Roadworks on the M3, lots of them!

After a week away from work, my first journey into Bracknell was blighted by the arrival of not one, but two new sets of roadworks on the M3!! This to add to the already boring 50mph stretch over the railway line bridge between J5 & Fleet Services. The wazzocks at the Highways Agency have added a long stretch from J3 to J4, cameras for traffic flow fully installed, so it looks long term. The white lines for temporary speed cameras are already painted as well. They have also added a mini bit between J6 & J7 Southbound as well!

Here's looking forward to a couple of months of shitty journeys then!

Complete, total & utter network hardware refresh [maybe]

I haven't been impressed with the new D-Link stuff so far, so it's last chance is going to be a bit of help from one of these. A D-Link DWL G-710 Wireless Range Extender, it just plugs into the mains for power & repeats the wireless signal a bit further (so they say). Fingers crossed it might help push the boundaries of the 802.11x signal that is a little weak at present in one or two places.

Update : it appears to work very well, and really easy to setup. Just plug in power & connect with ethernet cable, configure, unplug ethernet & place some distance from the wireless router & hey presto the WiFi signal in the house goes off the scale! I will have a play with the other bits of kit at the weekend.

As a parallel test, I have also ordered the same suite of kit from Linksys. A Linksys WRT54GS Wireless Router & the Linksys WRE54G Wireless Range Expander\Repeater. Whichever works best will stay, the worst performer will be donated\sold to my brother.

After reading all the blurb from manufacturers & reviews from cyber geeks, it looks like the repeater technology doesn't cross manufacturer borders. They appear to do something proprietry, (yes, I know it's an astonishing claim!) that makes using a repeater from one manufacturer with a router from another a little difficult, if not impossible.

I have also been tempted by the Devolo MicroLink dLan kit which plugs into the house power supply & transfers data using the electrical wiring of the house.

So an update posted here soon with the results, my prediction is that D-Link will be finding a new home!

It's been bugging me for a week.....

Last week I watched a re-run of the Frank Skinner chat show, Graham Coxon was guest - ex of Blur, he spoke about his time with Blur & meeting up with the band members & it feeling a bit like meeting 3 ex wives!? Now, I quite like Blur & watched with interest this geeky (just look at the picture) looking bloke who is clearly a very fine songwriter & was interested to hear his solo single "Freakin' Out", two things became instantly apparent.....

1. Mr Coxon was the musical force behind Blur & as such I would probably like what I was about to hear.

2. I had heard the intro before somewhere.

Having searched through my fairly large CD collection, along with iTunes, I have now found what I think is the similar intro.... "Into The Valley" by The Skids, the links take you to iTunes. I can recommend "Freakin' Out" - have a go at comparing them, it's not a sample, just a bit similar & it reminded me of a record from my youth.

Anything Apple can do.....

Microsoft & Yahoo! do as well, I'm talking Widgets. Those little (mostly useless) apps that sit on your desktop.

I was first introduced to these when I upgraded my iMac to OS/X. Some of them are really clever & neat & interesting (clocks, stock market quotes, reminders, WiFi signal strength, CPU usage, weather reports & newsfeeds etc.), but others are just complete shite - a hexidecimal clock is merely one inane example!

Have a look here for Windows Widgets..... http://www.konfabulator.com/

Modem Update

A few weeks ago I bought the D-Link DSL-G604T Wireless ADSL Router, the problem is in the product description - ADSL.

My ISP is ntl: & they provide a Cable Modem Service not ADSL, so the cable is terminated not with a standard telco ADSL cable, but a screw thread connection. Doh!

I haven't returned the useless (to me) bit of kit, as I am considering a switch to BT ADSL. (I am waiting to see what ntl: are going to do in terms of pricing as they just announced their intention of getting their entire network capable of 10Mbps!)

I have since purchased a D-Link DI-624+ Wireless Router to replace my Belkin one which was a bit long in the tooth. The D-Link also allows me to use a high gain antenna & hopefully boost the signal, I can also now use 802.11g everywhere giving better connection speeds.

The end of the world is nigh.... in Croatia

From Yahoo! News...

Lone priest defends Manson ahead of Croatia gig

ZAGREB (Reuters) - Religious groups in Croatia are up in arms over the imminent arrival of shock-rocker Marilyn Manson for a concert.

But rallying to the banner of free speech and perhaps a little shock-value of his own, Manson has found one unlikely defender -- a Catholic priest.

"How could Manson turn young people into satanists and drug-addicts in the two hours of his act," daily newspaper Vjesnik quoted priest Anton Bobas as saying.

Bobas, who leads a heavy-metal band of his own called Glasnici Nade (Messengers of Hope), says most of Manson's critics have never heard his songs or seen him perform.

The lone priest finds himself fighting a rearguard action against Christian groups from the Istrian peninsula ahead of the concert on August 22 in the northern Adriatic town of Pula.

Protestant organisation Oaza wants the concert banned, while seven Catholic priests offered to pay damages to the organisers if the concert was cancelled, arguing the band's lyrics and image promote satanism, drug-use and violence.

Bobas said the best concert he ever attended was seeing Manson live in Hamburg, Germany, three years ago.

But even Bobas tempers his support.

Despite the music, Manson was a rather dark persona and he would not recommend anyone -- especially young people -- to attend the concert, he said.

Jammy Aussie's, piss poor England

After a few days of such expectation, a f**king draw!?

It's all very well celebrating getting Gilchrist out Mr Flintoff, but what about bowling out the last few Aussie's rather than complaining that you're turning your ankle on a bit of dodgy wicket?

A bowler of your calibre should be able to get shot of Shane Warne pretty quickly, was it Shane Warne or John Daly filling in for him whilst he was down at the local pub? Sorry, it wouldn't happen like that, Daly would be at the pub as well. Shit! there must be another Warne\Daly lookalike around????

I'm on holiday (again!)

Yes, it's time to take another couple of weeks away from work, they pay me to do it, so I must obey!

No plans, loads of chores to catch up on & I'm having a wall repaired, so am sure I'll end up being the labourer.

Everything is going OK, didn't win the £77m EuroMillions, but I'm over it now. I do have to ask myself, what would I do with all that money anyway!? Feck, I'll bloody spend it like that!!!! Aston Martin, Rolex, Taittinger et al would all benefit from my outlandish spending, oh and I would also build a hospital as well (honest!)

Review of D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player

Recent purchase of this Digital Media Player from eXpansys has prompted this review by me.....

I wanted a system that would enable me to play my iTunes collection and maybe some video in another room in the house, my PC has an amplifier & Bose speakers in my study & I have the Bose Sounddock in another room, so the idea of buying another Sounddock for another room didn't appeal - however, see my suggestion later....

Not the most expensive on the market, but not cheap either coming in at £155.95, other choices are the Elgato EyeHome Wireless Edition (£209.00 from AppleStore UK) or the Roku Soundbridge M2000 Network Music Player (£330 from Roku Direct) or the wonderful, but truely amazingly priced Sonos (£949 from Sonos Direct - it does make music available in 2 rooms for this price, but one room is where your PC is located) see links in July 15th post.

The D-Link was easy to install & setup, the signal range isn't brilliant, but you can buy a high gain aerial that helps, I hope that my new D-Link DSL-G604T with additional antenna helps as well - I will review the D-Link DSL-G604T next week.

The menu systems are easy to navigate, they are however not very quick.

My biggest problem is having to nominate every single folder on your PC that you want to make available to the Media Player. You should be able to identify just the folder - such as iTunes Music & every sub folder should (in my opinion) be read & made available automatically, but it doesn't. If you have as many folder as I do in my iTunes directory you will give up very quickly - I did.

My suggestion - if you're only after a means to play your iTunes collection in a number of rooms - buy a Bose Sounddock for every room & take your iPod with you from room to room. They are small, neat and have brilliant sound built in with no need for additional speakers. It might sound like an expensive solution, but compare prices with the Elgato, Roku or Sonos & it isn't.

If you have a specialist Hi-Fi setup & want to use that, then on their own review alone go buy the Roku. I might yet still go & get a Roku M2000 & hook it up to my Cinema Surround Sound on the TV & use my D-Link somewhere else, if the range is OK, maybe the Summer House TV could be hooked up.....

Some recipes for you.....

I have for a while now been researching (honest!) recipes for the best Margarita. Having recently taken to cooking Mexican food, this is the perfect liquid accompaniment....

Juice of 2 Limes
3 Measures Tequila (White, not that Gold shit that addles your brain faster than anything!)
1 Measure Cointreau or Triple Sec
2 Teaspoons castor sugar
Pint of ice cubes

Place everything into a blender & blitz for about a minute. Pour into suitable Margarita glasses (yes, plural as it does serve 2!!!) I don't bother with the salt round the rim of the glass crap.

Update : Whilst chatting the other day to my good friend & fellow alcohol connoisseur Aled Roberts, he commented that you can also add a shot of Midori Melon Liqueur to this recipe to make it a "Midori Margarita" - well done Aled, have a banana & make it a taste of a different fruit.

I have also taken the glut of cheap English strawberries & made several of these wonderful Strawberry Daiquiri's....

1 Punnet of Strawberries (I put mine through a juicer to get rid of the seeds, but if you don't have one pass them through a fine sieve)
Juice of 1/2 Lime
2 teaspoons Castor Sugar
3 Measures Bacardi White Rum
Dash of Strawberry Liqueur (if you have some, if not use Cointreau)
Pint of Ice Cubes

Yet again, place everything into a blender & blitz for about a minute. It serves 2 again.

Enjoy (in moderation is best, as one too many can hurt later!)

A truely amazing human feat....

To win the Tour de France once requires supreme commitment, physical capacity, mental strength & a little bit of luck.

To be a multiple winner makes history, to win the event 7 times in a row is history that I think will never be repeated.

Lance Armstrong has overcome all the normal things that would get in the way of the dedication required to win this race, he has also overcome an illness that most people sadly succumb to.

I rarely (in fact never before) have used the term "inspirational" about anyone - but this man is a true inspiration. Whenever I have seen him being interviewed he is always respectful, thoughtful & comes across as genuine & humble guy.

Read more here http://www.lancearmstrong.com/ if you want to make a donation to his charity, have a look here http://www.livestrong.org

Just when you recommend someone...

They let you down.

I may have to re-do my Hall of Fame\Hall of Shame, just when I had held the bright light of Fame to eXpansys, they fail to deliver.

I ordered a truck load of techno-goodies last week, nearly all the items were in stock, only 2 were out of stock with an estimated delivery to them of 2 days. I opted that they wait for all items to be in stock before shipping. So, I thought they would reserve my items & ship when all were ready & available, probably 2 or so days later.

No! They wait & wait, now only 2 items are in stock & the iPod I ordered is expected in 8 days time!!!!! A phone beating awaits them Monday AM.

Update : Monday AM phone beating resulted in them suddenly finding stock of 7 of my 9 ordered items, a part shipment for free (they waived the £2 surcharge).

Update Update : Part shipment arrived yesterday (Tuesday), now the TechFest of installing everything can commence! Should I read the manuals or not?????

Slight modification to template...

I have added a counter to the main page so that I can see how many people visit here. What I thought would be a painful process, is actually very easy. See http://www.bravenet.com/ for details.

Do you get speed that you pay for?

I have had several issues with my ISP (ntl:) over the years, from billing to outage to dodgy modems.

When things got a bit too much (I was seriously pissed off that they had lost a payment & tried to charge me interest!) I threatened to cancel all of my services with ntl: & go buy Sky for my TV & get BT to provide me with broadband.

In the end I accepted their apologies & a free upgrade to the 2Mbps Broadband service for a year.

Since then I have been wondering whether they had ever remembered, they hadn't changed my billing, so had they reverted my service back down a notch?

I went in search of means to test the speed of my connection & came up with this. A simple, yet useful way of measuring your service level against what you pay for from ADSLGuide.org.uk, I know that there are other such tools out there that do the same thing & choddo.com has written his own app. But, I like the fact that this one will also feed your results & responses back to your ISP.

The results are in - Downstream 1816Kbps, well within the 10% expectation of 1920Kbps (2Mbps). Upstream a lousy 186Kbps, again, as expected.

ntl: now offer a 3Mbps service, but it's a bit more expensive. Another argument with them I think about competitive providers may be on the cards as a means to get another free upgrade?

Upgrade for ADSL Modem\Router

ntl: supply me with a broadband connection, at the outset they supplied a Terayon ADSL Modem to which I added a Belkin Wireless Router. Of late one or both have been playing up, meaning a quick unplug & re-connection to reset is required, not a great hardship, but still very annoying.

I have been thinking of upgrading to a one unit solution, the D-Link DSL-G604T Wireless ADSL Router. I think from reading the blurb that this will do the job of both my current pieces of kit (any comments\knowledge or instruction gratefully received).

I know that some of you out there have recently gone for the D-Link DGL-4300, but that doesn't do the modem stuff(?), I'm not a gamer & don't host anything here.

I've also just seen the D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player. It looks interesting, but doesn't claim native iTunes support as the Roku SoundBridge M2000 Network Music Player does. Anyone know about these things? Might this be a cheaper alternative to the Sonos mentioned in earlier posts.

Update : Looks like Apple are reselling the Elgato EyeHome Wireless Edition, which will work with the iMac I have, but if the iMac has shared access to my PC with all the iTunes on that it might be worth a look as well? I have contacted Elgato Technical Support to find out what it will & won't do. Mini Update : Elgato Technical Support say "yes". A sub-directory of iTunes shared from my PC to my iMac will be available to their device - cool! Have just ordered the D-Link DSM-320, might go for the Roku & the Elgato as well as they all look pretty nice & I will use them in different rooms in the house.

Update Update : with no comment from anyone here (thanks!). Today I have ordered the D-Link DSL-G604T Wireless ADSL Router from eXpansys along with a few other goodies, including a D-Link ANT24-0700 7dBi High Gain Omni-Directional external antenna that will hopefully boost signal to all areas of my abode, the Rice estate.

Two responses to the terrorists....

Two other blogs have pointed me in the direction of these responses to the terrorists that attacked London last week.

Choddo found this on the Mayor of London website.

Tony Cocks found this on the The London News Review website.


I have to say I think the London News Review is better, but I'm sure that given free reign Ken Livingstone would have been equally direct.

Mr Livingstone has come a long way in my eyes. As I have said before, I am a Conservative middle Englishman - I vote Tory, always have, always will. [Bring back Mrs Thatcher or her incarnate is my view - everyone is entitled to a view!] Even with differing viewpoints, I agree with the Congestion charge Mr Livingstone introduced, he has clearly worked very hard to get the 2012 Olympics in London, his transport plan for London including extension of the Underground to support the East End & South East parts of London are designed to re-energise these areas.

He does have a chequered past from his spats with the Labour Party, but he is doing a good job now, his enthusiasm & passion in trying to make London the greatest capital city in the world deserves praise - even from a Tory!

Don't let the bastards get you down....

I have spoken on this blog on a few occasions about my trips to London. I have in the past thought for a long time about the jobs I have turned down in the USA & how it might have been me in the Twin Towers, or me in Central London on the tube or in a cab. I have seen first hand the havoc that terrorism can have as I have been in a couple of bomb alerts in Belfast, clearly my experience is tame compared to those who suffered yesterday.

The resiliance of the British is strong. For me, a conservative middle Englishman to have to the feelings I have now about the animals that have done what they have done in my capital city should speak volumes to anyone. I would tear the head from another so called human being for what they have done.

Extremism breeds extremism.

News from down under...

My brother left who lives in Manchester left on Saturday night on a trip to Australia to validate his residency visa, he will only be there for a week. He will then return home & sort out what he wants to do & maybe move to Sydney on a permanent basis. With this is mind I have been watching the press in Australia for a while now to get up to speed on Australia news, I found this that sort of links with a previous post....

"Rolex and crime seem to go together like Red Bull and vodka. This evening, via the Courier Mail, we learn of two Australian teenage boys who inadvertently aroused suspicion by casually counting out 6,000 $5 bills at a Denver jewelry store to pay for a $30,000 Rolex. Sensing that something might be amiss, the sales assistant asked the boys to leave, and told them she was calling the police. After later confessing to robbing a nearby bank with air pistols and photographing themselves in a McDonald's with the $170,000 they stole, the boys explained that they were attempting to convert the cash into jewelry in order to avoid suspicion."

Another Homer moment - Doh!

Sorry Mr Ports, a story of a smoker getting away with it.....

It seems hard to believe, but Italians are taking the new no-smoking law seriously, so seriously that a jeweller is down £23,000 on a Rolex watch.

A man strolled into a store in Milan's famous shopping street, Via Montenapoleone, and asked to see a few Rolexes. As he perused the glittering merchandise, he told the shop owner he only had foreign currency, but he was definitely interested.

Then, according to La Repubblica newspaper, he reached for his lighter. If it was a calculated hit, it was an exercise in minimalism.

The shop owner, conscious of the Jan. 10 smoking ban in public places, invited him to go out of the shop."Please, enjoy your cigarette outside," the newspaper reported the 53-year-old owner saying.

It was a bad call: the jeweller, at worst, could have been fined a maximum of 2,000 euro. That is, if the five police officers in Milan assigned to the anti-cigarette patrol had happened by the shop at lunchtime. The owner preferred not to take his chances with the fine and as he phoned the bank to ask about the foreign currency, the would-be customer went outside to have his smoke -- making a clean get away with the precious watch.

As Homer says "Doh!, Doh!, Doh!, Doh!, Doh!, Doh!, Doh!, Doh!"

Live 8...

My idea for the Album title - "Probably the best concert... ever!"

I really can't wait for iTunes to have all the tracks available.

Opener from McCartney & Bono was excellent, Madonna was good, Annie Lennox alone on piano was moving, The Killers were exciting, Robbie Williams was about the best, The Who were great (I really like watching Pete Townshend, bit like seeing Oliver Reed with a guitar - you just don't know what the man will do!), and as Jonathan Ross said on air, it was a privilege to see Pink Floyd playing live after so long.

Just one thing missing - Queen. It brought back memories of Live Aid 20 years ago when Freddie Mercury just stole the show. No show stealers this time round, but if Freddie were still around - I'd put my money on him.

I just hope that it helps to achieve what Geldof is trying to make happen, making poverty history is one thing. Making Africa a self sustaining continent is another. Good luck to him - I hope it works.