mathiaus' ramblings

$frih up for grabs! · $frih up for grabs! in Frihost with 0 comments on Sun Jun 22, 2008 3:39 pm

In order to help promote the new politics forum, I am offering $frih in a new contest.

The contest itself is very simple. All you need to do is post in the should teens be allowed to get involved in politics? topic before the 29th June (BST). I will then pick 3 winners based on how well their arguments are put across (for or against).
1st prize - 1,000 $frih
2nd prize - 200 $frih
3rd prize - 100 $frih

I have chosen this topic as it can be open to everyone. It is not restricted to a particular country, ethnicity, religion etc. Everyone is likely to have a thought on the topic.

The small print
# I am running this contest
# Normal board rules apply. I am still a moderator and will remove spam.
# I will pick the winners myself based on how good their augments are, regardless of whether they are the same as my opinions or not.
# I will not be looking at one post. An argument can be put across over several posts.
# thadnation kindly created this topic which I am sort of taking over. Sorry.
# Posts posted before 29th June (BST) are included (including those before this post).

Have fun and take a look around the other topics while you're there!

Update on previous post · Update on previous post in Misc with 0 comments on Sun May 25, 2008 4:00 pm

In my last blog post (several blogs packed into one), I mentioned a proble I was having at work.

Long time no see.... · Long time no see.... in Misc with 4 comments on Mon Apr 21, 2008 10:35 pm

I'm back! Not for long though I'm afraid. I still have little time during the day and already dedicate my weekends to other activities. I'm currently here for two reasons;

1) I recently received my first ever inactivity warning email. Who would've thought I'd ever get one of those?

2) I wanted/needed to change my password.

It is this second point which has caused my a lot of pain and anguish over the last 4 days. My email account got cracked. I always thought my password was more than adequate though it would now seem otherwise.
After having successfully checking my email at work on Thursday, the next day (Friday), I was unable to login, receiving an invalid password error. Unable to do much at work, I had to wait until later that day when I got home to start investigating. Someone had got in, changed my password, secondary email and security questions. Lets say that I a less than happy. After some searching and general routing though the net and random help sites, I found suggestions, all of which failed. In the end I decided to fill in google's account recovery form.
When I saw it and it kept expanding with every option I chose, I though "What a bloody farce!". I have had my email for over 3 years so cannot the email address of the person who sent me the invite, what address they sent it to or my signup date. After filling in what I could, I submitted and got an error stating that my username was invalid. "NO IT ISN'T" I screamed at my (New UltraSharp 24") Monitor. Well I tried today at 'work' and it went through.
I'm not sure what time it was when it was sent, but by 2:07 they had investigated and decided to re-enable my access to it. How great is that?
After regaining access to my emails, I noted 3 from ebay. 3 laptops had been added under my account to be sold. Luckily, there was a fourth saying thay had detected someone else using my account and stopped them. Again, Fantastic!

A BIG thank you to

Google / Gmail
Ebay

In other news....
... my job is going fairly well. People keep asking whether it's anything like what I expected, but as when I went for my interview, I didn't have a clue what the job was for, its a hard question to answer. I'm enjoying it though and learning new things bothin through being taught and simply trying things out.
Problems encountered

Windows 2000 - for 2 users, their default printer is not kept after logging out. It defaults to another printer all the time. 100% illogical
After installing kapersky, it blocks the print dialog box in a certain application which runs in IE and is trying to print a PDF. 1/2 the security has to be turned off to get it to show.

If anyone has anyone ideas, please let me know Wink

I still can't drive yet. I've been getting reading for a theory test but haven't got round to looking properly for a driving instructor. Its rather important as once I start driving, I'll be saving myself time and money travelling to and from work.

A small review. I brought the Logitech Wave Desktop bundle. That's the wave keyboard and a LX8 mouse. The keyboard is only really ideal to those who just type. Playing games on it is dreadful. The rest does not slope down to the desk and the keys are in the wrong position for gaming all together. The mouse is fantastic though! I'm a deadlier sniper because of it. Twisted Evil

Hope you are all well,
Best Wishes,
Matt Very Happy

My new job · My new job in Jobhunting with 0 comments on Sun Feb 03, 2008 10:07 pm

Well, Armageddon has arrived and I've got a job Exclamation

For those that know me, I've been doing nothing since July. This means I'm used to an easy day. I'm not lazy, nor am I afraid of work, I've just become used to not doing so. I'm also known for being online quite late.

So yeah, the job alone will mean a lot of my time is taken up. There is another problem in that I currently can't drive so am relying on public transport. This means that with strange, inconvienient timetables, my mum is going to have to drive me somewhere to catch a bus at 6:15 am, arriving at Wrexham at 7am, wait 30 minutes for another bus, get there for 8 and wait until I start at 8:30. Its not as bad on the way back, but it's still bad.

So yeah, I'll guess I'll have something to post about tomorrow.

Please wish me good luck and leave any advice Razz

Matt

While I was away... · While I was away... in Misc with 3 comments on Sat Dec 29, 2007 4:41 pm

I wanted to work on a couple of things while away, including but not limited to FriMs and Blaster's (still classified?) script. My mum took her laptop with her and I'd already installed all my apps on beforehand (ages ago [php4 for example]), all I was missing was the content. Not wanting to give my password out to anyone, I asked my friend to send my 'backup' DVDs to me so I could extract what I needed from them. When they arrived, one was missing from the torn packet and one was corrupted, the other had stuff I didn't need on it. I then decided to ask my fiend to login and take what I needed and send it to me on another DVD (with a different courier!). Somehow he managed to 'break' my computer though and I couldn't diagnose on the phone so I told him to send it to me but with specific instructions. Needless to say he didn't follow them quite enough. When it arrived the CPU HSF had fallen off (Remarkably not breaking the motherboard or processor though. Looks like a screw fell out.) onto the graphics card which is now bent (though it still works but the heatsink doesn't fit on flat any more so it gets hot quite quickly. So I asked him to order a new HSF for me which arrived and then I fitted. When I turned it all on, it seemed the problem was with Windows and/or the HDD. Not having any tools other than a screwdriver from a Swiss knife like item (but cheaper, smaller and with less features), I gave up and decided to wait until I got home. When I got home I still couldn't do anything about it so have it in the post now going to a friend who is a self-exclaimed expert data recoverer (a title soon to be tested).
So yeah, I'm using a small, slow and extremely noisy laptop until then. That's life though I guess....

On the positive side, I got to visit Scotland. Where the positive is there I don't know but surely it's got to be there somewhere!

Coming home was positive. Whilst Wales is cold and wet, Scotland was very cold and either dry, wet or icy (the dangerously slippy icy!).