Earthquake

I'm not going into it too much as there's no point. as my fellow bloggers Cookie and Tao give it their techy slant

There was an Earthquake, it woke me (and SWMBO) up.

We went back to sleep

The End.

(Global Warming, the demise of the HD-DVD, Apple - who know why it happened)

That Fat Lady isn't Singing Yet.

It was announced last week the High Definition DVD war was over with the HD-DVD camp giving up and going home, (with the ball).

Good news for all you XBOX 360 owners, Microsoft have just slashed the price of their HD-DVD drive to $49.99 (£25),

I know it'll a matter of time before HD-DVDs are as easy to get hold of as Betamax videos are right now.... But

• Could this actually be a turn around
• Could this be a clever marketing trick by the HD-DVD people in their quest to dominate.

Current (but for how long?) HD-DVD Partners

Put it this way, I'm still not going to rush out and get that shiny new Blu-Ray player just yet.
Then again, Im not going to rush out and buy the Xbox HD-DVD Player either.

We'll see.... again

The War is (almost) Over

*** GEEK ALERT***

So glad I didn't go all iPoddy on this oneIt seems like the next generation format war is almost over

I have always taken a (slight) interest in the gadget/computer wars.

First the Spectrum vs Commodore 64 (I had the Spectrum(s) 16k, 48k and the +2A)
Then Atari ST vs Amiga A500 (I had the Atari STe)

Thankfully I missed the VHS/Betamax war so only the VHS was available.

The PS2 vs Xbox was a dead cert (if you dont coount the Xbox Media Centre) (PS2 here)
The PS3 vs Xbox 360 have both seemingly lost to the Wii (How ???) (Xbox 360)
The DVD +/- was settled by combining the 2 (Yippee - I have have a dual burner)

The latest war that is close to ending is the Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD. If I had an interest in moving to HD, I would have gone for HD-DVD, I've no idea why, but wouldn;t have gone with BluRay as its backed by the wonderful Sony who have brought such delights as Betamax, Minidisc memory Stick etc.

It has however, all but won this time. Whether or not this is due to the PS3 with its built in player I don't know, but the HD-DVD manufacturers have thrown in the towel and the film companies either backed Blu-Ray from the start or have switched 75% of the new releases on High def will be Blu-Ray.
How do I get my hands on a free PS3?.

*** GEEK ALERT OVER ****

Another Ipod

Far from being iPoddy, I was fairly happy with my Pink, 4Gb, original style iPod, especially since the battery upgrade, however my I was forced... Forced I tell you, into having a new 160Gb Black iPod Classic.

Mine

I say forced, it was actually given to me, brand new, gratis, free, no exchange of money, and definately not stolen etc, by someone who is almost my new best friend.

I have managed to "legally backup" and transfer some of my movies, music, TV shows and podcasts over to it, and still have 125Gb free.

...Wow

I didn't realise the iPod only plays .mp4 movie format, stupidly, I presumed I could just transfer my avi files (legal DVD rips of course) straight to the iPod without too much hassle.
Oh No - I have to convert them first.

I used "A-One Ipod Video Convertor" to do the conversions, can anyone suggest something better, my favourite price is free, but cheaper is not always better.

I need a holiday so I can sit in the sun all day while SWMBO reads her Sophie Kinsella books and I watch Simpsons, American Gangster, Family Guy, Transformers, Debbie Does.. (not that one).

I need a use for my original "Pinky", and the 3 broken grey ones I bought off eBay for £25 will repaired... and sold back on eBay.

ITIL v3
In my quest to further my career, I have spent the last 3 days doing the ITIL v3 foundation course, ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) is the standard IT in all organisations are keen to adhere to.
This is all good learning procedures in a classroom, but trying to put it into practice is another thing.

I also took the exam which requires 26/40 to pass. I took 2 mocks and got 28 on both (dangerously close).

We were told by the lecturer, passing the foundation course means an extra £2k on your salary (£15-£20k if you get the diploma). Who in their company would get an extra £2k as simple as that.

As my role as Service Desk Manager (along with a ton of other stuff "The Goona" and "The Conster" give me, I'll if I can put (some of) ITIL into practice

By doing the course, I have learned I am also the following,

• Service Level Manager
• Problem Manager
• Operations Manager

I'd say that's a £100k salary easily, but I wouldn't take the drop...


I'll find out if I passed in a few weeks time.

Nag Nag Nag

That's all people seem to do to me,

They say if it's not one thing it's your Mother/Mother-in-Law

Firstly
Massive congratulations to my Work Wife (Laura) and her bloke (Gaz) on the birth of their first baby (of many I hear !!!!).
'Erin Sophie' arrived a little early on 24 January weighing just 1lb 15oz.

I haven't blogged about it as I wanted to get her permission fist (Lauras' that is not Erins'), the Nag on my last blog has given me that authorisation.

Our only problem now is getting Laura to do her own collection.

Well done darling, now hurry up back to work as we have no I.T. Chick.

Secondly

My Mother-in-Laws' friend asked about getting free music for her children, as this is not something I do, I have had to ask a few friends who do this kind of thing.

The best bet for this is to use something called Bit Torrents, all you need for this is the "client" and the websites that list the .torrent files. I can't go into too much detail here as the legality of it all is still in question although there are stories of the BBC using the torrent technology to allow people to download content, we'll just have to wait and see. in the meantime, google for bittorrents for more info.

That's it, "Is there anything I can do for anyone?"

I have an Xbox Baby,
(but first...)

......I had a brililant comment today from someone in relation to my "Boycott Asda" post.

Blogging is a funny old thing, done by people wanting to have a rant at someone or something, want to tell the world about their lives or just have a little corner of t'interweb, I like to do a bit of everything, nothing too full on, just a place to have a laugh and not get too serious.

...Back to the post in question,

Long story short, Back in March 2007, our Xbox circle of mates all wanted to get a new game on release date, we went to Asda who refused to sell us 8 copies...... I blogged about it telling readers to boycott Asda as they have "ruined our lives....".

Heres the comment, (it's an exact quote so dont slag of the improper use of grammar or spelling).

soryy but i think ur so childish, why would you want to buy 8 copies anyway, your obviously some weird computer geek, get a life, how the hell did asda ruin your life by not sellin them to you. grow up you sad little person

Wierd computer geek
You got me there, I'm a geek, as are the IT people I work with, of which 13 of the 15 also have Xboxes, as are most of my geeky friends, in fact a lot of people I know. I love gadgets/computers and technology (embrace it baby).

Get a life
I've got one of those, - I go out (in the real world) I drink Stella/Jack Daniels/Magners, eat curry, pizza and all other forms of crap, go out drinking in the real world, have a job I love, a woman (I love), 3 children (I love) family and friends. (I love/tolerate).

I have a life and it's f*cking brilliant

Grow up
Who defines what is "grown up", childish I may be sometimes (as my real life fiancee will confirm), but grown up I definately am, I have responsibilities in life which determine that I am grown up as do most adults, I just also have fun.

Anyone else care to confess to being a a wierd, childish computer geek. (Tao, Lee, Cookie, Gaz)

Sad Little Person
I couldn't be any happier, 6 foot 2 and 15 stone

Rant Over - meet Miss Geeky Junior(ess)

Hello Is that Xbox Support, My Daddy won't let me play

By the way comment poster, AOL isn't the best ISP, Windows Media Center isn't brilliant, you should use Firefox as your browser rather than IE 7 and you didn't have to click on my blog when searching for an "Asda" image in Google - Now thats Geeky, and I also have your ip address 172.202....... but instead of all this, chill out enjoy or don't read my blog, it's a bit of fun.