Xbox fixed...

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

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...!

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.

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...

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.

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!

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.

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.

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 ;)

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?