I'm making a rare post to the blog to warn anyone considering buying the BlueNEXT BN-WD54G Wireless USB Adapter to not even think about it. It proudly declares itself to be "Mac Compatible", but on closer inspection it provides only marginally better wi-fi connectivity on a Mac than a toaster.

I should have known that it was true good to be true - a USB wi-fi adapter for a Mac for under a tenner? The Mac compatibility is in fact probably the least possible that the manufacturers could provide without being taken to court for false advertising. Their website declares (in broken English) that technical support cannot help Mac or Linux users. Whilst most third-party wi-fi cards for Macs will integrate with the AirPort feature, typically being reported by the interface as third-party wi-fi cards, although in some cases being reported as a genuine Apple AirPort card (thanks to clever people using the same chipsets).

No such joy for users of this pile of faeces. OS X doesn't even recognise it as a wireless card - it shows up just as a standard network card. Management of the device is done through a proprietary piece of software, which looks just like the worst wireless interfaces you tend to see on Windows, except with no option to switch to WZC. It has the ugliest-ass icon you can imagine, which will sit in your Dock the entire time. It doesn't remember your network preferences unless you manually create a profile. It can't be plugged into a non-powered hub because it doesn't get enough power (OS X is kind enough to tell you), but it's so large that it blocks out all the surrounding ports on your machine, so you have to find a USB extension cable. On my iMac, it actually caused the machine to fail to boot the first time I tried to boot with it plugged in.

But this pales in comparison to the performance issues the thing experiences. Cisco VPN Client (another piece of work in itself, but I don't think the culprit in this case) refuses to connect over it, claiming that there is no IP address. And today, it has point-blank refused to connect to an ad-hoc network. It claims to be connected, but it never gets an IP address.

All in all, this product is all but useless. I'd send it back, but I doubt I'd get a refund. I strongly advocate against its purchase - spend the extra couple of pounds and get a named brand. You'll save money in the long run.

<Rant mode off />

THIS is a cinema display!

(Don't take this post as a commitment to blogging resuming - I just found the idea amusing. Images from here and here.)

For anyone still following this, I'm pleased to announce the release of PubCat, a tool for combining Publisher files, and one long-requested in the groups. It can be found on the swanky new Tools page.

I might start blogging again soon. Time will tell.

Well, it seems I never let you (whomever you may be) know how Attempt 3 went. Following the instructions on the tin (80g of egg replacer - which is a massive amount - and an amount of water that now escapes me), with 8oz of flour, margarine, and sugar + flavourings gave me something bearing a remarkable resemblance to cake! Problems: Lack of flavour (I failed to account for the amount of cocoa required to flavour an extra 80g of egg replacer), lack of height (I might try adding a little baking powder next time), and tasting a little too strongly of egg replacer (maybe more cocoa will solve that). I'm not sure when I'll try the next one.

As my warranty for my laptop expires on the 28th of this month, I decided that sending the machine off for one final warranty repair would be a good idea. The faults I highlighted to Novatech were the intermittent display corruption, USB port instability and the dodgy audio. UPS were a pain (collecting a day later than when they were scheduled to), and Novatech claimed delivery far later than they should technically have received it (not sure who to blame there), but I can't really complain as when I finally received the machine back yesterday (exactly two weeks after it left me, almost to the hour), not only had it had the motherboard and VGA cable replaced (as had been claimed on the phone to me and the repair sheet with it), but it had also had seemingly every other component bar the hard drive replaced. Perhaps a kindly Novatech tech decided to give me an early Christmas present. To whomever was responsible, thank you and a Merry Christmas (or other appropriate holiday greeting) to you too.

I should really have done some (academic) work this vacation, but have so far failed (mainly citing my lack of laptop as the reason, although procrastination was probably another contributing factor). For the first time in a while, I do have set vacation work, as well as trying to catch up with Quantum and revising for collections.

(I think there's a mouse in my keyboard - it's just started squeaking at me!)

Below is possibly the worst cartoon you'll ever see. Richard said it was good (he may have been humouring me), so I decided to inflict it on all 0 of you reading this. Have fun!

And before I forget, to try and give it a kickstart into the Google rankings, here is the website for the Oxford Students' Ice Skating Club - OxIce.

Have a great Christmas (or if you don't want to, don't).

Well, it seems this is turning into a cookery blog! It turned out that the second half of the Accidental Brownies was so burned that it was not worth eating.

Attempt 2 (using more baking powder, a little bit of Xanthan Gum, more oil, less water, and some Stork - as shortening is impossible to get hold of round these parts) was made Wednesday, and was slightly more successful. The cake rose massively at the edges, overspilling the tins, but failed to rise in the middle. It also turned out to be rather greasy (oil needs to be replaced with water, I'd guess). It has less of a tendency to fall apart than did the last attempt, and now it's iced it doesn't taste half-bad. Although it's not the sponge I was going for. I've ordered some Allergycare Egg Replacer from www.goodnessdirect.co.uk; I'll make another stab at the sponge once that arrives.

Well, today I tried to expand my range of allergy-compatible cakes by baking an egg-free cake. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to properly account for the lack of egg, and the cake didn't rise. Well, it rose for about 5 minutes in the oven before it exploded and collapsed back into the base of the tin. As I was scraping the remains out of the tin and wondering whether to throw the other half of the mixture (my college oven can handle only one half of a cake at a time), I tried a crumbling, flaking bit of the residue (which was unable to hold itself together, at all). It was gorgeous! I had, as many before me also had, discovered Accidental Brownies. I'm now going to get very fat, as I've already eaten one entire half; the other is waiting downstairs (although that is a little overcooked, so I'll have to leave it to soften before eating it).

Last week I got a telephone call from Opodo regarding my Summit flight in March, asking me to call back on "0871 277 9852" regarding my schedule change. This is also the number listed at the bottom of my schedule change confirmation received by email. I finally got around to calling back today, and calling that number puts you straight into a recorded loop saying how brilliant Opodo is.

Then, after a while of that, the message switches to an Expedia message, saying that the number is out of service and to ring a different (0870) number instead. So I ring that (naively thinking that Opodo and Expedia have merged, or somesuch), and after an age of waiting on hold, manage to talk to a human (or at least a Glaswegian).

She asks for an itinerary number (which I do not have, only having a Booking Reference, Ticket Number, and various other numbers not calling themselves an itinerary number). She offers to search for my email, which she cannot find. Neither can she find my name on the system. I ask whether this is Opodo, Expedia, or what. She says it's Expedia, and talks to her supervisor. After another while on hold (more cheesy muzak), she comes back and informs me that it's definitely Expedia, and Opodo is a competitor, and that they have been receiving a high volume of calls asking for Opodo, but don't know why (despite the fact that I've already told her that it is because an Opodo number is calling itself Expedia and asking people to ring Expedia).

So now I have no idea what to do. I can't remember my account settings (why does every single website have different requirements for lengths and allowed characters for usernames and passswords?!) for the online website, so can't check my details there. I guess I'll have to ring the main line and try to get put through to somewhere.

. I hate phones.

If anyone else has had this problem, feel free to comment. I'll update with a solution if I find one.

After much fretting, I finally decided to risk booting from CD to install the 8355H BIOS. After much waiting whilst the machine hummed and harred with unreadable error messages, the screen turned blue (with gibberish) - the colour of the flash program. A progress bar counted down backwards in red, then faster in green (indicating that the update was a success), and the machine powered itself off. Restarting, it started fine!

Unfortunately, now I get a "PREVIEW VERSION - NOT FOR RESALE" message and a date flashing on the POST screen every time I boot, and the new BIOS still didn't allow Vista to progress past its ACPI BSOD.

For those of you who want to know how to flash a BIOS using a boot CD without touching a floppy drive, there is a basic tutorial here. Instead of using the floppy image provided, download a basic Win98SE floppy image from here, and add the BIOS flash utility and the new BIOS image using WinImage. Then use the tutorial linked above to burn using Nero, selecting the floppy image file you've created instead of using the floppy drive. If you want to be fancy, you can replace the default autoexec.bat with a new one that automagically runs the BIOS flash.

To those of you who are getting the same problems as me attempting to install Vista on a laptop, I'm sorry that I don't have a solution (save trying the x86 version instead - worked for me during Beta 2). I've reported the problem to MS and am waiting for a response.