When things just work

I love it when things just work. Yesterday I took the tiny tablet PC to a meeting where we spent a couple of hours discussing reports. I opened them all on the tiny tablet in Office 2007, added ink annotations and then when I got back to my office Groove just synchronised them back onto the main machine, where I updated the text, cleaned off all the ink and sent out the updated version in about ten minutes.

I did most of this without thinking, and it just worked. Of course I could have taken a notebook and pencil along instead and done pretty much the same I suppose, but it wouldn't have been half as much fun.....

C# in the Pink

We've just got the latest batch of C# books back. We get literally hundreds printed each year. One batch gets given to our new First Year students (the book is the basis of our programming course) and the rest we give out to people who come to see us on admissions days and anybody else who asks for one.

Each time we get them printed we change the colour of the cover. A couple of years ago it was green, last year it was yellow. Someone suggested that lilac would be a nice colour this year, and so that is what we went for. The books look a bit pink. I still think they are lilac, but opinions differ on this.

Actually, I'm not that good where colour is concerned. I bought a bright red watch that I didn't think was a bit girly (I have this thing about watches that I'm getting slightly worried about. Nothing expensive, but I must have around 20 or so now.) Whilst the assistant was taking my money she rather spoiled things by offering to enclose a special gift receipt in the box "In case she wants to take it back".

Somehow, after that, it just doesn't feel the same to wear it.

Statetris

I think this game is probably sponsored by the EEC. Or a geography teacher. Either way it is quite fun, and you do learn stuff.

New Bed

We ordered a new mattress on Saturday. The springs in the old one are starting to poke through the cover and it makes a noise like a bag of spanners being thrown downstairs when you roll over in the night.

It arrives tomorrow. We've gone for one with a "memory foam" layer. The first thing I'm going to do is ask it "Who won the Cup Final in 1976?".

The Long Kill - with pictures

One of the things that you get to do on holiday is read. But only if you've taken some books with you on holiday. Fortunately our cottage, as well as being wonderfully positioned and sparkly clean throughout, came with a few that had been left there over the years. One of them was a Readers Digest collection of condensed stories. This is where they take a six hundred page volume and boil it down to a couple of hundred pages. Oh, and they add pictures too...

A tale of daring do, and centre partings

"..and  if I were you young man, I'd clean the other nostril too..."

He watched them together, all the time waiting for the trick chair to fold itself up again....

"I wonder if this rock will leave a mark on my trousers"  he thought to himself while his girlfriend wondered why she seemed to have somebody else's legs.

Satellite Navigation for Higher Blood Pressure

If they ever need a way to boost my blood pressure all they have to do is give me some software to play with. We've been using the Navicore sat-nav in the Nokia 770 quite successfully for the last week. I like it because it is mostly correct, only crashes every now and then, can find most places and the lady's voice is wonderful. She just sounds so perky all the time, even when asking you to turn right across three lanes of busy traffic. And sometimes she says "Tada!" when you arrive at the destination. Anyhoo, I thought I'd install the upgrades, because there are supposed to be some even better voices there. And the new version might be able to locate Hereford.

The Navicore upgrade experience is kind of strange. You run a program which opens a browser window which does things up until the point where IE crashes and you lose the lot. Then you find the program doesn't work any more. So you do it all again and it tells you that the software is upgraded and ready to go.  Which of course it isn't. Then you re-install from the DVD and try again. Third time you notice the message about re-installing the upgrade on the device  once you've installed it (if you see what I mean). So you do the upgrade again, re-install it, and then find it still doesn't work. So you email customer support and put the original back on from the DVD. By now you are viewing everything through a red mist and figure that it is probably time to go off and do something else.....

Back in Hull

And so I am back home. I love the way that as you get closer to Hull the roads get that bit quieter, and the traffic reports of jams around the rest of the country have less and less meaning. And now I have my nice fast broadband connection (rather than climbing a hill, holding the phone above my head and waiting for a single bar of signal to appear).

But the holiday was fun though. I bought a Ferrari for five pounds. It turned out to only have three wheels, but I have plans to stick the missing one back on. I saw some stunning art, had a conversation with a horse (although it was a bit one-sided) and met up with the oracle pig again. Who turns out to be called Esmerelda. I also read some exciting books, one even had pictures in. Of which more later.

Oh, and I took the camera.

What a pity that mobile tower isn't my carrier.....

Normal Service

You may have noticed a slight dip in the quality of my blog this week while I have been away on my so called holidays. The posting have in fact been made by the 'QuipMaster 3000', a program that uses advanced artificial intelligence and third generation humour algorthms to produce output almost indistinguishable from a 1970s episode of the Ken Dodd show. All this will change tomorrow, when I return and fire up the 'Blogmaster 6000' again....

Tips for modern living 000

How to look young...... Hang around with very old people.

Holiday sunset

Holiday sunset
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.

Another ambition achieved

Today I actually achieved one of my many ambitions. I actually got to ask a horse 'Why the long face?'.

Unimportant questions 001

Do skeletons drink their tea out of bone china?

Fact of no truth 001

Did you knpw that every year 200 roadsweepers drown in Venice?

Another test post

This is another test post. What an exciting morning. -- from the pen of Rob Miles' keyboard www.robmiles.com

Scary and Real

I've just found a web site that is truly scary:

http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/11849.aspx

In celebration of this I've added another chapter to the preview directory: /xna-book-downloads/.

Let me know what you think. Someone, please....

Reverse Burglary in London Town

Took number one daughter to London today, where she is going to continue her studies. We had a car which was pretty much full of stuff. Parking was a bit restricted, so I stopped the car on someone's garden path and we executed what can only be described as a "reverse burglary", where the contents of the car were transferred into the flat at record speed.

Then, after a trip to Tesco and an impromptu TV purchase it was back to Hull.

Wild Hogs - A Warning

It has come to my attention that some shops are stocking DVDs of the "film" Wild Hogs. It might be that people are mistakenly buying them for entertainment purposes, bearing in mind that they are being placed in the entertainment sections of some stores.

Do not buy this film. It is not nice. It manages to be offensive, unoriginal and unfunny in equal measure. I made the mistake of watching it on a 12 hour flight. You might think that in such a situation pretty much anything is preferable to sitting staring at the hands on your watch as they go round much too slowly. This is not true. I would much rather stare at my SPOT watch than this film. In fact I would rather stare at my spots than this film. I only watched it to the end as some kind of bet with myself. Which I lost.

Test the Nation.

The BBC are doing one of their programs where you can test your intelligence. It stars Anne Robinson.  I'm not watching it.

I think that counts as a pass.

Sewerby Park Bank Holiday

We are becoming creatures of habit. Perhaps it's our age. Anyhoo, just like last year we went off to a place near Bridlington, Sewerby Park. It is a big country house, with lovely grounds, just by the side of the sea. There is a tiny zoo, pitch and putt golf and some wonderful walled gardens.If you live in the area you should/must go there. Just like last time they were doing Roman re-enactments. Just like last time I took my camera.

Any parent will be familiar with this domestic scene.

Add your own caption here

My money is on the blokes on the horses

They can do gardening here. Oh yes.

Butterfly

Boat

Bridlington bay

Stranger than Fiction

If you want to see a quirky, life affirming film that features one of the coolest watches that I've ever seen (but which you probably can't buy) then get hold of a copy of "Stranger than Fiction".  I picked it up on a "semi-whim" when we were out shopping today and we watched it tonight. It is a super little movie. I'd heard good things about it but not got around to seeing it, so when our local supermarket had a copy cheap I was happy to pick one up.

It is a neat romantic comedy/drama thing built around a very clever premise. If you've ever thought your life belonged in a book, then this film is for you.