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A slow, but good, day

Tuesday, September 26th, 2006

Coloured lights from passing cars.
When I typed the word “slow” into stock.xchng this is what I got: an image of fast cars travelling at night!

At last things are improving at Saunders HQ, certainly in terms of my health. My dizziness has almost completely gone and yet I still seem to have about a month’s worth of anti-dizzy pills left, and I had to go back to the chemist today to collect my last seven tablets as they didn’t have enough when I filled my script on Friday (check me out with my pharmaceutical terms!). Are they like antibiotics, do I have to complete the course?

Late this morning I walked into Anstruther. I wanted to see how I was doing on the road to recovery but had to make do with the road to Anstruther! (Boom! boom!) I returned pretty worn out and slept for much of the afternoon. On my bean bag. On the floor in my study. I had intended to sit and read for a bit, and managed about a paragraph before dropping off.

During my amble into town I visited the Anstruther Post Office for the first time (most of these shops are closed when I return from work) and posted my Psion Series 7Book to POS with a kind letter asking them to wave their magic, technological wand over it and make it better. I now officially have never owned a Psion that I’ve not sent to POS to fix. (If that was too many double negatives for you: I have now sent every Psion I’ve ever owned to POS to fix.) I should be more careful in future.

The rest of my day has been spent:

  • sleeping
  • reinstalling Windows XP on my PC
  • evicting flies and wasps from the house
  • grinning that we’ve now sold Kadesh (more details tomorrow)
  • reading about Search Engine Optimization and the Rule of St Benedict (not in the same book!)
  • copying thousands of files from backup DVDs to my new 300 GB hard drive
  • stroking Spot (the cat) whom we got back yesterday … and who cost us £735 for that last episode!
  • viewing a(nother) house with Jane
  • sticking my head in next door’s cement mixer and speaking like Darth Vader
  • getting better

and now I’m off to do that sleeping thing again.

Posted in Cats, Computer, General, Health, Psion | 2 Comments »

Don’t give a storm a window of opportunity

Sunday, September 24th, 2006

Storm clouds

Here’s a top tip for you: if you are going to leave your Velux (roof) window open overnight in your study while there is a torrential storm raging outside don’t leave your Psion Series 7 sitting beneath it on your desk because by the morning it will have stopped working properly.

It’s also not a great idea to leave your laptop there either. Or your telephone. Or PC monitor. Or books. Or … indeed maybe we ought just to agree that it’s a good rule to close the window at night.

I’d left the Psion to dry out during the day today but the keyboard is now being completely random, even after a hard reset. Looks like I’ll be getting in touch with POS Ltd in the morning again, who are the masters of Psion repairs. Yet another expense we could do without.

Posted in Computer, General, Psion | 3 Comments »

Psion / Outlook synchronization tip

Thursday, March 23rd, 2006

I’ve been meaning to blog this for ages; someone on one of the Psion groups pointed me to it.

It’s a small application that I now use when synchronizing my Psion Series 5mx (or Psion Series 7) with Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 called Express ClickYes.

Longtime Psion users will remember that synchronizing their Agenda and Contacts with Outlook 2000 was simple: you plugged in the Psion, ran the PsiWin synchronizer and it did its job with no interruptions.

All that changed when Microsoft introduced new security features in Service Packs 1, 2 and 3 for Office 2000. Now when you try to synchronize Outlook gets all paranoid and checks to see if it’s a virus or worm trying to plunder your e-mail contacts list.

Screenshot of Outlook security window, asking for access to e-mail addresses

Which is fair enough, but it can be annoying if all you are doing is trying to synchronize your contacts list and diary, and you are running a fairly tight ship, in terms of internet security.

Express ClickYes is an application that when run (and activated, by right-clicking the Notification Area/System Tray icon and clicking “Resume”) automatically answers YES when the pop-up dialog appears.

I find it really useful for when I set my Psion and Outlook to sync while I go and have a shower in the morning, or when I’m busy doing something else around the house. That way I don’t have to lurk by my PC and wait to click Yes. Express ClickYes does it for me … as the name might suggest. It’s a useful tool to have in your Psion/Outlook arsenal.

Tags:
Posted in Psion, Reviews, Software, Top Tips | 2 Comments »

It’s a small world!

Wednesday, February 1st, 2006

The earth from space.
“Our landlord Earth” from the 3D True Gallery.

A few minutes ago I checked my email. Not a very remarkable thing to do on a Wednesday evening, I check my email quite often. However, this evening I got this email in my Outlook Inbox:

On Sunday I googled “Psion 3c” for tips on how to fix my recently half-unhinged 9 year-old 3c and I discovered your splendid site. Edinburgh, I thought; I’m going to be there tomorrow for a 2 day flying family visit … I’d drop in to say hello, but it is not as if you perform miracles on old Psions in your spare time.

Then today as my sister was about to drop me off in Murrayfield Avenue to catch the Airport bus for the journey back South … “that’s the blogging episcopalian! Gareth whatsisname, coming out of the church!” By the time we had stopped, you or your double (do episcopalian priests all look the same?) had vanished.

easyJet waits for no man, so we continued to the bus stop. But I decided I’d write a note (a) to thank you for your most entertaining site and (b) to be nosy and ask you where you were at a quarter to twelve today!

all the best
Q.H.

Well, I can safely say that was me. I presided at the 11:00 am Eucharist at the Church of the Good Shepherd on Murrayfield Avenue, stayed around to chat with someone after the service — well, I say “someone” it was actually the only person who turned up for the service! — and then returned to my car which was parked up the hill on Murrayfield Avenue, outside number 34 if you’re interested, at about 11:45 am.

That’s a shame we didn’t meet up, but really cool that Q.H. emailed and told me. And here was me thinking that I wasn’t famous!

Posted in Edinburgh, General, Psion | 3 Comments »

New WiFi card in my Psion

Monday, January 23rd, 2006

Two Psion 7Books with different sized WiFi cards in them
Spot the difference: The difference between the Lucent Orinoco WiFi card and the Buffalo AirStation cards in a Psion 7Book.

This evening I installed a new (to me) WiFi card in my Psion 7Book. Out went the Lucent Orinoco Gold (above left); in went the Buffalo AirStation WLI-PCM-L11GP (above right).

The main difference, as you can see from the photographs above, is that the Buffalo is much shorter, and doesn’t block the stylus port.

You can really see the differences here:

Lucent Orinoco WiFi card next to the Buffalo AirStation WiFi card
The much longer, and bulkier Lucent Orinoco Gold WiFi card sitting beside the slimmer Buffalo AirStation WLI-PCM-L11GP.

Hard reset before installing

In order to get the Buffalo card to work — having been using the Lucent Orinoco for months — I had to perform a full hard-reset (which involves removing the batteries and waiting a minute) and reboot the 7Book from scratch with a Compact Flash card containing the latest EPOC R5 operating system (NetBook OS v.1.05 (450) R158). Both cards use the same chipset, which I think is why I had trouble trying to install the Buffalo. I got some advice on the PDA Streets Psion Place forum to perform a full hard reset and it worked!

Psion WiFi resources

There are two major internet resources on setting up WiFi on a Psion Series 7, netBook and hybrid ‘7Book’:

Getting your hands on these WiFi cards these days can be a struggle. I managed to get both of mine on eBay UK for around £30 – 40 each. But it took some looking, and waiting.

Opera 5.14 for Psion

The other important resource, that I’ve not found linked anywhere else, is the tip on the Opera Knowledge Base about switching off the annoying popup message in Opera 5.14 each time you submit a form — it warns that the form hasn’t been encrypted, even when the encryption warning setting is disabled in the preferences:

It involves editing the Opera.ini file adding the line Warn Insecure Form=0 beneath the [USER PREFS] section. And it works!

So there you have it. One of these days I’ll get up to speed and add all this to my main Psion website; in the meantime it’s here for reference.

I now just have to reinstall the rest of my favourite applications on the 7Book. The joys of hard resets!

Posted in Computer, Psion | No Comments »

PsiWin synchronization problem solved

Sunday, January 22nd, 2006

Psion PsiWin synchronization screen

Ah! the irony! So many people email me about their problems with PsiWin, the connection and synchronization software for the Psion range of handheld computers, it was about time that I had problems too!

My problem: for some reason during the last synchronization PsiWin copied all my contacts twice, so that I had two entries for everyone. Easy, I thought, just delete the Contacts.cdb which can be found in C:\System\Data\Contacts.cdb and re-synchronize with Microsoft Outlook. PsiWin will simply create a new Contacts.cdb file, problem solved.

It wasn’t as easy as that — of course! — but I have learned something: when I resynchronized I suspect that PsiWin kept a record of what had previously been synchronized and so it did nothing, thinking that everything was up-to-date. The way to sync from scratch was to delete my PsiWin sync profile (that’s the one highlighted on the screenshot above) and create a new one. Once I’d done that everything worked as it should and I now have a healthy address book containing 548 contacts, rather than over 1,000!

Every day’s a school day!

Posted in Computer, Psion | 2 Comments »

A day in the life

Wednesday, January 18th, 2006

Bath taps

Who says that clergy don’t have interesting and varied days? Not me, for one.

Mine began, as usual, waking up to the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. When I got up, boy was I sore from weights and cycling the last two days. Having read something the other night in a small Men’s Health booklet I rediscovered that long, deep, white bucket in the bathroom and soaked myself for 20 minutes while reading the latest edition of Private Eye that Mr Postman had kindly delivered. What a decent fellow he is.

Just as I was about to go out to see my Spiritual Director the telephone rang. It was a retired medical doctor ringing to get help with his Psion Series 7 and copy of PsiWin (the software that allows you to connect a Psion to a PC).

That sorted and the promise of a follow-up email about connecting a Psion Series 7 to the internet I headed out for my six weekly appointment with my Spiritual Director. The theologian Kenneth Leech prefers the term “Soul Friend” but the idea is the same. As Leech says

“The spiritual life is the life of the whole person directed towards God”
(Soul Friend, p.30)

During these sessions I speak about what is important in my life, what is happening on all levels, not just my prayer life but everything. My Spiritual Director listens and asks questions; usually the right questions.

Today we focused a lot on what I’ll do once my current post ends at the end of April. My Spiritual Director helped me to look beyond my immediate feelings of guilt about leaving a full-time stipendiary ministry post to explore the next stage in my personal development and journey. What I do next — whatever it is — is not about me giving up my ministry or my priesthood. Rather, it is a continuation of it, and further use of the gifts that God has given me, some of which I’m not able to use fully in my current role.

This afternoon after lunch — which had to be quickly replanned after I discovered that the low-fat mayonnaise I’d just dolloped onto my can of tuna was seven months out of date — I prepared for a meeting with my colleague Nicola this evening, where I would begin to hand over information about St Salvador’s, as she will be heading-up the St Salvador’s end of things at the end of this month. Our official handing-over service will be on Sunday 29 January; the Sunday after next.

During the afternoon I followed up an email from my cousin Zack in the US who is currently working on a screenplay. I ended up phoning South Eastern Trains to ask them what they announce aboard trains as they are about to enter terminal stations. Never a dull moment my life, I tell you!

This evening, having returned from the handover meeting, and having discovered how much the church would like from us in rent should we stay on in this house after April, I helped the Americans overthrow a Chinese military coup. Like you do.

Oh, in Battlefield 2, I meant to say. And now Jane has returned from her two-and-a-half day work-related jaunt in Highland, Caithness and Moray.

Still no word from Eddie and Rebecca about how Owen is. He got out of SCBU yesterday and was back on the ward. They were due to get home today.

What did you do today?

Posted in Computer, Family, Games, General, God Project, Psion | No Comments »

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