Fixed Laptop
After a week of trying to find a replacement video card for my laptop, I decided that I'd have to bite the bullet and purchase a replacement card from Dell, even if that meant a 2-3 week waiting period. In the meantime I'd have to beg or borrow laptop resources.

Luckily for me, when I called Dell Spare Parts I was informed that they had a single card sitting in their distribution centre. I affirmed that I definitely wanted the card, and then went about ingratiating myself with the service representative and two levels of management.

The end result was quite impressive. The card reached me in less than 24 hours, which I didn't think was possible given that it had to travel from Singapore to Melbourne and get cleared by customs along the way. I now have a working laptop with better graphics performance. Huzzah!

The invoice, on the other hand, will take at least a week to arrive.

Despite the expense and inconvenience of repairing the laptop, it has given me a couple of good stories for my upcoming SAGE-AU presentation.

Sick Laptop
Today, with practically no warning, my Inspiron 8600 laptop started erratically blinking its display, then showed extensive video corruption (lines, bars, static), and then hung. Rebooting resulted in some very pretty but not very soothing "plasma patterns", although all other indicators (hard drive activity, keyboard lights) indicated that everything was working; for some definition of working.

I left the machine turned off for a bit, started it up (finally getting a real display), and started a memory testing appliaction (memtest86). Memory tested fine for one complete pass of all tests, but again video corruption was evident, with missing or misdisplayed characters.

Looks like a video card issue to me. I take apart the laptop, pop out the memory card, and reseat it. Fired up the machine again; no joy.

A bit of hunting around revealed that a replacement GeForce Fx5650 mobile card from Dell costs $457.50 AUD (incl GST), and comes with a 2-3 week delivery time. Ouch. An ATI Raedon 9600 replacement is only $309.10 AUD (incl GST), and also comes with a 2-3 week delivery time. Calls to other suppliers reveals that nobody keeps these things in stock, since they're so rarely needed.

I've managed to return some stability to the machine (disabling all hardware acceleration, etc), ad I'm conducting a full backup. All the important stuff should be in CVS and distributed across other machines anyway, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.

These sorts of problems are a pain at the best of times, but the timing now is particuarly bad since I have a course that I'm teaching next week, and this laptop is my main teaching machine. I've sorted a few contingency plans, but I hope that I won't have to use them.

I'm really hoping this problem is just a temporary glitch (solar flares), or failing that a broken fan on the graphics card.

I have learnt one thing from the whole experience. When you suspect a problem in your rare and expensive graphics card, having your screen unexpectedly blank can cause sheer terror until you remember the screen-saver is active.

Perl Security
I'm extremely pleased to say that our Perl Security course notes have been released in full for personal use, and can be downloaded from the link near the top of the course description page. As for all our course materials, feedback is appreciated, and can be sent to contact@perltraining.com.au.

Perl on z/OS
I've been asked to give a presentation on Perl for performance monitoring at an upcoming conference, with a focus on Unix, Windows, and z/OS (aka OS/390). It appears my main audience will consist of administrators and managers of large mainframe systems, and are interested in how they can use Perl and other open source tools to both improve their performance monitoring and pay less in proprietary software costs.

While I'm sure I can engage the audience on using Perl for performance monitoring under Unix and Windows, I'm a complete weenie when it comes to z/OS. So I hope to do what I normally do when I encounter difficulties — cheat.

If you happen to regularly do performance monitoring on z/OS using Perl, then I'd love to hear from you. I'd especially love to hear from you if you're using Perl on z/OS with open source or home-grown tools.

Children's Garden
Emily, the daughter of my very good friends Andrew and Kat, recently turned three. Her birthday was celebrated in the Ian Potter Fundation Children's Garden, which makes up part of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. I can highly recommend visiting the Children's Garden, even if you don't have a child as an excuse. The layout of the gardens are excellent, especially if you are playing hide-and-seek, tag, or laser games. If you are bringing a child, then equipping them with gumboots is highly recommended.

Perl Security
I'm extremely pleased to say that our Perl Security course notes have been released in full for personal use, and can be downloaded from the link near the top of the course description page. As for all our course materials, feedback is appreciated, and can be sent to contact@perltraining.com.au.

Perl on z/OS
I've been asked to give a presentation on Perl for performance monitoring at an upcoming conference, with a focus on Unix, Windows, and z/OS (aka OS/390). It appears my main audience will consist of administrators and managers of large mainframe systems, and are interested in how they can use Perl and other open source tools to both improve their performance monitoring and pay less in proprietary software costs.

While I'm sure I can engage the audience on using Perl for performance monitoring under Unix and Windows, I'm a complete weenie when it comes to z/OS. So I hope to do what I normally do when I encounter difficulties — cheat.

If you happen to regularly do performance monitoring on z/OS using Perl, then I'd love to hear from you. I'd especially love to hear from you if you're using Perl on z/OS with open source or home-grown tools.

Children's Garden
Emily, the daughter of my very good friends Andrew and Kat, recently turned three. Her birthday was celebrated in the Ian Potter Fundation Children's Garden, which makes up part of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. I can highly recommend visiting the Children's Garden, even if you don't have a child as an excuse. The layout of the gardens are excellent, especially if you are playing hide-and-seek, tag, or laser games. If you are bringing a child, then equipping them with gumboots is highly recommended.

Darwin Training
For the last week I was training on a secure facility located near Darwin. That means that nobody can tell me why they're learning Perl, or what they do for a job. It also means that I need to be accompanied at all times, including when getting a coffee, or visiting the bathroom.

Actually, I tell a lie there. I'm not allowed to fetch my own coffee, since the area containing the coffee machine is restricted. In some ways it's like being a little kid again, I can't go anywhere without being accompanied by a responsible adult.

Working on a secure facility is nothing new, I've done this a few times before with trips to Canberra. However this facility has by far has the best satellite photos of anywhere I've worked. That's a lot of technology out in the middle of nowhere.

While my 'need to know' extends about as far as the cafeteria menu, I've picked up some of the local rumours about the base. Apparently it's part of Australia's UFO-defense network, with interceptors launched from a nearby air-base, and a UFO missile defense system near Alice Springs. Apparently UFOs are a real problem during the hurricane season, as the bad weather can interfere with equipment and the number of abductions goes way up. Another good reason to stay inside during a hurricane alert.

Unfortunately I didn't get to see any UFO intercepts, not least because I was teaching in a room with no windows. Nor was I allowed to see the recovered alien technology on sub-basement 7G. Even so, I'm very excited that Perl may potentially being used for integrating with other-worldly technology.