Thursday, July 15, 2004

Time to shell out alot of money for a new PC. August 2.

Monday, July 05, 2004

I just got my LAKS Memory 128mb watch back (link). Myself and a friend bought one a couple of months back.

The USB connector degraded with general use. It was interesting and convincing that there are issues with the way the tension during the connection of the watch to a computer. For both watches the quality of the USB cable degraded to prevent the USB function. The failure of both watches occurred within a couple of weeks of each other and about 8 months of general use (which can only show a common flaw).

Given that it failed, I can only say that the service provided by LAKS was unquestioning and impressive. I recommend them as a company. They gave us both a new watch and I can only hope that its functionality won’t degrade as it did before. The watch’s connectors do look as though they have been improved upon.

I must say that its usefulness is indescribable and I would recommend it to anyone that works with computers. You'd typically not have a memory stick available when you need it... with a memory watch you've always got disk storage available. I've did away with the FDD about 5 years ago. The only hassles I’ve had have been during a clean operating system install. Until recently I used to have a 4x/8x non bootable SCSI CDROM drive. With the internet available everywhere... Email has always been preferable to 1.44 FDD... but once in a while there is a 20mb file or a whole lot of 'stuff' that needs to be moved. While a rewritable CD is accommodating, it is still a bit too large to carry around (I’m lazy and not willing to put up with the hassle.)
A great weekend at the Durban July (link). A 6 hour trip to Durban, dinner with friends, some stories (which I wont be mentioning here) and a mellow sunday morning on the beach watching the Gunston 500.

There were quite a few blazing honies about - its always impressive to see everyone dressing up for a day of horse racing... Comparing it to the Met, which is a larger event, the Durban July has a lot more class and character. I ended down loosing quite a bit on the horses but made back my losses on the 10th race. I used to be able to read a race guide quite easily... I felt blinded with all the statistics and numbers. Quite uncomfortable. I would recommend getting your hands on one of those books before the race day. Its never pleasant having to rush your decisions before placing your bets.

We stayed at the Blue Waters Hotel which is along the beach front next to the Sun Coast Casino and Vecca Matta. It proved, once again, to be a great hotel to stay. Its in walking distance to quite a few points of intrest. We were about 20 strong and having breakfast with friends and a view over the ocean is a pleasant change to the buzz of JHB.

I can only recommend to those that havnt been to find the time to get out of JHB for a weekend and enjoy their time in Durbs.