David

01:52 pm: Browser Free Windows 7
Overheard a conversation in the hallway between a couple of techies about the forthcoming Windows 7 (I'm sure I used to be one of those techies) and they cane up with an interesting point.

Windows 7 in Europe is to be shipped without a browser. So, how does the average user get on to the internet to download a browser?

Techie types who know how to use command line (not so many of those around now) can get around that with FTP or something of that ilk, but most home users are going to find that rather too confusing / complex.

About the only way I can think of would be for them to download the installer or application on another machine and then copy that onto a portable device (CD, DVD, USB drive) and then install that way, but even that's going to confuse a not insignificant amount of people.

Which leaves the manufacturer to pre-install a browser on a PC. What are the chances if they're got the install media from MS they'll just stick on the latest copy of IE branded to their product?

Maybe the AOL install disk is going to make a comeback

Current Location: Hook

Current Mood: curious

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08:10 am: Broadband
Yesterday Demon upgraded my internet connection from ADSL to ADSL 2+. Now, living in the wilderness (well, outskirts of Basingstoke which is apparently the same thing) I wasn't expecting much, but....

Somehow this has stopped my BT Voyager 2110 (which does ALDS 2+) from connecting and none of the settings will make it connect, however my old backup BT Voyager 205 (which does not do ADSL 2+) is still able to connect, so at least I still have some form of connection. Still, demon are offering a free ADSL 2+ router so I'll stick that on when it arrives instead. Don't know what speedtouch routers are like, anyone any experience?

What other changes has ADSL 2+ made? Well, my upstream speed is now faster than my downstream speed, yes that's right, I can upload faster than I can download now.

Go figure.

08:29 am: I'm off
Right, one week in Croatia on a yacht with a dozen Auzzies.

Should be fun.

David

08:34 am: This weekend I have mostly been learning how to sail
Got a week sailing in Croatia coming in up May and thought it may be an plan to have some sort of idea about what I am doing when I get there.
Have come back slightly sunburned and somewhat tired (both mentally and physically) but happy and with a new qualification (RYA Starting to Sail).

Next stop, the open sea (well, probably not the open sea, but Croatia anyway).

If you've got some time and a bit of money I reccomend trying it.

11:42 am: Merry christmas all
Have a good one, off now until the new year.
David

08:48 am: So, 2200 job to go. But where?
You've probably all see the announcement that Virgin is to shed 2200 jobs over the next couple of years. While I'm reasonably comfortable that I'm in one of the safer areas it does make for an element of concern.
More news soon hopfully.

08:39 am: Snow
Wasn't expecting that this morning.

Sadly, neither was Basingstoke and Dean council by the looks of the roads this morning. Yet, despite all this and the general fact that everywhere was so slippery that either the TCS or ABS lights were flashing most of the way (I'm exaggerating) not one accident on the roads was seen.

Gosh, but it's bound to be a disaster of epic proportions.

David

11:31 am: Thank You Kerry Katona
I, for one, would like to publicly thank Kerry Ketona for her heroic attempt to get the current financial crisis / credit crunch / tsunami of debit / extinction level event / etc. from the front pages of the press by slurring her speech on TV.

I feel this was a valiant effort of self-sacrifice and should be applauded.

David

08:25 am: My qualification run
Back at the tail end of last year I decided that, for various reasons, it was time I got me a degree. I've been studying various things for the last few years (holistic and sports massage, nutrition, personal training) but that was more as an idea of something to do outside the world of IT so after much humming and haaring I ended up picking a degree in "Computing in Business" with the OU. So, with the OU, that's about 10 modules that you take as and when you see fit. The first couple I've done are first year courses and, being blunt, are pretty basic which I can understand as they'll basically be reintroducing people to how to learn and give a feel for the general expectations of the OU. I started one (M150 - something to do with computing) before the other (T175 - ICTs in real life) and, because I was finding them so easy I started a second year course (M255 - Java programming).
Right now I'm at the stage where I've completed and passed M150, completed and waiting for the result of T175 and just have the exam to take on M255, which will give me a total of 90 of the 360 points I have to get for my degree. I've also booked up two more second year courses (M253 - another java course) and M257 (I think, it's another one about Java and programming).
Plan was originally to get my degree in 3 years, but I think I'll have to drop that to 4 or 5 years as I've also got to fit in work and other study (ISEB BA stuff that work's putting me through).
Anyway, I sat down last night and worked out how much time I'm using and realised that I need an extra day in the week. Anyone have one spare they're not using?

Tags: ou

08:57 am: Load balancing is great until....
... one of the servers that you have chosen to log people on based on their employee number being even or odd failes so 1/2 the company can't log on.

Er, or so I've been told.

This message has been brought to you by the letters M, B and I.

David

Tags: oops

03:31 pm: An interesting thing happened to me...
Last friday I went to the CLA game fare in Blenham palace. As is not uncommon at big events having filtered through about 45 minutes (or 4.5 miles) of traffic trying to get in to the show ground I ended up following lots of shiny 4x4s for which the field we were going in to was obviously the closest they had been to off road along slightly damp grass and, just as I get to the front of the queue the person waving his arms in order to direct traffic points at me and shouts something, obviously expecting me to (a) understand him (with earplugs in and a not too quiet engine) and (b) suddenly turn / stop to go somewhere else (on damp grass, with no ABS, on two wheels). Luckily I was expecting this (for both of us). Yes, the organisers had thought to provide motorcycle parking separate to the rest of the cars, unfortunately that was all they thought of as the motorcycling parking was in soft sand meaning as soon as any weight went on to the side stand it dug in until the bike was about as horizontal as possible before falling over. Thankfully, I had also planned for this and had sufficient proppage for the bike.
Anyway, lots of dogs around but impressively no dog poo due to the forethought of both the owners bringing poo bags and the organisers providing lots of dog poo bins (as well as dog watering stations). Also lots of people with guns (don't get to say that a lot in the UK).
Met up with the friends who were driving up and wandered around the showground, bought stuff (finally got some more cartridges) and ate stuff. While we were sitting on the ground having lunch we were approached by someone from www.meontv.com (or something like that) to see if we wanted to appear on 'Wife Swap' which was a laugh. How they thought anyone at a game fair was going to be interested in appearing on something like that I will never know.
Overall a good weekend and the CLA obviously know how to organise a show (well, expect for the traffic, but that's not their responsibility).

Tags: blenham palace, game, motorbikes, wife swap

10:25 am: Meatloaf
Went to a concert of his in Romsey last night. He's really raher good.

Tags: meatloaf

05:53 pm: An open letter to Nintendo
Dear Nintendo marketing department,

I appreciate that the success of the Wii may well have come as a surprise to you, leading to many issues where demand outstripped supply and long waiting lists on pre-order for people willing to wait. This, in turn, lead to some profiteering by people who were able to get hold of Wiis through various means (including the gray import market) and selling them on using sites like e-bay.

So, taking in to account the lessons of that launch, why in the name off all is sane is it that you continue to market Wii Fit with roadshows in shopping centres like Tiffany used to do in the 80s (remember the 80s? remember Tiffany?) when their availability is still limited due to the same issues that arose at the launch of the Wii?

I mean come on, how hard can it be to plan production based on the number of units that you have sold in the UK?

David

Tags: wii fit nintendo

01:18 pm: I'm a Virgin.... Media employee
Yes, for that last 4 and a bit weeks I've been working for Virgin Media out of the Hook office. Euphony was an interesting career diversion but in the long run I don't think was right for me. These things happen, it's a learning experience, etc.

So, I'm back working for a large company, with a brand and all that comes with it. After 4 weeks I can honestly say that this was the correct move.

In other news, I've finished my OU M150 course (waiting for the last bit to be marked) and I'm most of the way through T175 and about half way through M255. I've booked another one (M257 I think) to start in October and will probably add the other two second year 30 point courses to that (actually, I think one's a 10 point course). Plan is to complete that in 3 years.

Got a reminder call from Future Fit yesterday that I hadn't done my case studies to get my REPS level 3 certification (I'm level 1 at the moment). So I've booked to do those over Jul - Nov.

Can someone remind me, free time, what it is again?

David

08:55 am: Flying
On Tuesday I had to go to Belgium, which meant a flight from Southampton airport. Having got up at OhMyGod 'o clock in the morning (about 5) and driving on a relatively quiet M3 I got to the airport and discovered that it was windy (you can tell at which point I actually woke up). The flight from Southampton to Brussels is at least on a jet, even if it is a small one only 3 seats wide.
Flight out was uneventful and most of the flight home was too. That was, until the last few minutes.
Being by a window I was able to see out to the runway as we were turning to line up on it and being an ex-pilot I know a bit about flying. Usually, by the point the pilot has lined up on the centre line of the runway he's brought the throttle back to a high idle and is allowing the aircraft to gently 'glide' down onto the end of the runway nice and smoothly. This pilot must have come from the Top Gun school of flying. I appreciate it was still windy but he was going up through the throttle, down to idle, back up again, all the way down to the runway. It's unusual for me to get anxious on a flight but I have to admit to shifting in my seat a little.
Overall an uneventful flight though.
Oh, and I've decided that I no longer blame the French for everything.

02:07 pm: Looking for work
For various reasons (mostly down to the fact that they're downsizing here) I'm looking for work. So, if anyone knows of a BA role that's going within about 30-45 min travel from Basingstoke drop me a note and I'll pass my CV over.

Yes, I know it's the wrong time of year to be looking, and I'm already back on Jobserve and PlanetRecruit.

Thanks in advance.

David

12:48 pm: Nasal Hair
I mean, why? I understand the thing about filtering bugs and stuff out before it goes through you, but what I mean is why is it that one night I can be going to sleep just fine, then the next morning I have a forest of hair large enough to be considered a mustache coming from my nostrils?

It's not like you can even just remove it. Cutting the blasted stuff means you end up with smaller volumes of still visible hair, and as for plucking it out... well let's not go there okay?

I know my eyebrow hair has started to mutate and I occasionally find the odd one that's trying to grow and bend itself to pick up radio 2 or something, but at least that tends to be single strands. Those you can pluck out without a problem. I've even put up with the odd ear hair, which is a very fine hair that you can't notice without being up close and looking for it.

Maybe I should start snorting imac or something.

10:00 am: This weekend I have been mostly....
... installing a new oven. How hard can it be do you think? Well, the short answer is that it's a peice of cake. This is until your lovely wife decides that we may as well replace the gas hob as well.
Now, I've worked with replacing a free standing gas cooker or two in my time so I'm thinking it should be a simple case of undo a bayonet connector, take out the old one, put in the new one, plug in new bayonet. Oh no, that's not how they do it at all.
So, first thing I have to do is take out the old one. Turn off gas, undo retaining screws (4 off), undo gas connector, press from underneath until seal is broken between hob and surface and job's a good un. Naturally, dismanteling is so much easier than re-assembly.
So, first problem is that the new hob is a teeny bit bigger than the old one. Not too big a problem, take out the jigsaw and trim until the new hob fits.
Next, the gas connector is, um different. After some playing around and a few bits from homebase, I can just about get the gas connected. Now, however, the hob won't fit again. Plus, when I turn the gas on to check it's sealed, I discover that it isn't. Bugger. Much more swearing and bodging and I give up on that for the day (to be fair, I'd not slept the night before and was getting tired).
So, next day, try again but this time with 'flexible' pipe and eventually I think I've got there. On top of that the hob now fits in the hole again. Turn the gas on, can't hear a leak, can't smell a leak but just in case I wrap the joins with seal amalgamating tape.
In goes the oven (the 5 minute job) and everything's working.
That is, until later when we can smell gas again. So, gas off, out comes oven, gas on so I can see where it's coming from. Lo, no gas. That is, until the pipe is moved a little bit, at which point it starts coming out of a join somewhere despite the tape.
So, today I am going to have a go a soldering raher than compression joints. This could be interesting, more tomorrow no doubt.

10:23 am: Broken
For some reason, things around me appear to be broken and I think it's down to this new job. When I got here there was a broken system in place (and had been for about 3 months), I think that this has caused a viral infection that has spread around the network and that I am now a carrier.

The first thing of mine that broke was the ipaq. Posted it off to www.ipaqrapair.co.uk who promptly fixed it (care of a new battery, I must say hats off to their fantastic service).

Then I noticed other things around me breaking. Three of the running machines at my gym are currently carded as broken, the drinks dispenser is also broken. The slave cylinder on the discovery's clutch failed (to be fair, I had been expecting that) and it looks like the power steering box is possibly on the way out too. Sky have agreed to replace my sky+ box as that's reasonably broken (although it's an amstrad box and has been a little bit broken since the 2006 'upgrade', it's just now they've buggered around the movies schedule so it can be difficult to catch any new movie I want so I'm doing something about it now). Today my ipod appears to have failed (although that could be battery related, I'll see if I can charge it tonight) and my phone does not appear to be charging in its cradle (although it is connecting to the computer, so it may have decided it has a full battery). The bike has also been running hot but I'm hoping that it's just a little low on oil at the moment so I'll hold off riding it until I get some more, it's also due a service which will help no doubt.

This weekend I've been spending trying to get a PVR box built using the GBPVR software that's freely available on the net. I've managed eventually to convert and old P4 machine into the PVR server and I've managed to get the front end working on a client box, so all I've got to do now is get it working on a machine that isn't wirelessly networked to check that it can do what I want it to do.

01:18 pm: My Daemon
Following on from a posting by Alan (etriganuk) here is my daemon (assuming I can get this to work)



In other news, bumped into Dave and Rox last weekend and Dave's put the idea of me getting my diving gear out of mothballs (well, the garage) and taking up diving again. I think I may just take him up on that.