With my bicycle successfully back on the road, I decided to cycle into town today, a trip that I’ve just discovered to be about 5 miles in each direction. Not a huge distance, but a lot further than I’ve cycled in a long time. Actually I was surprised at just how much my legs complained – I can remember when 5 miles was nothing, today I felt like I had ridden forever just to get to town and back! Still, it’s reasuring to know that my bike is working properly again, and is more than capable of out-performing me!

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My new toy arrived in the post today. A wireless adsl router. Nice.

For some time now (about a year) we’ve had various cables strewn across our lounge and dining room in an effort to connect all our computers to the internet. Which was pretty unnecessary really, considering we don’t have a huge number of computers! But due to the failure of my ADSL modem a while back I’ve had to have another ADSL router plugged into my PC, which was then sharing the internet connection across the network. It was all a bit of a mess, both in terms of cables and network architecture.

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Further to my rant about web browsers a few days ago, I have been downloading and trying out a variety of different web browsers available for the Mac, most of which I guess most people won’t have heard of. The standard ones I have permanently in my dock are Firefox, Camino, Safari, Internet Explorer and Opera. I also have lying around OmniWeb, Flock and Shiira. Interestingly each have their own quirks and attractions.

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The issue of not having enough money for things you want is one I guess is familiar to most people. I’m in this position at the moment, wanting to buy something but not being sure that I can really afford it right now.

As many of you will know, I’m currently trying to record an album with the band I set up at church, called Rooted. It’s sounding great at the moment, but tackling the problem of recording has proved a bit of a nightmare. Anna, our keyboardist, has been letting us use her multitrack recorder so far, enabling us to record several of us all at once, which has been very useful. The main problem with this is that we all have to be playing perfectly all at the same time, and a live recording isn’t really what I’m after for most of the tracks. So now I’m seriously looking into turning my dining room into a home recording studio.

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I’ve just been doing some research into the next generation of web browsers, and from reading one report I’ve been very much surprised at how the three leading browsers match up. I remember reading through the technical specifications of Internet Explorer 7 some time ago, and not being particularly impressed by it, and as a result continued to cling to my claim that Firefox was the best you could get. This review suggests otherwise.

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Working from home has its ups and its downs. My daily commute to work involves walking downstairs, which is rather convenient, and the kitchen is just a few steps away so I can make a cup of tea whenever I need to. On the other hand, making sure I work can be quite a struggle sometimes, what with all the distractions of life. For instance, I’m sat at my computer right now writing on my blog, when I could be working. That’s life, I guess.

However, I did have a rather exciting distraction yesterday in the form of four large boxes that were delivered late morning. Inside was my flat packed desk and accompanying cupboard, which I spent most of the day assembling. It could probably have been put together faster if there had been two people building it, as was suggested in the instructions, but I only had me, so I struggled on myself. It’s all finished and in place now, and looks fantastic. I have loads more space, both in terms of desk surface and storage – I’ve been after a bigger desk for ages, and it’s so satisfying now I’ve got it! I was hoping to be able to put my PC tower inside the cupboard, but unfortunately that idea was scuppered by several factors: when I built it I didn’t make provision for power to get inside; the top shelf won’t go in high enough for the tower case to fit in; and ventilation would be an issue too, and although I don’t tend to use the PC any more it would be a shame for it to overheat unnecessarily. So for now the PC is sitting on top of the cupboard in the corner, out of the way, and without taking up too much room. My Mac’s TFT monitor has come into its own now too, as it’s flat up against the wall, giving me almost the entire depth of the desk to use.

My other recent purchase will enable me to go wireless. I found a good deal on eBuyer, so I should be getting a DSL wireless router and two USB wireless receivers in the post fairly soon. AM’s laptop has wireless built in, so I just needed to get receivers for my PC and Chris’s. My Mac will probably have to wait until I get paid again – an Airport card is quite pricey, even on eBay, and the vast majority of third party wireless hardware is not guaranteed to work in Macs. Still, I think I can cope with one network cable going to my Mac for now!

As you’ll have noticed, my blog has been given a face-lift. Again. It’s not that I didn’t like the old site design, I just thought I could do better. It’s all part of the professional development idea, constantly improving my own web design skills in order to satisfy my customers and get more business by using my other sites as free advertising. This particular design is inspired in many ways by the Apple web site, although the choice of fruit in the header was completely separate! I still have a little tweaking to do, but I think it’s an improvement over the previous design.

In addition, I am hoping that the new Diocese of Chelmsford web site will be going live tonight. It’s been in development for quite some time now, and we think it’s just about ready to be unleashed on the public. Unfortunately I was only told that it was going live on Wednesday, and I’m told is HAS to go live tonight, for reasons I’m not aware of. There have been plenty of delays during today, where I have been sat doing nothing waiting for things to sort themselves out. As I write this I’m waiting for the final confirmation, at which point I shall take the site offline, move some pages around, and hey-presto the new site will be up. At least, that’s the theory. Unfortunately I’m not around tomorrow, on account of a Mini event in Mersea, so if there are any problems that I don’t manage to iron out tonight it’ll have to wait until Monday. It could be worse though, I could have been away today, and then the site wouldn’t have gone live at all…

EDIT: It seems the Mersea Mini Meet isn’t happening on Saturday after all, but on the Sunday. Someone obviously got the dates confused! So this means I will be around tomorrow to sort out the web site, but I won’t be able to oggle at Minis after all. Grrr.

Upgrade. Upgrade. Upgrade.

The whole computing industry revolves around ‘forcing’ us to keep up to date with software and hardware developments, whether the tactics are stopping you from doing what you want until you pay them money, or just offering something unbelieveably tempting that you can’t possibly resist upgrading. Last night I was reading all about new iPod Shuffle, which replaces the old chewing-gum-packet sized MP3 player with a new belt-clip sized model, sporting a sprung clip so you can actually wear it as a lapel badge, a tough anodised aluminium casing, and an even more spacious capacity. It’s the sort of thing you could very easily lose. But it’s also the sort of thing you’d quite happily risk for the fun of having something so ridiculously small plugged into the other end of a pair of earphones. The old Shuffle wasn’t half bad, but this new one takes the concept to a whole new level, and the tempation is almost unbearable.

Not only that, but iTunes has also had a revamp. There wasn’t much information about what the new version included on the Apple web site, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to download it anyway (it is free after all). Actually iTunes 7 is quite a bit better than iTunes 6, both in terms of appearance and functionality. The look has been tweaked yet again, refining it to something even more pleasing to use. My most favourite part about it at the moment is the way it uses album art. You could assign album art to tracks before, but now you get a funky animated bookshelf of all your albums which you can scroll through to access your songs. It’s all smoothly animated in that characteristic Apple fashion, which is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. You can also organise your tracks by album, which places each album separately with a picture of the album cover next to the tracks associated with it. All pretty neat.

Functionally iTunes 7 is a lot better too. For a start, tracks that are meant to run in to each other actually do, with not a trace of blank space between them. Apple has also made provision for future developments, by way of links to TV and Movie downloads. At the moment that service has only been launched to customers in the US, but when it’s released over here in 2007 you’ll be able to buy a film for as little as £8 or so. Not bad. That would certainly save me the bother of going all the way to the shop to buy a DVD. On the other hand, with my current internet connection speed it could potentially take a couple of hours to download, by which time I could have gone into town, bought several DVDs and a pizza, do the weekly food shop on the way home, and still have time to make a cup of tea before settling down for an evening on the sofa. But the thought is there.

The only frustrating part about all this is that Apple has locked us all into using their own hardware. If you buy songs through iTunes, you can only play those MP3s on iTunes or an iPod. You can’t sync with any other MP3 player, and although you can copy tracks manually, those purchased through the iTunes online store are encrypted so that only iPods will be able to play them back. Grrr. Not that it’s a huge problem for me, since I have yet to purchase any MP3s, and neither do I use my little MP3 player. But it would have been nice to have had the choice.

Neddy went back to the garage today for a MOT retest, following a fail last week due to a worn upper ball joint on the front near-side wheel. Billy fitted a replacement ball joint for me on Saturday, and I’m pleased to announce that the Mini passed the test this time round! They also only charged me half price for the retest, which I thought they could only offer if I had the car retested within three days of the original test, but they didn’t seem to complain, so neither did I. So I now have a fully legal car again, which is something of a relief.

To celebrate, I stopped in at Halfords and bought the car equivalent of a manicure set – some valeting cloths, Autoglym polish, and some window cleaning fluid. I’d washed the car yesterday, so it was still pretty clean, it just needed a little more care and attention to make it shine a little more vibrantly. I’m ashamed to say that this was the first time Neddy’s had a polish since I bought him, so it was a welcome treat. The window cleaning fluid works a treat, even though it’s far from the most expensive product on the shelf. The polish is apparently very good, being made by that very reputable car cleaning company, Autoglym. But because Neddy’s paint is slightly metallic anyway, it wasn’t exactly easy to see the difference in the shine. Still, it was satisfying doing it, and polishing everything I could lay my hands on. Even the mirrors and chrome bits got a wipe with the glass cleaner. My next investment will probably have to be engine degreaser, as the engine block is really mucky. I think the rocker cover gasket is leaking as well, which is frustrating because that was done over the summer – obviously not well enough!

I also discovered this morning that we have baby Collared Doves in the nest outside my bedroom window again. We had a clutch earlier in the year too, and I noticed that the adults were around the nest again recently, and when I checked this morning there were two little chicks sitting there! I just hope that we don’t have the dramas we had before, with the chicks jumping the nest too soon and finding themselves stranded in the garden…

And finally, having set up an RSS feed for the BBC technology video news gubbins, I watched a news article today about Second Life, an online community that is enjoying enormous growth at the moment. I’ve looked at the web site, and it all looks rather exciting. Anne-Marie plays Runescape a lot when she’s home, but Second Life looks less like a fantasy role-playing game and more like a complete new life, as the title suggests. There is no aim or goal, as such, you just live there (virtually) and do whatever you want (within reason). For instance, you can wander around exploring the ever-changing world, you can make friends with other people living there, go to concerts and live online recitals, or you can just have a laugh rollerskating along the beach or dancing in the clubs or skiing or swimming in the sea… the list is pretty much endless. And if you want to dabble in the monetary side of things, you can buy virtual objects in the world, you can buy land to build your house on, you can make money by designing virtual objects for other people to buy, and at the end of the day you can take your virtual money to a virtual beaureu de change and take your money out in US dollars in the real world! Very cool. And the graphics look pretty good too, considering it’s an online 3D world. I think my Mac might just about manage it, but although it looks like a lot of fun, I really don’t want to get distracted by yet another toy – my real life is busy enough, I’m not sure I could keep track of two lives at once!

As many of you will know, I don’t drink. By which I mean I don’t drink alcoholic beverages. I do drink other things. Just not the sort that make your head light. So it was something of a shock to the system to find myself at a Beer Festival on Thursday.

After a slow afternoon kicking my feet, Alex and Ian came round for lunch and to get everything ready for our holiday. It had been decided that we would all go away for a night and camp out somewhere, and the venue ended up being a railway museum where CAMRA was holding a Beer Festival. We got free camping, so that was a bonus. The site wasn’t too far out of Colchester either, so there was no mention of “are we nearly there yet”.

We got the tent up pretty quickly, and started settling ourselves in. The first problem we came up against was that the pump we were using to blow up the air bed developed a leak, so half the air was blowing across the field instead of going into the bed. The second problem was that we discovered that we had left the milk in my fridge at home. So I was left in the field pumping furiously while Alex and Ian drove off to find a shop. By the time they got back I had the air bed nicely pumped up and the other camp bed assembled and everything inside the tent. Then of course there was the obligatory cup of tea, which was very welcome.

Then we headed off to explore the beer. It was all set in the works yard of the railway station, with a large bar set up in one of the engine sheds, other beer purchasing locations in other buildings, and plenty of seating in some of the trucks that were parked at the platform. There was a huge range of beer there, all of which had obscure names. Alex had brought his book “300 beers to try before you die” and was trying to work his way through that, while Ian was just trying beers with funny names. Needless to say, I was on J2O all evening, but I did manage to sample two varieties that I hadn’t tried before, just to make sure I was in the right spirit.

For dinner we had pasta and sause, all cooked on Ian’s little gas hob. Very clever piece of kit, that. Almost space-age, compared to the camping kitchen our family normally uses when we go camping. Afterwards we headed back into the festival to try out the hog roast they were putting on. Even though I didn’t eat any of it, it did smell wonderful! I really am a rubbish vegetarian…

That night we all got to sleep fairly quickly, which wasn’t exactly what we were expecting. I think we were all expecting to be sat up until late chatting away, but in the end we were all just so tired that all we managed was about half an hour and a brief game of “bogies” before we all endulged in some shut-eye. In fact we all slept rather well, considering it was fairly cold and we were sleeping in a tent.

The following morning we enjoyed a cooked dinner, courtesy of Ian’s marvellous culinary expertise. Instead of fried bread we had fried muffins, which worked surprisingly well. We also had fried eggs, sausages (including a vege variety for me), bacon and some baked beans. That was followed up by a pot of real coffee. I’m sure our neighbours must have hated us that morning.

After that we packed up the tent and piled into the car, and drove down to explore Mersea Island, since none of us had been there before. We started off going to East Mersea, which is the empty end. Ironically we found ourselves in a vineyard, and stopped in for some refreshment. They had a lovely little tea room there, and although we didn’t get to go inside there was also a winepress where they made their own wine. Alex had a beer, Ian had an Earl Grey and a piece of hummingbird cake, and I had a cup of normal tea and a slice of lemon drizzle cake.

Further down the road we found the sea. We parked up and walked the coast for a bit, stopping off at an old pillbox on the way, where we took some pictures and generally mucked around. Then we discovered the remains of the old fort that was once a key defense, but which is now just a triangular shape in the ground by the beach. Unfortunately the path to the pillbox at the end of the beach was flooded due to the high tide, but Ian managed to find his way around by other means, while Alex and I recorded the event on our digital cameras. In fact, we got so into the filming thing that we ended up filming extra bits on the way back so that we could create a whole film about the experience! So watch this space, and hopefully soon you’ll be able to download “It’s a Mersea Adventure!” and the accompanying “making of” documentary…

So, that was our brief holiday. It was only about 24 hours, but we managed to pack a lot into it, and we all had a great time. I’m sure we’ll try to do something like this again sometime, we all enjoyed it so much. For pics from the holiday, check out the PhotoLounge extra.

In unrelated news, I went round to Billy’s this morning to get my new ball joints fitted. Looks like I’m going to need new tie rod ends as well soon, the engine stabaliser bushes are rather worn too, and the auxilliary fan doesn’t appear to be working. So once the car’s been MOTed we’ll have to sit down and try to sort that out too.