Andrew's diary

Saturday, 31 August 2002

Got to wondering about improving Windows 2000's font display - given Mel's laptop has XP with it's much-improved ClearType - I tried to get a way of getting a similar level of anti-aliasing on Win2K. A bit of research showed that each TTF file can define ranges at which it's hinted, "smoothed" or both. MS have a font properties extension which'll add this info to a TrueType file's property, but their font properties editor won't edit it (or Microsoft fonts for that matter). Downloaded the demo version of FontLab which does allow you to change both the font vendor and the hinting/smoothing properties. Small bit of reverse engineering later and I've got a really dodgy, hacked up Perl script: chfont.pl which you can run on your C:\Windows\Fonts or C:\WinNT\Fonts directory to change the font vendor from MS (to allow further editing) and enable smoothing on the middle range. A screenshot of Windows Explorer after the change shows it works - but it looks a lot better on my laptop's TFT than my CRT. I'll live with it for a while, but it's not as good as it looks on XP.

Note: you may not be able to run the Perl script on fonts Windows currently has open: I booted into Linux, backed up the directory and then ran it. Also, no warranty is given or implied etc. etc. and although it should back up the font file as whatever.ttf.bak it is strongly suggested you make your own backup first!

Friday, 30 August 2002

A "private" memorial service is being held for the two murdered girls - Jessica and Holly - but the amount of media hysteria and hype and the fact that 2000 people are attending make me think it won't be. I am sympathetic to the loss that the families have suffered, but if I were them I'd want to get on with grieving in peace, not be constantly bombarded by press ("how are you feeling?" grrr). A recent Channel 4 News had two experts debating whether or not the public displays of grief were "media-driven hysteria or a fundamental change in the way the British express grief" - examples included Diana's funeral, September 11th, the Queen Mother's death and these two murders in Soham. But what about the hundreds of people every year who are murdered, or the young children killed by accident? Where's their 24/7 media coverage, mass public sympathy and calls for urgent action for the Government "to do something"? Hypocrisy annoys me - possibly more than anything else.

Thursday, 29 August 2002

Spent the morning at home sorting through email - a lot of cutting & pasting of a standard reply.

Wednesday, 28 August 2002

Got back to work to find large amounts of email (someone had "volunteered" me to answer questions which are already answered by using a search engine) and one of them contained some "interesting" staff changes - we'll see what happens.

Tuesday, 27 August 2002

Got home to a stack of mail (both physical and email) and rang the credit card company (NatWest, surprise surprise) to complain about the problems with my card; but they had no record of it being refused and couldn't really offer any explanation as to why it wouldn't work.

Drove out to the Sorting Office to go and collect Mel's wi-fi card, even though it should technically have been returned to sender already - I'm not sure the Post Office's disorganisation is a good thing or not!

Finished The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins (1986). Very interesting book and totally convincing of the viability of Darwinian evolution. The only problem with the book is the ease with which Dawkins dismisses a divine creator. True, he proves it's not necessary for life but the argument of "who created the divine creator?" I feel misses the point of the word "divine".

Monday, 26 August 2002

Holiday's nearly over and my ear's feeling a lot better - bloody typical. Dozed for the ferry back.

Sunday, 25 August 2002

Tried to check out of the hotel in Gent, but once again my credit card didn't work. Unfortunately, didn't have enough cash so had to pay on my Corporate American Express (must remember to not claim that as an expense!). Stopped at Brugge for the day, which would be a lot nicer if it didn't have so many people in it. The weather'd improved though so by the time we got back to Dunkirk it was hot again. Went to Bergues for dinner and it was great being able to speak the local language again!

Saturday, 24 August 2002

Spent the day in Gent, though the weather took a turn for the worst. Went round the cathedral, up The Belfry (and stood next to a large bell ringing 12!), around the castle and on the river in a tour boat. The cheesy things Mum bought from a Jewish bakery looked nice but tasted less so.

Friday, 23 August 2002

Left the CenterParc for Gent and then spent the same amount of time driving round and round the one-way system trying to find the Ibis. Eventually parked in a side street and Mel, Dad and I set off to find them on foot. Turns out they'd exaggerated somewhat on the parking front so Mel and Dad went to find an underground car park whilst the rest of us unpacked.

Went out for dinner by the river - it's a beautiful city.

Oh, I also realised that the GP who gave me a check-up just before we went on holiday checked my "bad" ear with her ear-checky-thing (with a new dooberry on the end), but then promptly stuck the same thing in my good ear and gave it a good poke; probably transferring the infection from the bad ear to the good one.

Thursday, 22 August 2002

My other ear's started to feel horrible so spent most of the day just reading. However, as it was the last full day at the CenterParc we camped out in the swimming pool for the morning with me reading and everyone else splashing about.

In the evening we went out into Lommel for a meal and afterwards wandered through the fun-fair and bands which were on the street. One in particular which was good had a big bloke singing rhythum & blues, not only was he good - he knew most of the words!

Wednesday, 21 August 2002

Tried to ride into a little place called Barrier - along the canal, unfortunately Dad's bike got a puncture so we turned back. This meant we had more fun trying to get a broken bike back than we'd have had if we'd got to our destination! First we tried taking it in turns walking along the bike and pushing it. But that got boring (and slow) pretty quickly, so Mum and I tried to hold the bike between us as we rode and Robert sat on the back of Dad's bike. This almost succeeded (in moving the bike and killing us) but we reverted back to the previous method. Then we had the bright idea of Dad holding the bike whilst riding on the back of mine: we soon discounted this idea but then we hit upon the winner: I ride one-handed and hold the bike, Dad and Robert share a bike (they alternated at sitting on the back) and Mum and Mel ride normally.

Tuesday, 20 August 2002

Finished Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman, Richard P. Feynman (1992). Interesting set of anecdotes from a man with a very interesting life.

Sunday, 18 August 2002

Finished Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM, Paul Carroll (1993). Not a well written book but worth reading for the insights into the IBM of the 1980s. Worryingly, some of the patterns are still here today (or re-emerged) however it was interesting to note that the author's conclusions about Lou Gerstner proved to be inaccurate.

Saturday, 17 August 2002

Rode into Holland on our bikes, stopping off at a bar for a drink (which opened especially for us) and then turning around.... but ow! Sore for the rest of the day.

Friday, 16 August 2002

Arrived at the CenterParc (De Vossemeren) hot, bothered and knackered. However, checked in, got our bikes and then went for a drink: the prices weren't half expensive! Eventually got to our chalet which turned out to be nice. Went to the Discovery Bay which was quite fun with high rope bridges, water canon, slides, a water maze and a bar; and then onto the swimming pool after dinner which was rather busy but nice in the evening. However, there are far too many people around for my taste - maybe it'll quieten down once people start leaving.

Thursday, 15 August 2002

Mum, Dad and Robert arrived in the afternoon and, after tea/cake/chat, Mel and I jumped in the car and we all headed to Dover for the ferry. Glorious weather for the crossing which was unbelievably calm. Short drive to Dunkirk and the Premiere Classe when we got to the other side and dinner out in Dunkirk near the sea. Unfortunately, my credit card didn't work when I tried to pay for dinner so ended up paying cash. More about that later...

Wednesday, 14 August 2002

First day of holiday! Drove down to Folkestone and got an evening shuttle to France to get the booze, before returning to Mel's parents and storing my car in the garage for the next two weeks.

Monday, 12 August 2002

It's amazing how things break when you've been on holiday, isn't it? Computers must be psychic.

Sunday, 11 August 2002

Mel's parents left after a lovely big breakfast and so we watched the season finale of Enterprise and generally played about with our bingly new wireless LAN.

Saturday, 10 August 2002

Back to Basingstoke (via Southam). More driving.

Friday, 09 August 2002

Bad weather for the wedding unfortunately, and apart from that and the family politics it was good: nice and traditional, though the hotel was really expensive for drinks and the food was a long time coming. It was worth the wait.

Thursday, 08 August 2002

Long drive up to York (and I mean looooong drive). Eventually got to the B&B and the room was lovely: all I'll say is four-poster bed :-).

Went out with Malcolm and Carol, the groom and his mates in York - a good night, but did you know that "RP" is the car country code for the Phillipines? Me neither, but wap.google.com did ;-)

Wednesday, 07 August 2002

Finally managed to get someone at ebuyer.com to acknowledge that they should, perhaps, mention the fact that the Netgear MA301 requires a PCMCIA card to do anything. They didn't, however, accept they'd done anything wrong. Still, got a few quid off the part I still needed.

Mel's parents arrived from Folkestone and, after they'd had dinner, I spend the evening trying to get the server and my laptop talking in ad-hoc mode. Kinda succeeded.

Saturday, 03 August 2002

Found dnsmasq which means I don't have to configure bind and hook it into dhcpd after all. Also found out that Forrey knows Vince Buckner, who I met about 10 years ago on holiday. Spooky :-)

Angela & Richard's 25th wedding anniversary was good - a long dark drive home down twisty turny country lanes which looked all alike...

Thursday, 01 August 2002

Got exim and sn working, including playing nicely together. After work went to see Minority Report which was good and stayed nicely consistent with the themes that if you know the future you can change it, but also that if you control what people think is going to happen, then you control them - or, as they'd say in Star Trek: "a predestination paradox".