Me.

I wrote a small case study for Microsoft and it's now been published. Hope it's of use :)

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Uptime

Is this a good or bad thing? I think good :)

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Christmas Based Photography

Clicky.

Posted by Alex at 10:26 AM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Barcelona Photos

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

Posted by Alex at 12:31 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ping.fm in Perl

Using the fabulous ping.fm? Want to use your own Custom URL? Want to use Perl? Use this!

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;

Posted by Alex at 8:18 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nike+ Sportband Problems

It'll teach me to be an early adopter but I've had nothing but troubles with my Nike+ Sportband since I bought one a few months back.

My first one suffered a "bleeding" crystal display:

I sent this back to Sweatshop and they sent me a new one. A week ago, lo and behold, the bleeding display was back. I dropped them a quick mail and they replied saying that there was a known issue with the very first batch of devices and would I like another one or my money back.

So, I've gone for third time lucky! I can't say enough how good Sweatshop have been in sorting all this out.

The Nike+ utility also seemed to have difficulty in realising that not everyone used Pacific Time on their computers, which meant the time on the device was always -8 hours out. v1.1 seems to have fixed this though.

I've heard some other complaints about the calibration not working, but I've not had much trouble with that.

Anyway, I shall hold onto my wallet next time :)

Posted by Alex at 1:03 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The SM Café

Not only does it have a funny name, but they suggest that you "Drink Yourself Happy"...

Posted by Alex at 12:50 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Domain Registry of America

The DROA are at it again and I'm the lucky recipient :)

For more information take a look at http://www.synuk.com/droa/ but definitely don't sign up with them!

I'm half tempted to stake out MBE on Gloucester Road to see if anyone picks up the mail, but I assume it's just a forwarding operation. Scum.

Posted by Alex at 6:30 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nike Sportband and Garmin 405: first impressions

I went to the London Marathon expo last night to check out the Garmin 405 primarily. I have to say that I wasn't impressed. Even though the actual diameter of the bezel is quite small, the initial part of the strap (closest to where it joins the bezel) is rigid - I'm guessing to hold some electronics or the GPS antenna. So, on someone with small wrists like me, it looks pretty stupid as it sticks out the side of your arm!

Also, the touch sensitive bezel seems overly sensitive and a bit clunky to use and reacts to you brushing it (I'd probably knock it against my leg a few times a run!).

All in all, I wasn't impressed so I didn't splurge.

All was not lost though, as Nike were there in force and I had a nice demo from a lady on the stand for the new SportBand which interfaces directly to the Nike+ foot sensor, so no iPod needed. And at £40, I couldn't resist so I've bought one. They do look very sexy indeed and definitely suit the more petite of us.

Posted by Alex at 1:33 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Olympic Torch

Pictures of the police presence in the gallery...

Posted by Alex at 6:06 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My first HDR

I had some fun making this HDR photo of Canary Wharf this afternoon - hope you like it :)

Posted by Alex at 8:30 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

RAF Welford

I passed a very well built sliproad on the M4 just before J13 today. What really caught my eye was the trusty enigmatic sign "Works Unit Only" albeit done in the military red pattern.

A quick check on Live Maps found me my sliproad - following it up the hill reveals RAF Welford, the largest munitions dump in Europe (apparently).

Cool :)

Posted by Alex at 7:47 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My first WebSlice

You can now subscribe to my status updates via a WebSlice if you're brave enough to use an IE8 beta. Head over the front page if you are and give it a go :)

Posted by Alex at 12:43 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

New Nike+ "watch"

So, it's not guide the Aero+ we were expecting, but Nike have released a device that neatly sidesteps the need for an iPod Nano to use Nike+ foot sensors with.

Looks like fun, but I think the Garmin 405 may well be the one for me when it finally arrives.

[via engadget]

Posted by Alex at 1:43 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Skins

I'm so glad that Skins is coming back to E4 in a couple of weeks. I'm even happier that the first episode features Maxxie, whose Dad is played by Bill Bailey. Can't wait :)

Posted by Alex at 10:55 AM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Crazy Stairs

A cheap, but very cool way of building stairs out of some square packing cases set at angles. When I build my own house, I'll be doing this.

Below The Clouds » Trappa av TAF Arkitektkontor

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BBC digital terrestrial test card

This, frankly, is the coolest thing ever: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=728920

The result?

Posted by Alex at 7:34 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Christmas Cottaging

Posted by Alex at 2:01 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Is it cheaper to use Oyster pay as you go than a travelcard?

Well, yes!

Let's assume first of all that you commute to and from work twice 5 days a week, from Zone 2 to Zone 1.

From 2008, a monthly 1-2 travelcard will cost you £93 [1]. A single pay as you go ticket (on Oyster) will cost you £2 [1] (assuming you're travelling peak hours).

So:

£2 x twice per day x 5 days per week x 4 weeks = £80

Ah-ha I hear you cry, but surely if you account for the fact that people travel at the weekend too, the monthly travelcard will pay for itself? I guess it does, but for some people it's a lot cheaper not to buy a travelcard but I don't remember it ever used to be quite this cut and dry. It's even more obvious now that travelcard rates have gone up, buy PAYG hasn't.

Do the sums kids (or ride a bike!)...

[1] http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/guide-to-fares-and-tickets-08-01-02.pdf

Posted by Alex at 3:36 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Power cut hits Rackspace UK

Arses :( Sorry for the downtime this afternoon!

Power cut hits Rackspace UK

Posted by Alex at 7:26 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nike AMP+ spotted!

I saw the AMP+ in the Nike Town on Oxford Street this afternoon, but I didn't buy it. I figured £60 was a bit too excessive and it doesn't look quite as good in the flesh. Plus, I'm holding out for the Aero+ that has a proper display...

Posted by Alex at 4:35 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nike AMP+ soon to be available in the UK?

It seems to be on the UK Nike Store, albeit out of stock.

However there only seems to be only the one colour option (unlike the 4 in the US) and it's hugely overpriced: £60 compared to $80. Thanks a bunch Nike wankers.

Posted by Alex at 11:26 AM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Confused

The new lift in my building

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EDGE & UC

How nice, my smartphone is now picking up O2's EDGE network at home... I'd seen it in a few places around London (like Canary Wharf) but I'm surprised to see it out here in the sticks ;)

Should come in handy to run my mobile Communicator client on, having just seen how cool it was at the launch event today. I'm really enthusiastic about Office Comms Server and I just hope our little pilot goes well at work and we get to deploy it on a grand scale :) I really want a Roundtable to play with though!

Posted by Alex at 10:34 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Google DMCA

How odd - when searching for "GMF" (I wondered who they were as they sponsor the Rugby World Cup) on Google - you get this:

Click for biggerer

Interestingly, you get the same error if you use google.co.uk where the DMCA doesn't apply...

More at http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=898

Posted by Alex at 10:08 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nike Amp+ on sale

In the US at any rate - $79 seems pretty good value to me. I'm still waiting for those other Nike+ watches though...

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To buy or not to buy

£899 for one of those? Probably not. Maybe if they had a really nice camera in it, GPS and 3G then it might be worth it, but not as it stands.

Posted by Alex at 6:52 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

New Google Reader features

I noticed that a new search box has appeared in Google Reader today. Sure enough, they've added a few new little tweaks to it. Yay!

Posted by Alex at 7:31 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

New iPod Nanos & Nike Plus

It seems that there have been a few tweaks to the Nike+ UI on the new iPod Nanos. I don't believe that there are any new features, although if you own any of the rather lovely Nike+ running gear the new Nano isn't going to fit in any of the special compartments.

Posted by Alex at 1:11 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nike+ Amp+ watch finally surfaces

You have to love the FCC - these are the first pictures of the Amp+ along with its manual and other goodies.

I just hope the Flight+ (or Aero+, or whatever it was supposed to be called) with its proper screen appears soon too.

Posted by Alex at 1:39 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Vista performance & reliability updates - now available

The Vista updates that were leaked last week are now (officially) available to download from Microsoft. They are not yet on Windows Update.

Installing as we speak :)

Update for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems (KB938979)

This is a performance update. Install this update to improve the performance of Windows Vista in certain scenarios.

Update for Windows Vista (KB938194)

This is a reliability update. Install this update to improve the reliability of Windows Vista in certain scenarios.

Update for Windows Vista (KB938979)

This is a performance update. Install this update to improve the performance of Windows Vista in certain scenarios.

Update for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems (KB938194)

This is a reliability update. Install this update to improve the reliability of Windows Vista in certain scenarios.

Posted by Alex at 9:03 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

London Triathlon

Well done to Linda, Ben, Mark & Piers! It was a scorching day, but I think everyone just about survived!

Pictures in the gallery:

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Vista reliability and performance updates

According to Neowin.net the following will be released next patch Tuesday. About bloody time!

938979 Vista Performance and Reliability Pack

This update resolves a number of individual issues which may be affecting some computers running Windows Vista. These issues have been reported by customers using the Error Reporting service, product support, or other means. Installing this update will improve the performance and responsiveness for some scenarios and improves reliability of Windows Vista in a variety of scenarios. Some examples of the improvements contained in this update are:

Improves performance in resuming back to the desktop from the Photo and Windows Energy screensaver.

Resolves an issue where some secured web pages using advanced security technologies may not get displayed in Internet Explorer on Windows Vista.

Resolves an issue where a shared printer may not get installed if the printer is connected to a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 system and User Access Control is disabled on the Vista client.

Resolves an issue where creating AVI files on Vista may get corrupted.

Improves the performance in calculating the ‘estimated time remaining’ when copying/moving large files.

Improves performance in bringing up Login Screen after resuming from Hibernate.

Resolves an issue where synchronization of offline files to a server can get corrupted.

Resolves a compatibility issue with RAW images created by Canon EOS 1D/1DS Digital SLR Camera which can lead to data loss. This only affects RAW images created by these two specific camera models.

Resolves an issue where a computer can lose its default Gateway address when resuming from sleep mode.

Improves the performance when copying or moving entire directories containing large amounts of data or files.

Improves the performance of Vista’s Memory Manager in specific customer scenarios and prevents some issues which may lead to memory corruption.

938194 Vista Compatibility and Reliability Pack

This update resolves a number of individual issues which may be affecting some computers running Windows Vista. These issues have been reported by customers using the Error Reporting service, product support, or other means. Installing this update will improve the reliability and hardware compatibility of Windows Vista in a variety of scenarios. Some examples of the improvements contained in this update are:

Improved reliability and compatibility of Vista when used with newer graphics cards in several specific scenarios and configurations.

Improved reliability when working with external displays on a laptop.

Increased compatibility with many video drivers.

Improved visual appearance of games with high intensity graphics.

Improved quality of playback for HD-DVD and Blue-Ray disks on large monitors.

Improved reliability for Internet Explorer when some third party toolbars are installed on Vista.

Improved Vista reliability in networking configuration scenarios.

Improved the reliability of Windows Calendar in Vista.

Improved reliability of systems that were upgraded from XP to Vista.

Increased compatibility with many printer drivers.

Increased reliability and performance of Vista when entering sleep and resuming from sleep.

Posted by Alex at 3:06 PM| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

More the pictures!

From France:

From Kew:

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Ma'ayan and Erik's Wedding

After the deluge, the weather turned out fantastically sunny and it was a great day.

Pictures in the gallery:

Posted by Alex at 10:37 AM| Permalink |