Time for a techie science article! OK, this one does get a little bit technical, but Climate chaos? Don’t believe it throws up some great questions as to whether those boffins at the UN are telling us the truth. And why do they keep missing out the “medieval warm period”? Did it exist?
Deep reading for a cold winter’s night!
Oh, and a big NO THANKS to my Tower Hamlets for this: Guy Fawkes axed from bonfire night. Muppets!!!! We want Guy on the fire!!
Time to give a shout out to ECUDAOR!!! Not really sure about the crazy woman in red, but apart from that, I’m sold!!
It’s interesting to note, that depending upon which side of the Atlantic you are on, foodstuffs take on a whole different meaning!
Firstly, Heinz Baked Beans! According to Wikipedia, “there are substantial differences between the Heinz baked beans sold in the UK and the nearest equivalent US product (Heinz Premium Vegetarian Beans). The US beans contain brown sugar where the British beans do not. The US product contains a total of 14g of sugar per can compared to 7g for the British version (equating to 140 vs 90 calories per tin). The US beans also possess a mushier texture and are darker in colour than their UK counterpart.”
So there!Next up, Milkshakes! The name implies ”shaken milk”, but again there seems to be a discrepancy. According to Wikipedia, “in the United Kingdom and the region of New England in the United States, a Milkshake is a beverage which is made from milk and flavourings. In Canada and the most regions of the United States, a beverage which is made from milk, ice cream, and possibly other flavourings such as fresh fruit, chocolate sauce and other sauces, along with whipped cream.”
Good old New England for being different from the rest of the US! 🙂
Apparently what the US calls a Milkshake, we call a ”thick shake”.
Complicated, huh?
Time for a baked bean milkshake (with ice cream!) methinks!! 🙂
Chewy (if not belended too much!)
Yay! My stuff finally arrived today! Big thanks for the guys at Uneeq Forwarding in the UK – these guys were super aces! I cannot recommend them enough. As for the US moooovers, well. I guess 9 weeks door-to-door wasn’t ”that” bad, but it’s a long way from their 30 day estimate!!! If you want the name of US Shipper NOT to use, let me know! Next task is to get some voltage transformers since I now have a meaty 240 Volts at my disposal!
Talking of ”transformers” – here’s a link to next year’s blockbuster!!
Yeah, I know I’ve neglected this site for a while….
Here’s to the joys rather than the sorrows!
Keep right on!
More updates soon!
Wowsers!!!! What a game!!! A vital 3 points to haul us back out of the relegation spot!! There’s still 3 matches to go…. and more twists and turns still to come! Next up – Everton away on Saturday!! It’s shown with a 2hour tape delay on FOX Sports World so it’s going to be a communications blackout for me on Saturday!
Keep Right On…..
Believe
Time for some Friday funnies ahead of Sunday’s big match! These are from the Joys And Sorrows Website – check it out – it’s a great site!
Q: What do you say to a Villa fan with a good looking bird on his arm?
A: Nice tattoo.
Q: Did you hear that the British Post Office has just recalled their latest stamps?
A: Well, they had photos of Villa players on them – folk couldn’t figure out which side to spit on.
A man desperate at the Villa’s current situation decides to top himself. In his living room, alone, he prepares to hang himself. At the very lastmoment, he decides upon wearing his full Villa kit as his last statement. A neighbour, catching sight of the impending incident, informs the police. On arrival, the police quickly remove the Villa kit and dress the man in stockings and suspenders. The man, totally confused asks why.
The policeman simply replies, ‘It’s to avoid embarrassing the family, sir.’
Q: What do you call a Villa fan with lots of girlfriends?
A: A shepherd.
Read on for more……………Q: What’s the difference between a Villa fan and a trampoline?
A: You take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline.
Q: How do you kill a Villa fan when he’s drinking?
A: Slam the toilet seat on his head.
Q: What do Villa fans use as birth control?
A: Their personalities.
Q: Whats black and brown and looks good on a Villa fan?
A: A Rottweiler.
Q: What do you call a Villa fan with no arms and legs?
A: Trustworthy.
Q: What’s the difference between a dead dog in the road and a dead Villa fan?
A: Skid marks in front of the dog.
Q. Why do Villa fans whistle whilst sitting on the toilet?
A. So they know which end to wipe.
Q: What do you call a Villa fan in a 2 bedroomed Semi?
A: A burglar
Q: What do you get when you offer a Villa fan a penny for his thoughts?
A: Change!
There’s a rumour that Villa have lined up a new sponsor – Tampax.
The board thought it was an appropriate change as the club is going through a very bad period.
An new Oxo Cube will be introduced early next year in tribute to Villa.
It will be called ‘Laughing Stock’.
The seven dwarves are down in the mines when there is a cave-in.
Snow White runs to the entrance and yells down to them.
In the distance a voice shouts out ‘Villa are good enough to win the European Cup.’
Snow White says ‘Well at least Dopey’s alive.’
Q. What’s the difference between the Villa ‘keeper and a taxi driver?
A. A taxi driver will only let in four at a time.
Q: What’s the difference between OJ Simpson and Villa ?
A: OJ Simpson had some sort of a defence.
Q: What’s the difference between Villa and a teabag?
A: A tea bag stays in the cup longer.
Q: What is the difference between Foot & Mouth and Villa?
A: Foot & Mouth got into Europe.
So, 5 games to go and the big derby at Villa is waiting for us next Sunday at 7am NY / 12pm UK. Shouldn’t really be counting on other teams, but we really need Arsenal to do the the business against Portsmouth on Wednesday. I’m currently looking at the table and hoping that’s the position we finish up with in 4 weeks time. It’s gonna be a long 4 weeks. Waiting for the EPL Review show to come on and catch up….. but grrrrrrr it’s delayed ’till 9pm! I have the darned EPL Theme tune in my head, so here’s the trailer from You Tube! Keep right on……… SOTV!!!
My new ThinkPad T60P (200793U) arrived last week all the way from Hong Kong!
Although the support and software from Lenovo is great, the laptop also came pre-loaded with a whole tonne of apps which I didn’t need. So, here’s a quick “how-to” on creating a custom XP boot disk with the latest drivers and patches:
Step 1
After your very first boot-up of your T60P, the C: drive will get converted to NTFS and you are prompted for computer name, user information, network setup etc. Enter all these details
Step 2
Launch Rescue And Recovery – take a backup of your system to CD/DVD. This is so as you can get back to this “original factory state” should anything go wrong. The backup takes about 6 CD’s.
Read on for more…….
Step 3
Take a backup of your XP Product key.
Two ways:
a) Use Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder
b)
1- Go to the C:\i386 folder and search for this file unattend.txt, unattend.GOL or UNATTEND.ORI
2- Open that file using any text editor (e.g. WordPad, NotePad, …) and search a line starts with ProductKey.
3- Write down the key number in that line on a piece of paper.
4- Use this product key during the installation instead of the one you got from the sticker.
Step 4
Take a backup of the following folders to CD/DVD:
C:\DRIVERS
C:\IBMTOOLS
C:\SWTOOLS
And maybe:
C:\OSFIXES
C:\SUPPORT
C:\IBMTOOLS\APPS contains some of the applications that you can’t download from Lenovo, so be sure to take this.
Once the backups are done, you’re in great shape to build a bootable DVD containing Windows XP + SP2 + Hotfixes + Drivers + Applications
Step 5
Download and install nLite
Step 6
Create a directory (eg C:\XPSource) where you will build your Custom DVD. You can do this on your T60P or on another machine,
Step 7
Copy the Windows XP Source files from the original Windows XP CD to the local directory you created in Step 6. eg: C:\XPSource
Step 8
Download Windows XP SP2 from Microsoft.
Step 9
Slipstream SP2 using nLite
Step 10
Create a directory to store all of the Windows Hotfixes, eg C:\XPHotfixes
Step 11
Get a list of Hotfixes since SP2 using the Microsoft Downloads website. You can get a complete list of available hotfixes here. Another 3rd party source for the hotfixes is http://www.ryanvm.net/msfn/updatepack.html.
Step 12
Download the hotfixes you identified into the directory you created in Step 10.
Step 13
Important: To use the SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD device, you MUST install Microsoft patch Q888111. If you look in C:\IBMTOOLS\drivers\UAAHDAXP\XPSP2 on the laptop’s original config, you will find 888111US.exe. Copy this file to your patches directory (eg C:\XPHotfixes) OR be sure install this patch after installation.
Step 14
Integrate these patches using nLite
Step 15
Create a directory where you will extract all of the Thinkpad drivers. eg: C:\ThinkpadDrivers
Step 16
Download the latest drivers for the Thinkpad using the Thinkpad Matrix
If you run the .exe for each driver package, by default it will unpack them to C:\DRIVERS. Instead, choose the directory you chose in Step 15, eg C:\ThinkpadDrivers. This way, you ensure you have the very latest drivers and none from any old downloads.
Step 17
Use nLite to integrate all the drivers into your Windows XP source (choose the directory from Step 15 as the directory to integrate from, eg C:\ThinkpadDrivers).
Step 18
If you are building a bootable CD, then you should at this point use nLite to build a bootable CD. The bootable CD should be given the label “WXPVOL_EN”. Then you should burn a second (and maybe 3rd) CD with the following: Directory given in Step 4. Directory given in Step 12. Directories given in Step 15.
If you are building a bootable DVD, copy over the directories you saved in Steps 4, 12 and 15 over to the XP Source directory (eg C:\XPSource\ ). Use nLite to create a bootable ISO image with a volume name “WXPVOL_EN”.
Step 19
Burn the image(s) to CD/DVD.
You’re almost ready to wipe the original T60P installation.
Step 20
Restart the T60p and go to the BIOS configuration.
Select Config -> Serial ATA (SATA) -> Compatibility
Save and exit.
Step 21
Boot using the bootable DVD you created.
Install Windows using the parameters you want.
Step 22
When the install is complete, install the SATA / Intel Matrix Storage Manager Driver by following the steps here.
You’ll need to locate and run the “DRIVERS\WIN\SATA\PREPARE\INSTALL.CMD” from the Step 4 backup (which should be on the DVD or one of the CD’s you built in Step 4 or 18).
Step 23
Reboot the laptop and go into the BIOS again.
Select Config -> Serial ATA (SATA) -> AHCI
Boot normally and Windows will detect new hardware. Install the driver from DRIVERS\WIN\SATA
Step 24
Optional: Install Recovery console, Select Start > Run and in the Open box type: {X>:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons Where {X> should be the driver letter of your CD drive.
Step 25
Install software you want from the DVD Drive using the C:\IBMTOOLS\APPS directory from Step 4.
Step 26
Perform a rescue and recovery
Possible problems you that you might encounter
When trying to install the audio drivers you get error “The HDA Audio bus driver is required and not found”. Solution: Run C:\IBMTOOLS\drivers\UAAHDAXP\XPSP2\888111US.exe
When trying to launch the ATI Control Center, you get error “CLI.exe – Application Error. The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application.” The solution here is to install Windows .NET 1.1 with Serivice Pack 1.
When trying to run the Recovery Console you get a windows blue screen with the following error: STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF7CAE524,0xC0000034,0x0000000,0x00000000)
The solution is to restart and enter the BIOS: Select Config -> Serial ATA (SATA) -> Compatibility.
Restart the laptop and enter the recovery console. Fix the problem and restart the laptop.
Enter the BIOS once more: Select Config -> Serial ATA (SATA) -> AHCI. Then reboot as normal.
Next step: Dual Boot with Gentoo Linux!
Hmmmm….very well done indeed! Now if we could only find some way to take care of Mr Cruise….