Doodle Graphics

Not one, but two items of web 2.0 goodness this week:

1. The Albums are now all PicLens enabled - go view in shinyness.
2. Wordle can make some pretty pictures:
   

Have fun.

Filed under: Personal

As promised yesterday, the pictures are now online, and can be found here: Samuel William's First Day

Filed under: Personal

And there was much rejoicing! Samuel William was born at 21:35 on 17 October 2007, weighing 7lbs 10oz. Mother and baby doing well, pictures to follow - I'm off to bed.

Filed under: Personal

Well, as many other people have pointed out, you can import your blog into facebook as notes - it's quite clever an puts them all in the right place based on date.

Last time I tried this, I ended up with duplicate notes when I wrote a new blog post, so this is mostly to prove that it does that, or that something's changed and facebook no longer duplicates them.

I think it might be something to do with the fact that I'm not using a permalink as the posting guid, but the id (GUID) of the posting in the database, but who knows.

Anyone else having the same problem? Let me know.

Filed under: Personal

And not just the facebook one.

I mean, come on, I fit the requirements - I have broadband, that supposedly runs fairly close to 8Meg, I've got IE installed somewhere, and I have Windows XP still - I know, luddite.

So, I missed Tribe last night, and a quick scan of the EPG on my freeview box implied that it wasn't repeated - I'd not looked that hard, it is repeated at 12:10am on Sunday.

I finally get around to checking out the iPlayer site that I got a login for last month, find the episode of Tribe I'm after, and click Download. No, wait, click Install, and then come back, and click Download. No, wait, register again with a new user name and password that I choose, even though I still need to use the rubbish one they supplied to get to the listings.

I finally start downloading Tribe... 800+Meg. Now, from other sites I can easily pull down 1G in about an hour or so, so I think this shouldn't be a major headache...

Oh, should I mention I'll only have 5 days to view this?

While I wait, we watch last weeks episode of Heros on the Freeview box, no time limits to when I can watch that, I just watch it.

Go back 60 minutes later, and we're at 100Meg downloaded - I was expecting atleast half of it. Meh. Whatever. I've set the freeview box to record it on Sunday morning, and I'll watch it on the sofa in the lounge.

Ben removed the BBC iPlayer application and Kontiki P2P service.

Filed under: Personal

Wow, how time flies, and how technology improves...

Only two and half years ago, the best we could really hope for for Zachary's scans where this:

We've just had a twenty week scan of our new baby, and got a "4D" scan - these were being touted at the Baby Show's we went to before Zach was born, for at least £150:

Anyway, it's all very exciting, and we're looking forward to October .

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Neil asked his readers to do a small favour for him, so here it is. He's been doing some work with Penn Jillette (of "Penn and Teller" fame, among others)...

Filed under: Personal

A rather belated entry into the rather excellent Great CodeBetter Eight-Week Fall Book Giveaway. Chance of free books, go get

Filed under: Personal

So, my rubbish telephone/broadband provider are really taking the biscuit this time aren't they? How's this for a tale of woe and depression:

On 20 July, I inform them that I'm moving house on the 29 July, and wish to take my phone and broadband service with me, and while we're at it, let's switch to their Total Broadband Option 3 - the one they've been advertising on the telly recently.

We move in, quite smoothly, recommend Matthew James Removals - very efficient.

It's Saturday and we still seem to have the old number on the phone. The homehub turns up however, I call BT, and find out that it's not being cut off until later that day, and our new number won't be in place until Monday.

Monday comes (31 July), eventually the phone is connected, but no broadband - might not be activated until 20:00 on the day the phone's activated. 21:00, still no broadband - raise a support call.

Over the next two weeks I make various calls chasing up the status of my broadband service, it gets passed to "Delayed Provisions", and eventually I get a call to say it's been activated on 11 August - "Finally!" I think. Then my wife calls to say that there's no phone line… BT offer a "free" redirection service - it's in quotes because they have gone an charged me for the redirections they made!

So, a crossed line from 11 August until 15 August, then, seeming bliss - phone and internet together - "Hurrah!".

My elation was short lived. On Thursday 17 August, the broadband dropped out again. For another two weeks.

I finally had a broadband connection on 5 September - however BT have been charging me for it since 11 August, and then today, I find that I appear to have lost my phone line again, although curiously, not my broadband service - however I can't call BT's help lines from my broadband phone…

I've therefore had to take the unprecedented step of canceling my direct debit mandate until such time as they issue me with a bill that actually represents the service I have (or rather have not) received from them.

Filed under: Personal

So, I wasn't impressed with the fact that ITV decided to cut to an advert break 3 laps before the end of the Grand Prix on Sunday - I guess quite a few people weren't! Anyway, in my new role as "a complainer" I filled in the contact form on their web site to complain about it, and I admit, accused them of abusing their monopoly of the UK terrestrial rights to the Grand Prix.

Well, I actually got a response!
 

ITV would like to apologise for cutting to a break at the climax of yesterday's Grand Prix and we are sorry that it affected your enjoyment of the race.

As you are probably aware, we always try to cut to adverts during the least contentious parts of the action and update viewers with anything they may have missed as soon as possible after the commercials.

ITV is contractually obliged to include a certain number of adverts during the race - we are a commercial channel and Formula One is a commercial sport.

On Sunday, the race was very exciting throughout and it was a tough call as to when to cut to adverts - for example, we didn't want to interrupt the race when Jensen Button was in the lead. Our production team make these decisions and have done so since we started F1 coverage in 1997, by and large they get it right.

In the event we delayed taking the break until the last moment but had to do so with three laps to go. Yesterday's race was a particularly difficult one to call as Michael Schumacher caught Fernando Alonso so spectacularly. It appeared that he would take the lead at any moment and we were reluctant to cut away from the action.

Unfortunately, the pass moment never came and we were forced to take the scheduled break too close to the finish. Coverage returned for the final lap to see Schumacher and Alonso battling for the lead. We know it is of little consolation but their positions didn't change hands during the advert break and we screened the final three laps in their entirety after the race finished.

Nonetheless, we are well aware that the timing of this advert upset many viewers and can only apologise to you again.

Whilst the strategy for cutting to adverts is not an exact science, we will do our utmost to ensure that this scenario does not happen again in future and your comments have been passed on to the production team plus the Controller of ITV Sport.

Thank you for writing in to us.

From the Duty Office, ITV

Although I'd take issue with the fact that the advertisers would have appreciated it - I know I was too incensed to pay attention to the adverts in that break, and would have been perfectly happy for them to cut just after Alonso had crossed the line…

Unsurprisingly, at the time, the main ITV-F1 website was unavailable.

Filed under: Personal