UKC (aka Kent)

K, L and I went back to Uni yesterday. It is most odd driving and walking around the places you used to know so well. We spent far too much in the campus shop buying Kent Uni (yes, UKC has been re-branded to Kent Uni) tops (and pants in K's case!). We then ate in town before heading back home to watch the latest Terry Pratchet on tv. Fun day - more pics in link in title.

Snow

Woke up on Sun morning and there was a white Xmas outside! It had been snowing on and off all weekend but until now had not settled. Unfortunately it only lasted for a few hours and was quite wet so not that fun. Rasmus - who has never seen snow before - was not quite sure about it but was still outside investigating.

I'm ill :(

Thanks M - I caught his cold whilst working the weekend and I am now feeling very miserable. Eyes and throat dry, nose blocked and head pounding... And I am going to be feeling even more sorry for myself when K gets it just in time for the long weekend. huff...

MINI?

There is, of course, the easy option for replacing my car - buy another MINI. This time a new new MINI rather than my current old new MINI. Only problem is that the base spec has gone up by over £1,000 making option choices a little tricky.

Mercedes?

With the new new MINI being a lot more expensive than the old new MINI I am having to look elsewhere for my next company car. One that seems to have potential (well, more than the Fiat 500's) is the Mercedes A class. I can get it with nearly everything other than SatNav for my budget and it looks quite nice in black. Best of all it is very quiet on the motorways.

Anoki

Went for a fantastic Indian last night. The staff were all dressed up, there were Bollywood films being screened in the background and the food was simply excellent. If you are ever in Derby I'd reccomend it!

Fiat 500

So, I test drove the Fiat 500 today. I got my hands on a 1.4 (100bhp) Sport in Red with the 16" wheels. It is a fun car for sure but there are a couple of problems with it. Firstly the steering wheel does not adjust for reach so I end up sitting far too close to the pedals as usual. Secondly there is noticable lag on the throttle - even with the sport mode on. Other than that it handled the motorway just fine and was fun to chuck around the back roads. I liked the styling, it certinaly does not feel as Fiat as I remember Fiats feeling (in a good way) and the controls were weighted nicely. I was not so keen on the lack of lack of arm rest, cruise control and sat-nav. Think I need to go drive the new MINI again soon...

House off the market

Well, we tried. The house we were after did not work out and to be frank there is and has been nothing else on the market that has even come close to being what we would like. So, withouth futher adoo we have taken our house off the market...guess we'll be here a little longer :)

STEMNET Duxford

I went to Duxford yesterday to help S out.  I was a science/tech ambassador - which meant I had to chat to teachers about what I do and how their science classes might relate to it.  Nice lunch, great views and a home DNA kit as a thank you present :)

Floppy Disks

I found the most inventive use for floppy disks yet - look closely and you'll see the desk has been cured of wobbles by two of these little suckers...

Is this what they meant when they said Windows 3.11 would be more stable? 

Remember Business Class?

Having spent most of the last few years being forced to fly Ryan Air it came as quite a nice surprise this week to find that all 'cheap' seats had sold out.  We had no choice but to stick me on a BA plane.  OH MY GOD - what a difference.  I write to you now from the business lounge in Aberdeen where I am remembering all the niceties I used to enjoy most of time at Unisys.  Free food/drink, comfortable seats with leg room, stuff to read, staff who are polite and sensible hand baggage allowances.  It is bliss...  It may well have cost around 3 times the usual fare but I am relaxed, content and not stressing.

Windows Live Writer

This is a test that I am writing from the newly released Windows Live Writer.  Let's see if this works.  I'm adding a photo too.  Live Writer can be installed as part of the Live Messenger update which has just landed and maybe explains the issues I have been having with Hotmail all day :)

No Deal on the House

So, it is official - the owners of 44 refused our last and final offer. As such we no longer have a house to buy and as there is nothing else (currently) to our liking in Knebworth I guess we'll come off the market. It was worth a shot but I guess what will be will be...

House - make or break day

We put our final offer on a property up the road today. It does not look good. The owners, despite being on the market for over a year and having had no offers prior to us, appear not to want to budge. They want 360, we went in at 320 and now upped to 335. I have a feeling that after today we may be pulling out... It will be a great shame but the property is just not worth any more to us. C'est la vie right!

Amazon S3

Decided I'd try and play around with some off site DR backups for my home network. Having heard a lot of good things about Amazon's S3 service I signed up. I am no in the process of uploading some 30GB of photos for safe storage. Even better, WHS has a JungleDisk plug in that will automate this. Nice. Total cost - about £5 to do the upload and about £4 a month threafter.

Woohoo for me!

Just got my exam results for my two masters modules last semester. I got an amazing A2 on both of them - add this to the A3 coursework and I passed with flying colours - huzzah!!!

Flight Crew Licence

I had a letter from the CAA this morning informing me that my flight crew licence will expire this year. It has been nearly 5 years since I started to fly helicopters and the temptation to get back into it is strong. But alas - I still cannot justify the £200+ an hour for a bit of fun any more :)

New Printer

So - I finally had it with the Mac and printing - try as I might I could not get my USB connected, windows shared HP PSC 1355 to work with it. Having wasted hours I gave in and bought a new printer that connects directly to the network - HP C5180. This also meant I had to up my gigabit switch from 5 to 8 ports to accomodate it. Luckily it all now works - although the HP software is somewhat flakey on Vista (no surprise with HP software!). Good news is that I can now scan over the network.

Night Shots

I needed to clear my mind tonight so I grabbed my camera and snuck off for an hour outside. Despite the -4C temperature and near total darkness I had some fun *trying* to take some good shots. I have a lot to learn still. You can see more on flickr (link in title).

New Car Search

So, I have been waiting for the MINI to hit 55k before even thinking of starting to look for a new car. Well, that time came on Wed so as of this weekend I am starting to see what is out there. First thoughts are a new new MINI (although the base cost has rissen) or something different like a Fiat 500 (not sure on this yet). What I do want is another small super-mini that I can fill with toys - it has to have sat-nav and cruise-control at least.

Helpdesk system

I wonder if anyone can help - I am looking for a good open source 'helpdesk' system. It must be able to assign and track calls to staff, notify via email and have a web front end. MSSQL or MySQL preferable. I've seen a few such as OSTicket and Eventum but am wondering what else is out there...

Viewings Schmewings!

This house selling is very dynamic - one minute we have loads of viewings aranged and the next they are being changed, cancelled or delayed. Our only intrest so far cancelled a 2nd viewing as they found a house they preferred in Hertford. Meanwhile Sat has gone from 2 to 1 and we now have one on Mon morning.... difficult to keep up!

University WIKI

As part of one of my MSc modules (Agile Project Management) we are creating a WIKI. Wikispaces has been chosen and, apart from some unstable behaviour using IE7 on XP, appears quite simple. You can keep up with the WIKI here...

2nd Viewing

Some good news today - one of our 5 viewers so far likes the house a lot and wants a second appointment. Not bad for 2 weeks on the market :) Fingers crossed!

Pinhole

Having constructed a cardboard pinhole camera I thought - why not create a 12MPix one. So, using elastic bands I strapped the front of the pinhole camera over the 40D. Results are less than fantastic... neeed more light I think.