TEE

To Anthony and all his friends about to enter the mayhem that is the yearly Tertiary Entrance Exam, best of luck and I hope everything goes well.

I look back on my own TEE many years ago and all I can think is "thank god it's not me going through it again!"

:-)

MSN / Windows Live Messenger a bit broken ...

Temporary fix for MSN Messenger problems

The following might fix connection problems to MSN Messenger's servers if you are unable to connect. This temporary fix reroutes outgoing connections to the server to a specific server address that's actually working.

I've tried it on my laptop with Windows Live Messenger v8.1 beta and it worked fine for me, however if you try this on your PC and bugger up Windows, don't blame me!! :-)

STEP 1: Click on Start / All Programs / Accessories / Notepad

STEP 2: Click on the File menu of Notepad and choose Open.

STEP 3: In the File name box, copy and paste the following line, then click the Open button:

%WINDIR%\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\HOSTS

You should see a text file with "This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows"

STEP 4: At the bottom of the text file, copy and paste the following two
lines:

65.54.239.80 messenger.hotmail.com
65.54.239.80 dp.msnmessenger.akadns.net

STEP 5: Close Notepad and when it asks if you want to save the changed file, choose Yes.

STEP 6: Open MSN Messenger and try to connect. Hopefully it now works!

In a couple of days time, try removing the two extra lines from your HOSTS file and reconnecting to MSN Messenger as this is only a temporary workaround not a permanent fix...

Birthday

As I was saving my previous post, I noticed that my blog will be one year in two days. :) I really need to do a bit better in sitting down and writing stuff instead of this posting once in a blue moon deal I seem to have fallen into.

What a week!

Wow - what a week it's been. First of all the news of Steve Irwin's death shot all round the world, causing many Australian news sites to go into meltdown.

Then we hear that author Colin Thiele also died. I remember reading "Storm Boy" as a kid, he wrote some excellent stories.

And last of all, the death of Peter "Perfect" Brock in Gidgegannup yesterday.

All three gentlemen were an asset to Australia and will be missed.

Party!

Last night I went to a party and had a great time. Thanks to Anthony for hosting and to Lauren, Sandra, Anthony J, Daniel, Nathan, Harry, Mr Paul, Todd and Jesse for being good company.

Today was a struggle, not enough sleep last night. My brain feels fuzzy :-)

Useless ISP

Soon I will be rid of the poor escuse for an ISP called Amcom. Since they bought out my previous ISP Arachnet, things have never been very good and eventually we'd all had enough and decided to leave.

Even after sending a fax on the 9th June giving clear instructions on cancelling my account and removing the ADSL line codes, they've still managed to stuff it up and while I'll have no Internet service from today, I'll still have an ADSL signal on my line registered to Amcom which will stop me from signing up with a new provider.

Let this be a warning to anyone considering Amcom as an ISP :-) I also posted about my experience here on Whirlpool ...

Red Shield Appeal

I spent the weekend collecting money for The Salvation Army's Red Shield Appeal. I learned a few interesting things from it.

• I'm nowhere near as fit as I should be. In fact I'm somewhere off the scale on the "UNFIT" side...
• Older people seem to be more willing to give than younger people. Those in more "affluent" houses - manicured lawn, perfect garden beds, two cars and a boat in the driveway for example - are less likely to give money.
• It doesn't seem to matter if you collect on a Saturday or a Sunday, both days have their advantages and disadvantages - on Saturday a lot of people aren't home because they go out shopping and on Sunday a lot of people aren't home because they are going doing sports or other activities.
• We can never find enough people to doorknock all of Perth... If only we had more collectors
• A good pair of shoes or boots are essential to doing doorknocking :-)

In all, I had a great time as usual - my team and I collected just short of $500 which was fantastic. In the media today they Salvos are reporting that they are on target to have $7million in donations by the end of the appeal.

I feel old ...

Reading an article on NASA's website about the very first shuttle launch on April 12th, 1981 I realised that some of my friends weren't even born then! Crap. It's times like that you just feel so old.....

I've finally splashed out and got myself a new chair for when I'm at the computer. After the demise of the one I scored from work about three years ago, I was relegated to using a dining room table chair which was too low and didn't swivel.

Now I've got a new one from Officeworks which is all very nice and leather-ey. Half price too, down to $99 :-)

Hair cuts

What's with the ridiculous price of getting a hair cut nowadays?

Out of the two hairdressers within walking distance of home, one of them has shut up shop and the other one thinks it can charge $23 for a simple cut.

Time to look elsewhere...

Thursday night dinners

We have a bit of a tradition in our house that on Thursday night, we have take-away ... since it's shopping night and all.

We used to alternate between pizza and fish and chips. But for the past few weeks we've had fish and chips every week. I was missing my pizza until we had it tonight then I was really missing my fish and chips.

Can't win!!!

School Balls ... and the weather!

Anthony had his Year 12 ball the other night and I've got to say, he scrubs up pretty well :-)

The weather's revolting at the moment. It got as high as 40 degrees this morning but then a band of thunderstorms came through, dropping the temperature but making everything feel like a sauna. With evaporative air conditioning, that means that everything in the house feels damp and clammy. Tonight's minimum is going to be 26 degrees, way too hot to sleep comfortably. Ugh.

Camping

Tomorrow I'm off camping down in the south-west somewhere. Haven't decided on the exact location yet, probably alongside a river somewhere...

I'm happy with my new car, the camping gear fits inside pretty well. Apart from the big esky for the perishable food, the two gas bottles, and my clothes, everything's in the boot.

My only dilemma now is I saw a 3-way fridge in KMart yesterday for under $500. All the 3-way fridges (they're the ones that run on 240v, 12v and LPGas) have been priced over $1,000. So ... I really want to buy it but I'm not sure if I'll use it enough to make it worthwhile... After all, the last time I went camping was October '04. Hmmmmmmm