LoneSniper

Saturday Afternoon Riots

I am not a football fan, but live very close to the football ground in our town. Last month there was a big game and the two teams just did not get on. There was a big fight between the fans at a pub around the corner before the game and the Police were expecting more trouble afterwards. Hearing there was going to be trouble in our street I charged up my video camera and also moved my car to a safer location.

From about 16.45 to 18.00 there was chaos at the bottom of our road, with fans fighting, Police charging, dogs barking and Police cars arriving. Most of the actual fighting happened around the corner, but I videoed a lot from the safety of our house.

I have edited a 10min movie together of the 'highlights'. Football Violence.wmv (39.4mb)

Fluid Movement

Parkour is art through movement and this Russian guys movement is so fluid it really is an art. Just watching the video makes me out of breath. I was never really that fit, but even during the days, or maybe a year I considered myself fit, I could never have done anything like this

Data dilemma

I dream of unlimited gprs plans and joining the ultimate connected world by being able to access email and the web from my smartphone. Unfortunately my current phone plan does not give me that. I had a form of mobile connection last year when I used an Orange Pay As You Go SIM in a Sony Ericsson 68i with its expensive gprs tariff and a bluetooth connection to my iPaq 2215. Problem was I hated Orange so moved to O2. Soon after switching carrier my 68i started to play up so I splurged out on an unlocked Orange branded SPV C500 which I always loved even with my hatred of Orange. Problem was I had not checked gprs connectivity on the O2 PAYG SIM before I bought the C500 because now I know that O2 only give you limited WAP access on PAYG and not full internet access like Orange allowed. So now my choices are to get an Orange SIM just for data access and keep my O2 for voice or upgrade to an O2 contract to get full internet. Upgrading is not really an option as I can’t afford it and if I was going to upgrade I would probably want to get the new O2 XDA Mini. I understand this is all just trivial stuff compared to life’s other problems, but mobile data access is something I have always wanted. Even if I don’t really need it.

So what would you do?

Last Day of Geek Freedom

Tonight the person who does her best to surpress my geekness returns from spending Christmas with her family. I was unable to join her as I did the last part of my CCNA (Semester 4 - WAN) course just before Christmas and the flights were then too expensive. So yesterday and today have been spent 'totally geek' and I have done some very cool things. Check out my tech site www.binarysignal.org for my experience installing OXS on my Intel P4 PC, and look out for an update later on playing with Fedora Core 4, just as long as I can get the screencasting application to work.

Best Christmas gift was a total surprise

After a few years, say 33, Christmas is not that exciting. There are no surprises as you normally always know what 'Santa' is going to bring you. But today this gift was a totaly surprise to me when it was delivered, and my best present this year. It was just a little piece of spoungy rubber, but the Channel9 Guy was the one thing I had wanted for months.

]]> Back in September I emailed and also sent a postcard to the Channel9 Team at Microsoft, in Seattle, asking for one. If you don't know, the Channel9 site is full of videos created by Robert Scoble as he tours the Microsoft complex talking to the developers and discovering all the cool things Microsoft does. I really enjoy the site, but my only problem with it is that there is just not enough spare time to watch all the video's.

My Channel9 Guy is now going to take pride of place on top of my monitor next to the 'Pointy-Haired Boss' from Dilbert.

Discover Music

From a link in a blog I read, I can't remember which, and probably got that link via another blog, I discovered a GREAT service and have been RE-discovering music. The website is www.pandora.com and was started by the Music Genome Project, who ever they are. Basically it is a streaming music service were you give it one artist or song suggestion and it creates a random playlist of similar music to your suggestion. You can create your own stations of different types of music to go back to and listen later. I have a couple of stations set while experimenting with the site and my current favourite is my 'Alison Krauss and Union Station' themed station. It is mostly bluegrass and soft folk but has a great coffee shop sound to it. If I owned a coffee shop (one of my dreams) that is the kind of music I would play.

Study, Study, Study

The second half of October and November were very busy for me, I was spending all my spare time studying. At the end of October I did the CCNA Semester 3 course and passed then November was spent revising for the CCNA Intro Exam which I did on Tuesday and passed.

]]> But it does not stop there as I now have to study for CCNA Semester 4 which is all about WAN technologies and I am taking that course from 19th 23rd December. The plan then is to take the final CCNA exam in January which will give me the full CCNA qualification and I can start thinking about doing the CCNP.

What is CCNA you ask? Well I should have explained that at the beginning, CCNA stands for Cisco Certified Network Associate and is a Cisco qualification to certify you understand the principles and technology behind networks, the equipment used in networks and how to configure the operating systems to those devices. The first semester is very theory based, but semesters 2 through 4 are mostly all hands on configuring of routers and switches. It is very interesting but can be quite difficult to understand and there is definitely lots of remember.

I am really excited about nearing the completion of my CCNA and am enjoying teaching it to.

Just missed out.

Since yesterday I had been watching the sale of some lovely SUN 72inch server racks on eBay. They were extremly cheap so I thought I would make a bid on one and then wonder were to put it later. Problem is I left placing my bid to the last minute and my darn internet connection timed out and the auction ended. Luckily the seller has more that end in 6 days. This time I won't be leaving it to the last minute to place my bid.

Martin Sargent back on the air

Martin Sargent, TechTV's funniest presenter, is back on the air or rather back on the internet. On his newly release blog site he has announced his new podcast that will start tomorrow. His blog is a wacky read so I am sure his podcast will be full of side splitting laughter which unfortunatly will make it hard to listen to when out in public.

Keep up to date with his blog here http://roughpatch.tv/ and watch out for the podcast link.

Home grown produce

'Her in doors' or really 'Her out doors' planted carrots this year and I am now enjoying a bumper harvest. Our garden is only small and more of a gardenet (like booklet) than a garden but it was big enough to grow lots of flowers and some carrots. So now when we need some vegatables for our dinner we don't go to the shop on the corner we just go down the garden and get them fresh out of the ground.

Watch Will & Grave LIVE episode on NBC.com

If you missed the LIVE episode of Will & Grace (or just don't live in the US) you can now view the show on NBC.com. Both the East Coast and West Coast versions are available.

Just go to http://www.nbc.com/nbc/Will_&_Grace/live/

Also please got to Digg.com and 'digg' the story I submitted.

New Connected Device

A few weeks ago I finally gave in to my desire and bought a new phone, a smartphone. Since last year I have been looking at the Orange SPV C500 which is a Microsoft smartphone with bluetooth and camera. It was no longer available on PAYG so I looked to eBay to find a unit.

]]> This was not the best time to become a smartphone user as upgraded handsets with Windows Mobile 5 were just around the corner but my SE T68i was playing up and if I had to get a new phone it had to be one I wanted and that was the C500.

I have the worst luck and timing when buying new technology which I will explain later but 3 or 4 days after I bought a new C500 off of eBay, Orange made the C500 available again on PAYG for 20 more then I paid from eBay.

The C500 is a connnected smartphone with browser, email client and Messenger and as I was on O2 and not Orange I had to manually enter the settings so I did some googling to find them out. None of the settings I got from various websites worked, so I called the expensive customer support number and was emailed so settings that were supposed to work even though they do not officially support the phone. Annoyingly these setting do not work either, so I have not been able to get on line which at least has saved me from a large GPRS bill.

Now for the finally and really annoying part. Before I bought the C500 I asked O2 if they planned to do their own version of the C500 and they said no they only do the larger PocketPC phone units, so imagine my annoyance at the announcement that from October O2 will be doing a Microsoft smartphone. If I had known this I would have probably waited and upgraded to a contract from PAYG to get the new phone. My only hope is once they do a smartphone I can get the correct settings and get mobile email.

The O2 XDA SP due out soon.

Update thanks to free wireless

"This blog update is brought to you by the free wireless internet access at Berlin Schonefeld airport and my wireless PocketPC"
I have just been able to download my email and update my RSS Reader ready for the flight home. Getting connected for free should be available everywhere and to all.

Missing: August

I seem to have misplaced August. Did any see it go by here? I think I heard it go past but can’t really remember. Anyway if anyone sees the month of August lying around please let me know.

I have been busy since my last post on July 25. I have discovered the joy of pie making or more importantly pie eating. I am not one to cook but I do like to eat and while on a walk in the countryside we picked some wild Blackberries and then made a pie.

Here are some pictures of long ago eaten pies.

]]> This started a whole pie making experience and we made a plum pie with plums from a friend’s garden and our last pie was a peach one. Store bought peaches but tasty neither the less.

This started a whole pie making experience and we made a plum pie with plums from a friend’s garden and our last pie was a peach one. Store bought peaches but tasty neither the less.

Our first Blackberry pie
My super Peach pie
A Plum pie with little Plum Puffs made with leftover pastry

Into The West

I have just finished watching the 6 part series 'Into The West' which was on TNT in the US. It is a great mini series which follows the story of the exploration and expansion into the west and the terrible treatment that the Indian's suffered. The massacre of thousands of innocent Indian, men, woman and children by the US Army in a genocide like policy has almost been erased from US history, so I am surprised that is was shown so vividly in the series.

I really enjoyed watching the show and have always found that time in history to be very interesting. If I could experience any time in history I would love to go back to the 1830's and explore the vast plains of the west.