Day 507, Pigeon toed

While walking uphill there was Esmerelda the wood pigeon, perched on a bird feeder, beak in the seed.

Spotting my approach Esmerelda feigned nonchalance and indifference to the feed container.

As I put my phone camera away the bird again beaked into the feast.

The dance of phone out, beak out, phone in, beak in continued for a brief time.

I winked at Esmerelda, bid the bird good eating, and carried on my way.

Some days it just isn't possible to outwit a bird with a brain no larger than my big toe.

For official/internal use only:
7777
0-9

Day 506, Window reliability times 10

December 2015.

The time had come to dip into Windows 10 by installing it on my new work PC.

Windows 7 had been reliable and had done what I asked of it for years*.  It has been the most reliable version of Windows that I've used.  But as applications stop being supported, features gradually appear which are only run on the new version of the Operating System (OS), and people start to ask questions about how to connect Windows 10 to various services.

And so your hand is forced to make the move to the new OS.

Windows 10 duly installed, and the awful interface with those buttons presuming to know what is best for my business subsequently removed, let's start using it.

For some reason it isn't always possible to make a Remote Desktop connection to the machine.  It's fine when trying at work, then later from home it fails, some network related thing probably.  But the next day it doesn't work when trying at work.  Ok, so it is working then at some unspecified point later on it fails.  Oh well, bit busy at the moment so that can be looked at later, I'll continue to connect remotely to the Win 7 machine which is still active.

January 2016.

Still on the foothills of usage, I've mainly been using the search feature to find applications, for some reason the 'Start' button doesn't list all the ones installed.

The search feature then stops working.

A web search reveals lots of people having the same problem.  None of the solutions works but a restart of the machine removes the problem for the time being.  Not ideal but this will have to be looked at later as there is other stuff that needs attending to.

February 2016.

A continuation of the above niggles but most of the time my usage of the machine is so limited that it isn't a problem, they can be looked at when there's time.  The Win 7 machine is still getting some use.

March 2016.

Oh for goodness sake what now?  Windows 10 is telling me that Cortana has stopped and would I like to log out.  Well no not really as I'm in the middle of something.  It's going to have to get looked at now.

Cortana appears to have been causing lots of problems for people, the web is awash with grumbles about various failings, the search button not working and corrupt files.  Ok, let's check for corrupt files.

Run up System File Checker from a command prompt with Administrator privileges.

sfc /scannow

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them.

Oh good, corrupt files.

Run up System File Checker from a command prompt with Administrator privileges.

A quick web search and these suggestions appeared and so I tried them:

dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

That didn't work, try the next one.

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
sfc /scannow
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow

That didn't work either, which should have been obvious as the first System File Checker there still showed corruption.  So I mounted the Windows 10 ISO, the disk image of the install DVD and pointed the command to that and the 'sources' folder on it.

From here on all the commands do as expected.

dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:WIM:F:\sources\install.wim:1 /limitaccess

Progress, that part was a success.

And then run the System File Checker again.

sfc /scannow

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.

Double success.

Let's see if that has fixed the problems - more problems in 3 months of Windows 10 than in 6 years of Windows 7.

My Mac has been completely stable, but then that doesn't run all the applications I need.

Tsk, operating systems huh?


* Look, here's a blog from the Windows 7 install, almost exactly 6 years ago.


For official/internal use only:
7777
0-9

Day 505, High rise, high life, flawless

The sign of quality private rental accommodation.

What's that you say, there's such a thing as quality private rental?

No, of course there isn't, not unless you've got a pile of cash.

Ah, so what's the standard?

Private rental often equates to something like that pictured below.

Surely not?

Sure, one place was missing a back door and all the ground level floor boards.

Bet that provided an amusing adventure game when coming back from the pub?

It did, imagine getting stuck under the joists when reclaiming a lightbulb.

What?

Very amusing using stepladders with no floor, the board-movers had also removed the kitchen light.

There must be something better?

Yes, these sheds have doors, floors and are multi-storey.

Classy, let's move in immediately.

For official/internal use only:
7777
0-9

Day 504, Snow Porch

That's no Porsche.

What?  It looks like a Porsche.

No, look, that snow porch.

Eh?  It looks like one.

No, that porch, covered in snow.

I thought you meant.  Oh whatever.

You cloth eared fool.*

Ok, sod this, let's go to the pub.

* Bloody tinnitus.


For official/internal use only:
7777
0-9

Day 503, The floating chimneys of Taptonville

Fred Dibnah, noted for bringing down the tallest of chimneys with bits of burning wood, would scratch his head and chuckle.

"That'd tek no effort, what chuff put that up, eh?"

That's a direct quote.

Chimneys, a short stack perched on top of the 'A' frame, made of something which resembles brick.

But cannot possibly be real bricks, they would surely be unstable even without the high winds of Crookes.

They are almost certainly some variant of this, a flue block system made of pumice concrete.

Thus ends this brief detour into modern chimney technology.

Floating chimneys, doing Dibnah out of a job.

For official/internal use only:
7777
0-9

Day 502, Tree reduction

Everybody loves trees, unless you're one of those weirdos people that don't.

Homes for squirrels, perches for birds, relatively safe landing spots for failed parachutists.

And so much more than that.

What would we do without them lining our stroll to work.

Naked skies, wind ripped ground, the propensity to be carried away in floods.

We could be blown off our legs.

All of the above and much worse.

What am I going to climb when I'm ninety, for goodness sake.

Tree reduction.

Enough already.

For official/internal use only:
7777
0-9

Day 501, Fix it with vinegar and brown paper

Dear Sub Editor,

I'm afraid I'm bruised and out of action.

Could you please write some pseudo-intellectual stuff with a few obscure references here.

Then somewhere further down finish it with something that could be interpreted as an 'ah ha' moment.

Oh yes, and don't forget to refer back to something either in the subject or the start.

Regards,

Jack and Jill

For official/internal use only:
7777
0-9