Nasty Con

I'm out visiting the in-laws at the moment. My father in law has a computer which he finds very useful, but a couple of weeks ago it broke. It started displaying strange messages on boot up and after a chat on the phone we decided that it was hardware. So he called in a chap who advertised in the local press as a computer fixer. This "engineer" turned up and took a look at the machine, agreed that it was broken, said it was too old to repair/not worth mending and then asked for 25 quid call out fee. Which he got (having rather presciently not advertised a no fix, no fee policy).  We took a look and found that it was the power supply, dropped in a replacement and the machine woke up and ran a treat.

This is a truly nasty little business. It was very obvious to us that the power supply was wrong (if the BIOS reports 4.3 volts on the 5 volt rail the number of suspects is somewhat limited)  and so I'm inclined to not give this chap the benefit of the doubt. So if you are calling someone out to mend your hardware you should make sure that they are no fix, no fee operators.

Hair Expertise

For some reason I saw some GMTV this morning. I usually shy away from such things because they are bad for my blood pressure. But I happened to be in the room and the TV was on and they were interviewing a hairdresser. And the hairdresser said:

"Of course, your hair changes every seven years....."

And the person talking to her just nodded and agreed. And my blood pressure went up (told you it would).

I just hate it when people make statements like these (and I hate it when others agree). What is the basis of saying this? How do they know? Why is it seven? Was my hair exactly the same for the first seven years of my life, and then turned another colour, or curly or vanished, until I was fourteen when it came back, or whatever? What happens if you are bald? Does this only happen on multiples of seven years. If you make it to 22 with a full set of follicles does this mean you are OK for the next six years?

I've done some research on this (actually searched for "hair changes seven years" on the interweb) and I did find one other person that mentioned this "fact". So I guess it must be true..

Pitch Car Fun

I bought a new game on Saturday. Nothing strange about that. But this one is a racing game which is made of wood. It is called Pitch Car and it is very silly. Not as silly as Very Silly Games of course (cunning plug) but silly nonetheless.

Pitch Car originates from France and is a racing game where you flick wooden cars along a smooth track made out of pieces that you can fit together. Sort of a grand prix shove-halfpenny game. I've a feeling that it could be quite skilful, but we've only played a couple of times so far. But it is great fun. Oh yes.

I got the game from Archeron Games who operate out of a shop in the middle of Hull. They are worth seeking out, and - because one of the people recognised me from my day job - I even managed to get a bit of discount.  They have some really neat board games, along with other bits and bobs.

I actually just said this...

"Have we missed 'The Day After Tomorrow'? I thought it was yesterday...."

I'm so proud of myself.

MVP Chronulator

One of the nice things about being a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional is that you get a free gift each year. Last year the gift was a rather nice business card box with some toys in it. Whilst it was a nice box, I don't have much of a need to store that many cards. Having seen number one son's Chronulator I had an idea....

The world's first MVP Chronulator

The workmanship is not first class. You can see a scuff mark on the bottom left where the Dremel slipped, and I need to line the meters up a bit better.  I should also change it so that right hand meter goes up rather than down.

But it works, and it is showing the correct time (near enough).

The guts.

Doing the Impossible with Vista

I put Service pack 1 on another machine today. It was the media PC I built a while back and use it for watching the odd telly program. The upgrade took ages. There was much hard disk rattling and everything moved as if in treacle. I wasn't very impressed to be honest, in fact after the upgrade everything seemed to have slowed right down, even simple things like opening up the browser took over a minute. Very poor. Then one program claimed that there was not enough memory for it to run, which was a strange thing for it to say on a one gig machine with nothing else loaded.

Except that it wasn't a one gig machine any more. The ram had come loose and I had Vista Ultimate running on a box with 256M of RAM. I suppose I should have spotted this earlier, but I'm very impressed that it did anything at all. I opened up the box and re-seated the chips and it seems a lot better now....

At Your Service

I put Vista Service Pack 1 on my machine today. It just worked (although it did take a while to finish). To be honest I've not noticed much different yet, but it certainly isn't worse.

Déjà Vu with Vantage Point

Just been to see the movie Vantage Point. Kind of In the Line of Fire crossed with Groundhog Day. The president has been shot and you get to see this part of the action several times from the viewpoint of different protagonists.  Each time you find out a bit more of the plot until finally you make it to the evil doer's point of view and find out what is really going on. Then you get a really good car chase and a happy ending for those that survive. The constant repetition of the same scene grated a bit for me, but the ending mostly made up for it. Not as big or dumb as Die Hard 4.0, with no characters you really get time to empathise with, but not a bad way to spend an evening.

And we did get to see the amazing Grand Theft Auto Coke ad.

Basic Instructions is Very Funny

I'm quite proud of myself. I've actually found a really funny comic web site that number one son hasn't heard of.

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Just watched Die Hard 4.0 (Will there be a 4.1? Will it have networking and workgroup support?) on DVD. Not seen it before. It is a big, dumb, action movie with some great lines and even greater explosions. For me the best bit was the credits, where some up and coming actor was billed as playing the part of "Nearby Agent". I don't think that's very helpful as a description. Lots of agents were near to John McClane at one time or another in the movie, but not usually for very long....

WiFi For Your Camera

This is a very cute device. If your camera uses SD cards it gives you a very neat way of getting your pictures into your computer, with no wires.

Union Building

For ages they have been working on the Students Union building on campus. Now that we can see what it is they have been doing, it actually looks quite nice.

And the campus is looking good at the moment too.

Flower Picture

I took this in the conservatory today. Of course, I've no idea what it is.

Holding the Baby

Had a visitor today who brought her four month old baby round to see us. Other people's babies are great. You can hold them for a while and when they burst into tears, look like they are going to throw up or make a funny smell (or all three at once) you can hand them back to the parent with the words "I think she wants you now..".

Actually Ellie was great, and took me back to the halcyon days when our two were tiny tots and didn't know more about programming and science than me.

An Eternal Question

I'm in Schipol airport trying to answer the eternal question "What do you do if you have five hours to kill in an international airport?". I've spent 3 euros on 15 minutes of internet time. But what next?

Pictures of Lisbon

This place reminds me a lot of San Francisco. Same nice weather. Same driving on the wrong side of the road.

Kind of similar bridge

Same amazing skies

..and they had a very nice conference centre too

I had a really good time over here. Next time I'm going to try to stay a lot longer.

On the way back to the hotel I passed a bus full of students who had been at one of my talks and were now heading home.

Frankly, I fear for them....

.NET Microframework at TechDays

My .NET Micro Framework talk seemed to go well. Got a good sized audience, and of course I took their picture.

I'm sorry I didn't have any hardware to show you. If I come back next year I'll try and find space in my carry on for some toys.

Hello From Lisbon

After a very smooth trip last night I'm now in Lisbon at TechDays 08. I came along last year, to the sensibly name TechDays 07 and had such fun that I've come back again and to do two sessions. I've just finished the XNA one and it seemed to OK from my point of view (although I'm worried that I might not have mentioned the book enough....)

Where I'm speaking (they have lovely weather here)

As is usual for Portugal, I had a fantastic audience.

Left

Middle

Right

After I told my first joke (the people at the back are sound technicians who are paid to be there....)

I had a great time promoting the book and VerySillyGames. I've got another session this afternoon. Wish me (and the audience) luck.