deKay’s Blog

One of the 8723875234 jobs I’m responsible for at work is the running and upkeep of the website. So, it came as no surprise to get a letter today about the renewal of the domain name. After all, it’s up for renewal soon.

However, I was confused to get the letter from a company called UK Internet Register rather than 1&1 (the host), or Nominet. And here it is:

Even more surprising, was the money they wanted for this renewal - £639. That’s a markup of some 1000% from last year. Then, I realised that they’re actually selling “search keys”, which seem to be some sort of advertising. For £639!

That sounds like an amazing bargain, yes?

Anyway, so I looked up the company name on Google, and found this helpful blog post. Look familar? Basically, it’s a scam.

Shown here next to my (suddenly very small looking) MacBook. IT’S A BIG MAC! LOL!

At work, we use WebMarshal to filter internet access so the kiddywinks don’t access porn and games and MySpace and other Internet Evils™. As well as blocking access, all page requests are logged and anything that hits a filter triggers an email to me.

Earlier this week, I’d stopped getting WebMarshal emails (although other emails were fine). Considering I get a fair few each day, I realised that something was wrong. Either that, or Die Kinderen had suddenly all gone good - which isn’t likely.

Today, I finally had a chance to figure out the problem. I use Outlook 2003 to pick up my emails from Exchange (actually, technically, Exchange pushes the emails to Outlook, but anyway), and in Outlook I have a rule set up that catches the WebMarshal emails as they arrive and moves them to a folder called WebMarshal. I soon realised that if I turned the rule off, new emails came through. Reactivate it, and nothing.

Eventually, I noticed this:

And all became clear.

For those Not in the Know, 65535 is one of those Computing Magic Numbers. Like 63, 255 or 1023. It’s an upper limit, imposed by the way computers like to work in binary and stuff. 65535 in binary, you see, is 1111111111111111, and that’s the limit for 16 bits. So now you know that Outlook’s folders have a 16 bit limit on the number of emails contained within. Knowledge is power!

The solution then was easy. Delete the lot, of course!

Look what I just randomly stumbled upon. Amazing.

And I’ve reached the Grand Old Age of 19*. Hurrah for me!

I’d actually forgotten it was my birthday this week. Although I tend to forget pretty much every year, it always confuses me as I always remember my sister’s birthday which is just two days later.

Isn’t being senile great?

*For large values of 19.

Note to self: Never, ever, buy these again. They taste like minty vomit.

I took delivery of a new Dell 2407 widescreen monitor today. And very nice it is too. To test it, I plugged it into my MacBook, and within seconds I had a lovely 1920×1200 crystal clear display. Excellent.

However, things were not all well when I tried it on my PC. I thought I’d recount the problems here, for the benefit of others who have run into the same problem as me.

My PC has a Geforce FX 5600 graphics card, with both DVI and VGA ports on it. My old monitor (a 22″ Iiyama CRT) was connected via VGA and ran at 1920×1440. This new Dell came with a DVI port and cable, so I thought I’d use that. Connected it all up, and my PC dropped me to 640×480 - not unusual with a new monitor. I went into the settings and upped the resolution - to 1600×1200. Nothing higher (and nothing widescreen) was available. Hmm.

Now I knew the monitor could do 1920×1200, as I did on my MacBook. I also knew my PC could do above 1600×1200, as I’d run higher on my old monitor. So what on earth was the problem? I updated the Geforce drivers - nothing. Updated the monitor drivers using the CD that came with it - nothing.

Finally, a search on t’t'tinternet led me to the Nvidia forums. It isn’t just me. Other people with a 2407 (and some other similar models) and FX 5600 cards were finding the same thing. Luckily, someone found a solution.

To cut a long story short, Nvidia removed support for 1920×1200 over DVI from the FX drivers in 2003. Over VGA, there’s no problem. Over DVI with version 45.23 of the driver, again, no problem. So I downgraded, and it worked. Amazing.

Sadly, the performance with these ancient drivers was rubbish. You could see windows slowly redrawing on screen when you move them around, so I’ve reinstalled the newest ones and will make do with a VGA connection.

Tch, eh?

Lookie what just arrived for me! It’s a “PlayPal” handheld console, officially licenced by Sega and includes 20-odd Game Gear titles.

Not only that, but you can also connect it up to a TV and play them on that!

Update: If you want to buy your own, Play Asia have them in stock for a little over £15.

This morning at work, we had a Year 9 SAT exam in ICT. This involved two classes logging on to some bespoke RM-powered piece of software, which I have spent the best part of a week setting up.

We did it last year too, and it was a mess. The software was horribly flaky and slow, kids got confused that the word processor “emulator” wasn’t an exact replica of Word, and the 50 minute exam took almost two hours.

This year, however, things were great. 25 minutes into the exam, and not a single problem. No crashes! No freezes! Hurrah!

And then we had a power cut.

Not just any power cut either - oh no. There’s a field next to the school where they’re building a new housing estate, and some clever sod drilled through the mains cable that runs across it.

This was at 11am this morning. It’s now almost 3 o’clock, and there’s still no sign anything is being done about it, aside from people in reflective jackets and hard hats huddling round a hole tutting a lot and sucking air in through their teeth.

Which is great, since we’re a fully electronic school. Registration, whiteboards, lesson plans - the lot, all computerised. And we’ve got no power. Excellent.

On the plus side, there’s literally nothing I can do at work. Thank the lord for internet access via mobile phones, eh?