Interesting trip so far. My luggage did arrive last night, after stupidly walking past the transfer area (like last year, I appear to have a blind spot here) at Chicago. The shuttle then arrived for the hotel after about 15 minutes, so I had a quick shower and then a couple of liveners at the Port O Call. By the time I retired to bed, I had no idea what day it was, let alone what time it was. I kept waking up in the night and seeing it was dark, so went back to sleep.

Went to the IMAX to see “Adrenaline Rush”, the first of many anticipated freebies this week. Very good, met up with Robin and David from Novell UK, had a bit of a chat about the state of the GUG and how we can get more people to meetings. Also met Sylvain and Marc for the first time, indirectly from the NGWList. Nice guys, hope they didn’t think I was ignorant when we went our seperate ways, but they obviously had a lot in common and I thought it best to leave them to it.

Now fully registered, after haggling over my free Novell jacket. They seem to have me registered twice, once as a paying guest and once as a speaker. I’ll milk my paid status for a couple of days and then get it revoked. I also picked up my speaker attire, much nicer than last year’s horrid slate grey effort. Nice blue shirt – that’s the spirit!

Off to the welcome reception later, hopefully get a few snaps for the album. I’ve time to kill, so may even wander down towards Trolley Square and see if it’s any good.

Decided to move away from Blogger – I never truly felt at home there for the couple of years I blogged on it, so I decided to move to WP. I feel a little closer to God as it were, as it’s more Open Source than those code bandits at Google.

Well then, odd Christmas. Broke both arms falling out of a bin (yes, really. no, wasn’t pissed), only just recovered. In fact, today was my first day back at work for five weeks. Felt strange at first, and then before I knew it, it was like I’d never been away. Machine gunned with things to do.

BrainShare is a little over a month away. The Manchester 10K is a little further away than that. Each present challenges in their own different and interesting ways. Must now figure out a way to port my old blog stuff to an archive. Chances are I can’t.

For your viewing pleasure today, “How To Speed Up Vista” from Microsoft. My first thought was “upgrade to Linux”, but they go all no-shit-Sherlock on us and tell us the following :-

• Delete programs you never use
• Limit how many programs load at startup
• Defragment your hard drive
• Clean up your hard disk
• Run fewer programs at the same time
• Turn off visual effects
• Restart regularly
• Add more memory
• Check for viruses and spyware
• Disable services you don’t need

Wow, what great insight. Head on over to The Register for the full deal.

finally see a reaction from people who want to express their common sense and value the right for free speech and above anything else, having a laugh. Shame on you, Radio 1 for deciding to censor a 20 year old song with a harmless remark in it.

Peter Tatchell, you’re a miserable, moaning, pathetic sad sack. You’re an insufferably pompous ass who serves only to antagonise people. What a waste of space you are. Be gay, no-one cares, but stop making a career of it. The UK is one of the best places for gay people to live.

we lost Lou today, sometime around 1pm. We love you and miss you, sleep well.

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.