My 18 month Virgin Media contract actually ran out a while back and I’m still using them. This may seem odd as I’ve been a fairly strong critic of what had been an awful service, but just before the contract ran out I got an e-mail saying my service was being upgraded.
So the upgrade arrives and I discover I’m now on the old Bulldog network with a ADSL2+ connection and after a few teething issues (original router, Netgear DG834G didn’t like ADSL2+ - replaced with a DG834N, electrical interference in the house was causing some drop outs - fixed with an iPlate) its been great.
Now I’m getting excellent reliability and performance. Part of me was tempted to change ISP on principle after all the issues but to be honest the last thing I want is to go through the same hastle again with someone else!
Had a while with no updates to this site for a couple reasons…
Due to not updating Wordpress for a while had a header file hacked and while fixing that and updating Wordpress I broke my own access to the sites back-end (or at least I thought I did). A lack of time meant I just left it as was.
In fact it wasn’t broken at all, so today I set out to fix it and…….. it’s absolutely fine! Seems our server was just playing silly buggers last time I went to use it.
Anyway lots been happening and can’t be bothered to write an essay but the last big one was taking a trip up to Scotland with some guys from TotalTorque for a bit of a driving holiday, then touring down through Scotland and the Lake District with my girlfriend. Great holiday even if it did leave the Elise sporting a collection of stone chips and a smashed headlight!
Had a chance to play with Martin’s Canon EOS 5D MkII and he was kind enough to join us on the trip to Inverness taking some video - complete with microphone wired into the engine bay for maximum noise.
Also took literally hours of 720p video on a couple Kodak Zi6 cameras which I have been meaning to sort through and make something with for the past month now. As a quick sample heres me driving down the Applecross Pass on the final day with the TT.net guys.
Today marks one year of up-time for my venerable server. It sits in the spare room, four hard drives crammed into its mATX chassis, drawing about 80W and running the houses DHCP, MyMovies, uTorrent (for all the Linux ISO’s we download), and streaming music to my desktop, laptop and media centre.
When I originally built it I honestly didn’t think the nasty MSI 915GM board it runs on would last a week, so here’s to it and its surprising persistence.
The end may be nigh for it in the coming months however - a switch to a pair of 1TB hard drives (currently theres just a mish-mash of what I had spare at the time) and a Atom based ITX board (to save power) is very tempting.
I can’t sleep just now so figured I might as well make a quick post.
I’ve been using the iphone quite a bit now and there are a few things on it I absolutely adore. The instant messenger arrangement of text messages is absolutely superb and I’m making up for lost time on the portable music front.
On the downside you can’t always see the times texts were sent at, nor can you forward messages you receive. iTunes on the PC is nasty and is the only way of getting music on to it, the bundled headphones are horrible and I need an adaptor to use my Seinheisers.
Overall though I’m very happy with it and will almost certainly upgrade to a 3G in the future.
I managed to get hold of a first gen iphone to play with the other day to have a play with, so this is a quick test of Safari.Overall I’m quite impressed, the UI is extremely slick, but the lack of GPS is a downer for me. When my contract is up a 3G iPhone from O2 will definately be tempting.
Actually a week is a lie, its very nearly two weeks now, but the first few days it was sat in the garage waiting for the tax to be sorted.
I was really concerned before collecting it that I was going to miss the MX-5 and that the Elise would be a little too hardcore and impractical.
It seems silly to consider the MX-5 practical, but by comparison it really is. The Elise’s boot is literally half the size of the Mazda’s, and thats before I put the tool kit in there. It also has a weight limit of 50KG, and everything you put in it gets cooked thanks to being sat behind the engine and above the exhaust. That said it proved big enough to fit my camera, tripod, laptop, a change of clothes and the soft top in, which is all I really need. The interior is completely devoid of cubby holes, or even a glove box, so any CD’s have to live in the boot too.
But then I knew this before I got it, and I don’t care because it is absolutely gorgeous and makes every journey feels like an event.
The Mazda was an incredibly fun car to drive, but the Elise is so much more physical and communicative that it sucks you in to another level. Nothing is assisted, no power steering, no servos on the brakes (if you need to slow down quickly, you need to press them HARD!), no traction control and the engine is like a living being over your shoulder which communicates to you as you move through the rev range, changing its tone with every modulation of the throttle pedal. Put simply if you want a car that engages you completely there is nothing else like it.
Nine Inch Nails have released a new album, ‘Ghosts I - IV’, a set of 36 new instrumental tracks and it’s rather good.
The first nine tracks are available for free, while the rest are available in a range of options, from $5 for a download only option to $300 for a signed vinyl set with various extras. Personally I went for the $10 (+ $13 pnp) download + 2 CD option.
Even if you aren’t a big Nine Inch Nails fan the free tracks are worth a listen, and if you like them an extra $5 isn’t much to ask for the download. You can find it here. It’s a very different sound to With Teeth or Year Zero, and seems more closely related to The Fragile, to my ears at least.
Also worth checking out is the Saul Williams album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust, which was produced by Trent Reznor, and is available completely free (although I paid for the higher quality version) here. This one definately isn’t going to be to everyones taste, but if nothing else it’s worth supporting artists distributing music without the restrictions imposed by record companies.
