Probably unfortunate given what I do for a living, but there you go. Actually, I’ve always wondered if it’s a useful trait - I’m not usually a proponent of technology for technologies sake - if I can solve a problem without getting high-tech, that’s my preferred option.

I may just be feeling paranoid, but it seems that the bytes have been ganging up on me recently - I have a growing number of niggling problems that refuse to go away. The odd challenge can be quite enjoyable, as long as the implication of not fixing it is not too severe - but you soon start to realise how much we have grown to depend on email / google / multimap / skype and all the other trimmings when you can’t get them.

And worse, it almost makes me feel physically ill when I start to feel I’m not able to keep it all running - when things go wrong faster than I fix them; when the silicon is ruling me rather than vice versa. Is judgement day coming?

Having decided to give Vista a chance, how is it repaying me? My machine has started bluescreening two or three times a day at the most infuriating times (like when you’re blogging about it). I’m going to live with it for a bit longer rather than doing anything rash - ongoing.

The lighthouse webcam crashed earlier in the week - usually gets sorted by turning the power off then on again, but from inside the lantern there was no sign of life outside - meaning a second trip with more keys, tools etc. Turns out it was a blown fuse so nothing major - fixed.

I’ve replaced the firewall in my modem / router with a mini-ITX box running IPCop - the idea was to secure my network a bit better while allowing certain individuals more access to growing numbers of devices I’m hosting - but it absolutely refuses to let OpenVPN work as advertised, and I’ve loved that application when I’ve used it in the past - ongoing. While fiddling I did muck something up with the blue network meaning it wouldn’t grant dhcp leases to wireless devices - fixed (phew). Postscript - OpenVPN is now working perfectly - turned out it was a problem within the network and not with ipcop - zerina is a great plugin that makes managing OpenVPN a doddle.

My Acer easyStore NAS is pretty much up and running now, but I still have a niggle where every time I restart my laptop the backup application can’t then see the drive - you have to remove protection then re-protect to run a backup, meaning you have to do it manually every time - that wasn’t the idea but I haven’t been bored enough to try and get some more support after the last time - ongoing.

Do things like dodgy starter solenoids on my truck count as computer problems? Still adding to my irritation though - hopefully this week I’ll crack more issues than arise and get back to a tolerable level of ’silicon rage’.

Of course I’m my own worst enemy - I will not leave well alone, and have to keep fiddling or trying to improve things. But the moral of this story (if there is one) - don’t let the machines grind you down!