Business Update

Two things of note to report about the ongoing business project that I'm hoping to set up with a former colleague.

1. My business partner did some real life market research into our proposed venture. The results were disappointing, but this was not entirely unexpected. It shows us that we need to target a smaller, niche market than what we originally planned, at least in the beginning. The downside of this, obviously, is that we will have fewer potential clients, but the upside is that the services we will provide will be of higher value. Swings and roundabouts.

2. We have decided to register a domain name for use as the company website and e-mail purposes. The name settled upon is www.visualproperty.co.uk. At the moment we have just parked the domain and will sort out hosting services later.

Work continues on researching the market, creating samples and pulling it all together into a cohesive business plan.

Category:

• Business

As if by Magic

Recently I asked if anyone knew of good sites for finding freely downloadable music that could be possibly added to videos I'm making in Microsoft's Movie Maker 2 software. Lo and behold I stumble upon just such a site with, it claims, links to over 1 million freely downloadable tracks. Now I'm sure their use doesn't include ripping them off and publishing some multi-million pound blockbuster but as that project is not due to go into production until next year I think I'm safe enough for now.

I've only sampled a few of the links included in the list and I must say some of the music is quite good and I'm bound to find something suitable. Maybe you've been wondering how to fill your 40Gb IPod, well here's the answer.

Category:

• Music

Health Update 25

It is very hot and muggy here at the moment. I've never been too keen on hot weather and with my illness it drains me even more. Being on holiday though is definitely helping me to recharge my batteries and I'm not feeling as tired as I have been. Drinking loads of mineral water to keep myself hydrated. I stopped drinking tap water last year when I suffered bad stomach cramps after buying one of those water filter containers for the fridge. Maybe I should get a rebate on my water rates?

Category:

• Health
• ME
• CFS

Battery Care

A comment made recently about the performance of Li-Ion rechargeable batteries has prompted me to publish a quick set of guidelines on how to get the best performance and life from your battery.

Most rechargeable batteries are now of the Li-Ion chemistry variety, which has, replaced the older Ni-Cad and NiMh technologies mainly through improved energy density by weight and volume. The most common applications include mobile phones, laptop computers, digital cameras and MP3 players.

One of the big claims about Li-Ion when it first started to appear on the market is that it did not suffer from the “memory effect” whereby if a battery is repeatedly only partially discharged before recharging, the battery "forgets" that it has the capacity to further discharge all the way down. For example, if you, on a regular basis, fully charge your battery and then use only 50% of its capacity before the next recharge, eventually the battery will become unaware of its extra 50% capacity which has remained unused. The battery will remain functional, but only at 50% of its original capacity. While, in theory, the Li-Ion chemistry should not display this condition the reality is slightly less than clear-cut. It is especially important in laptop batteries that you do not repeatedly “top-up” the charge. This will destroy your very expensive laptop battery in record time. I’ll not go into the reasons why but a large part of the problem is the “fuel gauging” that is built into a laptop battery. I’m sure you’ve all discovered that a laptop rapidly loses its ability to hold a charge after only a few months. Most laptops are used at the desk plugged into the mains anyway. If this is the case, remove the battery. Only recharge the battery when it is nearly fully discharged. To a lesser extent this will help the performance and life of single cell applications such as phones, cameras and MP3 players.

The top tips for rechargeable battery care are:

Temperature
Excessive high temperature will destroy a rechargeable battery’s capacity very quickly. New devices to keep laptops cool are now available for this very reason. Do not leave your mobile phone on the dashboard on a sunny day. The internal cell will be damaged, the battery will swell and could leak.
Break In New Batteries
New batteries come in a discharged condition and must be fully charged before use. It is recommended that you fully charge and discharge the new battery two to four times to allow it to reach its maximum rated capacity.
Prevent the Memory Effect
Keep the battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it periodically.
Keep the Batteries Clean
It's a good idea to clean dirty battery contacts with a cotton swab and alcohol. This helps maintain a good connection between the battery and the device.
Exercise the Battery
Do not leave the battery dormant for long periods of time. It is recommend using the battery at least once every two to three weeks. If a battery has not been used for a long period of time, perform the new battery break in procedure described above.
Battery Storage
If you don't plan on using the battery for a month or more, it is recommend storing it in a clean, dry, cool place away from heat and metal objects. NiCad, NiMH and Li-Ion batteries will self-discharge during storage; remember to break them in before use.

Category:

• Battery
• Li-Ion

I'm ready for my close up

Who'd have thought it? Microsoft include quite a good application for free with the Windows XP install. Movie Maker 2 is it's name and it's actually not too bad at all. I've just started to mess around with it using some .avi animations I've created in various applications and the output is fine and very easy to use.

Video editing is nothing new and I'm sure we've all seen some horror wedding video with heart shaped fades and wipes, cheesy music and garish pink titles plonked on top. Just as the early '90s saw the DTP revolution and everyone from the local takeaway to government departments went mad with text boxes, forty different fonts, 24 styles and colours all on the same page now we have the home made video.

Although the professional applications having nothing to fear from this giveaway, if your needs are modest it should fit the bill perfectly. Does anybody have any links to copyright free music that can be downloaded and added? Something ambient or similar would be good.

Category:

• Microsoft
• Video
• Animation

Health Update 24

My mother has now left us to return home after enjoying a week long stay. I've not been going to bed until late because she was over, and as I'm on holiday, so I feel very tired. It's also been very hot during the night which definitely doesn't help in getting restorative sleep.

Hopefully I'll get to bed early tonight and feel much better in the morning. There is a lot of work to do in the garden and I really need to strip the porch back and repaint it before the autumn comes. My mother says she has noticed a small improvement in my mood but that I obviously get very tired and "ratty" with it. There is still no word from Dr Dick, the liver specialist, so if I hear nothing by next week I will make my first claim on the private health insurance to hopefully kick them into action.

Category:

• Health
• ME
• CFS

Debt

Sometimes I'm left speechless by the capacity for shear stupidity that people display. This news story is about one of those people who is obviously so stupid it beggars belief they have survived this long in the world. Darwin would never have come up with his evolutionary theories if he was around in the present day.

This story has one of the most perfect, understated quotes I've seen in a long time. I wonder if the interviewer was, even slightly, tempted to shout back "No love, there isn't a 'Debt Personality', you're just as thick as pig sh*t!".

I often wonder if there is such a thing as a 'debt personality'

I have zero sympathy for the credit card companies who continually try and trap these idiots with their wares. But at the end of the day it's me who pays for it, with high interest rate charges to keep the fools who end up bankrupt out of jail and the credit card company's profits rolling in.

Category:

• Credit
• Debt

Monitors

I've long since lusted after the thought of using a multi-monitor setup for my work. The purchase of the Beast with a dual DVI capable graphics card has brought this dream a step closer. As my work is CAD based I still intend to use a CRT as the main monitor and add a LCD screen as the second. For absolute precision, colour rendering and speed the CRT is king. Hopefully this will result in a 19" main monitor at 1600x1200 and a 17" LCD at 1280x1024. Oh yes, feel the width!

Check out this sad geek site which has a gallery of multi-monitor setups.

Category:

• Gadget
• Business
• Monitor
• LCD
• CRT

Website Design

One of my responsibilities in the new business will be the creation and maintenance of our Company's web presence. Now, while I have an eye for design, I'm no professional graphic designer. This, allied to the fact that the creation of a site from scratch can be a very long process, that is even before you start to add the content, I have taken a corporate decision that we will purchase a ready built website template. This can then be modified to suit our needs more exactly. Research into available templates for sale only goes to justify this decision even more.

Very high quality templates can be bought for a such a low price (arround $60) that one wonders why anybody would spend the time and effort creating a site from scratch. These templates include all the Photoshop, flash, fonts and html files required for customisation. Check out the SSI-Developer and DesignGalaxy sites for examples and prices. Also available are complete corporate packages including logo, business cards, stationery, Powerpoint templates etc.

While many of the designs are not to my taste, there are so many that eventually you'll find something that can be utilised as the template for your own site. At the very least it is good for researching colour schemes and layout styles.

Category:

• Business
• Template

Business Update

It has been a couple of weeks since the last update on my forthcoming business empire so it's time for a progress report.

My business partner had a meeting, last week, with the Angus Small Business Gateway to pitch the initial idea, find out what support they could give us and most importantly what grants are available. Their reply was less than helpful. Basically they won't comment on individual business ideas but will support you to write a business plan, they won't put you in touch with local businesses who may be able to help, and as for grants, well... there aren't any!! So what exactly does the taxpayer get for funding this organisation? Feck all as far as I can determine. Am I dreaming, for I'm sure every budget for the last 20 years bangs on about creating an entrepreneurial environment for the creation of wealth generating businesses. Now if we were some billion dollar, multinational company wanting to set up here they'd be falling over themselves to throw cash at us. Get a plant built for free, no taxes for 3 years and then shut the place down and bugger off to the next country with huge incentives. Added to this is the fact that my Business Partner is now classed as "long term unemployed", had his benefit stopped and still there is no help. Ridiculous.

So, as I suspected, it's up to us. In the long run it'll be for the best but you can't help feeling there is a lot of money wasted in funding these organisations that are supposed to support new business creation. At best they are completely cosmetic and at worst they are a total hindrance to people who want to create local jobs for local people (and get filthy rich, only joking).

Category:

• Business

Computers

It surprising how quickly you forget how to do something when you haven't done it for a while. I'm in the middle of installing a new hard drive on my general workhorse computer. Getting it fitted into the machine with the right master jumper setting, firing it up, formatting a system partition and installing Win2K went pretty smoothly.

It was then I realised it hadn't detected the existing slave drive (containing very valuable data). Much fruitless fiddling about within the BIOS failed to make the drive appear in Windows. It was then I swallowed all pride and consulted the help files. Disk Manager... oh yeah... I forgot about that. Sure enough my drive was there but marked as "foreign". A quick click here and there and all was well. Fired up explorer to check if the data was all intact and I'm smiling once again.

All that is left is to format the remaining 55Gb on the new drive (handy extra storage) install Norton Ghost and copy over my clean and patched Win2K ghost image with all the correct hardware drivers and network settings.

Category:

• Computer

Shiny New Toy

As a result of my "strange behaviour" mentioned recently I have taken delivery of a new phone to replace the SonyEricsson T68i (which took a soaking down the toilet).

As you can see from the picture it's a lovely SonyEricsson T610 on Orange. Very smart. First impressions are good. It's actually slightly smaller than the old phone but the screen is twice the size. Included on the phone is a nifty little camera plus all the usual goodies such as Bluetooth etc. The only downside I can see at the moment is the lack of the Naval Command game (Battleships) which filled my regular afternoon break sitting on the toilet trying to sink a sub (ooh err... did you see what I did there? Comedy). Modesty forbids me commenting on the battery (I design rechargeable batteries for a living) but suffice to say if you need a spare one for a T610 then give us a shout.

All that is left for me is to wonder if my laptop will fit down the pan in the same way, and whether I'd get away with it.

Category:

• Gadget
• Mobile+Phone

Health Update 23

Feeling very tired tonight as I was up early (6:15). Lesley had to go into hospital first thing for an operation. She's home now and everything seems fine. Apart from that feeling OK. I'm on holiday next week but as the builders will be here all week I'll have to go out. Hopefully feel a bit better in the morning after a full nights sleep.

Category:

• Health
• ME
• CFS

Normal service...

... has been resumed.
 
Ah ha, they don't call me Detective Dee of the Crescent for nothing. Why did this website disappear for a good few hours? Because I never renewed the hosting. Why didn't I renew it? Because the hosting company never sent me an invoice or a reminder. Anyway, a deal has been struck, the cash handed over and so the thousands, nae millions, of devoted fans can get their regular fix of this rubbish. *sigh* It's a hard, lonely life being a publishing mogul.
 
...rosebud...

Category:

• Domain
• Hosting

Learn something new

"Education, education, education"... so said our illustrious leader laying out what his government's priorities would be if they got into power. They did, and standards have continued to fall, started by that bitch Thatcher, unabated. So, if you can't get a decent education here how about tapping into MIT's (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) excellent OpenCourseWare site, a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world. OCW supports MIT's mission to advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century. They've got the lecture notes, assignments, reading lists, exams etc for over 700 courses spread across 33 faculties. You can't claim to be a MIT undergraduate and obviously there is no certificate at the end of it but the information supplied is an excellent resource for self learning.

a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world. OCW supports MIT's mission to advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century

Of most interest to me is the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering courses but there is such a huge range of topics that you're bound to find something that is to your liking. To make it just like the real thing turn on Countdown, make a cup of tea, fire up the PC and spend the next 6 hours playing Doom and Descent... ah, happy days.

Category:

• Education
• University

Backup

In light of the hard drive failure suffered during the week I've been giving much thought to my future data backup requirements, not just from a business point of view but personal as well.
 
My current employer suffered a devastating fire just over 3 years ago. Our 10,000sq feet building was completely gutted in about 15 minutes. Luckily no-one was injured in the stampede to get away from the flames. The nature of the business meant we had large amounts of nasty chemicals that in the right (wrong) conditions would explode, and they did, anyway I digress. At the time the building was also home to the R&D department for the whole worldwide organisation. The data we had stored on the servers was irreplaceable and would have ended the business if we could not support our customers on their current development projects let alone the history of current and previous products in production. As fate would have it the IT manager was on holiday and the daily backups had been left to a mere minion to manage the tapes and store them offsite. The conversation went something like this...
 
BOFH: Where was the last backup tape?
PFY: In the tape drive.
BOFH: Where were the previous backup tapes?
PFY: In the server room.
BOFH: In the fire safe?
PFY: No.
 
I'll not go into the finer details of what followed but we did manage to locate the fire damaged servers, pull the hard disks and rip the data. A previous set of backup tapes were found and in all we lost maybe a days worth of data.
 
All this, as you can imagine, was a sobering experience and one I fully intend to learn from when we get our business up and running. So what should I propose as a backup procedure? I'll have to think about that. Cost will be an issue, as the procedure will also plan for hardware failure requiring redundancy of actual computers etc. This one HD failure means I can't access the data on the perfectly good slave drive. This would lead me to thinking of an external HD for backup or even network storage so that it could be moved from machine to machine if required. All critical data (current projects) will not only be stored on 2 separate machines but backuped daily as well to the external HD. Older data would be stored on the external HD as well as archived and stored offsite on CDs or DVDs. All this for a small 2 man company hopelessly reliant on IT. Makes you think if there isn't a business opportunity to offer low cost IT support for similar small companies that don't have the time or skills to do it for themselves. They are left to fend for themselves probably relying on some family member who has a PS2 but knows all about computers. Hmmm... this will be how these small companies get their godawful websites too.
 
I was BTs Broadband campaigner for my area which gave me some exposure to the total lack of thought people give to data backup, online security from viruses and worms etc. Businesses whose existence depends on IT but who have no procedure to protect themselves from disaster and most of them are running on Windows98! The mind boggles.

Category:

• Business
• Computer
• Data

Health Update 22

Haven't done one of these in a while, can't really explain why. Not feeling too bad considering all the things that seem to be going wrong at the moment (computer, microwave etc). I'm definitely in need of a break and my forthcoming week off is much anticipated. The house will be surrounded by builders replacing the roofline all that week so hopefully that will force me to go out and about with Lesley enjoying ourselves doing things that normal people do.

As a sign that I'm in desperate need of the holiday I've been doing some really strange things lately. For instance, I threw my mobile phone down the toilet at work ?!!? I didn't mean to, I just did. If you were to replay the incident on tape it would look to all intents and purposes that I did it deliberately. Another symptom of CFS is what is sometimes referred to as "Brain Fog" where you just can't seem to focus or think straight, that's all I can put it down to. Very strange. Still, I'm getting a shiny new phone out of it from the work, which is nice.

Category:

• Health
• ME
• CFS

Bugger!

The windows system hard drive on ye olde Win2K Athlon 700 machine has just died horribly. Although the Beast is computer number 1, I wanted to keep it shielded from the evils of the internet at least until Windows XP SP2 was finally released. To this end the Athlon was still my primary machine for the web and e-mail. I will have lost a couple of weeks of e-mail which is annoying but not disastrous. All my data is stored on another hard drive within the Athlon so I should be able to pull it and access the gigabytes of information I have stored.

This is my first hard drive failure in 15 years of computer ownership and I suppose that makes me lucky. If we get the business up and running I will have to seriously look at our IT disaster recovery procedure. Thinking about it I know where I can get my hands on a 40/80Gb DLT... hmmm. They'd never miss it, uses a SCSI interface so more cash outlay would be required.

Makes me wonder though. How much data do I have stored and what would I do if it was all to be lost? *shudder* what a horrible thought.

Category:

• Business
• Computer
• Data

A confession and groveling apology

Regular readers of this rubbish may remember this post in which I proposed the theory that women couldn't think laterally when the prospect of buying shiny new kitchen appliances was in the mix. I may have been wrong.

As I sit here through a fog of choking black smoke I have to report that the microwave in question exploded in flames this evening at approximately 7:30PM. I suspect the fault that Lesley mentioned in passing may have had something to do with this little incident or the fact that I put a tasty Tesco Premium Sticky Toffee Pudding at full blast for 10 minutes (the other numbers on the keypad fixed themselves a while back) and walked off. Lying on the sofa, gob salivating as the smell of perfectly melted toffee filled the air a tiny little thought filled my head...was that burning I could smell?

I can't continue, I'm too overcome... Lesley is already eyeing the Argos catalogue again, I'll have to go and lie down for a bit. In the meantime please entertain yourselves by visiting We-Man!s Funny things to do with a microwave page. Hey, let's be careful out there and pay more attention to your woman when she's waving the Argos catalogue under your nose.

Category:

• Personal
• Men+Women

Food Parcel

Like a scene from a war film in the 1950's I will be receiving a food parcel, not from the Red Cross though, but from my mother. She's coming over from Norn Iron to Scotland for a visit (the real reason is actually a Tom Jones' concert at Edinburgh Castle in a couple of weeks but she needs somewhere to stay) and the cost of a bed is as much Veda bread and spuds she can get in the car.

Scotland is a marvelous place to live, only three things let it down. Terrible potatoes, crap bread and Scottish Country Dancing. I have long since despaired at the state of Scotland's potatoes. Wet, soapy, tasteless crap, an insult to a proper spud. A spud should be firm, dry and floury. It should absorb the butter and, for a new potatoes, a dash of Lea and Perrins... ahh the joy.

Bread, now there is an excuse, for not knowing what proper bread is as we like to keep that a secret, much the same as the Danes and Heineken, we don't like to see it go. The finest bread comes from Norn Iron and don't believe anything else you hear. Soda bread, Wheaten farls, barnbrack... *sigh* and the biggest secret of all, Veda Bread, from the Ormo Bakery no less. Cut it thin with tomato and cheese as sandwiches, cut it thick for toast and marmalade (Lemon and Lime only, mind). I constantly hear rumours that M&S are importing the Veda but I've never witnessed it on the shelves. It is a dream I have that one day everybody will be as fortunate as those who hail from home.

Category:

• Veda
• Northern+Ireland

Arthur, the once and future King

The legend of King Arthur has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. Hollywood has dabbled with the story on numerous occasions and all of them, with one exception, have been a complete disaster. Now, the biggest budget retelling of King Arthur is about to be unleashed. I have my doubts. Clive Owen as Arthur? Hmm.... I've seen the trailers and to say his acting style is wooden and voice monotonous would be to put it very kindly. Keria Knightley is present as Guinevere... we like Keria, but I don't think her charm will change my opinion. The first reviews seem positive but then they're paid to be that way. Will I go and see it? Probably, for I am Arthur.

For me the greatest telling of Arthurian Legend is John Boorman's Excalibur. How I love this film. Based on Sir Thomas Malory's 15th Century novel, Le Morte d'Arthur it is a cracking film with all the classic elements of the legend included. Yes, it's relatively low budget, yes it's as historically inaccurate as you could possibly get, yes Nicol Williamson "hams" it up outrageously as Merlin... trust me, it is just fantastic.

If you want a more historically accurate and seemingly well researched version you could do a lot worse than check out Bernard Cornwell's trilogy of novels, The Warlord Chronicles beginning with The Winter King, Enemy of God and finally Excalibur.

Category:

• King+Arthur
• Excalibur

Software for Free

Never having really succumbed to the geek side of computing it had always been my intention to refrain from anything open source. "How could it be any good?", I'd think. If it was as good as it's authors seemed to think it was then surely they'd charge cold, hard cash for their efforts, and so I remained in blissful ignorance of probably the greatest piece of open source software out there, Blender. That was until a few months ago when I saw Blender featured in a magazine.

The power of this program is truly amazing, matched only by it's speed of development.

It just so happened I was on the lookout for a powerful 3D modelling and rendering package capable of creating professional images and animations. All the usual suspects had been researched and evaluated. TrueSpace, 3D Studio Max, Lightscape etc. All were horrendously expensive and difficult to use. As a Mechanical Design Engineer 3D modelling holds no fear for me, therefore it was really the scene creation, lighting, material setup and animation capabilities that were of interest.

I discovered that Blender had a growing following of 3D artists, mainly attracted by the zero cost but equally to the huge, friendly support community built around it. The power of this program is truly amazing, matched only by it's speed of development. Rarely a month goes by without a new update release with even more powerful features added. It does have a reputation for having, what is described as, an "unusual user interface" but I must confess I have found it very easy to get used to. Admittedly, I do not use the modelling features but prefer to import from another package to Blender for scene setting and rendering. There are numerous blender scenes (.blend) available and tutorials to get you started (just do a google for Blender). The best source of information can be found on the Elysiun Forums.

The home page for the entire project development can be found at the Blender.org site and the latest builds can be downloaded for a variety of operating systems at the Blender3D.org site. Give it a go. I fully intend to implement Blender as one of the key software packages for my "soon" to be revealed Business venture.

Category:

• 3D
• Blender

Business Update

My head is spinning with ideas and plans for my business venture. Everywhere I look I see another opportunity connected to the main idea. The more I think about it the more I believe it is viable.

My former colleague, and possible business partner, has started to make the first steps into getting the planning in place. He attended a free seminar for start-ups run by our local Business Gateway (Tayside, Scotland) about marketing and intends to go to a few more.

I have a week off coming up and plan to concentrate on getting samples of the sort of work we intend to do completed.

Category:

• Business

CFS Research

New research from the UK into children with CFS reveals they should exercise more and not lie about being ill all day. While I have no doubt as to the validity of the research I would make one suggestion. The person who came up with this conclusion has never suffered from CFS. It's all very well saying to someone to stop lying about and get up and do some exercise, but when you feel as shit as I do sometimes (and I am clearly suffering only a mild version) you can hardly move for the pain nevermind do some exercise no matter how graded it may be.

Category:

• Health
• ME
• CFS
• Research

Health Update 21

Very tired today at work as I think the weather was getting to me, and Lesley had a restless night which means I didn't sleep as well as I needed to. Nothing much else to report. Dr Dick has yet to contact me (must be a common trait among similarly named folk, eh? Ian.. I said... oh nevermind).

As I've been unwell for some time I took up the offer of Private Health Insurance from the work. They may be crap but we do get good perks. Amazingly they zero your medical records upon joining which means I can get treatment for conditions existing prior to my entering the scheme. Result! So if Dr. Dick remains conspicuous with his silence I'll call in the policy. I'll bet that'll buck him up a bit.

I don't fully agree with Private Health Insurance, but as I'm taxed through the nose for the NHS, but always seem to be permanently on a 6 month waiting list, I have given in. As a bonus Lesley is also covered but only for new conditions arising since the date of joining the policy (after 2 years though she'll be fully covered too).

Category:

• Health
• ME
• CFS

Shine a light on the Dark Side

Nick Mason, that's him on the left of a very rare 5 man Floyd picture circa 1968, erstwhile drummer of the long dead band will release his memoirs "Inside Out - A Personal History of Pink Floyd" in September. I love this picture not just because of the rarity of showing Dave Gilmour and Syd Barrett at the same time but the poetry of it. Syd gazing to the stars, having already begun to lose his battle with drugs and descending into a schizophrenic wreck, Roger looking in a completely different direction and Nick, Dave and Rick staring straight at the camera. Sums up exactly what would happen to the band in later decades.

Rumours of Nick's scribblings have been circulating for years but suspicion fell on fat d*ve as the main sticking point to it's publication. Allegedly he was unhappy that the book would be of Nick's opinion only (fat d*ve was never the brightest plectrum in the guitar case).

I don't like fat d*ve! Fat d*ve for those who don't know was the Floyd's one time guitarist. After Roger decided to leave the band in 1986, fat d*ve, with one eye on his pension, decided to keep the band going. What followed were 2 horrendously bad studio albums, 2 embarrassingly successful world tours and 2 stinking live albums. Roger Waters was, is and for ever will be Pink Floyd, and he was displeased.

So why, for me, is Roger Waters the man? Well, setting aside the fact that he wrote all the bands greatest albums, designed the stage shows, influenced the LP artwork etc he is well known for being a complete bastard to work with and a grumpy old git to boot, QED, he is, therefore, my God.

Expectations are high for a thoroughly cracking read as witnessed from the drum stool of every Pink Floyd gig ever (the only ever present member of the band in a history spanning 40 years). Spinal Tap will, I suspect, have nothing on the true goings on from the murky depths of London in 1965, through the dawn of Pyschedelia to the emergence of one of Rock's greatest song writers. I smell early Christmas present.

Category:

• Music
• Pink+Floyd

Health Update 20

The latest set of blood test results are in and they continue to show an abnormally high level of some type of enzymes in my Liver.

The Doctor asked if I was a drinker, but I don't touch it anymore. I gave up alcohol long ago as it would completely destroy me for days after. First I cut down to a few drinks when I was out but still awoke to a raging hangover, then I cut it down to one drink and would act as the driver, but still I would suffer a horrendous hangover the following day. So I now steer well clear of it. As alcohol consumption can be ruled out of the equation the medical establishment are at a loss to explain. I don't get the impression it is anything life threatening but it does make you worry.

The hospital consultant wants me to see a Liver specialist for further investigation. He goes by the name of Doctor Dick apparently. "Paging Doctor Dick"... wasn't that in some crap sitcom? Stop sniggering at the back there.

Category:

• Health
• Liver
• Blood

Health Update 19

Feeling really tired today but that is all my fault. I got up "early" yesterday morning and I didn't go to bed until very late. Consequently I've been struggling to catch up all day. The exhaustion caused by ME/CFS means that it is not possible to overdo it without consequences. If you use energy you haven't stored previously, you will suffer for it. I'm off to bed now and I suspect I'll be fit for nothing tomorrow and will need another early night.

Category:

• Health
• ME
• CFS

Security

Again, connected in part to my new business enterprise I have been re-evaluating my approach to online security. This has resulted in 2 changes.

Firstly I have been trying out the FireFox 0.9.1 internet browser. Initial impressions are good. It does appear to me as a little slower than Microsoft's IE6 (on my Athlon 700Mhz machine) though, but by no means to the extent of rendering it as unusable. I like it's plain simple layout and the use of "Tabbed" browsing is a real boon. Hopefully it will be more secure than the security hole riddled carcass that is IE6.

Secondly, I have availed myself of my current employer's generous free copy of McAfee's VirusScan Enterprise for use on employee's home computers. I say free but as we have over 130,000 employee's worldwide I'm sure McAfee are making a tidy packet on the licensing of our work computers (or maybe not as most of our jobs have moved to China where software piracy is practically the law).

Category:

• Firefox
• Virus

The Beast

As I have been mulling over the idea of setting up in business for quite some time now, I was on the look out for a new workstation class computer capable of running MCAD and DCC applications. These are generally specialist machines with the prices tending to err on the side of obscene. I had concluded that I would have to satisfy myself with building a reasonable machine at a more manageable price tag. That was until I acted upon a tip off from a friend about Dell's Outlet Store.

Dell are not usually a company that I would think of as offering value for money. Their adverts all very smart and glossy with good prices etc but when you dig down the true cost of the computer with VAT, delivery and essential upgrades added is usually pretty expensive. As for their Workstations they are vastly overpriced. But, as Dell's big selling point is that they "build to order", the problem they have is when a deal falls through and the computer is returned they're stuck? They can't sell it on as a new machine so what do they do? They sell it off at a discount on their Dell Outlet Page as a refurbished machine even though it comes packaged and guaranteed as new.

One lazy Friday afternoon, after a returning from a Pizza Hut buffet lunch (this was a few weeks ago before my healthy eating plan kicked in), I logged on to see what deals they had on Workstations. Lo and behold up popped a beast of a machine at a fantastic 1300UKP less than it would cost as new. I suspect I had lucked out and found an error in their pricing. The machine was 552UKP (ex. VAT) and I'm pretty sure it should have been 1552UKP (ex. VAT) as a similar spec of computer was a 1000 quid more on the same page. Out came the credit card and a couple of minutes later the order was placed.

A stressful few days later, in which the order was processed and confirmed (would they realise their mistake and cancel my order?) and the notice of shipping was confirmed. Exactly one week after placing the order it was delivered (for free) to my door. Oh the unmitigated joy!

So, here it sits. A Dell Precision 360 Workstation P4 3.06Ghz with HT on a 800Mhz FSB, 2Gb DDR 400Mhz RAM, 120Gb SATA HD, DVD Drive, Keyboard, Mouse and the piece de resistance... a NVIDIA 128Mb Quadro4 Dual DVI FX1000 Workstation class OpenGL compliant video card (worth 400+ quid on its own) and a full copy, including CD, of WinXP Professional, and 3 year guarantee... all for the princely sum of 662 quid, Oh yes! Read it an weep.

Category:

• Dell
• Computer
• Workstation
• Quadro

Business Plans

Well, it looks like my business empire is finally going to become a reality. As I've said before, a former colleague is all fired up about the business idea I put to him. He is going to pull together all the numerous strands of thought, scraps of information and ad hoc research that I've been doing for months. Regular updates as to the progress of our budding enterprise will follow.

How long have I dreamed of quitting the rat race? Too long. How much do I hate the incompetence of managers that are a blight on the face of British industry? Too much. The time has come to stop digging other people holes and dig some for myself. The saddest part of the whole thing is that my business idea is not engineering related. Engineering skills are no longer appreciated in this country and we will all suffer in the long run for it. Mark my words, I remember a comment made on the Money Programme years ago from a respected foreign economist who when asked to comment on Thatcher's (spit) insane drive to turn Britain into a service economy was to ask "How long can you hope to do other peoples dirty washing?" Bitch Thatcher destroyed the vast majority of our manufacturing industry and now her tory boy, MBA waving, managers are destroying what little remains.

Category:

• Business