More office chores

I celebrated the Eucharist for a dozen people at St John's Canton this morning, and later drove to the office to deliver and set up the new administrator's PC. Julie had the day off, which gave me time to sort it out properly. Making sure it was properly hooked up to the network drive for back up purposes took me longer than expected. The device has run faithfully for over three years, but I'd forgotten how to navigate around its file system, to check if the backup routine was working the way I'd set it up. 

Tracking down the printer drivers for the Dell network printer and the HP inkjet used to print off Safetynet files took much longer than expected. Longer than when I did this for Ashley's new office machine a few months ago, I feel sure. Windows 10 was fine at recognising both printers existed, but not automatically finding drivers, as the Dell is seven years old and the HP five. It's easy to get tricked by this and ending up wasting hours troubleshooting when it fails to print as required, so I had to make the effort to get it right.

I also had to identify and copy work material in progress from her old Desktop to the new one, as this is not included in the OneDrive file sync. I left her with the full AT extended keyboard she's used to rather than let her have the shiny new one, which has the laptop extended keyboard layout. I can give her the choice to change tomorrow, but I am aware how much of an impediment a different interface can be when you're getting started in the morning and under pressure, as we always are at CBS.

Fortunately the packaging for a similar machine had still not been disposed of, so I packed away the machine being retired, for safe keeping, until the rest of the office workspace has been re-arranged. Ian's arrival prompted us to request an expansion of the area we occupy to provide proper room and storage for him. This has taken a month to achieve, and shelving has now been shifted to give us an extra two feet of space along one five metre wall. Once our cabinets have been re-located, Ian will have a full sized desk of his own, and I'll get my old hot-desking workspace back. 

Getting Julie's new machine to the state where she can switch on and go to work ate up another four hours of time, more than I expected. That's ten hours from unpacking to being in place and fit for purpose. I was glad to get home again, and do some more work on preparing for my Lent project.

  

  

Virtuous re-cycle

I had another of my restless nights and early risings today. Tucked away on my One Drive, I found a folder entitled 'New Book' that was newer and different from another I'd found on the computer I was working on yesterday. I still haven't mastered version control or system consistency. This time I was amazed to discover half a dozen chapters dating from my first stay in Vinaros, two and a half years ago. I enjoyed re-reading them and then editing and adding to them. Apart from sermons and blog postings I've not stretched my mind with fresh efforts at creative writing since then, shame on me, though come to think of it, on returning to St Mikes in the autumn of 2012, I did re-visit my first book writing effort, and did a further revision encouraged feedback from by Peter Sedgwick who had read and commented on it. Whether either book will ever get published isn't as important as making an effort to keep thinking and reflecting creatively in as many ways as possible.

In the afternoon I visited the office, where Julie, under Jane's tutelage, was getting to grips with the use of Sage accounts for invoice production. Getting the information display design right is indeed tricky. incorporating the CBS letterhead into the production template was trivial in comparison. The challenge was to find the right sized most up to date version on the office data system, one thing I was able to contribute to the process. Having Sage properly set up as well as the file of invoices that I generated last week, will make it possible for Julie to issue invoices in a rolling programme while she gets to grips with a new procedure. We need changes of this kind to be as painless as possible to ensure the workflow continues as it needs to at this time of year.

My old Dell laptop has languished under the office desk the during the year I've mostly been away, and is surplus to current needs. There's nothing that cannot be done using it that can't be also done on a newer more portable piece of kit. Given that it's six years old it's still quite quick and has a superb HD screen. It must have cost a fortune when it was new before I arrived on the scene with less costly hardware requirements to fulfil our working needs. As it's not found a use, and is superior in speed and quality to my home desktop workstation, which serves personal and work needs, I decided to take it home and re-instate it as a space saving workstation substitute. The result is satisfying. The old Acer desktop Vista PC can now deliver its file content ad lib over my home network to the laptop, thanks to the improved network efficiency of Windows 7, and my study work space looks that much freer as a result. Less clutter around the office and at home, a real win-win situation.

  

Packing and more packing

Back onto the office, first thing, to meet with Julie and get her started on invoicing using my old Dell office laptop, finally free of Windows Vista and working sweetly on Windows 7 with all the programs and data she needs. Then I got on with unloading into collapsible crates borrowed from home some filing cabinet drawers in which our security sensitive business material is kept, ready to spend the night under lock and key with the electronic gear, so that there's no unfortunate mishaps with either while the removal people are taking our furniture. My job for tomorrow will be to shift all this stuff over to our new admin base, and get the office network running. I'll be crossing my fingers as it's the day before I return to Fuengirola. It needs to be perfect so that I can work remotely with Julie in the office.

The engineers from PMR turned up just ahead of me to start the installation of new signal relay equipment and the remote monitoring kit for our new office. I had first to take the new PC to them to work on, then later a couple of our radios for test purposes. People working in the next door office, where City Centre Management will in future operate were busy transforming their orderly environment into the usual chaos of packing up to move out. Our room won't be empty of its furniture before mid-morning tomorrow. I hope ours will arrive in good time for me to set up our equipment properly before the day is out. I need the peace of mind. So much so that in a rare fit of zeal I started packing my travel case this evening - a whole day before I usually get around to thinking about it.

 

Bargain hunt continues

Eddie and Ann set off for Felixstowe in Monday rain after a long slow breakfast together, and we made a hesitant start to our week. Mid afternoon we travelled into town together - me to bank a cheque and Clare to meet Owain over an exchange of birthday present. 

Duty done, I made my way to John Lewis' store only to see Clare descending the escalator as I was ascending on a bargain hunt. Having landed two great bargains here recently, I can't resist looking for a third when there's nothing better to do. I found just what I was after, a big HP desktop PC running Windows 7 for the office at forty percent discount, to replace Ashley's big laptop, designed with gamers in mind in late 2008, running Windows Vista. It was, in its day, the most expensive piece of equipment we had, and the only one to have failed requiring a visit from a Dell service engineer to sort out the RAID array and re-install the OS, with corresponding data loss. 

Unfortunately, I was in Spain at the time, helpless to intervene with caution in this emergency - probably out cycling somewhere out of 'phone signal range. Getting all the necessary software back up to required standard was one of the first jobs I did when I returned. There was minimal real data loss. A little email data was lost because British Telecom re-jigged their email servers in the same month of misfortune, so missing stuff couldn't be downloaded again. Nothing critical to Company business was lost, due to an obsessive dispersed back-up policy for which there is no need to apologise.. Tomorrow is dedicated to setting up the new machine ready for Ashley to use when he gets back into action after a retail crime conference in London the day after.

Having delivered the new PC to the CBS office, I headed for home. Passing St John's church, I noticed that the contractors shutters around the tower arches had been removed, revealing the new glass door and wall panels which have just been installed. It gave me great pleasure to see this as it was a project close to my heart. I took a few unsatisfactory photos using my Blackberry phone camera. Here's the best of a mediocre bunch.

After supper, I drove out to Cowbridge Holy Cross to join a two hundred strong congregation for the licensing and welcome of Fr Edward Dowland-Owen, the Benefice's new Team Vicar. It was an enjoyable experience, sitting in the congregation with lay people I normally lead in worship, feeling part of this 'community of communities' that calls itself 'church' in this area. Apart from attending summer Evensong at Llanfrynach, this is the first big Benefice event I've taken part it. It gave me a sense of belonging that, if I'm honest, I've missed since retirement. It makes me feel blessed.