English again

Spain won! And what a stunning goal by Torres.

Thanks to all the Spanish players and fans for making Euro 2008 such a great competition, and thanks for letting us temporarily adopt your great nation for the past few weeks.

We've now reverted from our Spanishness and are fully English once again. Come on England!

Being British

Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, and then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV.

And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of all things foreign!

Only in Britain can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

Only in Britain do supermarkets make sick people walk all the way to the back of the shop to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Only in Britain do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a DIET coke.

Only in Britain do banks leave both doors open and chain the pens to the counters.

Only in Britain do we leave cars worth thousands of pounds on the drive and lock our junk and cheap lawn mower in the garage.

Only in Britain do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won't miss a call from someone we didn't want to talk to in the first place.

Only in Britain are there disabled parking places in front of a skating rink.

NOT TO MENTION.

3 Brits die each year testing if a 9v battery works on their tongue.

148 Brits are injured each year by using sharp knives instead of screwdrivers.

31 Brits have died since 1996 by watering their Christmas tree while the fairy lights were plugged in.

19 Brits have died in the last 3 years believing that Christmas decorations were chocolate.

British Hospitals reported 4 broken arms last year after Xmas cracker-pulling accidents.

18 Brits had serious burns in 2000 trying on a new jumper with a lit cigarette in their mouth.

A massive 543 Brits were admitted to A&E in the last two years after trying to open bottles of beer with their teeth.

5 Brits were injured last year in accidents involving out-of-control Scalextric cars.

And finally...In 2000 eight Brits were admitted to hospital with fractured skulls incurred whilst throwing up into the toilet.

Still Proud to be British!

author : unknown.

Source : http://www.funmeme.com

Macs go full-screen

I stumbled upon this great little app from thebarbariangroup for the mac that enables you to use Safari in a 'presentation mode'.

Anyone out there that does design work and needs to show clients work (on their Mac!) will find this an excellent app to use. It's slick and simple. Well done guys.

Presentation for Mac

"Welcome to blah, blah"

I hate (actually despise) websites that start with "Welcome to..."

Please, please, don't do it! And please don't ever let me do it again - ever. Thank you.

It's all too easy to cop-out (even today) and start with "Welcome, blah."

Disclaimer: Yes, I know, we *kind of* do it on our site (but in a slightly more refined manor - still bad though).

Do the BBC say "Welcome to the BBC"? No. Do Apple say "Welcome to Apple"? No. Do Amazon say "Welcome to Amazon"? No.

You don't need it and we don't need it either. Visiting a website should be self evident as to where you are. If it's not then we're all failing.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are at war

Will I 'eck

"My vision is not impaired"

A quick clip of Wilf confronting a Dalek from The Stolen Earth - paint guns don't work anymore Wilf! Arghhh...

Gotta be mad!

Maybe it's just me, in fact I think it is just me, but what is the attraction of Glastonbury? 3 sodden days of mud, sweat and other bodily excretions. Living in a tent, unable to move for people, listening to (largely) crap music.

I just don't get it. Oh well, have fun everyone attending.

Eurosport looses MotoGP coverage

Suzi Perry
The only good thing
about BBC MotoGP coverage

Is this the biggest disaster since the introduction of Prawn Cocktail flavoured crisps? Yes it is.

Anyone who loves their Motorsport knows that British Eurosport's commentary team of Toby Moody, Julian Ryder and Randy Mamola are quite simply the best commentary team in the world EVER! Eurosport give us the best coverage of practice, qualifying and race day from all 3 categories, often with unrivaled 5-6 hour coverage of race day. The team are insightful, intelligent, articulate and often damn right humourous.

The BBC coverage on the other hand, sucks. Apart for the delights of Suzi Perry the BBC currently offers bugger all for MotoGP fans. It's coverage is boring, flat and depressing - what little they do show that is.

So BBC, here's what you absolutely must do for next year:

1. Sack your current team (except Suzi, she can stay)
2. Hire Messrs Moody, Ryder and Mamola! Pay them whatever it takes and give them the freedom to present the show as only they know how to
3. Show LIVE coverage of practice and qualifying for 125cc, 250cc and MotoGP (even if that has to be behind the red button)
4. Give us full race day coverage: including the MotoGP warm up and all 3 races - LIVE

Thank you BBC. I have faith in you to get it right (and that goes for your Formula 1 coverage next year as well).

Of course, there is already a petition online that you can sign:

Replace The Current BBC MotoGP Commentary Team With Toby Moody, Julian Ryder, & Randy Mamola For 2009

Thank you Eurosport. You have been fantastic and should have been allowed to keep MotoGP.

We're in the final!

Hurahh! Spain 3 v 0 Russia.

Match report

Oh my, this could get interesting....here come the domains

The BBC is running an article on how ICANN has decided to open up the top-level domain name registrations, which effectively means that we will get thousands (probably millions) of new domains.

Now any 'brand' will end up as a domain name. I don't know about you but I'm already struggling to keep on top of all the domain identifiers. Now I'm going to have to google to find the right one! 

Naturally this also introduces a more sinister thought - a company that has a product would probably have to register many domains. This is turn means spending more money to keep hold of your brand. Has this been done for the good of the internet, or the good of the registrars?

I don't know if this is a good move or not. Perhaps if an organisation such as ICANN had better managed the current domain name registrations so people could not buy, sit on and then auction off names then we would not be in this mess?

On the other hand I can create a domain name for my kettle. Hmm, those new Nike trainers - is that www.bouncywhitetrainers.nike or www.nike.com/bouncywhitetrainers?!!

The process of introducing the new system will start in 2009.

Exterminate!

Uh oh! The exclusive Stolen Earth clip over on the BBC Doctor Who site.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

The Stolen Earth is on BBC 1, Saturday night at 7:10pm

Dalek Caan
Madder than a box of frogs, apparently.

Banners gone barmy

I'm kind of all for banner adverts - our Talee Talee site makes use of them to help fund the bandwidth bills (and we get a lot of traffic!). If someone wants to click them then that's great.Talee Talee is free so any income is welcome. Mostly they are random and occasionally have something worth-while.

However, I could not but laugh out loud when I saw this on Facebook. Surely this can't be for real!!! 

I'd love to know what people actually think of banner adverts - and why people click them! 

Installing RMagick on OS X Leopard

Getting RMagick to install on OS X can be a bit of a pain in the arse. Having failed with an attempt to install it through MacPorts, I came across this fabulous article over at http://macournoyer.wordpress.com

Great stuff mate, thanks!

Anyway, a few subtle additions/changes and I'm away with RMagick on Leopard.

If you want to install the same, follow the instructions in the article with these additions/changes:

1. curl -O ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz


This gives a 503 error. Change it to:

curl -O http://www.ijg.org/files/jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz


2. Before you do: sudo mv fonts/ /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/

You need to create the ghostscript directory:

sudo mkdir /usr/local/share/ghostscript


3. sudo gem install RMagick

This fails with: ERROR: could not find RMagick locally or in a repository

You need to do this:

sudo gem install rmagick


That's it. You should now have a working RMagick!

Nokia ahoy

Turns out Nokia are trying to re-establish themselves in the ever-changing mobile market. They are buying out Symbian and making it open-source in attempt to beef up their platform. 

Sure they dominate the mobile market currently but that domination is sliding. What the industry has found is that the 'platform' is now becoming a major factor of the phone rather than the 'look' of it. Perhaps if Nokia had not spent all that time making 'fashion' phones that were frankly rubbish they would not be in this situation now.

 I can't help think this is in vain though. We have developed for the symbian platform releasing a few applications. The trouble was it was a dire platform to work on! 

We now have the iPhone platform and also android which are so much nicer to use.  Nokia currently survive because of their brand and reputation, but things change.

No James, you didn't. Don't worry.

"Today has been the most disappointing day of my life as I let everybody down," said a devastated Toseland. "This weekend was not about personal achievement because letting myself down comes second to letting the fans down."

James Toseland, crashing out of his first home MotoGP, did not let anyone down. He's doing a great job.

Perhaps it has to be said that he was *trying* to hard to please, rather than just riding his best. Lesson learnt me thinks. Next year...

(I've already brought the T-shirt so I'm a fan!)

Welcome to my new Empire, Doctor

"The Children of Time are moving against us."

"Welcome to my new Empire, Doctor"

Fantastic new trailer for The Stolen Earth.

Davros looks and sounds awesome. Can't wait for this one, it's going to be manic.

Scott Redding

Congratulations to Scott Redding.

Scott is one of three highly talented British riders in this years 125cc MotoGP, and he won his home race at Donington yesterday at the first time of asking.

Scott has competed in just 8 MotoGP events, he is the youngest-ever winner at a MotoGP event and the first British rider to win a 125cc race since 1975. Scott is 15!

Well done mate, excellent ride, hopefully it is the first of many.

You can read an in-depth report over on the BBC:

125cc report


(Photo borrowed from Scott's website. PHOTO COURTESY www.highsidephotos.co.uk, he's the one in the middle!)

The Wally with the Brolly

Poor old Steve McClaren. The ex-England manager who set himself right up for the infamous "Wally with the Brolly" headline. (Great headline by the way!)

Steve's now back in work. Yeah!

From England to....... FC Twente (in Holland). Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Of course, Steve was interviewed for the Blackburn Rovers job last week (according to Sky Sports):

McClaren was interviewed for the managerial vacancy at Blackburn Rovers in the past few days, but has now elected to take up the role in Holland.

I think that tells it's own story. Paul Ince for Blackburn then. Good choice Blackburn, Ince will be a fine manager for you. All the best Paul.

Steve McClaren:

"This is an exciting new phase of my managerial career and I can't wait to take up the challenge."

No Steve, it isn't really is it? It's a second rate job. Are you taking your brolly with you?

Small but powerful

All too often people go out and try to find the BIG company to get their project done. However, sometimes it's worth looking to the smaller guys to see what they can offer.

My experience when dealing with large companies is that projects take far too long and they end up well over budget. Another problem is that although a firm may have many staff, it does not mean they are great staff. Often when you have a large number of people,  flaws and weaknesses become less apparent due to the their 'weight'. They are there though, ready to be exposed in a time of weakness.

When you deal with the smaller firm, you are dealing with their reputation, their brand - all that they are is on the line. This means inevitably you end up with people dedicated to your project, have a fine set of skills and can rely on them to see things through.

Sometimes the smaller they are - the more potent and effective they can be.

Bike Mad....

Being that I will be cycling from London to Paris in a couple of months I figured I had best learn a bit more about my bike (and how to fix it if something breaks!)....

I came across this site and have found it excellent. Have a look - you might find it useful as the Petrol Prices in the UK keep creeping up!

Best of British

It's MotoGP time!

utopia 365 are attending MotoGP (at Donington) for qualifying this coming Saturday, as part of our motor racing season, which also includes the full 3 days of the Formula One British GP (go Lewis and/or Robert!)

There's lots to look forward to this year, with 5 British riders in all classes. We've got James Toseland in the MotoGP class, Eugene Laverty in the 250cc class, and 3 great riders in the 125cc class (Bradley Smith, Scott Redding and Danny Webb). Added to that another chance to see Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner, Colin Edwards et al and the very impressive (but slightly erratic and crazy) Jorge Lorenzo - it should be a damn good day.

Qualification predictions:

125cc = Bradley Smith
250cc = Marco Simoncelli
MotoGP = James Toseland

A fine Hampshire win

Sigma 150-500mm DG OS HSM 38
Originally uploaded by Chris Nesbit

Last Saturday (14th) I was fortunate to attend the Hampshire v Kent match in the 20/20 cup.

Hampshire had not made a great start to the season with a comprehensive defeat the wednesday before to Middlesex but managed to grab a last grasp victory (last ball) to Sussex on the Friday. This seems to have fired them up and they achieved a fine victory against last years winners.

The 20/20 finals is being held at the Rose Bowl this year and I have taken the opportunity to grab my tickets whilst I can.

I was also able to try out my new Sigma DG OS HSM 150-500 lens, and have found it excellent. This will enable us to grab some great distance pictures for any photography work we undertake.

Firefox Download Day is today!

I mentioned about Firefox Download Day before, do you remember?

Well, today is that day. Download Firefox right now and help them with their World Record attempt. You will also get an improved web browsing experience over Internet Explorer.

If you are using Safari on a Mac then you can forget about Firefox if you wish. That's just fine by us, after all, it is our opinion (well certainly my opinion) that Safari is the best damn browser around. But if you are a Windows user, running Internet Explorer - what are you waiting for?

GET FIREFOX HERE!

SUPPORT OUR CAMPAIGN FOR BETTER BROWSING.

iPhone video conferencing kit

Very funny. :-)

Over on Gizmodo - the compact, convenient, battery free, Apple video conferencing kit.

Read the article, here.

Talee Talee in May

Sorry to keep banging on about utopia solitaire and Talee Talee, but we've got all the stats for visitors to Talee Talee in May. Quite a good month.

They are as follows:

Unique visitors: 116,690

Number of visits: 148,890 (that's 1.27 visits per person - we'd like to get that up a bit, we know we have a dedicated core of several 100's who play daily! Thanks. We'd like to see all of our visitors returning daily.)

Pages: 381,454

Hits: 8,283,565

Best day: May 4th. 11,698 visitors (mostly to play utopia solitaire).

Coming soon from utopia 365

Thaicats and Masterspares.

Another week

Well another week has past in utopia. It's amazing how fast time can fly.

Checking my justgiving page has revealed that donations are coming in for my charity events. I continue to train and Andy is kind enough to not mind me popping off for a run or a cycle. If you want to get involved then perhaps sponsor me - it goes towards The Rose Road Association based in Southampton, hampshire. Those that have I THANK VERY MUCH.

Checking the news I see that Ireland has rejected the EU Lisbon treaty. This makes me happy and I HOPE that the UK is given a similar opportunity. It would be helpful if it was publicised and explained in more simplistic terms so the population can decide. Deep down, I think it is inevitable, but prolonging it is good. It kind of makes a mockery of the World Wars though.

Ok - rant over. Have a good weekend.

A quick peek...

utopia solitaire is still proving popular.

We think it is about time to release an updated version, fixing a couple of things that we are unhappy with and introducing a new look and feel.

So, utopia solitaire II will be available soon over at Talee Talee. Until then, here's a quick peek at how the new interface is going to look (probably):

Handy and fun

Here are a couple of links to some handy and fun software.

First up there's  free File Recovery software (aimed at pictures but will do most files). What's great about this is that is is cross-platform! There are lots of file recovery utilities out there but normally they cost lots of money and work on one platform. This handles it all.

REMEMBER - if you delete a file and need to get it back...STOP working on the drive that had the file.

For fun, then why not try the Google Maps driving simulator....oh how you can while away the hours with this amusing take on google maps!

Enjoy.

Pay as you go iPhone...

Further to my good friend's post, the pay as you go iPhone is seeming damn fine to me!

That's the Baby!

Doesn't even have a 'V' in it

I loved this!

Shamelessly stolen from the BBC live text feed of Spain vs Russia at Euro 2008.

1711: "Are we sure Sergei Semak is Russian? His name doesn't even have a 'v' in it."
wildonionbagger on 606

Well done wildonionbagger.

For reference, here is the Russian team line-up:

Russia
01 Akinfeev
22 Aniukov
14 Shirokov
08 Kolodin
18 Zhirkov
21 Sychev
17 Zyryanov
11 Semak
20 Semshov
15 Bilyaletdinov
19 Pavluchenko


(And yes, the same applies to Kolodin, but you get the point - very good)

O2 UK and iPhone Upgrades

Great news - O2 and Apple have not left those early adopters to the iPhone in the lurch.

They are providing an excellent upgrade path which even includes a Free iPhone if you are on the O2 £45 tariff.

Even better, they will provide a way for you to let someone you know take on your existing iPhone (happy birthday wife!).

Another bolt is that there will be a Pay as You go option. Great! 

Excellent news for many no doubt. Thanks O2 and Apple.

For more info see the site: O2

OS X - Snow Leopard

OK, so Apple have announced the next version of OS X - will be called Snow Leopard.

I can't say I really like the name, but the assumption I make is that it will be an 'enhanced' version of OS X Leopard, rather than a new version of OS X per se.

Sure, Apple will probably add some new features and what not, because that's what they do. A more streamlined version of Leopard, taking up less space - that's Snow Leopard.

Wonder if they will make the box white? That'd be nice.

An air of excitement

It's that time of year again when many fans and industry manufacturers will be waiting to see what comes out of the Apple WWDC. The keynote is due to start in a few hours.

We are looking forward to seeing what fantastic products they release (yes we want a 3G iPhone) and if they are going to update the .Mac service.

We're also hoping things will move along with the iPhone developer program so we can get a native version of utopia solitaire out.

Roll on 6 p.m.

update: Store down. It's amazing that for so many a store being 'down' is great news! 

update2: .Mac smtp services failing.

Gadget shoes?

With the excitement of utopia solitaire being the number 1 web-app game on the apple site, I thought it was time to celebrate - celebrate big style.

So, I went and bought a new pair of shoes.

Right, that's not that exciting is it - nope. However, what I bought was a pair of gadget shoes. Anyone that knows me knows I like gadgets. What were these shoes I hear you ask....they were MBT shoes.

Here is the theory - most of us don't know how to walk proper cos the shoes we wear are basically 'wrong'. I keep getting stuffed knees and lower-back ache and some say it is all to do with posture and walking movement. This is where the 'MBT' shoes come in. 

They are weird, really weird.

I have been wearing them for nearly 2 days now and I can honestly say I feel different. My legs have to 'work' when I am stood up - when I walk I have to walk differently. Will they make a difference? Only time will tell but so-far I like what I am feeling.

You can find out more about MBT shoes from their site.

If you are local to Southampton then there is a nice little running shop in Eastleigh that sells them.

Most popular!

Back of the net!

utopia solitaire is (at 10:50 07/06/08) the most popular web app game on apple.com.

Whilst it is somewhat satisfying being the author of (what must be) one of the most popular web apps ever for the iPhone, it would be so much more satisfying to have made a lot of money out of it!

Oh well. Version 2 is on it's way real soon...

Heck, we're proud, we really are! Thanks everyone and keep on playing!

Shameless plug over.

UPDATE: And currently (10:58) the 2nd most popular app of all...

Viva Espana!

It's Euro 2008 time. Hurrah! No England, but maybe that's not such a bad thing. No hype, no loosing on penalties in the quarter finals - just a great tournament to enjoy with no national loyalties.

So, who are you supporting?

(I'm going for Spain, purely because I'm a Liverpool fan and the boy Torres is something special!)

UPDATE: The above Torres comment sounds a bit gay. I didn't mean it like that. Quality player.

Broadband code

It's long been the case that ISPs have "hyped up" the actual download speed that most people receive from their broadband internet connection. Now, Ofcom and some 32 ISPs have agreed to a voluntary code which may see more accurate estimations on the speed you will actually receive, rather than the theoretical speed that you could receive.

I'm actually quite fortunate in that I pay Sky for 8Meg broadband and pretty much get just that, but you do hear stories of people paying for much higher speeds and actually getting less than 25% of what they pay for.

Simple solution time... why can't you just decide what theoretical maximum speed you want to pay for? Then after installation (and periodically thereafter) a test can be run to see what you actually get - and you just pay for that. So, you want 8Meg, you actually only get 3.5Meg so you pay the 4Meg monthly fee.

Easy.

From the BBC:

Voluntary code for internet speed

VLC on iPhone?

Zodtdd is porting the excellent VLC media player to the iPhone. This immediately opens up a lot of possibilities for playing back media in the format of your choice.

After making several assumptions, I think this news will be a huge boost for an idea of mine. More to follow one day...

Big enough to help

A few days ago we had trouble changing some details for our web-app "utopia solitaire" on the apple website.

We emailed them - now normally you would not expect to get a response very quickly (or at all) when dealing with a very large company. Especially when the product is 'free'. 

However, in the same day we were contacted, helped out and sorted. 

That's the kind of support and service that sets a company apart from others.

Thanks Apple!

VIDEO: Liverpool goes Latin in support of Spain superstar Fernando Torres

Yeah! This is great!

With no England at Euro 2008, I too am supporting Spain. Viva Torres! Go El Nino!

From the Mail on Sunday

Click on the link below to see how the good people of Liverpool are going all latin:

Direct Video link

Hughes becomes Man City manager

So, Sven's gone (no surprise there) and Mark Hughes has been appointed the new Man City Manager. Of course Mark is famously a former red so there may be some unhappy campers out there.

Good luck, Mark - I have a feeling you may need it! Don't win for 5 games and you'll be out the door...

From the BBC:

Hughes becomes Man City manager

We're back!

Finally! As you may know, our utopia 365 server went offline last Sunday. We are pleased to say that we're back up and running again now and will hopefully not experience any more problems.

Although utopia365.com is now available again, it may take a few hours for the DNS settings to filter through for everyone.

Please also note that we have been unable to receive some emails for the past few days. They are now filtering through so please be patient if you are expecting a reply! Hopefully nothing has been lost, although do feel free to email again.


From our ISP:

Dear Customers,

We are pleased to say the bingo.media72.net server has now been brought back online. As we were not confident the data centre hosting this server would remain stable we moved the server to an alternative data centre. As a result all IP addresses on the server have changed. This means all domains DNS records needed to be updated, if you are using the Media72 nameservers this will have been done automatically for you and you will not need to take any further action. If you are using your own nameservers you will need to point your domain(s) to the new IP address before it can work. Please change all references of 207.44.185.105 to the new IP address of 74.55.73.72.

Thank you for your patience and understanding during this extremely frustrating time.

Media72 Staff

Macs in business

I've been reading an article on CNN entitled "Why Macs aren't still right for business".

Hmm - interesting I thought - but as I read it I realised the article did not have anything except an 'eye-grabbing title'.

When you get on a Mac - you need to understand it works differently, it's not trying to be a PC, it's mannerisms are different. The article takes the standpoint that it should act and behave like a PC. No - I don't want a Mac to compromise the way it works, it's a Mac and the catchphrase "Think Different" is very apt.

The real reason the Mac is not ready for Business yet is that businesses are so entangled with code that will only run on the MS platform that it's simply not viable to run them. However, as more software turns itself to 'web-enabled', i.e. platform independent, then the Mac truly does become a business class machine.....BUT users will have to learn how to use one properly, rather than trying to make it act like a PC (in which case, just get a PC!!). Yes you can run Parallels (I do) or Fusion (I do) but it's not the proper solution,

I grew up using DOS all the way to Windows (Vista - arghhh), but when I switched soon learnt to let the Mac be a Mac and for myself learn how to use it, rather than think "it should act this way". My reward - I was a HECK of a lot more relaxed using a computer at work. No longer getting stressed over rubbish performance, BSOD, Spyware, Adware, Viruses and generally poorly designed software.

My hope, the web will evolve far quicker, which will allow Macs to take their place on the work-desk.....

When things go pop

It looks like late last night the data centre that hosts the servers that utopia365 sit on, had a bit of an issue.....well, something blew up! 

Our host providers are working round the clock to restore service and thankfully no servers were damaged.

Meanwhile, we still have our blog....