Thursday, January 29, 2009

Xbox fixed...

According to MS my Xbox has been repaired or replaced and is now on its way back to me - huzzah!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

K's car is dead :(

I was awoken this morning by a worried looking K - her car would not start. It shows a one-bar error code when you try and start it. We tried the usual - fuses - disconnect battery - but nothing worked. In the end we had to be towed to the Smart garage for them to look at. They think it is as simple as recoding the keys - I am worried it is a broken immobiliser or key sender unit. We await their findings...

Update: car is in overnight with suspected dead ECU :( We'll know more tomorrow...

£600 job, Warranty Direct claiming they will not cover it despite salesman specifically saying this part would be covered when we bought the policy - let battle commence...!

Friday, January 23, 2009

Sticky....

Went out for a short 11 mile ride last night with J but after the rain it felt like a 20 miler! The ground was so soft that, although I had grip, it was like riding in glue - the tyres did not want to let go of the mud. So, exhausted but good fun. Also got a chance to put the R3 to a proper test - it performed well. The 50% light came on after one hour which is ok for a brand new battery, the LiPoly should get a little better after a few charge cycles.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Exams!

Today I sit my last exam of my Masters degree. From here on it is coursework only. Yesterday I sat a 2 hour paper on Quality and Change Management and today I have a 2 hour paper on Risk Management. Yesterday went better than expected - Quality and Change is such a huge topic I wasn't sure where to concentrate my studies. It turns out I hit it about right. Today worries me less as Risk Management is quite well defined and I am sure there will be at least one question on quantitative methods (which are nice and easy). Wish me luck!

Update: exams done and both went well. Can relax a bit now...

Monday, January 19, 2009

Diamond ROM 2.03

I've just flashed my Diamond with HTC's latest ROM (2.03). Seems ok so far - more news on xda-developers of course...

Image published :)

I was visiting Grandma in Padstow just before Xmas when I was asked to take a picture of a cheque being presented. Grandma emailed me a press cutting today - my pic made it to print :) Not sure which paper yet - but I suspect it may be one of the ones I work with in the area.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Unlucky.... or lucky?

I switched my Xbox360 on tonight and was just starting to play a game when it froze - never done that before. I restarted it and then I saw the red ring of death! I've heard so much about this but could not believe that it had happened to me. I was gonna wait until Mon but I got my laptop and did some research - luckily MS offer a 3 year warranty against this and so I signed up and they confirmed my eligibility for it - sorted.

It was then that I wondered just how old my 360 was? I searched my old blog (original post linked in title) and found that it was purchased on Jan 17th 2006 - WHAT!!! That is EXACTLY 3 years ago! If I had even waited until tomorrow morning to register the fault I would have been out of warranty! WOW!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

New Headphones

I popped out at lunchtime today to the Apple store in Bristol. Whilst there I bought the new in-ear headphones (link in title). These have two drivers per earbud and have a button for volume/track control. They also have a mic letting you record voice memos on your ipod :) Quality and fit is good and the sound is pretty nice - lovely and clear and not overly bassey. Best of all they come with a triangular carry case that stops the wires getting all knotted up.

Friday, January 09, 2009

Quiet Room

In a bid for lie-ins K and I are going to use our spare room as a weekend room. It escapes the noise from the street and does a surprisingly good job of isolating the trains too. So, we have a new mattress on order from IKEA and this new TV from Play. Once installed it will offer us all the luxuries of our main room.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

I'm ill :(

Headache, sore throat, shivers, fever, cough, stiff limbs, painful joints - ring any bells? Sounds like I have a touch of flu - one is not impressed.

Oh, btw - K got back safe. THANK GOD! I was starting to get so hungry that the cats were beginning to look like walking kebabs ;)

Friday, January 02, 2009

Dissertation

So - I made a start. I have 'mind-mapped' my main ideas and dug up an initial dozen or so papers to start reading through. Seems like there is one main author that has worked in the field I am investigating as his name keeps popping up everywhere - K will be proud to hear he is Scandinavian. The only problem I have now is that my (I thought) quite focused plan keeps spawning new areas of interest as I read through various papers. At some point I will have to get strict!

Anyone know any good/free software to track papers, their authors and contents to make my bibliography grow over the duration rather than being a mess at the end of it all?