Lesson in life # 203: Never get into a taxi at 4 in the morning with your pda and your wallet in the same pocket, becasue this happens.

Sony has said it will recall eight models of its Cyber-shot digital cameras after finding a defect in the liquid crystal display screen.

The problem is caused by a glitch with the image sensor, which may mean the screen does not display images correctly, Sony said.

The recall applies to models sold worldwide between September 2003 and January 2005.

The electronics giant will repair for free only cameras that show signs of the problems, according to Sony spokesman Chisato Kitsukawa.

The recall applies to models DSC-F88, DSC-M1, DSC-T1, DSC-T11, DSC-T3, DSC-T33, DSC-U40 and DSC-U50.

Well i hoped to be posting a Zune review today but instead i'm still waiting for Parcel2Go.com to get their act together and get it to me. Just been waiting nearly 2 weeks now

No doubt i'll be posting more about this company in the future,

This is a research paper from Jupiter Research, Interesting view point... i can only watch low quality  web type footage of a short time. Normally you can get away with poor sound or poor visuals but not both. I doubt i could stand watching a hour of poor footage.

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Jeff Jarvis provides more evidence that the future of "television" is being remade on the web, mostly by amateurs, hackers, and struggling artists.

Online video in 2006 feels like the Web in 1994. It's all pretty rough, but a lot of it is very creative. Much of the stuff that's being created for the web by the mainstream media has a raw, experimental quality that we're not used to from big organizations.

Jeff's story of producing his segment for CBS versus producing a segment for Amanda Congdon's webcast hints that the eventual impact of web video on television will be greater than the impact of the Web on print.

One of the most significant parts of all of this is that amateurs can produce higher-quality video than is possible with standard Grown-Up TV production techniques. The technology is necessary but not sufficient. Production processes have to be re-invented for the low-overhead, small-screen, short-subject, random-access, bandwidth-thrifty web. We're still in inventing a new grammar of online video, just as Desi Arnaz (yes, Desi!) invented multi-camera production techniques late in the early days of television.

Student to file suit against UCPD Mostafa Tabatabainejad, who was stunned several times with a Taser in Powell Library Tuesday, plans to file a lawsuit against university police alleging "brutal excessive force" and false arrest, his lawyer said Friday.    more »

House of Commons Defence, Foreign Affairs, International Development and Trade and Industry Committees Strategic Export Controls: Annual Report for 2004, Quarterly Reports for 2005, Licensing Policy and Parliamentary Scrutiny
First Joint Report of Session 2005–06 Twelfth Report from the Defence Committee of Session 2005--06 Fifth Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee of Session 2005--06 Fifth Report from the International Development Committee of Session 2005--06 Seventh Report from the Trade and Industry Committee of Session 2005--06

What a bloody title.....the goverment just love it don't they?

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmquad/873/873.pdf

This is the report from the committee that  Mark Thomas gave evidence to regard the arms industry the experiences he turned into the book As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela: Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade

His evidence starts at  EV105 but I'd recommend reading the whole report if you've got the stomach for it.

This is probably the best rider in the world... if you need another reason to love Iggy Pop, the veteran rocker. The document--all 18 pages of which you'll find below--describes Iggy's requirements in terms of amplifiers, security, lighting, stage set up, and dressing rooms. But unlike most similar documents, Iggy's rider is written in a rollicking, stream-of-consciousness fashion that delivers multiple laughs per page. Apparently written by roadie Jos Grain, the Iggy rider is peppered with witty gems, tasteless asides, and typos. For example, in describing how Iggy's dressing room should be made to "look less like a typical rock & roll dressing room," the rider suggests that promoters "just let someone loose with a little bit of artistic flair...Er, do you know any homosexuals?" Explaining the need for two heavy duty fans, Grain notes, "So that I can wear a scarf and pretend to be in a Bon Jovi video." Also, don't miss the backstage requirements of a Bob Hope impersonator and "a copy of USA Today that's got a story about morbidly obese people in it. Most amusing!" (18 pages)

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1004061iggypop1.html

The news article that goes along with the footage http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38958

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.  ~Thomas Edison

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.  ~Will Rogers

I took this on the 5th of November..... I love my camera probably the best purchase I even made. Going for real camera and not some fisher price 8meg job., purchasing one with a with full size CCD and good lenses

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6118298.stm

"I welcome that Saddam Hussein and the other defendants have faced justice and have been held to account for their crimes. Appalling crimes were committed by Saddam Hussein's regime. It is right that those accused of such crimes against the Iraqi people should face Iraqi justice. Today's verdicts and sentences by the Iraqi Higher Tribunal comes at the end of a trail during which evidence has been offered and challenged in the full glare of media scrutiny. "

These are the words of  Margaret Beckett British Foreign Secretary, it fills me with discust that anyone in the 21th Century never mind a British Goverment Minister the same Goverment that will not deport people to regiums that have the death penalty as a punishment .Can speak out and back the death penalty. There is no crime that taking a life can be called just, instead he should be inprision at the hague Never being given the easy way out and every day having to atone for his crimes.

As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder.
--Corretta Scott King

Update:

Mr Roy has posted some example of what other goverments are saying to give you some perspexive

Lets see how the Finnish Presidency of the EU puts it:
"The EU opposes capital punishment in all cases and under all circumstances and it should not be carried out in this case either."

or the Spanish PM:
"Saddam Hussein, like any other citizen or political leader, has to answer for his actions, for what he has done in his government task.It is well known that for a long time the EU has not been in favour of the death penalty. Obviously it is a penalty which is not provided for in any legal system in the EU or, of course, in our country. "

or the Irish:

"The minister welcomes the end of this long legal process.Ireland and its EU partners have made it clear in the past to Iraqi authorities that we are opposed to courts applying the death sentence.Ireland is also opposed to it being applied as a penalty in this case. "

I've had great sucess with my SPVM5000 and my Polstar GPS for navigation using Pocket Streets and TomTom and my SPVC600 for Geoblogging with Sharpspace

A company called Benefon has launched a cell phone with a built in GPS receiver — nothing new there. However, this particular GPS cell phone, called the Twig, does something extra. It can send your GPS coordinates to another Twig owner and then that person can navigate directly to you using the preloaded navigation software. Sounds like this could save a lot of time and effort when trying to explain to theyour drunk mates which pub your in. The phone will cost £330 in the UK, or about $625.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/01/ce_giants_punt_wihd/

Six big-name consumer electronics companies have come together to thrash out a wireless alternative to the HDMI cabling standard that may also tread on the toes of next-generation Wi-Fi technology.

The WirelessHD specification is described as a "high-speed wireless, multi-gigabit technology in the unlicensed 60GHz band [with] smart antenna technology to overcome line-of-sight constraints", co-founders Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic, NEC, Toshiba and SiBEAM said. Connections will be secure to keep content safe from duplication, and while the technology will be capable of supporting uncompressed HD video and audio, it will also host device-control data. Initial versions of the WiHD specification will support data rates of 2-5Gbps, but the technology will be capable of pushing 20Gbps, the founders said.

The consortium's members want to get a spec in place by Spring 2007, at which point companies will be able to build modules to allow their HD TVs, DVD players, Blu-ray Disc machines, HD DVD units, DVRs, camcorders etc to beam content back and forth.

Right now, the focus is very much "wireless display connectivity", as the WiHD group puts it. That's exactly what HDMI is about, albeit in a wired context. The founders didn't indicate the technology's range, but there's surely the potential for streaming from, say, a player to a screen in another room. If WiHD can do that, it stands as a rival to 802.11n Wi-Fi. ®

HMDI Evolves : http://blog.kking.co.uk/blog/_archives/2006/7/31/2181105.html

Microsoft's Zune music player and online content store combo is "way off launch" in Europe and the UK, the company has admitted. The "earliest date" it might appear here? The end of 2007, or possibly even 2008, a Microsoft executive has revealed.

"The earliest date it will be in the UK is towards the end of 2007. However, it could easily be 2008," Microsoft media and entertainment alliance manager Dene Schonknecht said, according to UK trade paper New Media Age.

----

I'm so glad I ordered mine from the US I'll have it by the 20th :-)

In the office we've been building dual Xeon systems on the SuperMicro X6DH8-XG2 motherboard with 2 Seagate Momentus SATA RAID Hard Disks Mirror (RAID 1) for the operating system. Two weeks ago while at a client site we spotted a problem in that, Quicktime would not play .mov files from the C: Drive, it would just lock the system out. Quicktime .mov's would play from all other drives but not the main windows OS drive. Strange I thought, everything else will play on the c: fine.

After much install of Quicktime, Operating System images and video drivers I got to the point that I was just banging my head against a brick wall. Nothing would get QuickTime to play the files.

Until this morning when a colleague had the bright idea to have a look at the version number of the Raid Controller. I'm using the onboard Adaptec IC5HR SATA Raid controller, a quick search of the SuperMicro site and I found version 4.0.36.2 of the driver when what comes on the motherboard CD is 2.x.x.x. A quick rev of the driver and guess what Quicktimes now play on the raid.

How strange.

Driver: SATA-RAID-DRIVER-4-0-36-2.zip

UK copyright law should be changed to include a ‘private right to copy’ that protects users of ipod and other MP3 players, according to a new report published today (Sunday) by the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr). The UK’s current copyright laws mean that millions of Brits break the law each year when they copy their CDs onto their computers.

ippr says that the forthcoming review of Intellectual Property, set up by Chancellor Gordon Brown and chaired by Andrew Gowers, should update the 300-year-old copyright laws to take account of the changes in the way people want to listen to music, watch films and read books.

ippr recommends a legal ‘private right to copy’ that would allow people to make copies of CDs, or DVDs for personal us. The report says a new right would legalise the actions of millions of Britons without any significant harm to the copyright holders.

The report, Public Innovation: Intellectual property in a digital age, also recommends that:

So which is it? 60k or 20k.... BBC classic journalism
-------------
3 days ago.... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6077464.stm

Train defecator hunted by police

Police have released a CCTV image of the suspect
A man has been defecating in trains across south-east England, causing damage costing £60,000 to repair.

British Transport Police have released CCTV images of the man, who has struck on at least 30 trains since August.

He waits until he is alone before committing the offence, smearing excrement inside carriages.

Today.... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6089042.stm

Man on trains defecating charge

A man has been charged with causing more than £20,000 worth of criminal damage by defecating in train carriages across the south-east of England.

Bonney Eberndu, 36, of no fixed address, was arrested at Camberwell Green bus garage, in south-east London.

He is due to appear before Westminster magistrates on Friday.

Adobe have released yet another new technology( excuse me but it looks a lot like Audition, Sorry I mean Cool Edit Pro , Whoops don't you mean Sound Edit 16  on Adobe Labs. So yes you've guessed its a sound editing tool at heart, Adobe Soundbooth is a rebranding exercise for yet another on of their products.

View the Introducing Adobe Soundbooth getting started guide for more information and download Soundbooth.

Global Big Brother, we get closer to 1984 every day, Stop the ID fraud - stop the government stealing your identity
---
US, EU sketch plans for global immigration database by By Mark Ballard

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/25/global_immigration_db/

The US is to corral "like-minded" nations behind a global immigration database after proving with a trial link to British computers that such an ambitious, global plan is technically feasible. Allies of the US have joined it in talks to formulate an international policy framework that would allow the sharing of immigration databases, effectively creating a global border control.

Their aim is to stop criminals and other undesirable migrants at a vast, biometric border that is likely to include, at the very least, the EU countries, Australia, and Canada. Troy Potter, biometrics programme manager for the US Department of Homeland Security's biometric border control programme, told The Register only those countries "of like mind" would be allowed to join the scheme: "People with similar goals, aspirations, laws and ability to implement such a scheme.

"It's about keeping out folks from countries, to have more of a global border per se," he said. "Shouldn't like-minded countries be told when someone's been kept out of the US? That's a necessary next step [because] immigration has become a worldwide issue.

Frank Paul, head of large scale IT systems at the European Commission, hinted to an audience at the Biometrics 2006 conference last week about EU support for such a scheme. "We trust everyone enrolled in the US and they trust everyone in the EU system. Then I don't see why the systems shouldn't be linked in the future," he said.

Terrorists would be the prime target of the system. Terrorism had been the reason the US government gave for setting up US-VISIT, the immigration database for which Potter is biometric manager. The US database had yet to snare a terrorist, and the Department of Homeland Security has since been advertising it as a means of keeping foreign murderers out of the country. An international agreement for sharing immigration data would also target criminals and "habitual immigration violators", Potter said.

"If there's a murderer in another country we would rather not have that murderer in the US, especially if they are on the run," he said.

But he stressed the system would not finger normal people, or "Joe Public". People's privacy would have to be respected, he said.

"We would violate the privacy laws of individual countries if we shared data as we wanted to," said Potter, but added: "The last thing we want is for someone who has changed their ways and then we keep harassing them."

It could take years for the US and its allies to form an agreement that deals with all the emerging privacy and legal concerns about sharing immigration data. Other developments at the Department for Homeland Security could complicate matters further. It is developing a permanent link between immigration and criminal databases, while US law enforcers also want links to civil databases so they can get a full biographical history of people who catch their interest.

"There are fine lines and that's where these agreements are not going to be easy. But this is not routine data sharing on everyone. This is not big brother," said Potter. Similar concerns have slowed the progress of the European Visa Immigration System (VIS). A continent-wide version of the US plan, legislation to allow the VIS is stuck between the European Parliament and member states in the Council of Ministers. The concern is that European efforts to share information for immigration are being subsumed into a broader security effort that has no legal obligation to Europe's proud data protection authorities. This has created tension between member states and the European Parliament over other controversial data sharing arrangements - the US trawling of passenger name records and secret snooping on banking data handled by SWIFT being two recent examples. In neither case is the EU's authority to impose data protection laws that would protect citizens from being caught up in the zealous hunt for terrorists being conducted by the security agencies. The European VIS is being built by European Commission civil servants anyway, and will be completed in 2007. There will simply not be any legal basis for the system to be switched on. The US faces the same problem, said Potter: "

The policy and legal framework is not in place to do routine data sharing between countries. but that's something we were discussing." The UK's Home Office and US Department of Homeland Security have already trialled a link between their immigration databases, which Potter said was successful. "It was a technical trial. It showed we could share data between countries if agreements were there so we could do it," he said. "Our biometrics were compatible...when the legal and policy framework catches up, we can do it." ®

While looking at Technorati I saw this "Sony claims Xbox 360 requires HD DVD, etc., thus costs $700"

Sony telling porkie pies in their marketing....tut tut tut

"Thanks to Sony's heavy handed tactics, popular game importer Lik-Sang is closing its doors. All Lik-Sang customers are having their orders cancelled and refunded. Any attempt to place a new order redirects your web browser to the news of Lik-Sang's demise."

From the announcement: "'Today is Sony Europe victory about PSP, tomorrow is Sony Europe's ongoing pressure about PlayStation 3. With this precedent set, next week could already be the stage for complaints from Sony America about the same thing, or from other console manufacturers about other consoles to other regions, or even from any publisher about any specific software title to any country they don't see fit. It's the beginning of the end... of the World as we know it', stated Pascal Clarysse, formerly known as the Marketing Manager of Lik-Sang.com. 'Blame it on Sony. That's the latest dark spot in their shameful track record as gaming industry leader. The Empire finally won, a few dominating retailers from the UK probably will rejoice the news, but everybody else in the gaming world lost something today.'"

Many thanks to Sony for ruining it for the rest of us. I hope that your business model makes up for the customer goodwill you're setting on fire today. Now where am I going to put my down payment on a Wii

Now that I been running Media Centre Edition for a few months I have got a good collection of recorded programmes on my hard drive, so I turned on the google-fu and looked for a program to convert the Media Centre dvr-ms file format (MPEG2 with metadata) into something more manageable like a Wmv or Divx. Whiule divx doesn't support the dvr-ms format there are a number of bits of source code out there for converting dvr-ms to wmv. But before i got to the source I came across a utility DCUT for Media Centre Edition. The utilty intergates into the MCE and appers under 'More Programes' which is what you would expect as it has been written as a side project by a Microsoft Developer.It allows you not only to edit the dvr-ms files but also compress them to wmv format. Result I have got lots of lovely edited files and saved a shed load of space. Plus Dcut's conversion process runs with low priority, and doesn't adversely affect other MCE functions. So you can go one watching and recording while to slowly converts in the background.

Daniel Giambalvo you rock


Download Dcut for Media Centre Edition

Screenshoots of Dcut 0.95.1

Well it seems I've reached the 100 articles milestone and it looks like I'm not going to stop blogging any time soon. Due to Sunday being a bit of a boring day and that I'm still getting over my man-flu. I thought I'd test out the Google-fu and google'd my name and I was suprised to find my site at the top the of the google listings.




but what intrested me was "Who are all the other Kevin King's listed in the search results?" Well i went a clicking and have come up with

Kevin King the Phoenix Arizona based wedding and reception photographer
Kevin King the MagicalComedian
Kevin King the Standup Comedian
Kevin King the Public Speaker
Kevin King the Breakfast DJ
Kevin King the Rugby Player
Kevin King the Artist
Kevin King the Photographer
Kevin King the Author

What a bunch of Kev's!

Wot NO Outlook Mail....till next week eeek

Well I've got to say at least they did seem to response 24hours after they said they would "next working day" which would have been Friday. But it would nice of Microsoft to have told there paying customers that they were going to have "maintenance" and not an outage.  If it was a outage i wouldn't mind 'shit happens' but "maintenance" is normally planned and there is no excuse for not telling the customer there are not going to have Outlook services till next week, ok I can log into the web interface but it not as easy when your in a hotel room on expensive wifi, you want to be able to sync and go.

I like the bit about the refund of the support call...

Below is the email I recieved.

---

My name is (BLANK). I am from the Microsoft Office technical support team. This is regarding the case number (NOT TELL). I have taken the ownership of this case and I will be working with you on this case.

The msn server is undergoing server maintenance that is the reason for this issue on your computer. The servers are updated one by one.

Due to this reason you will not be able to use msn accounts in outlook. However you would be able to use the web-mail service of MSN.

So please bear with us till next week. We would send you a mail and communicate to you when the maintenance is done. Sorry for this inconvenience caused to you.

If you have used your free incident for this support it will be returned back to you and if you have charged for this issue it will be refunded. We will keep this case open for next week and keep you updated on the status of the issue.

Thanks for using Microsoft Product Support Services!

-----

 

 

 

Flew to Finland this morning, not as cold as I thought it would be, nevermind. I'm told they don't get proper winters here anymore there is no moreicehockey on the lakes etc all due to global warming. Apparently they have just had the hotest summer in 100 year this summmer and it looks like its continuing. Anyway must sign off as the freebroadband @ freebroadband.radissonsas.com
doesn't seem to be working and i'm using Sonera HomeRun at silly money for 60minutes. i've contacted them and hopefully they sort it if not as part of the Radisson 100% Guest Satisfaction Guarantee, i get to stay free.

1) You can house a company anywhere even in a Massachusetts Town house, just don't go how to the basement as there is a Trapdoor down there.

2) Six minutes is the average duration that someone watches a movie in a hotel room, you may ask how I found this out, well it was from a Sheraton Hotel rep in a Boston Logan Airport Bar. I wonder what they were watching and I wonder if they were male?

3) You can have your cake and eat it, There was a 2 for 1 deal on Jaffa Cakes at Tescos.

4) Exchange is the only way to go. After my Hotmail Plus account packed up again on Wednesday night and no response from Hotmail support for 48 hours.. There seems no more reason to keep it when your playing £14.99 for something that isn't supported. So I've moved all email over to my domain with Fasthosts.
 
5) In the highway code it says reflective road studs  may be used with white lines.

• White studs mark the lanes or the middle of the road.
• Red studs mark the left edge of the road.
• Amber studs mark the central reservation of a dual carriageway or motorway.
• Green studs mark the edge of the main carriageway at lay-bys, side roads and slip roads.

Yesterday I decided to take the plunge and try Abobe Lightroom.. Thanks Gee  It's avalible in two flavours PC and Mac.

The advertising says that its been built from the ground up by photographers for photographers, helping solve your unique workflow problems. Well I've got to say that it really does take the effort out of coverting, touching up, add metadata, archiving etc. These are all jobs that I had to do is different packages and it brings them all under one roof in a interface that isn't just easy to understand its logical too with the library, develop and print tabs these are all features that are understandable as people have been using them for years in photography.and with the addition of the web tab getting your pictures online couldn't be easier. Example of the added metadata. This was metadata I put in for the copyright for my Flickr account

This is a screen grab of the interface taken while I was touching up some images of AutoClav 1.1  from Infest 06 in Bradford. Click on the image to expand it.

Below are the two photographs that have been published in the Las Vegas travel guide made by Schmap.. A link to the guides are on the right. I'm quite chuffed that they chose my pictures. Schmap make searchable maps, playable tours and reviews for hundreds of sights and attractions, hotels, restaurants, bars, parks, theaters, galleries, museums. Check them out

While I was walking around Homebase I saw this and thought I'd better blog it from www.dyson.com and not from www.root6.com.

Dyson's product is here
and if you like a bit of Rock root 6 is here

There is a great article in the Guardian about Mark Thomas and SOCPA today it even has a special apperance of Fisheye, link below

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/commons/comment/0,,1920277,00.html#article_continue

past articles on the subject
http://blog.kking.co.uk/blog/_archives/2006/9/3/2291786.html
http://blog.kking.co.uk/blog/_archives/2006/7/17/2132097.html
http://blog.kking.co.uk/blog/_archives/2006/8/25/2263061.html