Flowers and the Law

My favourite web authoring tool, however…

… since an automatic update to Windows Live Essentials the other day, Windows Live Writer has failed to start, giving “Windows Live Writer has stopped working” immediately. Actually I’m not 100% it was working just before that, but I think so.

I am of course writing this in Windows Live Writer, so what was the solution?  I tried Microsoft “Fix it”, which didn’t. Endless googling/binging had yielded nothing helpful, and the event log gave no clues. However, I also found that Adobe Reader’s update to version “X” would not install because of “Error 1327. Invalid Drive F:\”.

I found an article on the Adobe forums suggesting re-creating the missing drive using (for example)

subst f: c:\windows

and the installation worked fine. And this also fixed Windows Live Writer!

Obviously I don’t want to have to do that every time, so I’ve mapped F: to a folder on the NAS. And in fact this is how it was many months ago, until at some point I killed my F drive in favour of an S. This must be behind the problems – something in the guts of WLW (and the Adobe registry settings too?) must be referencing the ghost of my old F drive, and the recent updates must have changed the behaviour to make this critical.

Anyway, problem solved, though I am left feeling uneasy that I don’t know why this happened.

Some time later… I couldn’t let this lie… I found a couple of registry keys set to “F:”

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Personal

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Personal

I changed these to “%USERPROFILE%\Documents” and “C:\Users\Flowers\Documents” respectively, then disconnected my F: drive again, and sure enough WLW opens fine. So that is probably the true fix to this problem: WLW crashes on start-up if either of these keys points to a bad drive.

Now to show Helen how to use WLW to post to her blog…

First the wind: as a birthday treat for Naomi we did the Mynydd Troed Race today. I don't think I've ever done a race in such foul conditions, with screaming winds and driving rain. Before the start I was a bit miffed that the course was shortened to miss out Mynydd Llangorse - this was my first race after busting the knee and I wanted my money's worth!  However the remaining 4.5 miles still took me 58 minutes - almost as long as the full 7 miles takes normally - and since my calf strain returned with a vengeance about half way, it was plenty. Stewart was a few places ahead of me, and will lunch out on this for ever.

Naomi had a good run, beating Sharon and various Chepstow lasses.

Now the strings: Lois found out yesterday she got a distinction in her cello grade 5 exam. Much surprise and joy.

At last we are the “proud” owners of Number 1 Fronwen Terrace, and over the last couple of weekends we have begun the mammoth task of making it habitable for humans.

Here’s the kitchen after lifting the lino to reveal the slime and mould…

I removed the whole lot, along with most of the skin on my knuckles.  The quarry tile floor is in good nick, and we think we’ll leave that in situ.

We’re not so sure about the range – a “Chatton Special” from the 1930’s (we think). It’s lovely, but has a little damage and rust and may not be recoverable. We’ll take advice on this, but I hope we can keep it (losing the fireplace, which is not so lovely).

We have inherited a fine range of derelict sheds. The most heavy-duty of these was integrated into the house structure via some Heath Robinson carpentry and excessive use of roofing felt. Here’s a part of it being dismembered – note the use of the tin can as roof support, among all the other random craps.

This shed was all pretty weird - very solidly built, but not high enough to stand up in. Two small child’s bells, endless hooks and pieces up string tied between them, net curtains, and a secret compartment under the floorboards, which, instead of the anticipated treasure, contained endless takeaway trays, margarine tubs, rusty pots and pans, half an old fireplace, and a Gollywog jam jar.  I’ve removed the rotten front wall and the bit that joined the house, and it now a rather nice kind of gazebo or perhaps log store. But OMG the spiders!

Another liability we have taken on is the collapsing boundary wall, which has been threatening to come down into the lane for months. We decided to take down the top half, reducing the risk of overall collapse, loss of limbs, children, cars etc.

Inside, we’ve removed all the horrid carpets and lino, and started stripping walls. Here’s the runner up to the top floor, about to go.

The garden is horrific, apart from the lawn area which has been maintained in reasonable nick. The rest appears to have been used as an intensive ivy farm combined with kitchen midden.

In amongst this are all kinds of wonders, bit of wire fence, broken glass, rusty buckets, a ruined greenhouse, brambles, more margarine tubs, etc etc. But also some rhubarb plants that are producing lovely red shoots.

The kids helped rediscover the back gate, which was buried in years of ivy. Here it is actually opening.

Robin helped with the bonfires, and we must have burned a couple of tons of scrub.

The electrician (Jeremy) arrived this evening and managed to get the lights back on, plus a few sockets, so the hoovering and lawn-mowing can soon commence.

Here’s me after a day of filling, scraping, lifting, sweeping, and general skirmishing with grime and dereliction.

We have now over-filled a skip, and we are pretty pooped.

An exciting week at Priory School, with Zoo Lab introducing the kids to snakes and creepy crawlies, and then the Eisteddfod.

Robin took the stage three times, here singing “hufen iâ” in duet with Amy.

He also performed “Do Re Mi” on trumpet, and “Mis Mawrth unwaith eto…” (aka “Dewi Sant”) with Dewi House.

Dewi House were victorious, of course!

Other stars of Dewi included Evey and Bethan performing this masterpiece!

Our books are all over the place – bookshelves all over the house with mixed up contents, and loads in cardboard boxes too (we moved house only 11 years ago). not surprisingly, it’s rather hard to find that book I’m sure I’ve got somewhere about Greek mythology, or whatever. So as a masterclass in displacement activity (from DIY and real work) I set up an Access database to catalogue all of our books.

After entering about 3 books it became apparent that this was a pretty boring activity, and my idea of getting the kids to do it was not well received even by Lois. So I hunted around for a web service that could do it for me with minimal effort. I found isbndb.com and all my troubles were over. I’ve added a magic button to my data entry form to fetch data from the ISDBdb web service - all you have to enter is the 10-digit ISBN code, and the other fields are magically filled in for you.

It’s quite a powerful API, allowing searching in a variety of ways and returning data about books, authors, subjects etc. For the moment I’m only using a simple ISBN look-up in an XMLHTTP request, where the request looks like this:

returning XML data like this:

<ISBNdb server_time="2012-02-12T19:58:11Z">
  <BookList total_results="1" page_size="10" page_number="1" shown_results="1">
    <BookData book_id="archaeology_a33" isbn="0500276056" isbn13="9780500276051">
      <Title>Archaeology</Title>
      <TitleLong>Archaeology: theories, methods, and practice</TitleLong>
      <AuthorsText>Colin Renfrew, Paul Bahn</AuthorsText>
      <PublisherText publisher_id="thames_and_hudson">New York : Thames and Hudson, c1991.</PublisherText>
      <Details change_time="2005-03-31T08:09:28Z" price_time="2011-12-31T01:26:57Z" edition_info="" language="eng" physical_description_text="543 p. : ill. (some col.)" lcc_number="CC165" dewey_decimal_normalized="" dewey_decimal="" />
      <Summary></Summary>
      <Notes>Includes bibliographical references (p. 493-524) and index.</Notes>
      <UrlsText></UrlsText>
      <AwardsText></AwardsText>
      <Subjects>
      <Subject subject_id="archaeology">Archaeology</Subject>
      </Subjects>
      <Authors>
        <Person person_id="renfrew_colin">Renfrew, Colin</Person>
        <Person person_id="bahn_paul_g">Bahn, Paul G.</Person>
      </Authors>
    </BookData>
  </BookList>
</ISBNdb>

So it was a relatively simple matter to parse this XML (using MSXML) and bung the values into the right places. Actually it is not completely simple, because the data from the web service is rather variable, and doesn’t correspond directly with my data structure; for example, you can see from the example above that the PublisherText node contains a string that I would consider the publisher, publishing location, and publishing date, all mashed up together – slightly disappointing from a supposedly structured database. But hey it’s pretty good, and the result is we can now enter a new book in a few seconds.

With the weather turning chilly, a few days ago we put out a pot of lard and seeds for the birds. Robin spotted this little chap (?) popping up between the logs and helping himself.

He’s been around much every morning since, and we suspect he will invite family and friends.

I think the long nose, colouring, big eyes and ears suggest he’s a wood mouse, but I’m not sure. Corrections or confirmation anyone?

To christen Stewart’s sexy new Ribble, we met in Rhayader for a tour of the lakes (and hills). A glorious day, clear blue skies and about 2 degrees, and luckily most of the roads were free of ice. Simon and Stewart had their special booties, I just got cold feet.

I was horrendously unfit and weak, and could barely get up the slightest rise, while Stewart streaked ahead with Simon hanging onto his back wheel. Then after about 20 miles something went twang in my right knee (the good one), making everything from that point on rather painful.  I think it is the same injury that had me walk back from Crickhowell a couple of years ago – muscle tear on inside of upper knee.

I crawled painfully up the last monster hill, then was very glad to get back to the Triangle Inn in Rhayader for a pint of Hancock’s HB and a delicious lunch with the family. They had been for a couple of hours walk along the lake and over a wee hill. Meanwhile Simon and Stewart set off for another 20 miles or so.

At lunchtime today Stewart and I tackled the fearsome Glider Club run. 2 miles of continuous uphill followed by a mile of mixed up and down, then a steep descent back to Talgarth, all on tarmac. Actually today the tarmac was pretty much covered in mud, twigs and rivers.

This run re-wrecked my knee in November when I tackled it too soon after the plaster came off, but I’ve done it gently a couple of times since in around 37-38 mins.

It was a lovely day, sunshine breaking through after torrential rain, about 10 degrees with a bit of wind. A hint of warmth in the sun, delicious promise of springtime to come. We set off pretty briskly, Stewart huffing like a hippo for the first few minutes as usual, then graciously letting me keep up with him later on. I was well beyond VO2max for the duration – this was not a day for our usual discussions of semiotics, economics or domestics.

Then I managed to run downhill fast for the first time since the kneecap break, with only moderate pain letting me know that I should not be entering fell races for a while yet. I’d love to see some kind of slow-motion heat-mapped imagery of the forces exerted on the body when running downhill – I fear about 12 elephants are loaded onto the patellar region with every step (it certainly felt like it).

We finished in 34:22, which comes 18th out of my 31 recorded times – I am exceedingly pleased, and reassured that one day I may be able to run again…   (my PB for this run is around 32:00).

At the finish I did have a significant lump over the breakpoint on my knee, but a couple of brufen and a couple of hours saw it reduce.

Old friends Helen and Neil are over for the weekend with kids Lewis and Finn. Their birth tunes are:

Neil

Rolling Stones - (I can't get no) Satisfaction

Helen

Mungo Jerry - In the Summertime

Lewis

Atomic Kitten - Eternal Flame

Finn

t.A.T.u. - All the Things She Said

Number 1 in the charts on  the days we were born…

Naomi

Lois

Helen

Robin

Crispin