It's like Gav knew that we were going to be going to the 80s bar and he dressed appropriately!
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The EduGeek giant and his wine
Thursday, May 07, 2009
More Success at The Windmill Quiz
Whilst I'm waiting in the pub for Chris I thought I'd blog about Tuesday's quiz...
This week the team comprised four and the questions were a lot easier than last week - last week was particularly difficult!
Although we almost came joint first (a re-count was called) we ended up second by one point :-( All was not lost though as this achievment won us a round of drinks :-)
All in all not bad then, eh?!?
This week the team comprised four and the questions were a lot easier than last week - last week was particularly difficult!
Although we almost came joint first (a re-count was called) we ended up second by one point :-( All was not lost though as this achievment won us a round of drinks :-)
All in all not bad then, eh?!?
Friday, May 01, 2009
So Tom had chicken
Eating out for Dad's birthday
After getting lost we're all here now but we aren' allowed to sit down and eat because there's no tables (see picture!)
Anyway... Only another 30 mins to wait.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Blogtastic Birthday Gift
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Picasa and Picasa Web Albums
I decided last night (whilst we performed miserably in the pub quiz) that I would post a few of my photographs to the web for all to admire.
The easiest way to do this was to use Picasa (which I already use to organise my pictures) which allows easy upload to Picasa Web Albums. After a few clicks, the job was done.
I've even added a couple of albums on the right hand side for you to enjoy if you can't be bothered bowsing all the way to http://picasaweb.google.com/ric.charlton.
The easiest way to do this was to use Picasa (which I already use to organise my pictures) which allows easy upload to Picasa Web Albums. After a few clicks, the job was done.
I've even added a couple of albums on the right hand side for you to enjoy if you can't be bothered bowsing all the way to http://picasaweb.google.com/ric.charlton.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Quizzing
Well the quiz team returned from their holidays last week and we resumed our greatness on Tuesday!
The picture round was easier than usual for us - all Disney characters ;-)
Anyways... we won! Not bad eh? 61 points! So a free round of drinks was ours.
Now we just need to win the higher and lower game... it's up to about £150 now :-)
The picture round was easier than usual for us - all Disney characters ;-)
Anyways... we won! Not bad eh? 61 points! So a free round of drinks was ours.
Now we just need to win the higher and lower game... it's up to about £150 now :-)
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Finally!
Tom, my brother, has finally found himself a job.. It's taken ages!!!
He's going to be an environment officer working for the Environment Agency in Penrith on a decent salary too.
He's going to be an environment officer working for the Environment Agency in Penrith on a decent salary too.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Playing with HDR
I've seen a few examples of HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography lately and it looked pretty wicked... so I thought I'd have a bash.
I found a tutorial on Instructables that explained the process using the GIMP. This was the result using photos of some snowdrops in the dark.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Touching the music
As some might be aware, my local recently closed - we're still not 100% sure why. For this reason, I've had to find another and I had a choice of two - The Windill Tavern near Clifton and The Hand and Dagger near Treales. I chose the Windmill because it's easier to get to while the weather is a bit rubbish.
The Windmill is about a mile from my house and it takes me roughly 15 minutes to walk there :-( This is about 14.5 minutes longer than it took to get to the club!
To make my walk slightly more bearable, I decided I would listen to some music. The obvious choice was to use my phone. I have a 1GB microSD card which I chuck a load of albums onto in MP3 and WMA format. The sound quality is OK. The only problem was that the earphones that come with the Touch Pro are pathetic to say the least. If you imagine a pair of headphones without the headband, you wouldn't be far off the earphones - they're huge and don't even fit in my ears!!!
The Toouch Pro only has a slightly mangled mini-USB connector or everything to plug in to so the first thing I needed was an adapter. Flea-bay to the rescue and £2.50 (inc. postage) later and I could now plug a 3.5mm jack into my phone. Bargain!
Then to choose the earphones. Only one choice really... the Sennheiser CX-range. Unbelievably I managed to find a set of CX-500 earphones for a meagre £17.50 delivered (another Flea-bay bargain - new and in the box!). Considering these earphones are £60 at Richer Sounds it's amazing!
I've been using the combination of the adapter and earphones for about a week now. It's brilliant. The earphones produce excellent sound... nice and basey and excellent top too. Background noise is irradicated too - possibly not a good thing when you're walking but as long as you're careful....
The Windmill is about a mile from my house and it takes me roughly 15 minutes to walk there :-( This is about 14.5 minutes longer than it took to get to the club!
To make my walk slightly more bearable, I decided I would listen to some music. The obvious choice was to use my phone. I have a 1GB microSD card which I chuck a load of albums onto in MP3 and WMA format. The sound quality is OK. The only problem was that the earphones that come with the Touch Pro are pathetic to say the least. If you imagine a pair of headphones without the headband, you wouldn't be far off the earphones - they're huge and don't even fit in my ears!!!
The Toouch Pro only has a slightly mangled mini-USB connector or everything to plug in to so the first thing I needed was an adapter. Flea-bay to the rescue and £2.50 (inc. postage) later and I could now plug a 3.5mm jack into my phone. Bargain!
Then to choose the earphones. Only one choice really... the Sennheiser CX-range. Unbelievably I managed to find a set of CX-500 earphones for a meagre £17.50 delivered (another Flea-bay bargain - new and in the box!). Considering these earphones are £60 at Richer Sounds it's amazing!
I've been using the combination of the adapter and earphones for about a week now. It's brilliant. The earphones produce excellent sound... nice and basey and excellent top too. Background noise is irradicated too - possibly not a good thing when you're walking but as long as you're careful....
Monday, February 23, 2009
Falling into the mobile Internet trap
Lately I have been increasingly using my phone for mobile Internet goodness.... it was just getting to be a pain using my LG Secret.
I spotted a bargain-priced HTC Touch Pro on flea-bay and decided to have a punt... £250 later I had a nearly new Touch Pro with car kit and a PAYT SIM (which I have no use for).
The first thing I did was use the new Google Mobile Sync Beta to get all my contact details on my phone. This was dead easy and my phone was soon set up to sync the contacts and calendar!
Next came email... very important! Again, this was super easy to setup and I was soon sending and receiving mail.
Next for mobile blogging. I use Blogger (another great Google App!) and decided to use the Mail2Blogger function rather than the 'other' way of working Blogger simply because it made the most sense to me. An example is the post of my tidy office below ;-)
The next thing I needed was an IM client but I needed it to be compatible with XMPP (for the EduGeek.net chat server) and MSN. Ideally I wanted Pidgin for Windows Mobile but this doesn't exist :'( After some Googling and seeing some rubbish apps, I stumbled across Palringo which seems to do the trick quite nicely. My only criticism is the random noise it makes when it receives a message - although this is probably configurable if I really looked into it!
Finally... a few important favourites for Opera Mobile... my work email uses Zimbra which has a mobile web interface and of course EduGeek.net has a mobile interface which can be easily accessed through http://edugeek.mobi.
I spotted a bargain-priced HTC Touch Pro on flea-bay and decided to have a punt... £250 later I had a nearly new Touch Pro with car kit and a PAYT SIM (which I have no use for).
The first thing I did was use the new Google Mobile Sync Beta to get all my contact details on my phone. This was dead easy and my phone was soon set up to sync the contacts and calendar!
Next came email... very important! Again, this was super easy to setup and I was soon sending and receiving mail.
Next for mobile blogging. I use Blogger (another great Google App!) and decided to use the Mail2Blogger function rather than the 'other' way of working Blogger simply because it made the most sense to me. An example is the post of my tidy office below ;-)
The next thing I needed was an IM client but I needed it to be compatible with XMPP (for the EduGeek.net chat server) and MSN. Ideally I wanted Pidgin for Windows Mobile but this doesn't exist :'( After some Googling and seeing some rubbish apps, I stumbled across Palringo which seems to do the trick quite nicely. My only criticism is the random noise it makes when it receives a message - although this is probably configurable if I really looked into it!
Finally... a few important favourites for Opera Mobile... my work email uses Zimbra which has a mobile web interface and of course EduGeek.net has a mobile interface which can be easily accessed through http://edugeek.mobi.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Wii Fun on New Year's Day
Lots of fun was had with the Wii on New Year's Day... the Raki (ridiculuous Turkish vewrsion of Ouzo) definitely gave an incentive to do well (with the losers having the opportunity to down a shot!).
We had the Salwick Club Bouncer...
Some hoola-hoop fun...
And don't forget the ski jumping...
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Guitar Hero World Tour
I've neve played Guitar Hero before, but tmy brother ended up with a copy of Guitar Hero World Tour for Christmas and I decided to have a go.
How addictive is that game? OMG... 3 hours I must have played for!!!
Some of the music is pretty amazing which helps matters but I have beaten the fingers on my left hand into submission and my left-middle finger had a bruise on the end! :'(
How addictive is that game? OMG... 3 hours I must have played for!!!
Some of the music is pretty amazing which helps matters but I have beaten the fingers on my left hand into submission and my left-middle finger had a bruise on the end! :'(
Monday, December 22, 2008
Finding Fiji
I managed to find a download of Fiji (aka the Microsoft Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 - or whatever it is called this week!). Why did I go looking for this?
Without this pack, Vista Media Center doesn't 'do' interactive ('Red Button') content on digital channels and this is a feature I happened to want at the time so that I could watch the snooker. Associated with this is teletext support.
I'm not sure if the other features will be of much use (different file format for TV recordings and DVB-S support) but the updated guide looks a little nicer - although they have annoying moved the clock but I'll get used to that - and it takes less clicks to set up the tuners.
Without this pack, Vista Media Center doesn't 'do' interactive ('Red Button') content on digital channels and this is a feature I happened to want at the time so that I could watch the snooker. Associated with this is teletext support.
I'm not sure if the other features will be of much use (different file format for TV recordings and DVB-S support) but the updated guide looks a little nicer - although they have annoying moved the clock but I'll get used to that - and it takes less clicks to set up the tuners.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
The Citrix XenServer 5 Upgrade
Ever since the release day of XenServer 5, I have been trying to upgrade my two hosts. This should have been a painless task taking less than an hour.
My first problem was that the documented uprade method was wrong... rather than putting a host into maintenance mode, all the VMs had to be moved to a pool member from the pool master and then the pool master had to be upgraded first.
The problem I then hit was that one of my storage repositories (SRs) would not reconnect. The full account is documented here but basically, the XenServer hosts decided that the LUN was wrong.
I have now got that fixed and it's all running smoothly. I activated the new HA features - how easy? Clickity click and it was done!
The new performance monitoring is amazing and everything seems good.
Time to virtualise some more servers I think ;-)
My first problem was that the documented uprade method was wrong... rather than putting a host into maintenance mode, all the VMs had to be moved to a pool member from the pool master and then the pool master had to be upgraded first.
The problem I then hit was that one of my storage repositories (SRs) would not reconnect. The full account is documented here but basically, the XenServer hosts decided that the LUN was wrong.
I have now got that fixed and it's all running smoothly. I activated the new HA features - how easy? Clickity click and it was done!
The new performance monitoring is amazing and everything seems good.
Time to virtualise some more servers I think ;-)
Monday, November 17, 2008
Jinnette on Fonejacker
So Jinnette, the old deputy steward of Salwick Club was on Fonejacker the other night. Rather funny, even if they did chop it down by about 25 minutes!
For some reason Chennel 4 won't let me embed the vid so you will have to follow the link instead... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xLID8JQaEzU
For some reason Chennel 4 won't let me embed the vid so you will have to follow the link instead... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xLID8JQaEzU
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The EduGeek marketing trip
On Tuesday I embarked on a trip for EduGeek with the aim of drumming up a little sponsorship for BETT 2009.
The trip began by travelling down to Brockenhurst in the New Forest to visit Navaho (the makers of the excellent Mediacat digital signage solution).
The hotel that Navaho booked me into was called The Watersplash... it should have been called Fawlty Towers... it was AMAZING. I was greeted by a lovely french girl who spoke english OK but really struggled to understand english. When she showed me to my room she was extremely apologetic about the single cobweb that she had missed cleaning earlier and the proceeded to try and grab it - however she struggled since she was rather short!
I then went down to the bar for a drink... where I couldn't pay because the french lass didn't have a key for the till (I did pay the next day!). A couple (I believe the only other guests at that point) came down for their evening meal. A table had been set in the corner and in typical Fawlty Towers style the couple complained that it was a bit chilly in front of the window... the girl simply smiled, agreed and laughed. After a few seconds she realised that the couple wasn't too amused and asked, "what is chilly?" and they explained that they were a bit cold. "Not a problem!" she exclaimed... and proceeded to drag the table nearer to the fire!!! You couldn't teach it!
Anyway... James and Chris then appeared and we went out for a nice curry followed by a couple of pints in a local pub. The genius that is the New Forest meant that on my way back from the pub I had to walk through a small heard of cattle with disturbingly large horns!
The next day I had another chat with the lovely french girl - she probably still has no idea what I said - and a nice breakfast. I checked out of the hotel and drove 1 minute down the road to the Navaho offices where we had an extremely productive meeting discussing how we could help each other at BETT and how I was using the Mediacat in a school environment.
After the Navaho meeting I did the trek to Reading where I met up with Mandy and Nathan from Westwood Associates for lunch followed by a trip to an academy in Reading for a brief meeting about how we could help each other at BETT. Again, quite productive.
Then the epic trip home to try and get back for snooker in the evening... it didn't happen :-(
The trip began by travelling down to Brockenhurst in the New Forest to visit Navaho (the makers of the excellent Mediacat digital signage solution).
The hotel that Navaho booked me into was called The Watersplash... it should have been called Fawlty Towers... it was AMAZING. I was greeted by a lovely french girl who spoke english OK but really struggled to understand english. When she showed me to my room she was extremely apologetic about the single cobweb that she had missed cleaning earlier and the proceeded to try and grab it - however she struggled since she was rather short!
I then went down to the bar for a drink... where I couldn't pay because the french lass didn't have a key for the till (I did pay the next day!). A couple (I believe the only other guests at that point) came down for their evening meal. A table had been set in the corner and in typical Fawlty Towers style the couple complained that it was a bit chilly in front of the window... the girl simply smiled, agreed and laughed. After a few seconds she realised that the couple wasn't too amused and asked, "what is chilly?" and they explained that they were a bit cold. "Not a problem!" she exclaimed... and proceeded to drag the table nearer to the fire!!! You couldn't teach it!
Anyway... James and Chris then appeared and we went out for a nice curry followed by a couple of pints in a local pub. The genius that is the New Forest meant that on my way back from the pub I had to walk through a small heard of cattle with disturbingly large horns!
The next day I had another chat with the lovely french girl - she probably still has no idea what I said - and a nice breakfast. I checked out of the hotel and drove 1 minute down the road to the Navaho offices where we had an extremely productive meeting discussing how we could help each other at BETT and how I was using the Mediacat in a school environment.
After the Navaho meeting I did the trek to Reading where I met up with Mandy and Nathan from Westwood Associates for lunch followed by a trip to an academy in Reading for a brief meeting about how we could help each other at BETT. Again, quite productive.
Then the epic trip home to try and get back for snooker in the evening... it didn't happen :-(
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