the idealist personality

Missed a job opportunity this week. The job was for a lot more money plus a car, and was local. Aaargh! I was emailed details a day before the closing date, but I thought it may be a little dull, supporting schools management systems. That sort of job needs a person that's staid and thorough. I like to be creative and challenged, and I like to take risks. Not a good trait when looking after databases I fear. I didn't realise it was local or that a car would be included when I saw the ad.. Ah well. I wouldn't've been happy [I keep telling myself!].

I've put my name forward to be union person - senior steward they call it now. I just fancy having a go. The Head is keen to adopt union reccommendations when creating new job descriptions, which on the face of it seems commendable. Having a go between would oil the process somewhat, and initially that's all i'd be interested in.

I'm not political, though I always thought of my position as left of centre - dunno why! I hate activists or people with extreme views trying to force them on you. I think union newsletters etc. to be a complete waste of paper. I don't follow the news, I believe news is what happens to people in thier everyday lives, not much else is relevant.

All I've wriiten here fits in with my personality type strangely. creative, risk taker, having a strong personal value system. Sometimes you start to believe all that crap huh!?! ;).

and now for something completely different.... I've been getting into skinning - making my computer look totally different. I've been away from it for about 6 years, but have suddenly got hooked again. There's a whole new world out there at stardock.com. I also found a Longhorn skin that messes with your kernal - and so having no detrimental effect on system performance. So if you fancy a taste of things to come, this thing rocks, though I wouldn't reccomend it for the feint of heart. take a look here.

OK, I've said enough. Check out the fight club, er, I mean the comments... sparks are flying in there!!! :)

Service Pack Too Damn Slow!

Windows Operating systems are matched to the hardware they'll support. Microsoft therefore has just raised the stakes with XP Service Pack 2, the minimum requirements just shifted upwards, and our misery took a trip in the oposite direction.

Our school laptops, modest little 1G Celerons were happy, nippy little things until the evil SP2 made an appearance. Now it's treaclesville for them and what looks like an inevatable demotion to W2KSP4. Either that or run the risk of running naked through the nettle patch that is the internet.

MS have graciosly let us postpone SP2 'till next April.

Most home users would be OK 'coz the average system spec. there is high. It 'aint so for schools & businesses..

I feel I must pass on a tip I rate highly. Think of SP2 as a new OS. Wipe your PC and add SP2 immediately, then your apps. You'll get a far nippier machine if you do, and I can support that with my own experiences.

Greetings to Mari, Graeme & Nikki

seems a little.... humdrum

Worked late tonight doing bail support at the probation office 'till 7. It was my first time, I just filled in 'coz someone else couldn't make it, but you just sit there and people report in and you ask a set few questions, then give them another appointment at a fixed interval. All very humdrum, apart from the fact that I knew the first person - that was a wake up call anyway. I 'spose it's good that people are faced with thier peers when they're in trouble, just re-inforces the responsiblity factor. Something missing in largely populated areas me-thinks. Earlier we had a meeting with the Head and a union rep.. Sounded very ominous but quite the contrary, the Head is keen to go along with the unions proposals.

Last night was another late one - a meeting for the voluntary organisation i'm involved in - to meet the new head honcho. I was surprised to see it was a person I'd had a probation referral client from about 5 years back. She's only young and has gone a long way in that time.

I've moved into my new room at work. Next door to my old one. I couldn't wait any longer for a hole to be drilled to take all my cables thro', so I drilled a hole for my telephones myself, and bunged in a big network switch to connect to the servers indirectly. It's all up an' running, but as confusing as hell, trying to work-around all the minor changes. The main thing is that IT'S VERY QUIET NOW - and my hearing is slowly returning :). Plus no-one know's i'm there yet so it's been peaceful too. relatively. I actually had to think of what I should do at one point today.

Thanks for comments peoples. I still have some of those not-so-rare gmail accounts up for grabs if any of you feel like giving it a spin. It's the next big thing y'know ;) And 1gig storage is a lot of space to loose stuff in ;)

Must away anyway and get on with fixing this person's PC under my desk. I trashed my Compact Flash Card on it two days ago, so it's a freebie that's actually costing me money!! Ah well...

slow september...

Coo - yet another update to TMB [thingamablog] bugfixes and speed improvements this time :)

Bin busy, also making graphical stuff for my Clie - a lot of which are situated on this site for download. Thinking of making a dedicated page. heck - some people even make money from this sorta stuff!

upgraded to 1mb broadband as of yesterday. incredible - is my impression... pages load even before you click them!?! ;)

Fixing someone's PC for them [here at home] last night. messenger popped up and some strange woman started talking to me! I told her I was a PC thief and not who she thought I was ... but she wouldn't believe me! she just found it very amusing!!

We ran our first computerised test this week at school. An assessment test to predict GCSE Grades. You start the supervisor software on any PC, and the kids that then run the test pop up on the supervisors screen, and then automatically save to a pre defined folder. Next week is the final day of testing, when i'll upload the results files. 24 hours later the results are published to a web site for final editing by the school: correcting user details I assume [I noticed three kids had got their firt/last names the wrong way 'round]. You then mark the results as finalised and another 24 hours later a paper report is mailed to the school and the whole thing published [securely] online for generation of electronic reports to criteria you specify. Neat huh!. one day....

PS : I have 5 Gmail acounts to give away. If anyone want's one, leave a comment with your email address and I'll send an invite to you. [Hotmail seems to block the invites BTW].

layers - onion like, blah blah blah...

"A meme to peel aways the layers of you."

LAYER ONE:
-- Name: Mark Simpson
-- Birth date: October 12, 1959
-- Birthplace: Leicester, England
-- Current Location: Newtown, Wales

-- Eye Color: Brown
-- Hair Color: Blonde (an' sorta skin coloured :)
-- Height: 6'2"
-- Righty or Lefty: lefty (largely ambidextrous)
-- Zodiac Sign: Libra but I f'ing hate those things

LAYER TWO:
-- Your heritage: wot I get or wot i'm leaving?? [both - 0 :)]
-- The shoes you wore today: hush puppies that're about stuffed - thank god!
-- Your weakness: food
-- Your fears: crashing off a motorway [freeway] is one...
-- Your perfect pizza: veggie and lately spicey. [having a bit of a pizza fad]
-- Goal you'd like to achieve: just making up some new ones now...

LAYER THREE:
-- Your most overused phrase on AIM: hate that stuff!
-- Your first waking thoughts: I wish i'd gone to bed earlier so I felt like getting up now [as the kids pulling me out of bed at the crack of dawn!]
-- Your best physical feature: none
-- Your most missed memory: never thought about that ...I will now - thanks!

LAYER FOUR:
-- Pepsi or Coke: both, depends which is cheapest - addicted
-- McDonald's or Burger King: McD for BSE
-- Single or group dates: Single
-- Adidas or Nike: Nike if I could afford it
-- Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Got into a french version of liptonice: mango & passionfruit on hols this year
-- Chocolate or vanilla: Chocolate
-- Cappuccino or coffee: Neither - both get me high[per]

LAYER FIVE:
-- Smoke: nope
-- Cuss: when i'm pressured
-- Sing: ok - laaaa
-- Take a shower everyday: when I fix it - sure
-- Do you think you've been in love: fink so
-- Want to go to college: yep, but it's full of young mums :0
-- Liked high school: yep, strangely
-- Want to get married: only if you kill the wife off first ;)
-- Believe in yourself: no & yes
-- Get motion sickness: yep, from those darned computer games!
-- Think you're attractive: Nope
-- Think you're a health freak: Haha!
-- Get along with your parent(s): Quite close but we can't stand more than 1/2 day together...
-- Like thunderstorms: Yeah!
-- Play an instrument: badly: guitar, drums, piano

LAYER SIX: In the past month...
-- Drank alcohol: Yesh
-- Smoked: nah! [as a teenager for fun a handful of times]
-- Done a drug: No
-- Made Out: no
-- Gone on a date: no
-- Gone to the mall?: no
-- Eaten an entire box of Oreos?: no [whatever they are!]
-- Eaten sushi: never
-- Been on stage: yeah - no-one else was there tho' :)
-- Been dumped: nope, doesn't happen a lot at 44 for married people
-- Gone skating: nope, looking forward to broken bones when the kids are old enough tho'
-- Made homemade cookies: not even eaten any :(
-- Gone skinny dipping: nope
-- Dyed your hair: nope
-- Stolen Anything: nope

LAYER SEVEN: Ever...
-- Played a game that required removal of clothing: nope
-- Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: Yep. drunken in charge of a house full of animals an' a pushbike. boy did tose animals give me a hard time!
-- Been caught "doing something": Yep
-- Been called a tease: Yer
-- Gotten beaten up: Yep. as a kid for tripping up this really big guy for a laugh. He was huge. Just kept hitting the crap outta me! Luckily he ran outta steam before actually hurting me!
-- Shoplifted: Yep
-- Changed who you were to fit in: Yep. God that was crap! late teenager stuff ... y'know.

LAYER EIGHT:
-- Age you hope to be married: 140!
-- Numbers and Names of Children: Two: Emily & Ben
-- Describe your Dream Wedding: it was great!
-- How do you want to die: killing a dentist
-- Where you want to go to college: somewhere sunny :)
-- What do you want to be when you grow up: dead
-- What country would you most like to visit: Honolulu

LAYER NINE:
-- Number of drugs taken illegally: 0
-- Number of people I could trust with my life: 1
-- Number of CDs that I own: less than 10
-- Number of piercings: 0
-- Number of tattoos: 0
-- Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper?: not many
-- Number of scars on my body: 1 or 2
-- Number of things in my past that I regret: there aren't enough numbers

Fame at last [well almost! :)]

No references to baldness now!!! ;)

Just spotted a link to a forum post of mine over at PDA 24/7....

It's even got a picture of my toy!!! ...*chuffed* :)

Some Personality!

The Personality Test on TV tonight was good, Heather is a resolver... "Good at getting to the heart of a problem and quickly finding a solution". I, on the other hand am an Idealist... "Makes sense of the world using inner values" - hmmm - not so sure about that one! <local link>

School's back and it's manic! I'd forgotten about being called "simpson" by some halfwit kid. F'ing annoying and not something I really want to deal with... Then there's the Staff Handbook... in it is my job description - not that it's accurate or has ever been agreed! 1st responsibility: wordprocessing, spreadsheets and [can't remember] - WTF!!! Item 5: Copy Video tapes - who TF thought up that one!! - If they want an A/V tech then they should F'ing advertise for one! I work a lot of additional hours for nothing doing work that they'd have to pay a lot for otherwise, and they want me to copy F'ing video's instead!!!

I've said before about the quality of some of out IT teaching. I know I suffer from this myself, but why do some people have so much pride that they can't admit they don't know much about a subject? One female teacher last year was quite open with the fact. But because she wasn't afraid to admit her weakness, and asked questions all the time, in my opinion she ended up as the best IT teacher we had. The work her students produced was far superior than that of thier peers. I swear that two of our current batch of IT teachers wouldn't be capable of a B in a GCSE. Shameful really.

Well enough whinging for tonight! Thanks go to Nikki, Graeme and Dionne. Hve a nice weekend everyone!