A long time between blogs, and a death in the family…

It occurred to me the other day i do not blog very often. In fact its been well over a month since my last.

I then got to think about these people, who update their blog every day, twitter on endlessly all day and generally make a cyber nuisance of themselves updating us all with every single going on in their life. I wonder why it is then, because personally i don’t think i am incredibly busy, i could easily update my blog every evening if i wanted to, i just don’t have anything to say on a day to day basis, or if i do, i don’t suppose it is of much interest if i had cheesecake, or pecan pie?

Having said that i am indeed registered on twitter. And face book.

I’m listening to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in my car at the moment, not whilst typing i hasten to add, no, i am in my office whilst typing, the car safely parked on the driveway. I say safely parked, some of you may remember my boss reversing into my car whilst otherwise safely parked, but that’s another story.

I have been once again sampling MSN Messengers games this week, quite good fun if your bored in the office and no one can see what your doing. Of course in my office i couldn’t care less if anyone can see what i am doing, but your own employers and co workers may not have this attitude. Why not challenge them to a game of fishticuffs, great fun if you can catch a decent size fish… try it and find out what I’m going on about.

My girlfriend is currently taking part in an online study of young parents and their use of technology, and how this may have changed since becoming a parent. Co sponsored by Microsoft, she has been provided with a webcam and a new HP laptop, which she is delighted with as the old one had seen better days. I found one going on eBay for £50 so i will put it on there soon. As part of the study she is encouraged to use as much of the Windows Live suite as possible, and i am helping out where i can. I recommended Live Mail, but she has Outlook 2007 installed so doesn’t need it. But one product i am very impressed with is SkyDrive. A fantastic product indeed, 25gb of free online storage. This is not the key for me, the key is the way you can share your files and folders, using permissions based on Windows Live ID’s i am currently uploading all my photos and sharing select ones to family and friends. It’s great to have it all online as well, which means it is being backed up – how many of us actually back up our photos? Put them on SkyDrive… NOW! And of course being online, accessible anywhere, means i can upload photos from anywhere as well. Good Job. Cue endless comments about other free non Microsoft offerings, NOT INTERESTED :-p Just like I’m not interested in Firefox or opera or chrome or freebrowse (which i just invented) Yes, i invite you to flame me for my non interest in browser wars and the endless comments i read on the BBC site recently spring to mind here ‘anyone who knows anything about IT hasn’t used IE for years’  well sir, i like to think i know a thing or two about IT and i have used IE for a long time. I have tried Firefox, and so has my girlfriend, she begged me to remove it after a day. Anyway i digress….

A death in the family. Yes a sad day for us all, my Xbox finally succumbed to the dreaded RROD. Outraged i was, sitting there a few weeks ago now, i scored a magnificent goal on fifa, and it froze. My first concern was i would forfeit the game, however that soon turned to desperation as the Xbox failed to respond, and continually froze at start-up. After leaving it completely powered down for 24 hours i managed to get into fifa again, however it froze shortly after. This time a restart prompted me with probably the worst thing any Xbox owner can see on a game night…. Three blinking red lights.

I hadn’t paid too much attention to the RROD issue because i thought my Xbox 360 Elite to be immune, I’m not sure where i got this idea, but i held onto it for the 18 months i have had my Xbox…

A quick search on Google presents literally millions of pages regarding fixes and horror stories. I was starting to get seriously worried. Half inclined to try and fix it myself following a very comprehensive method i found, i plumbed after all to send it back to Microsoft – in Frankfurt. Why it needs to travel half way across Europe i don’t know, and i expect to receive a refurbished Xbox in return such is standard practice i have read. Why anyone would want a refurbished one i don’t know, i cant see why Microsoft would expect their customers to be happy with a refurbed unit, apart from the obvious speed of turn around.

It then dawned on me that i have a friend who has an Elite, who never uses it. I asked if i could borrow it, after laughing for a long period and trying to refer me to gamers anonymous he agreed and i was back online Friday evening. A week after first going off. I scheduled my UPS collection yesterday morning, and they arrived within 4 hours to collect it and it has now begun its journey.. i wonder who will end up with it!

As it turned out it was a good thing, as i desperately needed to cram for a Cisco Module exam, STP ad VTP make sense if you know what they do!

Anyway that is the end of my ramblings, i have 17 computers to setup for Friday morning, and they wont do themselves unless i set the server up first ;-)