tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38575775683000668272024-02-07T05:19:24.600+00:00dotmitdotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.comBlogger91125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-23485028411806411022015-04-21T13:50:00.002+01:002015-04-21T13:50:45.513+01:002014 sucked, and here's why!Yes, I know I thought 2014 would be better than 2013, but I was way wrong. That lovely girl I was seeing went back to her country, leaving me with this gaping chasm of nothing to do. But I have nothing bad to say about her. She was (and still is) awesome! Easy come, easy go I suppose :/<br />That job I started, that I quit consulting for because it was full of promise, turned out to be pretty lame. It's a great company to work for but not if you work in IT. That Mercedes 190E 2.3-16 I bought? Needed about £2000 of repairs, and still doesn't feel right. And I started to suffer from epic knee problems. Bummer...<br />
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But something must have gone right?<br />
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Yes, I met an awesome person when I was in Barcelona for work. She is the awesomes. It's not often I make such a good friend in such a short time. I went to my first Formula 1 race while I was in Barcelona. I was invited to join a research alliance of senior IT leaders (and I accepted the invitation). I bought a cheap Mercedes E240 estate car to replace the dodgy BMW I'd bought in 2013, and it's given me 13000 (almost) trouble-free miles including 3 epic road trips. Bargain! I generally had lots of cool adventures and a great summer. The ski trip I organised to Tignes went really well. That calls for another list of lessons learned I suppose...<br />
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1. Tignes Les Boisses is on the far edge of Tignes.<br />
2. When booking a ski holiday in a block of apartments that is newly-constructed, be prepared for construction to still be ongoing when you get there.<br />
3. There is only one pub in Tignes Les Boisses, and it's miles away from the apartments.<br />
4. If you decide to have lunch at 2pm in Le Fornet with a snowstorm brewing, be prepared for an epic mission to get back to Tignes before the last lift closes. Do not expect to get all the way back to Les Boisses. It just isn't going to happen.<br />
5. Private bus companies will print pretty much anything you want on the sign they put in the bus.<br />
6. There is a free bus service between Tignes Val Claret, Le Lac and Les Boisses.<br />
7. If you go to Tignes, stay in Val Claret or Le Lac. It's worth the extra money.<br />
8. Eurostar will make a seperate group area for you if you tell them you are expecting a group of 45 people to show up.<br />
9. My skiing has considerable room for improvement.<br />
10. I seem to have misplaced my snowboard mojo.<br />
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<br />dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-86930065197480821782014-01-21T12:56:00.000+00:002014-01-21T12:56:23.175+00:002013 was pretty good... 2014 will be better!Wow!<br />
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So... I didn't post anything since March 2013! What happened since then? Well, a lovely new lady entered my life (actually she entered it a bit before March but she stayed in it for a while and is kind of still there, in spirit if not in person). Actually we just returned from a lovely trip to Italy where we had a weekend of shopping in Milan and a sunny ski trip in Cervinia. A few trips to see ballet at the Royal Opera House and Teatro alla Scala, nice food and nice smiles; It was great. Sadly she's had to return to her own country, much to my dismay as I need a visa to go there!<br />
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We also had a few other nice trips. Several road trips to France, where we discovered some wonderful places in Normandy, another ski trip in Italy and a road trip in the UK to Wales and the Lake District, which was just as lovely as Normandy but in different ways.<br />
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Many gastronomic delights were discovered, many beautiful sunsets observed, and many good times were had.<br />
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Long may it continue :)<br />
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What else has happened?<br />
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Well, I tried mountain biking for the first time.<br />
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I bought this cool mountain bike in 2007 with the intention of using it abroad, but it's not been used off road much at all, only the occasional forest trail. It was a bit like buying a Range Rover to use on the school run. I have a group of friends who try to get me to go to the Alps every summer but it's always my birthday, but this year they were away the week after so I joined them for a long weekend. It was awesome! We were in Sauze D'Oulx where I've been a few times for skiing. It was really nice to see the place in summer, especially as my first mountain experience was in the summer in the piedmont region anyway. I'm hoping to go back this year, maybe for a bit longer this time. But it depends on holiday allowance, which is massively constrained due to my next topic:<br />
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Lots of politics at my last employer, a public sector transport organisation which is the most wasteful place I have ever seen. Individually everyone seemed quite reasonable but as a collective it was trying to move a herd of drunk rhinos through a swamp. Pure madness. Eventually politics killed me off as the part of the organization I was in got absorbed into the parent company and the project I'd spent the last year working on got cancelled. £2 million of public money wasted on what would have been a fantastic project if only people would listen!<br />
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And then I was enticed to work for a fresh fashion brand company where so far everyone is lovely and the office is grey on the outside but sunny on the inside. I've only been here a few weeks but so far I'm enjoying the work and the people. If only I could do something about my evil commute in the morning!<br />
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What else? Oh yeah, Amsterdam. 30 people came with me to Amsterdam for my birthday where we did the Friday skate and spent the rest of the time enjoying nice sunny weather and relaxing. I was surprised how many of them chose to stay in the Hilton DoubleTree hotel with me. We had a good deal on the pricing and it was right next to Centraal station so well located for the city. It also had a skybar with awesome views!<br />
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And I bought Mr Wolf, my ongoing restoration project:</div>
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He's a 1987 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 which to those in the know is a pretty special car. I might post about him later :)<br />
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What's coming in 2014?<br />
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Well it got off to a pretty good start with a nice New Year celebration enjoyed with some close friends. I've just come back from a ski trip with my wonderful lady...</div>
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...and I went to France last weekend for someone's birthday. I haven't seen her for 10 years and her husband asked me on facebook if I could come. Last time I saw her it was a surprise for her 30th birthday also secretly arranged by her husband. It was pretty cool :)</div>
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I managed to take this cool photo from the plane on the way back... Wish my iPhone camera was a bit better!</div>
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And next week I am off on an absolutely epic ski trip to Tignes, with a group of about 45 people. I've arranged the whole trip and it's getting pretty stressful at the moment but I'm hoping we have good snow. Good snow makes everyone happy, regardless of what goes on après-ski!<br />
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I suppose then, that my next post might be about the ski trip.... though at the rate I'm going it will probably be about 2 trips and an entire year worth of adventures compressed into a few paragraphs.<br />
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Bring it on! :)</div>
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dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-8251655730046689622014-01-21T11:35:00.004+00:002014-01-21T12:53:27.377+00:00Microsoft Office, SharePoint and TemplatesAha!<br />
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There you were thinking I was going to blog about my ski trip, or something fun. I say "there you were" as if there is actually someone there. Anyway I digress.<br />
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I had to explain an interesting concept to a couple of colleagues today. It's something that I've noticed in every organisation I've worked at.<br />
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Microsoft has gone to great pains since at least 1995 and probably before, to segregate a document from a document template. The theory here is that you might create a document but if you want to re-use it you should save it as a template. Then every time you open the template, the office application be it Word or Excel or whatever knows to open a new document based on the template and prompt you to save it with a different name as a regular document.<br />
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How many times have you seen this? I bet it isn't very often.<br />
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And what does this have to do with SharePoint?<br />
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Well, we had a requirement that a user has to be able to click a link on a page and that it should allow them to create a new document which they save and email to another team (don't get me started on this, or I'll be ranting forever). But the user had uploaded a regular document and because we have Office Web Apps enabled by default, it just opened the document in Office Web Apps.<br />
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I was asked how we could get around this. Normally I'd want to set up content types and have the ability to create a new document within SharePoint, but that's not how the business process works at the moment and an InfoPath form is in development, so rather than change the business process twice I suggested they save the original document as a document template and upload it to the library.<br />
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And hey presto! It worked. When you click the link to the document template, it opens a new document in the local office application!<br />
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Enterprise content management may save trees, but if you can't see the wood for the trees when you implement it you are wasting a lot of effort!<br />
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Next time I will talk about something more interesting... honest guv'nor :)<br />
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<br />dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-76381306717153661272013-03-12T17:09:00.002+00:002013-03-12T17:09:55.280+00:00Happy TimesThings are going pretty well for me at the moment. Work contract just renewed, project looks like it'll start making some progress shortly, the days are getting longer and I just got awarded elite membership on yelp.co.uk. Oh and I'm going skiing again this Saturday.<br />
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I've also been seeing an adorable girl from Russia. Now you may or may not know this, but 8 March is International Womens Day which is a big deal in Russia, so for the weekend I organised a trip to France via eurotunnel for dinner, and some flowers of course. The journey to the eurotunnel was smooth but I can report that the outlet warehouse on the other side is pretty rubbish. At least it is at this time of year. We had intended to go to the Atlantic Liegois Gastronomic Restaurant in Wimereaux (which it turns out, sounds like the word for extinction in Russian), but they were fully booked, so we ended up walking around the town like Mary and Joseph looking for a barn to stay in. We eventually found a lovely place called 'La Vie Est Belle' which was delicious :)dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-757750376962550952013-02-22T10:29:00.000+00:002013-02-22T10:31:48.151+00:00American not-so-ExpressSo I got a new American Express card a month or so ago. One of those British Airways ones that collects avios points as you spend.<br />
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They had this offer where you get 9000 bonus avios if you spend £1000 on the card.<br />
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So I proceeded to spend on it the way I do on my Nationwide card and they block me suspecting fraud.<br />
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On my Nationwide card (which incidentally has double the limit of the AmEx and is accepted in more locations) they phone me within a couple of minutes if they block a transaction.<br />
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Does that happen with AmEx? Nope. Nothing... you get told you have to call the number on the back of the card, and after calling it and pressing 50 buttons to get to the department that isn't automated and has a person on the end of the line, you get told the card is blocked, they can't access the system to even register a complaint, and all they can do is suggest you call tomorrow and note that you called and request a call back from the department who blocked it.<br />
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So I called the next day, only to be told that their fraud prevention mechanism is this:<br />
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1. They suspect identity theft on your account and block your account without trying to contact you.<br />
2. They wait for you to contact them after you've been embarassed wherever you're paying for goods or services.<br />
3. They tell you there's nothing you can do.<br />
4. You call back the next day and they tell you they will try to call you back on your phone number that they will have verified using some secret verification process and if they can't verify your phone or get through to you they will send you a letter by post with a reference number on it.<br />
5. I point out that if they suspect identity theft, surely sending a letter to the same address that the supposed identity thief got the card from is a pointless exercise because the would-be thief would just get the reference number as well.<br />
6. They kind of agree but you can tell they aren't allowed to say they do.<br />
7. Instead of getting a call or a letter, they email me with the reference number. I actually prefer this method, but it's not what they said they would do.<br />
8. I call up and go through the security which amounts to nothing more than them just noting the reference and telling me it will be unlocked shortly.<br />
9. They tell me they are unable to take my complaint and I should speak to customer services.<br />
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This is after the following other stupid problems:<br />
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1. When you sign up for an account, they insist you have a number in your USERNAME. WTF? Who insists on a number in the username? Are they on crack?<br />
2. When I tried to change my PIN, the cash machine told me it had failed. I called them and they said they found a problem, and I should try again. I tried again and it gave me a different error. Magically the new pin was the one that showed on the website but actually using the card required the old PIN. That's sounds like a fail of security (again) to me.<br />
3. The paywave function didn't work on the card. Ever. So they had to send me a new card, within a month of getting the card in the first place.<br />
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I've never had to make so many phone calls to a single organisation before.<br />
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Should have applied for the platinum card. Maybe then I'd have had better service...dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-69207209551203501942013-02-20T19:43:00.001+00:002013-02-20T19:43:11.495+00:00Organising GroupsHere are some rules to consider when trying to organise group trips:<br />
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1. If you offer people a choice, you will never come to any kind of agreement.<br />
2. Assuming its too late not to offer a choice, prepare for a huge headache as you try to please everyone and accommodate their obscure requirements.<br />
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The result of offering people a choice on my last trip is that it ended up costing more than it needed to, but because I am a badass I've managed to arrange flights and accommodation such that we will get 8 days on the slopes and not have the pain of a Eurostar trip.<br />
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We'll be returning to Sauze d'Oulx where we will hopefully have a little more snow than last year.<br />
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It should be a good trip, and will be the last of my long holidays until Christmas...<br />
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I'll write more later, and the gossip will be a lot more juicy if things go well!<br />
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Meanwhile here's a photo of an awesome sunset :) <br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBuYuLBE5oXZdJ23SPg69u2hYeJMjYXNI89awo6y3-Jc-hjqhSfLz4o-MJoaralodQwTSN22CZN6o1Ijwyn3joTTbvwAV6cVzCXlMFoF_Jvm7dq7axCK8xFFZlgXr-NsinRBbvRgZGOjuC/s640/blogger-image--839353081.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBuYuLBE5oXZdJ23SPg69u2hYeJMjYXNI89awo6y3-Jc-hjqhSfLz4o-MJoaralodQwTSN22CZN6o1Ijwyn3joTTbvwAV6cVzCXlMFoF_Jvm7dq7axCK8xFFZlgXr-NsinRBbvRgZGOjuC/s640/blogger-image--839353081.jpg" /></a></div>dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-80238493115306292052013-02-15T16:12:00.000+00:002013-02-15T16:12:13.186+00:00To ski, or not to skiI had a fairly busy January. The first random tidbit of information is the £1070 BMW 330i touring that I bought on ebay. This proved to be a bit of a logistical problem, as the car was located just outside Edinburgh and I am in London. Having agreed to pick up the car at Edinburgh airport, I promptly booked a flight to go up there on morning, with the intention of driving back down the same day. I mentioned this to a friend when asked what I was up to at the weekend, and instead of me driving, she went up to Edinburgh with a friend and drove it back, Thelma & Louise style. I flew up too, but unfortunately on picking up the car it wasn't the bargain I thought it would be. It was in pretty bad condition and was suffering from a number of problems including the speedometer not working correctly. It's in the garage now, being seen to :)<br />
<br />
We also had an epic ski trip to Peisey-Vallandry. A little resort in the Les Arcs/La Plagne ski area close to the main lift that links the two areas together. In a similar vein to my last skiing related post, here is a list of lessons learned:<br />
<br />
1. People you think will make the best flatmates sometimes make the worst.<br />
2. The upgrade to first class on eurostar is only worth it if you're the only one doing it. Too many people, especially too many large and loud people, completely negate any benefit.<br />
3. Some people can behave very childishly, often without even realising it.<br />
4. The people you often think are the most level headed, can become the most crazy given a few drops of alcohol.<br />
5. It is a stupid idea to try and transport a 40kg snowboard bag with lots of equipment in a single bag.<br />
6. It is a stupid idea to take 40kg of equipment for a one-week holiday.<br />
7. Don't roll down a snowy hill without first inspecting the other side of it.<br />
8. Happiness comes from pleasing yourself, not pleasing others.<br />
9. Snowboarding on ice moguls shortly after a fresh layer of snow has fallen is not a nice experience.<br />
10. Snowblading on sheet ice is ill-advised.<br />
11. The Ruroc helmet range has a dangerous design flaw rendering the helmet rather useless.<br />
12. The group discount on a Paradiski area ski pass for 8 days is about £50.<br />
13. It is a stupid idea to try and walk down a hill that is covered in sheet ice without impact protection.<br />
14. Bourg St Maurice is a very boring place on a Saturday night.<br />
15. Leaving behind a messy apartment makes it very unpleasant when you get home.<br />
16. Snowboarding on hard packed pistes gets boring after a while.<br />
17. My skiing has considerable room for improvement.<br />
18. A powder day can lift even the darkest mood :)<br />
<br />
My last ski trip filled me with mixed emotions. It was very stressful, and one of my friends isn't talking to me anymore after I called her a stupid child. In my defence she'd been behaving quite childishly all week, and snapping at me all the time. I snapped back on the last day, and the fact that she's not talking to me proves my point.<br />
<br />
My next trip is proving quite stressful too, and I haven't booked it yet. That's because of different people having a variety of requirements that are difficult to accommodate. If it keeps up I will just book a holiday for two and go without them.<br />
<br />
For next year, I am going to make inquiries about chartering a plane. That would be so cool :)dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-84323079742168562142013-01-07T11:45:00.003+00:002013-01-07T11:57:47.214+00:00Happy New Year!I've done a fair bit of driving the last couple of weeks (about 1400km). Here's a list of lessons learnt, mostly for your amusement...<br />
<br />
1. It doesn't matter how early you leave, you are not driving fast enough to get to the airport on time if there's a car keeping up with you.<br />
2. The collision damage excess waiver on an Audi A4 Avant<span style="position: absolute;"></span><span style="position: absolute;"></span> is 300€, and is a waste of money.<br />
3. Hire car companies will remove the navigation CD from a navigation equipped car just so they can charge you to rent a navigation off them.<br />
4. It costs the same amount to rent snow chains for a week as it does to buy them from a random motorway service station.<br />
5. Snow chains are recommended in certain circumstances if driving to a ski resort on all-season tyres, however with a bit of forethought (usually spurred on by hindsight) they aren't necessary. In fact I'd go as far as saying people are mad going on about having to get winter tyres and being stuck in the snow.<br />
6. The highest rated navigation software on the iTunes<span style="position: absolute;"></span><span style="position: absolute;"></span> store has no concept of mountain passes being closed in the winter and turned into skiing pistes.<br />
7. Neither does the Garmin navigation system<span style="position: absolute;"></span><span style="position: absolute;"></span> my friend brought along.<br />
8. At 39€ the Frejus tunnel is pretty expensive.<br />
9. Whilst the French will build scary roads that follow the curvature of the mountains, the Italians just build viaducts and dig tunnels resulting in a straight motorway that goes through everything in its path.<br />
10. Italians are mad drivers, especially on the motorway.<br />
11. An Audi A4<span style="position: absolute;"></span><span style="position: absolute;"></span> loaded with 5 passengers and their luggage handles like a boat and steers only slightly better than the Titanic.<br />
12. The cruise control on Audis is really confusing.<br />
13. The Audi A4<span style="position: absolute;"></span><span style="position: absolute;"></span> is rubbish and I am soooo glad I bought a BMW instead of an A5 convertible.<br />
14. Although the <span class="skimwords-potential">Audi A4</span><span style="position: absolute;"></span><span style="position: absolute;"></span> is crap, it does have a much smoother ride and lighter steering than my BMW, which I only really noticed upon my return to London.<br />
15. Watch out for speed cameras in France, especially when you reset your navigation to default settings in a futile attempt to get it to direct you through the Frejus tunnel instead of over a ski piste. Twice.<br />
16. There is an admin fee for changing your flight on easyjet.<br />
17. If you purchased speedy boarding, you lose it when your flight is changed, and you only find out when you're at the front of the speedy boarding queue and the guy has a go at you for not having speedy boarding.<br />
18. Don't forget you bought speedy boarding when arriving at the airport and queuing with the plebs.<br />
19. There is a bit of road between Turin and Milan where you're driving pretty fast and a train passes you as if you're standing still.<br />
20. Don't go shopping with girls in Milan during the sales.<br />
21. It costs £15 per day extra when you're late for picking up your car from Gatwick airport valet parking.<br />
22. Don't forget the mess you made at home in your rush to pack for your ski trip at the last minute.<br />
23. Although O2 text you telling you that for £1.99 per day you can use your phone abroad as you would at home, the next day they will text you a warning telling you that yesterday you used 70MB and your limit was 25MB and if you do it again they will put you back on the standard tariff. This is more annoying than not having data at all.<br />
24. There is absolutely nothing to do at Milan Malpensa Terminal 1 when waiting 8 hours for a delayed flight from Moscow to arrive, apart from marvel at the variety of taxis waiting at the taxi rank outside. Everything from a Dacia Duster to a Citroen C6 to a BMW 1-series<span style="position: absolute;"></span><span style="position: absolute;"></span>.<br />
25. The French don't know how to make coffee, especially in fancy looking motorway service stops.<br />
26. The Italians do know how to make coffee, even in really dodgy looking motorway service stops.<br />
27. The flat fare from anywhere in Milan to Malpensa airport is 90 euros. Whilst this may seem excessive, it is a 45-60 minute drive, depending on traffic conditions.<br />
28. The closest petrol station to Malpensa is a dodgy and super expensive automated place that has a machine which accepts only cash pre-payment for fuel. It's still cheaper than returning the car without a full tank.<br />
29. The GPS on the iPhone<span style="position: absolute;"></span><span style="position: absolute;"></span> is not fast or accurate enough to give good driving directions in complicated junctions, due to the 2 second sampling interval. Only a fool forgets the two second rule!<br />
30. The french for breathalyser<span style="position: absolute;"></span><span style="position: absolute;"></span> is ethylotest. Don't forget that from next spring if you're not carrying a reusable one (or two disposable ones) while driving in France you can get an on the spot fine.<br />
<br />
This New Years Eve was a bazillion times better than last year, and 2012 was really awesome for me. Let's hope 2013 is even better. It's got off to a fabulous start anyway :)dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-64937092544111236162012-11-14T12:41:00.004+00:002013-01-07T11:48:34.169+00:00Generic-Covering-Letter.ps1<span style="font-family: Courier New;"></span><br />
Hello <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">$strCompany</span>, if you are reading this, you will no doubt be aware that you have asked me through your preferred recruitment consultant to write a covering letter, highlighting my blog and twitter feed and other such related information. I am fully aware that the public may read this, and if you happen to be working for my existing employer I will for your benefit note that I am speaking to the recruitment consultant on the understanding that I am only available for work once my current contract comes to an end.<br />
<br />
So, <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">$strCompany</span> welcome to my blog. Feel free to read any of my posts. You can find links to my twitter and facebook pages up in the corner somewhere. ^<br />
<br />
Your request got me thinking; the last time I wrote a covering letter I was a student applying for various graduate placement schemes at mostly automotive manufacturers. Those followed a mostly humble format where I tried to sell myself on the basis of having no experience but being madly into cars and motorbikes. This is of course, completely useless to me 15 years later. You see now, I am quite well grounded in my career, I'm good at what I do and I'm not afraid to tell people what I think; why, I even have a blog where I rant about anything and everything! How do I convey that with without seeming arrogant? I still have no idea, and I'm not sure I ever will! It's like that question in interviews where they ask you to name your weaknesses and you're supposed to have prepared some weaknesses to talk about. Except that none of us like talking about weaknesses so we are never really prepared. I have a weakness for Nando's caramel cheesecake but that's probably not appropriate here, except I just made it appropriate by writing it, knowing you'll read it and probably think to yourselves "Nando's do cheesecake?"<br />
<br />
So I thought I'd try something different, and make my covering letter a blog post. What better way to declare that I think it would be really cool to work with you than to do it in pubic, on my blog?<br />
<br />
So what else should this covering letter include? I'm wary that it's getting quite long already and I haven't really done much to convince you that you should hire me. Why would you want to hire me? I'm clearly a contractor. Why would I even want to stop contracting?<br />
Well, although contracting is great, I'm constantly worried about not having work in 3 months time. For me (and perhaps also for Bobby McFerrin and Bob Marley), worry and happiness are mutually exclusive. So my path to happiness lies with a more stable permanent job. I also want to develop my career. It's all well and good being paid a lot of money for one bit part after the next, but I want to do more. I want to be directing things, driving things forward, and really making a difference with cool new stuff. This means I won't just take any job, and as a permanent employee I won't work for any-old employer. It has to be for a company worth working for. One that's going places, that has a decent product, that I can proudly talk about to my friends. A company that has great people who I will get on with and want to socialise with. So you'd want to hire me because based on my limited experience of your organisation, I want to work for you. Hire me because I've been in the business for 15 years, have lots of experience and knowledge and I'm not afraid to share it.<br />
<br />
Don't delay, hire me today (no, not today actually, but when my contract comes to an end in a few months time).<br />
<br />dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-47330116707448155052012-11-09T15:43:00.001+00:002012-11-09T15:54:41.951+00:00Microsoft Surface and Windows RTI happen to be working on a very exciting project with around 15 Microsoft Consultancy people. We are running the only full wave 15 deployment of the Microsoft platform in the world. If you're not the technical sort, what this means is that where I am working, we are looking to roll out Windows 8 and all the other latest versions of everything Microsoft within the next 6 months, and I'm technical lead on the SharePoint 2013 stream. I'm also working on a storage consolidation exercise, but I won't write about that now.<br />
<br />
I've been a long time fan of Microsoft, not least because their products have kept me in employment most of the time for the last 17 years. So when I found out they were releasing a new tablet device to compete with the likes of iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab, I naturally pre-ordered one. After all, Windows 7 was a great product and the preview of Windows 8 that I'd been working with was also a pretty nice experience. Furthermore, here was a shiny new product that I could actually see myself using.<br />
<br />
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If only I had actually seen myself using it before parting with my hard-earned cash for one.<br />
<br />
First things first, the device hardware is mostly fantastic. A magnetic keyboard attaches to it and doubles as a case. The build quality is great and the screen is clear and vibrant. It has a USB port and a HDMI port so it's got connectivity, and really the only faults I could find are that it's a little on the heavy side, and the magnetic power connector is quite fiddly to use, especially in the dark. Oh and there's no USB charging so you have to carry a plug-in charger around with you if you think the battery might run out. If you've taken your Surface to work and gone out for drinks, don't try to plug it back into your charger when you get home.<br />
<br />
Moving onto the software, once I got used to Windows 8 I found it a joy to use. I love the way it's been designed and after an initial frustration caused by my complete ignorance of the welcome video it tried to show me, I found it very natural and even found myself trying to swipe the screen of my regular laptop (now upgraded to Windows 8) on several occasions.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately I've decided to return it, which in itself was a bit of a mission. I'll come to the reasons for returning it shortly, but let's just say my customer service experience with the Microsoft call centre wasn't great. They were unable to process the return for a week because apparently they hadn't taken payment from my card, and they didn't know when payment would be taken. Thankfully this has now been sorted and my return has been authorised.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://compass.surface.com/assets/2d/73/2d73d312-d273-4ce5-bafa-7630c60b3661.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://compass.surface.com/assets/2d/73/2d73d312-d273-4ce5-bafa-7630c60b3661.jpeg" width="200" /></a>So why am I returning it?<br />
Well the short answer is, frankly it's useless if there's no wifi connection and it's launched without several key apps. The device is marketed as a mobile tool and it's all set up to use Microsoft Skydrive for storage by default. On a regular Windows 7 or Windows 8 Pro computer this wouldn't be a problem as there's a Skydrive sync application, which allows you to work with files locally and synchronises them to Skydrive when a connection is available. Sadly though there's no such application on Windows RT, the ARM processor version of the operating system that's installed on the Surface. Following several inquiries on the Microsoft support site, I decided to try and write a script that would approximate the way Skydrive sync works, but sadly the tools I'd hoped to use for that don't seem to work properly on a drive mounted from the web, leaving me with what is essentially a very expensive coaster.<br />
It has other problems too. No facebook app, no native twitter app, and when you ask Microsoft staff why not, they direct you to the People Hub, which is about as useless as a chocolate teapot. Except that at least you can eat a chocolate teapot. The newsreader app I downloaded because Flipboard isn't available isn't bad, except that it doesn't pre-fetch any news, so if you want to read news while you're on the train, you can't because there's no wifi connection. And the device doesn't even have the option of a data connection so you're stuck. Add to that the stories doing the rounds about how Microsoft are making about $250 on each unit sold and I know I'm getting a raw deal. As far as I'm concerned Windows RT means Windows Return<br />
<br />
It's a really unfortunate experiment, and for the price there are plenty of alternatives that will be more practical and more useful. I didn't expect to pay £650 to be a Microsoft beta tester for a product that isn't really ready for an already-competitive market.<br />
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What will I replace it with? Well I've just ordered a Sony Vaio Duo 11 ultrabook. It's got an 11 inch screen that runs at a much higher resolution than that of the Surface, Intel CPU so runs full Windows 8 and all the apps I need, and has a neat sliding keyboard action with the all-important trackpoint seldom seen on laptops these days. It has double the storage and considerably more power, at the expense of £200 more in price, weighing a little more and having slightly less battery life. Because it's a Vaio I can expect it to be of decent quality and have a reasonable level of support, and it has the potential to replace all my computers at home, which is a bonus!<br />
<br />
Can't wait for it to arrive!dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-43826342536402156402012-10-02T14:14:00.000+01:002012-11-14T15:14:11.319+00:0024 Hours in BerlinSo last Friday I decided at about 11am that I was going to go to Berlin to skate in the BMW Berlin Inline Marathon. This would have been a great idea, except that it meant I had about 24 hours to get there. I’ve done the marathon before, and as long as the weather is good it’s one of the best routes you can skate. Check my video here:<br /> <br />
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<br />
Aside from the skate itself which you now know is really cool having watched the video, there were a couple of good reasons for this decision; namely 2 friends who I texted to wish them luck.<br />
One of them is Emily. Emily is a bit of an action girl and was not just skating the marathon but also running the same race the following day. Please sponsor her; her donation page is here: <a href="http://virginmoneygiving.com/emilyorme">http://virginmoneygiving.com/emilyorme</a><br />
The other is a very close friend of mine who won’t be named. Actually she will, might as well plug her business too, which is sports rehabilitation and fitness conditioning. Her name is Kinga and she works independently at a company called Ambition Fitness – <a href="http://www.ambitionfitness.com/">www.ambitionfitness.com</a><br />
So I texted them both to wish them luck, and the responses that came back were something like this:<br />
Kinga: I’ve never been to Berlin without you! Shame you couldn’t join!<br />Me: I looked into it but the flight and hotel was super expensive…<br />Kinga: Too bad, I had a spare space in the hotel as well!<br />
Emily: You have no idea how much that means to me!<br />Me: Well I wish I could have been there to support you better…<br />
But actually I could have been there. So I looked for a flight and booked it. Then booked airport parking. Then asked around to see if anyone who had a registration wasn’t going, so I could pretend to be them for a couple of hours during the race. Then I told Kinga I’d see her tomorrow. At first she thought I was joking but I assured her I wasn’t.<br />
My flight was via Frankfurt so what followed was an epic journey of flight delays, the obligatory anal (not literally) German security at Frankfurt airport (only Frankfurt, other German airports seem more relaxed), and an epic fail of a skate that saw me have to stop 5 times to rest, because my back gave out about 2km in.<br />
I did eventually finish though, and having met with friends and caught up with everyone, I was heading back to the airport within 24 hours of arriving.<br />
I’m really pleased I went, as it’s given me a reminder of how unfit I’ve become. Starting today I went for a run in the morning; something I hadn’t done since 2006, and I felt great afterwards. My body is still aching but it was a great feeling watching the sunrise over Tower Bridge. I’ve also been eating healthily today, but it remains to be seen how long that will last. I’m fairly determined to get fitter again though, and lose the 10kg or so I’ve piled on since being in my prime 6 years ago!<br />
Wish me luck <img alt="Smile" class="wlEmoticon wlEmoticon-smile" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-TyRxLrX3RFA/UGrlBghG81I/AAAAAAAAA-U/uLuYu41SR7c/wlEmoticon-smile%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none;" />dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-31062325409609479682012-09-27T14:24:00.000+01:002012-11-14T15:14:45.186+00:00iPhone 5Following my 24 hours with a Samsung Galaxy S3, I pre-ordered an iPhone 5. I didn’t really think I needed one at first, and I still don’t need one if I look at it philosophically, but I wanted one. At first I wasn’t going to buy one, but my justification was that my iPhone is my single most-used possession, apart from perhaps my flat or my bed, which don’t really count.<br />
I’m happy justifying more than the cost of a new iPhone just on annual insurance for my motorbike, so why shouldn’t I get a better phone handset that works a little faster and has some better features?<br />
So because I was about 5 minutes late ordering at 9am on launch day, my delivery time was estimated around the beginning of October. My brother ordered one the day after me and got a delivery time the day after too… so it surprised me when I went to visit at the weekend that he was sitting there with an iPhone. He told me his nano sim arrived so he went to the apple store in Brent Cross to check out the phone, and they had some in stock so he bought it and cancelled his apple store order. That of course prompted me to visit every apple store in London, but alas it was nowhere to be found (in stock) so I ended up just waiting for mine to arrive!<br />
So far I’m very happy with it. I’m concerned that I’m slowly turning into an apple fanboy, and part of me wants to buy an Android phone for no other reason than to redress the balance, but that would be silly.<br />
My biggest bugbear, aside from numerous applications crashing unexpectedly, is apple maps. It’s not completely useless but it is a huge downgrade compared to Google maps. Yesterday it told my friend to turn into a restricted bus-only traffic lane, which he did, only to realise it was restricted. I hope he doesn’t get a ticket! It’s not very good at finding things and the interface is very clunky.<br />
But I know my way round most of London so hardly ever need to use it. I hardly ever needed Google maps either, so I guess it’s a moot point, and I am confident apple will fix it, especially after they issued their apology.<br />
My other problem with it is the lightning connector. I prefer the connector itself, but it’s just rendered all my dock connectors and charging cables useless, and at £15 a pop the replacements didn’t come cheap.<br />
Finally I have a problem with my mobile phone insurance company, who won’t accept apple’s PDF proof of purchase with a serial number on it as proof that I bought the phone. No, they want one that has the IMEI number on it. What a farce! I’ve complained, and they’ve tried to call back twice while I’ve been unavailable and they want me to dial a premium rate number to get back in touch with them. Fat chance of that happening. I do need to sort my phone insurance though!<br />Oh well, I guess that’s the price you pay for being one of the cool kids <img alt="Winking smile" class="wlEmoticon wlEmoticon-winkingsmile" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-7x7sERDFrTU/UGrsHGNFZvI/AAAAAAAAA-k/w_wYUvEsgGY/wlEmoticon-winkingsmile%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none;" />dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-13974160944789581962012-09-11T10:39:00.001+01:002012-11-14T15:13:26.022+00:0024 Hours with a Samsung Galaxy S3What’s wrong with all you people? Why do you keep buying this phone? What’s so amazing about it?<br />
I suppose I should start with my phone requirements. Perhaps I’m special, or perhaps I’m just not afraid to say what I think about this craze for big screens on phones.<br />
So here are my requirements:<br />
1. My phone should be a smart phone. This means it should have a decent data connection and access to apps that I find useful.<br />2. I should be able to use my phone with one hand. This is very important. If I have to use my phone with 2 hands, I can’t even walk down the street while using it. That's not because I walk on my hands, but because a 2-handed phone naturally requires more concentration.<br />3. It should fit in my pocket comfortably.<br />4. It should have a decent battery life.<br />5. It should have a good screen resolution.<br />6. Using it should be more pleasurable than painful.<br />
How does the Samsung fare?<br />
1. It’s smart, but perhaps too smart. The data connection is fast, but it struggles to switch between wifi and data, and the result is that no matter how many cores the processor has, the phone has to keep up with me as I walk through the city, rather than being fast enough for what I want to do.<br />2. The screen is way too big. I can only imagine that Koreans all have huge hands, or the phone has been designed for gorillas. If I try to type with one hand, my thumb can’t reach across the screen and if I try, the inside of my hand touches the screen and messes up what I’m trying to type. I ranted about this on facebook and the response was that there are increasing media requirements from most people that need bigger screens. Seriously? Guys, if you want to watch movies on your phone, perhaps you should consider investing in a television. Or a tablet.<br />3. It doesn’t fit comfortably in my pocket. It’s too big, and sticks out of the top of my jeans. I couldn’t ride a bicycle with this phone in my pocket, so whilst I appreciate how thin and light it is, unless it folds like a piece of paper it’s no good for my pocket.<br />4. It passed this test. Battery life seemed good. Certainly better than my iPhone.<br />5. The screen resolution is good, and the colours are vibrant. But you can’t see it in direct sunlight. What’s the story with that?<br />5. Using it was more painful than pleasurable. The reason for this is that I would have had to spend a long time setting up the way I wanted it to be. I would have been fine doing that if I’d bought one, but it seemed like a lot of hassle for a phone that was already troubling me due to its physical size.<br />
In case you’re wondering, no I would definitely not buy one. And now I’m worried that the iPhone 5 is going to be too big for my thumb as well <img alt="Sad smile" class="wlEmoticon wlEmoticon-sadsmile" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-t4pM2vMX3xA/UE8G2to6gdI/AAAAAAAAA-A/VWvE23yxdII/wlEmoticon-sadsmile%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none;" />dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-31922754426147526812012-09-11T10:08:00.001+01:002012-11-14T15:15:07.877+00:00DublinI forgot to write about my trip to Dublin back in June. It was great! Not only did I get to see my best friend who'd moved to New York, I got to meet her baby, who's adorable!<br />
The weather sucked. It was cold and wet, just as I'd been warned by everyone else who's been, but the people are friendly and it's true what they say about Guinness. It really does taste better in Dublin!dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-9336805201095987532012-09-11T10:00:00.001+01:002012-11-14T15:16:04.651+00:00London 2012What a year it’s been for London! The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, and then the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.<br />
<h2>
In typical British fashion.</h2>
The Queen’s Jubilee weekend was a complete washout. It rained, rained again and rained some more. But people came out in their thousands to wish the Queen a happy birthday, myself included. I’d scoped out a great spot from which to watch the flotilla the day before, but when the time came my plan was thwarted by crowds so big it was impossible to get to my spot! So I didn’t get to see Her Majesty, but I did take several photos of wet people standing in the rain watching a big screen. I’ll post photos of this later, when I have a chance to go through the thousands of photos I’ve taken.<br />
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And then we had the Olympics.</h2>
I was full of scepticism about the Olympic Route Network. I predicted gridlock, traffic chaos and road rage. I was cynical about the corporate sponsorship. And I thought the whole thing would be a waste of public money. But I was wrong. For 2 weeks, driving through London was an absolute pleasure. And that was only the tip of the iceberg. I haven’t seen London with such a great atmosphere in my life, and I’ve lived here all my life. Everyone was friendly. Strangers were talking to eachother on the street. London 2012 Games Makers were posted on what seemed like every street corner, providing cheery directions and help to anyone who needed it. Signs were colourful, and the city felt alive.<br />A gorgeous friend of mine got me a ticket to the technical rehearsal for the London 2012 Opening Ceremony, so I was one of the first 80000 spectators to visit the venue. The ceremony was epic and all I could do was tell everyone they should cancel whatever plans they have and stay home to watch the ceremony. It was excellent! Sadly, I wasn’t able to watch it in the comfort of my own home. I had to settle for the TV screen in the Costa in Toddington Services, as I was driving up to the Lake District for a wedding that weekend. But what a show it was! And what a show the Olympics were! Team GB outdid themselves, and although I wasn’t able to visit any more Olympic events, I more than made up for it at the Paralympics.<br />
I’ve got 9 t-shirts, a jumper, 3 Wenlocks, a Mandeville, 4 umbrellas, a towel, a bag, a cap and several tickets to events. And I almost (foolishly) bought a genuine Olympic torch on ebay! The torch was probably going a bit too far, but I am proud of having been part of the games. For the Paralympics I managed to go to the Opening Ceremony, Table Tennis, Goalball, Wheelchair Basketball preliminary match, Sitting Volleyball, Wheelchair Basketball gold medal match, a brief visit to Stoke Mandeville Hospital where the Paralympics began, Wheelchair marathon and finally the Closing Ceremony. And I haven’t had enough! I’m already looking at hotels in Rio for 2016!<br />
<h2>
The London 2012 Olympics truly have inspired a generation. Thank You.</h2>
I guess all that remains is for me to thank all those who made it possible. The Games Makers (especially friends of mine who were either performing at the ceremonies or in uniform at the events), Team GB, LOCOG, Boris Johnson, ALL of the corporate sponsors and of course the mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville!dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-41630353244729374102012-07-04T11:29:00.003+01:002012-11-14T15:16:39.989+00:00Le Mans 24 Hour Rollers 2012So I just got back from our annual <a href="http://londonwheelers.com/">London Wheelers</a> team trip to the <a href="http://www.24rollers.com/">Le Mans 24Rollers</a> event.<br />
I've done it 4 times now, 3 running our own team, and it was mostly excellent!<br />
<br />
Every year I go to the event and think of something that could be done better next year. Last year, after a long train journey and a horrible walk to get to the campsite with several heavy bags, I saw some friends roll up on motorbikes and in cars and thought "I could have done that" so this year I did!<br />
<br />
I wanted to really look after the team this year, as some were travelling from across the Atlantic ocean and others hadn't been before, so I bought enough tent space for everyone. This consisted of a gigantic tent that was sold as a 6-person tent but could probably fit an entire battalion of troops in it. The best tent on the whole campsite though, was my VW Camper Van shaped tent. It was very popular with hundreds of people stopping to take photos of it. At night while trying to sleep I kept thinking a thunderstorm was about to start from all the flash photography, and people were using it as a landmark for describing how to get to places!<br />
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To transport all this stuff there, I spent some money getting my old BMW 528i back on the road. It has a huge boot and, apart from the problems with fuel consumption and steering that both still need looking at after the MOT, it was a great motorway cruiser.<br />
<br />
Back at the track, the team got on really well and it was lovely to have everyone there with smiles on their faces. The only downside was that although we were sharing our pit lane with several other London teams consisting of a lot of our friends, we arrived at the pit lane a little later than everyone else and they had left no space for us at all, filling it with double mattresses and a baby change area. It made the pit lane useless to us and we mostly found ourselves sitting by the trackside instead of with friends. This is reflected in the photos which either all show the other teams or our team but never together.<br />
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Next year we'll turn up early and set up a Hard Rock Cafe in the pit lane. And maybe fit a toll booth for anyone who wants to pass.dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-47815563937988013962012-06-19T16:50:00.000+01:002012-06-19T16:50:01.313+01:00Laura Jane is Awesome!Who is <a href="https://twitter.com/lj_writes">Laura Jane</a>? Well I don't actually know but she has a cute photo on twitter and writes tweets that often amuse me. I only got in touch with her originally because she required burrito expertise and I answered the call via <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/secret_london">Secret London</a>.<br />
<br />
Why am I writing this post? <a href="https://twitter.com/LJ_writes/status/215093647107047425">Because she asked me to</a> :)<br />dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-51828951397514548322012-06-18T17:20:00.001+01:002012-09-11T10:31:03.874+01:00Pas encore Pret A MangerThis post is a special announcement.<br><br>Pret A Manger, who I must spend about £1000 a year with for my breakfast in the morning, are facing a trade embargo from... Me!<br><br>Why? You may ask?<br><br>The answer is simple. Until Friday, every morning I would walk in with a smile, ask the lovely staff for my usual Mozzarella & Tomato croissant and coffee and they would happily serve me. We'd enjoy a little banter and every once in a while I'd even get a coffee on the house!<br><br>Sadly all this changed last Friday when they decided to implement operation Pasty Tax.<br><br>What they did was to move the croissants from the safe, warm cabinet by the tills to the badlands that are the hot food area in the shop.<br><br>Ordinarily this wouldn't be that big a deal, but it now means I lose the friendly banter, have to take the croissant to the till myself and also pay 6p more for an extra bit of card that makes it difficult to eat on the move.<br><br>So far all the staff I've spoke to have said they think it's a stupid idea and I should complain. So I did. Called head office and asked for an explanation. They were quite helpful and I'm hoping to see some positive action, but I also complained on twitter. Sadly the response from whoever controls the twitter account was something along the lines of "all our branches have a different layout but we've taken your feedback on board" which was rather disappointing.<br>Anyway, I refuse to eat there until they resolve the problem :)<br><br>Update! Day 2 and I received a letter from Pret Customer Services. A rather patronising letter. Contrary to my own investigations and what the twitter account said, the letter told me they ran customer trials and received positive feedback, the placing of the croissants with the other warm food is in line with other bakeries and is in accordance with health and safety regulations. They also blamed the 6p increase in price on the cost of rent. So it tells me that the level of customer service at this company has dropped a lot since I last contacted them.<br><br>But I have NEVER seen croissants out in the open on the bottom shelf of an open full height cabinet before. They have no wrapping on them and it's quite nasty thinking about what might land on them, including the dust from people walking in and out of the shop. And so far all the other branches of Pret I've looked inside have the croissants in the correct place by the tills with the original price. <p>Update. I did finally get the call from the CEO. He completely appreciated my complaint, but the problem is their sales have gone up by 20% since they made the change, and he has a business to run. So I’ve given up. I don’t eat there as often anymore, but when I do I still have mozzarella and tomato croissants. I just pick the one from right at the back. And ask them to remove the box. I hate losing, but nobody wins everything, every time!</p> dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-88691862763009101442012-06-15T16:38:00.001+01:002012-09-11T10:28:58.276+01:00Fiddlesticks!For some reason I have taken to saying the word 'fiddlesticks' a lot. I kind of like the word, even though it's only supposed to be used when things go wrong.<br><br>I guess it means things have been going wrong a lot lately. Mostly at work.<br><br>Why?<br><br>Communication problems for the most part. Email wars, and obscure processes also have a large part to play in things. Letting tension show in written communication is never a good thing. Evidenced by picking up the phone and practically resolving the problem I've been having in an email war for the last week. As BT says, it's good to talk. If the person I am referring to reads this, I thank you for giving me the slap I needed, and for your honesty. I'd let my own standards slip and it was good to be reminded of that by someone.<br>A lot of the tension comes from obscure, complicated processes in the first place. Many of these can be avoided and I have several ideas on how things could be improved. It seems many people where I work agree with me, so it's only a matter of time before we start making changes in the right direction!<br><br>So what else is going on?<br>I think last time I wrote a post I was talking about how amazing the weather had been. Sadly since then it's mostly been raining. My motorbike probably has a flat battery, I haven't been skating as much as I'd like and I caught a cold from being out in the rain too much the last few weeks. This irritates me immensely, not just because I caught the cold in the first place but because I am attributing it to being outside in the cold. I usually tell people you don't catch a cold from being out in the cold; all that does is weaken your immune system and you catch the cold from people around you. Maybe my immune system got weakened.<br><br>I'm going to Dublin next weekend. That should be good. I've never been there before and I'm looking forward to it, but hoping the weather improves.<br><br>Following that I have the Le Mans 24 hour inline skating event at the end of the month. That takes lots of planning and I've been busy organising my team and ordering t-shirts and such. I'm slightly worried I've ordered all of them too small, but hopefully they'll be ok.<br><br>Not much else going on really, at least nothing to report. I've been thinking of getting another Android phone, because <a href="http://blog.mital.net/2011/02/epic-mobile-phone-post.html">as I expected</a> it's becoming quite the mobile phone platform.<br><br>There are also potentially some other career developments happening. I will post if there's anything to report on that front.<br><br>Finally I realised when reading back through my blog that I mention how rarely I write posts quite a lot. I am aware of the irony of mentioning it again when talking about it, but I will endeavour not to do it again.<br><br>Wheeeeee! <p>Fiddlesticks! I forgot to rant about Paris or burritos. Oh well!</p> dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-42444157865005321682012-03-26T12:20:00.002+01:002012-05-19T08:10:53.524+01:002012 So farMy blog posts have been few and far between this year.<br />
<br />
This has been deliberate. A girlfriend moving out of my flat all of a sudden, 2 ski trips, my work contract ending and joining match.com all conspired to make me either too talkative or not too talkative for various reasons.<br />
<br />
So what should I rant about first? Well it would be rather low of me to rant about the first item, and she's not worth ranting about.<br />
<br />
Ski trips are far more interesting anyway, so let's talk about those.<br />
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The first one was in January, and was an epic skater group trip to La Tania. It was awesome, except for the accommodation which was very badly organised by a friend who seemed to want to profit from doing so. That was the impression we all got even if it wasn't his intention. It's a real shame because I'd considered him a good friend until that point. So 2 good connections broken... but new connections made in the form of new friends so not all lost. 5 days of skiing and 3 days of snowboarding, all brilliant!<br />
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The second trip was last week, and was excellent. It was my third trip to Italy without injury, and my second to Sauze d'Oulx in Italy. Not much to say really... snow getting thin, sun shining all week, lovely weather, lovely company and I hope to see my friends soon for a reunion drinks night or meal.<br />
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My work contract ended too, and I did have a permanent job lined up which I started, and quit after a week. Why would I quit? Well, I was hired to a fairly senior position by an online gaming company, but when I started the job the following issues made me not want to work there:<br />
1. The manager who hired me quit suddenly the Friday before I started.<br />
2. The working hours were 9am to 6pm, already long enough but made worse by:<br />
3. "You should arrive early, probably 8.45. You may take a break of up to 15 minutes at 11am and 4pm but if you do, you must deduct that time from your 1 hour lunch break which you may take between midday and 3pm" Let's just say I haven't been treated like this since I was about 13.<br />
4. I went to the toilet and went around the corner for a coffee, and when I got back I was asked where I'd been.<br />
I can't work in those conditions, so I quit.<br />
<br />
What this meant is that for a month of lovely sunshine I had lots of free time to walk around London getting addicted to Instagram, before being hired by a previous employer just as this horrible weather started!<br />
<br />
And what do I have to say about match.com?<br />
Well not much really. I think it's rubbish. It would probably be good if I was a 6 foot tall caucasian male but I'm not, which immediately excludes me from requirements of the losers on the website. Most of the descriptions go something like this:<br />
"I am happy going out and love travelling but equally happy staying at home and cosying up on the sofa. I'm easy going but I want a confident man. He must be tall. And white. Don't contact me if you only have a picture of your naked torso. If I don't contact you back, sorry but I'm not interested."<br />
Anyway you get the idea. All the women on match.com seem to be after James Bond, not realising that James Bond isn't on match.com. And it's the same with all the other dating websites. Everyone who winks at me is either fat, ugly, old or a combination of the three, or they have put up some old photos that look cute, but they don't look like that anymore. Do I think it's good value for money? No, absolutely not. In fact it's a complete waste and I wouldn't encourage anyone to use it. Same goes for matchaffinity, the sister website that's supposed to match your personalities. It seems my personality matches well with fat old people, despite the fact that my interests are all extreme sports and fun things that fat old people have never imagined doing.<br />
<br />
So I've met one interesting lady from the site but I suspect she's not so interested in me. Maybe I rant too much :)<br />
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I'll rant about my trip to Paris in my next post, and more about Burritos!<br />
dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-60566946129806961912012-03-12T11:58:00.004+00:002012-11-14T15:17:14.924+00:00Hire Me!If, on the off chance, you happen to be looking for someone to provide you with insightful strategic guidance, and fantastic management and delivery of IT infrastructure solutions, please get in touch.<br />
If you happen to be reading this shortly after receiving my CV, please appreciate that I don't just fire my CV off to anyone and that if you've got this far you really ought to call me.dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-16048146823925561352012-01-18T18:00:00.001+00:002012-02-07T11:22:59.037+00:00You cant just do social, you have to be social!I've not been socialising in recent times. Various factors have kept me at home and it's really liberating to be out and about again! <br /> <br />I'm already bringing people together for a curry at Raavi's on Drummond street, and I may have mentioned I'm off to the Alps next week, which will be awesome! <br /> <br />Working with some organisations who have little to no experience of social, it can be a struggle convincing them they need to deal with the platform differently to the way they deal with a regular website. They often don't understand that it needs to be easy to use and all about the community members; you don't get to the centre of a social circle by forcing people to do what you want! Flexibility and understanding is key, and there are several subject matter experts who deal with how to introduce these new concepts to an organisation. dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-57533794154341411342012-01-01T11:46:00.001+00:002012-02-01T19:06:11.895+00:00Happy New Year!I resolve to blog more, unless I decide nobody is reading this.dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-73924547688362866202011-12-20T12:03:00.001+00:002011-12-20T12:03:34.634+00:00Wow I really ought to update this, and think of a better title while I’m at it…<p>I’ve just spent the last 3 weeks or so learning all about the social media sphere, shortlisting various solutions for an implementation of a social community for the organisation I’m working for.</p> <p>It’s been quite interesting learning how these communities are started and they are quite similar to real life social situations in many ways. For example you need someone to post things that generate conversation, and it works best if you only introduce a few features and get people talking about those, as they will be overwhelmed by too many features much the same way they would be overwhelmed by too much information in a conference.</p> <p>And then there’s all the focus on user experience and branding, and getting people to stay on the site. If you build it, they won’t come, but if you build some of it and advertise it like crazy and have a presence on facebook, and post links back to your community, they just might come, and as long as you’re talking about things that interest them, they might stay too!</p> <p>We narrowed our list down to 3 contenders who all had excellent merits. There was the large corporation with an very good off the shelf product and lots of research behind it, the mid size organisation specialising in our sector, and the small company who offered the best service and an entirely bespoke solution.</p> <p>Rather sadly, we ended up choosing the massive corporation much the same way you’d go to Tesco to buy your groceries instead of to the high street. It might cost a bit more to get there but once you’re there you know it has everything you need and if you have a problem you can go back next week and complain, and someone will do something about it.</p> <p>I’ll write something more interesting next time!</p> dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3857577568300066827.post-31559930965334341682011-11-30T09:11:00.001+00:002011-12-02T12:09:21.061+00:00StrikingAll this striking bugs me somewhat. There are too many public sector workers as it is. The previous government artificially created lots of jobs to keep unemployment figures low, and introduced a mass of expensive regulation that cost both the private sector and the taxpayer a huge amount of money. They borrowed billions every year to fund these jobs, and now the people who have them are going on strike to protest at pension reforms.<br />
At least they have pensions.<br />
What I find amusing is that (admittedly only a few hours into my working day) everything is running smoothly. My drive to work was traffic-free, probably because nobody is meddling with the traffic light system. Reports on the radio suggest things are going more smoothly at airports with passengers being greeted with friendly smiles instead of the usual suspicion, and to top it all off, the weather forecasters must be on strike because it’s sunny! <img alt="Smile with tongue out" class="wlEmoticon wlEmoticon-smilewithtongueout" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-TrXkiDsR_Ik/TtXzP736mPI/AAAAAAAAAJU/qsIPyyKZva0/wlEmoticon-smilewithtongueout%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" /><br />
It will be interesting to see how badly services are affected with all these people not working. If everything runs smoothly, all they prove is that they aren’t needed and can be made redundant. And who will pay their unemployment benefit if they are made redundant? Well, the same people who pay their salaries now; the taxpayer.<br />
Of course nobody reads this blog so my opinion is out there waiting to be quoted or linked or tweeted, but it’s unlikely it will ever see the light of day! D’oh <img alt="Smile" class="wlEmoticon wlEmoticon-smile" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-vsDscs6B-mw/TtXzQjZmXsI/AAAAAAAAAJY/YD9eP_XTb1k/wlEmoticon-smile%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" />dotmithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02961642302134590539noreply@blogger.com0