Update - Tiger Warning

As mentioned in my previous post, my temporary solution was to take my old PC and install the USB ADSL Modem on that, enable Internet Connection Sharing and ethernet connect my PowerBook to that. I then took it one step further and enable ICS on the PowerBook to share the incoming ethernet connection on the built-in Airport (wireless) and this enabled my little Clamshell iBook to get connected.

But, after using this for two days I have decided to revert back to Panther (10.3), update through to 10.3.9, which was completely stable (why, oh why did I upgrade), and continue checking the ADSL manufacturer's download pages.

What brought about this decision I hear you ask. In a nutshell Wintel. And yes, I do try to blame them for at least one thing per day. :)

To be more precise, I am fed up with the extra noise of the four fans in my PC, (when I built it I installed extra fans because it has two raided HD's and an over-clocked processor) and also I think Windows ICS does not pass all ports through correctly. Bit-torrents seem to have less connectivity, and I can't use the iBook to Apple Remote Desktop into the Mac's at work (which I use to be able to do when the iBook was only going through the Powerbook's ICS).

So Panther here I come (back)

Tiger Warning - Grrrr

So, I just thought I'd spend my weekend upgrading to Tiger (MAC OS 10.4) and as always, I proceeded with a clean install, repartitioning my drive in the same process. I backed up all my data to my iPod and started the installation...

...A trip down the shops and a cup of tea later, I was greeted with the cheesy Tiger installation music (don't get me wrong the intro graphics are good, but the music from 10.2 and 10.3 was much better).

The first thing to install was my USB Modem so I could download any updates. My ISP (TalkTalk) gave me a Sagem F@st 800 modem and I have never had need to buy a better one, until now. I couldn't get the computer to recognise that a modem was plugged in.

On ringing TalkTalk Support I found out that My modem has no Tiger ready drivers, and the other modem that they supply (the Thomson Speedtouch 330) will not have drivers ready for a few weeks (fingers crossed) at best.

Luckily, I have an old PC with Windows XP on it and I have set that up with Internet Connection Sharing, so I can at least connect with my mac. But now I am out of power sockets. :)

So I now have three choices. I go back to 10.3 (which I don't mind too much), I buy a newer, better ADSL Modem (which considering my current financial position, I think not), or have the noisy PC running all the time (which is what how I will run for the next few days).

Lesson Learned: Check that all your existing hardware will work when upgrading software. There are lots of forums detailing my exact problem, if I had just bother looking for it. :)

A Bloggers Friend - DashBlog

OK, while looking through the gallery over at DashboardWidgets I came across this little beauty.

DashBlog

It lets you blog straight from Tiger's Dashboard without having to type your log-in details in every-time. This might not be very useful to me, (as I only seem to post once a week:), but it should be good for you serial bloggers out there.

GenesysX - An Explanation

Any who read this blog will have noticed the consistent use of a word not found in any dictionary.

GenesysX

This is my Nickname/Handle/Tag/etc. It came about, around 1995, after wanting a Yahoo! Mail account and finding that christopherandrews@, chrisandrews@, candrews@ were all taken (no surprise there), so I created GenesysX. I have always been artistically and musically creative, hence the genesis part (and I also like the band Genesis). And being into computers and music I worked with MIDI a lot, and eventually started using System eXclusive messages to program the synthesisers (known as SysX).

So the combination was GeneSysX, which looked a bit silly, so I tried genesysx, which didn't seem right. Genesysx was OK, but I am a very symmetrical person (or is that geek), so the final result looked like GenesysX.

And then there was the logo (top right), which has the obvious musical notes and the Red, Green, and Blue circles created their secondary colours where they converge. This was created when I was learning to use Photoshop.

Since creating this logo/identity I have done absolutely nothing with it. I had plans to start a web-page building business (among others) with this name but, ten years on, and it is an e-mail address, a personal web-page, and not much else.

Oh well, there's always the future! :)

Finally . . . . . . My First Post

Due to immense pressure from all two of my blogging friends, I am posting my first entry.

The "about me" part

My name is Chris Andrews, I am 26 years old and as the photo on my profile should have shown, I am tall, dark, and handsome. (Unfortunately, it was a bad hair day :). I was born and have lived all my life in East London, UK. My educational background is in Music Technology.

I work in a private international school in North-West London, UK with about 200 students (K-12) and 50 members of staff. My official title is IT Manager, what that really means is that if electricity powers it, I am assumed to know how use/fix it. My primary role is IT Administrator, but my other duties include; Movie editing, some teaching (staff and students), Yearbook layout, and fixing teachers mobile phones :). Luckily we are an all Mac school, so most of the time my job is easy.

The "about this blog" part

This blog is never going to have just one theme. Here are a few of the things I will blog about; Apple Computers, Mac OS X, articles from the Metro Newspaper, and possibly hints and tips about HTML and CSS for use within your blogs.

That's about it from me this post, but feel free to post your comments anytime, night or day.

Chris