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:

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.

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!

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! :)

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?

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!).

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....!!

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.

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.