In my time in tech support land and being a bit of a techie bloke you get some some of the strangest requests and some of the funniest from around the office because you know about technology they think you can fix anything, as I'm not there so often these days I do miss them. Today for instance someone in the office asked me if I could get their ActivSync working as their mobile phone would not sync with their email. Ok I'll have a look, I walked over to the mobile picked it up and noticed the black screen. I didn't want to say "Have you turned it on?" but it just slipped out.I pressed the power button and as if by magic it all started syncing! If only they were all that simple.

This was a classic blond moment if I've seen one.

looks like someone else is having one too http://www.gtvone.com/blogger/2007/06/is-it-turned-on.html

A coroner has recorded a verdict of death by misadventure on a reclusive Manchester man whose obsession with cleanliness led local children to dub him "Dettol Man".

Jacques Niemand, 42, of Didsbury, died of "an inadequate supply of oxygen to his vital organs" provoked by over-exposure to Dettol, the Telegraph reports. The inquest heard that he "habitually placed buckets of Dettol around his flat", while the rooms were "littered" with bottles of the liquid.

Niemand's sister Ruth Bain explained that her brother had suffered from an "obsessive cleaning disorder" for some years, but didn't seek medical help "because he feared the prospect of being detained under the Mental Health Act". Accordingly, he hadn't seen his GP since 1992. Bain said: "He didn't want any help and was scared of receiving it."

 A friend sent me a link to the The 22 Worst Place Names in the World

but I think they forgot a few of them.....

 
Pity Me, UK
http://streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=426500&y=545500&z=3&sv=pity+me&st=3&tl=Pity+Me,+Durham+[City/Town/Village]&searchp=newsearch.srf&mapp=newmap.srf

LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH, Anglesy, Wales
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A403642

 
Sockburn (Co. Durham)
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=434500&y=507500&z=3&sv=Sockburn&st=3&tl=Sockburn,+Darlington+[City/Town/Village]&searchp=newsearch.srf&mapp=newmap.srf

 
Nasty (Herts.)
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=535781&y=224354&z=3&sv=Nasty&st=3&tl=Nasty,+Hertfordshire+[Town]&searchp=newsearch.srf&mapp=newmap.srf

 
Monkey's Eyebrow, AZ
 

Paradox, CO
http://www.google.co.uk/maps?q=Paradox,+CO,+USA&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title

 
Spuds, FL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spuds,_Florida

 

Two Egg, FL

 
Normal, IL
http://www.google.co.uk/maps?q=Normal,+IL,+USA&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title

 
Truth Or Consequences, NM
http://www.google.co.uk/maps?q=Truth+Or+Consequences,+NM,+USA&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title

 
Gayville, SD
http://www.google.co.uk/maps?q=Gayville,+SD,+USA&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title

This was a shot i took over the weekend, i personally think its great

Sorry about the quality of the picture but i saw it and took it with my phone, I couldn't believe the price of the DVD's on the shelves at my local supermarket. How can they afford to have a DVD on the shelf for £1.97 and make a profit from it. Scary. Even if its a loss leader how much is the loss are they making 3 pounds???

WEP is dead - and here's the proof.

Phil Crawley made a post on his Tech Blog about Tech Support


To which I could only reply with that great Mark Parisi cartoon

as you may well know if you've been following my blog, that I upgrade the Miami Device to a Croquette and Tubbs phone that being the new Nokia N95.

Like I've said before I'd post a review of the phone up here when had a good look at it. Well before I starting writing my I say I've just phoned Orange to return the phone back to them. If that isn't a sign of how much we don't get on I don't know what is! Coming from a Window Mobile environment its was hard to use what seems like a backward OS in Symbian, I suspect if you've always used Nokia phones you find it a blast. I found that the phone took 3 clicks on the keypad to do any normal funcation. It seems Nokia have hidden away all the funations inside a lot of menus and you really have to dig down to get to some of the setting. Some of the feature of the phone I liked were the maps and gps navigation. I tried this out on Friday on a journey to meet a friend on the Southbank for drinks.

I turned the gps on and it started download the map via 3g. I typed the location of were I was trying to get to and the phone told me the location didn't exist, not a good start then i tried the postcode and it found the location and displayed with the address i typed in that it said didn't exist. Oh well not to worry lets check the route. The route seemed to be sending me down all the major roads and across all the main bridges. I check the settings and yes I'd set them to 'foot' rather than 'car'. The route that the phone would have sent me on was going around the houses down the main shopping streets when the quickest route was to use the back streets and across Hungerford bridge. Ok so the route planning looks off. Lets use the GPS to nativate there or find out were we are, I have a little Polstar GPS which I've used around the world to get about with Pocket Streets and it normally picks up the 3 satellites its needs to navigate in about a minute once your out of cover. The Nokia N95 didn't even connected once or give me any GPS data at any point during the whole journey to the Southbank. Yes the GPS was on as I could see 3 or 4 satellites on the information panel but it seems you need 5 for the phone to lock and start giving you data to navigate by. In London the chances of getting 5 satellites to lock if about 1 in 50 due to the height of the buildings and width of the streets which makes this possibly valuable feature useless. The feature set on the phone does seem to be tied together having two gps apps in different places on in applications and one in tools just seems daft. It looks like Nokia have just been trying to hard.

Also Orange have block access to Truphone the VOIP system that comes installed on all Nokia N95's from the factory, this feature has been disabled to Orange can protect their call revenue and not have you make cheap VOIP calls.

All in all if your not it a big city, not into VOIP and you like Nokia OS you might just think this phone is the bees knees but I'm sorry to say its not for me....looks like I'll be getting a SPV E650 after all.

but really couldn't be arsed... well Tracey Moberly, Tony Pletts and Mark Thomas have the solution for you.... McDemos


We provide bespoke or off the peg demonstrations against governments, corporations and occasionally neighbours at a price to suit all pockets. No job to small or too big, from a discrete "boo" to a literally renting a mob, we cater for all your protesting needs!

McDemos is a protest solutions company (06153817) registered at Companies House UK

Neil king knows that a man should be judged by the devices he owns, with this in mind the old Orange M5000 aka the brick as James Clarke called it. Has been upgraded and retired and I got a all singing and dancing Nokia N95 as a free replacement. Well see how it goes and i'll post a review in a few days. Love the intergrated GPS so far.

Sime doesn't like blackberries much, well i think he's made his point that he really wants it to work. But i don't think that the blackberry could stand the Extreme Tech Support that can be meated out by engineers these days. Other PDA's be warned.

Should this be classed as bullying in the office?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6633745.stm
A senior policeman in Los Angeles has been demoted and his deputy and about 60 other officers have been reassigned after an inquiry into May Day clashes. Last week protesters and journalists were injured when police fired some 140 rubber bullets to break up the crowd. The rally had been peaceful until the clashes, which the police department said were prompted by agitators throwing rocks and bottles at officers. But TV footage showed a police officer pushing people who were walking away.

Judge for yourself from the clips below from the major news networks
clip 1
cnn msnbcprivate journo

* Comcast issues apology for programming glitch
Disney Channel viewers in New Jersey were stunned to see the inadvertent display of pornographic programming in place of the children's show "Handy Manny" on Tuesday. The error was chalked up to a technical issue at a Comcast facility. New Jersey's Board of Public Utilities will reportedly take up the matter with the cable provider. 
----
i just wonder how many heads have rolled. I know many stories like this from my short time working in Soho. I especially like the one that had a company dubbing tapes and someone used some recycled vhs tapes instead of new when dubbing a supermarket training video. The training video was played at a conference they let in run on after the end of the video and the guy didn't stop the deck, so after the training video finished there was about 30 seconds black and then the hardcore porn that had been on the recycled tape. Sadly the guy who dubbed the tape carried the can for that one and lost his job. always remember use new stock....

I fancied a bit of nostalgia so i logged onto the WayBack Machine and pulled up Atomiclava.

Atomiclava was mobile blogging platform way a head of its time, from James Clarke its was a vision of how we are going to be going mobile technology to show the world whats going on when the blogsphere was a twinkle in a journalists eye. Well time has moved on and James is now at Microsoft developing cool technology around Microsoft Silverlight and Atomiclava has ceased to exist.

If only the picture below could be true, what do you say James.... Atomiclava + Sharpspace + Silverlight.

James Clarke: Creating Silverlight Media with Expression Media Encoder

move uncle joes car on:
http://englishrussia.com/?p=865