Veryan Day 3 - Ever Increasing Circles

As forecast, the day started wet and relatively cold.  After breakfast, I completed yesterday's blog, and then started reading a book about Veryan.  The weather seemed to clear, and we rushed to get ready and went out.  Brody was relieved, but by the time he had finished it was raining again, so we returned to the cottage - total distance 0.09 km.
We had lunch relatively early, Jo cooked the Chicken Tikka she bought the other day, and with rice and stir-fry we were fuelled and ready for the afternoon walk.  With the weather improving, we left about 13:20 to complete walk 9 in the booklet of walks.  This one starts at Veryan, and goes through Trewartha and Portloe and then back.  After a short break at the post office to write and send post cards, we returned to the route.

A theme of our walks has been the overly high stiles  we have had to get across.  Here is one that Jo started to cross, before we realised that the gate opened!  There were some very high ones, and some of them we did not need to cross.  The guided walk occasionally mixed it's left and right, so we went round in a couple of big circles.  That means the directions cannot be trusted, so at one point we decided to go down to the coast, except we never got further than the coastal path, and in making that decision we completely missed Portloe.  We then took a very long walk along the coastal path towards Carne Beach, turning away from the main costal path we ended up a little closer to home, which avoided the steep hill up from the beach.  All the time the weather was improving, and my hat was still in the cottage.  I could feel my head getting burnt.

Here is the route as recorded by Runtastic.

 After a short rest and a long drink, we decided to go to The Ship Inn in Portloe.  The food is very good, we both chose the plaice.  I chose it because it was the healthiest option, until I saw just how much butter it had been cooked in. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it.  We drove onwards through Portloe on our way home and soon passed Broom Parc, the house where "The Camomile Lawn" was set.  It is also the point at which we deviated from our route and ended up on a 10km hike.

Sitting here blogging, I thought I would back up the pictures on Jo's phone.  On my 2 android devices, this has been simplicity itself.  Plug it in, wait while the driver installs, look at the contents of the phone in explorer.  So you might expect that a Windows laptop could talk to a Windows phone easily.  You'd be wrong.  The driver install failed.  I have to install an 'app for desktop'.  When installed, it first tries to sync all the photos on the Laptop to the phone.  I stopped it, that would have been a disaster.  I have now copied Jo's pictures to the Laptop, for safer keeping. 

Public Worship with Communion by Extension

It's been a long time since I've led communion by extension.  Since the last time the service has been revised and the Readers, including me, trained.  So it was out with the robes (a pleasant surprise for some) and the new service sheet to see how things would work out.
I had spent a considerable amount of time during the week working on getting the liturgy onto the PC only to discover that the PowerPoint approach does not work on the church Laptop - slightly annoying, but we had the service sheets, so it wasn't a disaster.  PWCE is supposed to NOT look and feel like a Holy Communion service.  Some of the changes that have been made to achieve that made the transition into the communion liturgy seem clunky, and I will have to take another long, careful look at what we do and how we do it, if I have the opportunity to lead this service again.  I explained at the start that it was a new service, so hopefully I didn't put people off too much.
The service was 1 hour and 45 minutes.  This is long by our standards, we are normally finished in 1.5 hours.
Most of the feedback I received at the end related to the robes, and some to the length of the service.  What I really wanted to hear about was the service - what worked well, what didn't, what people found difficult.  So if you were at Christ Church this morning, please comment.

Preaching Training / New Computers

Continuing Ministerial Education (CME) hold a day for Readers each year. This year's was last Saturday. As there were expected to be 70+ people at the day we were told that parking, if required, would have to be in the public car parks. I decided that I would go by bus, as I already have the ticket. That way there is no hassle, and the journey is already paid for.

I arrived in the Chapter House near Chelmsford Cathedral in time for coffee, and to find there were over 80 of us. The room was too small and they had expanded to the room upstairs as well. It was very encouraging to see so many people there. That's about a quarter of the Readers in the diocese.

Two speakers had been booked from the College of Preachers. They spoke to us about Engaging with the Congregation and Engaging with the Bible. Both were very good speakers and very good teachers.

Engaging with the Congregation
The part of this session I found most helpful was the discussion on Form. It expanded the notion of what a sermon could contain and how the different forms work. Is the sermon a story (one was read from the the point of view of Mary at the wedding at Cana)? A who dun it? and so on. I will not put my notes here and bore you.

Engaging with the Bible
Got us to think about how we might present some passages of scripture, and included the idea that we have to communicate the feel of the passage as well as the story and teaching the facts, and explaining the theology. A few little tricks were used to demonstrate the points to us.
We were asked to consider how we would communicate Collosians 1:19 "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him" (Jesus) - The whole of God in One man. One person just said "Wow!" That summed it up nicely! Now how to pass that on?

Apart from the space restrictions, it was a very good 'day'.

Better still the delayed ending and a late running bus meant I walked out of the Chapter House and straight on to the bus to Billericay.



In the evening I went to help friends set up their new computer. For me it was all quite straight forward, and I am pleased to be able to offer my services to help out - its nice to have a useful skill. They have Windows/XP, which is much easier to use than Vista. Once everything was set up I installed Open Office so they did not have to upgrade Microsoft Excel. There is often something wrong with a new PC - in this case there were no drivers provided for the sound system - so no music can be played - YET.

It's Broken, but not Vista

Apart from my Arm, my shower and my printer are both broken. Now it appears my blog is broken as well!
For lent, I have been following some new blogs and twitter. As part of that I discovered Church Mouse, which is now in the interesting Blogs list. Today it says '5 weeks ago'. This is rubbish, Mr Mouse does daily updates, or there abouts. Some of the other blogs have never updated, now I have one that's predictable, I have reported the problem to Blogger, or at least to a discussion page. We'll see.
Working in reverse order, I have borrowed an old HP deskjet 5550 from my daughter. It has been in out loft for 2 years, carefully wrapped in its original plastic bag, and sellotaped in the box. Getting it down and set up with 1.3 functioning arms was interesting, but that's not the point. Once set up it worked straight away. I downloaded the drivers for the old XP machine, and carefully following the instructions, ended up with two printer definitions sharing the same queue (I think). Anyway, when I tried to delete the original printer definition, the newly created one stopped working. The printer though had already printed a test page, in colour only. So I'll need a new cartridge, what does it take? HP56 and HP57 - exactly the ones that I had already bought a stock of for the hpsc2110 that has now broken. God is Good!
Then I thought I'd check the status in Vista - it's drivers are included in the base distribution, just plug it in. I DID AND IT WORKED! Vista 1, XP 0 Stunning, amazing, unbelievable, but true. I can now print and read my sermon in the usual way.

Improved angles, New exercises and Old frustrations

Today was physiotherapy day. I worked from home, but didn't get as much done as usual. There were two reasons for this, the short description of each of these is pain and tiredness.
Pain, because the physiotherapist had spent some time manipulating the arm, and had succeeded in getting it to move more that I have. She also checked my progress, by checking the angle I can raise my arm forward, sideways and behind my back. There was an improvement, but not that great an improvement. I have to learn how to use the muscles that have been damaged by the accident and the following operation. I cannot feel those muscles moving, perhaps because they are so weak, or perhaps because my brain hasn't learnt how to understand their signals yet. My tendency is to use the muscles that I know how to work - if I do that I will learn all the wrong movements, and will end up with neck problems. That is a good motivation to get it right. I have also been given a new exercise to help me to raise my arm. It involves putting a scarf over a door and holding on with both hands. I try to lift my right arm, and support it by pulling down on the left, this extra extension also adds to the pain. I won't say that the pain relief is useless, but it certainly isn't very effective. With the new exercise and the manipulation the pain has been constant today, even with the maximum dose of codeine.

Tiredness, because I had a really bad night. I slept poorly, and was woken easily. Mike and his girlfriend came in around 2:30am, I was still not properly asleep, and they woke me up - being noisier than usual. I was uncomfortable, so started the days pain killers before 3am, which is very early. I did sleep a little. Slightly later than I should have I dragged myself out of bed and downstairs for a cup of tea. Later in the bath I remembered that I should be fasting for a blood test (to rule out possible causes for loss of bone density), so the test will have to be on Monday.

Aside from all that my Vista system has taken on another strange behaviour. Every so often my ability to browse the web ceases, the browser just sits and waits for ever. When I log off Firefox is still running, so a restart is required. so now its off to the web to find probable causes and try to fix things. I will start by re-installing Spybot and Zone Alarm as they have both recently been victims of Vista's security mechanisms. Changes to both have failed because Vista will permit some things and not others.

Vista strikes again

Working from home had been going well. Although the desk configuration is different, I was beginning to get used to it. This morning when I started the machine the image was offset to the right. That happens sometimes. When I logged on to work the screen was compacted. I checked the resolutions they had changed under Vista. That happens sometimes too. I still have no idea why. There must be some sort of fundamental fault - but where. I got the screen drivers (the video drivers have already been updated) and tried to install them, but Vista reports that they do not support installation (?!).

Here's the process to recover Vista and my carefully matched screen resolutions.

Restart pressing F8
Select the 640x480 option
Complete the reboot
Logon as an aDministrator
Set the screen resolution you want
Re-boot
Logon as an Administrator
Set the screen resolution to the one you want - it should now be available
Restart Vista
Logon as the Administrator and confirm the screen resolution is still available
Logoff
Logon as a User and reset the resolution to the one you require, which should now be available.


I'd left the CD in the reader throughout this procedure, so now lets see if the screen drivers can convince Vista that 1680x1050 is a valid resolution.

One up-side to this, my anger and frustration at Vista generated enough adrenalin to mean the pains in my shoulder ceased!

Better Together / Vista SP1

Firstly, last weeks sermon is here.

Secondly, I spend the morning meeting with the vicar and fellow readers at a half day for clergy and readers designed to get us working together better. We have unique circumstances. I know everybody has, but we have really unique circumstances. Warner, our incumbent, is recovering slowly. He may never fully recover, and we have to learn to work with him in the best way we can. We do not suffer from any of the issues raised in the conference, or at least I don't think we do. Nevertheless, it was a good exercise to go through, and started us thinking about how things might be in the future.

Thirdly, I have had another go at applying Vista SP1. It worked. The CD-drive worked, and so did the network. Could this be fixes that Microsoft have provided in the interim? Could it be that the start-up that found an error and took 40 minutes to correct it (and stopped the printer working) the other day has done the trick? Could it be that the CHKDSK /F that I ran afterwards, that fixed 5 files index entries has had an influence?
I cannot say, I have no way of even finding out. The good news is that SP1 is in and apparently working. The bad news is that the printer isn't, but that's not a problem for today. Too much change in one day is bad for the system (both Windows, and Pete).

Later I will be learning how to dance.


Yes, really.

Dell Inspiron 530S & Vista - still no network drivers

Microsoft's procedure resulted in another evening wasted in installins and backing out sp1. Given that I sent them the config information from the machine I was surprised that they asked me to install drivers that were the same as the ones I had.

Also the procedure I was given did not work.
Uninstall the driver
Reboot
Install the driver from the new file.

Vista installs the old driver (which it insists is the best option) before I have a chance to say no.
The network card is:
Intel(R) 82562V-2 10/100

I'm now waiting for a response, interestingly there are some people using SP1 with this network card and having other problems.

Now Vista takes longer than XP to both boot up and shut down.

Dell Inspiron 530S & Vista - DVD Drive is back

Vista SP1 support sent me a long procedure, which is better than anything I'd found on the web:

Step 1: If you have installed any CD/DVD-burning software, please temporarily remove them from "Control Panel"-> "Programs and Features".

Step 2: Modify the Registry

====================

1. Click the Start Button, type regedit in the "Start Search" text box and then press ENTER.

2. Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

3. Right click the {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} entry, choose "Export", select Desktop in the Save in box and type backup in File Name. Click Save.

Please Note: The backup file is on the Desktop and named backup.reg. We can simply restore the registry by double-clicking the backup.reg file.

4. Highlight this key ({4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}), on the right pane, and then check if Upperfilters and Lowerfilters value are present. If so, please right click on the values and select "Delete" to remove them.

5. Restart the computer

Step 2 fixed it - onwards to the Network card. Strike while SP1 support is free.

Dell Inspiron 530S & Vista - the nightmare continues

Still no DVD drive, but that's for another time.
Today's problems are all around the display. My display is a NEC MultiSync LCD 2070WNY, and has worked with 5 or 6 other computers without problem.

• My display settings are set to 1680x1050 @ 60Hz on this account, but on the administrator account the best I can get is 1480x1050 @60Hz. When I try for the higher settings the monitor reports "Out of Range", and the settings drop back to what was previously defined.
• The "Out of Range" message sometimes appears in mid-flight. The next boot "Out of Range" is all you get. Then I have to use the F8 key at start up and select "Start in low resolution", the settings then (miraculously?) correct themselves and I can re-boot again.

I have recovered my cruzer readyboost 4Gb USB memory stick from my son (it wasn't helping his XP system). I want to use it for the regular backup of the important files.

• Now the Inspiron 530S will not boot at all with it plugged in. Unplug it, boots fine, plug it in - just a cursor on the display about 3 lines down.

Dell Inspiron 530S + Windows Vista

The CPU fan mount broke on my Evesham (running XP/SP3) - not the worlds greatest machine, but not quite two year old.

So as an emergency replacement I bought a Dell from PC World. It has Vista Home Premium. I've spent a few days building my fairly complex environment, and moving setting and files from the old machine (which will run, but only if its flat on its side).

Already I hate Vista.

• My start-up programs are blocked - because they are not registered with microsoft
• I am constantly asked to approve what I've just told the computer to do
• I cannot always get onto the network when I logoff one user and logon as another - DHCP wont get an address (why does it need to?)
• I have put all my personal shortcuts in the usual place (in a folder under the start menu for all users) but I'm not allowed to create shortcuts there. Shortcuts have to be created on the desktop, and moved.
• Once the Shortcuts are there they can be found by the search, but the folder will not expand.
• While importing address books for thunderbird, the import dialog showed only 3 of the four file in the folder. Typing the name worked, and the addresses were imported.

So I thought I'd let SP1 install - BAD Move!!!
After SP1 my network driver is blocked and my DVD drive doesn't work

• System restore to the rescue? - No - as usual!
• After system restore the system starts to install SP1, which this time fails and is backed out (as part of the process)
• The list of applied fixes says it was successful!
  
• Now I have a network - great, but no DVD - "This device cannot start. (Code 10)" - Very helpful.
• A fix recommends deleting a registry hive and re-booting.
• I cannot get access to all of the registry hive (access denied AGAIN!), and the piece I can't see doesn't get exported - so no backup if I do this.
• The solution to the problem according to Microsoft - apply SP1!

Does it remind you of "There's a hole in my bucket"?

Where now - Linux maybe?

Safari Beta

I am a late adopter. I like to let somebody else do the basic development. However, I have been receiving complaints about the speed of Firefox, so when I read about Safari, the fastest browser on the planet, I thought I'd give the beta a try.
Here are my very initial (and final) findings:

• Its a LOT slower than Firefox (loading anyway)
  
• The title bar is missing
• I cannot type into it - neither the address bar, or the google forms (I got to google via one of the drop down buttons)
• It is now stalled

and will soon be un-in-stalled.

I'm not a fan of Apple Inc hype, and this just proves the point. Maybe I'll try again in October, but I doubt it.

Talking to a Computer, and other random things

I came across this it really did make me laugh, you should watch all the watch to the end!
I've tried voice recognition software before, both about 10 years ago, and about two years ago. They hadn't changed much, and the experience of the guy in the video is about on a par with mine. This is not a technology for the feint hearted, or those in a hurry.

I'm not usually one to laugh at others mis-fortune, but the First Bugatti Veyron Accident also made me smile. Perhaps that was because the guy walking past could be mistaken for Jeremy Clarkson, who was asking to borrow one on Top Gear the other day. (James May's test drive is here.)

So many good plans - then reality

I came home from the office with the evening nicely scheduled:

• Eat
• Work Meeting
  
• Pray
• Letter for Church Magazine
• TV-"Waking the dead".
• Review writeup of Placement

Forget it!

Reality is that the loft latch is broken. After much fiddling I decide that I never did understand how it was supposed to work and a new one would be required. So I have nailed it shut - just for now. I can't leave it open because someone will walk into it and injure themselves - most probably ME. Normally this would not be a problem, but this week I was expecting to get stuff out - for permanent removal, and put stuff back, for later permanent removal. I too keep loads of stuff. My treasures are usually old and nearly useless, but after Friday, theres one thing I am keeping.

Last Friday I went to our friends mother to try to fix her PC. Our friends are in Tanzania, and e-mail is her main way of keeping in touch. It was a lot older than I was expecting. It took me a while to work out how to get the cover off. I haven't seen one like that for about 6 years (and it was being thrown out then). Anyway after removing the hard disk and cables and putting them back (the logical way) the system booted fine. The old PC I have works fine, its just too old for the modern applications, but it will do browsing and e-mail - no problem. So I'll keep it - just in case she, or someone like her need a replacement.

With my plans for the evening, and perhaps the week disrupted already, I'm listening to Norah Jones - "not too late" which arrived today. Then I'll get on with catching up - as always.

New PC's

The new PC has arrived and is mostly built. The data is moved across from the old one. E-mail clients have been persuaded to work, and mail has been migrated. Not everything is there, but it's basically usable. It arrived Wednesday, and the updates from Microsoft were added slowly, applications Thursday (MS Office, open office, serif page plus etc, iTunes, spyware protection, more updates) Friday - more applications (namo webeditor, picasa, scanner drivers and applications, web camera, magix ...). Saturday was data migration from the old computer and confirming the backups can run and restore. Next it's a new laptop for Liz. Complete in not more than 10 words: If God had intended us to use computers, he'd have ...

PC? - Confirmation.

PC No not politically correct, but personal computer. On Wednesday the PC in the church office died, so yesterday another was constructed - this was already planned, but not progressed. So now we have a slightly more up-to-date model. We're running Windows 2000, and all's better, but it used up most of my Saturday, so the plans have changed. Instead of finishing my CCS project yesterday, it'll have to be this evening, and that's because of the other event that wasn't on the calendar - the confirmation.  

Confirmation One of my God daughters was confirmed today. There was something of a mix-up with the planning, but nevertheless it happened, and I'm very pleased for her - I'm sure it was the right thing for her to do. So that was Sunday, well most of it - a VERY good day.