13:37

What a fun time i've had lately. Just about everything wants to be a pain in the but, computer wise.

Bought a 'bundle' to upgrade my reserve computer after the main one went toes up. Initially all went fine. Got three latest games running on it to try it out. These being 'Crisis', 'Wings Of Prey' and 'Black Shark'.

Loaded and tried to run an older game called Lock On, but this failed to run. Going back to the original three, i found these wouldn't now run either.

Tried re-installing games and taking computer back in time as it were, but no joy. Decided that i had introduced something nasty to my drive, so went for a complete re-install of Windows.

This obviously took some time as after the Windows install i then had to do the same for all the relevant drivers. 74 Windows updates (XP) were also included before i was finally up and running.

After all that the games in question still wont run. There is something missing, but i can't figure what it is. According to my diagnostics there should be no problem.

I have some older games running ok which include Sims 3, Microsoft Flight Sim 2004 amd FSX, Dragon Age, ANNO 1404, X3, Silent Hunter 4 and Railworks. Railworks runs on 'Steam' However a couple of other 'Steam' run games including Sniper ghost will not run. Weird!.

I've come to the conclusion that the problem lies with the games makers introducing more complex ways of combatting copying of their discs or playing them on a second computer.

All very well, but how about the poor innocent punter like me getting screwed by it. It sems some of this technology is not happy working with some optical drives. So how am i to know if it is or isn't 'till i've tried it and spent my money?. The latest idea, it seems, is that a game will have to be connected at all times to the internet at a given speed, which is above mine incidentally, to allow the game and the developer to ping each other automatically at times to confirn the install is in fact legal. That means, of course, if my connection went down so would the game. Brilliant!. Talk about paranoid. Looks like the beginning of the end for new pc gaming, for me anyway. Too much of a gamble with money getting tighter by the day.

Anyway, back to more important stuff than gaming. Had to download a new widget (KE5RS) for MMSTV so can resume sstv uploading. Guess what, i cant get that to work as it did before so went over to Ham DM780 with it's own ftp. I can't get that to send up either. I'm sure i've done everything right, including renaming the cells on the sstv page. The upload address and directory is right, but nothing's going up. The widget tries to contact the server, by the way, but freezes. All addreses are right, and the widget is pointed to the history files of mmsstv where there are jpg's ready to go.

I've tried sending with no firewall, and with the anti- virus off, as i did trying to fix the games problem. No joy there.

The weather details are failing to reach the page also, so all in all i'm reay to chuck the whole web site in the bin and start something new. All because i decided to upgrade my computer *sigh*.
Should have left it as it was i suppose, but i missed my flight and train sims. I can at least play them now, but have screwed up the radio side in the process. Life's a bitch, right?.

So if all my reader *chuckle* are wondering why the site seems to have died, it's because i'm too hacked off after the above to sort it. Think i'll paint the old radio shack instead, not much chance of brain damage there. 73

21:16 All uploading has been put on hold due to finally deciding to take the plunge re upgrading my main computer. Had toyed with the idea of a dedicated games console due to not being able to keep up with the latest flight, rail, ship sims, graphic and memory wise. Unfortunately, no console game programmers seem to cater for serious simmers, so either a new pc or my existing one suped up was called for.

Obviously the cheaper option was to upgrade, so i duely purchase 'a bundle'. This comprised of a Gigabyte GA-M68M-S2 mother board/AMD 8850 Phenom triple core CPU/XFX Gamer GT240 graphics card/4 gigs of ram.

I've never tackled this sort of upgrade before, so did so in the certain knowledge there would be some sod's law to hold me up somewhere.

All went well swapping the mother board, but said sod's law came in the shape of the front panel switch plug not fitting the board socket. Bit of head scratching followed, whilst i wondered why the manufacturer didn't think of supplying a suitable plug. Anyway, using logic i checked the plug pins with a multimeter (none of them marked as to purpose) and discovered that if the plug was inserted at one end of the socket the right way round, the switch pins would marry up with the power- on pins of the socket. I wasn't worried about associated led lights etc, but it would seem the manufacturer may have anticipated the fitting of this switch socket as the led did activate anyway. Pitty there was nothing to indicate this arrangement would work in the instructions, assuming of course that it was meant to work and not just a coincidence. It would have saved a lot of hassle.

I had visions of of making my own switch, but this did the trick as the fans fired up ok. The hard drive, unfortunately didn't. More head scratching, then i noticed i had ommited to connect one 4 pin supply to the board. That connected, the drive fired up and the bios appeared on the screen. Thank goodness for that.

The rest, as they say, is history. Needless to say, i have since been loading up and playing all the games i either couldn't before, or at least had to go easy on the graphics etc. Now i can run all my sims with the wicks turned right up, Brilliant!. No doubt next years sims will need 8 gigs instead of 4. Oh well, i'm cool for the time being anyway.

I'll connect the weather centre at least back up tomorrow. I've cleared the desk of radio's to sort out the computer so sstv is out for the time being.