GonzoXL5's Blog

RIAT '07

2007-07-18T19:28:00.001Z

Popped along to the Air tattoo @ Fairford last weekend, I don't yet have a digital SLR I'm afraid so there's nothing too spctacular but I managed to get some half decent shots all the same

Its all gone horribly wrong !

2007-06-01T13:33:00.000Z

Well, it looks as though our vendor has decided not to sell as five weeks later she has still not appointed solicitors or let a surveyor in the door.

Never mind, we're out looking at some other properties tomorrow.

The Dell Dimension 9200 & Vista (aka The Good, The Bad & The Ugly)

2007-05-17T14:14:00.000Z

A while ago, a friend asked me who they should buy their new PC from - I've for a long time been a fan of Dell for their price/performance/build quality balance and so without hesitation I recommended the latest incarnation of the Dimension 9200.

Hats off to Dell for being able to build a nice Intel box with 2GB RAM, 500GB SATA (2x250GB RAID) and a 22" widescreen monitor, bundled with Vista ultimate this came to only around £800.

As to Vista - I began to get nervous when during the installation the machine flashed up a 'there is no disk in the drive message', this was resolved quickly. Following this, I experienced a very slick interface which took a huge (read monumental) amount of time to boot up.

My experiences over the subsequent couple of days indicated a number of issues that probably should have not have passed quality control (such as the strange way in which you need to import old Outlook Express 6 messages to Windows mail.)

I started to remove the rubbish pre-installed with the PC (time limited versions of Corel products, Tiscali/Orange internet etc) but after about 10 minutes the system completely locked up, I was about to perform a physical restart (power switch) when the system returned to normal.

After this was experienced a couple of times, we restarted - the problem persisted. A quick search on google revealed that this is in fact a much reported problem, by Dell users all over the world.

After a few hours of reading through other peoples experiences I managed to find the answer - it would appear that the Dell PC in question is shipped with a Phillips SATA DVD-ROM drive and that the drive has some kind of fault that periodically (every 10-15 mins) results in it locking up windows (for about 20-30 seconds each time).

There is a patch to resolve this on the Dell website but its only listed as an urgent flash bios update for the Phillips DVD-Rom drive, its not listed as a critical patch nor is the symptom highlighted.

I can verify that the problem has now completely vanished.

I like Vista and I think the new Dell 9200 is a fantastic machine but someone really needs to get a handle on quality control as the box should have never left the bench with this error.

Moving On

2007-05-11T10:49:00.000Z

With a bit of luck we'll soon be on the move to our new home woohoo !

Star Wars exhibition

2007-05-08T06:08:00.000Z

Thats all the photos I have time for at the moment,

If you'd like to visit the exhibition then you can either buy a ticket at County Hall or via http://www.starwarstheexhibition.com , on the website you will need to choose a particular day/time slot, booking fees are 1.00 per ticket and a further 2.00 to have the tickets emailed to you.

Meanwhile, I have been busy over on ebay putting up some Warhammer 40k Epic items as well as a few other bits & pieces that have been kicking around the house for way to long.

My ebay stuff

2007-05-07T19:01:00.000Z

2007-05-07T18:58:00.000Z

2007-05-07T14:30:00.000Z

2007-05-07T14:29:00.000Z

Star Wars The Exhibition - County Hall till September 2007

2007-05-07T14:07:00.000Z

The exhibition opened on 5th May at County Hall, London (Nearest tube stations are Westminster and Waterloo), the exhibition has been put together by a team from the Lucasfilm archives and is part of the star wars 30th anniversary celebrations

Most of the exhibits were in Glass cabinets making photography difficult (loads of reflections).
Taking pictures of your kids next to the cabinets was also problematic, due to the lighting, the stormtrooper costume camne out ok though.

One of the star attractions was the full size podracer used by young Anakin in Episode 1, the other 'super exhibit' was the full scale Naboo starfighter.

There were a fair number of starship models, although many of the classics were missing, of the classic rebel fighters for example there were no X-Wing or Y-Wing models, there were however a B-Wing and an A-Wing.

Some favourites in the costume department were R2-D2 and C-3P0, The Fetts (Jango & Boba) and a nice display on Darth Vader, including both a full costume and a case containing the secondary mask.

Something a little special was the collection of original concept drawings hanging from the walls around the exhibition, some were just pencil sketches, others were full colour scenes, all were dated some years beofre the relevant movies.

For the kids there was a green screen section where they can fight a jedi against a movie backdrop and a Jedi School where they are shown a few moves before being pitted against Darth Vader and the Emperor.

All in all a great exhibition, well worth the entry fee (£16.50 for adults and £12.50 for children).

Official merchandise is available from a van behind coounty hall, accessible to all (whether they paid to go into the exhibition or not).

2007-05-07T13:26:00.000Z

This is the first post on my blog, in a moment I'm going to try to upload some pictures from the new Star Wars exhibition in London.