Oliver's Blog

Poppy had her first 10-pin bowling experience today. We went to Cardiff Bay for couple of games, also going in to Cardiff city centre for a bit of German sausage and a quick look at the new shopping centre.

Last night I also took part in the village Christmas Quiz roping in Pete from back in Brum and (drum-roll please for first colleague mention) Steve and Gabby from work to appear on our team “Three Geeks and a Lady”. Hmm, maybe we’ll do better in the summer quiz.

Here’s the deal… there is currently a new set of laws passing through Parliament labeled as the “Digital Economy Bill”. It contains many new laws and proposals which address issues with the way business is conducted in the digital age – and most of them are in my opinion quite valid. However one particular suggestion in the bill makes use of the term “technical measures” when referring to the methods of punishing those downloading illegal content, be that music, videos or software. Although it doesn’t explicitly imply that a broadband connection would be disconnected without trial, it does leave things very open. It is entirely possible to envisage a business being cut off due to the actions of one employee, or in a more family oriented context how about your household being cut off just because your child downloaded an mp3? I’m not questioning the motives here as obviously it is copyright infringement, what I am questioning here is the application of punishment – shouldn’t the infringer of the copyright be punished and not everyone else around them also? You wouldn’t put an entire family in jail if just one child in the family had stolen from the local shop. You may feel differently which is the beauty of our society, so I’ll leave you firstly with a link to a petition being put to the Prime Minister which you may sign if you feel strongly enough about this: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus

and also with a link to a BBC news article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8374732.stm which should act as a starting point for anyone wishing to learn more about the Digital Economy Bill so you can make up your own mind.

Joseph would like to wish everyone good luck in their frantic festive preparations during the run up to Christmas 2009.

And no, he’s not intentionally ‘flicking the Vs’.

Talking of things all happening at the same time, our washing machine packed up last night. I think it’s just the belt that’s gone as the drum doesn’t spin around any more and when you spin it manually it’s very loose and frictionless. Anyway, it is 7 and a half years old and the drying function packed in a few months ago too so it was on its way out and I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was. The good thing to take from all of this is my experience of the Comet sales team – I placed an order online at about 7:15pm last night for a new washing machine for ‘collection from store’. at 7:40 I had a phone call telling me it was ready for collection! I drove there as quick as I could (which isn’t that quick in a Scenic I might add… it’s scary switching from the Celica to the Oli-bus especially when cornering) and was treated almost like royalty, bar the rejected upselling of the extended warranty which would have cost more than 2/3 the cost of the appliance itself. All the staff were smiling and polite, saying hello and goodbye and thanking me for purchasing there, and another friendly member of staff helped me load it in to the back of the car. I only wish they’d been there to help me unload it in to the garage as it’s bl**dy heavy. Oh well… I think that’s a new HD digital camcorder crossed off my to-buy list for next year now (sorry Em, looks like your wedding will be filmed completely in SD) but at least we now have a full line-up of Hotpoint white goods.

Update
Yes, I’m officially stupid. Having unwrapped the new washing machine, unplumbed the old one and moved it in to the garage and reworked the cold water supply ready for the new machine, I noticed the maintenance flap on the back of the old washing machine. I opened it up and see the belt lying on the bottom – it had just come off. took me 10 second to refit and position correctly. Darn it, I can’t take the new one back now. Arse biscuits with strawberrys and cream.

They (who are they!?) say three buses will arrive all at once and they’re not wrong, this week is a busy one for persons of the technological persuasion. Firstly there’s Channel 4′s 3D TV week. In case you hadn’t noticed, Channel 4 have been broadcasting certain programs in 3D this week – the old red/blue glasses type of 3D. You can still pick up your free pair of 3D glasses from Sainsbury’s if you are quick and the schedule of programs continues this weekend with a ‘best of 3D’ program and a Hannah Montana concert. Check out Channel 4‘s web site for a full schedule. I’ve been recording all the programs ready to watch in a 3D marathon at some point in the future.

Next up we have the beta release of Microsoft Office 2010 – Microsoft’s newest version of their Office productivity suite available as an unfinished preview to those wishing to help Microsoft test it out before they sell it. So far, programs like Word and Excel don’t appear to have changed too much since their 2007 versions with the odd minor cosmetic difference here and there, but Outlook 2010 is muchos betteros especially when using the Outlook Live connector to link Outlook with your hotmail / live mail account. I can’t see Office 2010 being revolutionary if you own Office 2007 but the promise of Office 2010 Starter edition as a freebie for those just interested in the basic functionality of Word and Excel could tempt a lot of people. Even the “Home and Student” edition, Microsoft’s most popular version at the moment allowing up to 3 installations from a single (£99ish) purchase might suffer at the hands of the starter edition.

And finally….. we have an online movie rental service from Sony courtesy of the Playstation 3. I’ve not tested this out yet but there are over 800 movies ready to download either to rent or keep (prices from £2.49 for the sorts of films broadcast every few hours on ITV3+1 but it’s a start) with a number of recent blockbusters in too. I’ve been waiting for this service for a long time and there’ll be a full report once I’ve given it a run for it’s money. For those of you who haven’t got a clue what I’m on about, the idea is that using my Playstation 3 connected to my telly I can now browse a virtual store for a film I’d like to watch. I choose to either buy or rent the movie, and my Playstation 3 then downloads the film over the Internet for me to watch.