grantdickins.co.uk

Tech

iPhone 4 vs Evo

by Grunt on Jun.30, 2010, under Real Life, Tech

Actually, this is almost true for the HTC Desire too (except for the 4G) But it still is better than the iPhone 4.

YouTube Preview Image

Bloody iSheep fucktards…

Leave a Comment :, , , , , more...

TED Talk: Sixth Sense

by Grunt on Feb.05, 2010, under Tech

This is just amazing.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/481

I’ve never really watched any TED Talks but…wow!
Fair enough, walking around with such a device would make you look like a complete looser… But I already am. YAY!

Leave a Comment :, , more...

PC blew up

by Grunt on Mar.22, 2009, under Geek, Tech

It was obviously so universally unbelievable that Kal was going to do ironing that as soon as he turned the iron on, it tripped ALL the sockets in the flat.

All the computers turn off, the cooker and microwave off (Damn having to set the clock on them again) and of course the iron doesn’t turn on.

But damn! hate when power cuts happen… so just power the pc’s back up and get on with the morning.
Kal’s pc back on. Even the server comes up fine – and its flakey at the best of times.
But my PC, doesn’t come back :(

We figure, some power supplies have a feature which puts it on a timeout untill any surges are over. So we left it for 10min but still doesn’t come back on.

I’m fucking gutted. Bad case: Power supply is gone. thats £70. but its got 5 year warranty.
Worse case: its fried my power supply, motherboard and CPU.
Even worse: Fried PSU, Mobo, CPU, and hard drives…

Kal went up to his parents at lunch time that day to dig out his old power supply so I could test my machine to find out what was broke.

That evening, rip out my duff PSU and try Kal’s one in it. All plugged in and ready to go… nothing.

DAMMIT! that means the motherboard is fried. My baby is dead :(
Dunno if CPU is gone, can’t test that yet. So now I’m hooked up with our mediabox, case ripped off and a stack of harddrives sitting on top with a tangle of cables hooked in. So at least my hard drives still work :)

Will see about returning the PSU under warranty, but i’m gonna have to get new motherboard and see about CPU. oh and RAM! fuck :(

Leave a Comment :, , more...

Another new hard drive…

by Grunt on Feb.20, 2009, under Geek, Tech

Yes boys and girls, im a Gigabyte Junkie. Or this time, i should say Terrabyte junkie!
OH yes! Went and got me one of them 1TB Drives earlier this week, delivered yesterday and took all night to format.

Of course, those who understand the tech world of bits bytes and megabytes, will understand that hard drives need overhead for the file table and such. Also that manufacturers use base 10 where kilo is 103 and giga is 109 etc. Whereas most OS’s use base 2 (2n) to do their byte to kilobyte etc.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibi#IEC_standard_prefixes

So basically, my 1TB drive is actually only ~931GB

And I don’t know what to use it for! LOL
Well, I do. My 1st 500GB drive is now full with TV shows and Movies. I actually split them up so its mostly jsut TV shows on the 500GB and stuck movies on the 250GB drive (Previously used for backups and junk)

Unfortunately, the 250GB is not big enough for the Movies alone, so thats now overflowing onto the free space of the 500GB drive which i don’t like because I’m anal retentive and like to keep things organised and together.

So here we have:
Vista (C:) and Program Files (E:) are my other 500GB drive. 2 partitions
Audio (D:) is a 200GB IDE drive – Just for music.
Data (H:) Stores my ‘My Documents’, Game installs, backups of some things, CD Images, etc etc etc…
TV, Movies (G:) is the 500GB for TV shows and Movie overflow (For the moment)
Movies (I:) is just Movies, catagorised by Genre and some even by director.
And then New Volume (J:) is the new 1TB drive ready to fill up with crap. Huzzah!

1 Comment :, , , more...

The World’s Coolest Fire Extinguisher

by Grunt on Oct.09, 2008, under Tech

This has got to be the most frikken awesome thing I’ve ever seen…in the last 7 days at least.

How cool would it be to to burst into a flaming room wealding this bad boy?
Ok. So it doesn’t look like it could hold much water, CO2 or powder. But fuck that. The sheer awesomefulness of this thing would make you look 10x better than your typical firefighter. Bwahaha!

[Source: Gizmodo]

Leave a Comment :, , more...

Work update: Updated

by Grunt on Feb.27, 2008, under Real Life, Tech, Work

IT SupportA few weeks ago, one of my managers came up to me asking if I had applied for any of the Job Spots that had been sent out.
The ones she was implying were the MPS Tier 1.5 job and the Tier 2 job.

Let me explain:

Tier 1 (Current position) - Sit at PC, answer phones (force fed calls.. it beeps, we start talking), Tell user to plug keyboard back in. User cant do that. Assign call to desktop support team who earn twice what we do, who physically go to the users desk and plug keyboard in for them. Get paid piss all…

Tier 1.5 – Sit at PC, dont have to answer calls, try and fix various problems Tier 1 are too stupid to fix themselves because they don’t follow the knowledge base solutions. Main one being “Fix – Use common sense” and get paid a little bit more.

Tier 2 – Sit at PC, dont have to answer calls, Try fix things Tier 1.5 can’t do because they havn’t had the training or permissions on the network to fix. Techically be a sub-admin of network. Able to fix most problems remotely. Get paid more. More eligable to be put on training courses like MCSE as its worth while for the company.

Now, the Tier 1.5 position would be good for me because of who the client is and the size of the service desk. This would look excellent on my CV and I would also then have the chance to move up to Tier 2 for that desk, in time.
However, the Tier 2 position would be for a possibly smaller desk. But the fact I’d be jumping up 2 positions looks really good. And i’d be on a desk that maybe is not too busy, which would allow me to sit at work and learn stuff and study for as many exams I can get my hands on to get my MCSE. Woop!

So at the moment, I have several members of middle management fighting over me to see which desk I go to. Its gonna be interesting to see how it pans out. I dunno which i’d prefer to be honest, but all I know is that the T1.5 job will mean I don’t get access to email people around work… :cry:

—Update—

I was approached yesterday by my Ops Manager who took me aside and flat out asked which job I wanted to take. I’m guessing the powers that be couldn’t make up their minds or something. But I guess it is ultimately my decision.
I don’t know. As said above, they both have their pro’s. However, I’ve spoken to to Team Leader of the Tier 2 team and voice my acceptance of the position. I believe in the end I will learn more on Tier 2 – PLUS I’ll still have email access to my friends. Woop woop!

Its actually quite a hard decision to make. I’ve never been in a position where I’ve had the choice of two jobs, both of which would benefit me. So hopefully i’ll be a Tier 2 monkey soon :)

1 Comment :, , , , more...

Space

by Grunt on Feb.27, 2008, under Geek, Real Life, Tech

3 Parts to this post.

1. Stargate.

Recently, I have been on a mission to gather as much Stargate on my PC as possible. Originally not for me. It was more…future planning. ;-)
Also, there was a new film just out, so I downloaded that also for the benefit of one of my friends who is addicted. I suggested I burn it to DVD and take it up for us to watch sometime, but she wasn’t up for that because it would be a waste of my time since I didn’t know any of the background.
I’ve never watched Stargate ever and true enough, knew nothing about it. But she has most of the SG1 Boxsets.
So it was planned. A weekend of Stargate!
And actually, I really liked it. So far got to season 3 and although the CG isn’t exactly great, the story and ties into our ancient past is very good.
I love all the stuff about ancient cultures and myths. I bought a book a while back called ‘Fingerprints of the Gods‘ by Graham Hancock, and learned alot about Egyptians and Aztecs/Olmecs and other past civilisations.
And I also love sci-fi, so Stargate ties these both in very well and I’m slowly becomming an addict myself.

But damn! Downloading 10 seasons is gonna take a long time and alot of space…

2. Hard Drive

Still based on Stargate… After starting my downloads of SG1, I hit a small blockade.

“…Error: Hard disk space full!…”

Oh FUCK! (continue reading…)

1 Comment :, , , , , , more...

New phone!

by Grunt on Feb.08, 2008, under Geek, Real Life, Tech

Last night I finally got round to calling O2 to upgrade my tarrif and phone. It took a fair while seeing as my contract ran out in September.
First time I called, some idiot basically told me that if I wanted one of the top phones, I’d have to pay like £45 a month on an 18 Month contract. Of course, I argued with him and told him I knew folk who had got the same phone I wanted for around £25 a month and got the phone free…

So I hung up.

Went on the net and looked around [Naturally, I was already on the net, as I am 24/7] and checked out some of the deals other people were doing.

At this point, I shall make it clear. I want the Nokia N95 Black with 8GB internal Memory. [Pictures comming soon]

So I phoned O2 again and got a lovely lady who said I could get the N95 Black on an 18 Month contract for £35 a month, with a tarrif of 1000Texts and 600Mins anytime any network. But i’d have to pay a one off payment of £99.99 for the phone.

Still not happy with that… but then she did the best bit. She said, slightly quieter than she was originally speaking, that I should call 202 again and go to cancellations and say I wanted that deal but have seen similar cheaper.

So I did that and instantly they were like, “ok. We’ll drop the cost of the phone and give you free bolt-on of your choice”

W00T!

So on Monday or Tuesday I will be recieving my new shiney Nokia N95 Black with 8Gb Memory and have 1000 txts, 600 mins and unlimited wap download allowance! Gonna be SWEEET! :D

1 Comment :, , , more...

No money, but me wanty anyway

by Grunt on Jan.06, 2008, under Geek, Real Life, Tech

Last night, in a bit of a tipsy state, I decided I was going to buy myself a new case for my PC. ATM, I have a alright, cheapy case made by iCute: iCute Case

However, as I say its quite cheap and its rather bashed now from moving. Plus it’s not got a solid feel to it. The front panel is plastic and feels like its going to rip off its hinges when you open it. And the bolts holding perspex plate on the side keep coming loose with the minute vibrations and keep rattling which bugs the hell out of me.

So, without further adoo, I present my latest purchase… (No not this pic –> ) (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment :, , , , , , , , , , more...

Looking for something?

Use the form below to search the site:

Still not finding what you're looking for? Drop a comment on a post or contact us so we can take care of it!

Visit our friends!

A few highly recommended friends...