my NW-HD5H in and copy it to that instead.

Also discovered today that somehow someone in flat E6, which is just across and to the right from my bedroom window, has got a wireless access point installed and working. Its MAC address reveals that it's made by Netgear, which tells me nothing, really. It got me thinking about how they've done it, though, and I eventually concluded that with possibly a few workarounds I should be able to set up an access point in my room and get decent quality wifi access in the kitchen at last. The nice shiny Netgear MIMO access point is around £75, though, so I'm going to have to check how much money I'm spending each week before deciding whether or not I can afford to buy it. In the meantime I'm still stuck with slow, dodgy signal, even dodgier ability to connect and remain connected, ad-hoc wifi. Ad-hoc wifi has to be the worst thought-out system in the history of badly thought-out systems.

All my flat mates are out currently while I sit in the kitchen being boring. I did the washing up, though, so it's not all bad. I have just finished writing an email to CableCom - the company who provide Internet access to residents of Halls - asking them to unblock some stuff (cPanel, WHM, a couple of games..). I'm not holding out much hope, but if they refuse I'll be stuck using RDC to access cPanel/WHM for the rest of the year and unable to play Dawn of War or Neverwinter Nights (no, they will NOT play sanely over RDC). I've also added an RSS feed to this site today, though I don't have a button for it or anything. It's at http://www.lorddeath.net/news.xml.

Tomorrow really will be Tesco day. There's the free bus that stops at the University gates at 11:50 so I'll hopefully get that. Gary also plans to go to Pontypridd tomorrow so I might go with him and have a look around. Better to do that now than in a couple of weeks' time when I've got loads of other work to do as well.

Kangie pointed me in the direction of a piece of software earlier that will minimise absolutely any application to the system tray. Currently I have a Notepad document, a command prompt and Fairuse Wizard sat in my system tray rather than taking up valuable taskbar space. I've been looking for software like this for YEARS. It's called All-To-Tray, by the way and it rules. If only it wasn't a 15-day trial.... :P

Think I'll go and play some Half Life 2 or Dawn of War now...