I've been trying for a while to get a cheap system set up to transfer some old college videos from svhs to dvd. I've gradually accumulated bits and pieces including a VideOh! PCI card, which I put in my Windows pc. The card worked, but the software it would work with was very limited. I read it would work with Linux, so I've bought a better motherboard (ASUS P4B533-VM) for the Linux pc (still only 1.8 MHz, but I'm hoping to get a cheap chip to get it up to 2.4 or 2.8, the Asus sute has a list of compatibles) and I've updated my Ubuntu to version 10.

Decided I ought to try the VideOh! pci card I bought in a Linux box. It's supposed to be not a bad card, but in Windows the software lets it down, it's not compatible with much and the Ulead software I have for it won't install properly. It sounds as if it's compatible with Linux. So I'm getting a few bits to upgrade my Linux box: motherboard, cpu, case .. in fact it's really another computer. All on the cheap of course. Got an Asus P4B533-VM mobo on ebay with a 1.8MHz P4, now trying to get a compatible chip to upgrade that, and some memory.

The toilet cistern started humming two weeks ago. We lived with it for a while, but it got louder and louder. I discovered that it sometimes stopped if we ran all the taps in the bathroom at once. It seemed a little wasteful, but then again it does rain a lot in Lancashire.

Malcolm mentioned that in his old house he had a Humming Cistern Problem, and he had a plumber in for something else, and told him about the hum. The plumber fiddled with it and the hum went away. I fiddled with the mechanism inside the cistern, and it did seem to go away,