Family

The Trouble with Macs…

| Richard

So with the move to London happening soon, one of the items I had to sort out was my Internet access. Here at home – working for myself from my office on the side of the house – I have a business broadband package from Demon with fixed IP addresses for all the computers and printers. When I’m out and about, I usually use a 3G USB dongle from Vodafone which is more often that not either a regular 38Kbps service or on occasion nothing more than a pretty white plastic thing for decoration only. Where there is good coverage, it’s supposed to deliver 1.8Mbps with the promise of 7.2Mbps in parts of London though annoyingly Rotherhithe doesn’t appear to be in the Promised Land but just outside – I’ll check when I get there.

So anyway, with 5GB/month I thought that might make it easier: no need to get a phone line and a broadband package, just use my allowance for a change.

But Mrs RHM then suggested I should get a webcam for my laptop so I could help the kids with their homework if need be and also keep in touch with her. Fine, I thought, though alarm bells started ringing: she uses our venerable iMac while the rest of the family have PCs.

So what’s the problem with the iMac?

Well the iMac and OSX Leopard has iChat which promotes its video chat features. To use it to its best, you need to have a .Mac account – which is expensive for what you actually get which is why I abandoned my .Mac account after a couple of years – as does your friend and .Mac is pretty much a waste of time for anyone on a PC. “Never fear”, says Apple, “you can always link up with AIM.” What?

“iChat works with AIM, the largest instant messaging community in the U.S. You and your buddies can be either AIM or .Mac users. Text, audio, and video chat whether your buddies use a Mac or a PC. Sign in with your AIM account, and all your buddies appear in your iChat buddy list.”

Great! No-one in the UK – OK, I exaggerate a tad – uses AIM: AOL Instant Messenger. The client software seems to have issues here on this PC, by the way, which comes as no surprise to me having once used AOL software for testing purposes. Go on: ask any of your connected friends what they use for instant messaging and they’ll say “MSN” (or “Windows Live Messenger“, to give it its proper name).

You can, of course, download the Mac Messenger client, but the ‘usual’ home user version does not support video messaging. Not really a surprise as I think Microsoft doesn’t really bother with Mac users as they’re lost causes as far as “the Beast of Redmond” appears to be concerned.

Maybe this is another reason not to get a Mac? Until Apple comes up with an instant messaging client that supports video messaging with Windows Live users, you’d otherwise be partially cutting yourself off from the majority of computer users, at least here in the UK.

Imagination

| Richard

Went out with my daughter this morning to do her paper round with her. On the way back, I was amused at the house name plaque thingy on a bungalow we passed. It read “The Bungalow”. We laughed at how long it took them to come up with that name and the conversation and then we wondered if Mr. & Mrs. Bleedin’-Obvious had kids…

“Yes, we’ll call her ‘The Girl'”. “Congratulations! It’s a boy! What’s his name? Oh, right … ‘the Boy'”.

Best. Book. Ever.

| Richard

Simply the best book I’ve read in ages: lots of useful and irrelevant but interesting facts and ideas for Dads.

It also makes ideal toilet reading…

Not Dead Yet

| Richard

A very curious weekend.

On Friday, a friend gave me a big bag of Revels and a big bag of Maltesers in return for picking their son and his sleepover stuff up after football practice on Saturday and depositing them at their house. The fact that I was doing the coaching and would need to drive within a few yards of their house on my way home didn’t seem to be a consideration, but despite protests from Mrs Blue, she went ahead and insisted on my having the love from chocolate. Jack was having his mate sleepover here on Friday night and I had a burger and southern-fried potatoes for tea with them (having consumed most of the Revels before helping Amy with her paper round as usual). I woke during the night in a lot of pain from my chest – it felt like I had pulled a muscle in my chest or back and so a fitful night ensued. I even popped a couple of Rennies in during the night which seemed to help a bit.

On Saturday night, I cooked a nice king prawn korma with cauliflower, peas and carrots in the curry, served with boiled rice and naan bread. Nothing too spicy. I was in bed well before midnight and was woken by a bad chest pain again around 1.00am ish. I got up and walked about before going back to bed and eventually managing to drift off. 3.30am and I was in serious pain. My left arm had gone cold as sometimes happens when my sleeve gets wrapped a bit tight around my shoulder. But it was the pain in my chest that was a bastard.

Now I know what you’re thinking. But I knew I wasn’t in pain in my shoulder or arm. No nausea. No sweating. Downstairs, our Big Family Book of Hypochondria had a handy flowchart. Sliding my finger across to the first box, it read “call an ambulance”. Pfft! I fired up my lappy and visited the NHS Direct web site. {Clickety-click} “Call an ambulance immediately.” Pfft! Rang them: “we’ll send an ambulance”. “No thanks,” quoth I, “can I speak to someone as I think it’s indigestion.” So I spoke to a triage nurse sort of person. Very helpful he was, even after I’d dismissed the option of … an ambulance. He suggested I tried sleeping sitting up as if it was caused by acid in my stomach, it’s best to allow gravity to help out. I should avoid Ibuprofen for the pain as that can irritate the stomach too. So I took another couple of Rennies and a couple of Paracetamol and sat down to sleep. Amazingly, I did snatch another two or three hours’s sleep.

Sunday morning and it’s a football match, so I headed up to the park to carry a couple of goalposts and erect them. Some shortness of breath but then they are aluminium and 3/4 size, so that’s not too surprising. Then I ran around for the next hour refereeing the game – end to end stuff, so lots of running for me. No problems at all. Then cooked some pasta and tomato for lunch and chicken and mushrooms in a mushroom sauce with tagliatelle for tea. Jane had bought some Gaviscon and fruit Rennies during the day, so before turning in I swigged 20ml of the Gaviscon – which smelled of peppermint but tasted of cheap Playdoh-substitute – and settled down. 1.30am and I’m up, chewing a couple of Rennies. Back to bed and awake at 7.00am this morning.

Today sees mithering from Jane about making an appointment to see the doctor. 12.50pm and I’m seeing the duty doctor. She looks aghast as I tell her about the ambulance refusals. Checks my blood pressure and history, then orders an ECG. So little squares are shaved out of my chest hair and legs and I’m wired up. All checks out normal, apparently. We go through everything else before she prescribes some PPIs (Lansoprazole). The NHS Direct says:

However, you need to consult your GP first if:

  • You are 45 years or older with new or recently changed symptoms of indigestion.

Ah.

So anyway, we’ll see if they fix whatever’s broken. And amongst the side-effects for men is the possibility of breast growth. Result!