A Canadian in Ireland

Has anyone else noticed problems with the photo slideshow in blog sidebars?

Specifically, every time the photo changes a new copy is downloaded causing the page to constantly refresh.

It seems to have started a few days ago when a new server - storage9.myopera.com - was brought on-line.

It's only happening with Opera 9.21 too, when I try that "other browser" (the one that's now on version 7) the pages are fine. Sorry Stomyr

For the moment, I've turned off my slideshow because I just find it too distracting.

Is anyone else experiencing problems? I thought there was a comment about it on Sarah's blog, but I can't find it now.

And if anyone from My Opera would care to comment that would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Call off the search parties. Stand down the national guard. Stop the vigil. I have returned.

Sunday, I was merrily working away on my surprise. Suddenly I was attacked by a troop of marauding server monkeys. Stick in hand, I steeled myself for the struggle I knew was coming. "Do your worst," I told the malicious band.

When I regained consciousness I realised that the battle had taken a lot more out of me than I originally thought.

Actually, I think it was a return of the bug I had previously. Similar symptoms - tired, achy, chills, upset stomach - and it lasted another twenty-four hours.

BTW, if you want to hear more from the Royal Canadian Air Farce there's clips here.

But I'm not laughing.

My Opera was down again last (Sat.) night. And tonight I was all set to give things a try after supper when we had another power cut.

Nothing else to do but read poetry by candle light again.

Tried a bit of Seamus Heaney tonight, but I found him really heavy going. His imagry and references are so obscure you really need footnotes to follow him.

Now that the power is back My Opera is still having trouble it seems. Images are not downloading and that means that (for me at least) blog pages will hang when trying to display the slideshow in that strip down the right side of the page.

At least I don't seem to be the only one having trouble, based on the low volume in my watch list. Only 29 to catch up on.

That's all I seem to be doing these days.

First there were the June patches from MS. That took the best part of a week using Automatic Updates on my dial-up connection.

Then Opera announces v9.0's release so I had to get that.

While this was going on Ewido decided to stop updating. I visited the website and found that v4.0 was out. So that had to be downloaded too.

And then ZoneAlarm releases a update. Add it to the list.

FINALLY, got everything down and ready to install. (After a backup, safety first kids!) It went smoothly for the most part, although I did have a small problem with Opera.

When I upgraded using the new installer I lost all my Opera Icons - Desktop, Quick Launch, Start Menu - the program was there, but I had no way to run it. (Ok, I'm not an idiot. I could have tracked down the executable and done it manually, but that's what shortcuts are there for.) I had to run the Classic Installer and tick all the boxes for icons to get them back.

Maybe that was the problem, I'd been choosing not to create icons on my previous upgrades because I ended up with two copies then.

Overall I like the new version, though I've only just started poking around the new features. The page preview you get when you hover the mouse over a tab is cool.

I haven't downloaded any widgets yet, because I bought a sync cable for my phone today. It comes with a CD, but that only has the USB drivers. If you want the actual syncing software you have to go to the website and DOWNLOAD it

WTF!!! A whole CD with only 17MB used, and they can't include the other software? The downloads are massive for dial-up too. All 30MB plus. Sony Ericsson should pull their heads out of where-ever they're stuck and realize that this is ridiculous.

</rant> Ok, it's out of my system now On the plus side I found a nice download manager called Star Downloader which has been working very well for me. And my connection has been pretty good the last while. (touch wood)

Also, the local mobile/cell phone companies announced that they plan to offer wireless broadband using their networks. Can't come soon enough.

Back to Downloading.

I have My Opera setup transferred to the new computer so I won't be using that "other browser" on here again.

I had an interesting problem during the last week that I'm quite proud of solving, if I do say so myself. A woman asked me to have a look at her computer as she couldn't get any web pages. That was simply a matter of setting IE to dial her default connection. But she was also getting this text file that opened every time she started her computer. I tried all the usual suspects – a file in her startup folder, a entry in win.ini or system.ini – but nothing. I then ran HijackThis, a handy tool for removing stubborn spyware.

Even that didn't show anything at first glance, I had to dig through the features until I found a tool called StartupList. It's included in the Misc Tools section of HijackThis. Only then did I find that somehow this file had been set to run at every log-on in the Task Scheduler. Weird.

What else is new

Well, I went out and bought myself a new keyboard. I know it looks a bit gimicky, but I have problems with my wrists if I type too much and I know it's because I have a poor typing position. I've tried using a wrist rest, and it does help some, but not enough. So I bit the bullet and went for a full ergonomic keyboard. It's different, but not as hard as I thought to it would be to use. After a bit of practice I'm sure I'll be grand. Until then I can blame any typos on getting used to the new layout.

I tried to get it from the same company where I got my “new” computer because they had the best price. Unfortunately they didn't have it in stock, and ordering it would take too long. The plan was for me to pick up when I was in Dublin on the past Friday, since getting it delivered would negate any saving I made on price.

I was trying to kill as many birds with the fewest stones on this Dublin trip so I offered to pick up a few things at Lush for Mam. I also wanted to get some jeans at Marks & Spencer. Then there was my cousin Niall who lives in Lusk and is having trouble with his computer. He offered me a bed for the night so I stayed over and came back on Saturday.

Niall's computer has been giving him grief for ages. I had a look at it over Xmas, but I couldn't get it to repeat the problem he was having. Namely, the computer just shuts down without warning and then keeps shutting itself down every few minutes unless you leave it off for several hours. It sounded like a hardware problem so I found out how to boot it into the diagnostics and ran a few tests. Of course it went through everything with flying colours.

The next morning though, the machine decided to cut out while I was checking my email. A read through the manual revealed that the power button flashing amber meant there was an internal power problem, and suggested reeseating the CPU power connector on the motherboard. I cracked open the case and tried it, but no joy. At least now we know what the problem is so he can get back on to Dell and get it sorted.

So now I have to get to work on a piece for the writers' group. Our first meeting for '06 is on Tuesday. I've been mulling over an idea but haven't anything on paper yet.