Well on Monday I start work with CCFE, a rather geeky group of people who like bashing small things together. My Job Title will be ‘Document Controller’ fundamentally my job will be herding Documentation written by a group of Scientist and Engineers) on projects including JET (Joint European Torus) and ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor).

As some of you may know I like Physics, despite not being very good at it; so hopefully I will also be able this to help me with numbers 3, and 4 on my 101 things list.

Well since they took over the mostly reliable iFuse hosting has had a number of extended outages, and response to support tickets and emails is non existent.

Things have got even worse recently when they invoiced my for my hosting fees, I went to try and pay them but have they wanted to take my money? have they responded to my trying to give them money? well no. so unable to contact them (they have no contact details in the public domain that I can find) my account has been suspended.

Due to my set up not being the normal set up on the server, (thanks to Ross being Awsome when he did work there) everything other than CamCrew.co.uk still works

Now with a lot of digging and poking it seems that Yomura Holdings is a part of LTT, Libya Telecom and Technology who have a twitter account, so I am now waiting for a response from them.

Thursday last week I got a call from some guy working for an organisation called “Consumer Lifestyle” who are owned by Data Locator Group (DLG).

After searching online for a short while I found the contact details for the Data Protection helpline, after speaking to Nick Hubbard I have now got a copy of my Subject Access Request, and Order History report.

Now the next cunning plan is to hunt down the three company s who sold DLG data of mine and find out just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

• CACI Limited
• Data Media and Research Ltd
• GB Group PLC

I will post full details here as and when I get results

Oh and in the short term there are these services to remove your details:

• Mailing Preference Service
• Telephone Preference Service

I am getting increasingly fed up with the amount of junk mail that comes through the door, so after a bit of a search on Google I found the post.

After a quick run through Paint (yes Paint) I have adapted it for my use:

If it is unsuccessful I will edit it a bit more, and start to charge a £5GBP handling fee for every bit of junk I receive.

One general accepted way to speed up iPhoto is to vacuum the database using the inbuilt sqlite command. this is a bit like defraging the database and reducing the stuff contained in it.

1. Open Terminal and type cd and a space
2. Drag your iPhoto library into the terminal window and hit Enter.
3. Copy the command “for dbase in *.db; do sqlite3 $dbase "vacuum;"; done” and paste into the terminal window.
4. Hit carriage return, wait till the line prompt comes up and your finished. The larger the library the longer the time the vacuuming will take.

Mine took just shy of 15 minutes (did I forget to say I had a large library?) all in all it didn’t speed it up any where as much as I would have liked.

Another way of recovering a few bits of a second from iPhoto slowness is to remove the photo counts next to each album and library in the left-hand pane. The task of updating these counts whenever you modify your images appears to cause iPhoto to slow down sometimes.

To disable the item counts

1. Open iPhoto’s preferences,
2. Goto the General tab,
3. Uncheck the “Show item counts” box. (there may be a delay of a few seconds).

That may show an improvement for you; it also may not.

If iPhoto continues to be annoyingly slow for me, I may get desperate and try Fat Cat’s iPhoto Library Manager to see how that works with my iPhoto collection.

The exhibit itself was in a small gallery on the basement level. along with the steam punk exhibit there was a work shop to learn how to make steam punk jewellery and an area where you could play with Maccano.

Apart from the size of the gallery, everything else was really cool. We went for lunch in the (well according to Laces) the Burning Baby, or as the rest of us called it The Eagle & Child. a small pub of No notability at all

The Eagle and Child was once a favourite watering hole of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. They often met for discussion (and argument) over a pint.

On the bar wall is a signed note to the landlord written in 1949 stating that J.R.R Tolkien and C.S. Lewis have drunk to his health. well we mostly stuck to one drink each.

[View with PicLens]

I have had a play with this software before, and based on that trial I have had a go at installing it on my parents computer; in the hope that it reduces the time I have to spend keeping the computer clean.

Deep Freeze works by freezing all the data on a patition and removes all changes made everytime the computer is re-started, to avoid wiping out all userdata I have the Documents and Profile folders on a diffrent patition.

I hope that at the end of my trial that it will have worked as well as I hope it will.

Although for those times support is required I have installed Cross Loop, fundimently Cross Loop is VNC wrapped in an easy to use userinterface that allows you to connect to another computer without needing to open up firewall ports and such; making it easy for parents to allow me to connect to their computer remotly.

As part of the re-installing software I had to choose a PDF application, and as we all know Adobe Acrobat reader is never the sensable choice. Previously I have used Foxit’s Reader which has been light and always done what it says on the tin, being that it claims to be:

• Foxit’s NO BLOAT PDF Reader
• Small download, fast, accurate rendering

However what it doesnt tell you is that every stage of install it will try and install crap you dont need, and that you have to make sure you de-select from the install. I am not sure how this behavure sits with other people,. but I consider it very anoying.

I have included the Screenshots from the install process below so you can see what it looks like:

[View with PicLens]

Also on this note:

• SUN -  I do not want the Yahoo bar with my Java
• Microsoft – No I dont want any extra crap when I am forced to use MS software
• Apple – Why on earth would I want Safari with my iTunes?

I am sure this list of Grrr will grow.

After subscribing to the Project52 idea; I wondered what else I could do. and the DayZero Project Sounds interesting;

The Challenge:
Complete 101 pre-set tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on your part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past – frequently simple challenges such as New Year’s resolutions or a ‘Bucket List’. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips, study semesters, or outdoor activities.

So while I am thinking about my list of 101 things I will list the ones I come up with below, with a view to start the challenge on the 1st March 2010 which puts my end date 1029 days.

1. Take a picture to celebrate each goals completion (and perhaps a blog post )
2. Get a Job
3. Move away from Swindon
4. Re-Start university
5. Give up alcohol for a month
6. Give up Tea and Coffee for a month
7. Organize my photos
8. Finish reading the books I own
9. Learn how to edit videos
10. Climb at least 10 Munros
11. Complete the P52 Challenge
12. Develop all of the Photos I have on Film
13. Attend a LAN party
14. Sell off all unnecessary things on Ebay
15. get rid of clothes not worn in 2 years
16. Host a wine and cheese evening
17. Buy a new CD each month for a year
18. Give £2 to charity for each task I don’t complete
19. Go swimming at least once a week for 3 months
20. Complete the “The Most Ancient and Venerable Order of the Skylark and Hawthorne” challenge [ref]
21. Drink only water for 1 month
22. Watch 25 of 100 “Best Movies” [This list]
23. Host a board game night
24. Have dinner by candlelight
25. Put £25 for every goal completed into a Savings account
26. Not log into facebook for a whole week
27. Keep my bedroom spotless for a month
28. Go for a walk every day for a month
29. Spend a whole weekend (Sat-Sun) without TV/Computer/Etc.
30. Get a new camera
31. Get a new Phone
32. Learn how to scuba dive
33. Skinny dip
34. Update my Curriculum Vitae
35. plant a tree
36. Go to at least 10 concerts
37. Stop biting my nails
38. See the Rocky Horror Picture Show in drag
39. Complete the C25K
40. Complete the One Hundred Press-up Challenge
41. Complete the Two Hundred Sit up challenge
42. Complete the 7lb in 7 Day supper juice diet

I will have to have a think about this and work some more on it.

Things that have been removed from my list:

• Give up chocolate for a month [1]
• Give up fizzy drinks for a month [1]
• Inspire someone else to make a Day Zero list [2]
• Complete the “5,000 Question Survey” [this] [3]

1. Loupie Correctly pointed out that these would not be a challenge for me, as I so rarely do the activity I would be giving up
2. After reading this blog bma and Natalie started their own lists but before I had started my DayZero project.
3. This Task has no real aim, and or point; and as such has been removed.

Project52 is a personal challenge geared toward getting fresh content on your website. The goal is to write at least 1 new article per week for 1 year. Because we all know what it‘s like to procrastinate on our content. A website is not just a fresh design that can be uploaded to the web and forgotten about!

And because this site so often is devoid of new content I have decided to sign up both this site and PhilipMcGaw.com to the challenge. This all coming from some one who has posted about 5 times in the last 3 years, so please wish me luck.

Jethro Has previously told me that there is no point to unlocking Mobile Modems as data only sim cards always come with them, however I just want to use mine when I really need internet and not as well as a mobile phone.

To unlock the Modem (I try to avoid calling them Dongles) your first port of call is getting a copy of Mobile Partner, this can be downloaded from here.

If You like pain you can try talking to the wonderfully unhelpful droids at Three [3] – (Hutchison 3G UK Ltd) but am not a huge fan of Phoning expensive phone numbers I use the 0800 358 6796 (or 01442 456050) that they try not to list.

This is where talking to the Droids gets interesting; as Three are not willing to have call centres in the United Kingdom they have all of theirs in India. and the script that they has tells them that the modem can not be unlocked. After getting through to the UK call centre (really the sales department) They tell me that they are willing to ‘unlock’ the device for £14.00 but this requires me to book it in for repair and will take 7 days (Phone 0843 730 500 (or the numbers above) and try and get through to the Pay as you Go Retentions Team.

So with that path not really viable, onto option Two: Option two seems to be much easer, as I found this on Ebay, follow the instructions as laid out by Grumpy Grayhound, and wait for the email back with the code in it.

Less than 24 hours (in my case 2 hours) you receive an Email with all the information you need in it, including links to the software to de-brand your modem.

Once the Modem is unlocked you need to change a few settings, however they are as follows for all UK mobile networks: (Found on this site).

So We now have a Mobile Skippy just in time for running away to the frozen north,

I managed to get a few photos of the bands; but because the bouncers have a thing against cameras I was restricted to using my small one :’( however Photos should be after the jump and on the Facebook Event.

All in All it was Awsome and I would recommend that you go and see the Cruxshadows at least once not to mention that the ticket price would have been worth paying just to see Voices of Masada or a Ayria; we didn’t get to see Greenhaus; but that was because we were eating; and Emily had said that they were not that great anyway.

So without further ado Photos:

[View with PicLens]

12►

Some of you may know that I sometimes collect for charity with an organisation called Ragabonds, on a number of occations I can even help mkae some money for them [totals board].

So please please read the flyers; and always request to see the collectors Permit and Certificate of Authority.

This should all now work nicely (well we can hope). but if it does this will allow me to make easer and quicker backups of my sites along with making security easer to manage.

There was Bolt.com an American web site that didn’t suck (in the beginning) and it was really the only place to hang out.

over time it started sucking, and some time a few years back they brought out a Bolt2.com that sucked lots, and in an attempt to move the Regs from Bolt to Bolt2 they killed Bolt. oh and then they got sued out of existence; (read more on wikipedia)

Today i receved the following message via email

Bolt.com is Back! And it’s packed with new Features and Upgrades!!!
Hey Skippy,
We just wanted to let you know that Bolt is back! Come see your old profile and friends.  And check out Tagbooks and all the new features just launched!!
Looking forward to seeing you around the site,

Now unfortunately it is not bolt that they brought back, they revived Boltfolio a site that well.. Sucks.

So Close yet so Far; they failed to get the revival right.

Rest in Peace Bolt

Omeds of the Wiccan board Regs

I managed to find this in a Children’s play area in East London (

).

My Friend Meg found her own before me :’( her’s is on her blog here.

Can I recommend that people who design things for children’s areas keep up to date with those things that are well known on the web.

If you are not aware of what a goatse is; Can I recommend that you do not go in the direction of http://goatse.cz to find out;

Some of my other domains will be served from Subvert as well:

• Caple.eu
• Loupie.co.uk
• McGaw.eu
• Skippy.org.uk

Others will be let go; and hopefully others will be back soon.

And in other news:-

• If you have an Apple iPod Touch, or an Apple iPhone, there is a Plug-in on this blog that makes viewing it on a mobile device much nicer; so give that a go
• Hopefully my blog will be updated more often thanks to both the iPod/iPhone Blog tool, and Windows Live writer (Does any one know of one that will work on a Mac?).

 Taken in my local Woolworths, at lunch.

Gemma

Which all in all leads me onto my point about copyright infringement (please note that because a Picture is worth 1000 words, I have included the article that appeared in the Redbridge Guardian in its completeness, as its not online. (please click on for larger)

As stated in the previous blog post Ruth was involved with the Woodhouse players Little Mermaid. and I took some photos for, including the one on the right, and if your looking at it thinking you have seen it before, well yes, its the one in the news paper clipping. On the Wood hose players page the following is stated "Images by and © Skippy – http://PhilipMcGaw.com"; why is it that the Redbridge Guardian have failed even to state that the image was provided by the wood house players for inclusion in the article, there is space for the copyright, or reference directly below the image. I would not have minded having something like "image provided by Woodhouse players" as I gave the images to the WHP, but as it is the source of the image is unclear.

Which brings us back to Gods Copyright; in the conversation between Ben and me, he asked if because Ferris had stated

I am going to cherish a sunset that God has made previously and that someone else thought was so beautiful that it had to be captured by a photograph

Is this why she did not feel the need to reference Gemma for taking the photo?

Updated title with regards to bens post on Creationist Copyright.

In this article all copyright holders, and sources have been attributed, and items for which I don’t hold copyright have been used for Citation, I believe this is fair use, please tell me (in the comments section) if you disagree.

Since the 14th November I have not put fingers to keyboard once, towards putting information(?) in my blog!

so in the news.

1. New Job! – since the 28th of November, I have been working as an Assistant Engineer with a company called Kembrey Wiring Systems Ltd. There main product is boxes filled with wires, and connectors to go on British Aircraft, the job is not too bad, but can be a little slow, and monotonous at times.
2. Loupie’s Panto, Ruth was in a rendition of The Little Mermaid over Christmas, (you may have been told about it) and i took some of the photos that have since appeared on the Woodhouse Players site
3. Ruth and I pent Christmas and New year together, (your not having all the details :p).

There will be more to come, so enjoy

Via Spiney Head

Details are unlikly to follow due to my inabiltiy to say more in a public forum. (ask me via msn or something if you know me)

The reason Vista sucks is that it doesn’t need to be any good, because people will get it anyway. – Ben A’Lee

And i agree, Vista is so sucky that it did not last 10 days on my desktop, yes it was shiney, but it told me i didnt know how to use my computer, and locked me from doing things i wanted to do (all those files on a NTFS drive belong to Skippy, (XP install Skippy) not you Skippy, you need to log in as an Administrator, Mr Skippy of the Administrator group to change ownership to Skippy, from Skippy. that is not the only time that the rediculus security muck things up thing bugged me.

When using the computer, and you want to change your networking settings, do you want to wait for the screen to go gray, and then have to click a box which should have been marked "get out of my face, i know what i am doing!"

As for "easer and simpler file sharing" well the danm thing didn’t remember that the wire that connects it to the network is a trusted network (its a Desktop….) and my network has only trusted devices on it. so turing of the share //hlin/skippy$ every boot annoys the hell out of me.

Yesterday I got the same e-mail that Ben did. however the day before that i got the following email:-

EXTO Ready To Hit US Market Ahead OF Schedule.

EXIT ONLY INC
EXTO.PK
Price: $0.43

The time table has been moved up. EXTO’s overwhelming success in Canada with its used car marketing site has stepped up its pace to expand its coverage. This new venue now moving to th…..

Whats suspicious is that it came through on the email address “vontage AT skip..” well there is only one company that used that email address to write to me, and only one company who knows about me being unable to spell there name wrong when I signed up.

As Ben sujests I am going to contact them, and i would ask them about both incidents.

So After taking my MOT, Insurance, and Drivers licence to the police station, and having to prove my innocence, for a offence they can not prove has been committed, but is also statistically unlikely to have been committed by me. (You need insurance, and an MOT, to get a tax disk, and mine is only a month old [This is on my car])

Today I have been playing with getting with my drivers licence, and now have sent it all off to the DVLA to get it updated to a full pink one,

While filling out my D1 form I noticed a section on it relating to being an Organ Donor; While I was in NY, Manda, Ian, Dave and Myself were discussing the campaign for opting out of organ donation. Now I am opposed to implied consent, however the other three thought that implied consent is a good idea.

I am all for organ donation, as such on my drivers licence I have consented to my organs being available for transplant, but since they asked for me to Opt-in, and I agree with organ donation, I did.

• Vista Business
• WinAmp (because it would be silly to use EMP WMP)
• Outlook 2003 (as 2007 is found through other sources)
• Mozila Firefox.

So not a heavy workload by any stretch of the imagination? so why is it that my 2.0GHz PC with 1GB of ram runs slower (boots faster) than my XP laptop (still the hi-grade pile of poop 1.4GHz 512MB ram),  that runs more stuff? (running as we speak)

• Windows Live Writer (to write this)
• Pidgin
• Mozila Firefox
• Mozila Thunderbird
• RSS Bandit – RSS reader.

True my desktop loads images faster than my laptop, but i think that is down to my ‘My Documents’ being located on a SATA hard drive away from the OS, as well as dedicated GPU.

A strange set of observations:

• It connects to Outlook for searching, yet it has its own calendar, and contacts folders? surly it would be more helpful if it data-bound to the Outlook PST and displayed them? at the log on screen on XP it tells you how meany unread emails you have in Thunderbird.
• It has its own Contact Folder, (all contacts are flat file .contact files) but you cant Tag these things, or group them. I can tag all my photos (using the Windows Imaging Component Meta Data space, doesn’t seem to be EXIF. See Comment one) so why not tag Contacts? or Documents?
• The Vista Search does not seem as fast as the Add in for XP, despite the XP one being an Add in. True the XP one does spend half its time writing an index for itself. but doesn’t the Vista one?

I am going to go back to XP on my desktop and by adding the following tools, most of the usefull parts of Vista can be replicated.

tools from MS:

• Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta – not a bad lite photo manager, with tagging capabilitys
• Windows Live Writer – Anyone know if there a Linux Equiv that will work with Ubuntu?
• Windows Desktop Search – It works, it reads Image Tags, it connects to my Outlook stores.
• Alt-Tab Replacement – A windows XP power toy that makes Alt Tab nicer

And tools not from MS

• iTag – works with the Tags to give you a Tag Cloud. (Vista doesn’t do Tag Clouds)
• TeraCopy – Makes the Copy/move progress bar more friendly, as well as speeding up the process.

Now to find my instructions for setting up Notepad2 as a Notepad replacement.

Some of you who read parts of my Blog (and/or know me in real life) may know I like Technology, Big Toys, and Landscapes; Well imagine combining them all.

On my Birthday Ian, Manda, Dave and I were up in the Canadian City of Niagara, watching the falls, (from both the land and from a Boat). since we were only there for one day we thought we really should stay there till after dark and watch the falls being lit up.

as we were eating in a local eatery place, a group of people were gathered marking the campaign to stop domestic violence, and as part of there publicity, they turned the falls a Purple colour.

One of the guys we spoke to said that we could have a go at playing with the lights if we went up to the door on the back of the little tower beside the restrant, so up we went, Manda got nominated for the job of bouncing at the person who opened the door,

After being let in and shown the control panel and given a basic run down of how to change the lights we were left with 21 4kW discharge bulbs (each is 390 million candle power)

Unfortunately changing the waterfalls to Red, White and Blue strips proved to be too much of a challenge (Union Flag Colours).

Hopefull Ian will put some photos up and i will be able to link to them.

I will try to get some more photos online, (possibly via face book as it allows for photo tagging)

Ian has also posted on Spinney Head.

– Update — Photos can be found online here

This is an example of cold chocolate drinks, in a restraunt called "Max Brenner’s Chocolate Bar"

Max Brenner’s menu was predominately composed of well sweet things, (they did have savoury starters).

Ruth has a friend by the name of Christina, who says the best part of a meal is the desert (I know that its out of context.. but) I think she would like this place.

Details also on Spinnyhead.

[Coincidently this will be my first attempt at image upload with WLW]

Well today I am sat on a train between NYC and Rochester, as such now is a good time to try out off line blogging, and see how well it works.

Windows Live Writer claims to work with a number of blogging packages, not just Wordpress, and Windows Spaces, (I cant check the list at the second, due to being off line).

Things it claims it can do:

1. Manage more than one weblog, across a number of services.
2. Basic Formatting, numbered lists, tables, the etc.. if the company who write word could not do this.
3. As well as the the ability to post normal URI’s in posts, it seems to have the ability to remember the recent posts, as well as having a list of blogs you post about often [set up your self].
4. Inline picture (and pictures from a web site), will test this latter. but it seems to suggest it can upload the image at the same time as posting the post (or upload it via ftp)
5. Inserting maps and videos inline, not sure how video will be dealt with, but I will test out maps on my post warm and tall land.
6. tagging, but since I have not used them before I am not sure how much use that will be.
7. Previewing the post in a number of views, including using your sites style scripts, and a snap shot of the code, useful if you have strange rules relating to the layout I guess.
8. oh and offline writing mode. (what I am using at the moment).
9. More plugins are available via Download from the web… (can’t test at the second)

I would suggest that if you have a blog, you should have a look at it, and see if you like it.

A few Bot-Crossing Bots have been let loose into the wilds of the Big Apple, If you have heard of BookCrossing its a simaler idea to that, but it is more of a momorial thing, for details i recomend going to this page on the main Bot Crossing Site.

I have some images on my laptop, and others that i would like to put together as panoramas, so if i get some time with an active real time conection (as apposed to offline writing) i shall upload them. who knows i may also try out using Windows Live Writer to post images.

It would have been cooler to have posted this post from it.

Manda, Dave, Ian, and I have now spent two full days in New York, We are staying in a Hotel called the Carlton Arms (http://www.carltonarms.com), the entire insides of which are covered in art work, (will try to get some good photos)

Wondering round the city is interesting, the entire area is based on a grid system, which should make it easy to navigate, but not convinced as yet.

Today’s half plan is to go and see what central park looks like, as i have seen it in a few movies (one notable is the 10th kingdom (IMDB). and it looks extensive, i am not sure how it compares in size to the royal parks, but no harm in looking.

The goth club list is now available HERE. The URL is www.freewebs.com/ukgothclublist, if you’d like to put that somewhere for safekeeping.

Thanks to Del for putting something back on line

Rich and Ben (who’s permilinks never seem to work) have been descusing this on Planet TermiSoc. Some of you may remember i was a Office 2007 Beta Tester, and I still use parts of Office 2007 today[1]. so i though i would join in on this one and comment on some of the points.

1. Open Office V Microsoft Office 2007
   Microsoft Office 2007’s Visual interface is new, [please do not read good/better], yes some people have usability problems with OO, however at least it looks the same as office 2003. Open Office has a few quirks, but it is usable by my parents, (without them knowing i changed them over), i use it on my laptop, and my desktop as my office suit of choice, i have no need at the moment for any of the fetchers OO seems to be short on (cant think of any) oh and i dont wory about the lack of shiney ness in OO. My BIGEST complaint at the moment with MSO2k7[2] is does any one know how to wind back the interface? and why make it so hard to sort out file format prefrances? can we not have a per user choice? or per computer (Office is per application, per user.)
2. Outlook, whilst uncaring about other mail clients, is a DAMN good calendar system
   And I agree, its also Great with my phone (have a look at this if you use a smart phone). Thunderbird is good, Sunbird Sucks, Vista Mail, well its an email client… Evolution, well just have a go.
   Outlooks spam filtering still sucks majorly (even when switched off it eats ham, and lets through blatant spam), as for the standards compliance of Outlook? well lets not go there.
3. OneNote, is it worth it?
   OneNote used to be a killer app for me! truly it rocked my world, it was great, well then the Honeymoon ended when it got slower and harder to run [read 2003 turned into 2007] my application of choice now? well have a look at TiddlyWiki. It does most of the usefull things of OneNote, but its free, and fast. Ben doesn’t like it because its a JavaScript Wiki. but its easy to sync, and update, oh and if some one wants a copy of one, it emails. (requires an internet browser with Java Script)
4. biggest stumbling block for Rich – no Mac option.
   Now call me paranoid, but i suspect that is a marketing ploy.. MS are trying to drag Mac users into buying a copy of windows, or a PC to keep the Mac users from leaving PC’s all together,
5. Publisher
   Well ok, so it sucks, A LOT, but if the challenge is to make a professional brochure, then yes. if its a Christmas card your making for your Gran…. its easy(ish) to use, and gives quick turnarounds, so what if it sucks. what else is there out there for Grannies card, (don’t point me to Crater Card 2.1 for £9.99 in WHS)

All in all OpenOffice is good for what you pay for it, and MSO2k7 is expensive, but in summary i suspect that the entire idea is to stop mass MAC migration, and Piracy, after all how much software can you get given to you from a mate?, and along with the MSDNA Windows offers, it can help keep Uni Students on the MS path for life.

• [1] I still use Outlook 2007
• [2] MSO2k7 would mean Microsoft office 2700 (2k7 = 2.7k) unless that is them telling you it will be the latest version till 2700

Tommorow i have an Interview with Hill McGlynn, in Bristol. they are a consultancy firm, and i am not sure what sort of clients they have beyond the railway environment being there fortay,

If you know of any body who is looking for employees please let me know as at the moment any job would be cool

Mobile Phone, My Orange SPV M600 (HTC Prophet) is still being a silly bugger and turning its self of far too often! so will be going back to HTC some time soon, (however i have left my emergency cover handset and a virgin sim card with Ruth) but it looks like it could be a battery problem, and as such is only covered by a 6mth warrenty? where as the handset is covered untill the 3rd october.

This weekend the sim card for my Contract number went tits up, and killed itself, being unable to find the SIM card for my old number (ending – 957) i had to make do with an obscure one that i don’t know the number for.

Phoned orange and two new SIM’s are winging there way to me .

Saga my poor under powered server is a 1.4GHz 256mb beast, running Windows 2000, and Ubuntu AT THE SAME TIME, all without me worrying about slow down, why? well  not just because the virus checker only runs at 3am? or because i don’t have a CDRW attached?

Oh and 64Bit? bugger that, it still doesnt work with XP, yes i have tried, Repeatadly to get it to work, and its a waist of time, Windows XP64 is a pile of crap, which is why i still use XP32 on my 64bit computer

This small document contains 1000’s of usefull words, and exsample sentaces.

It works by monitoring my web cam, looking for my face, and when it finds it, i can use my PC, when it cant it waits 10 seconds, locks the PC, and waits till it can see my face again.

Have to find out what its limitations are, and if it thinks me and my brother are the same person. but it looks good so far, as better than the security on my desktop was.
I think using blue tooth on a MAC would be cool though (here) via [LifeHacker]

Some of you may remember me playing with my password strenth a while back. so i think it may also be wise to check my password strenth has not decreased.

 A friend fromn School, Hannah, Her Boyfriend, Ruth and I are all shairing a small villa in the Costa Calda region of spain, on the cost of the largest salt water lagoon in europe!

any way, just poped in to upload the photos and have done, it should all make more sense when i fix my laptop (blown it up i think….) but more on this all later as i only have two minuts to log out……… 

(some photos http://skippy.org.uk/lazy-index.php?file=Spain/)

So 2 hours of sitting on a train in swindon, and Ben has lots of work to do.

Now i wonder if he will mark it…..

You are best described as a Democrat (21e/66s)

Link: The Politics Test

Wellington Grey — Articles — A physics teacher begs for his subject back: An open letter to the AQA board and the UK Department for Education

If you love Science and Technology, can you read the letter and pass its details onto others.

I use Outlook 2007 as my POP Cliant, but for the love of god, why is there no decent spam filter? so Outlook has been turned off, and Tunderbird is taking the spam out of my account using IMAP.

Hopefully the Flood will die down, and Outlook will have a Thunderbird style spam filter one day, (just click on the flame if its spam, and it will do the rest)

I am thinking that mounting it in a 200mm plastic tube with clear end caps, and mounting the infer red wand in condoms,

or dismantal one, put everything in the tube, bar the switch?

Of course, one can attribute that decline to music piracy and effective public health information, but lead author of the report Graham Brown says it’s clear that mobile telephony is emptying pockets and wallets: “In 2007 they [youth between five and 24] will spend over $150bn on their mobile. That’s up from nothing 10 years ago.” – El Register
Right thats it, any one know a cheap and easy free form of Audio and/or Video Mobile Telephony? I still have my CB Radio.

The two Nabaztags were to mark Ruth and I’s three years together. as a web controled rabits, they comunicate with servers in France, however this does not stop people writing there own functions for them, Nabaztalk is a forum set up for developers. and has a list of API interfaces, also you can get cloths and other things for your Nabaztag from Nabzone, however i am looking to make mine a coat out of Chainmail.

nabaztag

Bolt(folio) is no replacement, if your an old Bolter and want to keep in touch please check here.

one where every one can fordge links to eachother and common inttrests or groups, I have both a MySpace, and a Facebook. Myspace sucks, mainly because its UI is attortius, Facebook is better, but i am guessing they would have learnt a lot from MySpace, this all goes towards making it a usefull way of keeping track of people.
The two complainte, One no pingbacks, or useable blog addresses, (this blog post will be sindicated in facebook, but you cant ping back to the origanal or anything), Two. no RSS feeds, call me sad, but RSS made me a lazy surfer.

It was a good Evening, and if you were in plymouth and did not end up going, the question is.. Why not?

I have though about using a Wiki to store random data, some of it which lives only for a short time, (links, quotes) or some things that dont fit anywhere, and are only required for online activitys, such as links to sites at work. (Tagging works )
i know i could have used some bookmarks syncronisation tool, or a text file that i can keep with me, but then i found TiddilyWiki its a single file Wiki, using only javascript, you just keep it on your hard drive (my case i store it on my PDA) and carry it round with you.

on the weekend (16th-17th) I will be down in plymouth, hopefully i can give the money to ViP and RAG then.

Can some one Get Kitty to call me please?

Also if you dont yet know what a Bogle is go here.

A hint is that it has something to do with the animal to the left, and 55 miles.

Come back to my lovely blog for more details as the event unfolds! and i should be able to tell you how much sponsership i have made for the organasations i am choosing to support

I am not sure how offended, or complimented i should be.

Its Public AP i beleve runs in a VPN through your network to there servers, as such it totaly bypasses any of your network, making it imposible for a person conecting to it to get access to your network.

One anoying thing about them though, (reason that the Fon AP is not high on my prefered conection list) is that between the LAN port and its privert SSID is a Router, compleate with NAT and firewall, this stops me accessesing my own network in the open way i ushaly do.

Seth said yesterday that the One Year offer page had gone, and as such i dontated my invite to him. I think ben will be getting his soon, and then we should have a more technical autopsy of the free Router (including how to flash it and stop sharing your wi-fi).

The Hose is Hosed again,

Will have to drop my ka in to the garage again, and hopefully due to the hose being under 30 days old, it should be parts and laybor.

• Mail messages are now stored in individual files instead of in a single database file. A transactional index database enables real-time searching and improves the stability and the reliability of the stored data.
• Account setup information is no longer stored in the registry. It is instead stored alongside the mail itself.
• A Bayesian junk-mail filter.
• Contacts are stored as VCards instead of in a single database file.

A really cool thing it does (well i like it) Vista Mail downloads ALL your mail (from IMAP) and caches it localy, i know this sounds silly, but if your like me and using a laptop with a slow network connection, (or on a train) its usefull.
Now if only Outlook would start using this methord of sensable structuring, and something that would make it much cooler…. The ability to Tell Mail where to store its files

• z:\skippy\emails\termisoc
• z:\skippy\emails\university
• z:\skippy\documents\contacts\

then life would be so much easer, and make sense for me.

Managed to get up to Manda and Daves, Manda was giving my car evils because she thinks that my ka is trying to keep us from her (see previous exsploites). but Got to Brampton safely
Things learnt today:

1. A ford ka takes about 4 liters of water in its radator (always carry more!)
2. clean the central hub of your breakpad bit thing and the center of the spair wheel before putting the two together.
3. the spair wheel center part is NOT circuler, and is a bitch to take off.
4. Manda reads my blog, and moans about my spelling.

Leaving the NRM we ran mostly accross the countryside to Lockaby, accross some really nice countryside, my poor little car found some steap and random roads, (including a few fords). Ruth and I stoped in the Gretner Green Sevices, and being that we were now officialy in Scotland, i chose to have a drink of Iron Bru, Ruth didnt know that Iron Bru is made in Scotland from girders, But we cant hold that against her now can we?

When we goto to lockaby we found that the power was out at my Nannas house, and that the opven had died.

after helping my nanna around town we journied north, along strange rural backroads to Carluke, to stay with my name sake, Phil Cave. in the afternoon, we took ruth to see Lanark Loch, and New Lanark.

Natsy and her sister

Hopefuilly will get to meet Natsy and her sister when they do get here

Check out there site. Hopefully they will put togethere a full photo album so we can see all the places they have been, and people they have seen.

I know they want a photo of them drinking coffee in every city they have been to, but i think it would be cool to have more photos than just that

On Wednesday we went from Gainsbourough to Lockaby via the NRM, Ruth got really exsited about the prospect of seeing Thomas the tank engin, (some thing to do with it being half term)

I tryed to pick up a copy of Windows Vista from the school of computing, but they are not issuing it as of yet *pouts* (was after vista Ultimate 64, because despite vista being a nightmare, it might be usefull to learn it as i use computers so much). after picking all the stuff back up and lobbing my little car down country roads, we ended up on our way to Manchester, to see the wonderfully sexy Hannah, via Minehead (Ruth took it apon her self to feel nostalgic, and i felt the same). got to manchester safely, without being too late for my little hanskie. got to goto the old UMIST union to sign Kris and Myself up for the Bogle Stroll.

we stayed with tim and carly for the weekend, on the sunday we braved the rain to go for a lazy forsum trip down the cost into the backwards lands of cornwall, to grab a pint at the famous Blue Peter Inn, for some inisplicable reson this provider of fine westcountry ales failes to provay a fine west country cider, so three pints of strongbow were ordered up, and a coke for the little ones we draged with us (thats you carley). and went for a wonder around the small village of Polperro.

when was the last time you could make a rain man, or rain angels, or rain ball fights,

I am not sure but Ben thinking that heavy rain and hail are better, well its just a lie pupetuated by a soft sothener. (Ruth’s INER-CITY London school was closed yesterday due to the snow)

I drove to work to find the carpark empty, but with a nice covering of snow, and as we all know snow has a low friction co-efficient (rubber wheel on ice has a friction co-efficent of .25)

Well they are one year old and are offering routers for free, so if you go here, you can sign up and get yours for free (Ben can tell us what free it is).

I signed up yesterday, and hope to be pumping-out gratis 802.11b/g soon!

1. It just works.

Windows XP SP2 just works, if it came pre installed chances are it works even better, just because Macs have a limited number of hardware configurations that they are delivered in, doesnt mean they just work, just means they know what drivers are required to wake up.

2. You can make amazing stuff.

Define amazing? Well iLife says “Make high-quality websites, photo books, DVDs, songs, slideshows, music CDs, calendars, cards, prints, podcasts, music videos, documentaries, and more.” ok, so Windows doesnt come with Office, and Publisher pre installed, (can you make a Make “high-quality website” with iLife? really?) but i can do some cool things, and some more with Vista.

3. Everything-ready.

“Mac is the only computer in the world that can run all the major operating systems, including Mac OS X, Windows XP, and Vista. With Software like Parallels or VMware you can even run them side by side” and you say i cant on a PC? if i wanted to get a Mac on my PC i can use PearPC. (Walktrough), Linux and VM-ware also come as options…

4. 114,000 Viruses? Not on a Mac.

Ok hands up the last time any sensable PC user got a virus, Rich? Dan? Seth? Ben? Ruth?, oh and while you are waiting for an answer free virus checker,

5. Still the most advanced OS.

ok, so i begrugingly say yes to this, but i am sure ben can tell me of something that will beat Mac OS (I still like the Cube program)

6. The latest Intel chips.

So can a PC, and the latest AMD chips.

7. No hunting for drivers.

See “it just works” My Windows XP SP2 and Vista Unlimited RC2 pc dont ask me for drivers, they have all the drivers to get them to work, some times, i use Driver CD’s but thats only because they are better drivers on the CD. Digital Camera, PDA, USB mass storage, all included, SATA drivers for a SATA card, well they were in the box.

8. Design that turns heads.

its in my room, under my desk, My Keyboard VDU, and Mouse are on the desk, my server is on the shelf in my desk, and if i had a Mac i would give it the same amount of deskspace….. Its out of my way, hiding….

9. Instant video chats.

I dont have Video Chats… and Skippy Cam is awating fixing, so not high on my buying points for a computer

10. More fun with photos.

…wtf?… ok, so i want to do cool presintation things with photos, i guess photoshop elements, or google picassa?

11. Hollywood-style movies.

Windows XP SP1 and SP2 come with Windows Movie maker 1 and 2 respectfuly, and vista RC2 as well.

12. One-click websites.

with only one mouse button, right clicking may be a two handed job, but i dont see how this is a good point? with all the free serveses out there, and all the 12 year olds making websites, do we need this as well?

13. Amazing podcasts.

I can podcast from a PC as well, i have chosen not to yet.

14. Rock star tunemaking.

I can make music from a PC as well, i have chosen not to yet.

15. Awesome out of the box.

Define Awesome?

And there we have it, My Personal Computer is a Personal Computer. and a Mac is also a Personal Computer.

And a Quick Question for Rich (or any other Mac users out there):- Do Macs come with a Word Processor already installed? (simmaler or better than MSWorks.)

that brings the cost of upgrading one of my computers up to a very affordable (?) £850.98.

I wonder if it would cost me £850.98 to learn Linux properly? i get 89 hours to learn it (at £6.50 a hour) which is just over two weeks.

• 72bpm Resting Heart Rate
• 4cm flexability
• 138/72mmHg blood pressure
• 21% Body fat
• 670 peak flow

and according to Tinita

• Standard Body type
• 5′ 11″ tall
• 13st 5.6lb
• 8314kJ 1987 kcal BMR
• 504ohm impedance
• 2st 11.4lb fat
• 10st 8.2lb fat free mass
• 7st 10.4lb water

and for desirable fat levels i should bve looking at between 8 and 20% or 12.8lb and 2st 9.0lb.

in case your wondering Tanita is a small computer, but i think she now knows too much about me :S

but according to all the above, i am quite healthy, (BMI is flawed) but i could loose a little fat,

Looks like i wont need to follow XKCD’s advice

The day consisted of three churches, the first where the Ceromoney was held, the Second was Zissi Restrant in Cheltnham which is in a church, and the third was the location of the Reception in the evening.
It was a lovely Anglican service led by a goth friend of theres, Alex. we also saw a number of the Greenbelt Stewards Crew,

It was also the day of Strawberrys (Storm in a teacup Sunflower) birthday,

Photos of the Wonderfull day can be seen here.

Todays XKCD shows the peral of G33k break up.

and how to deal with the return of all your stuff from there logon.

Today I hope to have my account set back to Chip and Signiture, How? Well i asked my bank.

As we all know Chip and Pin was introduced to prevent fraud. how do we know that, well we were told that it was a good idea. but unlike 186,282 miles per second; it’s NOT the law!

Because of this, there are Exseptions to who has to pin, I went into my bank and asked them to put it back to a chip and signiture card, and as such under the 1995 DDA they can not say no.

You too can have a Signiture

Via The Metro, More information Here, and here.

Loupie was the Assistant stage manager, and as such managed to avoid getting dumped! it was a good show, and if you are in london, you should go!

Would you consider him a Terrorist? would you think think that this man had a vast knolage of military things?

Well he is not a terrorist, he is the Director General of the ICE (Institute of Civil Engineers), and he was arrested and detained for carring a two inch knife onto the Eurostar. and before any one says he was carring a weapon, well he was an inch under the legal defanition of a offencive weapon. but he s a military, civil, and mechanical engineer.  He was educated at Clifton College, RMA Sandhurst, RMCS Shrivenham (BSc in Civil Engineering), Staff College, RCDS and the Open University (MBA). so could be a person who knows how to make bombs.

As he says “Is such a toolkit really an “offensive weapon”? Is its possession by a middle-aged retired Army officer really an arrestable offence? Was my detention a good use of police time? Has any of this made London a safer place?”

Well i am still more worried about Police Stupidity.

so before we start will have to choose some Photos

Before

During

After

Now

Future Plans,

Well i do plan to grow my hair back out, and back into a ponytail, I also plan to keep going to the gym, and if i go back to uni to take slightly more care of my body, and try and stay in a less round shape

But please comment on what you think i should do with my hair!

All began in 1995 in Britanny, france:

On a beach I photographed with a the SX-70 a polaroid showing sand and stones.
Again the resulting picture was photographed with the Polaroid-camera.

The distances in space and time became larger.
The previous polaroid is allways the basis for the next one and so on …

(Via Spinneyhead)

I hadent remembered how much of a technical chalange boldering is, Climbing is easer, its the challange of getting to the top using hand and foot holds, where as boldering is pure machanical techneiqu and strenth, the aim being to navigate around a wall, the problem being that you have to use a lot more strenth. ruth doesnt like boldering much, after falling off a boldering wall.

Next time we will have to take [Kris](http://kristalikowski.blogspot.com/) and Ashely, and get Ruth belaying kris. or get her to get a Gri Gri, and get myself a new harness as my lil 26″ one is just the right size for Ruth, and not for me.

they are so sweet together, [Ruth](http://loupie.co.uk) and I found out this morning, havent yet got to say congratulations to them. but will try to phone them again latter.

(Via [both awesome and terrifying](http://thischarmingmeg.livejournal.com/295726.html) and [Spinneyhead](http://www.spinneyhead.co.uk/2006/11/thatll-be-mr-and-mrs-harry-and-meg-if.php))