Enough Already (Part Four)

Well, some good news, and then some bad news.

Good news:

The PCs up and running on Ubuntu, and seems to be behaving itself. I'm back online, I've only lost about six months of data (I did an immediate backup of the new OS and data once set up, with schedules for backups once a week automatically to an external drive dedicated for that purpose now), and am now going about replacing Windows software with Linux equivalents were available. For what's not readily available, there's WINE, which allows some windows software to run in a Linux environment.

So, no real problems thus far.

And now the bad news.

I've had a crap night at work, and now this.

It appears the Land Rover's decided to be the straw that broke the camels back, and broke on me AGAIN.

The damn gears are stuffed. I seem to still have reverse, first and second, although it's a struggle to get them in - the gear  lever requires a LOT of effort to get them in. Third and fourth refuse to allow the lever to engage. There was NO warning. Thank wossit I'd finished work, and was only a mile and a half from home.

I managed to nurse it home in second all the way without even trying to change gear again, but I really have had e-bleeping-nuff.

It drinks fuel.

It's costly on tax.

EVERYTHING, even pedal cycles, can overtake it.

I don't know enough to fix it on my own, and jokes aside, the people who've helped me keep it on the road up to now haven't apparently trusted me with brains enough to learn from them how to maintain it, so I haven't the skills or knowledge to even attempt to fogure out what's wronmg, and I truly HATE having to rely on others to fix what I should be able to do on my own.

You can imagine how I feel about that, but I can't force people to teach me if they don't want to teach me.

So.

Enough already.

I have suffered enough stress, grief, and jokes at my expense about this damn vehicle.

I like landies, don't get me wrong, but this one? It's getting to be a rock around my bloody neck. I NEED a reliable wagon, not something that breaks down for whatever reason.

The above also means that it's more than likely that I will NOT now be able to make it to a pair of events that I REALLY wanted to attend in the next month and a half. And that's got me more than a little pissed off.

I'm going to sleep on it, but it's 85% that I get rid of the damn thing.

I have no bloody idea what I might replace it with, so don't ask.

I am obviously tired, angry, not a little upset, and not thinking too straight right now.

Oh, and just to make things even worse, I learned the other day that a friend of mine, who I went through basic training with in the T.A., has passed away.

Hows that for icing on the cake for the crap sandwich that's this weekend.

I really have had more than enough.

Enough Already (Part Three)

Well, I couldn't break out of that Repair Loop Of Doom, nor could I access safe mode. Further, even from within the thumb-drive mounted Ubuntu Linux, I couldn't access or break the cycle. So. I bit the bullet, aiming a crapload of rude comments in the general direction of Redmond, VA, and wiped the drive in its entirety. I then reformatted it, retaining the FAT filing system (why not, at least I know how that works - or rather, how it's supposed to work!), and installed Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS.

Thus far, it sems to be behaving itself. It's recognised my notebooks wifi & bluetooth hardware, likewise my printer was recognised too, which was a very nice bonus; previously, a few years back when I last looked at Linux, none of the above were recognised.

All I have to do now is figure out how to use this thing, install a warehouse-sized collection of my fonts (ttf format), and find alternatives to all the old windows software that I've hitherto been using.

This is likely to take a while...

Enough Already (Part two)

Awrighty, then...

Well, I got bored trying to sleep, so booted up the machine using the thumb drive. Whoopee, it worked (F12, got into the bios, changed it to boot from USB , and BINGO, Ubuntu Linux was on the display).

The bad news is that it looks like the hard drive may well be completely shagged. Here's the error message I got when I tried to mount it in Linux:

Error mounting /dev/sda4 at /media/ubuntu/RogersBlant: Command-line `mount -t "ntfs" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=999,gid=999,dmask=0077,fmask=0177" "/dev/sda4" "/media/ubuntu/RogersBlant"' exited with non-zero exit status 14: The disk contains an unclean file system (0, 0).
Metadata kept in Windows cache, refused to mount.
Failed to mount '/dev/sda4': Operation not permitted
The NTFS partition is in an unsafe state. Please resume and shutdown
Windows fully (no hibernation or fast restarting), or mount the volume
read-only with the 'ro' mount option.

This suggests that it's got some form of fault that can only be fixed from within the system, and without being able to get in the system, you can't fix it. Catch-22.

To say that this is beyond irritating is something of an understatement.

Here are the cons: I may well have lost EVERYTHING on the damn drive since the last backup before the move - I can't find the one from afterwards; looks like it got lost in the move, along with the recovery disk.

Good news: My bookmarks are safe. A while ago, I began using Xmarks, a service I heartily recommend to one and all. It saved my bacon more than once, and allowed me to sync bookmarks between the notebook and my android phone. So, no bookmarks lost.

Critical 'PersInfo' files have been backed up regularly to a secure server on the cloud (obviously, I'm not saying where!), and I've been using Gmail for so long, every one of my contacts and emails for the last few years is safely preserved there, which is even better.

So.

Assuming the HDD is shagged beyond repair (and I've one more person to talk to on this), then it'll be time to order a replacement HDD from Toshiba, and install Ubuntu on it. If it's merely Windows 8 that's utterly failed, it'll be a reformat and disk wipe, then an Ubuntu installation.

Either way, I'll be playing with Ubuntu from now on.

I have truly had my fill of Windows.

Bugger off, Bill, Torvalds is playing, now.

Enough already (part one).

Windows 8. I've been told that it's like Marmite: you either love it or hate it.

In my case,  I've come to utterly despise it.

The damn laptop I have,  a Toshiba Satellite C855-25M, has become locked in a "preparing to repair" boot loop of doom,  where there is no way to break out without a bootable CD-ROM or USB drive. You cannot,  of course,  create one unless windows is running properly,  and I cannot find the ones I made when I first got the damn thing,  following my home move six months back. So. Borked.

So, I tried to find a bookable iso I could copy to a ram drive through my Android phone, or another PC. No dice. There aren't any. At least,  not for free. And since this notebook didn't come with supporting disks -  obviously a cost saving measure by someone at Toshiba - I can't use those non-existent disks either. Talk about Catch-22.

So. Time to get Linux. I've used a relative's machine,  and downloaded the latest Ubuntu distribution,  then created a bootable thumb drive.

I haven't the time to see if this will work tonight,  as I have to be up early in the morning,  but later tomorrow, I should have the time.

The intent here is to copy all my data files to a backup drive, then wipe the hard disk,  repartition it,  and install Ubuntu onto the notebook. A bit of research is required before I do that, to see if there are Linux drivers for the WiFi on it. Failing that,  it'll be off to a shop for a complete reinstall action of win8, until such time as I can replace that heap of junk with something sensible.

Oh yeah. This posting was performed using my Samsung Note 3 phone. Which runs on a modified Linux platform called Android, which has NEVER let me down.

My time with Windows is coming to an end. There are a number of choice words and phrases,  none of them complimentary, about Bill Gates,  Microsoft,  and the various Windows operating systems,  but suffice to say that I've had ENOUGH ALREADY (yeah, yeah, uppercase shouty shouty. You try keeping your temper with this load of technocrap).

More shortly.

On Smartwatches...

A belated happy new year, all :-) Hope your holidays were good, and that you got everything you thought you deserved the week before new year ;-)

So.

Smartwatches.

The next big thig, it seems, is 'wearables'. Now, while I, and probably many, many others, view clothes (especialy in this chilly time of year) as wearables, what the marketing mens is wrist-worn electronic devices, which are designed to impart lots more information to you than just the time. Offerings thus far include makes such as Android Gear, LG, Motorola ("Moto"), Sony, and others; the Apple thing is due soo as well, apparently, but as I'm not being a fan of that brand, you can research that thing.

However.

While the added functionality of these things is nice, the main hiccup with them is the battery life; my current wrist watch, (an analogue-face ex-army watch, as it happens) which is reasonably accurate, tells me the time. It also has an easily changable battery, and that battery has an average life of five years.

Were I to change up to a smartwatch, I'd want that watch to have a week-long (that's seven days) battery life at the very minumum. Now, I may be asking the moon here, but it's not unreasonable to expect a smartwatch to at least equal a mechanical wristwatch in its ability to function between winds of the mechanism - and the last one I had lasted a week between complete winding cycles. I would expect a smartwatch to at least be capable of lasting that long, given that it's supposed to replicate the basic functions of a watch, and only once that is accomplished, have additional fuctionality that is being touted as well.

As to additional functionality. Yes, interface with the phone via bluetooth. Yes, notify us of incoming comms, be they calls, SMS, email, Social Media, or whatever. Tell us the weather? OK, nice. GPS? Gravy. Heartbeat monitor? Cool (if you interface it with an app to call the emergency services if the heartbeat stops while being worn, even better!).

But hey, let's solve the absolutely stupidly short battery life issue first, eh? Frankly, I wouldn't be at all surprised that this is the issue that's preventing wider smartphone takup in the marketplace.

YMMV, of course.

Thoughts and comments appreciated :-)

R.

Here's another reason to tell Brussels to go stuff itself...

They told Coleman's to stop making French Mustard.

...Colman’s French Mustard is now unobtainable, since they stopped the line after 65 years, following an EU competition law ruling in 2001 after parent firm Unilever also acquired Amora Maille. It was told to sell the brand or stop making it.

Source (not sauce!): http://www.connexionfrance.com/expatriate-news-article.php?art=297

So, they stopped making it.

A brand that we'd had on the dinner table when I was a child - and which I'd come to know, trust, and even - dare I say it - love, and which I haven't seen on the shelves for ages. And now I know why.

Yes, I know that as an Englishman, I should prefer English Mustard, but ye gods, the stuff's a tad overpowering for the meat - it drowns out the flavour of the rest of the meal, and I find that all you can taste afterwards is the mustard! Which is why, when all's said and done, I preferred Coleman's French Mustard with beef.

Yes, there are other forms of French Mustard. There are even other brands, such as Heinz.

But NONE of them taste the same as I remember.

Brussels, my taste buds HATE you :-(

Yet another reason to tell those gravy-train bureaucrats to go stuff themselves!


* And yes, the title and suffix jokes were intended!

R.I.P. Transport Direct, the most useful UK Journey Planner for ten years.

Transport Direct is no more. It's been permenantly deleted from the gov.uk servers.

And I only found out AFTER the event.

To add insult to injury, they only gave us seven days notice that they were going to kill it off, too.

Transport Direct website closes on 30 September 2014
From: Department for Transport
First published: 23 September 2014
Part of: Making transport more accessible to all and Transport"

(Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/transport-direct-website-closes-on-30-september-2014)

More than closing it prematurely, closing it was a travesty of good judgement: Here was a perfect example of a working, effective, USEFUL tool provided to the taxpayer at their expense, a shining example of prolonged and effective competency. And someone obviously got green with envy at this, and decided to remove this thing that offended both commercial concerns and all the ineffective and thoroughly incompetent Sir Humphreys of HM Government.

A truly sad day indeed.

It now takes on average, five times - or more - the time it used to take to plan jorneys, all because of one arguably questionable and definately damnably stupid decision.

By way of example, I tried planning a journey from the west country to south London for Boxing Day, using public transport.

Door to door wasn't possible, so a lift at one end (the south London end) from the station to the front door would be required. Luckily, at the other end, it was a five minute walk to the station. However, It just wasn't feasable by any reasonable measure.

The National Rail site said there were no available services on boxing day, and the main Traveline website petulantly froze up and did nothing. I had to use Travelines mobile web site to get any kind of result, and the journey presented was a nightmare lasting "7:34" hours. Compare this to the usual daily trip of around two and a half hours, and you get an idea of the scale of the journey problem. To be fair, there IS a shorter journey of "6:22" hours, but it's 8 legs long and involves four changes. Which is still completely bloody insane.

This was only the public transport side of things. Now I had to check the driving side of things.

For driving there and back, I do, at least, know the route I want to use. In my Land Rover, it takes about two and a half to three hours, depending on traffic and roadworks.

So, first check, a date-filtered look at http://roadworks.org/. No apparent problems were discovered from that source, so I guess the Motorway Coneheads were given the Christmas period off, for a change.

Onto the journey itself, and I decided to give the AA Route Planner a try. Fairly reliable, although you can't set the time and date of your trip in advance, more's the pity. Nor, unlike the now-defunct transport direct website, can you set the maximum speed for your journey - a major factor when considering older vehicles on the motorways. I stick to a maximum of fifty in my Series 3 Land Rover, for both fuel economy and wear reduction (both on the wagon AND the driver!).

Anyhow, the AA said 74.7 miles in about 1 hr 45 min. About what I expected, distance-wise, and horribly optimistic for the timescale they gave. Mind you, the London leg of the journey went through places I'd sooner avoid in an aged Land Rover, purely on the stop-start factor - I know the areas they wanted me to go through, and traffic lights breed like flies in those places. Not fun. So, new route needed.

Time to try Google. Google Maps has a useful feature,  where you can drag the route they suggest to avoid places you don't want to go,  or would prefer better than the route they suggest. It's a useful feature for people who know where the heavy traffic spots are likely to be.

After adjusting the route to follow what I knew would be a less aggravating journey,  they suggested it would be a 75.2 mile trip, taking 1 hour 41 mins. Like the AA, you couldn't set your maximum speed.

And there's the main problem with ALL the current popular offerings from the likes of Google, Bing, the RAC, the AA, and even ViaMichelin; not one of them allows you to specify what speed you would like to set as a maximum. They assume you will be doing driving along at the speed limit of all the roads you travel along. That's where Transport Direct scored points. It was light years ahead of the competition - and there's the most likely reason it got killed off.

The current Conservative Government is highly critical of government doing what the Tories think that industry can - or should - be doing. And then kills off anything it sees as competing - even if only slightly - with commerce (and don't get me started on what they're trying to do to the NHS). Even if the government offering is supplying a service to which there is no comparable commercial offering.

Transport Direct offered two things that commerce CANNOT give. Comparisons of different modes of journey at the same time, and customisation of results.

The DfT were insanely fast to kill off Transport Direct, leaving no room for appeal or question: They literally pulled the plug with hardly a word of warning to ANYONE. Their quoted reasons for doing this are dubious, to say the least. So, there were a few possible real reasons for killing off such a useful service to the tax payer.

One of the more intersting ones, is that it competed with commercial interests. I'd argue this vehemently, for the reasons noted above - if anything, it was a catalyst for commerce to pull their finger out and do something useful. Which they haven't, as yet. In addition, they're not likely to, either: The public transport companies do not share with each other, and they give their information to the government only reluctantly and under contractual obligations - for example, train and bus timetables. They'll publish their data and timetables, often in limited format, on their own websites, but share with the other kids in the playground? Not a chance.

Then there's the lack of a single source of information to compare the best journeys side by side, both public and personal - train/bus etc, versus car, versus cycle, versus walking, and so on. There is no longer a source for this kind of information, following the closure of Transport Direct.

There is, as a result of the somewhat smelly way they disposed of Transport Dircet, therefore no easy way of easily deciding which journey is best for you to undertake, without knowledge of what's availble to help you decide (not everyone is aware of the choice options, and tend to go to the easiest solution out there, even if the results are limited in the extreme). So, congratulations, Sir Humphrey. You've done as your political masters desired: Killed of something useful.

I can only say that this is possibly one of the most insideous decisions the government have made in a long time.

It should NOT have happened.

It was NOT in the public good.

It WAS arguably most likely spurred by Commercial concerns not liking the fact that government was providing a service they'd never even thought of, FOR FREE at the point of delivery.

Frankly, there will probably, eventually, be a service like Transport Direct with its' myriad options provided by some company or other. But for a fee.

And here's the thing: They shouldn't be allowed to charge a fee for something you've already paid for. Transport Direct was paid for you through your taxes, using information paid by you through your taxes, using trained programmers, computer personnel, and equipment from within the Civil Service - paid by you through your taxes. It collated information from the Highways Agency on road conditions, roadworks, and so on; it highlighted possible problems on routes, public transport, enginering works and so on, and provided options, all from information you'd paid for through your taxes. So, it wasn't technically free, as you'd paid for it already.

And they took it away.

With hardly a by your leave.

Now that's not right, is it?