Today I fitted a new front shoe to the hoss.

At the recommendation of another motorbicyclist at work, I ordered a ContiEscape from Continental.

This is only the second tyre on the front since new (2 years) so I checked out the odometer and here is what it said:

26231

That’s how many kms I got off the stock tyre fitted by Suzuki when I bought the bike.

Not bad eh?

Happy Saint Patricks Day!

What better way than celebrating with a glass of Jamesons Whisky? Which is the way I like to celebrate it.

The Parting Glass is a folk song often sung in Scotland and Ireland at the parting of a gathering of friends. Read some more about it ‘ere.

Tags: shaun davey

*Solved*

I have been bashing my head against a wall trying to figure out why Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex won’t allow me to select a higher resolution than 640x480 when installed on a Dell Optiplex GX260. The GX260 has an intel 845 integrated graphics card that shares the memory of the system. That last little bit of information should have been enough for me to sort out the problem quickly. I blame Apple.

Since I bought my macbook I have had zero problems with it. I use it almost exclusively and so my troubleshooting skills on PC’s may be waning a little. I love my macbook. So much so, I’ve bought an iMac.

Anyway.. after editing and modifying the xorg.conf file ad-nauseam without success I finally thought to check the BIOS.

In the BIOS, under integrated devices is the Video card memory setting. It was set to 1MB. I upped this to the only other setting of 8MB and rebooted. Problem solved.

Immediately I could now set the screen resolution to a maximum of 1200x1024, which is more than enough on a 17 inch monitor.

I hope this helps some other poor sod trying to deal with the same problem.

Tags: ubuntu

Worth reading: Yes

Summary: Shaw is about to retire, his employer doesn’t know it yet, but Shaw has plans. One of them is marriage, the other is spending the rest of his life with the woman of his dreams. Shaw is a loner, his job is easier if he is. The fact that he’s getting married is a really big thing for him.

Nicholas Creel has money. A lot of money. He’s not the richest man in the world, but he could be, very easily. To him, the world has settled into fighting running skirmishes with extremists. This doesn’t suit Creel or the bottom line of his business. What he needs is the return of the cold war, and he knows just how to do it.

Anne is smart, very smart. She is also about to be married to Shaw with the blessing of her parents. She works for a quiet think tank, not on the radar for anyone or anything. That is until men storm Anne’s building killing everyone inside, including Anne.

Shaw is now going back to work.

This is a very good read and thanks to Craig for loaning it to me. It is similar in some aspects to Lee Child’s Reacher character. Though in a head to head I’d put Reacher over Shaw.
I’ll be investigating David Baldacci a little further I think.

Tags: David Baldacci

The mighty white squeeziness arrived today.
I ordered a wireless mighty mouse for the laptop. This wasn’t a flippant purchase, far from it. I don’t make flippant purchases. I had considered getting a mighty whitey for the macbook a while ago but, AU$99 for a mouse on it’s own is a bit of a stretch even for me.
So, I bought it as an additional item with my new iMac.

In other news, I have bought an iMac.

It won’t arrive for a good month or so, so I won’t go into details about it yet...I’ll wait till it arrives.

Back to the mouse... so far seems to be an excellent critter. Turned on the Bluetooth and before you could say “hey presto” the mouse had paired with the macbook and not a word was said.

All done and dusted.

Tags: mac

I don’t normally speak about politics here, I don’t normally find it interesting but Queensland has the chance to make a change for the better on the 21st of March this year.

Like Australians did with the federal government, it is time to change the Queensland State government. Just like the previous federal administration they have been in power for too long, dead wood has collected and it’s time for the people of Queensland to clean up and chuck it out.

State Labor has had long enough to fix what they said they would. Last time they asked for an extension just like they did the time before, have things changed? NO.
It’s now time to give the other guys a chance. A fresh set of minds and eyes on the problems is what we need.

What the state does NOT need is another term of the current mismanagement, where we get more of the same we’ve had for the past 10 or more years. Yes, once again Labor will promise that THIS time it will be different and they’ll throw yet MORE money at the problems they said they’d fix last time. Don’t believe them. Just like a fruit tree needs pruning to get the best out of it, the current government needs pruning out so we can start to grow and flourish again as a state.

If you vote, I urge you to vote the buggers out of power.

I now step down from the soap box.

Tags: politics

I’ve been listening to Coldplay for a while. I have their first album “Parachutes” and while it was ok, I was left wanting... well, more.

Thanks to youtube I’ve been listening to their followup albums and I think their latest one is rather good.

This is probably the most popular song on Coldplay’s latest album “Viva la Vida”.

Tags: music, coldplay