random gripes from the chalkface
i have no intention of maintaining a regular series of blogs. this is purely an excuse to rant, vent off, or otherwise comment on various things that irk me. an 'grumpy old man' blog, if you like...
Tuesday 8 September 2009, 9:57 AM
new term, all change
a new term has started in schools, and i find myself sitting at home, wasting inordinate amounts of time on job-searching & drinking copious amounts of tea & coffee!
so why am I not back in school, I hear someone murmour at the back.
put simply, teaching is a thankless job a lot of the time; there's only so many times you can be called a w**ker by some snotty little kid at the back of the class before the stress of trying to improve his/her future weighs down on you.
that's nott o say i don't love teaching; i do. but sometimes you need to take stock of your situation, and look for something new. which is what I am doing right now.
only problem is, having been teaching for 7 years now, my IT skills are only as good as the National Curriculum. no matter how up-to-date I try to stay with developments in industry, I only have enough time in the day to stay current with the requirements of the examination system. which means that I feel pretty fed up with trying to find a 'real' IT job, and the longer I stay out of work (7 weeks & counting..) the more i find myself gravitating back towards teaching.. which would be fine, if only I didn't have to suffer that little brat calling me a w**ker every 5 minutes!!!
so why am I not back in school, I hear someone murmour at the back.
put simply, teaching is a thankless job a lot of the time; there's only so many times you can be called a w**ker by some snotty little kid at the back of the class before the stress of trying to improve his/her future weighs down on you.
that's nott o say i don't love teaching; i do. but sometimes you need to take stock of your situation, and look for something new. which is what I am doing right now.
only problem is, having been teaching for 7 years now, my IT skills are only as good as the National Curriculum. no matter how up-to-date I try to stay with developments in industry, I only have enough time in the day to stay current with the requirements of the examination system. which means that I feel pretty fed up with trying to find a 'real' IT job, and the longer I stay out of work (7 weeks & counting..) the more i find myself gravitating back towards teaching.. which would be fine, if only I didn't have to suffer that little brat calling me a w**ker every 5 minutes!!!
Tuesday 10 March 2009, 8:28 AM
Ubuntu 8.10 up & running!
After a 4/5 week wait for parts, a HDD caddy, interposer & mounting screws kit finally arrived yesterday...
The interposer fits nicely, and the mounting screws hold the drive in its caddy, but... the caddy is for HDD bay 1, whereas I asked for a caddy to fit bay 2!!! & the screws that hold the drive in its caddy are NOT the same screws that fix the caddy into the bay!!!
Still, a bit of jiggery-pokery (thats a technical term...) & I got the HDD installed.
Onto the fun part...
Initially, I had a few problems installing Ubuntu - for some reason neither of my drives were recognised (probably the ill-fitting caddy...)
but after leaving it to go have a cup of tea, I poked the drives, tried again, and about 25 minutes later found myself in my new OS!!
about 250 updates later, plus upgrading the graphics card driver, its working quite nicely!
Not too keen on the way that web pages are presented just now, but there's plenty to do before I can say that everything is finished.
Sadly, I won't be able to ditch Windows entirely - some programmes just will not run under Linux just yet, and I rely on Windows at work (& have to prepare a lot of material at home) but this is definitely a big step now!!!
Now all I need to do is give those buggers a call about sending the right caddy & screws!!!
The interposer fits nicely, and the mounting screws hold the drive in its caddy, but... the caddy is for HDD bay 1, whereas I asked for a caddy to fit bay 2!!! & the screws that hold the drive in its caddy are NOT the same screws that fix the caddy into the bay!!!
Still, a bit of jiggery-pokery (thats a technical term...) & I got the HDD installed.
Onto the fun part...
Initially, I had a few problems installing Ubuntu - for some reason neither of my drives were recognised (probably the ill-fitting caddy...)
but after leaving it to go have a cup of tea, I poked the drives, tried again, and about 25 minutes later found myself in my new OS!!
about 250 updates later, plus upgrading the graphics card driver, its working quite nicely!
Not too keen on the way that web pages are presented just now, but there's plenty to do before I can say that everything is finished.
Sadly, I won't be able to ditch Windows entirely - some programmes just will not run under Linux just yet, and I rely on Windows at work (& have to prepare a lot of material at home) but this is definitely a big step now!!!
Now all I need to do is give those buggers a call about sending the right caddy & screws!!!
Monday 2 March 2009, 8:23 AM
still waiting..
After my last blog about having to buy proprietary kit to install a hard drive in my laptop, I find myself in the frustrating position of STILL not having the kit arrive.
A quick look at my bank account tells me that I have not been billed for the ordered goods, which were ordered on 4th Feb. & a call to the company in question assured me that the goods would be despatched on 19th Feb...
well, here we are, 2nd March, and further calls to the company in question once again has led to nothing - a promised callback amounted to my sitting by the phone (not really, since there's a handset on every floor, but you know what I mean)
this had me thinking - what if this company treats their corporate customers the same way? On this occasion, I'm making a private purchase, but what's to stop me making a similar purchase for my workplace? If the customer service I've recieved (or not...) is anything to go by, I know I won't be using this service for work...
well done to the company supplying parts for customers of a very large PC manufacturer - you've just lost a potential repeat customer, and quite possibly lost D**l a customer too!
rant over - I'm off to have a soothing coffee!
A quick look at my bank account tells me that I have not been billed for the ordered goods, which were ordered on 4th Feb. & a call to the company in question assured me that the goods would be despatched on 19th Feb...
well, here we are, 2nd March, and further calls to the company in question once again has led to nothing - a promised callback amounted to my sitting by the phone (not really, since there's a handset on every floor, but you know what I mean)
this had me thinking - what if this company treats their corporate customers the same way? On this occasion, I'm making a private purchase, but what's to stop me making a similar purchase for my workplace? If the customer service I've recieved (or not...) is anything to go by, I know I won't be using this service for work...
well done to the company supplying parts for customers of a very large PC manufacturer - you've just lost a potential repeat customer, and quite possibly lost D**l a customer too!
rant over - I'm off to have a soothing coffee!
Thursday 5 February 2009, 11:30 AM
why...
... do companies have to make their kit proprietary?
I just bought a new hard-drive for my laptop so that I could play with Linux properly. as it's a fairly uncharted territory for me, I'd rather install it on a separate drive, so as not to mess with my existing OS (Vista, if you must know)
good intentions, brought crashing down by the fact that in order to install the hardware, I need an adapter (interposer) and 'carrier' (case to hold the drive in place) in order to use the damned thing!!
I just bought a new hard-drive for my laptop so that I could play with Linux properly. as it's a fairly uncharted territory for me, I'd rather install it on a separate drive, so as not to mess with my existing OS (Vista, if you must know)
good intentions, brought crashing down by the fact that in order to install the hardware, I need an adapter (interposer) and 'carrier' (case to hold the drive in place) in order to use the damned thing!!
