Red Light

Cool young band, working hard on their music, and one's related to me! The lead guitar/vocals is my 13yr old nephew. Someone to watch in the future. They do sound good. Me? I'm just a very proud uncle.

What's also interesting is that the stereophonics (hero's of mine) have connected to the on myspace. How cool is that ? :)

If you think your drivings bad!

Check out the 67 yr old from belfast who has a long driving record !

Some Technical Mumbo Jumbo for you!

So i was wondering why the playback from the IPOD was so good on the TV!

The video's/TV are recorded as MPEG4 with a H.264 codec which is great news as alot of the broadcasters use this . Both HD-DVD and Blue-Ray have H264 as a mandatory part of the player as well :)

Back to today though. So the content i have uses the H264 codec. Great news

Apple's 5th Generation iPod can play H.264 Baseline Profile up to Level 3 with support for bit rates up to 1.5 Mbit/s, image resolutions up to 640x480, and frame rates up to 30 frames per second. This device also plays MPEG-4 Part 2 Simple Profile video, up to 2.5 Mbit/s, 640x480 pixels, 30 frames per sec. Playback at full DVD resolution does not require any firmware modification to the iPod.

So content, storage device and output are all good. Now to the TV. I have a Sony 32" WEGA CRT. DVB compliant and also PAL format. So what's taking the signal and converting it to play to the TV? Something smart is going on.

Err, this requires more research or answers from a reader.

Move it with you!

So the future is definately DLNA (digital living network alliance) to move content around the home. The problem is i'm waiting for a digital TV from SONY to come to the UK with DLNA in it (hint hint SONY!)

Until then i have tried streaming audio/video from PC wirelessly. Nice try tonto! So many integration issues + the fact the PC has to be on all the time, the media server software is rubbish etc etc. I have a life and can't be bothered to go through all the issues one after another. ROi is just not worth it!

Found a stopgap if your an iTunes/Ipod user. Buy the AV connection kit. I was a little skeptical as i play music vides purchased via iTunes on a 2-head flat panel monitor setup. Playback is a little pixilated but acceptable. However, connecting the IPOD to the a 32" Sony WEGA TV in widescreen mode playback is good and will be a stop gap for the next couple of years. It's so good i've actually bought 3 TV shows off ITunes to checkout playback of those. Just for the record - South Park, Pimp My Ride and Jongleurs unleashed were the only "suitable" shows i could find for research purposes. Cough!

The good olde D 'n' V

Been ill over the weekend (not self-inflicted..a bug!). I will spare you the details but you have got to love the medical profession as they call what i have been experiencing - D 'n' V! I will let you figure it out yourselves.

Some other medical acronyms for you to consider:

- NFP

- CTD

- GROLLIES
- TTFO

- FLK

- GLM

- GPO

- TEETH

- UBI

Answers on a postcard....

Sunday Morning View

We have had a 40th in the family this weekend. No, not me, that's next year!

We managed to get my sister to look after the kids for the weekend and disappeared Saturday lunchtime to re-appear Sunday tea-time.

What wilds things did we get up to? Afternoon tea on arrival, massage at the spa, more tea, grown up chat about stuff we haven't had a chance to get around to, dinner, wine/whisky without having to nominate a driver, 8 hrs sleep, uninterrupted read of the Sunday papers (with the view above), breakfast delivered to the room, walk, horse riding, afternoon tea and a shopping trip without interruptions. All-in-all pure bliss (for those who have two small kids)

Now back to normality. How do you turn the volume down on the kids?

New Baby?

Ha! Bet you thought another child was on the way!

I'm looking for another bike! Love the GS Adventure and keeping it. Always a pleasure and its a dream to travel a long way on it someday. My ideal trip would be from Alasaka to Argentina! Maybe a chat to the Kevin and Julia at http://www.globebusters.com/ one day!

Looking for a small (ish) enduro/motorcross bike. Challenge is what to buy - 'onda, KTM, Beemer, Husky? Problem is you can't go to one place and try them all. Nearest Honda off-road centre is 50 miles from home. I just don't have the time to get around all the places. Ho hum. Hopefully figure it out soon and get to play in the lanes and mud around home

You've gotta tell it straight!

Been a long week. 200 mile drive late Sunday, 2 hotels and a total of 650+ miles and i just got back (Thursday).

Today ended with a 5hr meeting with a customer - a slightly unhappy one at that. Having spent $2m on technology from us they are struggling. A number of reasons but at the end of the day the past is the past and we have to look forward. For 5hrs i had observed some smart technologists ask us some very technical questions. Not a problem with that. But some of the business folks were adamant that they knew what they wanted to do and that they were not going to change. It was the technology that was at fault. It was obvious that internally the business and the technology sponsors were not aligned. The main sponsor - new to the customers company - asked everyone to leave the room apart from us - he asked our opinions directly! I had to tell him straight and direct. If he didn't align his internal folks - his company would be screwed and the effects would not be nice. Technology would be deployed but i was not convinced the company would achieve their business model goals. Not a threat - just observations. I explained my reasons with passion and facts.

After the meeting the team i was with did a debrief away from the customer. Conclusion was that it was risky calling it out and being direct, but the outcome we believe is positive and we can make progress. Interesting dynamic in the team - going in we were expecting the worst - but the outcome was different. We earned respect and trust. We can see a way forward and we believe that we can help the customer achieve their business goals. The team felt great.

At the end of the day - you've got to tell it straight.

Committment to work!

Last week i had all my pre-sales and consultants together for our quarterly off site. This is 2-3 days of learning + a bit of team building. We visit our Cheshire office and normally challenge the tech support guys! Last few quarters we have had go-karting and go ape (swinging from trees!). I deny being involved in the decision making process for the latest activity. I just delegate the job whilst before i went on holiday. Bad mistake! This time some smart Alec had the idea of paint balling. We were not prepared! At one point whilst engaged in this mad activity one of my fellow teammates thought i was a baddy and opened fire at close range (6 feet!). I got shot in various placed. He drew blood on both hands, alot of bruising (hopefully you can see from the crap photo) and i have had bruises on my legs that started as nice red marks, went blue, then purple and now most of my leg is yellow - and its been a week since the incident happened! Good news is there is a bit of post activity "sport" as the guy who mistook me for a baddy realised after the event that he just shot his bosses boss!

Next quarter i think we should just organise domino's or some pub related activity though deep down i know this is not going to happen.

Interesting start to the weekend

Been a couple of eventful weeks. More about that later.

Saturday we decided to go to a local country fair. Family loaded up in land rover. 5yr old in front - everyone happy. End up being 3rd car in line at notorious junction. You can see the junction on the right hand side of picture (we approach junction from righ to left). You've probably guessed where this is going. First car goes across staggered junction, second car (an old volvo estate) waits, takes a look and then proceeds to cross major road. Problem was white escort car approachs out of dip. Difficult to judge approach speed as its open country and no reference points. Estimate the contact at approx 40 mph! Escort t-bones volvo around driver door. Both cars run parallel with the impact and the resulting momentum, mount a grass verge and end up in a field. You can just see both cars in the photo. Not bad when you think it just moved 3 tonnes of metal that far and that high up. You can see the resting place to left of the open door on the Land Rover! The banking is about 5-6ft high at that point. Instinct takes over, i protect vehicles and occupants with land rover (as the road i am parked on is on the wrong side of a dip and is national speed limit and people like to make progress), wife jumps out with first aid kit we carry and starts to check folks and we call emergency services from landie.

Outcome - Land Rover: one shocked and upset 5yr old. There was alot of noise, glass shattering, crumping metal. Volvo: 4 ladies and a dog get out of volvo, shocked but physically ok. Escort: Driver shocked but physically ok. Passenger not wearing seatbelt. Broken noise, neck injury and alot of blood etc. Really struggling to understand why people do not wear seatbelts. The car he was travelling either did not have airbags or they did not activate. I saw where he hit the laminated windscreen. It was not pretty. 20 mins after calling the police and paramedics they arrive en masse. Gave statement and let the professionals to get on with it!

Volvo driver could be had for driving without due care and attention - lack of attention whilst entering a major road. Escort driver could have approached at a slower speed (though i do not believe was breaking the speed limit) and assessed the risks better. At the end of the day there was fault on both sides. Luckily no-one was killed.

An unplanned start to the weekend.