gareth.halfacree.co.uk

You may have noticed that this website has taken on a new look.  There’s a reason for this.

In the past I’ve used strange, esoteric software to create my websites - the last one was made using something called GreyMatter.  While this works OK, it’s not as flexible and powerful as some of the more mainstream options out there.

Accordingly, I’ve switched to WordPress, an open-source package that’s rather more popular than the stuff I normally use.  It’s nice and powerful, but does mean that the custom theme I was using before has had to go bye-bye.  Thankfully, I was able to import the old content OK, although it could do with some tidying.

As time goes on, I’ll be customising the site further to accomodate my needs along with adding some additional software thanks to the new raft of MySQL databases I’ve got courtesy of moving to a decent webhost.

I’ve just got off the ‘phone with Roofing Group UK, and just about managed to keep my cool - it would appear that the “boss” is on holiday in Spain, and won’t be back until the end of September. Only then will he deign to look at my leaking roof.

I’ve pointed out that this is completely unacceptable, and have been promised resolution soonest. We’ll see what happens, but for now if anyone’s looking for a roofing company I can only say avoid Roofing Group UK.

Today has most certainly not gone well. Aside from the roofers continued lack of communication, there’s another joy to add to my overflowing pot - and it concerns my door.

I got up this morning bright and early, eager to trundle off to work. Shower, dress, breakfast - all is going according to plan. I don my coat and shoes and set off out the door.

Wait - rewind. I try to set off out the door, but the door has other ideas. The multi-point lock has failed in the ‘lock’ position, and I’m trapped. Being, as it is, a back-to-back terrace, I’m really trapped - the front door is also my only door.

First things first - a quick e-mail to work to let them know I shan’t be in. I’m sure it went down well, being off for unscheduled absence in my first month of work, but these things can’t be helped. Next step was to contact someone who might be able to do something. They attended a scant half-hour later, and spent the majority of the morning trying to effect entry.
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Well, I just got a very rude awakening about an hour ago - a leak in my extremely expensive new roof causing water to drip down from the ceiling in my computer room, all over my not-inexpensive collection of crap. For joy.

The problem, as far as I can ascertain in the dark, is caused by a fault in the construction of the new roof - a U-shaped channel in the flashing where the dormer wall meets the roof, which isn’t covered by the ‘lip’ of the dormer. The water will collect here and enter the roof space.

Now I’ll need to get in touch with the company who fitted said roof - Roofing Group UK - and attempt to ‘encourage’ them to fix it ASAP under the terms of their guarantee. The difficult part will be convincing them it’s a problem in their workmanship - made harder by the fact that the very nice salesman who attended when we requested the new roof no longer works for the company.

All in all, not what I need when I’ve had a rather tiring second week at work.

Well, I couldn’t wait until Sunday - so I’ve pieced the RiscPC back together and fired it up…

And it works absolutely perfectly. Turns out it’s actually a Zip 250, which is nice - and all the insides work splendidly. The keyboard I recovered at the same time is shot, sadly, but it’s just a standard PS/2 unit and will be simple to replace.

All it needs now is a clean and tidy and it’ll be as good as new. Not bad for something that was going to end up polluting some landfill site somewhere…