31st March 2008, 08:47 am
I blogged about the new Adobe online system that went live recently. However a lot of users have noticed a small large problem with the ToU (terms of use) that they ask you to sign up against.
8. Use of Your Content
a. Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with
respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion
on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a
worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and
fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other
remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate,
publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in
part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in
any format or medium now known or later developed.
For now, I’d recommend avoiding using the service until they resolve this which they are doing according to sources.
29th March 2008, 07:31 pm
For those who haven’t visited google today. Head over now to see an unusual black background to Google with a link to the earth hour they have up.
Do your part!
28th March 2008, 10:31 am
Just found out about the new online version of photoshop. I’m sure it won’t have a lot of the features most photographers need but I haven’t given it a try yet and could be quite surprised
I’ll try and give it a whirl this weekend and post my thoughts.
It’s good to see software companies embracing online technology other than google, it seems to be the way a lot of things are going nowadays but how it will all work out is still anyone’s guess!
20th March 2008, 08:22 pm
Yesterday saw me and two colleagues heading to Birmingham ICC centre to take part in some talks about Microsoft Windows 2008 Server. Manged to sit in on 3 talks in total about varying aspects of Windows 2008 such as new security features, new roles that could be accomplished and obviously new features. We didn’t manage to make it to the last talk due to the hall it was being held in filling up far too quickly and we’d sat in the wrong hall first 
Microsoft seem to be getting more right nowadays, some of the new features being released indicate that things are definitely changing for the better, this could easily change though and it’s not the first time that Microsoft has made promises both before and during a launch only to be shot down due to bugs/faults in the release. One thing that they have ventured into but from the talks don’t seem to have got quite right is the new Windows Server 2008 Core install, this new install version will give you a non-gui CLI only Windows installation - I can only assume to be able to compete with *nux. However, they have failed to be able to provide ASP extensions meaning that all you can do is server static content or run PHP. Now this might be good for those who do only code static pages (are their anyone who still do this?) or run PHP, however the lack of ASP extensions means that Windows developers are really going to stick with the standard GUI interface to be able to run the apps they develop. This seems to defeat the object of having a CLI version as if I want to run PHP then I’ll just stick a Linux box online to do that job!
They do however have a lot going on with their new HyperV technology which looks particular interesting with the ability to manage other vendors Virtualisation software such as Xen and VMware. The interface for managing installs of this seems extremely simple and well thought out which could come as a shock to those used to running Virtuozzo (or parallels server virtualization as it is now know as) due to the, well lets put it simply, completely crap interface they provide!
Something else that they seem to be incapable of doing is converting fault / log id’s into text, they demo’d to us how you can now enable full auditing when running a DC, as the demo showed, when you disable or enable an account in the DC, it now logs that this has been done and according to the person showing us, code 62345 (made that code up but it’s like that) means the account has been enabled, ffs, why not just tell us that rather than having us look through a bunch of codes to find out it’s meaning?
All in all it was a good day, very informative and well presented. The free drinks and chocolate bars seemed to go down very well which is not surprising with a building full of 1000+ geeks! They also laid on a spread for lunch in the expo area which is the first time I’ve seen that been done although the food wasn’t exactly the best 
18th March 2008, 06:35 pm
After watching the Google video for their new office in Zurich and thinking that looked like it had to be one of the best physical places to work - well until UKFast.net get bigger and our pool room quadruples in size :D, then I arrived at the Cisco office in Bedfont Lakes, London!!
They didn’t just have the one sizable office that you might imagine, they had 3 all next to one another in a U shape, each building was a pretty decent size and comparable to a full size football pitch with 2-3 floors. We were there for a seminar day on the Cisco WAE and the Cisco ACE but expecting more of a sales pitch than anything else. From the moment you walk in and sign the guest book, your shown where you need to go by a receptionist as they had around 2 or 3 at the desk! The seminar was really technical and turned out to be one of the better ones I’ve been on as for once, it didn’t turn into a sales pitch 
Lunch was brought round to us with a mixture of sandwiches, pies and free drinks from a fridge stocked with a variety of different soft drinks and bottled water. During lunch I bumped into our what I suppose you would call account manager for Cisco who spent 10 minutes seeing how business was going before HAVING to show me one of their teleconference rooms which he described before we got in as 24 like He wasn’t wrong and looking back I wish I had asked to take a photo just to show you how this hasn’t been done by half. 3 40″+ plasma screens surrounded a bank of cameras for viewing who you would be on a conference call with, speakers placed around the desks would have enabled around 6-8 people to participate in a conference call from this office alone. It was truly amazing and we chatted briefly about possibly ripping out our new phone system to go Cisco……
After the seminar I promptly headed to reception to book a taxi to take us back to Heathrow T1 (which I’m currently still sat in :(), reception kindly informed me that a free taxi would be around in 10 minutes to take us back and pointed me in the direction we needed to wait - the only bad thing I had to say about the experience was that it would have been nicer to wait inside as it was freezing out
Me being chuffed at being at the Cisco office.
17th March 2008, 01:04 am
For those who don’t know, I’m the IT Director over at UKFast.net, for the past 3 years we have won an award at the ISPA Awards hosted down in London. This year seemed to be no exception and we won the title of Best Dedicated Hosting 2008, this was a bit of a shock as you sort of expect, that no matter how good you are as a company, the judges will have a bit of worry about crowning you again for another year.
Either this wasn’t the case and I was being a bit paranoid, or we really are that good - for those of you who are customers of ours then I will let you decide that but I definitely would like to think the way the company is run, the support that we offer and the way we are always striving to improve and take on criticism as a growing business has a lot to do with it. Obviously I am going to be biased towards where I work but that also means I have first hand experience of the work and dedication that the staff put in, especially the support team who do go above and beyond the call of duty to help clients get to where is needed.
Our MD, Lawrence Jones accepted the award and thanked the team behind making things happen but I do have to say - couldn’t wish for a better person to work for. The amount I have learned as time has gone on with regards to performing the role I have within the company is amazing, having come from pretty much a full technical background with a bit of management experience has meant it’s been a strange but interesting learning curve which I’m sure is going to continue……..
13th March 2008, 03:09 pm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7292657.stm
At least the Judge had sense to say no to this one, seem to be far to many bizzare cases that get won nowadays since the American Mcdonalds coffee case.
10th March 2008, 07:21 pm
I’ve had NST (Nokia Sports Tracker) installed for a while now and I’ve used it a couple of times when I remembered, this was, unfortunately half way round a walk so I couldn’t track where I’d been
Needed another time to test it, a bike ride would work and luckily we had one planned for the Saturday just gone! Another trip over to Watergrove Reservoir sorted that out. I remembered before setting off, to get the sat nav locked onto our location and fired up NST. The software itself is so simple to use and provides a wealth of information about the journey you’ve been on. Obviously using the in-built GPS means that the battery life gets sapped pretty quickly, couple with the fact the missus had been using it the day before as well meant it didn’t have long to live.
Luckily it held out for three quarters of the day before powering itself off. I’d not used nst when the battery has died before but it handled it well, it reported that it had crashed upon the next reload but the full details of what we had done was still there just 1 hour short I’ve uploaded the days activities and you should be able to view it here.
NST has pre-defined setup for Walking, Cycling, Running, Skiing and 2 other custom activities. It supports things like Live sharing where you can constantly update your progress online, Auto pause when your speed drops below certain levels speed averaging. If you have GPS enabled Nokia phone then I highly suggest downloading and installing this - well unless your a bit of a fatty
6th March 2008, 09:13 pm
Well, it got announced that it just got better.
Still no sign of a new hardware version with 3 or 3.5G available which is still a bit of a problem/pain for some. However with the updates in software, most relevant to me is the MS Exchange ActiveSync for mobile push email and the Cisco VPN client.
Having just signed a new deal to port our work mobile phones over to O2, we have been given a free one. The other phones we are going for means that we are finally making the move from an Open Source email solution to a MS Exchange based system with blackberry BES system for the few users who will be getting blackberry handsets. So this means the odd one out - the iPhone, will eventually be able to mingle with the fold once again
6th March 2008, 09:05 pm
Idiots guide to checking
Let’s see if I’m a terrorist then.
1. Taking photos - check.
2. Living in a house - check.
3. Having more than one phone - check.
Quick, someone call the police!
