Embrace everything

Recently, I took a couple of decisions, and some actions off those decisions, that turned out to be not so great. In fact, they were pretty badly thought out and resulted in one or two people being very unhappy with me.

Once I've written, and you've read, the rest of this post, the fact that I'm being so vague here may seem very hypocritical, but as the method of fixing these bad decisions is to completely remove the associated actions from the internet (no mean feat, but it seems to have worked...), I'm hardly going to blog about it. If you ask me in person though, then I'm happy to tell you.

So, why am I telling you this? Me, the almighty, always right and quite frankly brilliant person? Well, it's actually to avoid some hypocricy. In the discussions with the person involved, I offered them some advice. I won't paste that verbatim below, as it was rather specific, but here's the gist of it:

You should own and embrace every action you take, no matter how positive or negative it is. Overzealous modesty over your achievements is just as harmful as attempting to hide the skeletons in your closet, as it conceals who you really are from the world. People can forgive a whole lot in a person, but the hardest thing to forgive is a breach of trust, and a close runner-up is secrecy and hidden facts. Be open and honest about everything you are - from irresponsible drunken jaunts to your greatest achievements, and not only will you gain respect, but you can also spend your time happily anticipating what is to come, rather than glancing backwards nervously at your past.

The context, by the way, of my poorly taken decision(s), was that I forced that philosophy upon someone, instead of letting them keep secret something they'd rather not have shared with the whole wide world. For most of the people I know who read this blog, it was no-one you know, by the way.

So, think about this...and let me know where that leads you.

Guitars and girls and art

This mannequin-turned guitar, found on Amy Crehore's Blog (quite a talented artiste) was recently linked to me, and although I can see the artistic value, I'm quite disturbed by the man playing it. It probably doesn't help that he looks a lot like Hyde from That 70's Show...does anyone else find that picture a bit creepy?

--



This one however, really does appeal to me. You can really see the love, care and attention that's gone into it - it took three years to make. The creator's not just a great sculptor and luthier either - he can really play the thing. So, turn the lights down low, get comfortable, and be entranced by the beauty of the music and the art - so rare we get to see the two combined.



As if that's not enough, he's even donating the money he makes from the sale of the mer-tar to charity. Top bloke.

Gaping Void

A popular little comic amongst folk here at Microsoft is Gaping Void, and although the art style is a bit...interesting, the comics are a pretty good insight into the world of technology that offer quite a giggle.

In the spirit of the above (and of the below), I've added a new category into my blog posts, called 'e-life'. The reference, for those of you who don't get it, is to a small comic I saw in The Times one day, which depicted a typically shabby geek in front of a computer, with the subline '...when you realise you've spent so long writing your blog, that you have nothing to blog about' - but I prefer to think of it as simply blogging about blogging.

To further the spirit of recursion, I'm going to put a hyperlink to the category E-Life before I use it for the first time, and therefore create the URL.

Nice eh?

BT - Bringing people together

I'm delighted to see that a vast (ok, under a hundred) number of people typing in 'I hate BT', 'Hate BT' and my new favourites 'OH MY GOD I HATE BT' (yes, even the caps are copied verbatim) into search engines and subsequently flocking here, though I must say I'm unsure as to exactly what they're gaining from reading my rants...maybe just some tips on angry letter writing.

Regardless, if anyone, like Anthony here, is interested in a 'bloggingly-incited revolution against this most terrible and disastrous of companies' then get in touch - I know a guy who does great deals on pitchforks and torches.

I even sketched a logo for us...


_{BT - Just say no...if you can get through to them that is}

Spiders on Drugs

So, I just found this video on Ben's Blog

It's a documentary about some mad scientist who decided to give some spiders illicit (and commonplace) drugs to view the effects. Absolutely hilarious, though - not safe for work. Enjoy:

Will Thompson

So, I recently suggested to Will Thompson (there's some search engine juice for you Will *wink*) that he should start blogging properly - because he seems pretty great at finding fun information on the web, and I'm pretty sure he could generate some quite interesting content if he put his mind to it.

Unfortunately, Will seems reluctant to put in any hard work to get himself a readership - clearly not a believer in the philosophy of 'If you build it (and it's not a pile of crap about shoes), they will come' - and so he's challenged me to get ten people to comment on his blog first, before he'll start writing.


_{Will looking fab in his low-res employee ID photo}

Now, no-one bothers to comment on mine in general, but with the joys of online stalking, I know you're reading it, so I ask you to make the special effort of clicking through to Will's Blog and leaving him a short note, telling him you'd like to see some content. And then, just as critically, putting him in your favourites or subscribing to him so you can read that content.

Now, for those of you who don't know the wonderous person that is Will (and you're missing out), here's a few key points as to why I want him blogging:

• He finds great websites
  Will's responsible for turning me on to such sites as OmNomNomNom (say it along to every picture) and Bad Gas


• He finds great news stories - I believe he was the first to mention the Simplified Spelling Society to me.


• He knows a bunch about cool new tech, and will be happy to share it


• Great taste in books, music and TV - you're bound to find some good recommendations


• Goes travelling to very nice places, and seems to have quite a lot of fun

Right, enough of all that, go comment on Will's blog :)

Seems I'm not the only one...

So I just got myself a nifty little stats counter called, in a fit of creativity and innovation...StatCounter.

It's a great tool, and is invisible (the one you see at the bottom of my page is the outdated and rubbish one I used to use) too, if you so choose, though I think I'll switch to the icon soon to show them some support for such a great service.

Onto the point though, one of StatCounter's many advantages over my old counter is that it tells me where people came from. Since installing it an hour or so ago, it's tracked 19 unique hits (getting popular) to my blog, and guess what - six of them came from Googling something to do with BT.

My personal favourite is that I'm now the 9th Google result for 'BT Reconnections', but it's also pretty amusing that three people, within the last hour, have googled 'I hate BT' and then clicked on my blog. :D

Anagrams

Instead of working, I've just spent a couple of minutes looking up some anagrams of my name, so I can switch what the sign in front of my desk says daily, a-la Fawlty Towers (Watery Fowls, etc).

I found some pretty good ones in half a second from Worthsmith, though it does take some trawling to find ones that make sense. Here's a couple of my favourites:

Ian MacGillivray

Vainly Magic Liar
Clearly the most appropriate.

May Cigar Villain
Certainly a viable career move, or holiday hobby.

Civilian Army Gal
But only on Thursdays...

Vicar Laying Mail
But only on Sundays...

A Manic Gray Villi
A bit Pythonesque really...could work though.

A Lacy Mail Virgin
Yours for only $4999.99 (does not include p&p from Slovenia).

Reading Festival - Saturday

The Dead 60's


_{Someone dead from the 60's on stage would have had better stage presence. Awful pun I know :(}

I really liked these guys when I saw them last year, but they weren't very impressive first thing in the afternoon on the main stage. Possibly the wrong location, or possibly just a bad set - but they just came off as generic (indie?) rock.

Ed Byrne



I last saw this guy at the Microsoft gig at Wembley, so I was a bit apprehensive he'd be re-using a lot of material from there. He actually started to try, but soon found out that most of his set wouldn't really translate across the audiences, so I was quite impressed to see him move onto new material and start improvising instead. Hilarious and really packed out the comedy tent - must see if he's ever in your area.

Hal Cruttenden



I'll be honest, I saw a bunch of comics over the weekend, and whilst some were great and some were just awful, I never really caught many names. I recognize this man's name as I saw him recently at Jongleurs - and good though his set was, I was a bit disappointed to see him use pretty much identical material at Reading - especially as some of it was completely inappropriate for the crowd of 20 year olds who weren't even born for parts of his satire.

Panic! At The Disco



So, as I noted on one of my older blogs, when I used to be prettyian on Last.fm, instead of tiedyeina on Blogspot, Panic! weren't too popular at last year's festival. As such, I had to stay and watch them this year, in the hopes that the bottling would continue - and I wasn't to be disappointed.

Right from the start the band started playing some awful shite and getting hit - though to be fair to them they did take it quite well. I particularly liked the lead singer's "Hey, this is going better than last time" (after getting through the first song without being hit) and then "At least you didn't get knocked out" after the bassist complained (on mic) about being hit in the head by a full bottle.

There's no great video collages of them being hit up on YouTube yet (if I can find the material I'll happily make it and set it to one of their godawful songs), but the start of this video should give you the idea:



Bloc Party



So I never realised that the lead singer from Bloc Party was actually Lenny Henry until I heard him talking at this year's festival. It explains why he was good with the crowd, and a pretty good singer to boot - though I'm worried as to how much weight Lenny's lost, and how different his face looks nowadays...

Arcade Fire



Best. Band. Of. The. Festival. Of the ones I saw at least. Sir. Timothy McCormick was playing their albums at me on the car journey up to the Peak District, and I wasn't really very impressed, and so only planned to stay for 15 minutes inbetween bands at their set in the Festival. I was so impressed by the passion, massive range of musical ability (and I just loved the renaissance instruments and pipe organ) and stage show they put on that I stayed right till the end. Absolutely superb, I highly recommend going to see them live if you get the chance.

Still don't like the album though...and was the percussionist on some highly potent drugs?

!!!



The band that made themselves completely unfindable online (unless you know that the verbal pronunciation of '!!!' is spelt as 'chkchkchk') were absolutely brilliant live - I can't believe I've never seen them before. I really like their albums, so I thought I'd check them out, not expecting too much from a dance band in terms of a live show, but I was really, really tempted to miss the Chili Peppers just to watch the end of !!!'s set.

Red Hot Chili Peppers


_What?

I think it says something that a very disappointing live performance from these guys still didn't take away from the fact that they were one of the bands I enjoyed most at the Festival. I saw Kiedis screw up a few times, but I never noticed the problem some people at the back later whined about - though it's certainly believable.

The band seemed not to care between songs, just wandering about the stage chatting to one another, but there was enough good material in their back catalogue not to care, once they started playing. A lot of great jams too - with Flea using some of my favourite Herbie Hancock & Paul Chambers bass riffs whilst the guitarist (I can't be bothered Googling his name...) alternated between laid-back, quiet riffs, and trying to impersonate Hendrix (and doing a damn good job of it).

I really, really hate BT

So, remember that post I made about the joke of a company that go by the name of BT? Well, that letter has gone unanswered, the problems have gone unfixed and they're still sending us bills - now with late payment charges tacked on the end!

Very, very unhappy, as the below might hopefully manage to communicate to them...

--

[My address, reference numbers etc]

Dear Sir/Madam,

I wrote to yourselves on the 27th of July (attached) and am still yet to receive a reply. I am absolutely appalled by the lack of customer service that runs rampant through every part of your organisation.

I am receiving many bills from yourself, and have absolutely no way of paying them. I do not mean that I have not the means or money to do so, merely that every part of your system is laughable at best.

The phone automation asks me to enter in my phone number, and then some debit card details. Upon doing so, I am told that ‘The issue number was not recognized, please enter your issue number, or press hash if you do not have one’. Anything I press from then on results in the message being repeated with no possible way out of the infinite loop. I have tried this with multiple valid credit and debits cards to no avail.

Upon trying your online service I receive the following error, which flies in the face of all computer application design laws by giving a ridiculously vague and unhelpful error message:


_{It reads 'We're sorry, an error has occurred. We don't have any more information at this time. Please try again later or call us.'}

When trying to ring your helpdesk I merely get passed around from department to department, never to the right destination, until someone decides to hang up on me instead of (or sometimes, after) picking up the phone. This has happened to me over ten times now, and I am extremely displeased by the behaviour of your phone operators.

I ask that someone British born and more senior than the average operative I have been dealing with (or, trying to) look into this immediately. I shall not be amused if my line is cut off due to non-payment.

Yours,



Ian MacGillivray

Reading Festival - Friday

The Pipettes



I wasn't sure whether to describe these guys as more like Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, or like Meatloaf without the lead vocals, but they were very fun, if not a little scary. Good opening to the Festival, but they were no GLC...

The King Blues



I love these guys - they're probably my favourite of the current UK punk scene and always put on a good live show and get the crowd involved. This gig, they also recommended we check out the Space Hijackers (pictured above) - a group of Anarchitects who're currently looking to buy a tank. Any sellers?

Gogol Bordello



A 40 minute set didn't really do Gogol Bordello justice, and neither did the fact that they were playing in mid-afternoon and in the open air. A good show nonetheless, although I didn't get much dancing done as I was a bit far back..

Get Cape Wear Cape Fly/Capdown



It was a tough choice between watching GCWCF or Capdown, but as I've consistently missed the former at previous festivals, and I've seen Capdown a bunch of times, I went to go and see Get Cape. They put on a pretty good show, though I did pop down to see Capdown in time for Ska Wars. Apparently their final tour is coming soon, supported by The King Blues - anyone interested in coming?

Mad Caddies

I'm pretty sure I went to see these guys, though I don't recall them at all. That should probably indicate how much of an impression they made..

Razorlight



Well, I had fun, even if everyone else at the Festival seemed to hate them - though if that's true then I'm interested as to where the very large crowd came from. A pretty good set from what I heared, though we later went off to catch some of Ash. I heard a rumour a couple of times that no-one called for an encore so some audience noise was piped through the speakers instead...but I imagine that's a lie.

Back from the Reading Festival

Well, I'm back from the Festival at last, and nicely showered and (mostly) rested. Living in Reading made things so much nicer, being able to pop home for a quick shower a couple of times - and not having all the hassle of getting home. It also meant I got to see Reading station this afternoon - at 2pm there was a queue hundreds of people long just to get train tickets. I dread to think how long it'll take those people to get home.

I'm not sure why I took the Thursday and Friday as part of my annual holiday from work, because all of the same work is still there, and so are the deadlines, so I'm just going to end up making everything up in my own time. I even did some (mild) advertising for Microsoft at the festival, handing out some t-shirts and the like.

So, anyhow, for those of you with hours to kill, I'll be writing a little bit up about everyone I saw - I'll try to keep things short though so as not to bore you all to death, especially given that I don't actually have any photos from the event :(

Reading Festival

Well, I'm off for yet more sleeping in fields tomorrow, so don't expect to read much here over the next few days. If you're coming to the festival, give me a call or come look me up - I'll be camping in the Microsoft branded tent (dedication or what eh?).

Ciao.

Xx

Camping in the Peak District - Part 2

Our local pub had a great selection of games, including Pub Skittles, which I'd somehow managed to miss out on previously. One of these great games was 1980's favourite, The Game Of Knowledge. This included a lot of bizarre questions, which were often very vague - one of my favourites was 'why do humans need to sleep?'. Tim, for the record, was shockingly awful at this - proof that Open Source simply doesn't play.

We also had a few games of Scrabble, given that we're all literary snobs, and I simply have to show you the following word, from what I really do promise was simply the start of another fair game of Scrabble. I got 107 or so points from this as I recall :)


_{No Tim, 'Takeoffski' is not a valid word in any Scrabble dictionary}

Sunday was another lovely walk, this time through a gorge which passed by an absolutely gorgeous little river. The water was almost tropical in colour, and so clear that one could see to the bottom of it from any point in perfect detail.


_{Not even Will's SmartPhone could do this one justice}

Some amateur caving was also attempted, as we were assured by our book that there were some disused mines and shafts around, but the deepest we found only went about 10 feet in. All this physical exercise was clearly bad for a party of geeks, so we found a quaint little b&b in one of the nicest locations I've ever seen, with a dining room straight from the 1950's. The food was all laid out nicely on a buffet style tray, and I can highly recommend the Steak & Stout pie, which would probably be a little more useful if I could remember the name of the pub.


_{Blindingly beautiful views - or I was just a bit too tired}

Once all of this walking was done, we noticed a fun looking place on our map on the short drive back to the campsite - Bakewell. Intrigued as to whether the local tarts dressed in the appropriate colours, we drove to the village, but unable to find the red light district, had to settle for a tea shop selling 'the original Bakewell pudding'


_{I'm not entirely sure why Will decided to take a photo from the tea shop window}

Another night with a little too much to drink in the pub later it was time to head home on Monday. I'm not entirely sure why I bothered taking some of my annual vacation from work as I ended up catching up on most of my work on the Monday night, but it was certainly an enjoyable experience.

Gorgeous area of the world, highly recommended next time you're looking for a short get away :)

Camping in the Peak District - Part 1

So this past weekend was spent in the Peak District, specifically around Edale, with Mr. Will Thompson and Sir. Timothy McCormick. We found a nice little campsite tucked away in the middle of nowhere, which took some fun rally driving around roads that weren't even coloured in on our road atlas.

We got set up and went out for a stroll on the Friday before discovering our local, The Nags Head, famed for its own brand of beer, which was surprisingly nice. I also thoroughly enjoyed the local cider, Gray's - highly recommended if you find it anywhere.


_{Will didn't take a picture of those lovely drinks, so here's a bridge we saw on the Friday instead}

Saturday was the beginning of some real walking, with...ready for it? With The Hardest Walk in '28 Walks in the Peak District'. Impressive stuff or what? It was only rated 'orange' in the scheme of assigning colours to difficulties, so we decided to do it backwards, which probably wasn't the most sensible of ideas. We started with a long, long hard climb up Jacob's Ladder - which was rather prosaically named after the following passage from the Bible:

And he [Jacob] dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed....

-- Genesis 28: 12-13 (KJV)


_{Tim and I stand heroically on a hill after the long climb}

Up amongst the clouds, we found a couple of sheep standing up near the very practically named 'Noe Stool' (and, with the high winds, I didn't feel like trying to disprove the namer's claim). They were very friendly, though one has to wonder why they bothered to climb all the way up here, instead of staying down in the relative warmth with their bretheren.


_{Tim, Will and Ina stand near Noe Stool}

We had to leave the sheep eventually, and trek on past many other interesting rocks along the top of the hill. Things got a bit hairy in the reduced visibility, but fortunately we were 'experienced walkers' and so felt confident to continue our walk. Seriously, I do wonder who writes these guidebooks - and I further wonder who doesn't consider themself experienced at walking. Other than possibly some Americans...


_{Need proof it was windy?}

We found a lovely iron covered stream at the top of our final hill, which Will bizzarely decided to descend. Fortunately, little death ensued and so after getting slightly lost, and briefly finding religion in order to obtain some signs as to the right direction, we managed to get back to the campsite. It did occur to me that God, whichever God, must get really pissed off at people misinterpreting signs. I believe what I actually remarked, and you have to imagine that I'm vocally impersonating a deity here, so it lacks somewhat when written, was: "NO! NO! I said feed the orphan, not destroy the infidels. Damnit." Probably funnier at the time...


_{Tim and I sensibly stay towards the top of the stream}

Put your hands up

As I was running down a fairly precarious mountain¹ in the Peak District this weekend, with my tongue lolling out and my hands in the air, it occured to me that there's a distinct correlation between raising one's hands, and exuberant happiness.

Think about it, you see this phenomenon all the time; someone punching up at the air after some sporting or gaming achievement; the crowd reaction to a favoured musician coming onto/playing on stage; or most intuitively - thrill-seekers on a rollercoaster.

Now, given the human susceptibility to pyscho-somnia, the placebo effect et al, I think that this could really work the other way too.

So, next time you're doing something, anything, and you're wishing it was a bit more fun, throw your hands up in the air² and expect a lot more enjoyment - you might just get it. Will recommends doing this during sex, though I didn't ask if that was a suggestion based on experience or not...

--

^{1 - I insist it was a mountain, though the map does seem to claim it was merely a hill
2 - Can anyone out there read that and not want to complete it with 'like you just don't care?'}

Ript

In an effort to make computing as user-friendly as possible, and to aid the transition from a 'traditional' desk top to a technology driven one, software vendors have long been trying to recreate real-life scenarios and workflows on the screen, starting of course with an OS's desktop.

Somewhat amazed though I am that companies still feel the need to do this, despite the fact that a technology based workplace and home-life seem second nature to me (or should that be 'first nature'?) - this paradigm can often end up expressing itself in very cool and interesting ways.

The latest of these I discovered (on Dennis van der Stelt's blog) is Ript, which sets about the common task of providing an on-screen alternative to all those bits of paper one would normally leave things jotted down on.

Although it achieves this well in a fairly intuitive and user-friendly way, I was most impressed by its Scrapbooking feature, in which you can easily arrange photos with text, in the style of a scrapbook, and have them looking very cool in no time. This allows for easy present-making, opportunities, especially useful for someone as clumsy as I when it comes to manual things such as cutting and sticking ;)

I was planning on making a little page of our holiday snaps from the weekend, to show you how easy this is to use, but as Will's currently holding all the photos at ransom to ransom, I decided to knock up a little tribute to my housemates and minor band of last year, from a fun summer gig back in 2006 :)

Jongleurs

I spent 'last night' (read, Friday night) out at Jongleurs with a horde of other Microsoft interns, which was great fun. I love going to see stand up, especially in a relatively small arena and this one didn't dissapoint at all.

The compere, Mandy Knight (who I never would have believed is a classically trained actress) was brilliant at getting the crowd warmed up and laughing through her timeless routine of simply insulting everyone out in front of her. Somehow, no-one had mentioned that a booking for 20 people in the name of Microsoft was on that night, and we don't look too stereotypically geeky, so we avoided her rather sharp wit, for better or worse.

The other three acts, Hal Cruttendal, Ricky Grover and Roger D. were all great too, with their various highs and lows, though I'm afraid I can't really remember too many specifics there, after a long weekend's hiking, and the couple of drinks I had on the night.

Also, in what was for me a new experience at Jongleurs (though apparently it's quite common), there was a great disco after the comics had all finished, playing hits from the 60's, 70's and 80's (with some MC Hammer thrown in for good measure), which was a great alternative to finishing the night off downstairs with the awful trash being played in Bar Risa.

Pity I had to be up rather early the next morning though...

An apology

I've been out hiking in the Peak District this weekend, and foolishly trusted to technology to allow me to blog via my mobile phone - which you might have noticed, never happened. I first tried via my bog standard Nokia, using Blogger's ability to simply text in posts, before realising I'd forgotten to write down the number which I was supposed to text with my entry! :(

I then tried using Will's fancy Smartphone, which connected to the 'net even up in the Peak District, but for some reason it hated Blogger, and refused to 'press' the Publish Post button.

As such, I'm going to be posting a few things retrospectively here, so I hope you'll all forgive me the sin (under the internet-religion of Blogging) of having gone silent for a few days and then blurted out a stream of posts, and the further sin of faking some timestamps for archive clarity.

ieSpell - No more typos

Some of the more astute amongst you may have noticed the odd typo creeping into my blog posts recently. If you were even more insightful you might have noticed this was around the time I started working for Microsoft, and therefore using Internet Explorer instead of my beloved Firefox.

The typos were due to one of the very few qualms I still have with Internet Explorer compared to Firefox, since the release of IE7.

Sure it's actually a secure browser now, and has a decent stab at the Acid Test, but I found IE to be really lacking in that it doesn't incorporate a spell checker into the browser, and doesn't have a great range of plug-ins like Firefox.

Well, wrong again it seems.

Having recently shown that Microsoft actually were ahead somewhere else on the web - custom search engines, I decided to try a quick Live Search (yes, really) to see if I could get a spell checker into IE.

Well, result #1 was ieSpell, a plug-in for Internet Explorer that incorporates a spell checker. Answering both of my troubles in one simple and effective product. Highly recommended, especially for those oV u daT tyP lIk dIs - because it would be so great to see your screens just fill up with red underlines whenever you posted on a forum :)

Custom Search Engines (aka: No More Moth)

Much though I like to take the odd swipe at Windows Live Search, especially using the classic Microsoft joke of talking about how I've "Googled Live Searched" for something, I think I've found something that may actually convert me.

It's often useful when you're looking for certain things on the web to specify some advanced parameters, such as certain domains you want to search - or maybe to avoid. Perhaps you always want a keyword included in your search, such as "Guitar Tab" or "C#"

Well, both Windows Live and Google offer this, but it seems in the recent scenario I proposed to the options offered by each, Live was one step ahead. Microsoft blogger 'The Moth' mailed me a complaint as part of a conversation which mostly revolved around us thinking up more and more obscure names (or just plain girls names) for one another. He said:

"I know that too well Bartholomew...

It is really annoying when I search for something and find my blog because I know for sure that it doesn’t have the answer so why do those pesky engines keep serving it to me!"

Well, obviously this wasn't just a user-specific feature, I can imagine millions of people on the web wanting to avoid his blog (just kidding, honest), and so I set up to help these poor peons on their way to clean searching.

First, off, I went to the Google offering nicknamed 'Co-op' (or, 'coop', if you look at the url, which confused me for a short while), sure that those hip guys would have a brilliant solution. I was quite frankly disappointed with the entire thing, especially the fact that you can't ask it to search the entire web, and instead have to specify a list of sites to crawl. I ended up with a search engine that searches http://*.com and http://*.co.uk, but avoids The Moth's blog, which obviously isn't exactly ideal.

Offering 1 - Google Co-Op presents Not Daniel Moth's Blog

Following this, I took a token glance at the Live Search site just so I could legitimately claim that they were missing out, and instead came across the very stylish, very usable feature they call Live Search Macros. This offers full functionality letting you specify any one of a number of parameters from within a very simple and user-friendly interface, and is quite frankly brilliant. I did exactly what I wanted, with no hacking around, in just a few seconds. I was particularly impressed with the 'test your search' function, which compares side-by-side a search with your Macro, and a standard Windows Live Search. To top it all off the Macro's even got a memorable URL, unlike Google's crazy string of random characters.

Offering 2 - Live Search Macros presents No More Moth.

--

For those of you who don't hate Daniel's blog as much as he apparently does, I've created another Macro which is going to be infinitely useful for me. I find the best way to express a lot of things is just to show someone a web comic which gets the point across perfectly and also gives a giggle. As such, here's the very first incarnation of...

Ina's Web Comic Search

I timed myself making this - it only took 24 seconds, not bad eh?

Presentations, presentations, presentations

Having spent the majority of today creating Powerpoint slides, writing notes for Powerpoint slides, writing demos for presentations and creating more Powerpoint slides, my brain has nearly turned to mush.

Happy though I am with my actual presentation skills, this is the first time I've actually had to create the majority of material myself, and it's actually proving surprisingly difficult.

My first problem is coming from the fact that I'm pitching essentially the same information (either Visual Studio 2008 or a little internal thing called Metro), but to wildly different audiences, and have to therefore tailor it carefully.

For example, the account managers here don't give a toss about the efficiency of the new CLR 3.0, and neither do the CEOs I'll be talking to at certain events. Likewise, the techies I'll be talking to at the all day events hardly need to be told what the .NET framework is, and how it works, as they've all probably been using it for longer than I've known it existed.



My second problem, and the other reason I included the comic above (other than the fact it's just great) is that it's actually really difficult to cater to all of the 'learning' types. I forget the fancy names but you know what I mean - those who learn by seeing, those who learn by hearing, those who learn by doing etc. If I make my slides short and snappy, then I'm relying on my words getting through, if I fill them with the information I'm vocalising I risk being hated for simply reading out what's on the screen, and if I fill them with information different to what I'm vocalising, I risk just confusing the hell out of them.

Very tricky, I'm thinking that the answer may well be simply to put an amusing picture of a cat on every slide, and read out quotes from the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. That way, everyone will leave happy. I'm sure there's probably a downside to this idea, but, as said, my brain's the consistency of porridge at the moment, so I can't see anything wrong here...

Four Galaxy Pileup Caught On Cosmic Camera

Four Galaxy Pileup Caught On Cosmic Camera

Seriously, Best. Headline. Ever.


_{This remind anyone else of Xenon II: Megablast?}

The story's not half bad too, you can probably guess the gist of it from the headline, but this lot are apparently behaving a little strangely, and not creating any new stars.

I'm not entirely sure about the tenses they've used too, I think maybe Dr Dan Streetmentioner may need calling in to clarify things, but surely the phrase 'Eventually, they will create' shouldn't be being used when talking about something 5 billion light years away, which, if I'm not mistaken, therefore means it happened 5 billion years ago if we're just seeing it now?

Transformers is the Best Movie Ever

So, I was a bit wary of going to watch the new Transformers movie, because I'd heard awful things about how it screwed with the original series, and all of the trailers made it out to just be a bunch of robots with special effects.

With this suitably low bar in place, there was no way the film could possibly dissapoint. I'm pretty sure the film was just pure awesome, but in case it was just my mindset, I'd advise equally low expectations when you go to watch the film.

I won't ruin the plotline for you, mostly because you'll already know it if you watched the cartoons, and if not you can guess it in about 5 minutes, so it'd be pretty hard to ruin. I will, however, tell you that the entire film is crammed with more awesome army guys than Black Hawk Down, more laugh out loud humour than American Pie and more giant robot fights in New York than...um. More giant robot fights than A Clockwork Orange.

If you're male, you have to go and see this film for yourself so you can feel like you were 8 years old again. If you're female...I think one of the robots has emotions for about four seconds before blowing something up.

Lucie is Awesome

Had a great long weekend at home with Lu, back in Reading now though, working away.

Friday I arrived in Cardiff town centre just as Lu & friends were getting hair ripped from various parts of their body through the application of burning hot wax. Cleverly realising this was hardly likely to leave them in bright moods I bought cakes for the lot of them, from the most ditzy Greggs assistant I'd ever met. Every single time I asked her for a specific type of cake she seemed utterly confused, and asked me a really bizarre question about it. My favourite was "Do you reckon they swap the words in France?" when I ordered my first cake, a chocolate eclair. I hope that took you as long to work out what she was on about as it took me...

We spent the night at home, watching the first of many episodes of Heroes (which I'm now re-addicted to...I'm going to have to get back onto Jericho soon too, before I forget what happened in the past).

Saturday was sweet too, went outside and played with a flying disc (alas, not a Frisbee) and those 'velco-ball things' (I believe that's the official term for them). Lu cooked in the evening, which was slightly surprising as I wasn't entirely sure she could cook before. Seems I won't be making every meal in the future, as she did a great job of it.

Saw Transformers on Sunday, as well as reaquainting myself with her piano (Einaudi is, unsurprisingly, quite hard to play). Also popped home to see my mother and brother for a while too, and got another nice meal out of that visit.

This morning I worked from home, whilst Lu lay in bed making me jealous. She did, however, bring me up breakfast, so I can't complain too much.

Almost forgot to mention my new presents, I finally got my last birthday present - a pure silk Thai kimono (So. Awesome) which I'll try to remember to get a photograph of up at some point. She also gave me a frame for that picture she drew me for my birthday, but I liked the sketch she put inside that frame so much that I left it inside, and as such still need a frame for the first one! Apurva and Ben thought it was a professional picture (I put it up in the lounge), not bad eh?

Xx

Think

With all the new names and new faces around me, not to mention the pile of work I've got to get done and all of the presentations, briefings and labs I've got to run for partners soon enough, even my easygoing, stress-free attitude has been a bit challenged this past month.

As such, what I've found invaluable is to simply take 30 minutes, no more, no less, to simply sit and think. I try and do this at least once a week, preferably twice, and it's a great diversion from the rush of work and the 'ding' of Outlook reminding me I have another meeting, call or task due in 15 minutes.

So try it, it's not a waste of time and it won't make you any less productive, you can let your mind wander over whatever's important to you at the time - friends, family, work, or simply yourself. Schedule it in your diary, tell others you've got a commitment you can't cancel, and just make sure you take the time to sit back and think.

Take a notepad and a pen too, half an hour's thought can result in tens of hours of things to get done, great new ideas, interesting topics to discuss with friends - and can really set you off on taking those adventures, chances and experiences you've always considered but never made time for.

Awesome

As I was sadly putting my deceased laptop away into its tomb (case), I came across a startling revelation - trains come with power sockets now! Sweet. I hope you're meant to plug your laptop into them and they're not for the brakes or anything.

Now if only sharks came with laser beams..

Home for the weekend

So, in case it wasn't obvious that the subtle third person references in the post below actually all referred to stuff I've been getting to up - I'm off home for the weekend to spend some time with Lu :)

Apparently she's devised many a fun plan, though I'm not yet sure of many of them, except to go and see Transformers butchered on the big screen (but, with such a big budget, hopefully butchered with loads of cool explosions and robots)

By the time you read this (I could probably put buying an internet connection on the train down under 'expenses', but after how much of the morale budget I drank on Tuesday night, I guess I can pass this time), I should also have the infamous present #21, which took many months being shipped from Thailand. If it's a hooker who died of suffocation about 9 weeks ago I'll be very dissapointed. On the other hand though, I'm not really sure what Thailand's famous for exporting, so it should be interesting to see.

Well, that's the end of this post, and in the spirit of always ending on a laugh:

A blind man walks into an all-women's biker bar and orders a pint of ale. As the bartender's hands it to him, he says to her;
"Hey, want to hear a blonde joke?"
"Sure", says the bartender, but before you tell it, I should probably warn you about a few things;
"Sitting to the left of you is a blonde professional weightlifter.
The blonde to the right of you won a wrestling championship last week.
The lady over by the pool table is blonde too, and has been arrested for fighting three times this month.
The girl waiting to be served has blonde hair and a wrench in her hands,
and I'm blonde too, and about twice your size.
So, still want to tell that joke?"
The blind man pauses for a second and says "No, I guess I don't", and sips his ale a couple of times before continuing "Not if I have to explain it five times".

WFH

I think one of the coolest things about this job, and certainly the most novel for me, with my wide range of career choices (aka, student jobs) is the ability to work wherever I want, wherever I want. As I'm growing fonder and fonder of making lists (I think I've spent more time on my 'To Do' list than actually doing things), here's the top ten reasons why I love Microsoft's WFH policy:

1. All those places that bizzarrely only open 9-5 (such as say, parcel delivery companies that failed to deliver to you because you work 9-5) are suddenly accessible within a working week.


2. You can lie in bed on a conference call and no-one will ever know (unless of course, they're reading this blog and putting two and two together re: the conference call this morning.
   Actually, on the subject of people at Microsoft reading my blog, will 'guy from Building 1' who I've never met before, but saw with my blog on his screen, please say hi before I start becoming paranoid again...


3. You can go home to see your girlfriend early on a Friday and work (by which I mean, blog) on the train.


4. Working from home provides a great business case for why you need that leet new SmartPhone and for Microsoft to pay the bill.


5. Hungover? They'll never know. Unless of course, you have a meeting at 10.30am the next morning :(


6. Need to pep up your presentation? Now you can steal jokes from Frasier whilst writing it. I suppose you could also do that if you didn't turn down the ultra-cool job at MSTV because you thought it was all networking. Obviously, you == me (but only in this context...ok enough rambling on this point).


7. If you're not in the office, people can't "just pop by with a quick question" that consumes half of your day and results in you gaining a reputation as office tech support.


8. The queue for lunch is a hell of a lot smaller.


9. You can now legitimitely turn people down for dates on the grounds that you're 'in work', at any time of the day!


10. When people can't see you by the office pool table at 10am, 11am, 12.30pm, 1pm, 2pm and 4-5pm, they believe you when you say you've been working hard that day.

Champagne and cake

To the casual observer, the recent high staff turnover in Microsoft - my department in particular, might indicate some serious underlying morale issues in the team. In fact, that couldn't be farther from the truth - each leaving is actually a massive morale boost, and having so many of them in succession has put a smile on the face of everyone in the office.

First to go were Stuart Leddy and Matt Duffin, my old MSP mentors, as they'd come to the end of their internship, though both have promised they'll be back in the future. Both great guys and, as though I didn't have enough free drinks thanks to them, there was champagne and cake served at both of their leaving do's, with a side of humorous photos thrown in for good measure.

Today was the office leaving party for Paul Murphy, who's jetting off to India tomorrow, and I've got to say that the quality of cake served when saying goodbye to a full-timer is superb compared to what the interns got - and those cakes weren't half bad anyway.

It's interesting how the number of employees in my department doubles at around the time champagne corks start flying off, but is certainly a welcome break from playing around on the internet, going for walks, playing on XBox pods and the other thing...I forget what it's called.

Edit: Working! That's the one, knew I'd remember it if I thought hard enough.

Guitar Hero 360 goes wireless

The XBox 360, for all its wonderful features, always seems to lag behind in second place when it comes to Guitar Hero, which is, as far as I can tell, the only reason anyone would invest in a games console, a television or indeed, and electricity supply. That and reading my blog anyway.

So, late, but better than never, IGN have reported that Guitar Hero III for XBox 360 will get a wireless controller - and that's not even the best part:



Yes, they've finally moved the select button back to somewhere sensible, so I'll no longer be at a disadvantage on the 360 when it comes to getting those super-high scores with pinched star power.

Now to wait a few years for release.... :(

Living in fear

I do love that episode. Unfortunately however, I can sympathise with Bart in my current state, I'm petrified of every door handle, every bannister and even parts of my desk, and I'm turning into a nervous wreck here.

In an attempt to try and shy away from having the office status of 'that student' (if successful, I'll even get a name and everything) I've been dressing slightly more smartly when I come into work. I don't mean anything ridiculously over the top, like a shirt, or trousers that aren't ripped, but I have been wearing some quite nice long sleeved tops.

Some quite nice, cotton, long sleeved tops.

A combination of the static electricity this top generates, and the flow of pure evil \., amongst others, reliably informs me pulses throughout Microsoft's heart, has led to me becoming quite negatively (or possibly positively, I am quite a cheery guy...) charged, turning every piece of metal into a feared nemesis. I find myself twitching just at the sight of a doorhandle now...I don't know how I'm going to make it through the rest of the day.

Yours, in fear,
Electroman.

--

_{It would be so cool if that nickname took off...}

Fun in the City - Part 2

The first bit of social fun was at lunchtime, with a very nice meal (expenses paid of course) at Zizzi's. This location, as well as the bar for the evenings drinks was apparently painstakingly chosen by dint of looking outside of the windows of the Cardinal Place offices - both within a ten second walk!

The service was pretty amusing, but the food was great - and although I possibly had one more beer with lunch than I should have, I was only slightly tipsy when it came to heading back for the afternoon meeting. Once that had broken up I went to go visit Miles and some other interns, and naturally invited them out to the evening drinks.

The drinks started off merrily enough in Ha! Ha! (why do people give bars stupid names?), though once the interns I'd invited, and then some of the old student partners who happened to be in London I'd also invited turned up, I was a bit worried that there would be more people there to see me than for the guy whose leaving drinks we were meant to be having.

With a Microsoft bar tab (which also seemed to extend to my friends [and the friends they brought] from time to time, there's a reason I'm popular...) things, as always, turned a little bit blurry, and all the members of my team, and some customers we had along, all dissapeared at some point - which was very dissapointing.

We moved onto a few more bars, had a few more drinks, and I tried unsuccessfully to prevent my Welsh accent from slipping through - a clear sign I'd drunk far too much. Details, I'm afraid, are scarce, though I do remember sitting on the floor of Paddington at 1.30am eating Burger King's last remnants of 'food', and then being woken up on the train by a train guard at Reading Station who probably wanted to go to bed as much as I did.

This morning's 10.30am meeting (make that 10.40am, whoops) therefore, didn't progress too well, as I've had an awful hangover all day. I think I was certainly the coolest person in the atrium though, wearing my sunglasses for the entire duration of the meeting. Leet.

Fun in the City - Part 1

Yesterday was my team's monthly meeting, so I got to travel to Microsoft's fab new Cardinal Place offices for the day, and then pop out in the night to celebrate my manager's manager's leaving for India for his new job.

The day didn't exactly start auspiciously with me turning up to the whole shindig an hour late...unfortunately Sod's law was in effect that morning. Everything that could go wrong, did, and there's a surprising amount of things that can go wrong in such a short journey:

• Train arriving at Reading - delayed


• Train due to arrive at Reading before the delayed train's new arrival time - delayed


• Train I finally managed to get on - delayed coming into London


• Tube - delayed


• Tube - managed to go one stop too far on the district line, so had to double back on myself before getting on the circle line


• Tube - missed a circle line train by 10 seconds, had to wait a fair while for the next


• Walking - walked straight past the MS building, and then carried on walking for 10 minutes before realising I was no longer 'right by the station', which were the directions I got given.


• Having to wait quite a bit for a security badge when I finally got to Microsoft offices

You might think, if you're being a bit generous to me, that 'right by the station' isn't much of a direction, so just to counter that, I should point out that I knew it was in Cardinal Place, clearly marked on maps in the station, and also it's not that hard to miss:



The meeting itself was actually pretty fun when I got there though - I finally got to spend some real time with my team so now I'm pretty sure I know which name lines up with which face, and that they're actually all real people, not just email addresses. What was more fun however, was the parts of the day outside of the meeting room...

Rotten eggs

Claire has just been off around the office distributing an evil new invention from the wonderful folks at Jelly Belly - Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans.

Interestingly, Claire also forgot to mention that 'every flavo(u)r' just happens to include Earwax, Dirt, Soap and Rotten Egg. Oddly enough, these aren't just fun names for kids sweets, they've actually been painstakingly reproduced in jelly bean format. Even better, there's actually some real flavours in there too, which makes picking a random sweet rather fun.

Thanks to all this, you might notice people walking away from Claire's desk with pursed lips and watering eyes - and the supply of lollies in the sweetie bowl has started to run low for related reasons. Highly recommended as a joke present for someone if you see these about (no idea where one would buy them).

ATTENTION PLEASE

There's currently a 'stage 1 alarm' sounding all across the MS campus, which very loudly asks for everyone's attention, and then informs everyone they may soon need to evacuate. And then asks for everyone's attention, and then...

Grr.

I'm presuming the reason for the possible evacuation is that the alarm system has been accidentally switched on, and is now stuck in a loop - and it's got to be against health & safety law to have to listen to this for more than a few minutes straight. Only problem is, if the thing does remain in a loop for more than a few minutes, then we can't be told to evacuate, because they can't turn off the warning message.

Poor planning?

Update: With four seconds to go before I shot myself, it's stopped. Thank Spider Pig.

Lazy Sunday afternoons

Another weekend wasted, another week of work to go, woooo :/

Spent most of this one eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts (I love them so), cooking various fun things (roast pork with apple & cinnamon went down well) and playing on the 360. Completed Guitar Hero 2 again, which wasn't too much of a challenge given how often I've played most of the songs there - the new 360 songs were pretty good though, albeit a little hard. I like how my Gamer profile now has awards for completing it on expert, and failing a song on easy, thanks to Ben's girlfriend having a go on my account :D

Also been having some fun playing guitar and singing along with Ben to any songs we could find chords and lyrics for online. Any requests?

Leekspin

As I've mostly just been working today, there's not a whole lot fun to report. As such, have a link to one of my favourite, though now slightly outdated, internet fads:

Leekspin

A 4 frame flash animation with 32 seconds of Finnish pop nonsense. Watch, blind, repeat. Hypnotic and wonderful - I love it so. You'll be singing along in no time, even when you're not at your computer.

Quiz Questions

I don't normally just paste other people's stuff verbatim, but I can't link you here and it was just hilarious. Reposted from the MS Social alias, here's some quiz questions and answers I'm assured really occurred:

QUIZMANIA (ITV)
Greg Scott: We're looking for an occupation beginning with 'T'.
Contestant: Doctor.
Scott: No, it's 'T'. 'T' for Tommy. 'T' for Tango. 'T' for Tintinnabulation.
Contestant: Oh, right . . . (pause) . . . Doctor.

BEG, BORROW OR STEAL (BBC2)
Jamie Theakston: Where do you think Cambridge University is?
Contestant: Geography isn't my strong point.
Theakston: There's a clue in the title.
Contestant: Leicester.

BBC NORFOLK
Stewart White: Who had a worldwide hit with What A Wonderful World?
Contestant: I don't know.
White: I'll give you some clues: what do you call the part between your hand and your elbow?
Contestant: Arm.
White: Correct. And if you're not weak, you're . . .?
Contestant: Strong.
White: Correct - and what was Lord Mountbatten's first name?
Contestant: Louis.
White: Well, there we are then. So who had a worldwide hit with the song What A Wonderful World?
Contestant: Frank Sinatra?

BEACON RADIO (WOLVERHAMPTON)
DJ Mark: For 10 pounds, what is the nationality of the Pope?
Ruth from Rowley Regis: I think I know that one. Is it Jewish?

THE WEAKEST LINK
Anne Robinson: In traffic, what 'J' is where two roads meet?
Contestant: Jool carriageway?

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE
Bamber Gascoigne: What was Gandhi's first name?
Contestant: Goosey, goosey?

RTE RADIO 2FM (IRELAND)
Presenter: What is the name of the long- running TV comedy show about
pensioners: Last Of The ...?
Caller: Mohicans.

RICHARD AND JUDY
Q: Which American actor is married to Nicole Kidman?
A: Forrest Gump.

RICHARD AND JUDY
Leslie: On which street did Sherlock Holmes live?
Contestant: Er . . .
Leslie: He makes bread .. .
Contestant: Er . . .
Leslie: He makes cakes .. .
Contestant: Kipling Street?

LINCS FM PHONE-IN
Presenter: Which is the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world?
Contestant: Barcelona.
Presenter: I was really after the name of a country.
Contestant: I'm sorry, I don't know the names of any countries in Spain.

NATIONAL LOTTERY (BBC1)
Question: What is the world's largest continent?
Contestant: The Pacific
ROCK FM (PRESTON)

Presenter: Name a film starring Bob Hoskins that is also the name of a famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci.
Contestant: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
JAMES O'BRIEN SHOW (LBC)

O'Brien: How many kings of England have been called Henry?
Contestant: Er, well, I know there was a Henry the Eighth ... er . . . er . . . three?

DOG EAT DOG (BBC1)
Ulrika Jonsson: Who wrote Lord of the Rings?
Contestant: Enid Blyton

DARYL DENHAM'S DRIVETIME (VIRGIN RADIO)
Daryl Denham: In which country would you spend shekels?
Contestant: Holland?
Denham: Try the next letter of the alphabet.
Contestant: Iceland? Ireland?
Denham (helpfully): It's a bad line. Did you say Israel?
Contestant: No.

NATIONAL LOTTERY
Dale Winton: Skegness is a seaside resort on the coast of which sea: a)
Irish Sea, b) English Channel, c) North Sea?
Contestant: Oh, I know that, you can start writing out the cheque now,
Dale. It's on the east coast, so it must be the Irish Sea.

LUNCHTIME SHOW (BRMB)
Presenter: What religion was Guy Fawkes?
Contestant: Jewish.
Presenter: That's close enough.

BREAKFAST SHOW, RADIO 1
Chris Moyles: Which 'S' is a kind of whale that can grow up to 80 tonnes?
Contestant: Ummm .. .
Moyles: It begins with 'S' and rhymes with 'perm'.
Contestant: Shark.

STEVE WRIGHT IN THE AFTERNOON (BBC RADIO 2)
Wright: Johnny Weissmuller died on this day. Which jungle-swinging character clad only in a loincloth did he play?
Contestant: Jesus.