Cute Maggie Vid

Here is a video of Maggie Stokes-Rees - a cutie if ever there was one. Ian and Em (her parents) have just moved to Boston, Massatoosis.. Maasssatutis... in the USA and this was our last night with Ian and Maggie before they left. I was so amazed that she was talking I had to video it quick. Here's the result.

We've just heard that Ian and Em have now found a place to live that sounds great. We are praying for great blessing with this move - and intend to visit as soon as we get the chance.

New Kitten Video

Updated: Should be able to see the video now!

Here is our new kitten. As yet, nameless. Let us have you suggestions.

Flooding at Combe Bridge

We were quite fortunate with the flooding Long Hanborough. We were cut off for a while but never really had any problems. No power cuts or water being shut off like in Tewksbury.

Still, you didn't have to go far to experience the effects of the flooding. Eynsham was hit and the A40 had fish swimming over it at one point. Oxford is still waiting to find out it the water is going to be receding any time soon - or if it's going to be going further up.

I am still able to work from home (yar-boo!), but I am not sure when I will be able to drive in. Gloucester is still hit pretty badly as far as I can tell.

One difficulty is finding out how the floods are effecting routes. I know all about the surrounding area as the local radio has been brilliant and I can view the national situation. But I'm having trouble finding out if the route I use via Cheltenham and Gloucester is passable.

I am amazed at the commitment and effort put in by the emergency services and other service organizations. Including the councils, the hospitals, the road recovery agencies. Everyone who can be doing something is doing it. 

It's a shame that there are still so many selfish idiots out there moving closed road signs and endangering live wherever they can. 

Still it looks as though the majority of the populus  are helping rather than hindering.

Will be interesting to see if this calms the housing market a little.

University Museum stairs

I love this shot of Elias playing on the stairs at the University Museum. Always forget to post when I've added some more pics to Flickr.

Off to see the floods

Elias's take on working

Elias said to me this morning in a very business-like tone: "Daddy, I love you, but you keep going away."

I tried to get more out of him on this, but the conversation kept meandering over to the subject of playing on the computer or Wii.

Both cute and disturbing.

Marky's Star Wars Party

Had a great time on Saturday the birthday party of my Bro-in-law. We were shattered and presumed that we'd need to leave early, but still wanted to put in moral support.

When we turned up we were greeted by the Sith Lord, Darth Vader himself. Though when he started laughing I got the distinct impression that it was just someone dressed up. But I quickly pushed the thought to the back of my mind when I saw that the garden was full of Star Wars creatures and a few Jedi Poo-Doo into the bargain.

We had unfortunately not dressed ourselves in SW-like outfits but the food and company was good. I really enjoyed meeting Mark's family and friends again. It's always good to see that someone you love has built a network of strong and genuine relationships around them.

Happy 30th Mark. Here's wishing you a good 3o more (maybe a couple more on that!)

Another day another hotel room: Asteria

A tour of my last hotel room on this trip. Slightly dark, but I'm happier in this one :¬)

For another much nicer hotel room tour see  Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen blog post about his stay at the Ritz-Carlton Tokyo. Ever so slightly outclasses my video for content and quality.

Micro Presentations

My bro, Antony, has a really interesting post on Micro Presentations that he saw when attending Reboot 9.0 conference a couple of weeks ago. As Antony says:

Basically people get to make their point, their pitch, their whatever, in the time that it takes for an automated slides presentation to move through 15 slides allowing a strict twenty seconds per slide. You see the clock counting down from 20 in the bottom right hand corner of the slide as soon as it appears...

Whilst I normally present with a whiteboard, PPT is quite often expected or necessary and I really like this idea. With so much information around there is a battle to deliver it what people need to know in a concise and timely fashion.

When I started my current job back in October 2006 I was really grateful for Guy Kawasaki's 10 20 30 rule. The idea of the micropres adds to this by taking the fear out of presentations for the audience.

Look forward to seeing some examples.

Mozzie stealth attack

Was kept awake last night by dive bombing Mozzies. Couldn't work out where they were coming from as they hadn't bothered me the night before and I had the window closed.

Finally figured it out this morning as I watched one of the blighters fly in under the door! They were zooming from room to room having a whale of a time, mozzie style. Really annoying - especially since my room didn't have Air Con.

I mean, a modern hotel (Hotel Cuijk) that doesn't have A/C! What's with that?! The great food, designer decor and views over the countryside are all very nice. But if you can't sleep because of the heat and the insects... well.

Back at the Asteria in Venray, tonight. May not be as up market as the Cuijk, but it's got Air Con and a decent restaurant. Looking forward to a good sleep on my last night in Netherlands.

Though I'm off to Italy on Sunday... Grrrr!

Hotel Cuijk Room Tour

Here is a tour of my room in Cuijk as requested by my best girls.

Love you both (and the little guy!) xxx

Moving hotels

When I arrived on Sunday night in Venray, exhausted after a long flight, (thought not as tired as the guy sitting next to me on the plane who'd been traveling 24 hrs from Texas to Dusseldorf), I was told that their was no booking for me. I did manage to get the last room they had (the guy after me at the desk was turned away!), but only for two nights.

So today I'm moving. I managed to get a room twenty minutes drive down the road at Cuijk. However, this is only for two nights. I have to make further arrangements for Thursday! Bit annoying to say the least. Traveling for business is hard enough for a week without having to figure out where your going to sleep every night. A consistent place to stay does wonders for a professional attitude whilst working.

On the road: Venray, Netherlands

I am on the road again. Back in Venray, Netherlands visiting my colleagues. Maybe off to Switzerland midweek.

I don't really like going away. Always though it would be fun to travel for business a little. But for me it's a real struggle. I hate leaving the family to travel to work, never mind for a week. The little guy gets all quiet and starts frowning and sucking his fingers.

Joy said to me yesterday as she was unfolding the plastic crate in a very business like manner not unlike her mother, "What are you doing in the Netherlands?". I told her I was showing some people how work some software. After a moments thought she asked, "Can't they do that themselves?"

Aye, there's the rub...

Segway enabled bust

Hot news for Segway/Arrested Development fans:  a Long Beach cop riding a Segway captured 3 car thieves driving a stolen Merc. That's right, the 12.5 mph top speed vehicle used Police pursuit techniques to force the perps to finally abandon the car and enable capture by the officer.

Paves the way for an odd sort of vigilante. Knight Seg! Seg-Wolf!

Shame we live in the middle of the country. I'd love to take advantage of one of these babies.

Full Story on the Reg (and thanks to GadgetLab for the link)

Here's an old link about the sale of GOBs Segway.

Dog desire

We had lunch with some friends yesterday in their garden with their dog. We were really taken with Corrie as she was a beautiful dog. It really reminded us that we would love a dog. I love the shot of this mutt from Guy Kawasaki's blog. The only problem is that we just don't really have the room for a dog at the moment. We live in a great area for them but I keep thinking the house is just too small that it wouldn't be fair on the dog or the neighbours...

New Car!!

Yes, we have a new car. A NEW new car. Amazing! Never thought we would be able to do it but we have. It's a shiny new model Kia Carens. We are chuffed to bits with it and are looking forward to a bit more visiting to friends and family in it. We always had very old cars so it is lovely to buy something brand new and be absolutely overwhelmed by the comfort and ease of driving.

Much more on it to come, but in the meantime here are some pictures:

Sandy Balls!

Sandy Balls! Sandy Balls! Saaandieeeee Balls! http://www.sandy-balls.co.uk

Coffee Pot

I bought a stainless steel canteen for myself to take coffe to work in. I used it for the first time yesterday whilst working (trial run was at Legoland last Friday). But, today I forgot it!!! Feel my pain...

Rice Pudding

Have just walked passed the dinner laid out for lunch in the canteen (if you get my meaning) and there is a huge vat of rice pudding!

But I came in late and I haven't time to take a lunch break.... It's Roast Day today too. Oh, the humanity!

technorati tags:pudding

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A little too close to home

It often hard to prise Elias away from the Wii but he has not (yet) cost me $1000 (or £ for that matter) in damages to the LCD. Little close for comfort this story.

Three-year-old's Tennis tantrum - Nintendo Wii Fanboy

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New blog for my techy posts...

Just Too Techy

I realise that alot of my recent posts are a little to techy for the friends and family crowd that this blog is intended for. For instance, I haven't commented on my little boy's birthday, my brothers pictures or even my NEW car. Yes, my lovely new car!!!! (Sorry 'our' lovely new car.)

Therefore I have set up a new blog ("Another one!") called Just Too Techy for where to vent my techiness in a safe place with out being a danger to myself and others.

If still interested in the too-techy nature of some of my blogs recently you can pick up the geek-thought-process there.

Thanks for you time. Normal service will assume... Now!

Luggage server solutions

I remember once whilst working for at my friend Bob's network engineering company that he lugged in a large suitcase sized contraption with a fold out 7" monitor box and a fold down keyboard. It was an late 80s solution for pottering around large main frames between cities in the States and had somehow worked it's way back to the UK with Bob. It ran some flavour of Unix and was incredibly retro. So Of course - in the same way some people have the obsession of using one of the old 90s mobile phone bricks - I fell in love with the thing

.

The NextDimension 'Flextop' offering from NextComputing seems at first glance to be along the same lines. SO at first glance of Gearlogs post on the subject I fell in love again. Some seriously juicy performance can got from the box as it has 8 cores (yes! 8!) capacity for 16-24 GB of RAM and 5 X 160GB HDD. The NextDimension Evo HD has a built in screen for pitys sake!

On showing these to my boss he immediately initiated a price hunt for things (I am sooo in the right job). These baby's will facilitate a few DRM and onsite solution senarios no probs.

technorati tags:flextops

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Kev's Baby Boy

Kev is a colleague of mine. Today he brought in his brand new baby boy Ben Jonah who is 15 days old. I even got a cuddle... with Ben that is. Congrats, Kev!

Chow cooking site

A recent discovery for me has been Chow.com. I really like the useable inteface and recipes and food news and quite a lot of things about this site. The videos are short and informative. I think I'm going to become a regular visitor.

One thing I enjoyed was when I signed up there is a small section within which answer a number of questions that tell about your tastes and a little bit about who you are. I was surprised that I had an answer for most of them, but also that I found myself really enjoying the thinking about the questions. It made me realise that I really enjoy cooking and don't do enough of it. Cooking for enjoyment can be somethign that is so easily lost.

Nikki does most of the cooking in our house, but I have often wanted help out with this task, but find that in the stress of the moment I have no idea what to cook or, more importantly, what to do with the ingredients that we have to hand. So Nikki usually ends up preparing our meal.

I have often wondered if I added to my repertoire of meals I could help out a bit more.

We have experienced that 'Quick Meals' are no better and take no longer that cooking from stratch most of the time. But I would also like to learn how to cook things that take a bit longer. Especially Bread and Roast Meat...

Gadget Show seeks GOI

Someone (I can't remember who, I'm sorry...) directed me to this page on the Purely Gadgets website. Celador Productions is looking for GOI (Gadget Orientated Individuals) for a new show for BBC 2. Still in Pre-production but could mean a trip abroad if your the lucky chaps or chapesses that are chosen.

I had a conversation today with a researcher from the show and just had a great time chatting about all things Geek and Gadgetry. With my job I have to explain complex issues quickly to completely un-technically inclined people so it was good practice. Catherine, the researcher, was asking me questions about why someone would want to build a lightbulb or an RSS Coffee Maker and it was fun going through the fact that the 'why' is not important to Geeks, it's the 'how'.

The saying that most describes the Geek or Instructable mindset is "If it ain't broke, make it better". The idea that the making is important as the product. The journey is as important as the destination as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance would say.

Anyway, I'll mention how I get on with the selection process. It was a fun conversation whatever happens. Gave me a ten minute break.

RSS Coffee Mornings

This is just precious! A coffee brewer that reads RSS feeds and uses the frequencies to brew the coffee. Thus introducing a taste-bud-RSS-blood-sugar-caffine high! Nuttsy! Must be an Instructable for it surely?

Via Engadget

technorati tags:coffee, rss

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Tron-style graffiti wall

Tron-style graffiti wall
Originally uploaded by antony_mayfield.

My brother has some photos of Brighton's most artistic street crime. Very impressive. I must ask him what camera he uses.

Geek Jewelry

Since I'm going all geeky today here's a story from the Wired Gadget blog about geek jewelry made from use PC components by Jana Brevick. Pictured here is presumably a PS2 connector (male/female) but I prefer the Cat5 set. Aside from these quirky Blogline grabbers Jana has some beautiful and innovative Jewelry on her flickr page. Shame I can't seem to find a website to order from - though there are contact details in this article...

technorati tags:jewelry, geek

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iPod engraving at Apple Store UK

Not a surprise to some people, I'm sure. But Nikki pointed me to the Apple Store UK site yesterday where you are able to engrave your iPod before ordering. Lovely idea. Just means you spend half an hour deliberating what to put on there. Then realise that no ones going to see it anyway.

Bit like ring tones in that respect surely? Spend ages choosing a 'unique' ring tone that really reflects your personality - only to find that it just bugs the pittabread out of everyone.

Vista Explorer Shot

Another geeky post, but I love the feature of Vista that graphically represents space available on drives on your computer. In this shot I've just about exausted my USB 2.0 ports and hubs and am able to view in one place the amount of usage they all have. Have I a terrabyte of data yet? Maybe it's time to invest in one of these babies!

New Multimap - with added wifi!

Nikki told me that Multimap had a new site up. I have not looked at Multimap for ages. I love online maps and always was grateful for Multimap's service, but after the arrival of GoogleMaps and its constant adding of new features I just began to find Multimap outmoded and outclassed and stopped using it.

It's new interface is a lot closer to the usability that we have come to expect with online maps and it seems to replicate most of GoogleMaps features. With unfortunate exception of the mouse-wheel-zoom - a feature I think is such an intuitive addition to GoogleMaps.

However, Multimaps UPS (or 'Unique Point of Sale') for me is the addition of the useful information tickbox tab. When one of the 'Useful' items is near by it will display the number of said items next to the tickbox. When you click them the locations appear on the map you are viewing. My Favourite so far is the inclusion of the 'Wifi Hotspot' item that uses TotalHotspots.com info to show the hotspots in the area you are looking at.

This is the sort of usability that will bring me back to using Multimap. It's good to see them back on form.

*Updated* - the snapshot is of Wifi hotspots in Witney, UK.


*Updated 1.2* - Sorry, I meant Wifi hotspotsDidcot, UK.

Fat Lil's in Witney

I had heard about the 'One Night Stand' Open Mic night from a friend who is a comedian/poet but came across this article whilst browsing the Witney Gazette:
One Night Stand Invites All Talents (from Witney Gazette)

We are not really involved with our local community yet and it has always been somethign we have meant to be. 'Local' people.

Also, I have always meant to try my hand at stand-up since it's somethign I hear alot "you should be in stand-up". Maybe I should try it out and see. It takes a lot of work though.

I am reading Richard St John's book "Stupid, Ugly, Unlucky and Rich" and one of the quotes I notice is by Chris Rock who said "I was never the funniest kid at school, but I was the kid who work the hardest at being funny." Which I think about summarises my struggle with humour too. I was always facinated by it. What made people laugh. I am constantly amazed at the craft of such people as Barry Humphries, Eddie Izzard and even Bob Monkhouse who just seem to be able to effortlessly wind an audience up and bring them into their world of humour.

Anyway, see you at Fat Lil's on Weds 23 May!

technorati tags:comedy

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Icelandic Flickr Member of note

0474-03
Originally uploaded by johannes asgeir.

I had Johannes comment on the composition of a shot of Joy in Pinsley Woods on my Flickr account. But taking a look at his pictures I am amazed! Their so beautiful. Such colour and vibrancy. There's a genius behind these images. Johannes obviously has an amazing eye and talent.

TED: Rick Warren

Rick Warren is the pastor of Saddleback Church in the States whom I have read and listened to for years. I was really surprised to find that there was a presentation by him on the TED site. Rick wrote a book called The Purpose Driven Life that was incredible successful. Here he gives an account of that book and why he wrote it.

Charity Shop DJ - Vinyl Saves

My Brother's blog has a post about Andy Jupp's Charity Shop DJ site. Specifically about the gallery of people with their favourite recovered-from-charity-shop vinyl album in their hands. (And an exhibition of the photos in Paddington - see Jim Byford's blog)

What a fantastic idea!

The site brings to mind the Saturday mornings that I would spend in my teenage years trawling through the second hand record shops of Notting Hill Gate with my mates Seb, John AA and Larry. We would dig out obscure records that we had heard mention of in Guitarist magazine and get them for 50p or whatever because one of the vinyls was missing from a two lp set or because the front cover was torn in half. Then I would bring them home and show them to my mum and brother who would usually have some piece of information about the album I had just bought.

Still trying to think of which album I would love to be 'foto'd wid.

Did consider the The Police but I see this guy got there before me and his picture is way cooler than mine would be.

Remember buying this album for my uncle Tim's birthday and then being thrilled when he said I could 'look after' it for him. Hey, I was young and hadn't got out of the buying-stuff-for-myself-for-other-peoples-birthdays phase. Not sure I'm out of it now...

technorati tags:vinyl

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Free Playstation3 with mobile

Was on the Carphone Warehouse website a few moments ago and noticed a deal that offered the above mobile with a free Playstation3. This is the console that costs about £475. An you cn get it free with this phone. Wow! But, before you go clicking on the picture and checking out the offer I'd better mention that the plan you are signing up for costs £75 per month. I wonder if it's one of those plans you can downgrade after 3 months?

technorati tags:deals, mobiles

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Three system snap

I was doing a remote meeting/presentation on Monday (after spending the entire night preparing!). The meeting was in Venray, Netherlands, I was in Oxford and another of my colleagues was in New York State. I took this snapshot when the guy in the States was presenting.

I was on a Vista laptop running a Win 2k VM image running a WebEx session over a VPN:

Vista -> Win2k (VM) -> XP (WebEx)

All that whilst attending the conference call on Skype.

Earlier I was logged on to a remote desktop remote controling another session. So that would be:

Vista -> Win2k (VM) -> Win Server 2k3 (RDP) -> Win Server 2k3 (RC)

All off one laptop. Now that's impressive!

"Dude, you're such a multi-machine wizard, dude!"

I'm such geek! :)

Firefox Unusable

Unfortunately, I recently had to stop using Firefox. Not sure why but the browser just kept on hanging for a few seconds and then continuing. It kept doing this everytime a new page was loaded and just got unbearable. It does not seem to be the case with Flock with is based on the same Mozilla Core as Firefox so I have taken to using that as my main browser.

It's just so frustrating when you have an issue like that and don't have the time to debug. All the URLs I found whilst searching for online support were talking about doing things I had already done such as turning off all the extensions, running in safe-mode and even a post on how to write a batch script to kill the Firefox process task manager when it hangs. I mean, the mind boggles. Why keep on using the browser if it keeps hanging?

Thank goodness for Flock.

Anyway... maybe it's something to do with Vista. Yes, I have my new laptop. Surprisingly very little has troubled me about it so far. I haven't yet written about it as I have been busy working on it. More about Vista later.

Mobile Anti-theft Feature

In case you haven't seen this one...

New TED site

There's a new TED site going live later today. You can register and become a small part of the TED community for free.

One of the things I like about the new site is the inclusion of embed code for talks (though they it's certainly a clipboard full). So I am able to publish the following video of Richard St John's excellent Success talk on my site.

You can view my profile (I think) at http://www.ted.com/index.php/profiles/view/id/2535

Look forward to exploring this site some more. Plenty of great stuff there.



Update- probably worth noting that I had add a closing 'embed' tag so that Blogger would publish the post. Not the first time I've had this issue. Whose fault is that? Blogger or TED?

Link dump - 2007 03 29

Daily Fit Tip: Don't quit coffee

FitBeauty: Pamper your piggies - for Nikki

Ineeka has cool tea bags

Starbucks Gossip: Starbucks barista: We're not your friends (but your tips are appreciated) - liked the comments on this post.

Whisky School Cruises To Islay - for the giftlist!

BBC NEWS | Technology | Dell gives the go-ahead for Linux

Next-generation Skype Trojan hits web

Cinematical - Bondcast

TED video : How to be a Success by Richard St. John

I just loved this video from the TED sign. Short (3 mins), quirky and to the point. Watch it!

Thanks (again!) to Guy Kawasaki.

Happy Birthday to my Beautiful Wife Nikki!

Isn't she gorgeous?! Yes, it's Nikki's birthday today and she's been very happy and smiley. Not even opened all her gifts yet!

The kids and I were up early decorating downstairs and then cooking her breakfast.

Looking forward to getting home and opening the rest of her presents!

Happy Birthday, my HoneyGirl!

Mac: The best of Both (Three) Worlds?

Getting more nervous about my new laptop which should be arriving this week or maybe next (when I'll be in holiday). The reason is Vista. I've done lots of moaning about how people/MS have seriously underspec'd their PC's/laptops with the arrival of Vista. But the more I read the articles by people such as Robert Peston the more I start to sweat.

So I'm really wondering whether I should have ordered a Mac.

The real thing that's convincing me at the moment is a product called Parallels Coherence that allows you to run WinXP without rebooting the system. As you would need to if you had a duel boot machine or where using Apple's BootCamp. Neither are you running a separate virtual machine that is a standalone in it's own right. This means that I could use a Mac and still access all the essential Office and other Win-only Apps that I need. Pretty cool. Parallels even have a nice support blog with user questions answered regulary.

Only thing is you need to buy a copy of XP on top of your purchase of Parallels. I'm guessing that's not an OEM version either (Original Electronic Manufacturer - means you get the OS for about half the price of the retail).

Not so with Code Weavers' CrossOverMac product that "lets users operate Windows applications on a Mac without requiring users to install the Microsoft operating system" as the Wall Street Journal puts in this interesting article. I see from the site that CrossOver will even let you run Half-Life 2! I scrambling for credit card right now!

But the show stoppers are my concerns are over my lack of knowledge when it comes to Mac networking and support for the Mac. I'm no expert when it comes to Windows networking but I can usually figure out what's wrong when things go pear-shaped. When I can't there is usually a SysAdmin or two that I can throw things at until it's fixed. For the Mac I have almost no history and no known SysAdmins with Mac knowledge. Not sure if the SysAdmins where I work would be up for the idea of supporting a Mac.

Really I would be on my own if I went this direction. Though I like the thought of being somewhat of a pioneer, I require the support of my peers at this delicate teim in my career.

If I start a business again I will seriously consider the Mac as a viable alternative to the PC.

Get rich quick! (In, say, 1 or 2 generations)

One of the things that fascinates me about Motely Fool's recent article The Secrets of Nine-Figure Fortunes is just the sheer patience of the investors. Most of the original investors of the now nine figure legacies never even got to see the 9th digit. Though alot were privy to the 8th - which is no mean feat when they'd only invested around $20,000. I know that's alot of money back in 1957 and probably alot of those investors were fairly wealthy to start with. But in this day of Get-Rich/Loose-Weight/Establish-a-meaningful-relationship Quick advice that we seem to thrive on it's interesting to reflect that most 'rich' families got there through the hard work and patience of a ancestor. Most of the time with the original patriarch thinking more about the welfare of future generations that their own. A trait that we don't venerate enough.

Mitchell and Web Mac Ad: Reprise

Sorry, sorry - wrong YouTube vid at the end of my last post. This it the one I meant to embed. Liked the clip I attached to my last post so much that I left it on :)

Real Geeks use Macs

I am increasingly drawn to the Mac.

I've always enjoyed it's sleek looks and the way Apple had MS bail it out of trouble in the 90s (to save MS from being sliced and diced under competition laws). I even offered to buy my wife one for her birthday in a moment of sheer selflessness >ahem<

But, The Register's article proclaiming '10 Reasons to Buy a Mac' has firmly placed it above the Aston Martin Vanquish in my wishlist (but not above the DB9 or DB6, so please feel free). A further discussion with my networking buddy, Bob, about Parallels and XP emulation almost pushed it right to the top.

The 3rd Party software market is pretty cool too. I'm always jealous reading 43 folders when they start talking about the latest Mac productivity tool. My sister showed up with her newly purchased MacBook a couple of weeks ago and I was fairly impressed. Especially, with Comic Life, a comic creation tool that allows you to insert your photos in a comic style layout (see Guy Kawasaki's post)

My family always seem to think I am going to be hostile towards the Mac. I've had my brother, sister and father tentitively ask me about the Mac as though I was going to explode and start ranting. Which I do - but in a nice way.

Since the transition to a Unix based OS I've seen alot more geeks using Macs. I know Chris Pirillo and the bloke who started Slashdot use them. Then there was the intern who came to work at a Unix company I used to work with. Not just the airy-fairy, yet highly talented, graphic designery/architecty friends I've got (only joking - Tim, Peter and Prod!).

There are many issues still for me to use a Mac. Much of my work is VMware and PC based. But for most Office-based users there really shouldn't be many issues to using a Mac. I'm not so sure about the networking side of Macs either. I know that most of the time 'they just work' but that really doesn't help me when it comes to solving why they aren't working... It just seems like the the big boys have Macs.

To end this Pro-Mac post here's a little UK version of the Mac ads from Mitchell and Webb. Though you'll notice it's from YouTube. No idea why you can't embed the ones on the Mac site?



Update: You may have noticed that was the wrong video. But I enjoyed it so much I've left it there. You can see the one I meant to emded on my next post.

Invites are like drinks

My brother sent me an invite to Joost today.

I am pretty easy when it comes to signing up for a new web app (slap a jazzy interface on it and I'm anyone's). But personal recomendations and invites are always something I enjoy. After all that's how I started with Gmail! But I found myself in an almost jovial mood as I tried out Joost - such as I might if someone bought me a drink unexpectedly.

Maybe I'm just saying this because I went to the pub at lunchtime (I only had a coke!).

Online sermons

I love listening to Sermons and Teaching on the way to work or any time on my iRiver. I downloaded a few recently and realised I should start blogging about them and the ones I enjoy.

Then I saw this post on Guy Kawasaki's blog and realised that maybe I wasn' t the only blogger who listens to them.

So here's a list of Sermon/Teaching sites I've been downloading from recently:

Vineyard Columbus - Rich Nathan's church. They are doing an excellent series on Psalms at the moment. Of particular note are the two sermons on Psalm 19 by Steve Robbins and John Cook. The also have a 'Young Adults' ministry called the Joshua House also with downloadable sermons.

Menlo Park Prespretarian Church - John Ortbert is a pastor here. Nancy Ortbert (presumably some relation) gave the talk "Jesus & Your Job" which Guy mentioned on his blog.

N.T. Wright's unofficial page - has a number of links to audios of this excellent scholar.

Grace Cathedral's The Forum - Discovered through a link from the N.T. Wright page above. Intellectual and interesting discussion on contemporary Christianity. The N.T. Wright/Anne Rice interview is very interesting.

Desiring God - John Piper's ministry. Piles of great stuff.

More as I find them. Will comment on my favourites too.

Chris Lightfoot - 1978-2007

Most, if not all, people reading this blog will not have known Chris Lightfoot. He was one of the engineers who saw me through my support hours when trying to tinker with VMs and other web space related issues over at Mythic-Beasts.com with whom I have hosted many websites (and still do) .

Chris's relaxed attitude and expertise made him a joy to deal with. He will be sadly missed.

Rest in peace, Chris.

Box Kids

Joy and Elias's school is trialing a new program that allows busy parents to have their children 'mailed' to school. We decided to give it a try and were pleasantly surprised. Sure it's a little more expense, but you get that 'peace of mind' knowing the kids are getting to and from school without incident. It also beats having to walk 5 minutes to the school and back.

CityLink are the current service providers as UPS couldn't seem to find the school for two days. They provide a box that suits the age of the child and you put whatever you like in with them to amuse them on the journey. Pickup is at 3am and drop off usually around 4pm.

Here are kids returning from school today. They actually got lost for three days being taken to the wrong depot in Dubai. But as you can see they treat it as an adventure.

We're considering sending them ahead of us with the luggage as we take the train to the South of France this Easter.

Balance issues

Bit of a weird and frustrating time for us at the moment.

That last post of mine (referred to by some as "a little boring" and tech-orientated) demonstrates the dark areas of my mind that have been revealed by my recent illness.

It's just a touch of a 'flu like virus that basically knocked the whole family for six over the last week. We're over it now, but the thing that's really frustrating us is the lingering effects. Nikki and the kids have been coughing for a while and I have been falling over.

That's not strictly true. My balance has been thrown off. I'm fine most of the time, then all of a sudden I'll start getting really dizzy or disorientated.

I went to see the doctor yesterday and on the way I had to hold on to walls to steady myself. I have to say that I was quite chuffed with my state when I got there.

You know what it's like. You want to go to the doctor ill. You don't want to turn up with a bit of a sniffle - you want to arrive on a stretcher all pasty, one frail hand raised and a weak smile of apology on your lips to show that you may be at death's door, but far be it from you to waste NHS time and money.

Well, stumbling through the door yesterday I felt tremendous. (Well, quite wobbly actually.) It was that perfect mix of actual illness pity without anything nasty like the pain of a broken leg.

Anyway, cut it down. Turns out it's all connected the ear/nose/throat thing and the virus and will go away in time as I fully recover. But, here's the really annoying thing: I can't drive! So I am here trying to connect to VPNs and remote access portals, etc.

I misunderstood the doctors instructions on some medicine yesterday and ended up falling asleep at my desk. Didn't realise I was supposed to take it before I went to bed.

Anyway, time for another dose... glug, glug... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Let's Get Vista-ish!

Another one of those 'probably linked everywhere already' posts, but if want to get all Vista on yo' computer's rear-end without investing the hundreds of pounds/dollars/yen to buy the OS then C-Net.tv have a few tips help you go about it.

Judging by some poor people's reactions to Vista this may well be a wise choice.

Been taking a look at the requirements on the MS Vista site and I have to say they look extraordinarily optimistic. I have the advantage of coming from a MS support background so I guess I'm used to apply a factor of two to most official requirements from Microsoft. But 1GB RAM! Come on - no way!

Taking a look at the recommended requirements page made me since wince so hard I almost facially scarred myself. They are recommending 512Mb RAM for Home Basic Edition! This presumably is the new type of RAM made from pixie dust that releases loveliness into the ether whilst enabling us to run several VMware machines and play Half Life 2, Halo and Call of Duty 3 concurrently, repairs the ozone layer and negotiates a never-broken peace agreement in the Middle East?

OK, so take that last OTT statement. I could have used about half the amount of sarcasm, but I doubled it. My advice, do the same with the system recommendations and upgrade your hardware before you upgrade to Vista.

So why are the recommendations so low? Well, probably because Microsoft doesn't want to look like you have to buy a whole new computer before you upgrade. And when you do buy that new computer that it has to be twice the spec your old computer was when you bought it a year ago thinking it was pretty future proof.

To be fair to Microsoft this was pretty much to be expected. I've not seen the new OS yet but if it really is the next step in the evolution of the world's favourite OS then it's going to need a bit of extra power. I use Windows XP to pretty much it's maximum capacity at the moment and I have to say I can't wait for my upgrade (which is coming soon).

From what my brother says about his experiences I may feel differently when it gets here. So we'll see.

Beta News has one of the best articles I have seen on the system requirements. Also, one of the best lines: "It's just Vista, and it needs more processing power just to be Vista."

Digital Ethnography Video

This is just a beautiful video that my brother, Antony, linked to on his blog open.typepad.com (indeed, widely linked to elsewhere).



Further Links:
Interview with the creator, Micheal Wesch (Hat tip to Jackie Danicki) as conducted by John Battelle (whose office I love!).
Digital Ethnography Blog.

More comments from me to come.

WiiHAP number 1

A new word has enter the dictionary: WiiHAP.

The definition Wii Have A Problem. To further define, it comes from the site WiiHaveAProblem.com which has dedicated itself to documenting that coolest of Wii bugs (or is it a feature?), Wii Remote damage. People get so into playing on the Wii that they end up causing damage to themselves, loved-ones and property usually with the Remote. Well, on Sunday night Nikki and I experienced the joy of almost putting our lives in danger because of a new console as I put my hand (and the Wii remote) through one of the lounge lights.

They are horrible things that we haven't got around to replacing just yet (the lights that is). Nikki refers to them as pub lights, and she pretty much on the ball. So we were naturally a lot more concerned with clearing the glass away and making sure the Remote still worked. It did but only after a nights rest.

More WiiHAPs to come no doubt. I shall be documenting them probably on my WiiHAPs Picasa Web Folder. After looking at the WiiHaveAProblem.com site ours seems a little tame...

The Console

I will resist.

It would be far to simple to scatter this post with references to urine and double entendres, but that just wouldn't do justice to, what I am going to call: The Console.

Yes, we have one.

Now if you've already read Nikki's blog post on the arrival of The Console you'll know that I wasn't strickly speaking in town to buy it. But I put-my-head-around-the-door and asked on the availabilty of - >ahem< - The Console and was told there was one left in stock. Someone must have jogged me or something - it was a very small shop and very busy - but the next thing I knew I was back at the car with the groceries and Argos products I had been sent for and a brand new, boxed The Console and spare remote. Well, far be it from me to throw a The Console away once it has landed in front of me. So I duely brought the item home and stored in a safe place to be revealed to Nikki when she was old and wise enough to appreciate it. Which turned out to be five minutes later as Joy blurted out something.

Fortunately, Nikki was quickly persuaded to sway the compulsory take-it-back-right-now rule (using some arguements I had recently learnt about the benefits of hand eye co-ordination and Gym membership fees). Once the kids were in bed I carefully set up The Console and she was won over by the excellent gameplay and sweat inducing activities that The Console provides. So the little thing will be staying with The Mayfields for a little while longer.

Just not sure how I'm going to tell that I've also pre-ordered a Playstation 3.

That was a joke....!!

Webcrawl: Cool hunter

BBC7 ListenAgain has William Gibson's Pattern Recognition for you to listen to. Do so before Monday to catch the first episode.

Following a suggestion in the text to "Google 'Cool Hunter'" I came across TheCoolHunter.net, a style-orientated Cool Hunting blog. From there you can pop over to Face Hunter, a curiously interesting blog of some bloke taking pictures of stylish (or not-so) persons-about-Paris. My S-I-L, Anni, would no doubt find this of interest. Can't wait to see her on it.

Introducting 'The Aquaskipper'

Rather than talk about my adventures driving to and from work today here's a YouTube about the Aquaskipper from Instructables.com.

Snow!

Surprisingly I didn't manage to get into work yesterday.

Because of my crusade for remote working I was able to continue to work a little. But I'll be very glad when I can get the VPN up and running - that's a remote secure (in theory) network, for all you non-techies.

Have to say I was a little annoyed that I was so prepared to start working straight away. As the kids were straight in the garden enjoying themselves. Not sure how it effected everyone else, though I know that Mark had the day-off as his school was closed (he's a teacher). I have a suspicion - as yet unconfirmed - that Brighton was too groovey for snow, so sibs and mother were spared.

Did take an extended lunch to walk with the kids. Took a tray down to Something Hill where most of the town had congregated to toboggan. Didn't get that far on our tray since the snow was already a bit thin. Also the ergonomics of the tray meant that it seemed to collect snow rather than slide over it. Maybe buy another sled when we get the chance.

Always seem to work much longer hours when working from home. I think it because I don't have to spend so long getting to and from the office. Really not enjoying the commute. Will have to think and talk to all parties about how to improve the situation.

HL2 Portals Video

Saw this just amazing video over at EuroGamer via a post at the Linden Blog (Second Life creators). Two sites I've not visited before.

Video is just totally freaky and weird and fun! Haven't even got around to working out if it's a real game yet or a mock-up. I love Half-Life 2 and keep meaning to try the mods. If this is one then I'm not coming down for dinner (turn of phrase...)

I know - lots I haven't said about my various trips abroad. But, I do have a job you know! Later, later :¬)

UPDATE: Portal is part of HL:Episode 2. For those of you who don't know, there has already been Episode 1.

Home again, off again, home again

Well, since my last post I have been home - yes, I made it. Then I was off again to the Netherlands. Today I back home again.

Tomorrow is my anniversary. Ten years that I have been married to my fantastic wife, Nikki. I really have trouble thinking how I managed without her love and support before I met her. It's been a rocky ten years, but has served to strengthen our marriage and love for one another. I can't wait to be home to her and our beautiful children, Joy and Elias. And 'Home' is wherever she is.

Another plane journey to come. The ones back from Rochester (Roch->Newark->Bristol) were pretty bumpy and I didn't enjoy them at all. I hate the take-offs. Can just about bear the landings since I know it will be over soon. I don't think I like flying. I was absolutely shattered on the flight back to Bristol but kept being jerked back from sleep by the turbulance. I'm not even sure it was that bad. The landing at Bristol was all over the place - mostly because of the wind. But we got down.

A welcomed side effect of lack of sleep was that I stayed awake the whole day in the UK and then had a full nights sleep at the right UK time. Thereby pretty much wioing out the Jetlag.

Fortunately, the flight and landing of the KLM to Eindhoven were fairly good. It was a small plane (Fokker 50 turboprop) but seemed to be pretty stable. The landing was the best I've had. Hardly felt it. I wonder if that's because it's a lighter plane or better weather.

Will report on today's landing soon. But my wife and I are off to celebrate 10 years tomorrow - so don't wait up!

Heading home

In about half an hour we start our journey home. The snow has been pretty heavy here but we've heard nothing about cancellations. Hopefully the plane will be half full like it was on the way here and I can spread out and get some sleep. Could really do with it. Of course, we have all the mucking about to do before we even get to Newark... See how we get on. With God's grace we should be getting into our cars in Bristol at about 9.30am GMT (4.30am EST) and arriving back with our families at about lunch time.

Really looking forward to being home again. Here's a late picture from the girl:

Three (four) more days...

Few more days until I return home. Start out on the Friday about 4pm and arrive about 8am in the UK. Hopefully I can sort out some comfortable seating on the flight back and get some sleep. Apparently, it should be a shorter flight (6 hours) than on the way here (8 hours).

It's been snowing in Rochester for the last two days. Beautiful ,but slippy. It came right on the back of an 'ice storm' the like of which I had never seen before. It rains and the rain freezes as soon as it settles. At the weekend on the trip to the cabin, Ash's windscreen wipers were frozen over. It was weird. I'd never seen that before.

The snow is great and it doesn't seem to stop them here like it would do in the UK. Lots of trucks have strap-on Snow Ploughs and they just clear it all out of the way. I didn't see any accidents (and there have been a few apparently) and everyone was driving slowly today and yesterday. Not that the speed limits here are that high. Strange for such a large country.

More on my US musings later. Photos to follow (I've had connection issues at the hotel).

Missing my wife and babies, and have lots of work to do...

24 season 6: 2nd episode over

What can I say? Great stuff... I think it's time I assume radio silence.

24 season 6: 1st episode over

Aaaaah!!! I can't say anything....! Nikki would not let me back in the house.

The thing! And the other thing. And the bloke with other bloke and the chap and guy in the place with the thing!!! Aaaaah!!!!

Brilliant!!

Oh, next episode is coming on....

24 season 6: 2nd break...

Aaaaahh!!! It's brilliant! I'm loving it! My legs gone dead.... Ouch....!!!

24 season 6: Started...

It's started!!! Keifer Sutherland was guest starring in the Simpsons before 24. Sooooo cool! So many 'faces'....

24 season 6: Countdown

Watching the Simpsons on Fox and the 24 countdown clock keeps showing. Cool!

Day 8

Day 8 was spent mostly on the road.

We were invited to spend the day at Matt's family cabin. Due partly to a mad Iranian at the wheel of the car we were travelling in and partly to the fact that it was a little way we only just got there by about 2pm. We spent a very pleasant but short time at the cabin on Seneca Lake (pictures to come) with Matt and his famliy.

I am now back at the hotel and find myself in the enviable position of having some time to myself with the premier of 24 season 6 coming up at 8pm EST. More on that later...

American TV Ads: Old Spice

One of the strange this things I've found about watching TV here in the US, (not that I've had much of a chance!), is how funny alot of the adverts are. I assumed that they would mostly be annoying "buy-now!" kind of adverts, or of the preachy/pseudo-science/we're-doing-this-for-you're-own-good-not-to-make-money variety. I was, of course, right for the most part but it's surprising how quickly you block them out. But the well made ads are funny and surprisingly subtle. I guess they figure that's how to reach my demographic.

I saw this Old Spice advert with actor Jack Cambell and it had me in stitches in the hotel. I especially like the extended longship picture in the background. Well, take a look whilst I go and buy some aftershave...

Day 7

Joy's beautiful drawing for day 7.

Tripod perform at a Comedy Festival

Aussie comedy group Tripod performing their song "Make You Happy Tonight" at a Comedy Festival Nikki sent me the link to this. A classic love somg for the modern age. Don't quite know why she thought of me...

Day 6 picture with hamster

Here is the picture for day 6. Those more observant observers will notice a rodent complementing the digit so beautifully drawn and coloured by my wonderful children, Elias and Joy. The Hamster in question is 'Pinsley' that Joy named after the road on which we live.

I am half-way through my trip to the States (Rochester) and for the most part am quite enjoying it. We have been working very hard. Training from 8am to 5 or 6pm and then usually meeting with colleagues from 6pm to 9 or 10pm. Most of the evening meetings take place outside the office at a restaurant or someones house and are normally chilled out more that the training. But they are still meetings and I need to pay attention to _most_ of what's being said.

Matt, who has been leading the training, has been especially accommodating to Kieran and myself. We have spent a little time with his wife and beautiful kids which has been a great antidote to the Hotel-Office-Restaurant-Hotel pattern of most of the days.

Tomorrow we are hoping to spend some time out at a cabin by a lake. This should be real wind-down time. We'll cook-up some chilli and walk and shoot and row. Not sure what we'll be shooting at. There's a small waterfall nearby that is supposed to be very pretty.

Last night, whilst waiting to get into a restaurant with 11 others I was encouraged to join with three others in some barbershop singing. Long time admirer of the art but never having tried it I had an immensely satisfying time learning to sing a part and joining with the three other chaps singing away. The complements we got were fantastic and Scott, the leader was brilliant in encouraging me to sing stuff I thought I wouldn't be able to
as well as the incredible memory he had for all the parts. We might be trying again this evening so more on that later. I might even record it since I managed to charge up my iRiver last night.

Off to the Mall for some retail therapy and probably my only shopping trip whilst here. Have a big lon list somewhere...

Day 5 piccie...

just spoken to Nikki. The boy is still sick but being naughty. Which is a good sign. Miss my wife and girl and boy. xxxx

Day 4... sick boy

It's day four and the boy is sick. Everyone was fine when I called the day before. But minutes after my call
the boy began throwing up. Asked for his daddy... awww! Back in seven days-ish.

Picture for day three

Here's the picture for day three from my girl and boy. Elias was very smiley when he spoke to me on the phone today. Miss the all terribly, but they are all doing well without me... hmmm!

Days one and two

My beautiful daughter, Joy, is doing me a picture a day whilst I'm away. Here's one and two:

Flew out fine. Getting back may be an issue.

Well, we got out of Bristol Ok. In fact, despite Bristol Council's best efforts to make getting to the airport as difficult as possible (my tip: ignore the signs and plan your route yourself), when I got to the airport it was plain sailing. Their was hardly anyone in the departure lounge and flight was half-full. I got an entire three seat row to myself! As we came into land at Newark, NY, the pilot told us Bristol had closed for at least ten days. Should be ready for our return, hopefully.

In the meantime, my thoughts really are with the managers and staff and their families as everyone tries to get the place up and running again. It's going to hit the airport hard and I hope that they manage to pull through with out too much impact.

More on the States soon. But, I'm here and very busy - and enjoying it!

Off tomorrow... I think

Well, off tomorrow. We'll see if we actually get any further than Bristol Airport. Never been to the States before. Never been away from my boy or girl for more than five days. I'll let you know how I get on...

GoogleMaps Bible mash up

BibleMap.org is a great GoogleMaps and Bible mashup that allows you to view the text ESV (English Standard Version) or KJV (King James Version) alongside the google map representation of the area your reading. Very good. Really adds to the text to be able see the locations on the map.

Thanks to GoogleMaps Mania for the link.

Great timing...

Well, I am just about to leave for the States on Sunday. Guess where I'm leaving from? That's right, Bristol airport. The airport that's just had several airlines cancel flights from there since the runway refurb was not up to their safety standards.

Apparently, planes have been skidding when landing in the wet

Continental, the airline we're flying with has NOT cancelled flights. I'm not sure whether to take that as a good or a bad sign...

Oh, the timing!

Sweet VM directory mapping

One of the things that I REALLY like about the VMware Workstation 6 Beta that I mentioned yesterday is the VM directory mapping feature. Tiny thing that is refered right at the bottom of the Release Notes, but I think it's great. Basically, what it does is allow you to map to a drive on a VMware Image from the host machine without having to turn it on. In fact you have to remember to close it before you turn on the machine.

Again, take a look at ThinComputing.net's screencast for a demonstration.

Antony's One-handed Typing guide

My brother's one-handed typing guide takes commitment and time to apply. But knowing how gorgeous his children are it looks well worth it.

Snap links

Found a great little tool called Snap that brings your boring URLs to life. Really easy to install. Just slap some code in the head tag of your html. Lovely.

Thanks to TechCrunch for demonstrating it.

Flight details - Airliners.net rocks!

Going out to New York State next week and I like to be prepared ahead of time. Like knowing where the toilets on the plane are. Crucial... So I checked out the specs of the aircraft I'll be traveling in: Boeing 757-200 and Embraer ERJ-145.

Just great to be able to get so much info on the plane! Though I was a little surprised that the 757 seems fairly small for an Atlantic hop. I thought at least a 747.

Airliners.net rocks! As does Wikipedia, of course.

UPDATE: Thanks to David (see comment below) I have discovered Seatguru.com and thave been able to find the plane (type) that I will be travelling on! See here.

VMware workstation Beta released

VMware has just released there Workstation 6 Beta out to the world to try. It's free for, I think, 30 days to try out after filling in a short questionaire.

Features of interest include:

• Multiple monitor support - interesting to see an application of this
• Automation API - for launching applications in VM from Eclispe and Visual Studio
• Better drag and drop facilities - including cross platform

More new features in the Release Notes.

Michel Roth of thincomputing.net has a neat little screencast (flash) that you can view some of the new features.