Andrew Emmett

The postman said he might need a hand getting the box from the van. It rattled, it was falling apart and it was heavy. Upon opening I was dismayed at the computer parts loose. An envelope for the ram not sealed, the cpu with the bent pins and so on. It was punt on ebay though. Would it be worth it? The test systems had arrived.

My girlfriend and I identified the parts and cleaned the computer cases.

One of the case before…

After the cleaning with a motherboard fitted…

What I still find surprising in this day and age is the lack of security precautions people take. A hard drive had not been wiped, luckily for them we are not devious. I will run it through dban, which is is ‘Darik’s Boot and Nuke’, to wipe it. Not a simple delete or format, but a DoD standard low level wipe. The ram we will run through memtest to check for integrity.

After testing the motherboards and cpu’s, unfortunately one motherboard and cpu were both dead, but not surprising for the way they were packaged. I built one computer and my girlfriend built another using another working motherboard we have.

So was it worth it? Yes it was as we now have our test bed systems and the unrequired items we will sell.

Shake, rattle and roll!

August is almost at an end and the time has flown by. Below are my online contributions this month from around the web. As always the contributions listed are personal and not related to my employment.

Reading By Candlelight

Book Review: The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living
Book Review: The Elizabethan Secret Services – Alan Haynes
The Bookcase

Social Matters

Internet Overload

The Internet Protectors

Too much protection?

A mystery was afoot and Sherlock Holmes wasn’t available to solve…..

A bunch of graphics cards had arrived and I was all too eager to test them. Alas I currently don’t have a test bed system available, so I decided to use one of my P4 computers….bad mistake.

I opened the computer case and replaced the existing card and switched the computer on. It all then went horribly wrong.

The first hurdle was the motherboard ‘beeps’. Easily enough solved and I reset the computer ram and graphics card. The system at last would boot past the bios.

The second hurdle was the computer wouldn’t load into the operating system. Upon diagnostics I discovered I had badly corrupted the partition table. Drive c wasn’t being recognized and unfortunately it wasn’t a simple repair. A boot cd with testdisk to rescue a few genealogy related files to a second hard drive.

The third issue was a ripping noise. I had bent down and heard a tearing noise. I had completely torn my boxer shorts!  I was in no mood to sew and create a pair of frankenstein boxer shorts.

So with deduction, logic and a new pair of boxer shorts the case was closed. I’m already organising the parts to build a test system.

Until next time.

Just thought I would share some news. Within a couple of weeks I will be launching a free stock image site and it will be hosted here.

I know there are a ton of free stock image sites, but I feel I can contribute in my own unique way. All the images are going to be free. No limitations such as only licensed for this, give me a return link, only suitable for personal use or must be modified etc. None of that, just free for commercial, personal or charity use.

The quality will vary and I will most likely provide two versions of an image.  A small web friendly one ideal for people to use in blogs or docs straight away and a larger version for editing etc.

The important part is to get the project launched. Then over time to add more photos, improve the site features such as search etc. I’ve already prepared over two hundred photos and there are a lot more to follow.

So if you’re a blogger, web designer or just require a photo for a presentation this archive could be for you. Though I’m sure the images will be used for a variety of reasons.