After months of strange screen artefacts and constant crashing, I’ve pinned the problem down to the graphics card, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT (System Profiler > Graphics/Display) and the driver for it. If you look at your Console (Applications>Utilities) after a crash you will probably see this error “nvidia opengl channel exception status 0xffff info32 0×3 fifo unknown method error 000000b”

As a lot of people have reported, the problem goes away if you run in safe mode, but this is not a permanent solution.

I initially thought that replacing the card itself was a solution, and indeed for some people this it is. (8800 GT seems to be popular), but it doesn’t look like there is anything actually wrong with the card.

It actually seems that the driver is at fault, and till NVIDIA or Apple sort this out the solution is to disable the extension NVDAResman.kext by renaming it too NVDAResman.kext.old or whatever you fancy.

To do this, launch Terminal from Applications>Utilities
Then use the lines (hit enter after each line)

sudo su – (include the dash, it will then ask you for your root password)
cd /System/Library/Extensions
mv NVDAResman.kext NVDAResman.kext.old

This will rename the file and disable it (check System/Library/extension/NVDAResman.kext.old to see it’s done). You can always reverse the process to change the name back if you want to.

Your iMac should run without all the former artefacts/crashes now, though the screen redraw seems a little less smooth, it’s a fair trade off for some stability till a new driver is brought out.

PS. After installing Snow Leopard you will need to do this again as it re-installs the annoying driver “NVDAResman.kext”

Thanks to: http://www.mylastmsg.com/ Here is this years mini guide.

Quite cute effect, the old Tilt Shift.

Check this out. Nicely observed “latest” trend in advertising.

My friend Paul just found this picture on a website from the Reading Festival in 1983. The amazing thing is that he is in it! Follow down from the small black flag with a white circle. From Left to right, you have Carolanne Noad, Jane (?), Tony Fisher, Paul Ashborn and Stuart Aylott. Chances are that I’d be just further off to the right with the rest of the mob.

The original picture can be found here

Found this amazing piece of software that will turn any image into a vector rasterized image. In other words it uses a variety of shapes to make up an image. In the case above, an MBT shoe is made up of letters from the alphabet in Rockwell.

Yup, that’s my brother and me tucking into an ice cream.

Can it be scientifically proved that, the louder and more annoying the ringtone a man has on his mobile is a direct related to his ego. ie

• BIG ringtone, BIG twat
• BIG ringtone, small penis
• BIG ringtone, BIG sense of self importance
• BIG ringtone, MASSIVE insecurity

Am still trying to work this one out… but the evidence is mounting. Anyone in an office. Look out for the David Brent character. What’s that blasting out from his Blackberry!!

I think after months of my mac locking up and the screen going mad I may have solved the problem. It seems to be an overheating issue. So far smcfancontrol_2_1_3 seems to be making a big difference though I still get the occasional horizontal noise.

Finally found a blogger for my iPhone that works with Wordpress, where the actual Wordpress app doesn’t! Hopefully I can now start up again, writing rubbish for nobody to read.