Sun, 03 Jul 2005

Sunday, July 03, 2005

 
Lots of stuff on this weekend. I spent some time at Dennis' place Friday night trying to get my old ADSL modem working. I bought the modem in Singapore in 2001 and have not used it since. I had a look on the Whirlpool website and found that I had to change the vc/vp numbers to 8/35. The modem has a serial port for configuration which you can connect to at 9600bps and presents you with a basic terminal interface. After trolling around for a while I found the appropriate configuration entry, changed it and luckly it worked. So I managed to spend/waste a couple of hours of my life to save $70.... anyway, next stop is getting an ADSL account.
After my success on Friday night, I headed to the computer fair to pick up a few bits and pieces to connect the gear around the home. I managed to pick up an Ethernet card, 5m Ethernet cable and a line filter for $25. Then I blew the budget and got a 40GB hard drive for $40 (using my elite bargaining skills, I got him down from $45). Some of the stuff looked somewhat second hand but after getting it home and it all worked. Hopefully once we get our broadband connected, I'll host some more of our photos on the web (A quick note to all those geeks out there at the computer fair, you can't control the Matrix just by wearing a long jacket... and it would help if you bathed as well)
Later Saturday, Jo and I went to see What the 'Bleep' do we know!?. Not enough time to write a full review, but it's definitely worth seeing although I wouldn't go when tired. It's more of a documentary than anything else and it draws on a number of fields, including quantum physics, psychology, religion, sociology and philosophy and tries to pull them all together. Afterwards we dropped by Martin and Mel's for a bite to eat and a chat. When we got home I found the access point in the roof cavity above the main bathroom. It's a no name brand broadband router but I don't believe it has wireless built in. Anyhoo, this was pretty useful as the port near the TiVo was not functional, so I swapped it with one of the other ports and now it works, meaning I won't have to run a long cable into the bedroom. Very neat. While in the roof, I also fixed the fan which didn't seem to be working as the laundry was getting very wet when the dryer was on. Also found the security system main hub.
Today I went for a jog and discovered that I'm actually fit enough to do this at a reasonable pace without stopping. Having the heart rate monitor definitely helped as it made sure I didn't blow my heart rate out too far. Later Rebecca from Jo's work dropped by for a chat and to see the new place.
 

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