Y i n k (dot) Net | Art, love & life

I haven’t posted for so long its become embarrassing.

Recently I’ve just upgraded my compies from XP to Win 7. What a pile of gunk vista turned out to be fortunately win 7 is a very nice OS. It looks good, behaves very well and is super configurable. The art work, icons and the glass aero theme all work together very well.

I’m not sure if I’m correct in saying so, but it feels Win 7 makes more use of the hardware, which is maybe obvious as it requires more resources but it doesn’t feel slugish the experience is quite pleasant.

I was quite impressed when upgrading. Its the first time I’ve actually planned an upgrade as the cleanest upgrade from XP is a clean install. I backed up my firefox settings with MozBackup which saves all your settings and can even save your extensions. Watch out for google gears its best to un-install that and reinstall later. The upgrades on my main pc and the laptop took under 30 mins from beginning of install to logging into windows. And the install only asks a few questions and merrily works its way through the install.

I’m not one to follow hype but it did feel like lots for Win 7 so I thought I would take a look. I was super disappointed with vista and was very wary and cautious about how it would turn out. What I like is the new theme, I like the windows search system whereby it indexes everything and makes searching for files of all types incredibly fast. I really like the way photos and media is handled. I like the inclusion of windows media centre in the home premium edition.

What I like most is that you can move folders such as My Documents. You could do this on previous versions too, but this time you can also move your My Pictures, Music folders etc, to where they actually exist. If you keep these on separate partitions like I do this feature is super useful.

Windows did recognise all the main hardware and installed the drivers. A few minor hardware wasn’t recognised but I was easily able to find drivers. Win 7 uses the same driver model as vista so finding and installing vista drivers is acceptable and won’t cause any issue.

The cost is one aspect which I don’t fully like. I wish it was a little less. I’m hoping they will take a leaf out of apples book and start selling there OS closer to $30 but we can hope.

Should you rush out and upgrade ? if you’re on Vista then I think you definitely should. If you’re on XP with a newish pc and you feel up to the challenge of moving then go for it. If your PC is ageing a little I’d say hold out a little while, prices are sure to drop and also due to the sheer amount of XP users Microsoft have been forced into support XP for another couple of years.

Michael Jackson walk of fame star

Michael Jackson

It was a little surreal waking up to hear the news of MJ passing away. Especially knowing his farewell tour was only a few weeks away in London. What a way to leave.

Michael Jackson – Human Nature

Looking out
Across the night-time
The city winks a sleepless eye
Hear her voice
Shake my window
Sweet seducing sighs

Get me out
Into the night-time
Four walls won’t hold me tonight
If this town
Is just an apple
Then let me take a bite

Chorus
If they say -
Why, why, tell ‘em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
If they say -
Why, why, tell ‘em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way

Reaching out
To touch a stranger
Electric eyes are ev’rywhere
See that girl
She knows I’m watching
She likes the way I stare

If they say -
Why, why, tell ‘em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
If they say -
Why, why, tell ‘em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
I like livin’ this way
I like lovin’ this way

(instrumental section)

Looking out
Across the morning
The city’s heart begins to beat
Reaching out
I touch her shoulder
I’m dreaming of the street

Chorus
If they say -
Why, why, tell ‘em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
If they say -
Why, why, tell ‘em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
I like livin’ this way

(Repeat Chorus – Ad-lib/fade-out)

Tricky – Pumpkin

Pumpkin
you’re hollow within
More how I’m to slowly
let their harm
Give us some
It’s sad until
Like flowers untamed
Shine out ends
I find what will make him
Love me
Life is our find
Hollow is he

I can’t breathe and I can’t see
MTV moves too fast, I refuse to understand
You go your way and I’ll see mine
Feels like wasted time
And it feels like I must be blind
How’d you like yourself?
You don’t know yourself

To a hollow kind, don’t mind
Love is some of you
Don’t dabble in fall of failure
How bad,ooh,ooh

Tricky and Alison Goldfrapp:
I smell of she and I fail to be
Well anyway,well anyway,well anyway

See how high
Go on

I can’t see and I can’t breathe
I can’t see and I can’t breathe
I can’t see and I can’t breathe
I can’t see and I can’t breathe
Well anyway, well anyway

She said “I’ve a problem, I’ve done something stupid.”
Yas: “So why are you here, leave my office take your problem elsewhere”

I was joking, I’m approached at work with similar opening lines all the time. Its my department which ends up cleaning up the mess from other departments. Luckily in this instance the problem turned out to be far easier.

The lady from the quality control department had received some ladies belts. She had tried them on. Starting with the smallest obviously. But was surprised when size large didn’t fit her. So she had sent a sample of the belts off to the technical department. Normally my department would be informed of this but on this occasion she had not done.

Anyway she was telling me the story of how she tried putting on size large and it didn’t fit! what crossed my mind was well maybe you need an extra large. Obviously once the words ‘extra’ and ‘large’ crossed my mind I knew in this instance I need to keep my mouth shut no matter what happens. It was one of those volatile situations whereby speaking the wrong word no matter how remotely related or unrelated it is will cause a reaction which would have left her feeling bad. Women and sensitive go hand in hand like red leather and gloves.

She finished off by letting me know the technical department had found no faults and that the size was correct. Then she said well either the size is small on these belts or I’m just fat and I’m now going to go and cry.

Please not in my office I thought. Leave the belts here and I will get them to the right waist, I mean place!

[audio:http://tanziers.com/yink.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/40-greatfairysfountain.mp3]

I was going to work this morning and like every other Friday there tends to be less traffic so I set off a little later than normal. As I know I can get there on time. On my way I pass a stretch of country side and since this area ia pretty high up you get to see a lovely panoramic of all the hills around and the small little building dotted around.

In the mornings specially when the weather is a little foggy a mist covers part of the landscape. It really is quite a beautiful site in the mornings. I can imagine its probably under appreciated as everyone else like myself is only there as they are driving to a destination and at that time in the morning likely to be work.

I’ve noticed the weather can create some wonderful scenery and completely change the surroundings or at least let you see it in a different light. This morning was rather special.

The night before had been very cold and in the morning as its becoming light I was driving along and when I came to the main road I noticed an amazing skyline which I must admit I have never witnessed before. The sun appeared to be rising but it was not visible. The sky was full of lots of small little ripple like clouds that were giving the sky a textured look not much unlike the earth surface if we were to look down on it. What was truly amazing was the colour of the sky. It was an immense golden orange colour which was filling the whole sky with its hue.

I have seen some truly post card style scenery along this route but today the golden orange sky added colour even to the clouds and I was in awe by how impressive the sky looked. So much in fact I felt like parking up on the side of the road to take a picture.

I couldn’t stop and take a picture as I had set off late, also I knew that the sky would only stay like this for some minutes only. So I include a picture at the top which is also quite impressive. Its been awhile since the weather has made me feel like ‘wow how amazing’.

Today is Blog Action Day, October 15th BlogActionDay.org. Bringing awareness to the worlds poverty in the poorest countries.

Something you should also read: Poverty Facts and Stats.

Hello and welcome to Yink.net Autumn/Winter 2008 edition. This new skin is called Artist Journal its a modified version of Notepad Chaos original by Evan Eckard you can get the original skin from here.

I modified and tried to change as many elements as possible. The core code is as is I have done very little to it. I have added more textures and given it a darker feel. This is to reflect the shorter days we will experience. The core change to Yink is attributed to two reasons, 1. is the shift in the direction of Yink (as always : ) 2. is a gift I received which was a beautiful journal type book I received which I haven’t as yet used (silly I know). As for the Autumn Winter edition I hope to change the skin with the season, so its always fresh and new.

I explain a little more than I usually do as I was looking back at my old skins and thinking, ‘oh I don’t have a picture of such and such a skin which I did a while ago’. Which is sad as there has been many skins to this blog. I still had the last two skins saved so I created images of them to keep as a record here, so from oldest to newest:

The Love4U skin, by far my most favourite skin. The large image at the front was changed every month.

Beautify is my last skin before Artist Journal. The day of the week was written in Japenese and French.

Artist Journal my current skin. The style of this was done in a way which later flash sites began to use with real textures and objects before video made it big in flash. It does have some borrowed elements from Beautify. Thanks to Flo for reminding me its good enough isn’t actually good enough!

I still have other parts of the blog to neaten up and finish as is always the case, enjoy : )

The scenario is this, some guy at head office had been informed that one of the shirts on the website had the wrong picture. It was showing as a white shirt but the ordering code behind it related back to a blue shirt. So when customers were placing orders against a particular white shirt what was actually getting sent out was a blue shirt. Completely not what the customer ordered.

Worst part about it was these shirts can be customised to the customers needs. Quite a few of these shirts had been sent to be altered and then shipped out to the customer. Its only when they arrived back saying not what we ordered did we figure out that picture on the website is completely wrong.

What happened next is what interested me. The guys who work on the website even though they knew about this issue over a week ago, couldn’t ‘do anything to fix it’ in a reasonable amount of time. So I was asked to put a block on these shirts via our system. For me it was a case of 30 mins of work. I could have updated the site myself in 5 mins if I had the access.

I went to inform some of the staff in the department. An older lady who has been with the company for many many years nearing her retirement, she had been swapping the shirts for the correct ones.

I said no you guys can’t just swap the shirts, as the orders are coming in for blue shirts.
“No, the customer ordered white shirts.” She said to me.
I corrected her, “No the customer thinks they are ordering white shirts but they are in fact ordering blue shirts”.

I explained that changing the shirts from the actual ordered ruins the stock levels and also its not traceable what actually happened, the system won’t be showing we sent out white shirts but blue shirts. Which is the correct line.

“I just think that’s ludicrous, when we have plenty of white shirts we can send them.” She retaliated.

I explained a little that head office need accountability of each line of shirt so they know how well they are selling and how much profit they are making from it. Also if someone is sending out something else instead of what the system is saying it will throw their profit figures out for styles of shirts.

And then I took a moment as it struck me that if you’re not sending the item the customer wants, you’re not getting any money. Which makes profits per style completely pointless. Its then it struck me how inflexible and stupid the setup and system actually is.

Anyway I put a block on the shirts so they automatically get removed from the website. I have seen them in the past take months to correct very simple issues. However if I had a say, the web team would be the first to go, replacing her with this old lady who actually understands more how systems should be run.

I’m not sure what was up, it happened a few months back and it had been happening all week. What made it worse was when someone was around. This time it just happened to be worse. Previously I had managed with the aid of deep breathing to let things go. But on this occasion with my weener out I was trying to relax and the big boss walked in. I tried, but I just couldn’t pee. I had to withdraw and come back at a later time. I’ve not suffered from the same issue since, still not sure what it was.