Choices… 22 October 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Knitting.Tags: lily, travel, winter twilight mitts
add a comment
So I’m going away for the weekend with C, the plan was to go to Liverpool but we’re now going to Hull via Liverpool for a friends house-warming. (I’d already brought the non-refundable train tickets soo… it’s a bit of a pain but nvm.)
Now however I have a decision to make. What knitting project to take with me?!
I could take Lily
Which I FINALLY cast on for a few days ago (My size 4 circulars had been busy on another project which, tbh I really should have finished by now, but I haven’t. I finally brought some size 4 Harmony Straight Needles at Ally Pally so I swapped the needles over.) Anyway I’ve cast on, and I’ve now done 3 repeated of the lace pattern, so I’ve done the waist and am starting on the bust increases. Now this knit requires me to make damn sure I count the rows I’ve done (I’m normally not the greatest at doing this) because I have to finish on the same row for the top as I do for the sleeves. What I’ve got to do at the moment however isn’t too complex so.. it wouldn’t be to hard to do on train/car/sitting talking to people.
My other option is to take my Winter Twilight Mitts
I’ve finished one, but I really need to get the other done (especially as it’s getting cold). I can sort of feel second sock syndrome coming along with this (except obviously its mitten syndrome). However while I really would like to get this finished to keep my hands warm (because these are a lot better fitting than any other mittens I’ve made for myself) I’m rather unsure about doing colourwork, along with using dpns on a train/car. Plus the colourwork can be quite distracting if I make a mistake or am trying to remember what I did with the first one. (because I have a feeling the first has some extra rows and I did cut out 4 stitches from the pattern to make it fit.)
So yeah… am unsure. It might be Lily I think… Hmmm choices choices.
Faster, easier but more expensive… or slower, a hassle but cheaper… ?! 17 October 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Computer.Tags: Motherboard, pc specialist, warranties
add a comment
So.. which would you pick?
Over emails with PC Specialist we’ve pretty much determined that my motherboard has more than likely packed in. (The BIOS wasn’t starting, I’d have to turn the power on and off at the mains to get it started. Did I blog about that? I can’t remember now, I must have.) Anyway because I only (and annoyingly) had a 1 year Warranty on it, I am now out of warranty by about 2 months. As such they obviously can’t just replace my motherboard. I rang them up and was told I could buy one of the motherboards they had left that’s the same one as mine for £99 + shipping, so a total of £105. I said I’d have to call them back the next day just to think on it a bit. But seriously, I need this motherboard and I don’t think it’s really available anywhere else because Asus has a newer one out.
It did occur to me though to ask what would happen if this newer motherboard also died. Would it be covered under any sort of warranty. To which I was told (by a different guy on the Tuesday) that it should be covered under the manufacturers warranty, which is about 2 years. This made me ask, ‘Oh, well then would my current drive still be covered by that? Is there anyway I can replace that one by that?’ The answer I got was yes, I could send my motherboard back to them, they could test it to make sure it was broke, before getting it replaced with the manufacturer. I asked how long this would take from when they received my motherboard, about 3 weeks was the reply. I said Ok, I’ll do that then, thanks so much.
But thinking about it now, I’ve realised I don’t quite know enough about the innards of my computers to know exactly what to send back. I mean obviously the board, but whether there is any extra gubbins on it that also need to be sent back. I also need to find an anti-static bag from somewhere to send it back in, and figure out what the hell I’m going to keep all the other bits in for approximately a month while I wait for a new Motherboard. So.. if I’m going to send an email to them today just to ask what exactly I need to send back, but if I don’t get a reply till say… Monday, then I don’t know when I’ll be able to get the motherboard out and post it. As I’ll want my dad’s help, and I’m away next weekend so I won’t really be able to do anything till Halloween weekend. Which means that I won’t be able to get my PC fixed till near to Dec.
Hence my current dilemma. Fork out the money and get my motherboard next week, OR try and get it exchanged via warranty and just spend ages waiting… :/ 
I must say it is stressing me out a little, cause I have to balance this with trying to sort out job applications and write goddamn cover letters. What. Fun.
Go Red Squirrel, GO! 16 October 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Uncategorized.Tags: grey squirrels, red squirrels
add a comment
Some things just make me happy, and considering all the stuff that’s in the news it’s quite nice to see something like this.
Ray of hope for the red squirrel
Some (8) of the Red squirrels looked at in a study have developed an immunity to the nasty disease the Grey Squirrel’s give them (and as they’ve had no immunity till now, it kills them). Which is pretty fantastic news.
The grey squirrels turned up here at the beginning of the 20th century from America. There are now (according to the article) about 2.7 mil Greys and only 211,000 Reds left. The grey’s breed faster, have more pups (is that the right word?) per litter, are more adaptable to environment and what they can eat, and carry that disease which they are immune to but reds weren’t.
So it’s good news and I hope it doesn’t take too long for them to get a virus (and hopefully they’ll find more Red Squirrels also now have the immunity to.) 
Job hunting websites.. 13 October 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Uncategorized.Tags: annoyed, job hunting
add a comment
So I’m busy with job hunting at the moment.. and on my god some of them are the most annoying things in the world.
<Rant>
Graduate-jobs I’m looking at YOU in particular. I remember last year when I tried to sign up to you and I couldn’t because you offered me stupid drop down boxes to select my degree type and result from. You had BSc and MSc listed but no OTHER option, and my MSci (please not the i) was more than a BSc and less than an MSc, and maybe it was stubborn and silly of me but I wasn’t going to lie and say that I had an MSc and nor was I going to claim a BSc seeing as its NOT what I have. Additionally now that I have tried to apply to a job through you I do not appreciate your radio buttons for a Yes/No selection to whether I have the recommended skills. Oh I see why they are there. But when you ask me if I have a 2.1.. well no unfortunatly I didn’t get that at Undergraduate, but I DO now have a Masters (or will soon) so… surely that trumps the previous requirement? But I get no option to say that. I wish you would stop trying to pigeon hole people. Its really annoying.
Monster… well you just don’t really seem to have many Graduate jobs, on top of that its’ a real bitch to navigate your site sometimes, and then also when random links don’t want to work but others do? It’s just anonying.
Ok and breath. </Rant>
Yaaarrrrnnnnnn 13 October 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Knitting.Tags: alexandra palace, fire lizard, get knitted, indieknits, Knitting, knitting and stitching show 2008, ravelry, socktopus, yarn
2 comments
So from the 9th till the 12th October (today), Alexandra Palace hosted the Knitting and Stitching show. It’s an annual event, but I didn’t go last year, as I was only just starting to get properly into knitting and wasn’t really sure if it would be my thing, nor what happened there. My friend Em did go, and said it was quite good, lots of stalls of stuff and she even brought me back a souvenir of some Nameste Glass knitting needles. (I can’t seem to find the needles on the site thou…) I have to confess I haven’t knitted with them that much as they make an odd scratchy sound, and plus I now have my harmony circular needles which I adore. Then a month or so later i got onto Ravelry and well… it all changed. A world of amazing patterns, hand dyed yarn through etsy, and the ease of being able to get help on those tricksy patterns have just made me really love knitting. As such I was really looking forward to the Knitting and Stitching fair when it came around this year. (Wow.. bit of a long intro there 
). There was also the awesome advantage of being able to read what suggestions other people had with how to face the day and setting a budget and taking cash etc.
So my mum pre-booked us tickets to go. She used to knit, prefers to crochet, hasn’t really had time of it in years, in fact its mostly been my interest that’s sort of rekindled hers although she did confess she probably more interested in sewing, quilting and beading these days. Not that she currently has the time for said things.
We got to the show about 10, which was pretty good as we got about 2 hours of wondering about before it started to get really busy. We split up for about an hour because, well I wanted to look at yarn and my mum was more interested in beads and such. It’s not just stalls for shops selling things there’s also lots of artists work, massive pictures in various mediums of knit/sewing/quilting/cross stitch/felting, some mixed mediums. There was some amazing Japanese Embroidery, where they literally just sew glass beads together to make the most amazing shimmery fabric. There was a big kimono on display, well over 2 million glass beads. imagine the time that must have taken! (Sorry I don’t really have many pictures of the day, a lot of things said ‘No Picture’s Please’. So all I’ve got from the day is this shot, which was at the entrance to the event:
Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef.
We finally left the show at about 3pm, (it closed at 5.30pm). I was rather amazed to find that it was pretty damn hot outside! (Even more so than had been inside, although at least there was a breeze). Incidentally it’s been just as hot today, i suspect something like 20c. What’s up with that?! It’s October, its supposed to be miserable and cold!! August and October seem to have decided to swap weather.
Anyway, onto the real topic of this post… what I ended up getting at the show. Ahhh! Here is a quick shot of all the yarn I got. Yes… there may (with one exception, can you guess which? 
) be a bit of a theme to the colours there….
In the sake of length I have decided to cut this here so if you want to see what I’ve got specifically just click below. (more…)
When a camera phone just isn’t good enough… 9 October 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Uncategorized.Tags: camera, fox
add a comment
Apparently I’m going to have to walk around my house with my camera, or at least when I wonder into the Kitchen. I went into make my lunch glanced out the window and noticed something walking down the garden. My thought process went like thus ‘Thats quite big for a cat.. oh.. wait thats a Fox?! What on Earth is a fox doing out and about at 12 in the afternoon in the middle of a bright sunny day. And how did it get into the back garden (which is surrounded by several other back gardens).’ (I know where it came from as there’s a small Nature Reserve behind the gardens of the houses opposite me on the road.
My next thought was. ‘Damn I need to take a photo! Camera, where is camera, ack its in my room in a bag I’ll never get it in time… Oh wait phone has camera and its in my pocket’ Start pulling out phone, unlock it and flick the back bit back to turn the camera on all the while going ‘Damn I know this phone is slow will i get a picture in time.. maybe I’d be better getting my camera, oh well too late now I’m taking too long as is.’ 15s later the camera bit of the phone finally loads up at which point i get the msg telling me I have no memory card blah blah, so I click ok and then realise I have to mess with the zoom. (Can you see where this is going?) I’ve never been comfortable with the zoom on my phone camera, so by the time I got it right, Mr Fox had wondered off into the bushes. *sigh*
Grrr Computers 5 October 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Technology.Tags: battery, BIOS, BIOS Issues, Computer, Motherboard
4 comments
Computers are a PITA much of the time, (why on earth do I want to work with them..?!). Literally a week or so after my warranty expired on this machine (August) then it started acting up. Now usually when I switch the computer off I also turn it off at the back (thou not the mains) just to save on some power, but suddenly the machine decided that it didn’t want to turn on. The fans started it made whirring noises, but no beep. No sound to indicate that the BIOS was starting. Turning the whole machine off at the mains and then back on again seemed to fix it. It acted like this for a few days before finally I just stopped switching it off at the back, as it would 95% of the time turn on fine the next day.
That was until today. After about 4 or 5 attempts to switch it on and off it juts had no life.
I did send an email near the end of August asking the people who built the machien for me what they thought the problem might be. They suggested that I try resetting the BIOS and if that didn’t work then I’d need to replace the CMOS battery in the Motherboard. Due to project I didn’t get around to resetting the BIOS (and I just plain forgot last week.)
So you can imagine how I felt this morning when the PC would not turn on, and I knew that I hadn’t tried to fix it even though I’d had the issue for a while…Therefore I knew that the only real step I could take at this stage was to check the battery and replace it. To my surprise I discovered that the Motherboard uses a basic Lithium battery that a lot of calculators/watchs etc use. So it just goes to show that not all parts of the computer are mystical and magical!
After the magic of Compressed Air in a Can worked its wonders on the dust, it was possible to see that.. well nothing looked wrong. Got the battery out (luckily not welded in) checked the voltage on the battery, which seemed fine, put it back in and tried to start the pc up… NO JOY!
To cut a long post short, I bought a new battery (unsure whether it would make any difference, but it was the cheapest way to check tbh), put the new battery in, plugged and switched on the machine.. and… BEEP. YES! the BIOS beeped!! Thank goodness for that.
So the machine is now on.. and I am a bit loath to turn it off.. I shall sort out resetting the BIOS soon I think. Hopefully that’s all that was causing the trouble… (and hopefully I’ve not jinxed myself there!)
