Pipex, Tiscali, whoever - crap

My ISP is Pipex. Or rather was until they were taken over by Tiscali. Or rather was until Tiscali was taken over by Carphone Warehouse (are you getting a sense of a pattern here?)

Anyway, the long and short of it is I've been with them years, mostly because at first they provided a decent service. Since the Tiscali takeover a few years ago the service has deteriorated, and lately has been poorer still, espcially in the evenings. Think BT throttling and you'll get a sense of what I experience msot evenings.

Anyhows, I've just been too lazy to be arsed to move to another provider.

Today I've been unable to access my websapce - or rather I can't access any of my 4 websites

• www.dinaspowyscc.co.uk
• www.dpab.co.uk
• www.chepstowmvc.co.uk
• www.hendreeynon.co.uk
  

All I get is a dreaded page not found 404 error. Pipex web pages don't indicate anything wrong with the service, and no reports of an outage.

I'm seriously considering moving to another ISP or at least moving my websites to a hosted service. Anyone any thoughts on what/who?

I'm getting closer to

Happy Anniversary

Well it's been 16 years today since Mrs Statto and I tied the knot. That day was a rather dull and wet May 29th, when it was supposed to be like today - gloriously hot. C'est la vie. Anyway, it's been a good 16 years so far, long may it continue.

I've had a cracking day. First up, me & the Mrs went to M&S to do a bit of shopping (partly on the pretence of getting each other a gift - neither of us had done so - not because we'd forgotten, but because we'd been so busy. Anyway, a few bob later and we've both added to our summer wardrobe, handy with holidays coming up in July. we also spoilt oursleves by getting some nice stuff for tea as we weren't going out (having been out for daughter's 12th birthday tea yesterday!).

Then it was off to garden centre for a few bits and bobs, although as is always the way it ended up being a bit more than I'd planned. This afternoon it's been gardening, which I really enjoy - I'm no Alan Titchmarsh, but I do like potterning about.

Then I was in charge of aforementioned M&S tea. Chilli & coriander prawns in garlic for starters followed by fillet steak - yum, plus a bottle of bubbly, followed by coffee and Tia Maria (Mrs S) and Metaxa (me).

To round of a great day I burnt a load of wood in the chimenea on the patio as dusk fell and the bats started flying about. There's something hypnotising (for me anyway) about a fire , and the lad in me can't help but poke a good fire with a stick.

Good day.

Pembrokeshire

We've just spent a couple of days down in west, West Wales staying in my sister's caravan. I absolutely love Pembrokeshire as I think I may have mentioned before, it's a rather special place. The coastal scenery is stunning, and the flora and fauna rich and diverse.

This view of Greenscar island just off the entrance to Sova harbour is taken from the "Gribben", a small hill that runs down one side of the fjord like harbour, and is possibly just about my favourite of all places in the area.

The weather was kond to us. Bethan and I swam in the sea on Monday (bloody cold it was too - even with our wetsuits on), and we did a bit of "coasteering" (scrambling over rocks and jumping into the sea), whilst Anne and James walked along the coat path a bit.

Yesterday we drove round to the other side of St Brides Bay to Wooltack Point where the renowned islands of Skomer and Skockholm are a huge attraction for seabirds and those that wish to see them in their natural habitat. After that we went to Marloes beach (also pictured), a huge expanse of sand and rocks - so big, even with a lot of people on it it looked empty.

Ah, well, until the next time.

Happy Christmas - if you want a Palm Pre

Palm247 are reporting that if you want a Palm Pre (and who of you that has owned a Palm device previously doesn't?) it looks like you're going to have wait until Christmas - and even then there might not be many devices available.

Looks like O2 have got the deal, so with the iPhone and the Pre tied up, they've got a big sector of the "consumer" smartphone market cornered.

Cooking

Blimey, at last. Summer. Cripes it's been hot today.

Loverly it is too, and about time. Let's hope there more of this to come over the next couple of months.

I've been cricket coaching with the juniors this morning (checkout our website) and then after a hearty dinner courtesy of mother in law, doing a oad of gardening. Knackered now, and looking forward to a couple of days away as we're off to one of our favourite places - Pembrokeshire for a couple of days tomorrow.

3rd Gen iPhone

Hot on the heels of the announcement that the Palm Pre is going to be available on June 6th (on Sprint in the US) comes a rumour via the iPhone Blog that the next gen iPhone will be available from 17th July.

If you've been waiting to upgrade, you could soon have a very big dilemma...

Heatwave. D'oh

Can you believe this country?

It's been thrashing down with rain for ever, with gale force winds, and the good ole Department of Health is warning us about a heatwave, with top tips for staying cool. How's this for starters.

Paint your house white to reflect the heat. Come on, this is Britain, not Greece. Can you honestly see Mr Smith from 38 Acacia Avenue, Milton Keynes, rushing down to B&Q for an 8 gallon drum of whitewash because some twerp says we're going to have a heatwave? I think not. Here are the other "top tips".

• Shade south and west-facing windows
• Plant small trees and shrubs around buildings
• Replace metal blinds with curtains with white linings to reflect heat outwards where possible

I especially like the one about planting small trees and shrubs. By the time they've grown big enough to shade us, I'll be dead or global warming will mean they're under water!

Let me know if you see the sun. No sign of it here in South Wales for weeks.

Palm Pre...coming....very slowly

The Palm Pre is coming. Honest. We first knew about this device back in January, and despite many dodgy YouTube videos and an occasional spot of one "in the wild", Palm have been keeping amazingly shtum about this device, or more specifically when it will be available.

That's led many to believe that in fact it might never really materialise, going the way of the famed Foleo, and you have to wonder about Palm's motives for not giving anything away in terms of release dates or indeed upping the hype about this, especially in the wake of the forthcoming iPhone 3.0 OS and probably next gen iPhone device.

Still, Palm presumably have a plan. And word on the street is that June 7th is the likely date, though whether we'll see it here in the UK then is debatable.

I have to say that what I've seen of this device (the glossy Palm website aside) which amounts to a few of those dodgy YouTube videos, I'm very impressed, and very much have the "want one" factor. It just oozes "hold me".

Sadly (though not too sadly) I'm tied to my iPhone contract for a good while yet, although that will give me time to assess real usability from the inevitable early adopters (Shaun at PDA247, Murray from Palm-Mac and Philippa (another 247 stalwart) to name a few).

I'm going to be particularly interested in things like signal reception, battery life and stability, perhaps Palm's biggest issues with their Treo and Centro ranges.

Purse an Owl?

Rumour has it that City's Darren Purse is to sign for Championship rivals Sheffield Wednesday, although the deal is not yet done.

Many people will be glad to see him go - he's proven a liability at times, and his style of football, is, well, crude to say the least.

I've mixed feelings. He's served the club well, proved far more passionate than many, knows his limitations, and has been warming the bench for most of last season. But he wants, regular first team football, and you can't blame him for wanting out.

He proved against the Jacks in our home match against them that he can still perform at this level, though he's too inconsistent for my liking.

If he goes, and he'll surely go somewhere, I wish him well.

New look PDA247

One of my favourite and daily visited mobile device sites PDA247 has undergone a radical facelift.

It looks sharp and clean, but personally I find the adverts a bit more obtrusive and the layout a little confusing at the moment. Maybe in time I'll get used to it, but it's a bit strange at the moment.

Luckily, the regular news stories and forum is there and all the old stalwarts who add their comments are still there too. It's a really helpful and informative site for all things mobile - quite refreshingly covering all mobile device platforms.

Keeper's everywhere

About the only thing you can guarantee about Cardiff City, is that they'll get through about 8 keepers a season.

True to form, having just missed out on the play-offfs, and sent on-loan glovemen Tom Heaton, Stuart Taylor and Dimi Cantstopalot back to their respective clubs, City have moved very quickly to snap up David Marshall from relegated Norwich.

Marshall has played for Celtic in the Champions League, and is well rated. He joins the only other senior keeper, Peter Enckleman on the playing staff. No doubt we'll get another 3 or 4 in before the new season starts...

Weather with you

Heard "Aggers" (Jonathan Agnew) the erstwhile Test Match Special cricket commentator mention this site today - raintoday.co.uk.

He was saying at 11am that there would be no chance of play at the Riverside today in the Test match after visiting this site and seeing the rain picture.

Guess what - he was right, it's a total washout today.

Nifty site - does what it says on the tin - provides a visual representation of where the rain is, and where it's most heavy. Could be quite handy

iPhone battery update

I ran the iPhone battery right down as I said I was going to, and then fully charged again overnight. The immediate impression was that the battery was lasting a little better after that, but still seemed to be discharging fairly quickly compared to the rest of the time that I've had it.

Anyway, got home from Harrogate and the battery's been fine - back to normal, despite a seemingly comparable signal to the time I spent in North Yorkshire. Now either one of two things is happening.

Either I'm not using the device as much here as when I was away (I can't say I've consciously noticed this), or despite an apparently similar signal showing, something spooky is going on "up North".

It really is quite bizarre. At home, I have 3G switched on all day and rarely get down below 50% of battery remaining. During my time in Harrogate I had 3G and wifi switched off, and was getting as low at 10% remaining, complete with low battery warning.

Care to explain that to me?

Home soon

All done in Harrogate. My work here is finished, so a quiet evening and then home after breakfast tomorrow.

I'll be glad to get back. Been on the go pretty much since last Tuesday, and frankly I'm knackered.


-- Post From My iPhone

iPhone battery

I'm away in Harrogate at the moment, and there must be something funny about the area. Since I arrived on Saturday my iPhone has been losing it's battery charge abouttwi e as quickly as usual.

At first I thought it might be beacuse it was struggling to pick up and hold on to a 3G signal, so I turned 3G off but it continues to lose charge pretty quickly.

I'm going to let the battery completely discharge as many forums suggest that a complete discharge cycle once a month keeps batteries in tip top shape. I on the other hand almost never let the battery run down completely and charge overnight every night.

I'll let you know how I get on.


-- Post From My iPhone

Working away

Fairly quiet on the blogging front at the moment as I'm working away for a few days. Came up to Harrogate yesterday, here until Wednesday for RCN Congress. Long days, and if you're not carefull even longer nights!

All good fun, but tiring and really miss the family.


-- Post From My iPhone

RCN Congress

As some of my readers know, and some don't, I work for the Royal College of Nursing. This week is the big event of the year - RCMN Congress, this year held in Harrogate.

I'm here from Sarursay through to Wednesday helping with the registration of delegates and exhibitors - I have about 12 of my team down. It'll be long days and long nights!


-- Post From My iPhone

I don't like cricket....I love it

It's been a busy weekend. As regular readers of this erstwhile blog will know, I'm involved in the local cricket scene, and since being elected Chairman of the club (mostly because no-one else wanted to do it!) last autumn it's been non-stop. By my reckoning, I'm now, Chairman, webmaster (www.dinaspowyscc.co.uk), Under 15 Coach, i/c sorting club clothing (match shirts, leisure wear etc). My son also plays, and despite my dodgy kne and a constant threat to retire completely, I've even been wheeled out to play this weekend (scored 22 as well!).

It feels like I'm up at the club every day - and if I'm not there I'm on the phone, or email or text about cricket. This weekend I spent all afternoon watching our 1st XI, Sunday afternoon playing in our Welsh Cup game (with my son in the side - very proud), and all afternoon today watching same son play his second game of weekend in near arctic conditions.

I'm going to work for a rest tomorrow. Then, tomorrow evening we have a committee meeting, Wednesday is a night off (we have a senior Midweek match but I must remind my wife who her husband and father of her children is by showing my face at home!). Thursday the Junior league starts so I'm off with the U15's, and then Friday is another night off - before I disappear off to Harrgate for nearly a week with work. Blimey. Life wasn't this busy before..... so if my posts are less frequent, I apologise...

Heartache: Sheff Weds 1-0 City

City missed out on a play off spot after the were beaten at Hillsborough and Preston beat QPR. The 6-0 thumping by Preston came home to haunt Cardiff as they lost out by goal difference to the Deepdale outfit.

It's a gut wrenching moment for all City fans, who 3 games ago were looking at automatic promotion, but one point from the last 12 on offer is a horror end to the season, and ultimately City have paid the price.
Those late goals conceded at Reading & Birmingham to name a couple show what could have been, but it's another season in the Championship for the Bluebirds next term.

The only question remaining, is how many of the current squad will be there when we start again...

Gutted, gutted, gutted.

You wait all day for a bus, then 3 come along at once...

Well, here we are waiting (and waiting, and waiting...) for Palm's much talked about Pre to hit the shelves and how it's going to save Palm, and lo and behold, before we can get our grubby hands on it, Palm announce (allegedly), that they're going to release another webOS device, cunningly named the Palm Eos. This will be a small, thin phone with a front mounted hardware keyboard. The photos floating around the 'net at the moment look "well dodgy" and may well be a a Photoshop mockup. It's an interesting device though, and will no dobt appeal to many Blackberry users who might have once been addicted to Palms.

And then, with 2 nonexsistent devices in the pipeline (OK, the Pre at least has been seen and handled by some though it's not yet available to ordinary mortals), Shaun over at PDA-247 suggests that the time might be ripe for the Foleo, another Palm device that never saw the light of day to make a re-appearance as a webOS device.

That might be rather a neat call, but....what have we actually got?

One device that was formally announced months ago, and no-one knows when or even if it's going to appear. One device announced a couple of days ago that appears to exist only as a mockup in some software program. And one device that's already been consigned to the skip once before it saw the light of day.

Palm must either be incredibly clever, or incredibly stupid.

Rock on Palm!

Cardiff City Stadium

The Bluebirds new stadium now has it's own official logo. The stadium managed by Cardiff City Stadium Limited, and inspirationally called "Cardiff City Stadium" opens it's doors in July just over the road from the antiquated Ninian Park where City have played for the last 99 years.

The ground will be shared by the Bluebirds and Cardiff Blues regional rugby, and the naming of the stadium is a bit of an interesting point.

At one stage we (the fans) were told that one of the saving graces of the massive debt that City had accrued (£30 million+ if some reports were to be believed) would at least be offset by the fact the the naming rights were worth £9m. Yeah, right. Well clearly no-one's spent £9m on "Cardiff City Stadium". However, that may change in the future when it becomes inevitably, something else (how about the "Sam Hamman Dome" - remember Langston? Sorry - CCFC in joke, and a bad one at that)

Anyhow, the cynical amongst us (see the Thin Blue Line fanzine for one - a great read by the way) note that having cunningly called the place "Cardiff City Stadium", the Bluebirds have jostled the egg chasers slightly out of the picture, whilst the words "Cardiff City" are ever prominent.

Of course, the other take is that it's "Cardiff - (the) City Stadium", and the new logo above keeps that view by having the words "City Stadium" at one size, whilst "Cardiff" could be taken to refer to either the Bluebirds, or the Blues. Oh, how much clever politicking thought has gone into such a seemingly innocuous name and logo.

I bet someone paid someone £9m for that.

Catch 22

Over lunch my lunch of corned beef sarnies I've been considering (as you do) the state of the world we live in. Using the venerable BBC News website as a guide, here's where we're at.

We're still in the deepest recession for many a long year. People out of jobs, companies going bust, investments in free fall and the housing market still dodgy. We're still at war with half the world it seems - though we don't call it war, although we'll soon be pulling troops out of Iraq.

There are pirates about, but not in the Caribbean. We've got a comedian on Question time, and no, it's not Gordon Brown.

According to the Met (the weather people, not the police) it's going to b the hottest and driest summer for a long time (hooray), but sadly we'll all be dead from swine flu, so won't be here to enjoy it.

Oh, and the Aussies are coming over to thrash us at cricket (again).




-- Post From My iPhone

Dinas Powys CC start with a win

My cricket club got it's season off and running on Sunday with a 5 wicket win in a local friendly.

The weather at 10am when was doing some junior coaching was horrible, but it cleared up and turned into a glorious afternoon.

I'm not planning to play (much if at all) this year due to my dodgy (read knackered) knee. It was nice to be watching with a cold beer though.

The league season kicks off on Saturday, with the juniors starting next week. I'm praying for good weather, but frankly the forecast looks pants!

Update
The Under 13 also got off to a winning start this evening, so we're 2 from 2.

You can follow all the goings on at www.dinaspowyscc.co.uk

Up the Dinas!


-- Post From My iPhone

Abject: City 0-3 Ipswich

City have imploded. Talk about doing it the hard way. After the first 10 minutes, where City looked to be right on top of their game they were awarded a penalty for a foul on Roger Johnson. Ross McCormack who's been so good for the spot, despite missing his last one, saw this one saved well by Richard Wright, and on that the game turned.

Ipswich substituted defender Alex Bruce with Jon Stead and the pattern of the game changed. They scored a break away goal in the 33rd minute, and after that City were abject. They couldn't pass (except backwards), they couldn't tackle, didn't want to shoot and looked tired (they've played 6 games in 16 days to be fair) and Ipswich ultimately ran out 3-0 winners, and well deserved too.

Worryingly, City still need a point from their last game, away to Sheffield Wednesday, or for Preston to only draw or lose to be certain of a play off spot. If City lose that, and Preston, who thumped us 6-0 last week and beat second placed Birmingham away 2-1 today win it's down to goal difference - and ours is only 2 better than Preston's. Preston face QPR at home next week in the final round, and you wouldn't bet on them not getting a win at the moment, so it's going to be nailbiting stuff.

The players lap of honour following the last home league game of the season and the celebrations for the last ever home game at Ninian Park seemed pretty muted as a result.

Lets hope they can pick themselves up for next Sunday's match.

C'mon City. One last push.

Nailbiting stuff: Charlton 2-2 City

Blimey! City know how to make you suffer. Fresh from their 6-0 drubbing at Preston they went to Charlton who are already relegated, looking for a win to seal their play off spot.

Things did not go according to plan, and they were 1-0 down at the break. Things got worse in the second period as they conced a second, and looked down and out.

But, from somewhere they found some resilience, with first Burke, coming off the bench to score with a long range effort in the 82nd minutes, and then Gabor Gyepes popping up to score from a Chris Burke corner in the 89th minute. Both sides had chances to win it in the last minute, but a draw it was.

By my reckoning, Swansea and Preston in 7th and 8th respectively, can now only match City's points haul, and City have a superior goal difference (just - by one) over the Jacks. So one more point from the final two games just to be safe.

Saturday sees the final league game in Ninian Park's history when we take on Ipswich, with one final play off game (hopefully) being the final ever match at the old stadium.

Quick Office for iPhone

Just see on The iPhone Blog that Quick Office have just had their Quickoffice app released into the iPhone store on iTunes.

This steals a march on Dataviz's Documents to Go which is still showing as "Coming..." on their web site, although I believe from an email I received from them recently and posted about , that it's due for a "mid-May" delivery.

Whatever, Quickoffice beats them to it, offering the following long list of features:

Quickword® (Advanced Word Document Processing)

• Edit & Create MS-WORD Files
• Intuitively Cut/Copy/Paste text anywhere, including to another doc
• Easy to use, fast, accurate Double/Triple Tap for word/paragraph selection
• High-fidelity rendering for optimized mobile viewing
• Wrap text at any zoom level and eliminate repetitive left/right scrolling
• Enhanced Magnifier to accurately place cursor with ease
• Extensive text formatting; Bold, Italics, Font Sizes, Font Styles
• Simple to Undo/Redo text changes
• Confidently edit with Auto-Save & Auto-Restore
• Quickly edit Bulleted/Numbered lists
• Images scale to fit screen for better viewing
• Open complex docs without compromising performance or stability
• File Support: .DOC (97-2003 Editing), .DOCX (2007 Viewing), .TXT

Quicksheet® (Advanced Excel Spreadsheet Editor)

• Edit & Create MS-EXCEL spreadsheets
• Professional-Grade Calculation Engine
• Supports advanced Excel features; Implicit Intersection, Array Formulas, Named Ranges
• Simply Tap, Hold & Slide your finger to increase/decrease Column Width/Row Height
• Extensive formatting; Bold, Italic, Cell Background, Font Color, Accounting, Currency, Decimals, Currency Symbols
• Double Tap on a cell and drag your finger diagonally to Select a Range
• Easily change Inputs and Recalculate
• Confidently edit with Auto-Save & Auto-Restore
• Switch easily between Sheets in a Workbook
• Insert new Rows/Columns
• File Support: .XLS (97-2003 Editing), .XLSX (2007 Viewing)

Quickoffice® Files (Remote Access, WiFi & File Management)

• Remotely Access your MobileMe® iDisk® account (separate account required)
• Easily Transfer files from your Macintosh or PC via WiFi
• Create New Folders on your iDisk account or device to manage digital content
• Save files to your device for offline viewing
• View almost every common file type
• Easily Organize, Rename, and Move files on your device
• Passcode protection to keep your content safe

Buy now and receive these FREE UPDATES (soon to be released):

• Mount device as a wireless drive via WiFi
• Drag/Drop files between your device and computer via WiFi/li>
• Email remote or local files without having to download them

It's priced at $19.99, far more than your average iPhone app, but then arguably, it's far more complex, and powerful than a free or 59p farting app.

I'm very tempted, as I've been waiting for DtG for a long time, and mid-May's still weeks away. Should I stick or should I twist?

Thanks to The iPhone Blog for the heads up, and a nod to Quickoffice, as I've used their picture (but I am raising awareness of their product!)

Calamity: PNE 6-0 City

For City's chance of automatic promotion they needed to win their remaining 4 matches, and hope for others to slip up.

Today at Deepdale, they were routed 6-0, the biggest defeat I've seen since I've been supporting them, and one that's ended any hope of automatic promotion. We're not even guaranteed a play off place yet, still need 1 point from that last 3 matches I think, so it looks like we're going to have to do it the hard way.

Let's forget this one.

Up the City!

Top Ten Tracks

I knew my last post would lead to this...great songs - so what are your top 10 all time tracks? It's so hard, and frankly, a good few of these probably change from week to week depending on what I'm listening to at the time. However, here are 10 of my all time faves, and ones that I play regularly in the car or on my iPhone - generally turned up very loud - and the reason why. You can of course beg to differ.

• Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skynyrd: Just a great guitar, great piano, good lyrics
  
• Jet Airplane - Steve Miller Band: As a pretty average guitar player myself, just love the instrumental intro.
  
• Picture This - Blondie: Could have picked just about any Blondie track apart from the Island of Dreams type stuff, but this is great. Short, to the point.
  
• Distant Sun - Crowded House: Superb musicians. Great lyrics, neat chord changes.
  
• We Didn't Start The Fire - Billy Joel: A modern day Subterranean Blues - look on YouTube for some great history lesson videos to accompany this suberb track
  
• Stainsby Girls - Chris Rea. Great voice, sublime guitar (spot the trend yet?)
  
• Sultans of Swing - Dire Straits. Ropey voice, superb guitar
  
• Rhiannon - Fleetwood Mac. Just love the FM sound
  
• Running Man - Jimmy Nail. A real pumping track
  
• Beds Are Burning - Midnight Oil. Listen to that driving bass. Ethical issues too
  

Hooters

It's funny how some things pass you by. I've got a fairly eclectic taste in music, anything from Blondie, through Dire Straits, Fleetwood Mac, Seasick Steve, Fairport Convention, Kate Bush, traditional rock 'n roll, and a wide range of other material , electric stuff and even though I hate to admit it, recent Take That songs! Somehow though, I'd missed the Hooters, an American band that have been around in one form or another since the early 80's.

With a few exceptions, my taste has generally always been for what I call "proper bands" - ones that write their own material and play their own instruments, and especially those that do guitars and drums well.

Apart from a few of the aforementioned, most of whose material I have, I've always tended to buy albums on the basis of one track I've heard, and generally have got away with liking the rest of the album.

The other day I was driving home from work listening to Radio 2 when Simon Mayo, sitting in for Chris Evans opened the show with "Satellite" from this band. Within the first few bars I though "What a fantastic track" - it just makes you want to join in, play air guitar, sing along - a real get up and go song.

I duly downloaded the "One Way Home" album from Amazon onto my iPhone via iTunes, and listened with the headphones in and the sound up. It's a brilliant album. How I've managed to miss this band all these years I don't know. It mixes some decent rock with a folky twist - I'm not sure I'd go as far as calling them folk rock. Whatever, I love it.

Wordpop scores

Well, for a brief moment in time I was the global high score leader in Wordpop on easy mode. However, a glimpse at the attached screenshots will show that's the case no longer, and that I've slipped to a lowly third spot, and worse, the current leaders have racked up such huge scores, the chances of me ever getting anywhere near these is highly remote, unless of course I play the game continuously for about a month!
Well done to them. I take my hat off to you, especially those who have done so well on the medium and hard levels.

Still chasing down: City 3-1 Burnley

Oh my giddy aunt! We still need Birmingham to slip up (they did a bit today with a draw), and possibly Sheffield Utd (ditto), but City are still chasing down automatic promotion after a 3-1 win over Burnley in the penultimate league match at Ninian Park.

City, without Roger Johnson for the first time this season ue to his injury from the Palace game started cautiously - so cautiously they couldn't string two passes together, and Burnley looked good value for their 6th spot in the table. However City came into the game more and ended the first half the better.

After the break City continued to play the more attacking football, but it looked like a stalemate was on the cards when in the 74th minute Jay Bothroyd got on the end of a Ross McCormack flick on to blast the ball home and give City a precious lead.

They held that lead for 10 minutes looking very comfortable until the home crowd were silenced by a dreadful Darren Purse back-pass that let in Robbie Blak to slide home under Stuart Taylor. It looked like all City's hard work had been undone, but a minute later, Bothroyd returned the favour to McCormack and the diminuitive Scotsman turned to slot home his 22nd of the season. To be fair to Burnley, they were throwing the kitchen sink at it by now and a couple of iffy bits of defending could have seen them equalise again, before Mark Kennedy cooly sent McCormack on his way again from inside his own half deep into injury time. Rather than run the ball to the corner flag as we were expecting, he ran at goal, jinked in side and fired low to send the Ninian Park crowd into raptures.

A superb win that closes the gap to 4 points on Birmingham and 3 points Sheffield Utd, with a game in hand on both, and importantly just about confirms a play off spot. We have to keep winning though, but on this performance who'd bet against that?

Up the City!

Pembrokeshire

The Pembrokeshire National Park is one of my favourite places in the UK - I've been going there since I was 13, and I'm 50 this year, so that tells it's own story.

We've just been for a flying visit. Travelled yesterday, one overnight in my sister's caravan, and back late this afternoon. Never tire of the place. This view is from the cliffs above Abereiddy bay with the "blue lagoon" (an old slate quarry) in the foreground, looking back towards St David's head.

Abereiddy is especially poignant for our family, because we scattered my mum's ashes here back in 2003.

The whole of the coast in this area is absolutely superb, as are the beaches, with some real hidden gems, ranging from wide pebble beaches (Abermawr), rocky inlets (Trefin), Abereiddy with it's mixture of black slate sands and rockpools and the lagoon, and Whitesands, a broad expanse of golden sands.

If you love nature, surfing, kayaking, coasteering or just chilling on the beach, this is certainly one of the best places in the UK to do it.

Just don't tell anyone else....

Still in the hunt: Palace 0-2 City

Ross McCormack picked up a brace in what was by all accounts a fiery encounter, where both managers were banished to the stands.
After McCormack opened the scoring from the spot, Roger Johnson ended up being sent to hospital and will be kept in overnight for monitoring after suffering a battering to the head that could have been an elbow.
McCormack scored late on to make it safe for City who now climb to 4th spot, and with Birmingham slipping up with a draw, the slim chance of automatic promotion is still something for City to aim for.

Next up Burnley on Monday at home. Let's hope Johnson's fit, and we can glean another 3 points.

Up the City!

Docs to Go for iPhone almost here

Got an update email from Dataviz tonight in which they say that the iPhone version of Docs to Go will be ready in early to mid May. For all those of us that have been waiting for this, it's great news.

What they've said is:

Thanks to all who have been waiting patiently for the arrival of Documents To Go for iPhone. The next time you hear from us, it'll be to tell you that Documents To Go is available for your iPhone and iPod touch in the App Store!

When will that be, you ask? Early to mid May. And trust us, there are some very exciting things about this app that we haven't let out of the bag yet. We hope you'll agree it's worth the wait!

If you haven't seen them, there are some great screenshots for you on our Facebook page (while you're there, become a fan!). And as always, you can stay up to date on our iPhone plans and all the other goings-on at DataViz with our Office Mobility Blog!

Big, big win: City 4-1 Derby

The Bluebirds strengthened their hold on the Championship play off spots last night and kept their faint hopes of automatic promotion alive with a 4-1 win over Dery County. The Rams had the better of the opening exchanges, forcing several early corners before a glnacing Roger Johnson header from a free kick put City ahead on 16 minutes, and the score remained like that until half time.

After the break City began to dominate more without ever being fluent, and the pass of the season from Steve McPhail (a forward pass no less) slid in Gavin Rae who rounded the keeper to slot home the second and his first of the season. Jay Bothroyd added a third a few minutes later and that killed Derby off. Substitute Eddie Johnson added a fourth well taken when 1 on 1 with the keeper, before late Derby pressure forced an own goal of The same striker from a corner.

So the last floodlit game at Ninian Park saw City sign off with big win, statistically and metaphorically. The games come thick and fast this week, with an away match at Palace on Saturday followed by a home match against play off rivals Burnely on Easter Monday. 6 points from those two would be ideal.

Up the City!

-- Post From My iPhone

WordPop No.1

I've just messed up a WordPop game. But my score of 52,567 on round 185 puts me No. 1 on the global all time scores on the iPhone! How about that? Never been No. 1 at anything before....

Dead chuffed.

I really messed up though, I was going steamingly well but paying half attention to WordPop and half to the Man Utd/Porto game on telly, and left myself with no vowels!!

Gabor Gyepes here for the long run

Cardiff City's Hungarian central defender today signed a deal that will keep him a City for another 3 years. I think this a great deal for City!

Gyepes joined City at the start of the season from Northampton Town. A proven central defender with international experience he had to bide his time to break into the first team, but once he did he formed a formidable relationship with Roger Johnson at centre back, in an unbroken run that was only stopped through a harsh red card against Sheffield United.

I think he's been a great replacement for Glenn Loovens who we sold to Celtic just after the campaign kicked off, and I'm pleased to see he'll be staying long term.

Up the City!

All square: City 2-2 Jacks

So, the crack of dawn (well for a Sunday) saw us at Ninian Park for the third match between City and the Jacks from Swansea this season.

Predictably a huge number of the City faithful outside the ground gave our visitors a traditional welcome as you can see from this photo of a banner being held by a couple of Bluebirds fans.

If you can't quite make it out, its a picture suggesting no caravans, a reference to our penchant for calling those that hail from Swansea "gypos" (amongst other things that are too unmentionable on this blog).

Anyhow, a packed Ninian Park saw a suitably testy derby game. With Gyepes suspended, Purse came into the back four, and McPhail, red carded in both previous Swansea games this year held on to his place.

The City defence looked suspect early on with Johnson playing on the left of centre, and indeed atrocious defending let Dyer in to open the scoring for the Jacks on 11 minutes.

Swansea to be fair were playing neat football, whilst City struggled to get any momentum going. Inevitably I suppose there was at least one idiot in the ground, regretfully a City "fan" who threw a coin which hit Ref Mike Dean in the head just above the eye. To his credit he carried on, when I suppose the match could have been in danger of being called off, and the reports say the person responsible has been arrested and banned for life. Let's hope so. Idiot.

On 54 minutes a great break by McNaughton was followed by a couple of neat passes, sand some great control and a level head by Bothroyd who squared for Chopra to tap in from 2 yards. Initially it looked offside, but on the TV replays it was a great decision by the officials.

The games looked to be heading for a draw until on 88 minutes, City letting the opposition play in their own half, and then backing off when they come into our half (when will they EVER learn?) allowed Allen to rifle a low shot past Taylor, and frankly iot looked as though that was that.

City to their credit though didn't give up, and when a ball was lumped into the Swans area, McCormack went down, and although it looked as though he went down a trifle easily, Mike Dean who was right on the spot, pointed for a penalty straight away. (I'm not complaining!)

McCormack then stepped up and slotted hom a penalty to resuce a point - his second pressure spot kick in 3 games in the dying seconds.

So the points shared, and probably a fair result. we haven't managed to beat the Jack in 3 attempts this year - 2 draws and that appalling loss to them in the Carling Cup. We're still in the play off spots, but the chances of automatic promotion must have faded with that draw, but we'll keep on going.

Next up, Derby at home on Wednesday.

Up the City!

Palm OS on a Pre

The Palm Pre is looking like a great device, with more info coming out on a regular basis, but one thing that a lot of current and ex-Palm users have been asking is will it be able to run current Palm OS apps?

Well, the answer is yes, and that means it's much more likley that one of these users may hang around for the Pre rather than swicth to another patform. After all, they will have invested a lot of time and money on their Palm apps.

And here at mypre.com you can actually see it working, and very impressive it looks too. The emulator functions as a WebOS app like the other Pre apps. The response speed is impressive too.

I'm liking the Pre very much from what I've seen on the web. I wonder when we'll get to see it for real?

In another Pre video at jkOnTheRun the Pre is being demonstrated with some 3rd party applications. One really cool bit was an app called Fandango that allows you to view movie listings and buy a ticket - not really zingy in itself, but the killer was the integration - when you buy your ticket, the event is automatically added to your calendar. Impressive.

Derby day: Bluebirds v Jacks

It's a massive, massive day tomorrow if you're a South Wales football fan (which I am of course, along with Mini-Stats).

City take on Swansea in the league tomorrow in a match neither team can really afford to lose, and not just because of their great rivalry. City lie in 6th spot with a game or more in hand over those above them, and whilst a play off place is surely the aim, there is still a slight chance of second spot and automatic promotion, but only if they win nearly every remaining game and other sides slip up, whilst the Jacks are 9th and harbour hopes of sneaking into the play-off places themselves.

The powers that be have decided this'll be an 11am kick off - presumably to avoid drinking before the match, although rumour has it that some pubs will be opening early for the occasion.

It'll mean an early start for us that's for sure. We only live about 15 mins away from the ground, but generally like to be there at least an hour, often more, before kick off to savour the atmosphere, and there will certainly be an atmosphere tomorrow, so it'll mean leaving soon after 9am for a home game!!!

Mike Dean a Premiership ref is supposed to be officiating, and it'll certainly need a calm head.

Here's hoping for a City win.

Up the Bluebirds!!!

Grand National

Yes it's been Grand National day, and as usual, Chez Statto has had it's annual gambling franzy, with each of us picking two horses - usually a favourite and an outsider.

Bethan, who's 11 hasn't quite got the knack of "outsiders yet, and chose "My Will" and "Butler's Cabin", the two favourites and then declared that Butler's Cabin would be her outsider. Hmmm.

Anyway, we splurged - £2 each way on our preferred donkey, and £1 e/w on the other.

Needless to say none of us picked Mon Mome the 100/1 winner, which is a shame as a £2 e/w bet on that would have been very nice. Nevertheless, we almost recouped our outgoings, as Mrs Stats had gone with Comply or Die as a last minute second choice (2nd), My Will ran in 3rd for Bethan and I had State of Play in fourth.

Mini Stats (James) was very put out as neither of his two made the frame.

So, in the end, £22.50 recouped from a £25 initial outlay, and that dear readers, tells you all you need to know about gambling.

iPhone again

I've got my iPhone back after being repaired for a faulty "home" button. I'm not 100% sure what the problem was, but the return slip says that the "main board" has been replaced, so it must have been something fairly terminal.

Once home I swapped my sim which has been in my Centro for 11 days, and gotva messge saying I had to connect to itunes.

I connected my usb cable, iTunes fired up and asked me if I wanted to start afresh or restore from my last backup. I opted for the latter having been sure to backup just before I'd taken the phone in to repair, and about 20 minutes later voilà, a fully restored iPhone!

Almost.

A few tweaks - all my email and exchange passwords had disappeared, and my icons were all over the place, but apart from that, which didn't take too long to sort out, I'm back to normal.

I've enjoyed my brief return to Palm with the Centro, especially the better (IMHO) SMS and calendar apps, but it's great to come back to the big, bright iPhone screen, decent RSS, HTML email, Twitterific and BlogPress that I'm writing this post with. Although I do prefer a hardware qwerty keyboard I'm typing this as fast with 2 thumbs as I would on the Centro. Actually, as an aside, I find if I type quite fast on the iPhone keyboard, I make less mistakes than if I type slowly, perhaps because of the pretty decent auto-correct.

Anyway, I'm glad I've got the Apple back in my pocket.

-- Post From My iPhone

One rule for them.....

Well I'm going to have my three penn'orth about the sleazy MP's and their "expenses".

I find it ludicrous that any sane person can believe that it's OK to claim thousands - tens of thousands in some cases, and in the worst cases almost £200,000 for "expenses" that seem to range from miscellaneous porn films as reported by today's media to lavish furnishings for second homes (leass than 10 miles away from primary homes in some cases).

OK, so Jacqui Smith didn't watch the "blue film" (as one radio station today reported it - haven't heard that term in a while), but even if it was her husband, how the hell can pay per view films be classed as a parliamentary expense????

And someone else spent almost a grand on an antique fireplace. Get an electric fire for God's sake. This is my money you're spending!!

I work for a company where I'm lucky if I can claim £18 for an evening meal if I'm away for the night, and absolutely cannot claim for any alcohol. Taxi's are severely frowned upon - walk, get a bus - but a taxi - no sireee. Any even then I have to produce original receipts before they'll reimburse me.

An MP though appears to be able to spend a shedload of taxpayers (that's you and me) dosh on anything they fancy, and don't even have to provide proof. Lavish new curtains? Certainly sir. Furnishings for a second home (oh actually it's my parents house just down the road from my own house, but don't tell anyone). Certainly sir. A little something for the weekend - no questions asked.

At the very least it could be deemed gross misconduct, and if it were me that'd be me out of my job before you could say "nice new carpet".

But generally, where I come from they call it fraud, and it's a criminal offence.

Running through treacle

My broadband is playing up (again). Was slow earlier this evening, then refused to connect at all, and now like running through treacle.

Nothing to do with my set up - nothing's changed, and no virii, dodgy downloads or spyware - just water in the wires I guess.

Happens periodically. Really irritates me and then goes back to normal. I always threaten to move from Pipex (been with them years), but frankly too much trouble. It may well not be them anyway. Probably some hoodie sticking a screwdriver in an junction box somewhere. Bah.

Still no iPhone

Rang the O2 shop in Cardiff today to see if there's any sign of my iPhone. Apparently it's still "with the agent" whatever that means.

Centro's going all right, and I love using the SMS app again, but I miss HTML email, Twitterific and Newsstand RSS reader.

Palm Pre will we ever see it?

Do you remember the Palm "Foleo", the companion notebook to Palm smartphones that never actually made it into the real world?

I'd forgotten all about it until I read a post on a forum about the Palm Pre today which made me chuckle.

You've got to remember that although the Pre was announced what seems like months ago now, the best we've got in terms of it actually being available is probably Quarter 2 2009 - i.e. any time between April and the end of June - unless of course they mean the financial year quarter 2, in which case it could be any time between July and September!

Anyhow, this post simply said, "Will the Pre be compatible with the Foleo?"

If you don't follow this sort of thing, it wouldn't mean much, but I thought it was a brilliantly funny post, and actually made me laugh out loud.

Of course, as an interesting follow up, Palm ditched the Foleo, and within months (or so it seemed) the world started going crazy over a small, solid state machine called the Eee. Opportunity lost? Wouldn't be the first time Palm, would it?