Friday 30 July 2010

Oops - Sorry I've Been A Bit Sidetracked

Just realised that I haven't update my blog for a couple of days but I have been absorbed in my reading!

So far this week I've read 'Solar' by Ian McEwan, 'The Messiah Secret' by James Becker and I'm now about a third of the way through 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' by Stieg Larsson.

'Solar' follows the life of a Nobel Laureate who, after a series of unfortunate incidents, develops a new form of energy based on photosynthesis.  The story is more about him and his personal life than the scientific breakthrough, and is a very good read.  I won't spoil anything but I was a little disappointed in the ending which could lead to a sequel.

'The Messiah Secret' is the third in a series of "looking for religious artefacts"novels that follow a detective and his archeologist ex-wife who get into all sorts of scrapes in their quests to track down a particular item that usually has world changing consequences.  The books are a bit formulaic in a Dan Brown sort of way but they are an amusing diversion.

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" is currently a New York Times best seller that has recently been made into a film and is the first book in a trilogy.  It's quite a good read although as it's set in Sweden, some of the characters names and the principal locations are a little unpronounceable.  The book was written in Swedish and has been translated into English very well.  I will follow this up with the other two books but will intersperse them with other novels.

I've also got a rather fascinating book on Executions that I am dipping in and out of and I have Peter Mandelson's autobiography 'The Third Man' to start but I am putting that off for a bit!

Monday 26 July 2010

All Kindled Up

Both my Kindle and it's case were waiting for me at work this morning and very nice they are too.

The Kindle got a lot of attention and I have put it through it's paces this evening and read the best part of my first novel on it!  It's larger to hold than my Sony but pages look superb on it and it can show around 2.5 times as much text at once as the Sony could, which means less page turns and a more engrossing and book like read.

I have a reference book (Website Design) which has a lot of tables and pictures and they display perfectly and in the right places.

The wireless side of things (a 3G connection that Amazon calls 'Whispernet') works flawlessly and browsing the book store is intuitive and fast.  All the free books plus a couple I had purchased downloaded as soon as I switched it on and setting up 'collections' (folders of book genre) was also very easy.

I had read some complaints on the web that the keyboard was too small to use.  Yes, it is small but it works when you need it to and most of the time you don't need it.  Amazon said that they want the Kindle to disappear when you are reading and the charcoal bezel seems to help on that score.

I have already sold my Sony (well it has been bid for on eBay) and I have had a number of questions about it so it will be interesting how high the final price is.

Sunday 25 July 2010

Most Photos Now Online

An update from yesterdays entry, most of my photos are now in one place and are online at the nice and friendly url of
http://picasaweb.google.com/106180352537550948443?authkey=Gv1sRgCLTQj5OwvLnodg

Saturday 24 July 2010

Digital Audit

We're at home again this weekend which is nice.

I've been sorting some of my digital life out this morning, I really need to audit all of our photo's and get them in some sort of order.  I have been using iPhoto but I have to admit that it my least favourite of all the Mac applications that I use.  I don't like the way it automatically sorts 'events' which I think is far too confusing.

So, I have switched to Picasa and am now slowly porting over all the various albums of pictures we have.  Once I have done this I can delete all the duplicates.

My Kindle is on it's way and is currently sitting at an airport in Philadelphia waiting for a plane.  Amazon has been amazing, sending me welcome emails and sorting out my Kindle account so it is ready to go as soon as I get my hands on it.  They really seem to have put a lot of thought into the service and, so far, it has been brilliant.  Once again another reason to abandon Waterstones.

I went out last night with a few of my engineers from work (a couple of them are about to leave the company) and I ended up having a couple of drinks which is a big no no on my diet.  I weighed myself this morning and have still lost weight so I don't think it has done any harm.  I probably won't have an alcoholic drink for a few weeks now until I meet up with my best mate.

We are off to the cinema this evening to see Inception so I will let you know what I think of it.

Thursday 22 July 2010

Eeee It's A (New) Reader

I am a big fan of reading and therefore I'm a big fan of books.  I like novels (usually pseudo scientific ones), text books, manuals and factual books.

Well I say books.  A couple of years ago I moved my reading into the digital age and bought one of the first eReaders that came onto the UK market - The Sony PRS 505.  It's been a great little reader and I've read almost a hundred books on it so far.  I would have read more but for two factors;  1) The books in the UK are expensive and 2) the selection of books available to download from Waterstones or WH Smith never really lived up to the marketing hype.  They had promised 50,000 books at launch with all new books being available in eReader format as they came out.  This never happened.  In fact there are still less than 30,000 titles available and searching for the one you want is tedious (a complaint that many, many people have made).  Many of the books I have wanted to buy just haven't been available and all Watersone's website will do is show you a copy of the printed book instead.

When I purchased the Sony, I really wanted a Kindle but, at the time, Amazon would not sell one outside of the US and even if you did manage to import one, you wouldn't be able to buy any books for it as the Kindle works by downloading the books, free, over the air.

All that has just changed.  Not only is the Kindle now available in the UK (albeit from Amazon's USA site) but Amazon has just made the entire library of over 400,000 books available to UK purchasers, with the same free, over the air downloading.  In fact, you can download your purchased books for free in over 100 countries - no monthly fee, no contract and no data charges.

Another bonus is that as the books are priced in US dollars, the exchange rate now makes the purchase of eBooks very attractive.  Best sellers are $9.99 which works out at around £7.00 as opposed to Waterstones who charge around £13.00 a book.  No wonder Amazon's shares have just gone through the roof.

I don't know if this is a good thing or not but in June sales of eBooks for the Kindle out did sales of printed books for the first time ever.

So, I have just listed my Sony on eBay (there are a number there already, all with loads of bids) and, with the money I get from that, some birthday money and a bit of my savings I have just ordered the Kindle DX which is that 9 inch screen version.  Unlike my sony, this will easily display text books with pictures, charts and tables and will also show PDF files full size.

Amazon also do something else that Waterstones don't do and that is to keep a copy of everything you have purchased on their website.  So, if you run out of space (unlikely) or lose your Kindle, you simply tell the site to beam your entire library back to you.  You can archive books to make room and still get at them (with all their bookmarks and annotations (yes the Kindle has a keyboard so you can make notes, use the built in dictionary or even surf Wikipedia for free)).  The Kindle even does text to speech so you can have your books read to you!

I haven't lost the books I already own on the Sony as I have found a free bit of software that converts them to Kindle format (a bit dodgy as it strips the DRM lock from them (don't get me started on what I think of DRM)).

Waterstones and Sony could have done the same as Amazon but they just didn't seem bothered.  I even wrote to Waterstones to complain about the lack of content and abysmal searching but never got a reply.

Oh well, their loss.

Wednesday 21 July 2010

Technology Can Be So Frustrating Sometimes

I've developed a problem with email on my iPhone and it's a problem that others are having but, as yet, there seems to be no solution.

By default, the iPhone uses IMAP email to connect to my Yahoo email account. This means that a) my email is always in sync with the mail server and b) when I move an email to a folder, it is moved on the server too. However, yesterday Mail got stuck in a loop where it thinks that there is new mail and keeps trying to download it. Apparently, this is caused when the Mail client on the iPhone doesn't get an end of session flag from the IMAP server. This means that the iPhone will keep on trying to download the ghost email and this constant activity drains the battery quickly as the phone is working flat out to go nowhere.

There are a couple of solutions to this. The first is to change from IMAP to POP mail. Whilst this works fine, mail is no longer in sync with the server and so, when you log onto webmail, all the mail you have moved or deleted is still sitting in your inbox. Worse, any mail that you sent from the Mail client on the iPhone isn't in your sent folder on the server which makes searching for an email you know you have sent a messy affair.

The other solution, and the one I have chosen, is to use a different mail client. I have downloaded Yahoo's own iPhone App which, apart from giving you full access to the mail on the server along with all the folder syncing and real time updates, is also a news aggregator and social networking client.

There are however 2 problems. Firstly, emails are not pushed to the app, you have to open it and get it to check for email - this isn't a problem for me. What is a problem is that the new version of Yahoo email (which is really nicely designed and quite fun to use) doesn't seem to work. It will work OK for the first couple of times and then it just shows a blank screen. I think this is because the app hasn't been written to take advantage of iOS 4 and I have fired off an email to Yahoo to see what they think.

Still, at least I've got mail and I can keep my online account nicely in sync.

Talking of iPhones, I met my best mate's wife at St Pancras station yesterday evening and gave her my old iPhone 3G to pass to he husband. It felt like giving a child up for adoption as I have loved, cared for and cherished that phone for the past 18 months.

You see, my best mate doesn't have a very good track record with mobile phones - his current phone went for a full cycle in the washing machine. So, I am half expecting this one to end up in the toaster or under the back wheel of his car.

Oh well!

Monday 19 July 2010

Hot And Sticky

Nightmare journey home tonight.

The Jubilee Line had severe delays which meant that when the train finally did arrive (after 20 mins) it was packed full of sweaty passengers.

The journey to London Bridge was horrible and it was a real relief when the doors opened.

Then there was a problem getting to East Croydon so I had to change at Norwood Junction and wait 15 mins for a train to take me the rest of the way.  This was also unpleasant as there were thousands of flying ants everywhere.

Hey ho - and I'll do it all again tomorrow!

Sunday 18 July 2010

Back Home

The others eventually made it up and soon everyone was awake.
Chris cooked a wonderful brunch of local bacon, duck eggs and white and black pudding - all of which I couldn't eat but it did look great.
The picture is of Hamish, Roxana, Chris and Jane tucking in under the temporary gazebo in the garden.
After brunch, Roxana and I set off for Marks and Spencer, getting only slightly lost before we returned to Chris and Jane's to say our goodbyes before heading back home.
We gave Roxana a lift to Waterloo Station, getting caught in some rather unexpected heavy traffic in Central London and then Hamish and I headed home.

The Morning After The Night Before

Just got up and I'm not sure how long the BBQ went on for last night but it was still going strong when I went to bed.

No alcohol means that I am as sharp as a pin this morning however everyone else, well those who I have encountered so far, are either still drunk or nursing very sore heads!

I'm sitting alone in the garden as I write this with a cup of coffee and a fag and, for the first time in a few days, I feel quite calm and relaxed.

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Saturday 17 July 2010

BBQ

I'm at a BBQ in Cambridge at the moment. Ate a burger (no bun) and some chicken and also some rather fine tofu sausages. I've eaten a bit more than I intended but I doubt if will make much difference.

I'm avoiding the alcohol completely so right now I'm watching everyone get pissed around me. Oh well.

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Friday 16 July 2010

Damn Back

I don't know what I've done but since yesterday I have been in agony with my back again.

I noticed it first on the bus yesterday morning when I suddenly felt it go and all of yesterday it was really painful.  I can't walk properly (looks like I have pooed myself) and getting up from a chair is really hard.

This morning it's just as bad and is really starting to get on my nerves.

It's happened before and I know that it will suddenly get better on it's own but right now it's very annoying.

Wednesday 14 July 2010

Quick Shard Update

It's up to the 39th floor now. The base is taking shape over at London Bridge and the lower floors have their glass in place.

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Making Music

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be able to play the piano. I can read music, a little, and can knock out a half decent tune on the recorder but have never learned to play a keyboard instrument.

We have a very good digital keyboard but it has never been played in anger.

So I have been thinking about it for a while and it dawned on me that I have a Mac and there are loads of CBT packages available, all I need is a USB midi keyboard and I can get the computer to teach me.

So, yesterday a 61 key M-Audio Keystation keyboard arrived and, hooked up to GarageBand on the Mac, it sounds great. I am spending the next couple of evenings having fun (it's so easy to knock up a multi track recording) until my piano tutorial software arrives and then I am going to have a serious go at learning to play.

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Tuesday 13 July 2010

3:33AM

Why do I keep waking up at exactly 3:33am?  It's happened at least 4 times over the last couple of weeks.

It seems I'm not alone either.  I have been doing a bit of research on the web and it seems like a very common phenomena.

Basically I wake up (naturally, not with a start), look at the clock by my bed and it's exactly 3:33.  There is no noise that has woken me and I don't feel spooked but it's beginning to bug me.

It could just be down to synchronicity but why is it happening to so many people?   Of course there are all sorts of crackpot answers on the web, mostly involving some kind of message from Guardian Angels but there does seem to be a bit of a phenomena here.

Monday 12 July 2010

Westfield

On Saturday we went to Westfield, the recently opened mega-mall in West London.

It's very impressive and approaching the size of the huge malls that I have visited in Florida.

As usual, it mainly consists of clothes shops but also has a fair number of other outlets. I was disappointed, however, with the bookshop, Foyles, which looked wonderful but actually had a very limited supply of books.

At the end of the day though, as beautiful and vibrant as it was, it had many of the same shops as any major town centre and has probably killed off trade in the surrounding areas.

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Saturday 10 July 2010

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

The temperature hit 31C in London yesterday and in a journey from my office to a customer that I was visiting I drank 1.5 litres of water and was still thirsty.

It's a marked contrast to the weather in Northumbria where, in the early hours of this morning, and in terrible wet and cold weather conditions, the 7 day man hunt for gunman Raoul Moat ended when he took his own life.

The police presence in the small village where he had been hiding was unprecedented, perhaps, I think, as a result of the incident in Cumbria a few weeks ago where another gunman killed 12 people during a bloody rampage across the county.

In last night's incident, it seems odd that Mr. Moat was found less than a 100 yards from where police were gathered and almost slap bang in the centre of the village.

Now the investigations have started; should his threats in prison have been taken more seriously, was he being helped by members of the public and, most importantly, why did it take 7 days to apprehend him.

We will probably never know all the answers but, tragic though the outcome is, at least no-one else was harmed.

Wednesday 7 July 2010

There's Always One Damn Screw.....

.....or in this case two of the bloody things.



Upgrading the hard drive in a PS3 is a user achievable event and, being Sony, they have made it easy to do. Firstly you pop off the plastic face plate covering the hard drive which is then visible sitting in it's caddy. However, to remove the caddy you have to remove a little blue screw. Without undoing this screw, the hard drive is locked into the system. My little blue screw was superglued into place, apparently, and it was also made of the softest metal on the planet meaning that any effort exerted risked damaging the head causing the drive to be embedded in the PS3 for ever. After much sweating and the removal of all the skin on my fingers I finally got the bugger out (it's not going back in again).



Then the next challenge. The drive is held in the caddy by four more screws. Again made out of silver Plastercine. Three of them came out fine but the fourth refused to budge. My fingers bleeding and the air blue I finally got it free. That one's not going back in either.



Anyway, with two screws left over my PS3 now has a 500GB hard drive and it has formatted itself and restore the backup I made earlier. At least the software part of the process worked OK.

Blip

I don't know why but yesterday I had a blip in my depression.  I felt really low, a feeling I haven't had for some months now.  I'm OK today but yesterday just felt wrong.  I was tired and irritable and nothing I did felt right.

I know that depression goes in cycles and that you can still have bad days just the same as everyone else.  I just need to listen to my brain and act if it happens again and stays for more than a day.

The good thing is that I managed to stay on my diet as in the past I have resorted to comfort eating.  I did feel more hungry than usual and did get cravings but I was strong enough not to give in to them this time.

It's been a busy day so far at work and, in an odd way, that's helped as I haven't had time to sit and brood.

The new hard drive for my PS3 has arrived today and I am looking forwards to fitting that tonight.  If all goes well I will go from 60GB to 500GB.  I recently signed up for Playstation Plus and with that I get loads of free games and demos which automatically install in the small hours of the morning.  Now I won't have to worry about fill the drive up.

Sunday 4 July 2010

Old Friends

We've just got back from the weekend at my parents and I'm absolutely knackerd.  It's a long old drive up there (for me anyway) and there was quite a bit of traffic on the road both going and coming back.

After lunch on Saturday I said I would have a look at my Dad's laptop which he said was running 'a bit slow'.  Now, I have to say that I'm very proud of my Dad.  He had asked me to help him buy a computer for years and I was a bit worried as he sometimes has difficulty working the TV.  But he's had it for a year now and, on the whole, he is doing very well with it.

I say "on the whole" as he does have an annoying habit in that he buys PC magazines with cover DVDs crammed full of free and trial software.  And he installs it all.  So, looking at his 'bit slow' laptop I discovered 3 anti-virus programs and two firewalls running and, somehow, he had added a second monitor so most of what he should have been seeing was actually hovering in virtual space about a foot to the right of his actual screen.  There is still a problem with it in that (after I removed a phantom second video controller that had mysteriously appeared) when you save things to the desktop they vanish.  Still at least it is useable now and I also set him up with an email account.  So Dad, if you are reading this, drop me a mail to tell me!

In the evening we went to the Bell and Bear pub and met up with Colin.  It's always great to see him and I don't get to spend time with him often enough.  I was on Diet Coke all night due to the diet so I sat and watched Hamish and Colin get slowly pissed which was amusing.  While we were there Paul Bliss, an old friend that I haven't seen from school 24 years ago, turned up.  To be honest I didn't recognise him until Colin pointed him out.  It was really great to see him and I hope next time we are up we can spend a bit more time with him.

This morning we had a drive out to locate one of the only Waitrose's in the West Midlands (they do a good trade in Aldi and Lidl up there) and then had a rather splendid lunch.

After lunch we had a wander round the garden and Dad showed us the shed he is all but rebuilding.  The garden was looking wonderful, as always, and most of the plants there have been grown from seed by my Dad which is fantastic.

I'm off to bed now as I am so tired so I will leave you with a couple of photo's of some of the plants in Dad's garden.......



Friday 2 July 2010

2 Gb Again And Fingers Crossed

Netty's replacement 2Gb memory module arrived last night (and kudos to Mr. Memory for sorting this out). I installed it yesterday evening and have been using it all day and so far so good.

Another weekend away looms as we are back in Birmingham to spend the weekend at my parents.

The big news of the day is that I have lost my first stone and I'm still enjoying the diet. I know it will slow down now but as long as it keeps going in the right direction I'll be happy.

It's bedlam on the train as I write this as a party of 7 year old school children have just got on and their teachers have absolutely zero control over them. If the girl sitting next to me kicks me one more time I may have to thump her. Hard.

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