The Dresden Files: Side Jobs

Side Jobs is a collection of short stories about characters from The Dresden Files series. Many of the stories have been published previously on the internet or in anthologies, so it’s not really new.

It’s kinda hard to describe the book because it contains a mix of stories of varying length and quality. Some are very weak and could be removed from the book at no loss. A couple are very good and show the characters they reference in a new light. One of the things with The Dresden Files series is it is all from the perspective of Harry, so you only know as much about other characters as Harry does. Some of these stories are told from other characters perspectives, so that quite literally changes your view point considerably.

If you are a Dresden fan I’m sure you’ll love it. If not, you will probably do well to avoid it.

BTW. The last story in the book takes place between the end of the Changes and the soon to be released Ghost Story. It kind of revved me up and got me exited about the new release again.

Cheers

Tim…

WordPress 3.2 Released…

WordPress 3.2 has been released.

This is a big change and it is worth doing some testing before launching straight in. The minimum supported versions of mySQL and PHP have changed, so check your service can handle it using this plugin (Health Check).

You can read more about the changes in 3.2 here.

While writing this post in 3.2 I can see straight away that everything is much more responsive. No more waiting for the link dialog to appear etc. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Transformers: Dark of the Moon…

Transformers: Dark of the Moon rocks! The previous two films were good, although the second didn’t even prompt a review from me. 🙂

The first few minutes did not bode well. I dislike those child-friendly stupid little robots. Think Ewoks and Jar Jar Binks. Maybe that lowered my expectations sufficiently to make me enjoy the rest of the film.

It certainly felt like Michael Bay had been watching Battle: Los Angeles and Skyline while this was being made. As you would expect from a Michael Bay film the destruction was of epic proportions. Sometimes this descends into disaster porn, but it felt a little more personal in this film. Maybe I’m talking rubbish and it was just the mood I was in that made me feel that.

Anyway, it’s full of awesome robots doing superhero posturing. I love the way they transform and move. Very cool. Shia LaBeouf is obviously part robot because he manages to survive some situations that would mangle a block of steel. On top of the crazy action there are some genuinely funny bits.

At the end of the film a large proportion of the crowd started to clap, which I’ve not heard in a while. I’m a bit to old and jaded for that, but I did enjoy it.

Like all these Hollywood action blockbusters, you need to go in with your suspension of disbelief primed, but if you do you will have a good time. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

New vs Existing Customers: Introductory Offers…

My car insurance renewal quote came through the post the other day. First thing I did was get insurance quotes from some comparison websites to see if my renewal price was reasonable. As it turned out it was in the same ballpark as the better quotes, so I figured I would accept the renewal. Before I did, I decided to get an online quote from the same company for a new policy. Low an behold, it was a little over £100 cheaper to take out a new policy rather than to renew the existing one.

I phoned customer services and asked what the discrepancy was and I was told it was an offer for new policies only. I promptly cancelled my renewal and took out a new policy with the same company and saved myself over £100.

I understand that companies do this because most customers are apathetic and will accept being ripped off for an easy life, but it stinks. Wouldn’t it be nice if companies valued your custom and gave existing customers their best deals, rather than saving them to entice new people, only to rip them off the new year. Don’t even get me started on the high-street banks…

Cheers

Tim…

 

Security: It’s always the silly things that get you…

I had to laugh when I read this story about Amazon Web Services. It’s posted with an attention grabbing title that implies this is an Amazon problem, but it is squarely down to user error/oversight.

Luckily I’ve not fallen into this trap yet, but I have done equally silly things in the past. That reminds me, I must go to a Pete Finnigan session next time we are at the same conference… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

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