Tempus Fugit!

Has it really been almost 3 weeks since the last entry?  Ok time for a catch up (in brief)

Bad:
ManU lost the Champions League final to Barcelona, comprehensively outplayed even…

Bad:
Bike failed MOT, needed front tyre and complete new exhaust, coupled with the annual service - £815

Good:
Amy went to her “Supercar Driving Experience” where she actually drove a Focus ST and a Ferrari (Allegedly a certain David Beckham was the previous owner), and I got a good chance to play with the Nikon SLR.

Routine:
Work is much the same as ever, but with even tighter budgetary constraints, and more people (that you know) than ever leaving the company.

Bad:
New computer failed to wake-up this morning – it had been up and running / sleeping for almost 10 days prior to that.  Spoke to Tech Support at PCSpecialist.co.uk and after disconnecting all peripherals and resetting the BIOS (By removing the battery) it came back up.  Broke again latter once everything was plugged back in, but seems to be related to the Printer.  Bit more digging required there :-(

Mediocre:
Played 18 holes round Halesowen on Monday, in 27 degrees!!  It was one of those round where I actually played quite well, but my score was cr@p! You know, chip shots that almost land on the green and roll towards the hole, but land 1” short and roll back into the bunker!!

Misc:
Finished “Sword of the Shanara” on audio book, just started “King of Torts”

And even better…

By drawing 0 – 0 with Arsenal this afternoon, Manchester united have been confirmed as Premier League Champions for the third successive season.

Still no glasses

Popped into D&A this morning to collect my new prescription sunglasses, only to find the frames were scratched, and have to be sent back…

Still no bike…

I have now had an entire week of public transport, and still no idea of when the Bandit will be ready to collect!

Ouch! (Updated)

Not just once, but twice!!

Took the Bandit in for it’s annual service and MOT this morning, had call from shop this afternoon – New exhaust and front tyre required to get thro’ MOT. 
Seems a ‘road legal’ Scorpion muffler at £190 is the most ‘Cost Effective’ replacement, add on the £117 for the front tyre, the cost of the service and the MOT… well not expecting any change out of £500 :-(

Update: Once they got the downpipes off today, they found that those too were scrap!!  So on top of everything else I now need a new set of downpipes - £300!!  At least they will be Stainless Steel rather than the originals (Chrome plated Mild Steel)

Between leaving the bike, and getting the bad news, I went for an eye-test.  It’s been almost two years since the last one, and I am finding my current glasses a little “underpowered” now, either the glasses are ‘wearing out’ or my eyes are!
No surprises for guessing, new specs required £230 for bi-focals, but I do get a *FREE* pair of prescription sun glasses!

Seriously Cool

This guy makes art from a sheet of A4 paper by “materialization of a flat piece of paper into a 3D form”

You really should check this site out: A4 PAPER CUT

On my bike

Cycled to work and back today – and now, I am totally foobar’d.

http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=836614

had the sports tracker running on the E71 for the journey back home, and the above link should take you to the data.

Even Shorter Week

You know I like my 4 day weeks whenever possible, well thanks to the combined delights of a Rota day and Easter Bank Holiday, coupled with 1 days leave, I get two 3 day weeks on the trot!  Wooooot!

Winner!

Turns out the horse I picked in the office sweepstake for the Grand National - “Mon Mote” actually went and won…

Looks like I will be picking up my £20 winnings in the Morning.

Audio Book Update

earlier this week, I finally finished “Cross Bones” by Kathy Reichs (6:10 hours).  Once again, found the amount of technical detail harder to keep on top of with an audio v written book, but enjoyed it anyway!

Just started “Devil May Care” by Sebastian Faulks: writing as Ian Fleming (8:21 hours), about 2 hours in at the moment, and although nothing has really happened yet, it is still a “Must Listen” at lunch time.  So far, so good.

OMG!! 2

Car Window Update

Took the car into the dealers earlier this week, seems the “regulator” has failed….  £320 to supply and fit a replacement!!!  Well, bugger that for a game of solders!

Asked them to disconnect the rear window, leaving it effectively locked in the up position, and I may or may not get around to getting it repaired at a later date.  I can’t actually remember the last time we opened the rear windows, so in no rush to get it sorted.  If I do, you can get a replacment unit for £75, and it’s about 1 hours work for a local service station to fit, so probably about £150 all in.

Seems that this is a common problem with Megane and Scenics!

Carbonite update

In 23 hours since starting the backup, I have uploaded 3.5GB of data, consisting of 8,225 files.  At this rate initial backup ( =user profile minus video and music or 20GB) will be complete by Thursday.

In addition, I just found out that I can have 12 months free subscription to Carbonite by registering by LaCie network Store device!  Waiting on a reply from carbonite support how to transfer that free subscription to my existing account.

If anyone is interested in taking a carbonite account, let me know, if I refer you, we both get an extra free month ;-)

Backups

Now that the NAS device is on the network, and contains a set of Documents, Music, Pictures and Video’s with over 700GB still fee, I have freed up 120GB on my 2nd hard drive.

Call me paranoid, but I am still keeping an occasional backup of Music and Pictures on this drive in addition to the network backup…  Well, both the laptop and Amy’s computer have full access to the backup, so I can’t be 100% sure that they won’t delete something accidentally…

But then just to confirm my paranoia, I have just signed up for a 15 day free trial with Carbonite, who offer “unlimited online storage” for $49.95 per year, which even with the terrible exchange rate at present is only 67p  per week.  The initial backup may actually take most (or more!) of the 15 day trial to complete: My ‘user’ folder is 192 GB, well it will certainly test their “unlimited” claim ;-)

Damn!

Out this afternoon, parked up, locked the car – rear window opened!!

Seems the rear nearside electric window has decided it wants to stay down in the door all the time.  Unable to leave the car, I had to drive around to try and find a mechanic – at 16:00 on a Saturday??  The man at Halfords did have a look, but was not able to do anything in the available time (they close at 16:30).

So tonight, the car has a black bin liner taped over the opening, and the car is parked on next doors drive, really close to their wall. Good job they are away tonight!

Worst part of it is, that we are going to the NEC tomorrow afternoon (Strictly Come dancing – live), and won’t be able to take the car, as I am not happy about parking it up with an open window, so we have to go out even earlier and try to catch the train from New Street to Birmingham International, and then walk.  At least I can drive into Birmingham and park in the secure underground car park at work – otherwise we would have had to caught the bus into town and back!!

OK, back to XP…

Had to concede defeat on the laptop running Windows 7.  Don’t get me wrong, loved the OS, but just could not handle to pathetic video performance.

Even games like Solitaire were unplayable, utube vids were 1 fps (or slower) etc.  in short the machine was close to unusable in any meaningful definition.  Problem is the video hardware was obsolete even before Vista came out, and no  drivers have been produced for anything newer than XP, and they failed to load correctly in Vista.

Re-formatted the HDD last night and reloaded the original ACER factory build from the recovery CD’s.  Tonight I need to connect it to the interweb and download a shed full of updates, but I think I will download the ‘offline’ XP SP3 to the thumb drive, and at least install that first…!

Audio Book Update

Finished Kathy Reich’s Cross Bones It was all a little confusing at times – keeping track of all the Jewish names etc. but pretty good: 6.5/10

Started Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress, read this one before, but fancied another listen as I can’t really remember the details of the plot.  I have remembered getting rather annoyed at the authors mixing of 64 bit and 64 character keys as being the same thing… but have decided to ignore that fairly major technicality and pretend that it is the same thing, just to let me concentrate on the story a bit more this time…

New mattress

After *waaay* too many years on the current mattress, we have taken the plunge today and ordered a replacement.  it is a “Reactaform Deluxe”.

Sales Blurb: A luxury combination of foams, with an EXTRA deep top layer of the finest Reactaform, exclusive to Bensons. This model features air-zone Reactaform to aid air-flow for cool comfort throughout the night. Reactaform Memory Foam responds to heat and weight to conform perfectly to your body contours for optimum levels of comfort and support.

£499.99 Ordered from “Bensons beds” with delivery of next Saturday.  At the same time I finally found a pillow that is *exactly* the right height for me – Typically it’s not cheap!  £40!!!

Sales Blurb: “The Serenity Pillow”, A luxury latex pillow providing shallow gentle support. It always keeps its shape, stays cool and fresh and is beneficial to allergy sufferers. Complete with a zipped, removable washable cover.

Ah well, doing my bit to boost the economy, and hopefully get rid of the back/neck/shoulder pain that I have suffered every morning for the last 6 months!

Windows 7

Today I installed Windows 7 Beta on the Acer Laptop, in the past I have had issues with this laptop’s wireless adaptor, so have left it running XP.

After initial install, the WiFi was not recognised, but a wired connection back to the HomeHub, and several downloads later all the hardware (except the video card) is recognised. I have now managed to download the XP driver and persuaded Windows 7 to load it, but the Experience Score (See Below) performance really seems to be no better afterwards!

Once I removed the network cable, I managed to connect successfully to my Wireless network, with only minimal fuss… so another positive result for Windows 7.

The Windows Experience Score is a rather disappointing 1.0, but that is down to the VideoCard, and I don’t seem to be able to find a Vista/Windows 7 driver.  The CPU is 2.5, RAM is 3.1 and HDD is 1.9  Having said that, the PC itself does boot up quickly, and is generally running “better” under 7 than XP.

Alex is pleased, as he finally gets access to Mahjong and Purble Place ;-)

JMJ – In Concert 2009

I have Tickets to see Jean Michel Jarre in concert at the NIA Birmingham on 24th May 2009

From http://www.jeanmicheljarre.com/

With his forthcoming "IN-DOORS" World Arena Tour, Jean Michel Jarre invites the audience to journey into his singular universe; to immerse themselves totally in his world of timeless music and vision, in place and time. He promises with this unique and brand new super production to share the energy of his macro concerts with the emotions of an arena experience.

With the fusion of analogue synthesisers, cutting-edge digital technology, oversize HD video projections, spectacular lasers design and lighting choreography, Jarre has conceived a show that encapsulates his signature expression and talent for creating milestone events.

Jean Michel Jarre is an innovative artist who has entertained and thrilled millions of people live and has broken several world records with attendance figures. His electronic music and singular performances have travelled the globe and left their imprint on major landmarks from Houston's Skyline, to China, to London's Docklands to the Pyramids of Egypt, to Moscow and...

He has just concluded a sell-out tour of Europe celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the release of his break-through multi-million selling album, Oxygene.

For his upcoming "IN-DOORS", World Arena Tour, he has conceived a spectacular high-tech production especially tailor made for arenas where he will perform music from all of his best selling albums.

Jarre revolutionised the out-door concert format with his city-scale events. For this "IN-DOORS", World Arena Tour he aims to break new ground and deliver yet again a unique concert experience.