Everything was just perfect - the food utterly out of this world (and I think would have been even more amazing if I didn't know quite a lot of the courses already), service impeccable, decor was muted yet somehow suited the mentalness of everything else.

I didn't take pictures of every single course (most people did take cameras though) but I snapped a few. You can see other peoples' up on Flickr.

Even though it was £130 a head (goes up to £150 in January) I still think this represents amazing value for money. We had 15-odd courses and were there for 4½ hours. I've had three courses at other places that were nearly as expensive.

Go. Do anything. Sell an organ, anything! Just go!

I admit that it has a bit of a geeky leaning (mostly IT losers like myself and photographers) but the cool thing is that you can get to see content the friends-of-friends like too, exposing you to whole new range of people. It's fun!

Why you should use FriendFeed if you use:

Facebook:

Do you share stuff (links, notes) on Facebook? FF is a damn easier to do that with (they have a funky sharing bookmark tool). Oh and that commenting / liking thing Facebook has? Where do you think they nicked it from. There's even a FF app for Facebook so you can share your FF stream with FB.

Twitter:

Not only is the FF / Twitter integration instant, but FF makes a much better Twitter client. FF is also real time, so you see posts scrolling past as they happen. FF also unpicks shortened URLs and embeds twtitpics automatically so you see it all in one place. FF can also "Tweetcast" your FF posts/comments/likes so you can still reach out to your Twitter followers.

Google Reader:

I know reader has some social networking features, but they're pretty late to the party. Why not post your reading matter into FF for all to see rather than have people guess at obfuscated URLs? Now that reader and FF use PubSubHubbub, your shares and likes in reader show up instantly in FF.

You don't even need to create an account if you use Twitter, Facebook or Google - just sign in with the account you already have. What's to lose?!

Lastly, I've found the team behind FriendFeed to be the most receptive and responsive bunch of developers I've ever come across. New features come out regularly (like groups and friend lists recently). There's a neat new API for people who like to tinker (my mini blog on the left there is driven using the v1 API).

Oh, and there are never any spammers or trolls :)

If you do signup, be sure to follow me and I can point you in the direction of some good people to follow too (another new feature: suggested friends!): http://friendfeed.com/alexlomas

For info it's a black Specialized Rockhopper Comp Disk '08 with Shimano XTR SPD peddles and a crank brothers pump. And a few brackets for computers and such like.

Utter swines.

Stupidly I pushed myself too hard on one of the days and ended up with some eye trouble. Many hours in various hospitals later I was diagnosed with a Branch Retinal Venous Occlusion - essentially a small stroke leading to haemorrhaging - by the fantastic people at Sheffield Hallam's eye casualty. This isn't in any way normal for someone that isn't crusty so I'm now being seen by Moorfields. Hopefully the haemorrhages will clear in the next couple of weeks and restore the vision in that eye.

Many tears later it's roughly complete. Please give me a shout if something seems bust.

I give up trying to stay up to date with technology.

I emailed them and they've changed the formulation to exclude MSG (why?) and added lactose. Anyway, they were fairly good at responding with a list of lactose free products, which I shall share with you now.

Walkers Products suitable for Lactose Intolerants

May 2009

Crisps

Walkers BBQ Rib Flavour Crisps
Walkers Pickled Onion Flavour Crisps
Walkers Prawn Cocktail Flavour Crisps
Walkers Ready Salted Crisps
NEW Walkers Roast Gammon Flavour Crisps
Walkers Steak & Onion Flavour Crisps
NEW Walkers Sweet Cumberland Sausage Flavour Crisps
Walkers Worcester Sauce Flavour Crisps
Walkers Salt & Shake Crisps
Walkers Lights Simply Salted Crisps
Walkers Sensations Balsamic Vinegar & Caramelised Onion

Flavour Crisps
Snacks

Walkers Baked Mango Chilli Flavour
Walkers Baked Ready Salted
Walkers French Fries Ready Salted Flavour
Walkers French Fries Salt & Vinegar Flavour
Walkers Quavers Prawn Cocktail Flavour
Walkers Quavers Salt & Vinegar Flavour
Walkers Sensations Oriental Crackers Peking Spare Rib Flavour
Walkers Sensations Poppadom Bites Lime & Coriander Chutney Flavour
Walkers Squares Ready Salted
Walkers Squares Salt & Vinegar Flavour
Walkers SunBites Original
Walkers SunBites Sun Ripened Sweet Chilli Flavour
Walkers Wotsits Flamin' Hot Flavour
Doritos Chilli Heatwave Flavour
Doritos Lightly Salted
Doritos Sizzling BBQ Flavour
Smiths Chipsticks Ready Salted
Smiths Chipsticks Salt & Vinegar Flavour

Please Note:

This list is published using the best possible information that is available at the time of compilation. Whilst we take every care, Walkers Snack Foods cannot accept liability for any errors that may inadvertently occur. Recipes may change so always check ingredients on the pack.

I did an in-place upgrade of our living room media centre to the Windows 7 RC last weekend. I was a bit hesitant, not least because it's our main TV and therefore has to have a high wife-acceptance-factor (WAF>90). I had updated to Vista TV Pack a few weeks ago and found some issues with reception of a few channels (C4 mostly) so I felt that things probably couldn't be any worse.

The upgrade went amazingly smoothly and things pretty much "just worked". I had to update my network card drivers as they blue screened on standby, but they were 2 years old. The iMon LCD display also doesn't work as their app crashes on startup. I presume an updated version will emerge sooner or later.

But, down to the good bits:

- If you hadn't already gone to Vista TV Pack, then you'll get interactive ("red button") on DVB-T and subtitles.
- Speaking of subs, when you mute media centre, subs get turned on automatically. Neat.
- TV quality looks better, a bit sharper perhaps.
- I love the new screensaver of your favourite pics / cover art when TV is paused or stopped.
- In the guide, hold down the arrow keys and you'll super-speed through the days.
- The now/next mini guide is much improved for browsing around channels.
- The new movies section automatically categorises and grabs cover art for any movies you record from TV or play back via DVD.

The only thing I don't like is the media centre startup noise. It sounds like Fox News' jingle or some American anthem. At least you don't have to hear it that often.

I can say that I've never laughed so much in my life as at Captain Frodo :) And there is also the friend-of-a-friend that does an interesting vanishing and reappearing act!

You totally have to go :)

A quick overview of the components I used:

Zalman HD160+ HTPC Case
Zalman ZM600 600W PSU
Zalman CNPS9500 CPU cooler
Samsung Writemaster DVD
Gigabyte Radeon HD4550 graphics
Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4 motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 CPU
Samsung 1TB Spinpoint
4GB DDR2 RAM
Hauppuage Nova-T 500 PCI dual tuner
Acoustipack soundproofing material

It's not quite the ultra silent PC I was after, but it's not too bad. The only noise is a small bit of CPU fan noise. At the moment it doesn't fit into my AV cabinet under the TV (the case is pretty big.) but if I get another one in the future then that should really help cut down on the audible noise.

Clicky.

Sorry about the photo quality, I only took my compact with me on this trip.

The attached script takes only status updates from ping.fm and writes it out to a file. In my case, this file is then "included" by apache dynamically on the front page of my site.

Bit rough and ready, but hey, it only took 60 seconds :)

   1: #!/usr/bin/perl

   2:  

   3: use strict;

   4: use warnings;

   5:  

   6: use CGI qw/:standard/;

   7: use CGI::Carp 'fatalsToBrowser';

   8:  

   9: my $file = '/path/to/my/file.include';

  10:  

  11: open my $FH, '>', $file or die "Unable to open $file\n";

  12:  

  13: if ( param() ) {

  14:  

  15:        print header;

  16:        my $method = param('method');

  17:        my $title = param('title');

  18:        my $message = param('message');

  19:        

  20:        print $FH "$message";

  21:        

  22: }

  23:  

  24: else {

  25:  

  26:     print header;

  27:     #Do nothing

  28:     

  29: }

  30:  

  31: close $FH;