Bag is packed, car-seat in my car (as it’s not the easiest of things to do, hopefully a bit of practise will help), bump is big. Kicking quite often, making the poor wife a bit uncomfortable. Have to help her up from the sofa frequently, put her socks on & all the other wonderful things I do to make her pregnancy easier. Can’t think of any more at the moment. Due date is still 4th February, although the bump is measuring ~2 weeks larger than expected – probably over 6lbs now. Had our ante-natal class, watching Discovery Home & Health – lots of midwife & birth programs on each day. Just a case of waiting now….
Dec
31
I got the Xbox HD-DVD drive, mostly because the discs had dropped to £3 each, and I didn’t want to purchase a PS3 just to watch films. Missus would probably just say “yes dear” as she normally does, I have after all given her a baby so have a couple of tech-credits in return.
But I’m back with Lovefilm again after their “please come back, we really miss you, it’s lonely here without you” offer & DVDs just look naff after 6 months of SkyHD goodness. The Beautiful South had it almost right, Blu is the Colour. So one quick trip to Blockbusters for a Sony BDP-S350 & a couple of discs to try it out, and it’s quite impressive.
Loading times aren’t great, Hancock seemed to take an age to even show the logo & give you the indication it’s doing anything. But Wall-E looked amazing, and I felt I hadn’t wasted £200 yet again. I don’t have anything that will decode the HD Audio (yet!), but it should sound great through my Sony 2.1 system. Just need to get a new TV stand to fit it all in….
Dec
05
It’s been over 3 years, time for the regular ‘new car’ post. Picked up the new wheels this morning, in time for a quick trip upto Lincoln for the Christmas Market.
Work are never going to get their act together & sort out company cars, and after 3+ years the C4 was getting to the point where it would cost money to keep going, but not worth that much. Local Nissan garage had one in waiting for a careful owner. But it got me instead. It’s petrol, but even with my mileage it doesn’t make sense to get a diesel again.
It’s not that much bigger, couple of mm in each direction but the height is nice. Fair bit more space in the boot, handy for all the baby stuff. And everything’s automatic – lights, wipers, climate, carkit. Just a shame there’s no iPod link, need to look into that. Will post some photos at some point.
Oct
17
Got my 3 Mobile Broadband stick today, to replace the Vodafone one work supplies which is frequently useless. Although it did manage to pick up enough 3G+ last night to send and receive a few mails; I was in the centre of Manchester near a window, so 1 bar.
Firstly they didn’t send the D100 Wireless Router, so will have to get on the phone to them about that. OK it was only ‘launched’ yesterday, but the on-line order said “Delivery Friday”, so where is it? Plugged it into the Macbook, it lit up & started flashing blue. That’s a good sign, we have pretty decent 3 coverage around these parts, although I’d normally just use the wireless. But nothing else happened. No CD image appeared on the desktop like the instructions said. This could be because I already had the Mobile Connect software installed from a E220, but I noticed that in the Network Control Pannel a Huawei Mobile (plus DIAG & PCUI) entry had appeared. So just click on that, or run the Mobile Connect software & away we go.
We browsing is slightly laggy, but not too bad. Chicken of the VNC connected on my non-standard port without worries. iTunes opens the store, iCal picks up my calendar, Cyberduck works, Skype logs in, MSN & iChat both connect (although I haven’t used them for ages), Software Update is OK.
Wow, I’ve run out of applications to try. Vodafone take note, this is how it should be. Getting about 200K down, which isn’t bad. 10K max up, which is OK but I’ll have to find something to test it & see if that improves. That’s 13Mb of 5Gb used up already 
Oct
15
Spending a lot of time in hotels, there’s usually wireless of some sort or another. Most of the usual suspects have roaming agreements, but there are two that when I see the SSID I start searching for the broadband dongle in my bag (& take my chances with Vodafone) or the nearest McDonalds.
Swisscom seem to think we all have Orange France accounts, or are happy paying ~£12 for 24 hours. They used to allow iPass, but that stopped a while back. BT are going to start roaming with them by the end of the year, woo finally!
Spectrum can be found in most of the Premier Inns & some Travelodges, and at least allow you to reach the hotel home page so you can check & make bookings. Although they’re not as expensive, usually around £5/day, no roaming options.
The past couple of weeks I’ve been in Glasgow, staying in a Premier Inn with a McDs opposite. I’ve observed a couple of people walk over from the hotel with their laptops, and I’ve done the same many times. Plus the coffee’s good. Spectrum could have got a couple of pence per minute roaming instead of the £0.00. I’m not sure why The Cloud & BT have ended their agreement, but I hope that they sort out whatever the problem is soon.
Sep
21
My Morgan Stanley Dean Whitter credit card has been replaced by a Barclaycard. It’s been replaced, sold, renamed so many times it’s hard to keep up. MSDW->Morgan Stanley->Goldfish->Barclaycard, probably some others I didn’t pay attention to. But what is interesting (to me, anyway) is that it’s the first card I’ve had with PayPass integrated. They’ve got readers all over London, but who wants to go there?
Rather surprisingly, the first place I saw a terminal outside of the M25 was yesterday in the depths of Yorkshire. We had met up with my folks at Nostell Priory, about half-way & an opportunity to use the National Trust memberships. Plus the cakes in the coffee shop are usually good, plenty of space to walk the dog & one of the nicest historic houses – there were rooms where I actually thought “if I decorated my room like this, I could probably live in it”. Which doesn’t happen often, as they’re usually like Belton or Kedleston House.
And in the gift shop, they had a brand new Barclays PayPass/PayWave terminal. Unfortunately my card isn’t active until tomorrow & the PIN numbers only turned up when we’d returned home, so we weren’t able to try the new technology. Plus the staff weren’t fantastically competent with the till or Chip&PIN machine so it would have just confused them even more. I next expect the National Trust to announce something like they’re rolling out Wifi hotspots to all their locations, they’ve already got an excellent audio tour at Southwell & all the little ‘toys’ make the visit a bit more enjoyable.
Sep
04
As I’m doing a lot more travelling around the country (Glasgow one day, Southampton another), it’s become apparent how rubbish Vodafone’s coverage is. Work gave me a Vodafone Mobile Connect card & a work SIM (I chose not to accept the phone, as what use is a 6500 Classic to me?), and as I can’t get a usable Vodafone signal at home – 1mile from the A1 – I’ve only used it for the occasional call to a colleague. Everyone has my personal number, I had to use it for work so got a T-Mobile contract with lots of minutes which I’m nearly half way through. I regrettably stopped the £10 T-Mobile datacard contract, which was excellent. But Vodafone will be as good, won’t it?
No. No, it’s not. Not by half. T-Mobile seems to have 3G & HSDPA coverage *everywhere*, at least everywhere you’d like to go. There’s a mast on the Malthouse just over the road from my house, so when we were without broadband after moving in, it was good enough until BT sorted their arse into gear. Vodafone seems to have some coverage in some places, until you go indoors. I do prefer working inside, especially in an ‘English Summer’. Plus some of my VPNs don’t work, I can’t VNC into home, everything seems to be blocked. I can count on one hand the number of hotel’s I’ve been in where I can actually click ‘Connect’ and get a usable throughput.
So I’ve found myself spending more time in the vacinity of the Golden Arches. I haven’t actually just pitched up in the car-park and got my laptop out, I do go in & buy a drink at least or a meal. Spend £5 in Premier Inn on WiFi, or £5 for a sandwich & drink? It’s not a tough choice. Hotels should also provide free WiFi, or at least an option to roam from any other provider – I’d go out of my way to stay there.
Jul
02
After doing the same job for over 3.5 years, it’s finally time to depart NSN & start working for the company that employs me. So if you’re not upto much on the 24th July, then why not join me for a quiet evening out – location TBA? If there’s more than a couple of buttons & a 4-shillings in the kitty, might even be able to get the boss to buy a few drinks! They say a change is as good as a rest. We’ll see…
Jun
28
When we moved to our current abode, we decided not to bother with Sky. Stupid builders put the phone socket on the other side of the room to the TV point, and it was easier to lash an aerial in the loft with a few bits of string & just use Freeview. Plus Lovefilm DVD Rentals, and the odd bit of BitTorrent – 50/60Gb per month
But I’ve been longing for a bit of HD action, and the choices were:
- AppleTV. I of course love all things Apple, and it was tempting to get a box while in the US. But it’s films only, and a couple of quid per chop.
- Xbox360 & HD-DVD Drive. Sounds like a hairdryer, although the prospect of Command & Conquer (aka Hot Firey Death), is rather tempting, but until they come out with a BluRay drive it’s not going to happen. Lovefilm has a good HD-DVD selection, but not many new releases will be on an effectively dead format.
- PS3. One of the best BluRay players with a console tacked on. Lovefilm has a great selection. But I hardly get chance to play on the Wii, there’s no C&C & it’s £300!
- BitTorrent. 720p TV shows are about 1.2Gb, and while I enjoyed watching one episode of Lost, they take forever to download & the Mac Mini struggles a bit to play them.
- SkyHd. It’s £250, plus install, plus another £10/month.
So when the evil Murdoch empire offered a discounted box, discounted subscription & even the missus said she missed Sky, it was time to get some holes drilled in the wall. To the installer’s credit, he did make a really neat job, put the dish on the chimney so you can barely see it. As for the phone, well strung it across the room to do a callback & then he left.
So now I scour the HD Channels listings for anything interesting, especially episodes of Air Crash Investigation that I’ve not seen. Sky Movies doesn’t seem to be too far behind DVD Rentals, and we’ve watched a fair few films again just to see what they’re like in HD. The Italian Job was great, and one evening we did both parts of the Andromeda Strain. Gladiators looks amazing, especially compared to a bad quality rip. BBC HD is probably the most disappointing ’channel’ as there’s nothing on, but I’m sure that will change later in the year once summer is over.
May
01
Good meal out with the wife, couple of celebratory drinks. I feel old(er)!
