Wizzard's soundtrack

This week I have been mainly listening to:

Genius

Went to the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store today. My iMac's CR key has been sticking so I decided to ask the experts. The genius knew his stuff and has resolved the problem. Good job, Apple Store.

Later... The Canadian GP was "normal"... brake problems and dirty off line - bad luck Jacques! At least ITV showed the whole thing despite the world football thing which seems to pervade our very existence! There is still time to close that gap, Michael!

100th post

I found out how to create a favicon - those nano-size icons which display in the browser address bar next to the url on some web sites. I've done one for my site, I really wanted a flesh colour but I'm stuck with the basic 16 colours.

Happy Birthday Maddie!

It was my younger daughter's 13th birthday today - Happy Birthday Maddie!!!

( and I'm still clearing up after your party yesterday!)

The 6 P's

Having vowed that this blog wouldn't mention work, here I am making an exception to the rule.

Today I was asked to attend a meeting at about an hour's notice, unfortunately no-one had considered inviting me when the meeting was set up some days earlier. The subject of the meeting? "Resource Planning". I kid not.

Avoiding the football...

Apparently there is some big football competition just started which I will have to avoid for a couple of months. Even the British Grand Prix was moved from its usual July slot to this weekend so it doesn't clash.

I reckon this was a stroke of luck because the weather has been brilliant all weekend - in fact it was too hot - the F1 teams were not expecting Silverstone to be so hot, track temp was 49 Deg. C. My view, GP itself was a bit dull. Schumi could only manage 2nd to Alonso, so lots of room for improvement, Ferrari.

Amusing web site of the day - see this Official Formula 1 web site page. What is 1th, 2th & 3th? A cathe of auto generated code, I thuthpect!

8 days to go!

... and Schumacher was fastest in Friday's Barcelona test!

Silverstone - 9 days to go

I'm looking forward to the British GP at Silverstone.

Ferrari are back on form at the Barcelona tests with Massa clocking the fastest time. Schumacher will be driving tomorrow.

Damage limitation

As I expected Alonso won the Monaco GP without any difficulty. Schumi drove a fantastic race to finish 5th, after starting from the pit lane. By the end of the first few laps he'd made up 5 places and at the end he posted the fastest lap. I reckon this all goes to show that Schumi had no need of underhanded tricks to get pole - his performance said it all!

Bad luck again for Kimi but well done DC - Red Bull's first podium!

Schumi loses pole!

Monaco stewards decided, on very flimsy evidence, that Schumacher was guilty and have deleted all his times. So he starts at the back with Massa. If that isn't showing favouritism in a negative way (aka Ferrari bashing) I don't know what is! That miserable little Spaniard will start from pole and probably win the GP unless he does something stupid. So yet another boring race in prospect and the championship pushed more in Alonso and Renault's (yeah, right course it really is a Renault!) favour.

If this doesn't make Schumacher quit F1 then nothing will. Or maybe that's what this is all about......

Monaco

A controversial pole for Schumacher, everyone who isn't a Ferrari supporter thinks he deliberately missed the last corner to stop Alonso grabbing pole. I hope he didn't because it would devalue his pole and of course, if the stewards decide he did then his race will be over for this year. Trouble is, whether he did or not, most people will still think he did!

Anyway, let's hope for a great race. Incidentally - a milestone for McLaren, this is their 40th Monaco. Bruce McLaren drove his car at Monaco for the first time in 1966!

Buncefield Explosion - 3rd progress report

The official Buncefield Investigation has published its 3rd progress report. The report includes the latest information about how the explosion was caused. Worth a read. www.buncefieldinvestigation.gov.uk While you are there, check out the amazing aerial photographs.

Bye Bye, BT

Well my NTL broadband is up and running (has been since Friday). One small fly in the ointment - the router I bought a couple of weeks back was an ADSL one. However....., good old PC World (I never thought I'd say that!) were happy to exchange it for a non-modem router. It's better all round because I can connect it to either a cable modem or a DSL one should I ever need to in the future. For the technically minded it's a Netgear WGT624.

On an unconnected note, Schumi could only manage 2nd today and that damn Alonso is getting away again! Argh!

You couldn't plan this!!

The NTL guys arrived to install my new phone line and broadband today and guess what? There's a BT engineer outside as well! A coincidence, you say? Seems not. Late afternoon I got a call from BT saying that my DSL "might" be fixed today. So after the BT vans departed I tried my DSL and, Lo! It worketh! No digging up the roads though, I am almost disappointed.

So there we have it. BT just fixed my month-long fault just in time for me to tell them where they can stick their service! I haven't had a change of heart - still moving to NTL, since it's cheaper and the broadband is quicker than BT can manage.

I don't believe it!

Rang BT yesterday, who were once again unable to tell me anything. Rang them again this morning, they still couldn't tell me anything but promised to ring back. Well, they didn't so after about 4 hours I rang them. They have now decided that the 64m of cable which needs replacing will mean digging up the road, requiring local Council approvals, etc. I can see no end in sight - it could easily take a couple of weeks and I am not prepared to wait!

So I've been on the phone to NTL, should be broadbanded up before the end of the week.

BT don't work in the rain

On Saturday BT started to look at the line but decided that they needed to replace a main cable. Unfortunately it started to rain so they stopped work. How do BT get anything done if they wait for a fine day? This is England and it has been known to rain a fair bit.

It rained today as well so I'm still waiting.......

Still no ADSL

Was scheduled to be fixed yesterday - no joy. BT kindly informed me (but only when I rang them, nach.) that they were too busy and my fault will now be fixed by 6 May for sure.

I tell you, it better be, otherwise I will be throwing my toys out the pram!

BT Customer Care. NOT!

Seems the fault on my line will not be fixed until at least 3rd May. Apparently they have so many faults in my area that they are unable to get an engineer on to it the next day. IMHO it's crap. On Friday I spent about 2 hours on the phone to BT, trying to speak to a human (press 2 for this automated service, press 3 to get cut off; that sort of thing!) and I got precisely nowhere! Meanwhile I contunue to use dial-up but it's not what I'm paying BT loadsa dosh each month for. The most frustrating thing is the difficulty one has getting through to the correct person at BT. Handy Hint - choose the option for 'I want to leave BT', you get to speak to a human PDQ then!

ADSL again

This evening my ADSL is down. Again. Keeps restarting and dropping again after a few seconds.

Spoke to BT (again). This time they have found a fault with the phone line between us and the exchange. Since I can use voice I hope this means that the line is damaged in some way which makes it unable to sustain a high enough SNR to keep the DSL up. Or something. We shall see whether an engineer fixes it tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I have resorted to good ol' dial-up! (In case you were wondering how I could blog this!)

Testing

Went to the F1 test at Silverstone today. A great day, even though Ferrari wasn't there. I took loads of photos and I'll post a few once I've sorted them out.