joy of Vodafone Mobile Connect, here I sit in the departure lounge of Brussels Airport waiting for my flight back home to Manchester. I can’t say I’m sorry, really. An interesting observation – rain and howling winds in Bruges is considered “atmospheric”, whilst in Manchester it’s considered “fookin’ typical” (in the local parlance). Isn’t it strange how context can make such a difference?

Another interesting thing I saw on the Belgian Trains was a sign that said “Respect is mutual, that’s class”. I do like this and think it says a lot without saying much, if you know what I mean. I get the impression the flight home will be sparsely populated – I’ve only seen three or four people so far sat next to the gate (myself included), so that’s going to be a little strange.

I never did get to watch more Prison Break last night. The DVD I had it on was scratched to buggery and would not play. Instead I watched the 40 Year Old Virgin on British TV (yet another reason to like the Hotel Navarra!). I didn’t get to see it all, but what I did see was piss funny, especially the chest waxing scene and the stuff he says to the Chinese woman doing it. Really must see this movie in it’s entirety when I get home.

Other than that, not much to report. I was given an external USB Western Digital Passport hard drive from the conference. It’s really sleek, and makes transporting big files to and from work a whole lot easier. Kudos indeed to Erno and Paul of GroupWiseR, they organised a superb event. I have to remark that Paul reminds me a little of Yosser Hughes – maybe it’s the ‘tache!

The news on the dog is better today, hopefully tomorrow’s X Ray will reveal less than the worst, as she seems to be much perkier now the anti biotics have kicked in. Who knows, maybe we will get the miracle we’re due?

Bon Voyage from Brussels for the last time!

at Bruges is coming to an end. It’s been an interesting experience, and I wouldn’t swap it for the world (I’m privileged to be here) but I’m glad to be going home. I suppose the main reason for this is that my dog probably won’t make it over the weekend. Whilst to most that sounds totally trivial, to anyone that has had a dog that long, it’s a heart breaker.

Lou has been with us since we bought the house, seen us get married, have kids that grew to love her lazy traits and crapping on their football pitch. I keep telling myself that she has had a wonderful life, lots of love and affection, piece and quiet when she’s wanted it, a regular meal and only the occasional bath. This does not in any way lighten the pain we all feel today.

The chances are high she has an inoperable tumour, though we are hoping for a miracle. She goes in on Friday morning, which means I have about an hour with her before in all likelihood she goes to sleep for the final time. My folks are just as upset as we are, as she has become an intrensic part of their life too, for so many years now. We affectionately call it “dog share”, but it’s so much more than that.

She has been hit by a car and survived, eaten a manky chicken carcass and survived, survived mithering by the boys and others and like most mongrels, the end comes quite quickly. I know I’m writing this and she’s still around with a small chance, but as we say, she needs snookers I think.

The worst part of being away is that I cannot help with the burden at home, and even if I could, it wouldn’t change anything. If I knew on Sunday what I know today, without a doubt I would have stayed at home. As nice as Bruges is, it’s not worth this.

I notice I mentioned in my previous post that the Travelodge at Binfield is grim. Well it still is. The bad was reasonably comfortable, but the place has the atmosphere of the moon. Compare this with the Hotel Navarra, where I have been staying this week, and the comparison could not be more stark.

The Travelodge has no internet. It has no restaurant. It has no gym, or swimming pol or sauna. It has no bar. It has no TV to speak of (no Channel 5 even!). It has no minibar. It has nothing. Travelodge says you shouldn’t pay for stuff you don’t need, but the Navarra manages it for not so much more than you charge. I hate the place and hope I never have to go back. The Hilton ain’t perfect, but it’s better than the Travelodge. With the greatest respect to Bracknellers, your town took a wrong turn somewhere early in the 1990’s.

Some more Prison Break I think (which I’m really getting in to), then bed, then off to the airport in the morning.

Bon Voyage!

embark on a very busy couple of weeks. Tomorrow, the Emirates Stadium. Not sure how sitting in amongst the Arsenal faithful will work, but hey. If we lose 5-0, I guess it won’t matter. They are missing a few stars (Hleb, Fabregas, Gilberto) but will still roll us over.

Next week is Bracknell, and the depressing hell hole that is the Travelodge at Binfield. If you’ve stayed there, you’ll know what I mean. Grim. Hopefully they’ve renovated since I last went, but it’s still close enough to a secluded woodland if you get overcome by suicidal tendencies.

Sunday is Bruges. Looking forward to this, but it’s a week of hands on GroupWise. Should be good fun, plus there will be folks there I will know. It will be nice to have a change of scenery and some fresh air, feel like I’ve been lashed to this desk the last few weeks.

Bon Voyage!

so long since I last blogged, I hadn’t realised. Thoughts are now straying to the GroupWise Summit, coming up at the beginning of December. I don’t like flying at the best of times, but it’s the most dignity stripping way to travel – have you packed this bag yourself? (No!) – any Kalashnikovs in your hand luggage? (Yes! Shit yes!). I would have loved Eurostar from St Pancras, but it’s simply not practical from Manchester. To get there for Sunday night, I’d have to set off on Friday (probably).

I have submitted two sessions for BrainShare ’08, now to get my employers to pay for it. This is turning out to be so much harder than I expected, especially owing to exceptional circumstances which aren’t to do with me, but affect the outcome none the less. I have a Plan B in case needs must – hopefully I won’t need it.

Off to the Emirates Stadium this Saturday, though we’re sitting the Arsenal bit. Not that I mind, they’re the best team in Europe to watch when they are in the mood – there is no shame in being beaten by these artisans. Hopefully, Bendy Nose Bruce can fashion us a point, I’d be delighted with that!

The shit that Apple can get away with. They bring out the iPod nano, and clever folks reverse engineer and kludge their way to a user friendly way that a Linux or iTunes hating person (and I’m both – latterly it’s the worst piece of application software I’ve ever had the misfortune to experience) can get their songs onto the device.

Apple then come along and provide device firmware (and also iTunes) updates to render the device then incapable of speaking to the software that holds your vast library of tunes. The clever folks respond in kind in a quick manner by again reverse engineering a fix. Apple then bring out new iPods. Better screen! Better battery! Better shit! In fact they’ve put more roadblocks in to the device and iTunes, so that you are locked into what they give you and not what you, the customer, prefers to use.

Now we have the case of the iPhone. I can take or leave this device (more likely the latter), but the fact remains that here in the UK, it’s been calculated by someone with more fingers and toes than I that this device will cost you north of £900 over the two year O2 contract. Any sane person realises this is a super shit deal, but with Apple having something of a cool image, they will of course sell by the truckload.

I’m wandering off point, so I’ll get to it now. My point is that again the clever people spend days, nights and weekends reverse engineering this device so that the consumer has a choice of which network they want to use, how much they want to pay and where to buy it from (eBay being the obvious home of something of this nature). Apple have caught wind of this, and owing to the screams of their “trusted partners” (see corrupt bedfellows) and the severe loss of revenue, they threaten buyers with bricked phones once updates come out. To anyone thinking of buying an unlocked phone, this scare tactic works. The obvious mitigation is never to update the handset software, but this is hardly desirable.

On top of this, the phone is a highly restricted and proprietary environment. Most interested third parties are told to shove off, and anyone making home brew applications is again threatened with extinction with phone updates. It makes one wonder if these phone updates are little more than barely disguised rogue software exterminators.

In conclusion, Microsoft are (rightly) taken to the cleaners for their use of proprietary protocols and file formats, and their anti-competitive and immoral business practices. However, this does not lend itself to Apple, which has cultivated itself an image as the epitome of cool. In some regards, Sony is guilty of the same thing. They wouldn’t know an open standard if they fell over one. Blu Ray and Memory Sticks are just two examples of them creating their own specification when another one would do.

Let’s start going after the behemoths who put their stockholders before consumer choice – and this comes from one who owns an iPod nano, Sony PSP and PS3. They wonder why hackers target them, when the corporates leave little choice.

amazing that I’ve managed to get into my thirties before I’ve sustained my first ever fracture. I had a hairline fracture of my foot about 15 years ago, but I don’t count that. On Saturday, I was grading for my karate green belt. I’ve been full of a cold for a week or so, and wasn’t feeling great to start with, but the good thing about karate is once it starts, generally you focus so much you tend to forget about bumps and bruises and aches and pains.

Anyway, we got all the way through the two hours without any major incident. Right at the end, the instructor thought it would be a good idea to have some 2 on 1 full contact sparring. I have no real issue with this, but the fact remains we only had mitts on – no leg pads, no mouthguard, no abdominal guard. To cut a long story short, I whizzed a side kick out at one of my assailants and he blocked it. No big deal, except when we stopped and I sat down, the adrenalin wore off. My foot was swelled and my little toe was enormous compared to the other one.

I finally went to A&E on Sunday, and managed to time it just right in that from being checked in to being triaged to being X-rayed to being seen and then discharged must have taken no longer than 30 minutes. The bottom line is I have a double fracture and I have to stay off it for a few weeks. Went back again today to see the specialist and I’ve been signed off for three weeks.

This means many things, but mainly :-

– I’ll go mad, I can’t do sitting still

– I’m pissed off that we only wore mitts for full contact sparring – that’s just asking for trouble

– Next week was supposed to be a holiday, that’s up in smoke, I can’t go anywhere on those crutches.

The kids are still off school and can’t understand really why I can’t do anything with them. It’s difficult, I’m supposed to rest up, but can’t. I have a very low boredom threshold and want to be doing something useful with my time. Maybe I’ll grab my camera and see what I can snap in and around the house.

at the moment….

– Dell and Lenovo are to ship notebooks with Linux pre-loaded. Welcome to the party!

– SCO lose the court case with Novell over the IP rights on Linux. Goodbye, SCO.

– It is reckoned that we are sitting on a “disciplinary timebomb” with boys at school. Hence the reason to try and employ more male teachers, who are more likely to be the dominant figure in the classroom. Soapbox time – get all the men you want, but let them teach with both hands in front as it were, not with one hand tied behind their backs. Don’t allow ridiculous claims for litigation from stupid parents and be clear from the off on how pupils will be taught. Firm but fair, problem solved!

– Wigan lose the first match of the season. Ah well, it’s a marathon not a sprint.

Now playing on Banshee – “Hey You, The Rock Steady Crew” – a classic!

democracy works in the United Kingdom. Instead of multi-page (or multi-box) petitions being delivered to Downing Street signed by Disaffected of Gloucester, we now have the ability to add our digital Lewinsky to petitions on the PM’s own website. Wowsers. What this means is that should the said petition get enough oxygen of publicity, the PM might say something. See for example the petition on road charging. Tony Blair (not sad to see the back of this celebrity wannabee liar, warmonger and lover of cronyism) turns around and says “thanks 2m people who signed this, but we’re going to do it anyway” (or words to that effect).

There was a time when elected officials formed a government of the people, for the people and by the people. Over time, this has become eroded to the point at which it’s become an unseemly struggle to climb the greasy pole to the top. Much is made over here of politicians who scoot a bit of Charlie or have a drunken orgy with some tarts. I myself could not care less. A PM could shag his way around Nuneaton on a Saturday night, but if he said that we couldn’t go to war with Iraq without a clear mandate, well that’s OK with me. I suspect most of the electorate feel this way – this is backed up by a recent vox pop based on the revelation by several members of Gordon Brown’s cabinet that they did a bit of puff at University. The reaction? So what – this was 20 years ago or more. In Alistair Darling’s case, he’s clearly lying to look cool. Now if he admitted dying his eyebrows, I’ll go for that.

This all leads me to the latest thing – congestion charging. FFS. Manchester City Council are the latest elected bunch of idiots that think this is the answer to the world’s problems. The council leader Richard Leese was quoted in 2005 as saying charging would be “disastrous” (or something equally as negative), now he’s all for it and thinks it’s the dogs bollocks. Great!

OK, so we’re all out of our cars because we’ve decided petrol is too expensive. Oh, and car insurance has rocketed because of “where there is blame, there’s a claim” merchants. Did I mention road tax? There’s that as well. Now the CC. So we’re out of our cars. Those close by could bus it or get on a bike. Then again, ah, the train! Oh no, we can’t do that because they’re full or we can’t afford it because fares keep rising than inflation can catch them. So we stay at home, spend bugger all money (even the Trafford Centre is inside the CC zone, they’re delighted!) and then over time, businesses leave (several major car dealerships already have plans in hand), customers follow them.

Then city dwellers leave, then shops close. As the tumbleweed rolls across the city because no-one can afford to leave the house any more, the city council say “well it isn’t the congestion charge”. Remember, to steal a cliche, “doing nothing is not an option”.

What a bunch of tits. Show me good, reliable, accessible and clean public transport, and we wouldn’t need cars so much, but stop punishing drivers.

extremely sobering thought just hit me (no, not the one about no-one reads this blog. Maybe they will if I die young in a terrible fireball?). That is that doing technical support for an 8 and 3 year old is terrifying stuff. I can do it all day every day at work, the chirp of the phone – the expectancy of the person on the other end that you know the answer to their problem off the top of your head. With kids it’s very different as they expect their parents to know everything. I suppose it’s a natural assumption, I was the same way. In much the same way as you think your parents will be there forever and never age, never get old.

I think the reason it’s so tough is that you can reason with adults, you can spin them a load of old bollocks should the need arise (not that I’m saying I do that a lot, I’d like to think I have a reputation for bare faced honesty) and you can also talk them through some quite complex problems. Kids don’t have that level of understanding, so it’s tough. Oh, and did I mention they want their fix in seconds, not minutes? Frustrating and very tiring, after a whole day arsing about with LVM and iSCSI on SLES10. Help me if you understand it!

Elsewhere, copious column inches and paper ink have been wasted on the current “terrorist” malarkey here in the UK. I’m most pissed off as I’m flying to London in a couple of weeks, and those who know me already know I despise flying at the best of times (I used to hate heights, now it’s just the loss of dignity and liberty as one goes through passport control and security check). Added to this now is all the faux security measures designed to strip away our layers of liberty, one piece at a time. From that perspective, the “terrorists” surely have the game won. The only way to win a battle of this nature is not to blink.

ravings :-

– Barry George gets to appeal one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history, as does

– Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi

– Gordon Brown makes it into Number 10. Don’t expect anything earth shattering, people. This is the man who voted for the Iraq invasion, raided pension funds, taxes like there is no tomorrow and does nothing to address the West Lothian Question.

And what else? Well I’ve been playing with LVM and EVMS. I can’t find a great deal of useful information on the Internet, so I’ve ordered a couple of books.