McFilter: Personal

Implementing RFC1149

It's been twelve years since I started writing TCP/IP stacks (the underlying protocol that governs how all the computers on the Internet talk to each other) and finally I've had the opportunity to create an implementation (albeit parital) of RFC1149.

This will be of little interest to almost everyone who reads this blog, but it made a small part of me disproportionately proud. However, a quick search on google shows that I wasn't the first and their implementation is much more complete than mine.

Tags: ip rfc

Experiments in Mapping

When my mobile phone was up for renewal recently, I plumped for the Nokia N95 8GB - mainly because of the built-in GPS. We're planning a cycling tour round some of Italy next month, and I figured it would be cool to record where we've been.

It arrived just before our trip to Modena (thanks for the courier service Andrew :-) and I downloaded the Italian maps into it, which made it pretty handy for finding our way around the variety of supercar manufacturers and museums, but there didn't seem to be any way to pull the GPS data out from the phone.

Yesterday, Russell pointed me at the missing apps I needed to get things working properly. Location Tagger will add the GPS location info to any photos you take, and Sports Tracker will let you record where you go and then export it to Google Earth.

So when we were out for a training ride earlier, I tried out Sports Tracker. I couldn't get it to record data for very long, so I'll need to play around with it some more. I'm hoping that mounting the phone onto the handlebars might give it a better view of the GPS satellites than it gets in my pocket.

Still, it's a start, and it means that I can show you a short section and an even shorter section of today's 20-mile ride (I'll be continuing to rely on the bike computer for proper distance recordings I think...)

Tags: Torino Turin cycling route map nokia n95

Cars, Cars, Cars...

Well, it's been a busy few days, but an extremely enjoyable few days. Since Sunday I've seen old cars, new cars, slow cars, fast cars, prototype cars, race cars, model cars, rare cars.... plus a couple of tractors, and the man responsible for my sticker collecting as a kid.

There are a lot of photos, and plenty of stories, but it's going to take a while to get them all sorted and posted up here. Partly because we managed to visit so many places, but mostly because I've got a huge list of things to get done before Friday.

And on Friday I'll be heading back to the UK to attend the geeKyoto conference and some of the items on the todo list involve something I'm hoping to announce around the conference.

Until I get back next week, you'll have to make do with this sneak preview of part of one of the five car-related venues I've visited in the past four days.

Tags: cars italy

More Thinking By Doing Needed

A friend one commented that some people think by doing, whilst others do by thinking. By that he meant that some people work through their problems in their head, thinking through all the options and possibilities before acting, whereas other people have to start playing with things in order to map out the problem-space and help them to understand what they think about the problem.

Both approaches have their merits, and I definitely fall into the "doing by thinking" camp. The problem with that method is that sometimes you don't have enough information to be able to reach any conclusions.

Of late, all the projects I'm involved with seem to be suffering from that problem, but I hadn't quite put my finger on it until I read Gordon's post about practising more of what he preaches.

I don't have any problem practising what I preach, my difficulty is practising things that I'm not confident to preach, and similarly talking about things when I don't have all the answers (or at least, a lot of the answers). Some of that is because I don't know enough about the subject (like marketing, or the hardware I'm hoping to finish before geeKyoto 2008), and some of it is because there aren't any hard and fast answers (marketing again, and the "best" business models for these projects).

So I need to let myself, and encourage myself to, think more by doing. This blog post is a start.

Tags: introspection thinking doing

I'm Now More-than 25% More Productive

The first quarter of 2008 is over, which means that I've just received my quarterly Productivity Report from tedium.

I can't make a direct comparison just yet because the last report was for a whole year, but if I maintain this rate of completing tasks for the rest of the year, I'll have done more than 25% more things in 2008 than I did in2007. Of course, I'm still managing to add new tasks faster than I can complete them, but you can't have everything...

Tasks are also spending less time in the "system" before I complete them. In 2007, on average it took just over a month for a task to be completed, but so far in 2008 I've almost halved that time.

Anyway, that's enough retrospection. I need to get back to doing things to keep my completion rate up for the next report!

Tags: gtd tedium productivity report

Annual Report 2007

I don't really do New Year's Resolutions, and I prefer to do my longer-term dreaming/planning as an ongoing background process rather than picking some fairly arbitrary date. However, the start of a new year has happened to coincide with developing a major new feature for tedium, and I've learnt some interesting things as a result.

At the end of each quarter, tedium now compiles a report showing you how much you've achieved and how you've achieved it. The report at the end of the year looks back over the entire year, rather than just three months, and so I can now show you my Annual Productivity Report 2007.

Over 2007 I completed over 700 tasks, although I replaced each of them with something new and a hundred or so more for good measure. Still, that's only a 12%-or-so rise, which doesn't feel too onerous.

If you look at the graph of new tasks over the year, there's a clear peak at the start of November which matches the start of my 30-in-30 challenge but isn't matched by a similar rise on the graph of completed items. I'm quite pleased with how flat both of those graphs are - I'm just steadily getting things done.

The biggest bump in the completed tasks occurs in July, which is when we were getting things finished on the house and organising moving to Italy, and you can see that reflected in the tag clouds. House and Italy are two tags I used to track everything we needed to fix up before renting our house in Cambridge, and things we needed to do for our move to Turin. The other big tags hyperfocus and thisweek show a different way that I use tags - when I'm reviewing what I need to do, I use those tags to flag the tasks that are a priority for me to address.

The main thing that the punctuality section shows is that I don't assign dates to my tasks very often. It's generally only things like dentist appointments and things that have to happen on a particular day. Fifteen tasks out of seven hundred isn't very many.

Things get more interesting in the productivity section. My productivity seems to steadily decline over the week - starting strongly on Monday and Tuesday before fading on Friday and Saturday before a suprise resurgence on the 'day of rest'. The hourly breakdown is more predictable, although it looks like I have a tendency to add new tasks late in the evening - preparing my todo list for the following day, no doubt.

Moving into 2008, I've still got a lot to do, but 253 remaining tasks is only a third of what I completed last year. There's plenty still to do on tedium, and I'd like to do a fair bit more on learning Italian. I'm looking forward to the end of March when I can compare how I've done in the next report.

Tags: productivity stats tedium report

The Wild Ones

Six years. That seems such a long time to have been without Karen. I don't think I set out to create a tradition of musical remembrances, but looking back at previous entries that's how it seems to have turned out.

I'm quite happy with that, after all music is an important facet of life for me. It was also a big shared interest between Karen and me - our musical tastes were quite different, but there was a lot of overlap. We often introduced each other to new bands or music that we'd discovered, or at least, we did once she'd outgrown Bros and Jason Donovan...

The most obvious example of this is Suede. Karen was a big fan of theirs, but I didn't really rate them until she lent me Dog Man Star. That was the first of many Suede albums that I bought, and still my favourite by a long chalk. So what better a choice for this year's song?

Well, actually it's quite a melancholic album, whilst I was looking for something more optimistic and up-beat. Still, The Wild Ones (as one of the less gloomy tracks) it is...

"We'll be the wild ones, running with the dogs today."

Tags: suede remembrance karen

Merry Christmas Everyone

30-in-30 Post Mortem

Well, it's now December which, amongst other things, means that my do something to improve my Italian each day in November challenge has ended. So how did it go?

I think it went okay. I achieved my thirty tasks and my Italian is a lot better than it was a month ago.

It wasn't all plain-sailing - with just over a week to go I was running three days behind schedule but that shows that I hadn't made the challenge too easy. It needed that extra bit of effort towards the end to hit the target. I think the variety of tasks helped when I was lagging behind as it meant I didn't have to face a growing pile of identical work, and I could pick something that suited my mood or motivation. My tasks included working through the My First 100 Italian Words book I got for my birthday; watching a learning Italian course I'd recorded from BBC Learning Zone; attending the social gatherings organised by the language institute where Rebecca is having Italian lessons; and day-to-day tasks like getting my haircut or dropping off my dry-cleaning.

I'm sure I could've made more progress too, but pitched as it was I didn't have to sacrifice any of my other work, which I'm pleased about.

Tags: reconnection_revolution 30n30

A Tale of Two Phone Calls

Yesterday afternoon I spent an infuriating half-hour on the phone to PayPal; the latest in a series, as I try to prove to them that I've moved to Italy and wasn't trying to hack my own account the other day. Each time I speak to them I get a different answer as to how long they'll take to acknowledge the proof-of-address I faxed them on Saturday.

By the end of that call I was livid, but an hour or so later I hung-up a Skype call feeling refreshed and with my faith in humanity restored.

I'd spent the best part of an hour chatting to Curt Rosengren as part of his 30 conversations in 30 days project. We got to talk about the differences between the US and Europe; found out that Curt lived in Cambridge for some of his childhood and went to school round the corner from my house; and a host of other topics.

So I just wanted to thank Curt for an enjoyable chat.

Tags: curt_rosengren paypal 30in30

It Might Be True, But it Wasn't Really Appropriate

I think today's 30-in-30 should be to revise the difference between these two verbs:

lavare

To wash. lavo - I wash

lavorare

To work. lavoro - I work

That will help me avoid conversations such as the one with the barista at the caffetteria opposite our apartment when Rebecca and I dropped in for a quick espresso...

barista: Are you not at work today?
Rebecca: I'm working later on, at the restaurant round the corner
barista: And you?
Not knowing how to say "I work for myself", I wanted to point out that the "office" was just across the road...
Me: I wash in the apartment

Reaching Out in November

Curt Rosengren's recent blog-move seems to have revitalised him and he's been posting some thought-provoking stuff at his new home. His latest idea is to reach out and talk to thirty different people in the next thirty days and has thrown down the gauntlet for others to join the Reconnection Revolution.

I did wonder whether I should take up the challenge and use it to spur me on with the marketing effort for tedium, but that feels a bit calculating and not really in the serendipity spirit of the whole idea.

Leaving the idea to marinate for a couple of days has let me realise a much more useful way that I can reconnect with people. Since moving to Turin my virtually-non-existent Italian has been improving, but only slowly. Piano, piano... as they say round here. The best way for me to connect with people would be if I could actually talk to them!

So, my 30-in-30 challenge is to do something to increase my Italian abilities each day: listen to a learn-Italian podcast; look up the vocab for a hypothetical conversation; use some of my new vocab in a conversation with someone... something like that.

And because it seems a shame to start now when there's a nice thirty-day long month coming along later in the week, I've got a couple of days to prepare.

The challenge starts on the 1st November.

Tags: reconnection_revolution 30in30

A Torino

Just a quick note to let you know that we've arrived safely in Torino. All is good and we're getting settled in, but haven't got Internet access yet (apart from when we drag the laptop over to Piazza Solferino, like we have now), which is why the blogging has been pretty light.

The nice men from FastWeb should be coming to run fibre-optic cable into the apartment on Tuesday though, so fingers crossed I'll be able to get access to my email then! (It should all be sat on my backup mail server waiting for the main one to come back online...).

If you need to contact me urgently then my mobile is the best option, or email me at adrianm at mcqn.com.

Next Stop Torino!

Well, actually the next stop will be Birchington in Kent.

And the one after will be Chambery in France.

But after that it's all about Torino!

That's right, when you read this (the wonders of delayed posting, I'm sat eating my breakfast at the moment, with a lot of rubbish and recycling to dispose of and yet more packing still to finish) we'll be en route to Italy.

Down to Rebecca's parents' place for tonight, then onto the 8.15am ferry tomorrow. Then lots of driving down to south-east France for an overnight in Chambery before the final leg over the Alps and down to Turin on Wednesday.

The Crowe-Scott Wedding

We had an action-packed and rather fun (very) long weekend this week as we were up in the Lakes for Scottie and Michelle's wedding on Monday.

The wedding itself started quite early at 11:30am, but needed to in order to fit in all the activities - ceremony; meal; two blocks of speeches; boat trip; lakeside exchange of vows; jazz band; buffet and finally disco. As I was one of the ushers, there was plenty to do during the day, but it all ran smoothly.

Now that Rebecca has started blogging she's written some more about the weekend, and linked to her photos.

My Screen Debut

Ages ago I "starred" as the secret agent's legs in a friend's short film, Office Devils. At the time I said I'd let you know what happened with it.

It's been a while before going on general release (I got a copy on DVD a couple of months after the shoot, if I remember correctly) but today I happened to find the Office Devils page on Carl's website. He's written a bit of background to the film and even made the whole thing is available to download.

If you do watch it though, I must point out that it isn't indicative of the production team's abilities. You can tell that it was the first-ever project for most of them, and filmed with a minuscule budget. Their more recent work is vastly superior and looking very polished.

Anyway, does this mean I get an IMDB entry...?

Nessun Integrale

Or in English (at least this is what I'm hoping that the title means - my Italian is very much at the beginners level): not one Integrale.

At the start of the month, Rebecca and I spent a long weekend over in Turin, in Northern Italy on the edge of the Alps. For a while now, we've been planning on spending a year in Italy and this visit was part holiday, part fact-finding trip to see if Turin would work as our home.

The initial impressions as we travelled to the hotel from the airport were of a rather industrial city. That isn't too surprising given that Turin is the home of FIAT and Lancia, something that was reinforced when we arrived at our desitnation - Le Meridien Lingotto.

The hotel is part of a complex including restaurants and a shopping mall, converted from an old factory building, but not just any factory building. It's the old FIAT Lingotto factory, still with its mile-long test track on the roof (as featured in the original Italian Job). The picture above shows me on what is now the hotel's unique jogging circuit.

Those initial feelings proved to be too simplistic as we explored the city over the next few days. As with anywhere in Italy, there's a wealth of picturesque piazzas and beautiful architecture. Not to mention the array of restaurants, trattorias and pizzerias; all serving sublime food. We even found the market - stalls piled high with fresh and tasty-looking produce - and a little side street leading towards the river lined with butchers, bakers and delicatessens... looking forward to shopping there for ingredients in our own cooking.

A weekend break has a different vibe if you're wondering whether you could live in the city, rather than just sight-seeing. Trying the city on for size - districts are potential neighbourhoods; bars a potential "local"; restaurants a potential favourite haunt. You can't get a proper feel of the place in just four days, but we didn't find anything to scare us off. All that remains is to get things sorted here in Cambridge so that we can move sometime this summer.

And the title of this entry? Well, in the home of Lancia I was expecting to catch sight of the odd Integrale here and there - but despite seeing a couple of dozen Deltas (evenly split between nuovo and old) the nearest was an HF Turbo. I was torn between being disappointed and secretly pleased that I'll still be driving something a bit different and unusual.

Tags: Turin Torino Lingotto

Ladyfest Eclectic at The Elm Tree

Scouting Scouseland

Happy New Year!

I had a good time over the Christmas break, although I seemed to spend most of the time travelling - up to Rainford just before Christmas, down to Kent on Boxing Day (bit of a mammoth trek after having a blowout on the M6 toll road and so being reduced to 50mph due to the space-saver spare for most of the journey!), back to Cambridge briefly before heading up to Norfolk for New Year...

At the start of all that, Rebecca and I popped into Liverpool for the day, as you'd have known if you followed the link I posted to my question to Stuart as part of his Review 2006 series.

Given the current multitude of roadworks and related upheavals, we only drove as far as Kirkby station and let the frequent and easy train take us the rest of the way into the city - a journey I haven't made in over fifteen years. As always, I was transfixed by the view from the window from Sandhills onwards: the track passes over the Leeds-Liverpool canal and swings parallel to the river, giving a great view of the docks before it disappears underground to Central station.

We'd done the Albert Dock area last time we visited, so this time I wanted to cover some of the sights a bit further inland. From the station we headed past St. John's tower to William Brown Street and thus saw St. Georges Hall, the Museum, library and Walker Art Gallery.

We had a look round the Walker, and saw the David Beckham video which is on display at the moment. Not that I was particularly impressed with it, but it was mentioned today on the Art In Liverpool blog (see the link).

Then it was back past Lime Street Station and up Mount Pleasant to the Metropolitan Cathederal. I hadn't been inside before - its one huge circular space - which works well and is an interesting change from the conventional church layout. When we were there the place was crawling with BBC technicians getting things ready for the Midnight Mass broadcast on Christmas Eve.

Leaving Paddy's Wigwam led us naturally along Hope Street, past the Everyman and the Phil(harmonic Hall). We'd timed it so that we could stop around here for lunch, and The Quarter restaurant proved an excellent recommendation. Thanks Stuart. The food was lovely; service was superb; and we even bought one of the artworks on display on the walls.

Our energies restored, we explored the surrounding area some more. If we do come to Liverpool then I really want to live somewhere around here - gorgeous Georgian housing stock; walking distance to the centre; the university; the Phil; Everyman; restaurants...

We didn't stay too long at the Anglican Cathederal, as a service was about to start. Instead, we wound our way back down Bold Street via a boarded up pub with a huge Banksy mural on the side, through the Chinese arch in Chinatown, pausing briefly at the bombed out church (St. Lukes).

Time was getting on by then, so we finished up with a wander round Church Street and Whitechapel for a few last bits of Christmas shopping. Then back to the station, and home.

I Still Miss Someone

I saw Walk the Line for the first time last weekend, and half-way through, he writes the song I Still Miss Someone in memory of his brother.

Naturally that reminded me of Karen and Stewart, who died five years ago today.

It seems like an age has passed, but at the same time it feels like no time at all. What surprises me most is how the significance of this date is fading. For the past few years I've been acutely aware of it's impending arrival; but not this year.

It doesn't seem quite so vital, any more, to mark such a dark day. Why single out the low point in their lives? Remember the multitude of good times instead.

The 21st of December is no longer as sad as it has been, but of course I still miss someone.

I Think You Mean Last

At the start of the week, I ordered a TV-tuner card for the MythTV machine I'm building. Yesterday, when I got home there was a "we tried to deliver a parcel" card from the Home Delivery Network. It just told me that they'd try to deliver it again today, and after that I could arrange alternate delivery or collection.

Today, there's another card. Good to their word they've tried to deliver it again. But I'm working away from home at present, so there's no-one in during the day.

Still. This sort of thing has happened many times before, and it isn't the end of the world. The card even proclaims "Putting the customer 1st" at the top.

There isn't a website listed on the card, so I can't check where the depot is - all I can do is phone the number on the card and quote my parcel number at them. So that's what I do.

The depot is in St. Neots. Not particularly far, but not as close as any other parcel firms I've dealt with. But it isn't open on Saturday, the day that would be best for me to go and collect it. Okay, maybe I can divert via St. Neots on my way to or from work... but it only opens at 9am, and closes at 6pm.

Excellent. So, because I'm busy during office hours and so can't be at home for delivery, I can go and collect it any time during office hours. I'm sure there's some problem with that logic...

Then it gets even better. They can't give me the address for the depot in St. Neots, because I have to arrange with the depot before I collect the parcel. How long does it take to find a parcel on a shelf in a warehouse?

Finally, we reach the point where I'll be phoning Dabs.com and getting a refund. The guy on the phone is quite keen for me to agree for the depot to phone me tomorrow to arrange when I'll collect it; something I don't want to do because I'd rather choose a time when it's convenient for me to be interrupted at work. "But", he protests, "if you phone tomorrow to arrange it, you won't be able to collect it on Monday."

Monday!?! It's only Thursday today. My parcel started its journey back to the depot this morning. Yet if I phone tomorrow to arrange to collect it, the earliest that they'll let me is Tuesday.

Can somebody explain to me how anyone can have the audacity to claim that any of this is "putting the customer 1st"?!?!!

Five-a-side Footie @ Kelsey Kerridge

Still Here... Just Busy.

Blogging has been a bit light around here recently, hasn't it? Rather than continue not managing to write the assortment of posts about things I've been up to lately (a lot of which are a bit too far in the past really), I'm going to provide a quick summary post of recent events and such.

Work

This is what's been sucking in all of my time. Particularly all my time in front of a computer, when I could otherwise be blogging. As a result I'm on the verge of launching tedium, which is really cool. Life is a loop of chasing down final niggly details, dotting is and crossing ts... but it's all easy to keep track of under a tedium tag on my tedium account.

Of course, just to add to the fun, I need to work out how 34sp.com have broken the beta version by upgrading the version of Ruby on Rails on me (and which rolling back to the old version hasn't fixed...).

Toys

All this development has been the final straw for my five-year old laptop. It's been chugging along for a while now, and last month I finally relented and decided it was time for an upgrade. My new Toshiba M400 Tablet PC is very nice, although I think it needs a bit more than the 512MB of memory it comes with as standard. It's early days, but so far I like the pen-based interface. Using it like a normal laptop is obviously still best for most tasks, and typing on the keyboard is much faster than the handwriting recognition; but I've been impressed with how well that actually recognises what I write. I prefer the pen when playing around with things in a paint package, so I reckon it's a worthwhile addition to the system.

Fun

I'm not sure this should be classed as "fun", but we completed the London to Cambridge bike ride. It took a bit longer than in previous attempts, but we weren't in any hurry. Some more training runs would've been handy though - I was rather saddle-sore after fifty miles!

Then at the end of July it was time for the Folk Festival to take over the grounds of the local hall again. We only made it to the Thursday night (although we could hear plenty more of it in the house...) and got to see Chumbawamba in their current acoustic incarnation, and Nizlopi. Nizlopi were as energized and excellent as always, and Chumbawamba were surprisingly good - even if they didn't play Tubthumping (I got fed up of it when it was played to death in the charts, hence my not being particularly excited about seeing them, but by the end of their set was hoping to hear what it sounded like as an acoustic number!).

And the Sunday before last, we did make it to see the Black Box screening. It was great to see it at last, and was an enjoyable half-hour. If you happen upon it at the Edinburgh Fringe, or possibly at some green festival whose name I forget, then take a look.

The Lazyweb Karaoke Selector

Nearly three years ago now, as part of my 31 Songs project I wrote an open letter asking for Guitar Man to be included in karaoke selections and on pub jukeboxes.

So I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email in my inbox the other day which read:

Excellent news. I know what I'll be singing at my next party...

Help Fight Cancer and Get a Free Book!

This coming Sunday, Rebecca and I will be cycling the fifty miles from London to Cambridge as part of the annual (and obviously named) London to Cambridge Bike Ride. You can sponsor me by heading over to Bmycharity - Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

This year, however, I've decided to try something a little bit different for my fundraising. Listed below are a number of books that I need to get rid of to make some more space on my bookshelves. Anybody who wants one of them can have one, provided they sponsor me for the ride, and I'll cover the postage for the book.

The books:

• Formula One: The Championship 1997 - A Complete Race-by-race Guide by David Tremayne
• Jeremy Clarkson's Hot 100 - Cars that make you go Phwoar!
• The Fastest Cars From Around the World
  Guinness World Records 2002
• Advanced Engineering Mathematics by Erwin Kreyszig
• Software Project Survival Guide by Steve McConnell
• Dancing with Cats by Burton Silver and Heather Busch
• Flip & Easy One Pot recipe book
• Unix System Administration Handbook by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder and Scott Seebass
• The First-time Manager by Loren B. Belker
• The Definitive Guides to the X Window System: Volume 6A - Motif Programming Manual by Dan Heller & Paula M. Ferguson
• The Definitive Guides to the X Window System: Volume 6B - Motif Reference Manual by Paula M. Ferguson
• Linux Unleashed by Husain, Parker, et al.
• Leonardo's Laptop by Ben Schneiderman
• Laughter: A Scientific Investigation by Robert R. Provine
• Billy (Connolly's biography) by Pamela Stephenson
• Manchester, England: The story of the pop cult city by Dave Haslam
• Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
• Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh
• Probability: the book that proves there is life in outer space by Amir D. Aczel
• Learning to Program in C by N. Kantaris
• Deeper: a two-year odyssey in cyberspace by John Seabrook
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

And if there wasn't anything you want in the list, you're still allowed to be old-fashioned and just sponsor me anyway.

Recycling Buildings For a Carbon Neutral Future

Evita at the Adelphi Theatre

Free Range 2006

Blood Brothers at the Corn Exchange

So, Blood Brothers then. I was surprised that a throwaway mention of it should generate two comments, obviously my readership is girlier than I thought ;-)

Overall I enjoyed the performance, although it took a while to get going. At the interval, I was fairly ambivalent about it - the songs weren't memorable and the narrator was hard to understand, plus as the story is set in Liverpool and Skelmersdale - both areas I know well - I'd let myself get distracted picking at where in Liverpool it could be based on the backdrop, the mixed attempts at scouse accents, and wondering why the "posh" family would ever move to Skem...

Things picked up a lot in the second half, the plot quickened and drew me in. I didn't quite think it was worthy of the standing ovation given at the end, apart from the actress playing the lead role of the mother. Strictly she was the understudy for Linda Nolan, but I doubt we could have had a better performance from anyone else.

I'm glad I saw it, but unlike the couple sat next to me, I don't think I'd be booking to see it for the third time in a week.

I'll Do My Crying Here Again

Today, two blogs that I read religiously have each announced the sad news that a close family member has died. With each my first thought has been to post a comment, but I've then fumbled over what to write in it.

Whatever I say won't bring back the loved one who is now strangely missed and yet also ever-present in the thoughts and minds of those left behind.

I can't say that I know how they feel, because I don't. I have been through a similar experience when Karen, my sister, was killed in a car crash five years ago, but all I know from that is how individual and different the grief is from one person to the next.

I could say that time is the great healer. That the pain dulls over the years, although it's always there ready to be exposed again if something scratches through the surface, although perversely it's as if they're almost alive again when it does.

But that's something you either believe or you don't. Some platitudes from somebody else aren't going to change that. Deep down you'll already know that you will get through it, somehow... even if the world won't ever quite be the same again.

I suppose the only useful advice I can offer is to talk about it more. To not worry about how you're seen to others. To be open about it.

I know this is easier said than done. I don't do it as much as I should. I've wanted to write this blog post for years now. In fact, in my drafts folder there's the time I tried to write it when I heard that Kev's brother had died, and another for the time when Ran told me about Eyal...

I just find it hard to communicate when I'm crying, which makes it tricky to explain that I don't mind people talking about Karen, or asking me questions about her, or how I felt at the time of her death, or how I feel now, or how the dynamic of the whole family changed, or... anything.

You see, getting upset isn't a problem, because it reminds me of how much I loved Karen and how much I miss her. So it should be celebrated that I react in this way, because the alternative - that I don't mourn her passing - is too awful to contemplate.

A Musical Weekend

This weekend turned out to be rather musical, in a rather different way to usual.

On Saturday, we went down to London for the day, and I got to experience my first West End musical. The Producers was great fun; the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a rather impressive and ornate theatre, and the production itself was superb. Reece Shearsmith's (of League of Gentlemen fame) cartoon-like spasms when as Leo Bloom he was deprived of his security blanket were inspired, and I loved Don Gallagher as the camp director, Roger De Bris and Nicolas Colicos as Fuhrer-loving Franz Liebkind.

Then on Sunday, the musicals continued. I went to see West Side Story at the Arts Picturehouse with Rebecca and her sister. It's a firm favourite of theirs, and they're word-perfect from repeated viewings from video and DVD, but neither had seen it on the big screen. I had never seen it, and I think I enjoyed it more seeing it at the cinema than I would watching it on TV, and the song-and-dance numbers only seemed to drag once or twice - which is better than I feared.

I'd like to assure you that this sudden interest in musicals is just a blip, but given that I'll be seeing Blood Brothers at the Arts Theatre this coming weekend, I'm not sure I that'll stand up to scrutiny. I'm not expecting to continue with the musicals immersion, but I think they have their place.

What Am I Up To?

In a recent comment over here, Ellee Seymour asked:

"Hi, I am interested to know what you are working on at the moment. What hi-tech innovation is left?"

I figured this was a good enough prompt for me to get round to updating everyone about why things have been little more than link dumps of late...

What am I working on at the moment?

Far too much! As always seems to be the case, things haven't quite dove-tailed as I'd have liked. I recently accepted some contract work (doing, and managing, some testing) to ease cashflow whilst I'm ramping up the sales and marketing of DataCocoon. However, I hadn't quite finished the revamp of the MCQN Ltd. website when I started the contract, so my evenings are being spent sorting that out. Almost sorted now, so the launch of DataCocoon isn't too far away!

The weekends would've been a good time to finish off the website too, were it not for a spate of weddings. Leila and Jon's wedding was the weekend before last; last weekend we were down in Kent for one of Rebecca's friends' wedding; and this week I need to finish off my speech ready for being best man at Craig's wedding on Saturday.

What hi-tech innovation is left?

There's still plenty of hi-tech innovation left to be had - there are far too many things I'd like to play around with...

Mobile computing

We're still a long way from getting people to use their mobile phones for much more than texting and phoning people. I don't think we will, or that we should, get mobile phones to replace PCs - a keyboard and a big screen are too useful - but they should be more closely integrated. It should be trivial to share data between the two, and have applications that assume you have both and play to each's strengths.

Web 2.0

This seems to be the latest buzzword, but hidden behind the hype there are some good trends in making websites more responsive and user-friendly. Another advantage is that the user doesn't have to worry about the maintenance and administration overhead to keep Web applications (things like Hotmail for an old example, or more recently Writely - a web-based word processor) running properly, but that is at the cost of your data being held by some random company.

As more and more of our data and computer usage moves online, I think we'll need improved abilities to manage our identity in the online world. At present there are two main modes of privacy on the Internet - things that everyone can see, or things that only the individual who owns them can see. It's hard to selectively open things up to other groups of people, such as my family, or my friends. Some form of global identity will not only give us less usernames and passwords to remember for all the services we use, but will also enable easier authentication of our friends and colleagues to allow us to develop semi-private spaces online.

Ubiquitous Computing

This is a catch-all term to cover all sorts of non-computer devices gaining networked computer-like abilities. So it includes things like smart light switches that can turn all the lights in the house off when you go to bed; heating systems that you can text when you leave work so your house is warm when you get home; through to things like this WiFi-enabled rabbit which can light up when your share price falls, or wiggle its ears when your girlfriend moves the ears on hers. All sorts of things that users won't necessarily realise have computers embedded in them, but will buy because they solve a problem.

And my direction?

In the short-term, I'll be playing with the Web2.0 stuff. I've been dabbling in it with a todo-list application that I'm developing for personal use at present, but will be looking to let others play around with it once it's a bit more polished.

And in the longer term I want to experiment with the ubiquitous computing stuff (anyone want to buy me a bunny?) but who know what I'll end up doing?

Review 2005

Stu over at feeling listless has been running a series for all of December entitled Review 2005 where one guest blogger per day writes about an achievement they've made in 2005.

Today you can read my entry, but the others are well worth a read too. The full list of entries is in the introduction (although it won't have the complete list 'til the end of the month).

In Memory Of Karen And Stewart

"And to those of you who moan your lives through one day to the next
Well let them take you next
Can't you live and be thankful you're here
See it could be you tomorrow or next year"

A Busy Weekend In Belfast

I think I've recovered now from an excellent, eventful long weekend in Northern Ireland for old Uni mate Martin's stag do.

After dropping our bags off at the Days Inn (nothing special, but fairly new and convenient for the city centre) late on Friday morning we headed round the corner to the superb Crown bar for the best pint of Guinness I've ever had (see photo).

The stout was accompanied by some rather tasty sausages and champ, as recommended by my housemate, which meant that we could ensconce ourselves in one of the snugs. It felt like we had our own private room in the pub, with a bell to summon the waitress to order our food and bring more beer - fantastic!

Given that we spent the rest of the day drinking, I felt remarkably well on Saturday morning - all set for my first day at the races. Down Royal racecourse is twenty minutes drive or so outside of Belfast, so it was a short minibus trip before we were caught up in the excitement of the racing.

However, there was to be even more drama before the afternoon was out. Shortly before the third race, we were all ushered from the grandstand and onto the racecourse itself. From there, we spent half and hour or so watching as the race security and the police searched the area. At that point it was announced over the PA that racing was being abandoned and the police helicopter (which had landed earlier) took off and flew up and down the course advising us to move down to the exit.

As we made our way out of the racecourse there were rumours (later proved correct) that a number of suspect devices had been found, and more and more emergency vehicles could be seen arriving (when we left there were police cars, fire engines, three bomb disposal armoured Land Rovers and a couple of larger bomb disposal vans). However, the evacuation was calm and measured - the main problem for everyone was the gridlock on the road back to Mazetown. We didn't realise until we saw the front page of the local paper the next day just how big an incident it had been.

The evening saw us back to more normal stag do activites - just the general drinking and enjoying the Belfast nightlife. Ordinary, but lots of fun.

Finally, on Sunday there was just enough time for a group of us to take in the open-top bus tour of the city before heading back to the airport. It was a very interesting tour, although it felt a bit different to the similar one that I've been on in Cambridge for in addition to being shown the historic buildings, shipyard where RMS Titanic was built, etc., the tour took us round the areas most visibly involved in the Troubles.

We got to see just how close the two communities are geographically; often in adjacent streets which are separated by Peace Lines - 20-odd foot high fences with gates in them manned by police. The gates get closed at 6pm every day, and are closed for the whole weekend. It was surprising how little of this I was aware of, despite having watched documentaries on the Troubles, and seen items on the news whilst growing up. The murals and a lot of the names were familiar (Falls Road, Shankill Road...) but the Peace Lines and fortifications of the Orange meeting hall and the like provided real food for thought.

It's all still quite recent, so it felt a bit uneasy... voyeuristic almost to be touring through in a sight-seeing bus, down terraced streets where people were just going about their day: coming out of church; washing the car; playing with their friends. But, I did get a much better idea of what Belfast has been through.

Weekend Activities

It was a good weekend for going to performances.

On Friday night we headed over to the University Centre for the Jesterlarf comedy night. It's ages since we'd been, and they've moved rooms and done away with the cans-sold-from-a-table and now rely on the main bar (which managed not to suffer any real delay during the interval rush).

The only problem with the room change is that they're still trying to pack in as many people as they used to in the other room, which is bigger, so things were a bit cramped. You get pre-allocated an area of table, which is good, but it would work much better if they lost some of the seats.

Anyway, the comedy was good. Chambers and Nettleton (who seemed more the "next Mel and Sue" than the as billed "next French and Saunders") did a good job of compering the event, and didn't pick on us too much even though we were sat next to the stage.

Stuart Hudson was the first act, and my favourite. He delivered a stream of puns, just at the right tempo where you didn't miss anything, but weren't left waiting for any of them either.

The guest act, whose name I can't remember, and isn't listed on the flyer wasn't much good. He didn't get off to a great start but had pretty much recovered it, only to continually go on about how badly it was going, which became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Mike Gunn, the headline, restored the level of laughter, and ensured that we ended an enjoyable evening on a high.

Then last night we went to one of the Naked Stage nights in the basement of CB2 (which I'm surprised doesn't seem to have a website...). Naked Stage is a series of stage readings of new material written and performed by the members of WriteON! - The Forum for New Dramatic Writing in Cambridge.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect, it all felt a bit bohemian and just isn't the sort of thing I've ever been to. The first piece was really good and quite funny - a ten minute or so extended sketch of a couple getting ready to go out, with her deliberating over what to wear and him getting his "you look lovely in either outfit" predictably wrong. Each character was played by two actors - one for the physical person, and another acting out the character's thoughts - which was a clever idea, although it took a minute or so to realise that that what was happening.

The second piece wasn't as engaging, although it was still enjoyable. It seemed a bit long for the amount of content - a tale set around the death of a cat. It also didn't help that there isn't much of a stage in the CB2 basement (hence the series name) which meant that some of the actors were still visible on stage when they weren't in the current scene.

Afterwards there was a (non-compulsory) audience feedback session to provide the actors and writers with comments and thoughts. It looks like a good group for any budding actors and writers, and the Naked Stage series runs every Sunday evening till the start of December.

About Me

It's long overdue really, especially given that I find such pages quite useful when I happen upon other blogs, so I figured it was time to add some "About me" info to McFilter.

I live in Cambridge, England and write software for a living. I moved down here from the North-West to be one of the first few employees of a startup called STNC - we were first to put a web browser onto a mobile phone. I played a pretty big role in the success of the company, initially as a software engineer, then with some project management and finally as software manager in charge of the entire engineering force.

When we were acquired by Microsoft, I wanted to get back to some coding, and so led the team writing the TCP/IP stack which has shipped on an assortment of devices including the Sony Z5 and the Amstrad em@ilers.

In early 2001 I left Microsoft, and since then have been working for myself - some of the time doing contract work, and some of the time developing my own products. I'm always interested in projects/consulting/software ideas/work related to things I'm interested in, which includes...

• Web apps
• Blogging
• Embedded/mobile development
• Home networking
• Ubiquitous computing
• Music
• Project management or just management, particularly in small tech companies

Outside of work (and the geeky computer stuff) I seem to spend quite a bit of time playing football (that's proper football, not that American version ;-). I also do a fair bit of cycling and like to go for a wander up some mountains from time to time (although that's easier said than done when you live in East Anglia!).

I'm also quite into my cars and listening to music. Not always at the same time, but I can listen to anything from my entire CD collection (as mp3s) at any time when I'm in the car - which is a bit more impressive when you know that at the last check it would take more than three weeks of non-stop listening to listen to all my CDs...

Everything I Know About Writing A Best Man's Speech

Like me, my mate Jon has been honoured to be asked to be a best man. The other day (before I accidentally kicked him in the shin playing football... sorry about that Jon!) he asked me if I had any hints or links to help him embarrass the groom prepare his speech.

I'm not sure that I'm the most qualified to give advice, seeing as I didn't seem to spend too much time writing it - I started it on my train journey back from Egham one day, and finished it in a couple more evenings. That said, it seemed to go over okay on the day...

Tradition dictates some of the speech for you: the best man's speech usually follows the groom's, so you generally start by thanking the groom on behalf of the bridesmaids; and you generally finish with a final toast to the happy couple.

So the only bit you get to play with really is the middle, and how hard can that be? ;-)

Once word gets out that you're going to be best man, people are usually eager to offer their thoughts and ideas, and to share their experiences of best man speeches they've heard.

A while back I read Working the Room by Nick Morgan, which I'd recommend for anyone doing any sort of public speaking. It advocates basing your speech on one of the archetypal stories or myths: the quest (or hero's journey); stranger in a strange land; rags to riches; revenge; or boy meets girl. Working the Room gives a page of explanation for each of the stories.

Although boy meets girl sounds like the obvious pick, for that story the boy loses the girl through some misunderstanding before finally winning her back, so it didn't match what had happened with Neil and Kuljit. Instead, I figured the quest would be more suitable, showing Neil's journey through life to find true love.

With the quest providing a basic framework, I set about talking to Neil's friends and family to gather stories to use, including some useful material from Neil himself one evening in the pub when he'd had a few too many. In the latter scenario, make sure you write the material down or (as I did) text it to yourself, as you're unlikely to be in a state to rely on your memory! I then chose a handful of the stories and ran them together along a rough timeline from when I first knew the groom, through to him meeting his new wife and them falling in love.

Props are always well received, with embarrassing photos of the groom being a common choice. With some help from my housemate, Scottie, I worked in some jokes involving bubblewrap, and the air horn I let off at the end of the speech had the added bonus of waking up anyone who'd found my speech too boring.

Now that the speech is written, you can turn your attention to its delivery. Practice is key here; I must have run through mine half a dozen times. That will give you an idea of how long it will last, and also identify any parts or phrases that you have difficulty with. I didn't script my speech, just had a set of (numbered!) 3"x5" index cards with brief reminders of the stories so that I got them in order but I did script the odd sentence here and there that I'd struggled to find the best wording for during the rehearsal.

Ideally you should check out the room beforehand. I didn't have chance to do this, and so was a little alarmed when we sat down for the meal to find that there wasn't enough space to get out from my seat, which made my initial joke a tad difficult. Luckily we decided to run all the speeches from the other end of the room and it wasn't a problem in the end. Incorporating something into your speech that requires you to move about the room can be a good trick to take your mind off the speech itself and help you calm your nerves and relax.

Finally, remember to speak loudly (so even old Aunt Ethel at the back can hear you) and more slowly than you think you should - you'll have a natural tendency to rush through the speech as you know what it says, remember everyone else is hearing it for the first time. And don't worry about it too much - everyone wants the speech to go well, so they're all on your side!

The London To Cambridge Bike Ride 2005

Wet. That was the over-riding (if you'll pardon the pun) theme of this year's London to Cambridge ride. It didn't rain heavily, but did rain steadily from the first rest stop, fourteen miles in, to the end.

Once you're soaked though, it doesn't really matter how much more it rains, and it wasn't cold so it only really meant we had to be a bit more careful on the corners of the downhill bits, in case it was slippery.

We (that's Ian pictured on the right there) took a little longer than last time: around three and a half hours of riding, with another twenty minutes or so of stops. Not too bad, given our lack of training this time. I think we paced ourselves better, as the "killer hill" (about 34 miles in) that was burned into my memory last time wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered; the one two miles previous seemed to have been worst this time.

I haven't totted up all my sponsorship yet, but should comfortably break the £100 barrier, which is good. Of course, it's too late to sponsor me for it, but I'm sure the charity wouldn't mind if you make a donation ;-)

The Long and Winding Road

...which is 50 miles long, and wends from London to Cambridge. That's where I'll be on Sunday (presuming I get my bike fixed - I rather worryingly managed to shred the rear tyre on a practice ride last night!) as once again I embark on the London to Cambridge bike ride.

It's all in aid of charity, so if you'd like to help my fundraising efforts in for Breakthrough Breast Cancer then you can sponsor me here.

Thanks.

Neil's Stag

As usual, it takes the imminent arrival of the actual wedding for me to find time to post about the stag do, which was a couple of weeks back over the weekend of the 28th May.

The proceedings started like this...


And the weekend ended like this...


But fear not! All is not what it seems.

The build-up to the weekend started on the Friday evening - Neil, Dixon and I headed into Rusholme for a curry, and then wound up in Withington for a few drinks, but not too many - the big day was to come.

First thing Saturday, we headed over to Knutsford to Delta Force Paintball. Upon arrival, our convoy of Integrale and Nissan 350Z caused a bit of a stir with the guys at the gate, but I'm sure that was overshadowed moments later by the guy arriving in his Ferrari.

We then proceeded to spend far too much on paintballs, as we seemed to get through them at a rate of knots. Excellent fun, as usual, although Neil found that he seemed to attract more fire once the marshalls had discovered he was on his stag do and so kitted him out in a fluorescent jacket.

Once we'd finished trying to get Neil as many bruises as possible, we headed back to Manchester to our hotel on Piccadilly. Showered and changed, we then headed over to the Frog and Bucket comedy club, via a few bars, and met up with the guys who hadn't made it to the paintballing.

The only comedian I'd heard of, Richard Herring, unfortunately had a terrible night, as you can read here. We weren't the stag do that he incorrectly picked on, as there was another one there too - but that gave headline act Alex Boardman plenty of victims as he delivered a hilarious set that was a better fit with the audience.

We didn't stay at the comedy club for their "legendary classic disco" but headed to