Blog of Norman Ralph

Well, again - apologies for the length of time between posts. I really have no excuse this time apart from laziness and the fact I have had about a million things on my mind recently.

I wish I could write about whats been going on in my world on here, but I feel that the details and in fact the vaguaries of it all are not suitable for public dissemination as yet. As soon as I think the world at large has the need to know, I will share everything.

A few things I can update on are CompSoc, A-Soc, my new tech set up (work in progress) and a few bits of gossip and general gubbins.

Firstly, CompSoc - well things have been relatively quiet recently as we have been focussing on the administrative side of things. Something we found necessary following our President’s (Sam Oakley) house getting broken into and all their laptops getting stolen, including all the data on our members. Note for future reference: do not store all your important data on one system, always have a copy or back up on a different system. We are starting to fill up the calendar with events now (if you are really interested then check out the events listings on the web page). I am glad I got involved in CompSoc, the committee are a joy to work with in the main and I really enjoy the technical side of things too.

A-Soc is not going amazingly well - if you read Chris Worfolk’s blog posts here and here then you get an idea on what’s the matter. Our London trip is going to plan at the moment - really got things sorted now, everything is booked and all we need now is to fill up the last few places and we are set. If any of you readers are interested in coming then it is £55 for members and £65 for non-members (membership fee is a fiver so do the math…) and that gets you transport and accommodation inclusive of breakfasts. Visit our web site for more information and to sign up.

I have just bought an old School of Computing PC and am preparing to set it up as a linux machine to run alongside my windows machine. I managed to get hold of it really cheaply and it came with monitor (17inch flat screen) and peripherals. I am currently using the monitor as part of a dual monitor system - see pics, along with my new Logitech G11 Keyboard. I am hoping to supplement this set up with a KVM switch so I can use monitor, keyboard and mouse with both boxes and also a new mouse.

Liz and I are going really strong too, in fact I think our relationship is starting to mature into soemthign really special. We have had our ups and downs - especially over the last fortnight or so - but we have emerged stronger and better prepared for a future than we were! All in all, I think we are destined for something special here - watch this space!