Al1UK.com

2 years since I started blogging, things that have happened since then:

• Got a car
• Got 2 external HDs
• Got a PDA
• Got my own VPS
• Learnt PHP
• Wrote a PHP blogging engine, and scrapped it to do a rewrite, which I still haven’t started >.<
• Got another laptop
• Watched Smallville Seasons 1-7 and now following Season 8
• Watched 1 ep of Psych and loved it. Now watched Season 1, watching Season 2 and following Season 3

Heh.

Prolly more things to add, but can’t think of ‘em now.

I’m now in my final year of Uni and my final year project is making an IRC client app for Android, written in Java. Should be interesting…

So far the GUI is almost done (*thanks the person who dreamt up using XML for constructing GUIs*), and the text parser is making good progress. \o/ Now a matter of working out how to add the text to the main window and separating channels with tabs. Wish me luck

So far in 4 days, I’ve had 3 incidents involving my car

First, a few days ago, I’m driving along minding my own business, I come to a tight road, and some muppet in the opposite direction decides to floor it, hits my wing mirror, knocking it into my car and cracking the wing mirror glass (thankfully nothing happened to the plastic thing keeping the glass in place or the car door!)
I stopped immediately but by the time I turned around, he was long gone. I just hope his car was damaged as well. It’s no biggie though, the glass works fine, and a replacement is pretty cheap.

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I made the mobile version Digg back in July 07 for the sake of learning some more PHP. Since then, I’ve stopped using Digg.com (shitty stories, shitty comments, shitty people, shitty site) along with the mobile version I made. Digg also changed around the topics and I haven’t bothered to update the code to reflect them. Digg also their own mobile site (m.digg.com) and I see no point in keeping my version online, since it hardly seems to be used.

But, I will make the code available for download for anyone interested in how it worked or want to make a personalized version of Digg Mobile, so check back soon.

Download the source

After the previous problems I had with Dell, it was agreed they would send me a new laptop with the WXGA screen instead. It arrived yesterday, and thankfully had no grain and was an LG (LPL0301) My excitement was short lived though after seeing the viewing angles on the new screen, it was only slightly better then the CTP model Apart from that, the screen was noticeably brighter (it actually started hurting my eyes) and had no backlight bleed. I do miss the extra space I had on the old WXGA+ screen, an AU Optronics replacement for the CPT one, and it’s a huge shame the screen was so grainy. Even though it wasn’t as bright, it was pretty much perfect for me Thankfully, viewing angles will be a rare problem for me, but maybe sometime in the future, I’ll get tired of it and get an exchange……

Another Dell engineer came yesterday with a new LCD but with the wrong part (WXGA), despite me explicitly telling the tech woman to put down a note the screen MUST be 1440×900. Seeing how Dell support is incapable of understanding simple english and my chances of getting this resolved with a good WXGA+ screen were so poor, I offered to keep the WXGA and get a partial refund. The tech team made a note for me to be called back, but they never did Another engineer came today, compared the screens and decided it wasn’t worth replacing the screen with one that had the same problem.

Also yesterday, on the advice of bma, I sent an email rant to michael_dell[@]dell.com. Today, I got a phone call from their Customer Relations Department wanting to know the solution to the problem.

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I got annoyed of the sparkly affect all over the LCD shipped with the laptop, called Dell support who agreed to replace the LCD. Now this is where things get funky.

The native resolution of the LCD shipped with the laptop was 1440×900, and naturally, I’d expect them to replace the screen with an LCD with the same res. Once the laptop was delivered to them (minus the hard drive ), I rang them up and asked for the part number they’d replace it with. I googled the part number, and it turns out that it’s a 1280×800 screen :o So I ring them again and tell them that’s the wrong part, and they assure me they’ll fit it with a 1440×900 screen.

Today the laptop arrives, I boot into the BIOS, check the video settings, and find the native res. is 1280×800. Feeling pretty pissed off and booting into Windows, I notice major backlight bleed on the XP boot process background, half the screen looks grey instead of black, and the shitty viewing angles. Feeling even more pissed off now, I give Dell support a ring and demand Dell replaces the screen or gives me a refund for the extra amount I paid for the higher res. screen.

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So my old laptop broke after taking a hit, luckily, the HD was not damaged and all my data was intact, although, if it was broke, it would have been more of an inconveniance then anything, since all my stuff is backed up.

I went for a Dell seeing as how they get good reviews quite often, and the laptops were within my price range. So I went for an Inspiron 1525, with the following specs:

Inspiron TM 1525 (N0652507)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5550 (1.83 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 2 MB L2 cache)
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
Internal Keyboard Uk/Irish (QWERTY)
Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator X3100
160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium – English
56.6k V.92 Capable Internal Modem & Adapter – UK
8x DVD+/-RW Optical drive, including SW
Dellâ„¢ Wireless 1395 802.11b/g Mini-Card – Europe
1Yr Limited Warranty – Collect & Return
1 Year Base Warranty
65W AC Adapter
6-cell 56WHr Li-Ion primary battery
2.0 Mega pixel web camera
Midnight Blue Colour with Microsatin Finish
15.4″ Wide Screen WXGA+ (1440 x 900) Display with TrueLifeâ„¢

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So finally, my exams are over for this year I reckon I did alright in them all, although I might do badly in my Software Engineering paper, but hopefully the project’ll make up for it lol. Holidays for me now until October or something Also, finally got around to buying Assassin’s Creed, didn’t buy it all this time because I knew I wouldn’t revise lol. Now off to watch some Doctor Who and Smallville Finale and then have a looooog sleep

Oh yeah, I need another job lol, might as well earn some dosh while I have free time.

Do want:

I think I’m gonna sell my PDA when this comes out.

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