ywywywyw.com

No more blogging

Eileen Fitzgerald — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 17:56:26 +0100

I'm going to hang up the hat on Blogging, its fun and I LOVE being part of the Blog gang , but realistically I've not a lot that I can write about. I'm not technical and have been focusing on management for the past few years ( cannot really blog about the challenges of managing people ) and life is pretty busy and its difficult to keep up. So , the poor blog is simply sitting there gathering Spam , being ignored.

So thanks to Bill for getting me set up , and hosting this , but its now time to say adios to Mrs Doyles YA WILL, YA WILL, YA WILL , YA WILL. Thanks and I'll be seeing you all on Skype , ILUG2008 I'll be commenting on your blogs etc etc

The Contents of the Terramvndi

Eileen Fitzgerald — Sun, 7 Oct 2007 21:28:20 +0100

I had a brief chat with Volker this week and he pointed out to me that I never blogged what became of the contents of the Terramvndi that was presented to me at ILUG 2007 . That is terribly rude of me, I was sure that I had .

As I was ordered to do, I went and purchased my Sony BRAVIA TV a 32' flatscreen, and I LOVE IT , even though life has become very busy ( and I seem to be spending more and more time up mountains ) there is no way I could ever go back to my old 27' wide-screen. Thank you for allowing me the luxury to upgrade.

The remainder was spent on a Canon Camera so that I could take semi decent pics of Peru . Now I've promised that before ILUG next year I shall actually start to learn something about photography and get myself a real camera , but this was recommended to me by Volker as being perfect for Peru. Point and Click for landscapes , it will not do great indoors , but it takes batteries ( so I did not have to worry about recharging ) and its sturdy. And it did the trick , and worked much better than my existing digital camera ( looks great but high maintenance and never does what you want , reminds me of some exs ) and the remainder went on misc stuff for Peru , including crayons, pens and misc stuff for the school kids in Peru. Links attached to the pics of the items as promised as apparently TV's and Cameras are sexy.

Thanks again , and yes we have already started planning ILUG 2008

The Peru MS Challange

Eileen Fitzgerald — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:16:14 +0100

Well I'm just back from Peru where I've spent the past two weeks hiking on a charity hike with MS Ireland. It was fantastic, absolutely brilliant the people on the trek were wonderful ranging from early 20's to 59, singles, couples , sisters , brothers etc. Everyone had a reason for being there and when I heard the hard work that everyone had put into the fundraising I really considered myself very lucky and privilidged that ILUG and its supporteres supported my fundraising. I did some investigating and because of numbers and the fact that the charities have been running these challanges for so long , Two Thirds of all funds raised go directly to the charity. So do the math and with approximately 40 of us on the trip in total a great deal was raised for a very worthwhile charity.

But the trip , Peru is an amazing place , it really is beautiful and the history is astounding, the stories of the Andeans and the Incas and their achievements is amazing and to actually see the ruins of the fortresses and Machu Picchu itself was a humbling experience. What is really interesting is that they used to walk for miles and would not think twice of building their grain stores , and fortresses high on the mountains to take advantage of the drier air.
The people are lovely , and the kids are dead cute, at one stage we visited the house of a rural dweller, now obviously those that live in the caves are dying out so it is not the norm. I was initially worried that it was patronising ( showing tourists around someone's house ) but she received five sols from each of us ( about 150 sol) which, for them is a lot of money so everyone benefited. As you can see from the photos have the Guinea Pigs (dinner) running around was a bit creepy and having a sheep in the kitchen would not be my idea of hygiene but then I would imagine that these people have constitutions of iron ( which would explain why most of us ended up with Delli Belly for the two weeks ) .

We spend in total eight days hiking and approximately four days travelling. The hiking was amazing and I was pretty lucky not to get blisters ( some of the team did and it was not funny ). The last day was tough as it was mostly ascending , steep narrow paths and steps , steps and more steps. But it was all worth it when we got to the Sun gate.

Not only did we raise money for MS but we also visited two schools when we were there and we all brought over crayons , toothbrushes etc etc for the Kids ( what was very interesting was that the school teacher said that they were still using the stuff that the MS hike had brought last year. Also we all left behind our fleeces and medical supplies that we had brought with us for the earth quake victims.

The Photos are on Flickr and I also would recommend Tambo Treks who were the local guides, they were excellent. Thank you again to everyone who contributed , especially to Volker and the ILUG organising team who really pushed this. I'm just sorry that I'm missing UKLug as I'm just back to work so cannot take off again so soon. It promises to be an exceptional event.

Charity Hike about to go ....

Eileen Fitzgerald — Sun, 2 Sep 2007 22:19:48 +0100

I've been pretty quiet this summer , recovering after ILUG and also spending a lot of time on the new house, I moved into a new house just before ILUG and as you can imagine it did not get a lot of focus in the run up to ILUG. And I've also been prepping for the hike, yes as per pic this is me, in the pouring rain, in layers hiking the Wicklow mountains today, I hope the weather is better next week.

On Friday morning at 6:00 AM we are shipping out. Here is the timetable for of the hike for MS Ireland that you have all so generously contributed to.

Saturday September 8^th
Arrive in Lima , depart for Cusco – walk in Cusco
Sunday September 8^th – Hike to Cusco Ruins to Tambo Machay
September 10^th – From the village of Chinchero to Huyallabamba and back to Yucay
September 11^th – Drive to Moray walk to Maras Salinas Salt Pans, Walk to The Sacred Valley , very very steep hills
September 12th – Drive to Pisac , walk to Maray and then to village of Coya
September 13^th – Walk the Urubamba River to Ollantaytambo
September 14^th – starting at the village of Huillog, walk to Patacancha, end up in Ollantaytambo
September 15^th – From Ollantaytambo to Chilica
September 16^th – The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu , the famous lost city ( not so very lost if I can find it )
Setpember 17^th Machu Picchu
September 18^th – FREE DAY
September 19^th – Flight from Cusco to Lima – Amsterdam
September 20^th – Arrive in Dublin at 17:30 – CRASH

As it's a Charity Hike , we shall be visiting a local school and I've stocked up on crayons , Pens and as requested by the charity Toothbrushes and toothpaste ( apparently dental health care is something that is poor in Peru and they request tourists to help promote it .

I will be doing a post after the event on the trip and how the money ( well over the target ) will be used to aid the very worthy MS Charity in Ireland. I cannot thank you all for your generosity and support. I still cannot believe myself that we reached it so quickly and that we are actually heading off on Friday morning

Its confirmed , I'm not a geek I only know them

Eileen Fitzgerald — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 11:35:08 +0100

I did not stay up all night last night installing V8, I went out on a Friday night , nor will I be installing it today , I'm going to see the Stones at Slane : -) But I'm really enjoying reading the reviews of those who stayed up all night to install it and am enjoying the reviews

Really looking forward to installing it at some stage

UK Lotus User Group

Eileen Fitzgerald — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 23:22:15 +0100

Well Bill, Matt and Warren and Kitty amaze me, not only did they expend an amazing amount of time and effort on ILUG they are now doing it all over again for UKLug sounds like a good line up. I've just no idea where they find the time

Goal Reached

Eileen Fitzgerald — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:25:17 +0100

The target for my Charity has been reached

Thank you soo much to everyone who contributed , I'm starting to get nervous now , as its only eight weeks away, I've been trying to get in as much hiking as I can but the weather has been very very bad as post ILUG life has been hectic ( guess I have a life again ). Its s a worthy cause , a great location and I intend to do you all proud ( or at least blog and rant about the blisters , heat , height etc if I do not ). Now what is really funny is that I was trying to give up smoking in preparation of this hike but I was told that in fact sometimes smokers fare better as they adapt to the altitude better. Guess it remains to be seen.

Thank you all again , and no Volker I shall not contradict you , all those who contributed get preferential treatment at ILUG 2008, yes I shall organise personal time for each one with Fluffy

When a manager tries to be technical

Eileen Fitzgerald — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:59:01 +0100

I've been getting a lot of slagging from the ILUG team about being more managerial than techncial and I'll agree that in the past few years I've mostly been managing vs doing anything technical , but was feeling brave so decided to rebuilt my home PC all by myself .

Nothing too drastic , just basically a re-format and a rebuild , its been slowly grinding to a halt and I've been getting a slew of misc errors so I decided that the best thing to do was to start from scratch, it went something like this .

Backup everything to an external hard drive
Plug out everything , discover devices connected that you had forgotten you had
Insert XP CD , reboot
Re-format
Reinstall
take out boot CD
Reboot
Get error message ' missing or corrupt hal.dll, cannot get past this into safe mode or to a dos prompt
Shake head
put back in boot CD , when requested hit enter to boot from CD
Get same message
Go to BIOS change boot order to exclude harddrive from Boot sequence
Try again
Shake head and swear
Call friend and ask to borrow their XP system CD to see if that works
go to pub

Next day

Armed with CD try again , same story , relate woes to techie friends who organised ILUG , they sympathise and basically tell me I'm screwed , go buy a Mac or install linux . Not helping
At midnight go to try and take out hard drive to take into work where you can beg the systems guy to kick start the install to you can at least get to to safe mode to start the re-install , really swear when you cannot find screwdrivers

Next day

Find screwdrivers , take out hard drive take into work
Systems guy tells you that they cannot connect the hard drive up to work PC's but he will give you floppies to create boot diskettes
Guys in ILUG chat think this is hilarious

Next day

Boot from floppy
Asks for second diskette and hit enter , you hit enter and nothing happens
lightbulbs go off , YUP USB Keyboard , get an adaptor , plug it in
And you are motoring
ILUG guys stop laughing long enough to remember that yes it will get you into the BIOS where you can navigate but past that in the boot sequence you need to load the drivers

Took a while ( WITH I may add professional advice ) but got it working

Quick Note to say thank you

Eileen Fitzgerald — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:02:26 +0100

Been off line most of the week , been out hiking and getting in training for September ( and watching tele on my brand new flat screen ) just a quick note to everyone who has donated to the charity fund, its very much appreciated and I'm absolutely overwhelmed by the generosity of everyone.

Thanks a million its going to a good cause.

Evaluations

Eileen Fitzgerald — Mon, 4 Jun 2007 21:28:20 +0100

and the evaluations are back , thanks to Kitty who compiled them all , and thanks to everyone who completed them. You can see them on Paul Mooneys site. Great feedback and quantifiable feedback on the level of quality speakers at the event . They simply have to come back next year