I have just spent too long trying to program a PIC processor. There were a few issues. The first is that the oscillator was not running… dodgy soldering job – mine that is. Then the dodgy serial port on my laptop did not help at all… That will be fixed in the next few days. Then there was a connector that went in two ways… and seemed to work better the wrong way.

Then there was trying to program it with another cable plugged in… And then just to top it off… Well there was something else but I just cannot remember what it was… Needless to say that this took about 90 minutes longer than it should have.

Then there was getting GPRS modems running this afternoon. I have four units playing up, all giving different errors. One immediately disconnects from the far end when it connects. One says that the far end is busy. Another says that the bearer failed – helpful message, and another just says Ha… I am just not working. Most of these issues will be with the telco probably, so I have passed it to them to have a look at. More soonest.