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Garden of death

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Our poor garden has become the scene of death and destruction lately and quite frankly I am fed up with it!

Whether it's the neighbourhood bully tom or the kittens next door, something is hunting the local wildlife.

A couple weeks ago there was a dead wood pigeon on the lawn and a number of birds hve been silent for weeks now.

We have had a young squirrel visiting the garden and although he has destroyed the bird feeder I wouldn't want to cause him any harm. Imagine my horror last night as I watched the kittens from next door pin him to the floor. I managed to care them off (and the squirrel too). Granted he made his escape but I heras him coughing and crying in the trees. I hope the little fella is ok.

As you know I like cats but I like our wildlife too. I am not sure what we can do to stop the carnage :(

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Good News/Bad News (edit)

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Quick run down of my weekend experiences of Good News and Bad News!

Good News - My mum no longer requires further heart surgery

Bad News - My uncle was taken ill yesterday and is currently in hospital

Good News - O2 Called to apologies for the iPhone set up fuck up and have offered me £20 compensation

Bad News - I received my first bill and they have charged me £10 for a bolt on I never requested!

No comment!

Labels: iPhone 3G, My World, News

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What a day!

Yesterday truly was a day of polar opposites. It also happened to be the hottest day of the year so you can imagine how frazzled Richard and I are today following yesterdays escapades.

We spent the day in Buckinghamshire as our friends Andrea and Lee had their daughter, Grace, christened. I cannot believe Grace is a year old already, the time has really passed but quickly and she has grown remarkably since we last saw her (but then ago that was Christmas!).

Following the christening we all headed back to Andrea and Lee's for Grace's first birthday party. As you can imagine it was quite a hectic occasion as there must have been at least 50 adults in attendance as well as all the children. I am amazed how cool and organised Lee and Andrea were. Especially as they had all these people in their home.

It was a lovely afternoon though (if not a tad too hot in the back garden). Lee's birthday speech was very touching and yet entertaining. I always knew Andrea and Lee would make great parents and this all proves me right.

More photo's from Grace's Christening are on Flickr

On the flip side we then came back home following Grace's party where we quickly showered and changed and made our way into London to celebrate Paul's birthday.

We met up with them at the Texas Embassy Cantina in Trafalgar Square and were greeted by this shrill American woman who was wearing what could only be described as a potato sack! Anyway we got our Margaritas and made our way to our table where we enjoyed great conversation and a few bevvies. Cannot say the food was particularly great to be honest but it was an interesting experience to say the least.

Following the meal we met up with Wayne at the National Portrait Gallery before heading off to Leicester Square. We planned to get ourselves ice cream either at the Ben & Jerry shop or the Haagen Daas store but it was way to busy. We took the sensible decision to head into Soho ;0)

We ended up in the Duke of Wellington and it really felt like we were holding court. Most of the Mary's were outside but we opted to stay inside in the comfort of the large sofas and chairs. It made for an entertaining evening. We were all having quite a laugh watching the patrons mincing about, cruising around the pub. I think it's safe to say that each and every one of us attracted at least one piece of trade last night - not that any of us were looking.

It was quite entertaining to see the reactions we go and our reactions to them... it made for a fun evening which could not have been more different from our day.

Sadly our day was ruined by First Capital Connect who were not only conducting engineering works but managed to totally fuck up the journey home. We ended up waiting an hour for a train to arrive (an hours delay) - we then had to run for a train before they stopped people getting on. Typically FCC managed to ruin a perfectly good day.

Labels: Friends, London

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Light up a dobie and watch porn

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Labels: Family Guy, You Tube

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Moving on...

Friday, July 25, 2008

I had thought of moving my blog to Word Press with the advent of the iPhone app as it would mean blogging on the go. With the loss of my back up files I have put the idea on hold.

Thankfully Circle Press have come to the rescue. It's not perfect but it allows me to send text, photo or voice messages direct from my iPhone.

As you can see it works well and the best things is it's a free download from the App Store.

Labels: iPhone 3G

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Test Cell Spin Blog Entry

Labels: iPhone 3G

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iPhone 3Geek!

Sunday, July 20, 2008

OK so this isn't a run of the mill post for me but I wanted to get a few things off my chest re my new iPhone 3G - I am loving it and think it is the best phone I have owned - I am also enjoying the touch interface more on the phone than the touch. I don't know why there should be any difference but there is.

Of course with any new bit of kit there are accessories and I tend to purchase necessary stuff to either enhance my product or to protect it. I thought I'd run through my experiences so far...

Griffin Smart Talk - Possibly my favourite add on at present. It's basically a lead that connects between your iPhone (2G or 3G) and your headphones. Now I don't get on with the Apple bundled headphones so this is a critical piece of kit for me.

Having the Smart Talk connected means I can safely keep my iPhone 3G in my bag/pocket whilst still playing/pausing/skipping tracks and answering/forwarding calls - all from one button.

This button is on the back of a clip which also house the mic. Having had a week of listening to music on it, it was great to test the call feature on Friday where I had a comfortable (stereo) conversation with a friend of mine who had no problems hearing me as I walked home in the wind ;0)

Griffin Wave Case - as with all my iPods I want to protect my iPhone 3G from the knocks that real life shelves out so I plumped for the Griffin Wave Case. This isn't my first choice of case but I bought this until my first choice is released.

What do I think? Well I hate it! It makes the iPhone look really bulky, the fit is really poor, the case is quite slippery (which caused me to drop my iPhone 3G on Friday (thankfully from a low height!)) and the screen protector is awful. For starters it really shows finger (and ear (!)) prints really clearly making the screen unreadable. Cleaning it without a special cloth results in smearing. There is also a problem with the plastic fit of the screen protector - I reapplied the case before going to Farnborough yesterday and even though the iPhone and the case were clean there appeared to be water makers on the screen. This meant the screen was practically unreadable in sunlight.

I have now ditched my Wave case for traditional screen film which is temporarily on the glass front. I would avoid the Wave Case at all costs!

I have ordered an Invisible Shield full body protector and hopefully that'll be installed by Tuesday evening!

Apple 3G iPhone Dock - sadly this does not come included with the iPhone 3G but it's available as a separate purchase. It doesn't cost much but one annoyance is the lack of an additional cable. That said I have the dock and prefer it when connecting my iPhone to either the mains or to my Mac as it keeps it upright and has the screen visible. It also has cut out for the speaker and mic which means the hands free is much clearer. It's a shame Apple didn't bundle it though...

I'll update you on other accessories as I go - there are bound to be more!

Labels: iPhone 3G

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Doors to manual

Saturday, July 19, 2008

We've had a great day at Farnborough International Air Show and this
year there was a group of us in attendance.

I write this as we're travelling back bit it's been very good. The weather has held off and we got to see the displays we wanted. Richard even got to see the Vulcan bomber take flight. Something dear to his heart as he donated to get it restored.

As I write Dan is kipping in the back of the car and I am obviously testing my iPhone en route.

More photos (and the odd video) are available here - I am especially proud of my shots of the A380 and the fantastic display from the Red Arrows.

Lawrence and Gwyneth are still there, enjoying the flying displays.

I think it's safe to say we all had a great day.

Labels: Friends, Richard, Travel, UK

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What's on...

Sunday, July 13, 2008

What's on my iPhone 3G? This is...

As you will notice I still have no access to O2 - three days after taking delivery of my iPhone 3G!

Cheezburger is a link to LOLCats (something I visit daily and have done since having my iPod Touch)

Evernote is a fantastic alternative to Notes which lets you sync and save all sorts of notes, audio files, photos and web pages.

Mobile Flickr is a better client than linking to Flickr directly

Monkey Ball - does this need any introduction?

Truphone - when I get my phone access this will enable me to make voip calls over wifi using my iPhone - a great bone when dialling international numbers and saving my minutes...

TUAW is a web link to my favourite Apple flavoured blog

Remote is the fab free app from Apple which lets you control iTunes libraries - I was in the kitchen yesterday and had my Mac playing in the dining room - this enabled me to play and adjust the volume etc of whatever was on my Mac ;0)

Twittelator - a far better Twitter app than Twitterific (which I am surprised at admitting as I have been a big fan of the Twitterific Mac app). This one has no adds and allows for an emergency tweet with location information.

The rest is self explanatory - I do of course have four screens but I thought I'd focus on my most important bits and pieces and as you can see I have squeezed them all on my home screen.

Labels: iPhone 3G

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B i B!

Fantastic - the Bitch is Back!

Labels: Music, You Tube

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Back to the land of the living

Saturday, July 12, 2008

I cannot believe it's been so long since I have put a decent blog entry online. Things really have been very manic and now I feel like I can take a breather (although I am not sleeping properly (yet)).

This week saw the hosting of the Marketing Excellence Awards at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. I project managed the roll out of the web project which featured a number of mini TV shows which educated people about the awards. On the night I had a crew in place interviewing key members of the company before the ceremony, the dinner and then the winners. It was a very hectic and long night (nee day) but it was worth it.

I worked pretty much straight through Thursday and was at the studio early yesterday morning to monitor final edits before getting back to the office to have the film and communications out by 8 am.

Needless to say I am very happy that the whole event has been a huge success. People are happy with a number of things but for me it was especially great to hear nominees mention the TV shows and comment positively around all the work we have completed.

The photo was taken during the dinner and gives an impression of the interior of the Great Hall of the Royal Courts of Justice (the second highest court in the UK), the set up and the atmosphere ;0)

There is a photo of me which I took around 2.30am when I returned to my hotel for a brief sleep. I took it with my Nokia as my parents wanted to see me in my tuxedo... ~~I may upload it later ;0)~~

Update - OK as you can obvioulsy see I have now uploaded the hideous photo :( God I HATE this photo!

So that's a huge amount of work, time, blood, sweat and (nearly) tears but I am very very happy with where we are with the whole project.

Yesterday was also a big day as my iPhone 3G arrived at the house at 7 am. Richard took delivery for me. Sadly I cannot connect to O2 at present due to demand and the high volume of subscribers but at least I have it and I am very impressed. I am also in the process of updating my Touch with the 2.0 software as I think it is excellent. I am very impressed with Mobile Me too.

On a more site related note I have decided to discontinue Release. It's been fun and a nice experiment following the closure of my Trunk Casts but my past couple of weeks has made me realize that I have other things to concentrate my time on (the death of my Lacie external hard drive loosing all my files, 6 years worth of photos and videos this week doesn't help either). It was fun and thanks to everyone for there support but this officially is the end of my days as a pod caster.

Labels: Apple, Digital Media, iPhone 3G, iTunes, London, News, Release, Richard, Trunk Cast, Work

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I love Paris...

Thursday, July 03, 2008

...maybe in the winter, maybe in the fall but not so much when it chucks it down with rain!

That said we had a lovely day and as ever our lunch (Richards birthday lunch) at Cafe du Commerce was fantastic ;0)