Size isn't everything....

...in fact her indoors recently insisted that she wanted me to get a smaller one. I however asserted that I wanted to enlarge, and after much discussion, we agreed on a compromise size. The great day arrived today, her exclamation on first seeing it was that it was far to big! My heart sank, as I had already accepted a reduction from my original goal by 4 whole inches, and I could only imagine the pain and anguish involved in downsizing. Happily, once she had seen it unwrapped, she agreed that it was acceptable! Though she did restate that she would have preferred smaller.

The most amusing comment came from HWWNGTA, who on first seeing it, asked with a confused look on his face "It is bigger, isn't it?". Clearly he hadn't really taken note of its size previously. The nastier among you will be thinking that it can't have been that much of an enlargement, but I have measured it and it is now 20 inches bigger.

Having now experienced it in living color, I will nearly admit to liking it better than my wall mounted projection version. So if you are considering a change in size, I would encourage you to go for it.

Last weeks news that Worlds Largest was now 108 inches, did not serve to quell the shrinking urges of spouse of many years!

For the record we both found 46 inches to be very enjoyable, though I still secretly yearn for a 50 incher. (Even I know that 108 inches would not have worked)

Now the challenge will be to keep HWWNGTA's hands off it! I caught him playing with it earlier this evening.

(Incidentally, for the technically minded the default picture and colour settings are set to "Garish", my term not theirs! So for best pleasure you need to change the Picture Settings and Colour settings to normal)

(Yes! Mr Messy I know that I am blatantly copying your new Oeuvre! But I am sure you realise that the act relates the highest form of objectification, which only goes to show my ability of turning you into an object, the action presumably also known as objection! Which gets me to being objectionable )
And yes, I am aware of the oxymoronic implications of that last bracketed paragraph!

new years resolution it isn't, but this year ... "I be mostly healthier and considering the actions I can take to save humanity"
For as was recently so well stated the Earth does not need saving it will survive perfectly well! Humanity however has only a tenuous handhold on the planets surface.

Happy New Year!

NUMU!

Ambling around the internet I found RosieG on NUMU

Naive, Folksy, poorly recorded, yet surprisingly listenable.

With better production techniques, I think she could go places

Search out RosieG on NUMU

Now I have researched some more this young lady from Southend Girls High School was Number 1 on the NUMU Chart in November!

Happy listening check out her rendition of City Lights, which I like even better!

Wears Sarfend neway!

Stop Press: I am now just plain ECSTATIC!

Signal! You don't even need to Jailbreak your iPT/iPhone!

Thanks to AlloySoft

As seen in my prior Blog I wanted an iTunes Remote: Signal! is it!!!

Apart from the fact that it cannot control the AirTunes selection, it is perfect

U just gotta try it!!!

I am now partially delighted with my iPod Touch!!!

No thanks to Apple!? Which saddens me....
(The way I could become fully delighted is for Apple to uncripple the iPod Touch and reveal the rumoured BlueTooth functionality in it, and have it work with my Apple iTunes on my Main Mac, it could be A REALLY COOL REMOTE CONTROL OVER ALL MY Music, and have it work with AirTunes)

Thanks are due to the writers of Jailbreak and AppTapp, and the now infamous Safari Tiff Exploit. Although I am experiencing slow downs since I hacked the iPod Touch. (More on that as I discover the cause)

Owners of an iPT still at version 1.1.1 will be able to uncripple their new toy using the following link from their website explained here:

There are some great apps out there waiting to be installed by AppTapp....

Is Apple losing it's way?

A sad state of affairs, Apple losing its way!

The key differentiator that Apple was founded upon was; designing for the User, rather than for Profit. This notion was the prime reason for the development of hordes of loyal Apple Users. They are always willing to upgrade, invest, or spend more money on Apple products rather than other similar, cheaper, but designed for profit Technology. The resulting product were invariably what the consumer wanted, thus the premium paid was acceptable.

Let me tell you a story.

One day one of those fiercely loyal Apple consumers (FLAC) went to buy an iPod Touch, the new form of the iPod. He was in Indianapolis so that the dollar exchange rate benefit was too difficult to resist, he only purchased the 8Gb version as he really wanted the 160Gb Hard Disk enhanced version of the iPod Touch, sadly not yet a product. He had lugged his trusty old iBook across the Atlantic as it had his music and photos on it. He couldn't wait to synch . He first called at the home of one of his surrogate daughters, as sadly her mum had suffered through the initial stages of piratisation, by a presumably short sighted foot surgeon. He proudly dropped off a copy of the Sunday Times, actually on a Sunday!, and some nice Chocs to help take her mind off the impending wooden leg, and hopefully didn't infect the household with the deadly virus he was infected with. Anyway back to the less important topic of how Apple is losing its way!

He got back to the hotel room, and expectantly plugged the iPod Touch into his Apple iBook. The result was a VERY unApple message, apparently a 0xE8000025 error had occurred, he winced and waited for the BSOD, just to add the final touch of irony. Happily, Apple have not yet got totally lost! Anyway the iPod Touch could NOT synch with the iBook. Doh! One deflated FLAC!

Sadly, the fLAC unpacked his HP Windows Laptop and fired up iTunes on it and tried to Synch, it was a long shot, he thought, but NO the Apple iPod Touch synched just fine with a Windows machine!!! However there was no music on his work laptop, and no photos to speak of. The initial joy of the synch was thus very tainted.

Then he started to play with his new toy and slowly discovered just how crippled it was. He was sure that he had read that it was based on the Mac OSX Operating System and was capable of the same things that the iPhone could do, less of course, Phoning and Taking Photos He would clearly have purchased the iPhone in preference, but those mean AT&T folks had forced Apple to cripple that device, and tie it to a Heavy Contract. (Clearly Apple wouldn't have come up with that idea..... right!!???)

First he searched in the box for pouch to protect his new toy, instead he found a polishing cloth, damn he thought "I'll soon lose that, especially as it is black!". He then searched in vain for the email application, or the weather app or the... heck quite a few of the apps he had been expecting were not present. The first inkling of an unusual Apple initial experience, when was the last time he had purchased a new Apple product and not been DELIGHTED!?. But at least the Contacts and Calendar Apps were present. The Contacts user interface was a typical Apple interface, designed for users, but the Calendar interface???...., he knew he had read that he could add calendar events but nothing he did would add one. So he resorted to Google, but WHAT!!! ...according to Steve the feature has been disabled due to a software bug. Then a little later he found that the software bug was to do with the Edit feature being "accidentally?" set to FALSE in a key line of code in the operating system. He thought, "Those pesky testers... bet Steve was livid!"

ITunes on the iPod Touch still doesn't want him to connect directly via the built in wireless, weird comments about going to the iTunes website but when he did, no clue as to what he should do to enable the iPod Touch. Hmm more and more like Microsoft every day....

A little more perusing and he found a site that could resolve the problem, literally 2 clicks later having entered the correct URL into the Safari Browser on the iPod Touch and he was happily adding Calendar events.. Admittedly the TIFF exploit crashed the Safari Browser in the process and rebooted the iPod Touch, but that was all to be expected... (See Next Blog)

So have Apple lost their way...???

There is a choice here: They haven't lost their way and they always did intend to launch the full suite of applications, but these bugs are actually real, just like the TIFF Security Vulnerability, just harder to find... and in an effort to protect their trusty iPod Touch customers from the nasty bugs that the iPhone customers will be experiencing they just had to delete all the dangerous though valuable applications.

...OR...

AT&T and Microsofts money grabbing practises have rubbed off on Apple and they are now thinking "Damn the FLAC's we want to screw them for all the profit we can!"

Well all I can say Steve is Watch Out!, for racing up behind you is:
1) an as yet unfunded start-up
2) Google
3) Nintendo...
who will build a Linux based hand held device that will have the following features
High Def Touch Screen to die for
WiFi
Blue Tooth , I'll come back to this!!!
MP3 Player
Gaming Capability
Surround Sound
Cool Browser
Camera
eMail App
The obvious Instant Messaging App
Capability of Running Multiple Open Source Apps
Oh and did I mention Blue Tooth, as this enables VOIP in the device!

(Hey folks at Nintendo are you listening this could be yours, that way I wouldn't need to be carrying around my DS, and my iPod Touch ! Imagine taking over from Apple as clearly they have given up delighting their Customers, come to think of it I was delighted with my new Wii and my DS...... AND THE DS DOES ALREADY HAVE WIFI.!!!!... hey you have already started I GET IT.... WAIT A MINUTE YOUR STOCK PRICE IS ALREADY SHOWING THE POWER OF DOING THAT)

And as of today I am no longer as fiercely loyal as I once was!!!!

I am feeling more like a Partially Loyal Apple Dupe. A PLAD?!

DOH! I gave away "his" identity!

Yes loyal reader it was me!!

The last six Tech Toys I have purchased recently were

Mac Mini- Delighted
DS - Delighted
iBook - OK (Was as expected but I did NOT get a free Leopard upgrade in the box as it was so close to the Leopard Launch date) SO really that was a "Just OK"
Wii - Delighted
Leopard - Underwhelmed
iPod Touch - Deflated, with a tinge of delight thanks to my JailBreak friends
(See next Blog)

WELL STEVE ITS DOWN TO YOU NOW!
Do you want Nintendo to take your delight the user slot?
Or is the impending Google announcement the true death knell?

Hmmm.... A Google-Nintendo Dream team, now that would be pretty neat!

So Steve:
Please get Apple back to what you did best; delighting your Customers!

Mac Users!! FANTASTIC TOOL

Get yourself a NEW Mac for free, or at least what will feel like a New Mac.

Does your Mac feel lethargic and bloated, has it stopped responding to you in its normally sprightly way. Does it feel just plain OLD!

ONYX is your answer!

www.titanium.free.fr

VEGETABLE UPDATE

Tomatoes died of some sort of blight.
Peppers and such, eaten by Slugs
One courgette plant survived we have had 3 Courgettes of it!
(Not enough sun!)
Radishes still growing..
The perpetual Spinach is doing a fine job.

Just plain Wow!

The price is right!
The taste is even righter!
(I never said I was going to stay true to the English Language!)
Sainsbury stocks this wonderfull liquor; a brilliant malt blend that contains two of my favourite malts: The Macallan and Highland Park.

The exciting thing for me, is that in writing this blog I have discovered there are now three more Famous Grouse Blended Malts for me to track down.

Famous Grouse 12 Year Old Malt Blend
Famous Grouse 18 Year Old Malt Blend
and the new Famous Grouse Black

Yippee. Note to self: must persuade Gill to give me some more Whisky cupboard space, 3 is clealy not enough!! (OK So I am using 5, bUt she has sanctioned 3!)

Let counselling in Guildford begin!

This month marks the actual start of Gill's new company guildfordcounselling.org. Her website is live! Now all we need is loads of links to it!!!! Got get that GOOGLE PAGE RANK rising!

After 5 years of providing her service f.o.c. in order to gain her Masters, she had her first paying client on Monday, via a referral from an overbooked counselling friend

Go visit her site, and more importantly put a link to it on your site.

Her website http://www.guildfordcounselling.org

Clynelish

A wonderful Malt! I am now fighting the urge to open the 20 year old Brora that we purchased at the same time from the modern Clynellish distillery across the road from the now silent Brora distillery!

Have been distracted by holidays work trips and SketchUp

Great Holidays in Little Cayman with friends and a great trip to Barcelona to understand the future of Information Technology from Gartner followed by a wonderfull trip to Orkney with more friends.
Photos will be appearing or have appeared in Flickr under Adrius42.


My latest distractions are: Google Sketchup, which allows me both to create a 3D image of our home to place on Google Earth (in Progress) and to create 3D knots in cubes...


Additionally my up till now latent and recently emerging twitcher gene has driven me to Swarovski and my new scope.
I practised taking photos through the scope on Orkney simply holding the camera to the eyepiece and got surprisingly reasonable results!!



What a nice Puffin!!

Demo Picture Post for Lesley

You can type words before the picture code
or even after the code, it will wrap around the picture.

Exercising does help weight loss!

I have of course known this but have been denying that it could be that effective. The accursed reality is that it is very effective! I got through the Easter Weekend... and lost weight in the process.

Drat! That means TBM was right all along!!!

The good news is that I have hit my target weight of 225lbs before the holiday, now I have set myself a new target 220! with just 4 days to go!!! Can I do it?

==========

Vegetable Garden Planted with 4 rows of Perpetual Spinach, 1 row of Beetroot and the Courgette seeds are in their pots. Not sure it will be sunny enough for the Courgettes... We will see.

==========

SWDNFT and HWWGTA flew off to see bade naked ladies in Dublin.... there's no accounting for taste!

Stop Press: SWDNFT does like the Guinness in Dublin, whereas she doesn't like the stuff served here.

So I did some Googling:
"Everybody knows that the Guinness in Ireland is better than anywhere else!
This is bullshit, an urban legend almost. When Guinness is brewed and ready for distribution, even the most acclaimed brewmasters cannot tell the difference between the "geography" of the product. Bear in mind that these guys can identify minute traces of chemicals in beverages and estimate their quantity... by taste alone.

The reason Guinness tastes better in Ireland, correctly pointed out by ryano, is the way the product is managed when it leaves the brewery or distributor. In Ireland, thousands of pints of Guinness are consumed every day, therefore the volume of Guinness coming though an Irish pub is much greater than an equivalent English pub. This means the kegs are changed more often and the lines are cleaned more often.

This equals fresher and better tasting Guinness.

Because less is sold in the equivalent English pub, the stout is lingering in the keg longer, becoming less fresh, giving it that distinctive bitter taste. The Guinness lines in the equivalent English pub would not be maintained as well as the Irish pub either. These factors, plus illiterate bar staff who don't know what they're doing, all contribute to the Guinness tasting bad in England sometimes."
=========
I also found this...
in the past, the draught Guinness served in Ireland was not pasteurised while the British was. Today, both are - albeit briefly, by a method usually applied only to draught beers. Pasteurisation is intended to stabilise beer, though it can also flatten flavours.

So much for my unpasteurised Guinness "Urban Legend"

Buy now it is till available in bottles.... but wait horror of horrors Guinness are ending, or maybe already have ended their unpasteurised bottled Guinness.

ASK FOR IT IN YOUR LOCAL SUPERMARKET!!
Let's use the power of the market to reverse this decision.

I now have a FaceBook Badge!

Patchy Blogging... Aarghh!!!

I hate these sorts of bloggers and now I am one!

The garden has been taking my attention as well as giving me more aches and pains than are good for me!!! However I am pleased with the overall impact.

My key concern now is will I hit my target weight, I did not count on the temptations of Easter coming the week before we fly to Cayman!! I was 2.5lbs off the target before Easter hit!

I am feeling fitter though, the rowin' and bikin' seem to be helping....

Latest Culinary effort... a Rhubarb and Plum Cobbler
Warning the cleaning up will take longer than the prep!
900g Roughly chopped fruit into suitable oven proof dish (Rhubarb from the garden added 2 plums just becos' they came in the Green box this week)sprinkle with Muscovado sugar (110g) and 2 Tablespoons of Elderflower cordial and the juice of a Mandarin???!

Cobbler Topping
225g of Plain Flour
110g of Frozen Butter, cut into small cubes.
3 Teaspoons of Baking Powder
(I actually used 1 teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda and 2 teaspoons of the other stuff (Cream of Tartar), shame that the flour I used was self raising!! There are no signs on any of our flour containers! Didn't seem to matter too much (Phew!))
1/2 Teaspoon of salt
175ml of milk
Zest of small Orange
(I didn't have this, as Gill had already been zestfully creating nude citrus fruit and I wanted to avoid creating even more nude fruit that would not get used. Plus the Mandarin did not create good zest, thus the juice got used above!)

Flour, Salt, Baking Powder, Butter into the Food Processor blitz until well mixed
Add Milk blitz until sticky dough is created.
Spoon dough in little sticky balls over the top of the fruit.

Sprinkle with heaped teaspoon of Demerara sugar, or six roughly crushed brown sugar cubes

Oven Gas Mark (200C) Place dish on tray as it tends to boil over!

Serve warm with a good vanilla ice cream. Calories?: Don't ask!!!
Darn there goes my target weight and I can't even blame Gill!!!
The FftN and the FftS all seemed to enjoy it.... :-)

Cocktail:
My latest weird cocktail involved blitzing a handfull of Mint M&M's, with an Ice Cube and a shot each of vodka and JD, (How was I supposed to know that Lent was yet too finish! Doh! Sorry Chris! At least you have the chocolate fountain to look forward to today!)

A friday night above an old butchers shop...

It was nearly all predictable, but none-the-less enjoyable.

I arrived late, the clear cause of the over cooked vegetables, but wait a minute that meant that NITRAM prepared me a meal! Yes, dear reader he did!, that was one of the surprises for me too! What was even more of a surprise was the fact that meal was very enjoyable, a Cajun Sweet and Spicy Chicken along with an oven baked Mashed Potato, with a cheesy crispy surface that went perfectly. (While the veg were a little stewed in their juices, (Yes I know, my fault!) they were not unpalatable)

And despite warnings to the contrary the butchers shop was clearly well on the way to being transformed into a small printers. It is however at that very dangerous 80% stage where it is near enough to operate but not yet complete. [[ Suggestions from elder siblings not being the most desired of feedback, I will resist making further comment ]]

Another surprise was the remodelling that NITRAM had initiated in the back yard!! This resulted in failed attempts to melt the house at the back, and eradicate the next door garden shed. Though he did burn down sections of the fence between them. The fireman had attended for more than a few minutes in battling the resulting blaze. The outcome of this faux pas has yet to fully unravel. Why didn't I have my camera, (Wonder if NITRAM will send me a photo...)

A "surprise"? for NITRAM was that his elder sibling has crap at Starcraft!! We stopped playing at 1:30am, when I finally beat him, once. Final Score was 4 to 1.

Saturday, Up early, NITRAM was only joking about not having coffee, PHEW!!!. The local newsagent took pleasure in staring back at me from behind the locked door of his shop at 6:30am. Needless to say I did not buy anything from him, nor will I, EVER!. Had a go at setting up the LAN, made a small amount of progress, but still much more to do. ((PVN: Applications/Utility/Directory Access is the obscure path to renaming the Apple SMB Workgroup name, if only I had found that while I was there!!))

A Very Hearty Brunch at the home of SWTBH and HotRCKM, before they were off to bowls, then back to Ye old Butchers shop to finally thrash NITRAM at Starcraft... DOH!!!

Arrived back in Guildford JUST in time to shower and shave and take Gill to watch the dancing in Guildford Cathedral. OK!, so it wasn't dancing it was singing... they danced a little, as did large sections of the audience! Very uplifting, the only reason we left early was my concern for the mutts.

OMG! Facebook said "link to the Blog!"

Not download the whole of the Blog!!

Bin too silent this month, have been exploring other technologies.

Where you from?

Procrastination is really hard work!!

What is it about procrastination that results in my doing more to avoid the thing I am procrastinating against, than doing it?

1) I built a shoe seat for the hall
2) I tidied up the TV room
3) I read emails
4) I responded to emails
(now you know I must really be procrastinating!)

But at least I have not sent off my expenses...
...but wait a minute I get money back when I do that!???

So please someone explain to me why!!!???

Did you know just how many drivers there are for procrastination?
- 'just so' procrastination
- procrastination based on fear of failure
- procrastination based on 'fear of success'
- approval-based procrastination
- discomfort-based procrastination
- worry-based procrastination
- autonomy-based procrastination
- crisis-based procrastination

So which one am I doing?