Keiron’s daily take on life, the internet and the world around us!

I used to believe so, apart from one incident many moons ago when I bought a phone in an Orange shop and the manager wouldn’t let me take it away as it needed a new SIM, I nearly exploded as I needed the roaming functionality that weekend on my shiny new phone! I finished my complaint letter with:

The future may be bright, but it will be brighter without Orange!

Things improved for a while, but just recently they seem to be going backwards, rumours that it’s since France Telecom took over could well be true I suppose!

The latest in their immensely odd strategies (in a week where Vodafone has announced free data on all tariffs) is the charging for “Orange Messenger” when they purposely remove Windows Messenger from all their devices. Of course you can go and install the CAB for Windows Messenger but many people are questioning whether they’ll be charged for using that as well (are Orange port monitoring!).

I’m off to investigate T-Mobile.

I’m a bit of a snooker fan, always have been - just don’t get time to watch it so much now… But the bit I’ve watched today, all 9 minutes of it was some of the best snooker ever played… Just watch Ronnie O’Sullivan earn himself his brand new sports car clearing up a maximum break in sub 10 minutes!

photo credit: DubaiFM

I had a look at the EEE PC at the weekend, it looks kind of cool and weighs virtually nothing…

I know, I know, I know - it was designed for the younger market, but this laptop has infinite appeal for almost any IT professional, at sub 1kg with a solid state disk?

I quite liked the OS that was installed, but a friend suggested installing XP on it (and upping the disk to 4GB or buying a 4GB version) as then it will support everything XP supports, which means I can plug my phone in as a USB 3G modem - that’s the key thing. I could feasibly get away with this being what I take on holiday (sorry Em - no DVD’s anymore?!).

What are peoples thoughts, does anyone have one?

Some notes on websites I’ve found with info that may be considered useful going forward:

• Tnkgrl mods the Asus to have internal Bluetooth
• Ivancover’s guide to a variety of Asus upgrades (Bluetooth, USB, GPS, Flash etc).
• I found the PC Advisor review interesting, and agree with the weakness that it doesn’t have an internal modem just a phone socket, so I’d need to get a USB link to my phone working - under XP or the Linux built in OS. Tracey and Matt appear to have had the same concern, and found JKKMobile’s review of inserting a 3G modem, I think I’d be happier just knowing if it would support my HTC Trinity out of the box with the Linux OS, or whether I’d really need to install XP.

I was interested to read on The Register in the comments section:

Asus tells me the 3G upgrade’s coming by the end of the year and that it’ll be offered on its own, as an upgrade technical users can perform themselves.

There’s no word on price yet.

Anyone waiting the 8GB model isn’t likely to see one before the new year - Asus’ Eee PC production is current focused entirely on the 2GB and 4GB models, I’m told.

The other colours - pink, green and blue - will be coming in 2008 too.

Although an expansys thread suggest a utility I hadn’t heard of before , WMWifiRouter, which appears to work in WM6 and WM5 AKU 3.3 - looks like my WM5 has AKU 3.0. I installed the trial software and it ran, but wouldn’t work - I’ll try again later with some support advice they’ve given me!

I thought this was interesting, I don’t have a Canon - (I went for the Nikon and love it!).

I guess a lot of companies now just make one camera (or any item of technology) and then put a “dumbed down” firmware onto each version to allow it to open up certain features. We do something kind of similar at work, the code is all the same and your “keyfile” opens up certain functionality - it means theres only one codebase to maintain (although interactions can make testing and code complexity a big issue!).

photo credit: rodrigo senna

Do you have any items where you’ve reprogrammed (in some way) the system to give you extra features? DVD Players, Car Engine management systems?! Whatever?

photo credit: rodrigo senna

Chris Bailey recently pointed out a post by Jodee Bock, about being happy in your work, and that almost everyone can relate to Dilbert in one form of another (it what’s gives Scott Adams so much material to work with!!).

I work in cubeland so Dilbert is a regular part of daily life for most of us, whether it be calendars the website, or that one particular day’s ‘toon pinned to your noticeboard that feel is an anecdote to your daily life. How many people have Dilbert in their lives I wonder?

If you don’t work in Cubeland check out how much of a home a cube can become (mine is nothing like this - unfortunately!!!):

• Coolest Cubicles - Part 1
• Coolest Cubicles - Part 2
• Coolest Cubicles - Part 3 - I particularly like “Cubes of War” and “Hot Cubes” - I remember Hot Wheels!

After the final Showdown, the winner was declared, as Mark MacAskill’s Cube of War (that kind of camouflage wouldn’t get you very far in our office, you’d be better off hiding under your desk!).

I was also quite impressed on the subject of cubicles recently when The Planet decided to show us what funky toys they’d got, and pay homage to the Cubicle/Newbicle!

photo credit: Ol.v!er [H2vPk]

I couldn’t be without my USB key these days if I’m honest, I bought a 2GB one about 12 months before our wedding and it has been my absolute life saver on a number of occasions (and I’ve only left in the office just the once!!!).

Up until today I thought the best thing on it was my WOS server (Webserver on a Stick), but looking at Tiny USB Office it might just have some competition on its hands - does anyone use this software? If not, what do you have on your stick?

photo credit: bbaunach

Some people who read both of my blogs will already be aware of a comment policy, I have over there and a recent addition.

I’ll be adding that policy here in the next day or so, having had a comment today from somebody called “TV Bracket”.

photo credit: fotologic