Hello. Sorry for the long absence. I'm actually really not feeling up to typing this, but it's either that or an even longer delay and more to talk about later, particularly as I've learnt recently that more people are reading this than I originally dreamed of. Mum's been ill for the last week and now has a confirmed serious chest infection. I've been feeling off for two weeks and suspect I have the same. My chest and ribs hurt, even more so when I cough which is all the time. And because of that, I try to hold it in but just end up feeling sick. I almost feel like there's something rattling around in there and am just generally feeling down. Anyway, I'll try to keep this short and concise (not that these are two words that really suit me!) but as you'll see that's going to be difficult.

I'm a month into my Masters and loving it. There's a huge amount of information for each lecture of my four courses, and so I spend a lot of my time reading and assimilating this, but I think it's worth it. The tutorials are fun, and I didn't realise how much I missed the group discussions which didn't really happen in Computing Science. There are some great people I've met in my class. Most of the class are from overseas, but I think this just makes everything more exotic and dynamic. I also think this class is generally more understanding and sympathetic to everything. Two notable events were the student rep elections which I won for my course (training next week which should be interesting) and the coursework being set, which I'm actually looking forward to (yes, I'm weird, I like reading newspapers and debating current affairs and writing about it, but that's part of the package you get with knowing me!).

I've been rifle shooting a few times since my last post, but my main coach Jim's been over across the pond in the States flying the flag for acoustic shooting over there. Actually Tami (whom I mentioned during my coverage of the Scottish Championships and subsequent barbecue back in August) invited him over to give a demonstration. He was also asked to give a talk about the sport and the visually impaired, but as it was at short notice he didn't have all the relevant historical info to hand. I remember I dashed off several pages of notes in Word and mailed them over on Tuesday, so I'll be eagerly waiting to hear of the result.

Still with shooting, we now have an issue relating to the postal league scoring system that's really thrown the cat amongst the pigeons. I'm really quite annoyed about this, and that's being polite. OK readers, a question. What would you say if I told you the person with the highest shooting score DIDN'T WIN? And this for THREE YEARS RUNNING? OK, you can read that back just to make sure you weren't mistaken. Basically in simple terms the nutters at the NSRA are trying to combine paired shooting matches with individual scoring, and it's not working at all. It was fine when the standard of shooting was lower, but now everyone's improving, we have several top-notch shooters and the whole system is collapsing as a result as it simply wasn't designed to deal with this. Its shoddy planning at the outset and it's got a lot of people very mad. I won't take up more space on this here, but I'm going to put a detailed article on the whole matter on the website in the near future for those that are interested in knowing more about this bizarre tripe that is competitive scoring.

The new computer continues to run well, apart from one time when I had to use the Vista installation CD to do a System Restore. Apparently there wasn't enough voltage to run the CPU stable at 4.6 Ghz+, and my trying to multi-task just drove Windows over the edge and it crashed. The start-up files corrupted and the system was kaput. Luckily nothing was lost, and all's well now.

There are other things I really want to mention, but I'm coughing again and my nose is running so I'm going to go and have some hot soup. Who knows, it might actually do something the cough syrups and painkillers haven't. Take care and write soon.

Hello!

After last week's excitement I spent a couple of days working on the computer. I re-installed XP (had to use the boot floppies as CentOS wrecked the bootloader big time - I'm pretty sure the Nigerians had something to do with that but I digress), and put Office 2003 on it as well as getting the graphics card sorted. I'll never know why I ever bought an ATI Radeon 9200SE for that thing, no wonder the Nvidia Forceware drivers wouldn't install! It only took me a whole night before I decided to physically remove the card from the unit and check its make and model. Anyway, Kevin from shooting's parents' system died so I offered to sell them this one. I dropped it off at shooting on Thursday, but now he's called to tell me the monitor isn't picking up the graphics card for him either. I'm fairly certain that thing just has a temperamental PSU that doesn't deliver power to the card quickly enough, and if needs be I'll go over there and have words with it, bash it a few times and it'll work.

I finally installed the new version of Dragon Naturally Speaking and am using it with the Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000. Results are quite good, even with Supernova running in the background. I do feel a bit stupid yelling at it to "wake up" and "go to sleep", especially as mum came in asking if I was with anyone the first night I tried it. The voice recognition quality is really quite good, even though I've not even touched the correction features yet. If I spent enough time with it, I could supposedly get it to even interpret names and other jargon correctly. But an 85-90% accuracy rate is nothing to laugh at, and for longer e-mails in particular it is saving a lot of time even if proof-reading is required.

The situation with setting up the VPN is moving slowly forward. I upgraded the firmware on the Linksys WRVS4400N that Sen sent me, and installed the QuickVPN client on mum's XP system (I'll leave Vista till later as it apparently has some compatibility issues). Now just to get the router configured. When Sen has his end upgraded, we'll sort out the IPSEC tunnels so both networks are linked.

I'm completing the Uni forms tomorrow, and will scan them in and send them off. No word yet on the results of my scholarship application. However, they seem to want the paperwork complete, including the financial guarantee, even though I can't say how my place will be funded yet. More red tape and bur ocracy.

I finally ordered a replacement for the disastrous Striker Extreme motherboard, and some RAM to go with it. But I'll leave the details for another post.

EDIT: Kevin phoned back again, he can't get the system to work. However, it obviously does as Windows boots and they can hear the startup tune. Therefore, I'll have to go over at some point that's convenient for him and look at it myself. Could be as simple as the card having moved in its slot. I can't say when this will be sorted, as he's got some personal family issues at present that are understandably more pressing. I'll keep you updated on any developments. It's disappointing, but at the end of the day when it's working everyone should be happy, which is all that matters, I suppose.

Sometimes I wonder about why some groups of people are viewed in a less than favorable light, be it the Arabs, Chinese, or as in this case, the Nigerians. And whereas I know this is not always true, I think I've found one occasion where it is, and it's making me just so mad!

A Nigerian guy phoned me up yesterday wanting to buy our old TINY PC (it's the one dad bought in 2000). I told the guy on the phone that it was indeed still available, but that he'd have to restore it to the factory defaults as I had put a CentOS Linux distribution installation on it. I also told him it was the base unit only that I was selling, nothing else apart from the restore disks and manual, and he seemed OK with that. Anyway, his wife came to collect it in the afternoon, after some trouble with understanding my directions, even though I was explaining the route to her as she was driving in real-time (I really hope the husband was the one driving, hands-free and all that). Anyway, helped her out to her car with it and thought nothing else of it.

Now the fun begins. They tried to call me some time later, actually I had about 10-15 missed calls, but my N95 is being strange and not accepting incoming calls. So the husband, Daniel, texted me to complain that I hadn't given him all the cables (did I say I was selling cables?) and to ask what the Asterisk login prompt was. So I once again explained that it would have to be restored. To cut a long story short, they tried restoring it but it failed, at which point I realized the boot priority would need to be changed in the BIOS. They didn't want to do that and asked to return the computer. However, I've always been one for trying to resolve problems before going for the returns route, so I offered, several times, to give instructions that would have allowed them to get up and running in about an hour. Daniel had mentioned in the morning that he may want to upgrade to XP, and I said this could also be done without restoring at all. Then they started complaining that I hadn't mentioned that the computer 'wasn't working', even though I'd done just that several times, even right before Daniel's wife Naomi took it away.

So I left it at that and went to sleep for the night, with the phone still being odd and not working fully. Now, there's been a bit of a family emergency which I won't go into here, simply to say I'm going to have to fly off again at short notice, probably today. So I texted those guys back this morning to let them know, but I said I'd still give them instructions to get going if they wanted. Now here's where they went crazy and my comment about Nigerians is vindicated. They threatened, in order, that I would be sorry if I went ahead with my plan, that they'd have a public show outside my house, that I should be lucky that there is a police station near me and that they'd be waiting, and emotively, that I wouldn't live to see the next sunrise. Oh, and that they'd use all our messages as evidence. Huh? Since when did their misunderstanding and my offer of help result in a full blown court case? I was very tempted to ask if it would be a trial by jury, or stabbing by knife. When I wrote back saying that there was no need to be threatening as I was simply trying to help, they diminutively wrote back asking me to please stop playing games and just refund their money, which I am more than happy to do (I've never said otherwise). Clearly they did not understand my details when I explained them, clearly they don't want my help to get their computer going and clearly they've resorted to threats and intimidation which must be the only things that make sense to them when they're in the wrong. On top of that they seem to be trying to twist everything I say so that it looks like there’s some sort of conspiracy behind it. Apparently, the fact that my phone isn’t working, I have a family emergency 8000km away and the fact that I’m trying to help them first before accepting a return equates to the conclusive fact I’m going to flee the country in the middle of the night with my band of Mafia and never be seen again. Damn!

Anyway, I've told them to come over at 5pm this evening with the computer and its boxes in their original condition and I'll have someone there to refund their money. I just want to get it back and be rid of them.

I'm sorry, I try to be a calm and non-stereotypical person usually, but when I find people acting in this way totally unprovoked, it makes it hard for me to refute why so many people treat West Africans with such distrust and trepidation. If you don't understand something, for the love of all that is holy ask, and keep on asking until you do understand. Especially if you're buying something. And if English isn't your first language (as it wasn't with these people, I heard them talking in Nigerian), it's even more important. People quickly get tired of language related excuses for getting out of sticky situations. And stop making mountains out of molehills.

OK, I'm going now, before I say something even more offensive that I'll probably regret tomorrow. I need to see what's going on with other things, depending on how they turn out I might be offline for a bit, hopefully not.

EDIT 04/08/2008 04:46 - Well, in the end mum arranged to have them come over at 10am last Thursday to drop off the computer and collect their refund. This they promptly did, as they were co-incidentally just a few minutes away shopping. When they arrived, they spent a good ten minutes complaining about everything, me, the service, the fact I shouldn't have sold them a damaged computer, and most irritatingly of all, the fact they only decided to buy from me as they thought I was a Tanzanian (despite the fact I don't consider myself as one) and therefore wouldn't be 'difficult'. I am so glad I decided not to stay in the same room, I don't think I could have resisted getting any more furious than I already was.

My friend reckons I should report these, what are as good as, death threats to the police. I don't know, now it just seems a big to do about nothing. I'm trying to compromise by saying I'll keep copies of their messages and telephone numbers for the record.

BTW, the family emergency thankfully turned out to be a false alarm, It's just that they were alone with everyone else away at a wedding, and when they fell ill and given their age, we all got rather panicked. They are feeling better now, and the remaining relatives are back home after the wedding.

OK, that was just to let you know the outcome of this debacle and to re-assure you I'm still in the land of the living. I'm also told by the same friend mentioned above that not all Nigerians are like this, thank goodness, but also that apparently the decent ones are quite hard to find. My answer? No comment.