At 19:30 on 30-07-2005 : 14st 1lb, 26.7% BF
At 16:30 on 14-08-2005 : 13st 5lb, 26.3% BF
At 19:30 on 29-08-2005 : 13st 3lb, 25.8% BF
At 17:30 on 12-09-2005 : 13st 0lb, 25.7% BF
At 17:30 on 26-09-2005 : 12st 12lb, 25.0% BF
At 19:30 on 10-10-2005 : 12st 10lb, 24.5% BF
At 17:30 on 24-10-2005 : 12st 8 lb, 24.9% BF
At 18:30 on 07-11-2005 : 12st 7 lb, 23.9% BF
At 22:00 on 21-11-2005 : 12st 7 lb, 23.9% BF
At 22:00 on 05-12-2005 : 12st 6 lb, 23.1% BF
At 22:00 on 19-12-2005 : 12st 4 lb, 22.9% BF
At 16:00 on 02-01-2006 : 12st 4 lb, 22.5% BF
At 21:00 on 16-01-2006 : 12st 4 lb, 22.9% BF
At 17:30 on 30-01-2006 : 12st 3 lb, 22.3% BF
At 17:30 on 13-02-2006 : 12st 3 lb, 22.2% BF
At 19:30 on 27-02-2006 : 12st 1 lb, 22.3% BF
At 19:30 on 13-03-2006 : 12st 0 lb, 22.5% BF
At 17:30 on 27-03-2006 : 11st 13 lb, 21.9% BF
Again, after a week of 11'11, popped back up a couple of pounds over the weekend!! Mind you, there was some alchol involved on Saturday night, along with a curry etc. And on Sunday we were out all day - so 'Picnic' food all day (ie All Carbs!!)
Really must make a bit of an effort to drop another couple of pounds to ensure that the occasional treat does not takle me back into the 12 somethings!!
Monday, March 27, 2006
Friday, March 24, 2006
F1 Rule changes for 2008
From http://www.formula1.com
A freeze on engine technology, a single tyre supplier and four-race gearboxes are among the major changes to Formula One’s Sporting Regulations for 2008, as revealed by the FIA on Wednesday.
For the 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons, teams will only be allowed to use one engine design, which must be submitted to the FIA for homologation no later than June 1 this year. Subsequent changes will only be permitted with agreement of the FIA and all other engine suppliers.
A single tyre supplier will be chosen for the same three-year period. At each race, every team will receive the same tyres - two dry-weather compounds, one wet-weather tyre and one extreme-weather tyre. Tyre warmers will be banned.
The two-event engine requirement will remain, but gearboxes will have to last four Grands Prix. Unscheduled changes of either item will lead to a 15kg weight penalty for the car concerned. This will replace the existing system of ten-place grid penalties. Spare cars will be banned.
Testing outside races will be limited to 30,000 km per year. At races, parc ferme conditions will be extended to run from 18.30 on Friday evening until the start of the race. Currently, cars do not enter parc ferme conditions until after qualifying.
New teams will no longer be required to lodge the US$48 million deposit currently needed to join the series. Instead they must pay a €300,000 entry fee. There will be more scope for the use of customer components between teams, but major car manufacturers will not be able to supply engines to more than two teams without the permission of the FIA.
The maximum permitted length of the Formula One calendar will grow to 20 races. The longest season to date has been 19.
A freeze on engine technology, a single tyre supplier and four-race gearboxes are among the major changes to Formula One’s Sporting Regulations for 2008, as revealed by the FIA on Wednesday.
For the 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons, teams will only be allowed to use one engine design, which must be submitted to the FIA for homologation no later than June 1 this year. Subsequent changes will only be permitted with agreement of the FIA and all other engine suppliers.
A single tyre supplier will be chosen for the same three-year period. At each race, every team will receive the same tyres - two dry-weather compounds, one wet-weather tyre and one extreme-weather tyre. Tyre warmers will be banned.
The two-event engine requirement will remain, but gearboxes will have to last four Grands Prix. Unscheduled changes of either item will lead to a 15kg weight penalty for the car concerned. This will replace the existing system of ten-place grid penalties. Spare cars will be banned.
Testing outside races will be limited to 30,000 km per year. At races, parc ferme conditions will be extended to run from 18.30 on Friday evening until the start of the race. Currently, cars do not enter parc ferme conditions until after qualifying.
New teams will no longer be required to lodge the US$48 million deposit currently needed to join the series. Instead they must pay a €300,000 entry fee. There will be more scope for the use of customer components between teams, but major car manufacturers will not be able to supply engines to more than two teams without the permission of the FIA.
The maximum permitted length of the Formula One calendar will grow to 20 races. The longest season to date has been 19.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Windows Messenger and Windows live Messenger
If you have installed a version of MSN or Windows Live Messenger recently, you may find that both this , and the older pre-installed Windows Messenger both run on boot up.
Check out the Microsoft article on how to stop Windows messenger from running:
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=302089
Check out the Microsoft article on how to stop Windows messenger from running:
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=302089
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Weight Check
At 19:30 on 30-07-2005 : 14st 1lb, 26.7% BF
At 16:30 on 14-08-2005 : 13st 5lb, 26.3% BF
At 19:30 on 29-08-2005 : 13st 3lb, 25.8% BF
At 17:30 on 12-09-2005 : 13st 0lb, 25.7% BF
At 17:30 on 26-09-2005 : 12st 12lb, 25.0% BF
At 19:30 on 10-10-2005 : 12st 10lb, 24.5% BF
At 17:30 on 24-10-2005 : 12st 8 lb, 24.9% BF
At 18:30 on 07-11-2005 : 12st 7 lb, 23.9% BF
At 22:00 on 21-11-2005 : 12st 7 lb, 23.9% BF
At 22:00 on 05-12-2005 : 12st 6 lb, 23.1% BF
At 22:00 on 19-12-2005 : 12st 4 lb, 22.9% BF
At 16:00 on 02-01-2006 : 12st 4 lb, 22.5% BF
At 21:00 on 16-01-2006 : 12st 4 lb, 22.9% BF
At 17:30 on 30-01-2006 : 12st 3 lb, 22.3% BF
At 17:30 on 13-02-2006 : 12st 3 lb, 22.2% BF
At 19:30 on 27-02-2006 : 12st 1 lb, 22.3% BF
At 19:30 on 13-03-2006 : 12st 0 lb, 22.5% BF
Grrrr!! After being at 11'12 for most of this last week, Monday's weigh-in was a bit of a dissapointment. But it was rather a strange weekend, and I did rather indulge at a couple of meal times without cutting back on the treats... So I suppose I got my just rewards. :(
On the plus side, I am now able to complete 40 mins+ of cardio workout without too much distress and my V02 figure is "above average" - whatever that means! On the downside, I am limping this morning - I seem to have hurt my foot on the jogger last night! Give it a day or two and see how that one progresses...
At 16:30 on 14-08-2005 : 13st 5lb, 26.3% BF
At 19:30 on 29-08-2005 : 13st 3lb, 25.8% BF
At 17:30 on 12-09-2005 : 13st 0lb, 25.7% BF
At 17:30 on 26-09-2005 : 12st 12lb, 25.0% BF
At 19:30 on 10-10-2005 : 12st 10lb, 24.5% BF
At 17:30 on 24-10-2005 : 12st 8 lb, 24.9% BF
At 18:30 on 07-11-2005 : 12st 7 lb, 23.9% BF
At 22:00 on 21-11-2005 : 12st 7 lb, 23.9% BF
At 22:00 on 05-12-2005 : 12st 6 lb, 23.1% BF
At 22:00 on 19-12-2005 : 12st 4 lb, 22.9% BF
At 16:00 on 02-01-2006 : 12st 4 lb, 22.5% BF
At 21:00 on 16-01-2006 : 12st 4 lb, 22.9% BF
At 17:30 on 30-01-2006 : 12st 3 lb, 22.3% BF
At 17:30 on 13-02-2006 : 12st 3 lb, 22.2% BF
At 19:30 on 27-02-2006 : 12st 1 lb, 22.3% BF
At 19:30 on 13-03-2006 : 12st 0 lb, 22.5% BF
Grrrr!! After being at 11'12 for most of this last week, Monday's weigh-in was a bit of a dissapointment. But it was rather a strange weekend, and I did rather indulge at a couple of meal times without cutting back on the treats... So I suppose I got my just rewards. :(
On the plus side, I am now able to complete 40 mins+ of cardio workout without too much distress and my V02 figure is "above average" - whatever that means! On the downside, I am limping this morning - I seem to have hurt my foot on the jogger last night! Give it a day or two and see how that one progresses...
Monday, March 13, 2006
New Toys For Old II
Finished my own "Garage Sale" on ebay, and managed to raise almost £260. So yesterday morning I ordered a Tomtom 300 from Amazon for £285.
It arrived today!! Fitted the mount and cable in the car, and took it a quick run around the block. After about 3 minutes, the GPS had locked on , and it knew where I was...
[edit]
The volume of the internal speaker is much louder than that of the PDA, and the landscape format does seem to work better. What I need now, is a good chance to test it out - and to get the thing fully charged... I can then connect it up to the PC and get some voices / POI files on there.
It arrived today!! Fitted the mount and cable in the car, and took it a quick run around the block. After about 3 minutes, the GPS had locked on , and it knew where I was...
[edit]
The volume of the internal speaker is much louder than that of the PDA, and the landscape format does seem to work better. What I need now, is a good chance to test it out - and to get the thing fully charged... I can then connect it up to the PC and get some voices / POI files on there.
Monday, March 06, 2006
What am I reading?
The Magicians' Guild (Book 1 of the Black Magician Trilogy)
By Trudi Canavan
Synopsis:
Each year the magicians of Imardin gather together to purge the city streets of vagrants, urchins and miscreants. Masters of the disciplines of magic, they know that no one can oppose them. But their protective shield is not as impenetrable as they believe. Sonea, angry, frustrated and outraged by the treatment of her family and friends, hurls a stone at the shield, putting all her rage behind it. To the amazement of all who bear witness, the stone passes unhindered through the barrier and renders a magician unconscious. The guild's worst fear has been realised ...There is an untrained magician loose on the streets. She must be found before her uncontrolled powers unleash forces that will destroy both her, and the city that is her home. THE MAGICIANS' GUILD is a blistering new fantasy adventure from a debut author skilled in both world-building and storytelling. The trilogy continues with THE NOVICE (Aug '04) and THE HIGH LORD (Feb '05).
I am really enjoying this book so far, and the best thing is that the review seem to indicate that it is the weakest of the trilogy... So, it will only get better!!
By Trudi Canavan
Synopsis:
Each year the magicians of Imardin gather together to purge the city streets of vagrants, urchins and miscreants. Masters of the disciplines of magic, they know that no one can oppose them. But their protective shield is not as impenetrable as they believe. Sonea, angry, frustrated and outraged by the treatment of her family and friends, hurls a stone at the shield, putting all her rage behind it. To the amazement of all who bear witness, the stone passes unhindered through the barrier and renders a magician unconscious. The guild's worst fear has been realised ...There is an untrained magician loose on the streets. She must be found before her uncontrolled powers unleash forces that will destroy both her, and the city that is her home. THE MAGICIANS' GUILD is a blistering new fantasy adventure from a debut author skilled in both world-building and storytelling. The trilogy continues with THE NOVICE (Aug '04) and THE HIGH LORD (Feb '05).
I am really enjoying this book so far, and the best thing is that the review seem to indicate that it is the weakest of the trilogy... So, it will only get better!!
Nice Warm House Again
The nice man from British Gas came at 10:15 this morning... and by 11:00 I was in a warm house :-)
Seems that the pressure peaked a little too high for comform on Friday (I had recently turned the temperature up a little, it was VERY cold) and the safety pressure valve did what it was supposed to, and released some pressure to the outside world.
Unfortunatly, some calcified deposits were also ejected, and they got stuck in the middle of the valve - locking it open.
Seems that the pressure peaked a little too high for comform on Friday (I had recently turned the temperature up a little, it was VERY cold) and the safety pressure valve did what it was supposed to, and released some pressure to the outside world.
Unfortunatly, some calcified deposits were also ejected, and they got stuck in the middle of the valve - locking it open.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
New Toys For Old
This week I have been quite a good boy...
New X-Box game "TOCA 3" - most excellent, cost £0.99 - How? I took half a dozen older games in, and traded them. I now have only 4 games for the X-Box, but they all get used regularly
I want a new GPS for in the car, the lead to the PDA broke recently, but I really want an all-in-one-box solution like a TomTom 300. Problem with that is - £300!! So, eBay to the rescue... The PDA sold for over £100, and I have put a number of audio books and DVD's on there to try and raise the funds. I may choose a TomTom ONE depending on the funds, that model is £50 cheaper, and is actually a better spec, but not quite so neat when in the car - the power lead plugs unto the unit rather than the mount...
New X-Box game "TOCA 3" - most excellent, cost £0.99 - How? I took half a dozen older games in, and traded them. I now have only 4 games for the X-Box, but they all get used regularly
I want a new GPS for in the car, the lead to the PDA broke recently, but I really want an all-in-one-box solution like a TomTom 300. Problem with that is - £300!! So, eBay to the rescue... The PDA sold for over £100, and I have put a number of audio books and DVD's on there to try and raise the funds. I may choose a TomTom ONE depending on the funds, that model is £50 cheaper, and is actually a better spec, but not quite so neat when in the car - the power lead plugs unto the unit rather than the mount...
Not a great week...
Last weekend I downloaded the latest VISTA, the Feb CTP - build 5308. As usual, I 'Ghosted' my laptop, and installed VISTA... Again as usual, I hated it!
Reasons:
So a couple of hours later, back to XP...
On Wednesday, after reading a number of glowing reviews of this new build, I decided to do something radical... I ghosted my main PC, and installed it on there!
The Install was a nightmare, it kept failing, but eventually I got it going.
The first problem I came up against was that although the WACOM graphics tablet worked, it was barely usable - so slow to move the mouse etc. So I borrowed the USB mouse from Amy's PC, and downloaded the latest WACOM drivers... They managed to completely lock up the system!! Got them back off, and stayed with the USB mouse for the time being.
With a working mouse, I found that the constant pop ups, whilst very annoying, were not such a pain as they were on the laptop. Searching the newsgroups etc, I managed to find ways of switching off some of this default behaviour, and the entire system became a little more usable.
However there are still major problems, and yes I know it's beta, but if you move a folder from the desktop to my documents store, it was taking almost 40 minutes to move 200MBytes!!, it would then tell me that it could not delete the now empty folder, did I want permission, and then that the now empty folder was not there - did I want to recreate it...
Most of these problems were reduced when I changed the permissions on the existing My Documents folder, to allow the administrator group full control!
After a while I was getting more comfortable with the system, but still found the SEARCH window completely unfathomable! But even so, time to go back to XP.
Booted back up into Ghost - No saved image found! AGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
After a lot of messing about, I resigned myself to getting VISTA working as a proper PC, that's when I realised just how few of the utilities I rely on for my day to day usage I have copies of, and just how scattered the install keys, licence files etc are. I also noticed that in spite of the fact that I regularly back up all my data to external USB hard drive, I did not have a copy of the Outlook pst file - 3 years plus of e-mails lost... including a lot of keys / licences etc!!
Eventually , I gave up, and decided to give Ghost another go.
Long Story Short - the bootable CD cound not - for reasons I am yet to work out - see the partition which held the image. On Friday morning I copied it across to another partition that I knew could be seen - reboot to CD, system restored and working. :-)
Phewww!
I have now moved the .pst file onto the D drive - where it will be backed up. I have downloaded/collected loads of app/utilities togethere - complete with keys etc and burnt them all to a DVD. So, with the horse back in the stable, I have bolted it shut
However, That's not the only reason for the title of this entry...
On Friday AM - a VERY cold morning (-5C) a number of radiator in the house started to make 'strange noises'.... A quick trip around with a cup and a screwdriver revealed a lot of air in the system, and when I then checked the boiler I found ZERO pressure!! Refilled it back to 1 bar, and within 30 seconds - back to zero... BUM!
Spoke to British Gas, with whom we have a support agreement for pipes etc, and this is not covered, but they extended the cover (at a cost) and agreed to send someone out to fix it. Great!! No not really, they can't come till MONDAY MORNING...
All weekend we have been cold, and the electric bill will be awful - two fan heaters have been dragged into service to warm bathroom and bedrooms etc.
I have never been so glad to spend 4 hours around the shopping mall....
Reasons:
- The install was SOOOOOOO SLOW, taking almost 1 hour.
- Almost everything you try to do, causes a pop up telling you, "Insufficient privileges" give yourself rights to do this..., and then another pop up asking are you sure... GRRRRRRRR When using the track pad on a laptop it is an absolute pain!!
- Again, total failure to get the Centrino Chipset WLAN recognised by VISTA, even after installing the latest BETA intel drivers.
So a couple of hours later, back to XP...
On Wednesday, after reading a number of glowing reviews of this new build, I decided to do something radical... I ghosted my main PC, and installed it on there!
The Install was a nightmare, it kept failing, but eventually I got it going.
The first problem I came up against was that although the WACOM graphics tablet worked, it was barely usable - so slow to move the mouse etc. So I borrowed the USB mouse from Amy's PC, and downloaded the latest WACOM drivers... They managed to completely lock up the system!! Got them back off, and stayed with the USB mouse for the time being.
With a working mouse, I found that the constant pop ups, whilst very annoying, were not such a pain as they were on the laptop. Searching the newsgroups etc, I managed to find ways of switching off some of this default behaviour, and the entire system became a little more usable.
However there are still major problems, and yes I know it's beta, but if you move a folder from the desktop to my documents store, it was taking almost 40 minutes to move 200MBytes!!, it would then tell me that it could not delete the now empty folder, did I want permission, and then that the now empty folder was not there - did I want to recreate it...
Most of these problems were reduced when I changed the permissions on the existing My Documents folder, to allow the administrator group full control!
After a while I was getting more comfortable with the system, but still found the SEARCH window completely unfathomable! But even so, time to go back to XP.
Booted back up into Ghost - No saved image found! AGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
After a lot of messing about, I resigned myself to getting VISTA working as a proper PC, that's when I realised just how few of the utilities I rely on for my day to day usage I have copies of, and just how scattered the install keys, licence files etc are. I also noticed that in spite of the fact that I regularly back up all my data to external USB hard drive, I did not have a copy of the Outlook pst file - 3 years plus of e-mails lost... including a lot of keys / licences etc!!
Eventually , I gave up, and decided to give Ghost another go.
Long Story Short - the bootable CD cound not - for reasons I am yet to work out - see the partition which held the image. On Friday morning I copied it across to another partition that I knew could be seen - reboot to CD, system restored and working. :-)
Phewww!
I have now moved the .pst file onto the D drive - where it will be backed up. I have downloaded/collected loads of app/utilities togethere - complete with keys etc and burnt them all to a DVD. So, with the horse back in the stable, I have bolted it shut
However, That's not the only reason for the title of this entry...
On Friday AM - a VERY cold morning (-5C) a number of radiator in the house started to make 'strange noises'.... A quick trip around with a cup and a screwdriver revealed a lot of air in the system, and when I then checked the boiler I found ZERO pressure!! Refilled it back to 1 bar, and within 30 seconds - back to zero... BUM!
Spoke to British Gas, with whom we have a support agreement for pipes etc, and this is not covered, but they extended the cover (at a cost) and agreed to send someone out to fix it. Great!! No not really, they can't come till MONDAY MORNING...
All weekend we have been cold, and the electric bill will be awful - two fan heaters have been dragged into service to warm bathroom and bedrooms etc.
I have never been so glad to spend 4 hours around the shopping mall....
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