I can’t remember when or where I saw Gran Torino originally, but I remembered it being a great film. I was round a friends last night and I suggested we watch it. It really is a great piece of work. Some people have just got a gift and Clint Eastwood is one of them. I did a search through my blog today to see what my review said about it and I couldn’t find one. This leads me to believe I probably saw it on a plane and the review got lost in the confusion of the trip. Anyway, it’s a great film. Well worth checking it out.
The Dresden Files: Changes…
Oh my word. What an intense book. Jim Butcher threw just about everything at you with this one. I think Changes is probably my favorite of The Dresden Files series because it kinda brings everything together from all the other books. It feels very much like it should be the last book in the series, but there is definitely another on the way, so I guess we will see how that works out later in the year…
Cheers
Tim…
More iPad musings…
One of the reasons I bought an iPad was to use it as a book reader. I figured I could save a few trees and save a bit of money as some Kindle books are a little cheaper than the paper equivalents. Fast forward a few months and I’ve not completed a single book on the iPad. In fact I’ve struggled to read more than the odd page of any novel. The iPad just isn’t working out for me in that role. I find it a little heavy, the screen reflection is shocking and I’m not particularly happy about doing things like reading in the bath or in bed with it. It just doesn’t work for me. Added to that, a comment Gwen Shapira made at OOW 2010 has come back to haunt me. It’s just too easy to get distracted on an iPad. How wise you are Gwen. 🙂
I’m toying with the idea of buying a kindle. It would certainly solve the weight, screen reflection and distraction issues. Whether it would feel “natural” to me is another issue.
I had a bunch of gift tokens from the last couple of Christmases, so I went out a few days ago and bought real paper books. Instant satisfaction and I’ve started reading again… 🙂
Cheers
Tim…
My whole website stolen again…
I got an alert from Google yesterday telling me some pages from my website had been stolen. This morning I had a quick look and I can see that actually my whole website has been ripped and published on someone else’s domain. The someone in question happens to be an independent Oracle contractor working in the European Union. I really don’t understand why in this day and age someone involved in our industry thinks they can do this without being noticed. As a contractor, gaining a reputation for copyright theft must be about the worst thing you can do. I can’t exactly see many employers welcoming you with open arms knowing you might steal from them.
I’ve sent a friendly notice asking the person in question to remove the stolen material. Let’s see how that works before I start any strong-arm stuff…
Cheers
Tim…
Update: The site has been removed so the matter is closed an the person’s name remains my secret. 🙂
Spam: The ups and downs…
Managing spam forum posts, blog comments and website comments drives me to distraction at times. Having said that it sometimes has its up side.
This morning, whilst clearing a bunch of spam posts and comments I threw my toys out of the pram and declared to everyone present (nobody was in the room with me) that I’m through with the internet and I’m turning everything off. Fast forward a few hours and a couple of new spam comments arrive, both of which were relevant to the threads they were posted on and almost seemed useful and mildly insightful. In fact, the only thing that distinguished them as spam was the posters URL. One was a dieting site and one was a heamaroid treatment. The latter made me giggle (yes, I am that puerile) so I will not divorce the internet quite yet.
Cheers
Tim…
Captain Support to the rescue…
It’s Saturday night, South Park is on the TV and all is good. Then the phone rings…
- Mom: I was looking up the symptoms of assorted diseases on the internet so I can panic about the possibilities of my friends, family and especially grandchildren getting them, then the laptop beeped and turned itself off. I kept trying to turn it on but the fan starts, then it immediately turns itself off.
- Captain Support: It sounds to me like the power lead is not connected and the battery has run out of juice. Make sure it’s plugged in and turned on at the wall switch and it should be fine. If not, it means either a fuse has gone or the charger is bust. Check it now. Is the power lead connected?
- Mom: Yes, all three leads are connected.
- Captain Support: Describe the leads please. Are they rectangular with a prongy looking symbol on them?
- Mom: Yes.
- Captain Support: Those are USB cables, not power leads. It sounds like it’s disconnected from the power. Plug in the lead and you’ll be good to go.
- Mom: I’ve only ever had these three cables in. There are no other cables.
- Captain Support: Seriously, they are USB cables, not power leads. You must have had another lead plugged in before now.
- Mom: There has never been another lead plugged into this laptop.
- Captain Support: Check the back. Is there a round hole that looks like it could have a power lead plugged into it?
- Mom: Yes. There is a round socket. Oh, I can see a cable down the back of the desk. I pulled the desk out earlier to hoover. It must have come out.
- Captain Support: Plug it back in, then sacrifice a chicken at dawn on the altar of Captain Support and your problem will be solved.
Humans. Will they never learn?
Cheers
Captain Support…
Come on you Baggies…
My nine year old nephew has just been picked for the West Bromwich Albion F.C. Development Centre. He was already playing for a local academy side and this is the next step up. It’s worked out really well because the Baggies DC training ground is not too far from where he lives. Much easier than having to drives miles to some of the other Premiership development centers.
I guess now we will have to get him out of the habit of supporting Manchester United and into the Baggies.
Cheers
Tim…
I’m an Android…
I wrote recently about the whole Apple vs Android thing and announced I was not in either camp. Recent family issues have meant I’m on the phone a lot more now and the “pay as you go” thing just isn’t making sense. I ventured into the murky world of phone contracts and came out with a HTC Wildfire, which is about the cheapest phone/contract you can get that in my opinion can still be called a smartphone. In fact, you can get them so cheap that they really are an entry level phone now.
The iPhone 4 was never really in the running because it is so darn expensive. I did the Pepsi challenge between the HTC Desire HD, Samsung Galaxy S and the HTC Wildfire and I picked the latter. They are all Android phones, so there was really not much difference in user experience. The Desire was the biggest, which in my opinion was its downfall. It feels like you are holding a tablet to your ear. Obviously, having such a big screen makes web stuff easier, but I’ve got my iPad for that, so it’s not really that relevant for me. The Galaxy S was a bit smaller, but still massive. The Wildfire actually felt like a phone and boy was it cheap compared to the others. That kinda swung it for me. When doing anything with the internet my preference is always, “Desktop > Laptop > iPad > Phone”, so I can’t see the phone getting much use as a smartphone, so paying through the nose for it just doesn’t seem sensible for me.
Negotiating the whole phone contract thing is a bloody nightmare. It’s like haggling with Cut -Me-Own-Throat Dibbler. Armed with lots of information from competitors websites, I ended up with the Wildfire with an unlimited data plan for less that their website was offering dumb phones with no data plans. As I said before, it really is an entry level device now.
A couple of days in and the novelty has worn off and I’m completely bored with the phone. I’m so glad I didn’t spend more money on something fancy. 🙂
Cheers
Tim…
Planning failures…
My sister is currently in hospital having some major surgery. The front line staff have been great, but there seems to be a total absence of planning around the user-experience of the hospital that leaves me feeling like it is all a bloody big joke. These things stand out:
- A big new hospital has been builtrecently. Unfortunately it is not big enough to house all the departments for the two existing (old and decrepit) hospitals on the same site, or the other hospital about 2 miles away. Now we have 4 hospitals in various states of repair, some of which have the same departments split across multiple sites. This should all be one hospital, then you would know where you have to go. FAIL.
- The new hospital is up and running, but some of the roads to it are not properly finished yet. FAIL.
- On the site in question there are 3 distinct hospitals, but the is nowhere near enough parking to cope with them. Some of the staff told me they have trouble parking! Today I spent 30 minutes trying to find a parking space. A good 15 minutes of this time was spent in a car park with no spaces left. The top floor had been closed, reducing the capacity, but the ticket machine still let people in based on the full capacity. There was a guy letting us out for free because they knew there were no spaces, but they didn’t bother telling the queues of people still coming in they were sitting in a 15 minute queue for no possibility of parking. I was hoping to catch 30 minutes of visiting time with my sister before she went to surgery. As it is I got about 2 seconds as they were putting her in the lift, and I was so out of breath from running up 5 flights of stairs all I managed to say was have a good one. FAIL.
- The first car park I tried was really poorly designed, such that people wanting to leave had to drive round in the same queue as people coming in. This added to the congestion and frustration. FAIL.
- The lifts in the building are so slow and there aren’t enough of them I’ve been forced to use the stairs every time. I don’t mind so much, but it’s a bit off to expect my mom in her sixties to climb 5 very long flights of stairs, which is what we had to do yesterday. FAIL.
Hospitals are about people so they should be planned and designed to maximize the user experience. A negative user experience affects everyone. The patients are anxious because they wonder where their visitors are. The visitors are sitting in their cars going nuts. The staff have to deal with irate patients and visitors who are freaking out because to factors that are nothing to do with them. The people involved in planning the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham should be totally ashamed of themselves. If they came to me looking for a job and I knew they were involved in this project I would send them packing!
Cheers
Tim…
The Broadband Joke…
I received an email from my broadband supplier telling me that my line has been upgraded and I can now get up to a 24M connect. When I was first upgraded to an 8M line I actually got 8M. I checked today and I am struggling to hit 2M. I live in the center of a big city and I am *really* close to an exchange. Of course I’ve not alone. It seems 68% of US broadband connections don’t meet the recent minimum definition of broadband (read). Do they really think I’m going to pay more cash to get a 24M connection that serves content at 2M? I think not.
Cheers
Tim…