Up and about

Up early this morning to get the alloys on my wife's car replaced and shiny. This will be followed by a full day of gardens, tidying, and cleaning. First stop is the garden centre for some soil, then the lawn, the polishing, the vacuuming. The list goes on.

Paused now for a nice breakie in Morrisons. The calm before the storm.

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That Friday feeling

Another week rolls to a close. It may have been a 4 day week, but it seems longer. Of course that's the last 4 day week until August (unless I take time off); back to a full 5 days next week.

We have a full weekend of jobs planned, both inside and out, so I hope the weather is reasonable for at least part of the time.

With any luck, by the end of the weekend we should be all clean and tidy in the house for the first time. Not to give the impression that we live in a pig sty, but we've been having work done in the house pretty much since we moved in, and as a result things get put in convienient places, not necessarily the right ones. We're just about tidy, and a clean on top should bring the place up to scratch.

Other than that, life continues on. We got little one down easier last night, and she slept through. We didn't do quite so well, but I feel I got a decent sleep, or as decent as it could be.

The tube rumbles on. I've finally got a better place to stand (no chance of a seat), so I can type with two hands again. Not that I have much to say.

There was a balled pair of socks on the station platform this morning. How does someone get to the point where they can drop a sock ball whilst walking up a platform? Surely they would have been in a bag or rucksack. Wouldn't they have been zipped in? It's the little things that worry me!

I'm not mad.

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An evening

I travel home by 2 tubes, 2 trains, and a car, arriving back home at 18:30. In the house there are kisses for my wife and daughter, and a quick catch up on a day in the life of a 16 month year old, then it's upstairs to get changed.

Once changed, I log onto the computer; however, almost as soon as I hit return to complete the logon I'm asked to run the bath. Off to the bathroom it is, hot tap fully on, cold half way, bath thermometer placed in tub. Then back quickly to the computer to enter a couple more passwords and get the system ready for action. No time to do anything though as it's back to the bath to turn the taps off.

Little one is now upstairs, and I take over. Undressing and disposing the nappy (thankfully empty) is first, then a carry through to the bathroom. We like a little wiggle at this point, being held upright and tilted from side to side before being plonked in the bath.

Bathtime itself is a fun affair! Splashes and giggles, penguins and boats. We always finish with some Johnson's bedtime bath, a quick tidy up, plug removal, and a scoop up into the air. "Kicky kickys" are followed by a wrap in a nice big, warm towel, and a carry through to the nursery for some cuddles.

As soon as I sit down, the hand is extricated from the towel and the middle 2 fingers placed in my daughters mouth, she then tilts over and snuggles into my shoulder. I give her a combination of cuddles and toweling until she's dry, then just some cuddles. At some point she'll sit up, look at me, and then give me a kiss. We'll then play a game of pointing at the things Daddy says, "Daddy's nose", "Daddy's eyebrow". We also play "cutie pie", if I say those words she'll give my cheek a wobble, and I'll do the same to her in return.

Eventually she's had enough of all that so I take her over to the changing table. First things first, nappy! A liberal dosing of sudacrem, and then a nappy; followed quickly by a pair of pyjama bottoms so she doesn't take the nappy off. Next up is moisturiser, so I sit her up and apply E45 or Oilatum to her back and belly, and then her face. The cream soaks in very quickly, so this is followed by her pyjama top before she's transferred to the cot.

Once she's stood up and settled I go and get the toothbrush ready before lifting her back out, sitting down with her on my knee, moving one arm down and to the side of me, and taking hold of the other hand. Teeth cleaning can now commence. I'll spare you the details. Little one is transferred to the cot, and Mummy called.

Mummy makes herself comfortable and prepares for feeding, the duvet is placed on her knee, and then baby is placed on duvet and snuggles up. I tidy up anything that needs sorting, put on some jungle sounds, kiss baba goodnight, and make a quiet exit.

I get 5 to 10 minutes of computer time, a quick check of mail, facebook, and a website that wouldn't open on the blackberry. It's then back to the nursery to lift up babe, make sure Mummy gets a kiss on the nose, and then into the cot. Blankets are placed, 'Bear bear' is handed to the awaiting owner, then there is a quiet exit.

My wife and I finally say hello, then I get ready to go out for a run. As I'm about to leave, there are murmurings from the nursery; nothing loud yet, but definitely there. I head out.

20 minutes later I'm back, and baba is sitting on Mummy's knee in the nursery. I head up, strip off my running gear, and before my shower get some "white sauce" (rice milk, but don't use the 'm' word), water, and margerined bread. A quick shower later I'm wrapped in a towel and cuddling babe to allow Mummy to escape. Baba is then re-placed in the cot, jungle noises restarted, and lots of re-assurance given before I leave.

A couple of minutes later I'm downstairs in a towelling robe, and we're discussing dinner. A couple of minutes later, I'm left with instructions to peel and boil some marrow (5 minutes, no more), and my wife is back up giving some cuddles.

I sort out the marrow and watch the last 5 minutes of Furturerama before taking it off the boil and draining it. I tidy up the kitchen, and then all the toys lying around in the lounge before sitting down and flicking through the TV channels.

Presently my wife arrives. Apparently, you hollow out marrow *before* boiling it. You live and learn. No harm though, the marrow is still hollowable, so I sort that out, pack them with mince, and put them in the oven.

20 minutes later (at about 10 pm) it's dinner time. We compliment dinner with some 'Doctor Who'. 28 minutes in (Sky plus tells you this when you pause, I'm not actually sad enough to make note of the exact running time) there's a cry from above. Off goes Mummy, I tidy up.

Washing up done, dishwasher on, benches wiped, I've just sat down again when I'm rejoined by my wife. We watch the end of 'Doctor Who', get a glass of water, turn out all the lights (and the TV), lock up, and head upstairs. The computer is shut down, we both get ready for bed, I pop into the nursery to ensure my daughter is still covered and comfortable, then we finally flop into bed, say good night, and go to sleep.

We're woken at 03:49 so I can go and give another cuddle (bad dream, doesn't take long for breathing to slow and I can put her back in the cot), before crashing until the 06:23 alarm rudely wakes me again.


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Twitter

I use twitter via google talk to set my facebook status. For those that can't follow the last sentence, apologies; I'll talk about something else in a minutes. Since last week, it hasn't been working. I finally gave up and logged onto the twitter site, and in small text it told me that the functionality was switched off. This, aparently, was due to a bug in the jabber api, was now resolved, and the services were slowly being returned to operational. That message was from Friday. It's now Wednesday and it still doesn't work. No more official updates, no eta, it just doesn't work.

When so many people rely on a system, even if that system is free, shouldn't there be a duty of care to ensure that the system is available? A service level agreement between the user and the developers. We'll continue to use this great service, tell our friends, drive traffic, you just keep it running. Ok?

Or, does the fact that it's free mean that we have no say in this, it's stuffed, it'll be back when we can be bothered, just wait patiently and shut up?

Just letting the user know what's wrong, and a rough idea of when it'll be fixed would be a start.

In other news, my daughter learnt, at the weekend, how to go from sitting to standing without pulling herself up with external aids. Walking also continues to improve. Whilst wobbly, she can move around the house quite easily.

We finished staining our trellis at the weekend, now all we need to do is re-stains the screening trellis ash black instead of green. A fun job for the weekend. As long as it's dry.

Slowly we are tidying, sorting and cleaning the house after our decorating epic. It's good to be able to walk into a room, and see things as they should be.

Finally, I'm feeling the hostile stares of the people around me (not really, everyone is too engrossed with blackberries, papers, and books). I got onto the jubilee line, and, amazingly, there was a seat. I headed straight for it, and got there first. As I was about to sit down a woman approached, we made brief eye contact, and then I sat down. She looks as fit and active as me, certainly not old or pregnant. So, tough. My feet hurt, and I'm having a seat. She got her own at the next stop anyway.

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Why?

Why must the flipping trains only run every 30 minutes.

Why must they shut their doors and leave the platform seconds before they are due to arrive?

Why must I forget to move the car seat until the morning when I'm in a hurry?

Why am I stood on a platform at 06:45?

Why?

All I wanted was to get in early to catch up on a few things.

Give myself a fighting chance on the rest of the day.

Why did I bother?

Why?
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Deep questions

In answer to a request, today we ponder 2 of the trickiest questions ever asked:

Are Bert and Ernie more than just friends?
Why does bungle go to be in pyjamas, but walks around naked all day?

Where to start on these thorny issues? Bert and Ernie, 2 likely lads having some fun, the bed sharing a sign of the poverty they live in. Always dressed in the same clothes (always clean, the pride is there), rarely leaving the house, these two make the best of their situation. Government hand outs for muppets don't meet the needs of the individual, and employment opportunities are scarce, but they do the best they can.

Bungle, and his pyjamas, is an easier question. Bungle is a bear, they don't require clothes, they carry their own fur coat with them at all times. He chooses to wear pyjamas simply for the comfort factor. Cotton next to fur in between cotton sheets. Lovely.

Hope that helped clear these issues up. Any more difficult questions, drop me a note, or leave them in the comments.

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A bit like my mind!

So far the only topics I have come up with are:

Water butts, and the amount of water we are using every evening to water the garden (about 50 litres)

Me, sleeping in the spare room last night, and my daughter NOT waking us at 5am for once.

A rant over immigration / emmigration. Apparently, 1.2 million people have become citizens of the UK since labour came to power. Some quarters are picking this up as a shocking statistic, and going through the usual hyperbole. Seperatly reported is the statement that 2 million people have emmigrated in the last 10 years. Now, combine the 2 stories in any number of interesting combinations to back up the arguement of your choice. Isn't news paper writing fun.

So, given that those are less than stellar thoughts, I reckon I'll leave them out.

Along with another complaint about the mis-representation of the bill to change the law around IVF. Apparently "Fathers are no longer important". Hmm, nice shock headline, but complete rubbish. The wording of the guidlines given to clinics has been modified to ask them to consider the child's environment when couples go for IVF, and to ensure there is a stable family unit to provide for them. All this does is make it simpler for same sex couples to have children (specifically lesbian couples, as gay couples weren't exactly short of a father!) Arguement against this bill comes down to a single point. You don't believe that 2 women can raise a child without a man. Well I'm not going into that one, but I do know some traditional couples that aren't doing that well with one!

As you can see, I'm not going to write anything today. Maybe I'll come up with something tomorrow.

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At a loss

So much got cleared up and resolved yesterday that I'm at a loss today on what to write about.

There was the guy on the train this morning playing his music so loud, whilst studiously reading the paper, that he couldn't hear, or see, the several people asking him, politely, to get out of the way.

Or there is my daughter's built in alarm clock that seems to have got stuck at 5am.

My health update:
Chcoclate - nil
Coke - nil
Exercise - 1 mile run

Erm, other than that... Hmm, not much. I'll try and do something interesting today.

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Slow running - a metaphor?

Line side equipment failure caused our train to switch to the relief line where we were stuck behind 2 stopping services. There we were a fast train, built for 100+ mph running through stations at crawling speed.

Is this a reflection of my life? A fast track system shunted into the slow lane, stuck behind those who dither and stop?

Probably not.

My poor, long suffering wife has to endure me tossing, turning, twitching, squeaking and snoring at night. She invariably drags herself off to the guest room to get some kip, but this causes problems of its own. The room doesn't get very dark, and by 05:30 is often too bright to sleep.

I do what I can. I slept in the guest room Friday and Saturday nights, and had the yawns to prove it. However, during the week I need the shower room, so waking is inevitable (however, thinking about it now, that's no different to us sharing a room).

All of this addresses the symptoms however, not the cause. Essentially, I've grown a gut, turned into a slob, and got myself a stressful life.

Self help books say that identifying and recognising a problem is the biggest part of solving said problem. Good, job done!

So, what can I really do? Well, this weekend I only had one can of coke per day. So far today (because so much has passed!) I haven't had any. The plan is to not have any all day, nor tomorrow, etc. Gut solved. Everything else eaten is fairly balanced, the occasional choccy bar goes hand in hand with the coke, so stop one, you stop both.

Next step is exercise. I used to run. Now I pro-nate, have bad knees, and get out of breath running upstairs. Solve the gut, solve some of these other problems. I have the shoes for the pro-nateing, I have the support for the knee. Out of breath is just out of shape, hard work fixes that. That's the easy bit!

Now to find the time. Do I get up earlier (current alarm is 06:23)? Not without going to bed much earlier! Can I fit it in in the evening? Maybe. That's what I think needs to be done. If I get home, change into running kit whilst running the bath, bathe my daughter, cuddles and drying, nappy, dressed, teeth cleaned, hand off and out it might work. If I hand off earlier in the process it might work better. Worries here are down to tea time for my daughter being over early enough to ensure bath time at an early hour. Also, preperation and cooking time for dinner needs to be factored in.

I don't know how it'll work until we start I guess. Only thing I can guarantee is that something needs to change. Stay tuned and I'm bound to update.

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My Mother was a taylor, my Father was a smith

When I was a younger man, I played the guitar. Not so much these days, the closest I came recently was the one and only go I've had on guitar hero! However, my youth say much guitar playing. Those were the days of the mighty Ph7!

It started in school, I was talking to a friend one day (I believe we were queueing to watch a school "talent show"), and he mentioned his guitar playing, and before long we were talking about forming a band. We knew a drummer (without a drumkit), and I got a bass. We were away. Over time I traded the bass for a guitar, passing the bass duties to another friend making us a 4 piece.

We started on covers, "Highway to Hell", "Another Brick in the Wall (part 2)", amongst others, before moving into writing are own. Some of the greatest unheard songs of our time were created! Our grand finale was at a birthday of a friend of ours. His house had a large cellar into which a large number of us piled, and 2 or 3 of our year's bands played. Our version of "The Ace of Spades" is still talked about today.

As for the titleof this post, one of the songs we used to play was "House of the rising sun", and whilst transcribing the line "My Mother was a tailor" I spelt it wrong. This, obviously, led to the version above and much hilarity.

Upon leaving school, I tried a couple of times to form a band at uni, but nothing came of it. Not living on campus, and therefore not having access to a drumkit put a hold on things. I still played a lot, but only to taped recordings, or straight off sheet music.

It was a couple of years later, at work, I got talking to one of the helpdesk girls on a night out, and she mentioned that she sang, and was interested in performing. We got together, with another friend of hers who also sang, and I started transcribing music for just an acoustic guitar and singer. We were pretty good. We played a couple of bars at open mike nights, and generally had a good time.

Fast forward another couple of years, and I've moved to St. Albans, met up with another singer, transcribed a couple of her songs, and am playing a mixture of covers and original songs at the various pubs and open mike nights around Hertfordshire.

Then I moved to Newcastle, met my wife, and became far too busy to find the time to play.

I was driving to the station this morning, and "Save Tonight" came on the radio. As this was one of the songs we performed, and a personal favourite that I haven't heard for a while, it brought a smile to my face. I now have a hankering to do our version of "(Hit me) Baby, One More Time" just once more!

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Canary wharf

I went out yesterday evening on a scavenger hunt. Walking 3.5 miles around where I work answering various trivia questions about the area.

It was an absolutely perfect evening, and we partook of a couple of bars on the way; sitting in the sun, watching the world go by.

At the end, we all met in a pub on the very outskirts of the wharf and enjoyed a BBQ, drinks, and some socialising. All very enjoyable.

Unfortunately, due to my travel constraints, I couldn't stay late, and left around 9:20. As I walked back to the tube it was early twilight, all the lights were on, and it was reasonably quiet (as quiet as I've seen the wharf get). I passed through a park at the west end of the wharf, and it struck me. This is a really great place. It's tidy, clean, well laid out, well maintained. Clearly someone thought about these things when designing it. As I walked through the park, 1 canada square was framed perfectly in front of me, the other buildings framing that. Everything was carefully lit, and clearly set to look good. I exited onto a tree lined boulevard before making my way past limestone buildings and on down to the tube. The open spaces in front of the tube allowing a great view of all the surrounding towering buildings. All of the buildings are distinctive in some way, colours, frosting, shape and style all come together to create this place I work in.

I believe I'm quite lucky.

The mood was kind of ruined when I got back to Reading and found no train, and a delay of 57 minutes. I gave up, got a bus part way, and walked the rest. Finally got to bed at 12:30. Strangely, I'm a bit tired today.

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Trains and hayfever

I could rant about trains that don't arrive on time causing you to miss your interchange and forcing you to sit around for 25 minutes as a result. But I won't. There isn't much point. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's annoying when it happens, but I rarely think about it when it doesn't.

Also, hayfever. Annoying. You would have thought that by now, as a species, we would have evolved away the sneezing attacks we get from pollen. It happens every year, there must be some form of immunity we could have built up over generations and passed along.

Thankfully it seems to be subsiding as the week progresses.

Speaking of which, I had Monday off, did a 14.5 hour day yesterday, and am now knackered. It's only Wednesday. Roll on the weekend. Oh, and cooler nights so I can shut the window and not get woken by birdsong at 04:00!

Oh well, another day, another set of meetings.

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New visitors

I sent out an e-mail yesterday evening to a reasonably large amount of people pointing them here. Only now is that decision registering. Some of them may actually read this!

Until now only 9 distinct people have read this. 3 of them are me, 2 are my wife, 2 are at work, which only leaves 2 people really reading this thing. That's such a small number it had really registered. I was only really writing for my own benefit, as it was something that seemed to need doing. I think that I shall just set aside the numbers and carry on oblivious. (At least until the number of comments goes up! (Doube bracket! Apologies about the comments, you need a gmail account to leave one. Stops me getting loads of spam))

I'm up and travelling particularly early today. I was sent an agenda yesterday for a cross department meeting today, only to find out that I'm speaking. It's at 10, so I'm going in for 8 to get some slides together and prepare a presentation. Fun.

I had an enjoyable 3 day weekend, cracking off a few jobs. The new trellis was stained front and back on Saturday, and the last of our current plants potted last night. So, for the time being at least, the garden is complete. I got the table and chairs out for the first time, and we enjoyed breakfasts and lunches on the patio. Our one tree providing some nice cover in the morning, the parasol doing the job the rest of the day.

Our daughter continues to be cute, wandering around the garden with her trolley, occassionally stopping to wave goodbye before heading off to another part of the garden.

The computer hardly got turned on this weekend, but I did use the new micro keyboard at one point. It worked great, and the extra desk space sparkled whilst I used it! (I know, it's a keyboard, I'll shut up about it one day.)

Other than that, 05:59 is far too early to get up, but the tube is a little emptier 30 minutes early; so maybe it's not all bad.

Now, a day avoiding google analytics so I don't see the one off blip in visits!

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Another 3 day weekend

I've took Monday off, so I have another long weekend to look forward to. Hopefully this one will be slightly quieter than the last, and there will be a little bit of downtime.

There are still jobs to do; we're having some trellis put up at the moment, so we're hoping to put some protection on that. We've got a stone bench to put in place, and the usual housework to get done. All in all, busy, but hopefully do-able with some r+r.

Other than that, it's too hot for a suit on the tube, so I'm just going to read the paper and hope the journey ends soon.

One final note, I've been asked (yes, someone reads this thing!) To post the link to the daily dilbert without all that flash rubbish. http://www.dilbert.com/fast Hope that helps.

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Aid to Burma

There is obviously a large amount of news at the moment about Burma, and the aftermath of the cyclone. When there were reports of the tsunami on boxing day a couple of years ago I didn't think twice about giving some money. When it comes to Burma, I'm pausing.

It's not that I don't think they need it, nor that I'm hard hearted; it's down to the fact that I'm not sure they'll get it.

Burma is ruled by a military junta, a corrupt and self-serving regime who have, so far, denied access to all western aid organisations. The call, so far, is, "Send us money, and we'll make sure it goes to the right place." Now, call my cynical, but that doesn't fill me with confidence. The military junta have already shown, in recent, and not so recent, history, that they prefer a contolled population over a happy one. They have also been known not to invest in the people, and to divert public funds for their own purposes.

So, the moral and right thing to do is help, but if you can't be sure (I realise you can never be *sure* your money is going to the right place, but in this instance, I believe it is more likely not to) that your donation will be used to help people, what should you do?

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So many half formed posts, so little to write

I have to give an important presentation today which is kind of overwhelming my mind. So every time I try to think of something to write, it kind of forms, and is then moved aside by the thought of presenting again.

I'm not worried per se, I know my subject matter, and it's only 10 minutes. It's an update on a situation, not a request nor a radical new idea. However, the audience is made up of fairly important people, and the update is not terribly good news!

I suppose I'm lucky in a way. Coming up through the realms of support I was always the one to attend to the director level problems, providing support for various business systems to the MD and others. The one thing this taught me is that they are just human too. Also, they never know as much as me when it comes to technology. Their job is budgets, stats, finances, mine is technology. I'll just need to bear in mind that I'm right, the data is right, and I know what I'm talking about.

So, that out the way, my little keyboard will arrive today, and another piece of valuable real estate on the desk will be cleared. I'm excited in the way only a geek could be!

Four day week, 50% through (counting get ups), with another 3 day weekend to look forward to (I've took Monday off). Doing ok so far with the getting up, but it's beginning to hurt again.

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Busy bank holiday weekend

Short of listing the huge amount of jobs done over the weekend I don't think I can convey just how much was done. However, lists are boring, so I won't.

Our garden is looking much better, everything that currently needed planting has been planted, the lawn is edged with wooden borders, and cut too! It all looks very good. I can hold my head up amongst the other neighbourhood men, and scowl at those with inferior gardens!

I also managed to clear the majority of junk out of my garage, so negotiating from the front to the back is no longer a treacherous death trap. Still some tidying work to be done here, but the overall effect is good so far. 2 of the bookcases in the garage got moved to the shed allowing for more storage options in there, and a clearer floor space in the garage.

Also achieved was a complete re-arrangement of the study, the old server monitor is gone, the 2 widescreen monitors setup properly, all the other electrical stuff tidyied up, and all the paperwork sorted out and filed. The end result is an area much more condusive to work. There are still 3 crates to sort out, and the bookshelves need going through and clearing, but all in all it was a worthwhile exercise.

I've also ordered a mini keyboard for the server. I only use the keyboard for startup and shutdown, and when it's broke (rarely), so having a whole keyboard sitting on the desk seemed wasteful. Out it goes, and a little USB keyboard can sit on top of the server for those rare occasions when it's needed. One more bit of desk real estate reclaimed.

Plenty other jobs have been achieved, but those are the major items. I've taken next Monday off too, so hopefully a few more jobs can get knocked off, and I can have a little time to enjoy the fruits of my labours!

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Techie update 2 (last one, promise)

It's all finally fixed. Turns out that the aspect ratio is calculated using tcprobe which is part of transcode. Transcode is compiled to use imagemagick libraries for speed, and was dependant on libMagick9. When I upgraded to imagemagick 6.4.0 the library became libMagick10 and the dependancy failed. One quick recompile later and the problem was resolved.

As a bonus, the -e errors I was getting were down to variables not being grepped from the tcprobe output, so the recompile fixed those too and the whole script is back to full function.

I now promise to blog about something else!

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Techie update

(As I know my wife can hardly wait!)

I finally solved the problem I wrote about yesterday. Turned out to be a catalogue of errors.

First, the configure script for imagemagick hard codes the line 'result_ghostscript_font_dir='none'.

It was also missing some double quotes around the point where it sets the variable to display on the next line. Turns out it was working anyway, just not telling me it had found the right directory.

The script I use to convert files into DVDs was still telling me that I had no ghostscript font support. Turns out it uses 'convert -list type' to determine fonts, in 6.4.0 this functionality has been moved to 'convert -list font'.

One final correction was needed, once the output of 'convert -list font' has been read it gets the locations of an xml file, the format of this has changed (I guess), so an awk was needed to get the correct output from the file.

I still have problems with the script not inputting aspect ratio into the final xml sheet, and a number of -e errors relating to echo statements, but things work enough to allow me to create DVDs again.

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2 monitors

I've bought myself a second monitor for home. I now have 2 20 inch widescreen displays sat next to each other (rather messily at the minute) on my desk.

The plan now is to remove my small 17 inch monitor, and plug the server into one of the spare ports on the 20 inch ones. I can then tidy up the various router, switches, and other bits of various stuff, and ultimately claim some space back on the desk itself.

Even I was surprised at how easy it was to setup. I plugged the monitor in whilst booted up and logged on, opened 'Monitor and display', ticked the box to indicate a 2nd monitor, selected the drop down to choose I wanted 2 desktops, not one stretched across the screen, chose my monitor type from the drop down (it was listed, something that has *never* happened under windows), clicked ok, logged out, chose restart x sever (not the box, just the window manager), eh voila! It all worked. I'd made a minor error by plugging the left one into the right socket and vice versa, but rather than fix that I just entered 'Monitor and display' again and dragged the second screen to the left of the first. Another logoff, restart, logon, and the problem was resolved.

I've done 2nd monitors for a while at work, and to acheive the same functionality I've always had to install manufacturers software. On linux all of this was built into the OS. There was no command line hacking of config files (I've done that in the past, but there was no need this time), nothing to install, it just worked. As it's meant to.

Now I just need the weekend to tidy up and get everything in its new place.

Seperately, and to show the flip side of linux, I'm struggling with a piece of software called imagemagick. I've had problems with this software before, but managed to get it sorted (although I can't remember how). I have a script that executes a number of tasks to automate turning media files into DVDs. One of the things it does is create the menus, for which it needs imagemagick to input the text. When I upgraded the other day to kubuntu 8.04 my version of imagemagick was overwritten with one not compiled to use ghostscript fonts (key for creating text). Not a problem I thought, so I downloaded the code for imagemagick, made sure the ghostscript fonts were where it expected them to be, and ran configure. It comes back with ghostscript fonts - none.

It doesn't matter what I do here, I can add a parameter to the program specifically telling it where the fonts are, it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference. The code always comes back with ghostscript fonts - none. I've even stepped through the relevant bit of configure line by line, and it works! However, somewhere between finding the fonts and getting to the end it breaks, and will not compile with ghostscript fonts. This is not making me happy. There has to be a bug somewhere, but I can't find it, and until I have a moment of brilliance, I can't make any new DVDs.

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