Road repairs

I bet the Vale of Glamorgan Council are just loving this arctic weather (apart from their worries about grit supplies of course, oh, and that they can't collect refuse and recycling). Apart from anything else it gives them an excuse about the state of the roads, with all this freezing weather creating more and more potholes etc.

Actually, I wrote to them weeks before Christmas, in an act that my son saw as confirmation that I've turned into a proper grumpy old git of Victor Meldrew proportions (I knew that years ago).

There's a short stretch of road between Barry and Dinas Powys - the A4055 - which carries a large amount of traffic. The road isn't great, but it's not the worst surface I've ever travelled on. Anyway, back in the autumn, a few small holes had appeared, and the council in their wisdom decided to resurface the road. Now this wasn't proper warts and all resurface, it was a "top dressing". You know, chuck down a bit of tar, stick some gravelly stuff on it, stick up a few "Loose Chippings" signs, and every-thing's ticketyboo.

Except it wasn't. Within a couple of weeks, this dressed surface had started to fall apart, and as we moved towards Christmas it became quite shocking. As a law abiding tax payer of the area, I felt justified in writing to said council to complain. A couple of days later I got a phone call from someone who understood I wanted to complain about the pot-holes in the street where I live. "No" I said patiently, and gave them the story. They said "Oh, not my department we'll get someone to get back to you" or words to that effect. Needless to say, no one ever did.

Now, after the weather we've had over the last few weeks, the road's gone from shocking to appalling.

Quite how the council can justify spending whatever they did on it, for it to be 20 times worse within a couple of months is quite beyond me. Poor weather aside, the initial job was clearly way sub-standard, and it really pisses me off that they don't seem to have to answer for it.

If anyone from the VOGC is listening, or reading (not much chance I guess, they're all out gritting (ha ha)), perhaps they'd like to give me a rebate on my council tax.

FA Cup: Bristol City 1-1 City: Late goal conceded again

Cardiff City do it again. Having had the better of a snowy encounter at Bristol City, they took a lead through Michael Chopra's great strike from the wing after their 'keeper had mucked up a clearance, only for the Bluebirds to concede yet another late equaliser - this time 2 minutes into the 4 added by the ref.

Ok, so it was a better performance all round, and we're still in the competition, but it's so absolutely gutting to lose late goals. I've lost count of the times we've done that this season, but it's a lot.

When are we going to learn to close out a game? To "win ugly" as the pundits like to say these days.

Oh well, let's bring them back to CCS and stuff them here.

Up the City

Cardiff City takeover in the offing?

As with many news stories, I'm not sure how much to read into this story appearing on the BBC website, but the prospect of a multi-million pound takeover of Cardiff City by some "American billionaire investors" is at least encouraging

As is customary in matters like these, there's virtually no detail available to Joe Public yet. Representatives were supposedly at City's match against Blackpool yesterday - they'd have been impressed by the on field events and fans reaction to recent financial scare stories then, and have probably gone scurrying back across the pond advising to steer well clear!

But let's hope there's something in here. Unless things are far worse than we are led to believe, a £40m investment would clear our debts and leave room for money for Dave Jones to spend.

C'mon City!

Gadgets I don't want. What about you?

Despite my love of gadgets and computer things in general, there are some thing that leave me pretty cold.

I've never been able to get into the whole e-book thing. I've tried, both on my iPhone, and before that on my Palm Centro. Now I agree that the Centro with it's small screen is probably not the most intuitive device to read e-books on, but it is possible, and I have done it.

The iPhone is obviously more suited to this, and I do have eReader installed in the device, with several books on it, but I just don't use it. I'd much rather have a real book in my hand/bag, despite the fact that it's another thing to carry around and I could get hundreds of books on my iPhone (if I wanted).

Thus, devices such as the Kindle and Sony's e-reader leave me stone cold, and I really have no desire to own or use one. Maybe it'll change in time, but give me a proper book with real paper any day. For me a book is more than just the content, it's an whole tactile experience.

The other thing doing the rounds at the moment is wild speculation about Apple's "tablet" device. I've never used a tablet PC, though I've seen some used by others. It may be the way of the future, and who knows, if Apple get their act together, they of all people will probably do it well, but for me at the moment a notebook like my Macbook Pro and a smartphone provide me with the mobile computing I need. I really don't hanker after a tablet device - yet.

Having said that, I can remember a time when the first proper smartphones started appearing, and I wondered who on earth would want to try and cram a computing experience into a phone. And now here I am, a smartphone evangelist!

Are you a gadget person who has seen gadgets that don't interest you?

Customer service - not here sir

We've just come back from an afternoon out in Cardiff with friends. We went to the panto, an annual trip for us - this year it was the John Barrowman Show, sorry I mean Robin Hood starring John Barrowman. Actually, the show, and John Barrowman were both very good.

Afer the show, as is our custom we went for a meal in town. Town (as we call Cardiff) was pretty quiet, and the pub/restaurant we went into was apparently entirely empty when we walked in apart from one couple who were already eating.

We were seated, ordered drinks which came after about 5 min, and then ordered our food. Slowly, the place began to get slightly busier. However, after about 45m the waitress came up and said that they had a party in the upstairs function room who had come in at 2pm (we arrived at about 3:40pm) and who had ordered late, and they'd only just finished cooking their food and were starting ours, and apologised for the delay.

We were a bit miffed as they'd given no indication when we arrived that there would be a delay (or else we'd have gone elsewhere). Anyway, we stuck with it as she said our food was now being cooked.

About half an hour later, after three other tables who had arrived after us had received their food we tackled the waitress again who said it had been quicker to serve other smaller parties - there being 9 of us. Eh? since when does the size of the party dictate when you get your food?

We were just about to walk out, but they muttered something about discount and that our food was just being plated.

Shortly after the food arrived. Whilst is was very nice, it had taken almost an hour and a half to arrive, which clearly hadn't been communicated as a possibility when we'd arrived. Needless to say we were not impressed. A discount on our bill helped, but it was a bit of a sour end to what otherwise had been a nice afternoon.

Customer service, and good communication doesn't cost much.

City - The other side of the story

This link to the BBC website has a video of Dave Jones reaction to yesterday's match. Whilst the things he says mitigate certain areas that I was moaning about yesterday, I still believe he's wrong in his assertion that the crowd were booing the players. They're not. They're booing the administration who can't, or just more likely won't give an open and honest appraisal of the things that are going on behind the scenes, especially in relation to the club finances.

All that happens then, is, that those fans who pay good money to follow City are left with speculation and rumour from 1) the South Wales Echo (who's reporting I'd trust about as far as I could throw Dave Jones) and those fans who reckon they've got an inside track to "important" people in the know at City, and usually haven't.

Please just tell us what's going on.

By the way, and as a way of supporting what I've just said, the rumours I heard yesterday at the match that Jay Bothroyd had gone to Aston Villa appear wide of the mark. Dave Jones says he's unwell.

Up the City!

[iNews] Rumor: Will Apple add a camera flash to the iPhone?

From TUAW. As someone who may well upgrade from an iPhone 3G to the 4th gen iPhone (if there is one) in the summer, this is interesting and welcome.

Isn't competition wonderful? Apple Insider is citing a well-placed source saying Apple is grabbing significant quantities of LED flash devices for use in the iPhone -- possibly for the iPod touch as well, if Apple decides to add a camera to that product.

"People familiar with Apple's initiative claim the electronics maker is seeking allotments of LED camera flash components in the tens of millions for delivery during the 2010 calendar year, meaning future iPhones -- and possibly the iPod touch -- are the most likely recipients of those parts, due to their sales volume. Those same people say that Philips' Lumileds Lighting sector is believed to be the front-runner for Apple's business and may have already secured the design win. "

Other reports say Apple has placed an order with Omnivision Technologies for 5 megapixel camera sensors. The current 3.2 megapixel Apple currently offers is looking a bit stale in light of 5 MP chips on some of the newer Android phones. I wouldn't be surprised to see multi-tasking finally make it to the iPhone in an upcoming iteration as well.

While Apple has a top selling smartphone, the competition will certainly push Apple into adding more features to keep a dominant position. Google Voice and Google Navigation anyone?

More disappintment: City 1-1 Blackpool

I sometimes wonder if those on the "inside" of football live on the same planet as the rest of the world generally, and fans in particular.

Take today, City after a bad loss on Boxing day to Plymouth, and THAT game against Peterboro took on Blackpool on a horrific day. Freezing temperatures and ice still saw over 19,000 fans, including a travelling support from Blackpool watch one of the few games on in the League programme today.

City were missing Jay Bothroyd from the team sheet, with no explanation (has he gone somewhere?), and Chopra on the bench for McCormack, and young Josh Magennis leading the line. They went ahead after just 9 minutes via Mark Hudons's header from a corner. Magennis was winning everything that came his way until he went off with a suspected broken leg (the ref gave a throw in for that tackle).

With the average height in City's midfield and forward line reduced to about 3ft 6in after Magennis's injury it was always going to be tough.

Blackpool equalised after 28 seconds of the second half, and piled on the pressure. City faltered, and looked most likely to concede again. When McCormack was substituted the fans sang "You don't know what you're doing" to Dave Jones, even though his replacement, Chopra was greeted enthusiastically. To be fair, I didn't think McCormack had played that well anyway, but others obviously thought differently.

The other song the fans sung (me included) when we were roundly under the cosh was "where's the money gone?" I like about 10,000 others have already signed up for the 2010/11 season ticket in what was widely seen as an attempt to give Dave Jones around £3m to spend in the January transfer window. However, City face a £2.7m tax bill to be paid by the end of this month, as well as carrying around another £20m in debts. I would be most displeased if money I've paid to the club 7 months before I needed to, to help the club fight promotion was used to pay the bloody tax man!

Anyway, back to the match, or rather the post match press conference, where Dave Jones allegedly said amongst other things, Supporters are entitled to boo and cheer but I've said before that I don't understand booing your own players."

Hasn't he twigged? We're not booing the players (much). We're booing him.

Up the City.

next up Bristol City on Tuesday in the re-arranged FA Cup match. My money's on a second postponement. If Bristol's pitch was frozen last weekend, it'll be frozen on Tuesday night.

Installing a printer - Apple vs Microsoft. Which is easier?

My new Canon Pixma MP560 wireless all in one printer arrived today. £90 for a current wireless 5 ink duplex printer, scanner, copier is an absolute steal in my book.

The Amazon box was HUGE, and had me worried that the given dimensions were a bit iffy. Thankfully, the actual printer box was significantly smaller, and doesn't take up much more of a footprint than my outgoing HP Deskjet940c.

The manuals (a proper manual plus a network setup manual) are massive. The main manual is about an inch thick!

I first set it up for my main Win 7 desktop. It was very odd setting up a wireless printer, with the only lead being a power lead, but setup was a breeze once I'd unpacked the very well packaged unit.

Software install was painless, and less than 20 mins after opening the delivery box, I was holding a vibrant colour document in my hands, printed over the air. Superb.

I then turned to my Macbook Pro. Several of the Amazon customer reviews had mentioned whilst this printer does work with OSX/Snow Leopard, setup could be fiddly. Maybe it's my relative lack of experience with a Mac, but I can only agree. Having already set up the printer to me wireless network, all (!) I had to do was install the software and off you go. Yeah.

It took me over an hour and a half, much Googling, two downloads and a tip off one of the Amazon customer reviews for this device to get it working, but get there I did.

To save anyone else having the same trouble, the key is the following, and I thank a certain M Wrycraft from London who thankfully posted the following on the Amazon site.

The Mac installation was not so fine. Everything looked ok until printer registration (via the network of course) and OSX failed to find it. I suspect a few people will find this as the CD software is not the latest version and does not support 10.6. However a search on the Canon support found the software (you need the CUPS driver for printing and the ica driver for scanning). Once quickly installed (note: just complete the rest of the setup first then install these 2 drivers after), I could then add the printer and scanning using the normal System Preferences method. After that printing and scanning were fine.
So, far from perfect but at least there is an answer.

So there you have it. It's working on W7 and Mac. I have to say that my first impressions (Mac installation aside) are fabulous. It's a good looking bit of kit. It can sit virtually flush against a wall, has a neat on-board user interface, can print both sides, has 5 separate ink cartridges so you don't waste (much) expensive ink. It's wireless, so doesn't have to sit on your desk or even in the same room - I happily printed from downstairs to the unit which is up in our "study". There's a bottom paper tray and photo paper feeds from the top rear. The output tray door automatically drops gently open when a print job starts to give it that slight "mystic" appeal. The scanner driver looks very capable and above all, it seems to give very good results.

I'm very happy with this purchase, and would recommend it even on one evening's use.

UPDATE:
I've just printed my first photo on one of the supplied freebie Canon photoglossy papers, and I have to say, the output is absolutely stunning. Bear in mind my HP Deskjet was at least 6-7 years old, so not exactly cutting edge, but still printed photos OK (ish) - not that I printed many, but this is hard to distinguish from a real print. I'm really gobsmacked by how good this unit is.

Wow! Frozen Britain

This is impressive

How much?

News stories are saying that demand for gas will reach a new high today, with usage reaching 455.3 million cubic metres due tot the cold "snap".

All I know is, that's a lot. But I have absolutely no idea what that means in reality. How much is four hundred and fifty-five point three million cubic metres? Can anyone describe to me in anything like approaching normal language, how much that is? Is is a Wembley sized amount? Ten Wembleys? 50 Millennium Stadiums worth?

And that's one day's worth?

It would be that more practical description that might make me (and others) realise just what an impact man is having on our planet. I just can't comprehend it in the language that journos like to adopt, presumably (apart from the actual facts of the matter) in an attempt to make it sound big.

Yes it's big, but how big? That's what I want to know.

Stick it to the Saffers

Yet another cracking end to a test match against the South Africans, with England clinging on the "win the draw" as it was humerously stated on the BBC text commentary earlier.

I'm sure there are those out there who aren't in the least bit interested in cricket, but that's your loss. To have a 5 day match that goes down to the final ball, with the chance of either side winning is fantastic.

To see England tough it out when everyone thought they'd roll over was great, but to to see the exasperation of the South Africans for the second time in three matches fail to prise out Englands no 11, Graham "The President" Onions in the final overs was even better.

South Africa probably think they played the better cricket in both those matches, but the whole point of test cricket isn't just about biffing the ball to all parts (apart from in Twenty20 perhaps), but about a tactical, strategic game full of twists and turns, and yes, sometimes the need to fight a rearguard action against all the odds, and where a draw really does sometimes feel like a win.

Now, instead of the series being level at 1-1 with SA tails up, England go to Johannesburg next week for the final rubber of the series knowing they can't lose the series, and the Saffers knowing they've failed to win two matches out of the last three they should have done with ease.

Great game, great result.

Thanks to BBC Sport website for piccie

Check this blog out

I've been following a chap on Twitter who goes by the moniker of @Gag_Halfrunt, who runs a blog called Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. If you're a Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy fan, you may be familiar with Gag Halfrunt and Wowbagger, otherwise I'd suggest checking out Wikipedia - it's too complicated to explain here!

Anyhow, Peter as he's also known runs this blog which seems to be to be a bit about life, the universe and everything, which probably explains his pseudonyms.

I've found it an entertaining read. Worth checking out

Printer

Slightly disappointed today not to receive my new printer.

According to Amazon's package tracker it left Amazon's warehouse in the early hours of 5th Jan, and by 11.27pm on 6th had arrived at the carriers Cardiff depot having gone via a depot in Droitwich. I was therefore hoping it would the final short hop from the Cardiff depot to my workplace today, but sadly it wasn't to be.

I guess I can blame the weather. It's pretty ropey still around South Wales. Fingers crossed it arrives tomorrow.

At last - a decent todo app for the iPhone?

My chum Murray over at Palm-Mac recently posted about a new todo app called "2Do" which caught my attention.

Ever since getting the iPhone more than a year ago, I'e really struggled to find a todo app that I liked and fitted my fairly modest requirements.

I'm not a student of the "getting things done" (or GTD) brigade, I don't particularly want enormous power in a todo app. I just want to be able to list todo's, perhaps categorise them, and importantly set an alert based on a time. This seems to be the really hard thing to find. Most of the todo apps I've tried can do all of the above bus generally the actual todo is given a date on which it should be done, sometimes a time but rarely an audible alert. I'm sure there must be apps out there that do that, and no doubt someone somewhere will point that out to me.

Anyway, as a result I've taken to putting all my todos that are important enough to require a reminder into my calendar as an event. In many ways this has sufficed, and I haven't really missed not having a todo app (actually I do have one - Appigo's ToDo which incidentally does have the ability to put a time, but not an alert. I've never really got on with it though for some reason). However, Murray's post asa I say caught my eye, and for the same reason the app caught his eye - it's a really nice interface. Now a nice interface does not a great app make in isolation, but it's hardly expensive at £3.49 so I'm giving it a shot.

Iphone tips

I've had my iPhone for just over a year now, and love it just as much now as I did when I originally opened the box.

I've found all sorts of tips when flicking around the Internet, but tonight came across a blog where a post of a year ago lists a number of tips that I'd either forgotten about, or, in a couple of cases didn't know about. D'oh. Some of the tips aren't tips as such as the blindingly obvious, but a couple are really useful, like changing the dock icons in the iPod mode, or using accented characters.

The post is on a blog called "Reality Distortion - A blog about macs and that" which I hadn't come across before.

The Magic of the Cup

Well City's postponed match against Bristol City will be replayed next Tuesday - assuming the thaw's set in by then. Assuming we can get past the wurzels a glamour tie against Leicester (joke - sorry Foxes fans) awaits.

Looking back at the weekend, much as I don't like Leeds (odd as I once supported them as a spotty youth), I was please to see them dump Man Utd out of the cup. In fact I'd have been pleased to see anyone dump MU out. Not because I hate MU, but because every year deserves at least one big upset, and this was certainly as good as us beating Leeds when they were top of the Premiership back in 2002.

I particularly enjoyed Sir Alex having to find excuses like moaning about the fact that the ref had "only" allowed five minutes of added time. I bet if the boot had been on the other foot he would have been moaning about that too.

Anyway, lets hope we can get past both Bristol and Leicester - not a forgone conclusion given our recent form - and pick up our own big tie. Have to be Hull then (another joke).

Up the City!

Printer update

A couple of posts ago I was on about getting a new printer, Canon's all in one Pixma MP560. Well, I've gone and done it, as Amazon have it available at a remarkable £90 and if you can live with a 3-4 day delivery period (I can), free delivery. That's £30 cheaper than Comet/PC World which is a bit of a steal.

Chuck in the fact I bought it on Amazon via easyfundraising.org where I've registered my Cricket Club "Dinas Powys Cricket Club" as my "cause", and I've also raised 2.5% of the purchase price for the cricket club!

Win, win!

A bit cold then

So it's been a bit nippy then. Coldest winter for 30 years or so apparently. Pretty at times - this picture is of my wife Anne and daughter Bethan on the Sugarloaf mountain near Abergavenny in South Wales on New Years Day.

However, if you're not out enjoying it, you're probably one of the rest of the millions in the country in gridlock because we've had an inch and a quarter of snow and the temperature's drooped below freezing.

It never ceases to amaze me how inept the British are at coping. Despite out stiff upper lips, and alleged never say die attitude, it only takes a snowfall, a heatwave, three weeks without rain and so on, for the country to go into meltdown. It's either too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry. It's never OK.

Admittedly, that's a very broadbrush view. It has been colder than normal, but bloody hell, it's winter isn't it? And some cope better than others. The Scots, or those in Scotland. My brother who lives near Perth is just fed up of it, but the fact he's got 3 ft of snow piled up on the side of the road isn't stopping him and his family going about their daily basis. Here in Cardiff, half an inch and the city shuts down.

Still, better brace for some more - today's weather forecast suggests we're in for further cold weather (a balmy -5 today) and a deal more snow on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

It's just a shame I'm back at work. No doubt the kids school will shut, and they'll have all the fun sledging!

2010 shiny gadgets

New year. Must be time to start thinking about new kit. First on the list is a new printer. My old HP Deskjet 940c has provided stirling service for many a year - I think it was bought in about 2002 - maybe even earlier, and it's still going OK ish. However, it's not compatible with my Macbook Pro. Although the Mac can recognise it, it hasn't got a native driver that will work with Snow Leopard, and therefore it only works with it's gutenprint drivers. This at least allows me to print but, doesn't give any access to the device properties. Consequently, the only options available via the Mac is "print". No draft, no fiddling with orientation, etc. That's not good enough for me.

Additionally, I have an old flatbed scanner that now no longer works with my Windows 7 installations. It worked under XP, but not with Vista, and W7 has finally done for it.

The obvious solution therefore is an all in one printer/scanner/copier, and preferably one with wireless capability. Digging around various reviews, including my favourite PC Pro A List the one that stands out is Canon's Pixma MP640. However, it's not cheap, and apparently, not always easy to source. The MP560 variant though (which doesn't have CD/DVD print capability, which doesn't bother me), is available for about £100, getting on for £40 cheaper than the 640. Reviews are equally impressive. I'm very tempted, so I'll have a look around for the best price.

Was that it?

Well there you go. Blink and you miss it. Another year, another 365 days has whizzed past in the twinkling of an eye.

How was it for you? It's been OK at Chez Statto. Nothing remarkable (aprt from me notching my 50th birthday, but that's been coming for, ooh, fifty years or so)

It is scary how quickly the year passes by though, and it seems to get even faster as you get older.

Anyway, it's done and dusted, and time to look forward to 2010 - the start of the "one-ders".

Have a good one wherever you are - don't drink too much - just enough to get merry, and I'll see you all next year!

City

I've had 24 hours to reflect on the yesterday's match, but I'm still fuming.

How can a side so totally dominate an opening half, be four nil up at the break and then throw it all away in 45 minutes of madness?

Who do you blame? The players? The manager? Both?

Dave Jones, hardly the most demonstrative of managers at the best of times said in his post match interview that the players had let the fans, and themselves down. He parried a question about an injury to Jay Bothroyd basically saying he didn't care at that moment and he needed a day to think about it all.

When questioned as to why he hadn't changed the system to adopt a more defensive approach in the second half, he said they (the opposition) hadn't changed anything apart from taking off a big centre back and putting a smaller one on so there was no need to change anything.

This is preposterous. It was clear to everyone else in the world (okay anyone watching or listening), that Peterboro were giving it all, so to go to 4-5-1 from his set in stone 4-4-2 was the obvious thing to do. The fans were saying it on the message board, the punters were saying it on the radio, but no, DJ knows best and 4-4-2 is the only way in his book.

He has a fair amount of detractors who say he is tactically tunnel visioned, and this rather sums that up.

Those who defend him say (amongst other things)

1. He got us to a Cup Final
2. We weren't berating him when we were 4-0 up at half time

OK, let's look at those two examples.

To get to the Cup final, we beat Chasetown, Hereford, Wolves, Middlesborough, and Barnsley. No disrespect to any of those sides, but none of them are top drawer, and only one (Middlesborough) a Premiership side at at the time, and a pretty poor one at that. Oh, and we lost that final to an equally poor Portsmouth.

And what about being 4-0 up at half time yesterday? Well, hurrah. So we should have been. When we play football it is inspiring, and after having (and failing to score with) 27 (yes, twenty-seven) attempts v Plymouth on Boxing, we must have been due to get one in the net. But it's not just about scoring is it? It's also about keeping the opposition out, and that's where we're not very good. In the first half we outplayed them and scored four. In the second half they outplayed us and we were crap. Didn't defend well, gave the ball away, thought the job was done.

So where do we go from here? Jones is talking about player movement in January. Hmmm. We aint got much money, even though I've signed up for next year already (that Premiership season ticket refund deal is looking a safe bet for the City money boys at the moment).

There are clearly some players who just don't cut the mustard. Paul Quinn has been poor since his arrival. Solomon Taiwo who came from Dagenham looks equally inept at this level, thoguh hasn't really had much of a chance. Why we turned down £6m for Joe Ledley last season is beyond my comprehension. I love Chops to bits, but his goals and therefore confidence have evaporated. Bothroyd is great 80% of the time and looks like he can't be arsed 20% of the time. Hudson our skipper is about as fast as me - if he was quicker he'd be OK.

So some will go, and some will come in, but don't expect any "stars".

And Dave Jones? My guess is he'll stay. Many are calling for his head, especially after yesterday. I've generally defended him, but my faith is waning and I'm beginning to think he's done all he can at Cardiff, but I can't see us giving him the chop - for a start we can't afford it.

So let's soldier on. Automatic promotion is already beginning to look a long way off, but we're still 5th and a playoff place at least should be nailed on (famous last words). A good Cup run too wouldn't go amiss, starting with Bristol City on 2nd Jan - first ever FA Cup match shown exclusively live on the internet by the way.

Let's just not give away any more 4 goal leads....

City throw it away: Peterborough 4 - 4 City

Well if I thought Boxing Day against Plymouth was bad, this takes the biscuit. I'm so annoyed this will be very brief.

City were 4-0 at half time against bottom club Peterborough, but managed to throw it away and end up drawing 4-4 at the final whistle.

Gutted.

So, two back to back matches against the two bottom sides in the division and we lose 0-1 and throw away a 4 goal lead in the other.

And we think we're Premiership quality. Do me a favour.

Software unlocking - how mad is this?

I've just bought and downloaded a version of Pinnacle's Studio video editing software - software I've used in the past but am now several versions behind on.

I've done this ostensibly because I've got a new digital video camera for Christmas. I downloaded the 2.6 gig file and installed it and then imported some footage from my new camera, which stores video in MP4 format. Despite having registered and entered the software key, the system then required me to undertake a further online activation to enable me to deal with MP£, DivX, MP4 and H.264 files.

Why?

Why not just unlock the ability to process those files by default? There's no extra cost. Seems completely stupid to me.

No festive cheer: City 0 - Plymouth 1

You just knew it was going to happen. City's record against bottom of the table clubs isn't great and nor is their Boxing Day record - no win in 10 years and after spurning a host of chances throughout the match against a very poor Plymouth side, the visitors snatched a late goal that saw them to victory.

Chopra without a goal in 10 should have scored at least two, Hudson missed a sitter and had a header superbly saved, and Whittingham and Bothroyd were also profligate.

Plymouth should have been down to 10 men just before the break, when Rory Fallon, already cautioned, clattered McNaughton, but the referee, Mr Gibbs, bottled the decision much to the chagrin of most of the 24,000 crowd.

You sensed then that this wasn't going to be City's day, and on 84 minutes, Paul Quin who'd had a pretty dire game anyway flailed at a clearance on the edge of the box that only pushed the ball 2 metres towards an opponent, who's shot deflected off a defender and gave keeper Marshall no chance.

Dave Jones immediately substituted Quinn, perhaps making a point, but it was all in vain as City again struggled to impose against lowly opposition.

No promotion at this rate. Must do better against Peterborough in two days time.

Merry Christmas

Well that's me done for another year. Finished work today, and not back in until 4th January 2010!

It's been a busy year in work, and at home, with me getting my first year as cricket club chairman under my belt. I had no idea how much time that was going to take up!

I feel ready for a break now, and it's great that we're all home over the festive period, although my good lady has to go in for a couple of days between Christmas & the New Year to keep the wheels of the NHS turning.

Anyway dear reader, I wish you a very Merry Christmas, wherever you are and whomever you are with. I hope you have a good one and that Father Christmas and 2010 brings you and yours what you desire.

Free football? Maybe...

Cardiff City have been fairly creative with season ticket selling (as most clubs have been perhaps), and this time they've come up with another idea.

If you buy the 2010/11 season ticket (yes next season's) before the end of December, they will guarantee no price rise for the next 5 seasons, irrespective of where City are playing. Given that it's highly unlikely that prices would fall, but very likely that they'd go up, this seems like a no lose scenario. Mini-Stats next year's ticket is only £49 as an under 16 anyway, which outstanding value.

Additionally, for the first 10,000 that sign up, there's an added bonus. If, and of course it's a big if, City are promoted to the Premiership this term, those 10,000 will get a full refund on next seasons ticket, meaning in effect that you get to watch City in the Premiership for free!!!!

Add in the ability to pay in 5 interest free instalments, and you'd be crazy not to do this. I'm not crazy, and I've signed up!

Clearly, the catch is they want our money - or at least the guarantee of it now, but it's worth it if you can afford it now.

Too chilly for City: Match postponed

We've had no snow in South Wales, but it's proven too chilly to play footie. Today's scheduled Championship encounter at the Cardiff City Stadium was called off this morning due to a frozen pitch.

You'd have thought a new stadium would have things in place to prevent the pitch freezing, and so they have, but it's not been fully commissioned - would it have been too much to ask to get it done before the cold winter weather? It has been bloody cold here - down to minus 4 overnight, so perhaps not surprising, but disappointing nonetheless.

Are you happy with your kit?

A few of my cyberworld acquaintances have been getting through smartphone devices at a rate of knots recently. Murray over at Palm Mac seems particularly restless of late, and can't seem to find his ideal device, and Gavin one of the PDA247 regulars is equally, if not perhaps a touch more hard to please. Between them I reckon they've gone through about 5 devices in the last few weeks.

Murray I think is looking likely to go down the two device route, as he's getting an iPod Touch for Christmas (I think). His current latest phone, a Nokia E72 as I suspected it would is proving good in form factor but not so great in the OS stakes.

Personally, and luckily for me, I don't have any real desire to move from the iPhone 3G at present. I'm very happy with the device, and it does pretty much everything I want to, in a way that suits my use. My contract runs until May 2010 and at the moment, I'd be quite happy either to keep the 3G device or upgrade to a 3GS if the costs are the same. Of course, by then, we'll probably know whether there's a 4th gen iPhone on it's way, and if Apple follow form, that'll be shipping around July, so it might well be worth my while holding on for a couple of months.

Quiet times

There's not much happening at Chez Statto currently, other than the inevitable build up to Christmas, so I haven't posted much of late.

No doubt once Santa has visited there'll be shiny gadget news to post (I hope), but until then, I can't see much to report about.

I managed to wipe my daughter's iPod touch a few days ago - I think because it hadn't been synced with a PC since I upgraded to Windows 7 and pressed "Erase and sync" when prompted after I plugged it in.

I've also just done exactly the same bloody thing with my iPhone on my Mac, but thankfully it only wiped the music not the apps, so re-syncing my tunes wasn't very painful!

I'm also trying our Garage Band's ability to make ringtones, and that's proving remarkably straightforward

Another good win. Boro 0-1 City

Another great but hard earned win for City today at the Riverside. Ironically, we listened to the match on the radio in the car on the way back from Middlesborough where we'd been for a christening this morning.
Sadly our timings didn't allow us the opportunity to get to the match.

It sounded like Boro had much of the play but couldn't finish, whilst City, joint top scorers in the Championshiop couldn't fashion many chances either. In the end, it took a freak goal, Chris Burke's 30 yard free kick into the box evading everyone including defenders and 'keeper.

Worryingly, Peter Whittingham limped off injured, McNaughton didn't last the 90 and Kelvin Etuhu, who came on for Whitts in the first half, was himself subbed late on.

Nevertheless, after a torrid November, City have put 3 back to back wins together, two of which were away at West Brom and Boro. They are massive wins and will make the dressing room a happy place.

C'mon City1

Christmas is coming...

Well, the old Christmas tree has gone up today. I bought it at the weekend, and my daughter has been nagging me every day since to put it up. Although I don't mind putting the outside lights up early, getting the tree up too early isn't what I like to do, but tonight I relented.

The cat (a 4 month old kitten) likes it. She's been an absolute nightmare all evening pawing at the decorations, chewing the branches and generally making a nuisance of herself. I'm sure she can't help it but it's hard work keeping her away from it.

So, a few weeks with a tree in the living room. Bizarre, but there we have it.

Massive win: WBA 0-2 City

City travelled to the Hawthorns this evening without a win there in many a year, and despite a win last Saturday, far from in their best form of the season. It was always going to be tough against a side many expect to bounce straight back into the Premiership.

But City won, and in the end won handsomely by two goals to nil against the Baggies. Chris Burke opened the scoring on 18 minutes following his stunning goal on Saturday with another raking left foot shot from outside the box.

The Baggies piled on the pressure early in the second period, before a significant point on 81 minutes when WBA 'keeper Scott Carson was sent off for violent conduct. After the inevitable substitution, new 'keeper Dean Kiely saved Whittingham's penalty, but he made amends with the rebound to seal the points.

This is a massive win for the Bluebirds. It's not just the three points, but three points against the second placed side, a side fancied to go up automatically, and it should instill a huge amount of confidence into a side that has been sorely lacking that in recent weeks.

Another big match on Saturday, when they travel to Middlesborough. Let's hope they can pull off a similar result there.

Up the City!

The Crap Blog Detective: Crap?

I don't know whether to be honoured or offended.

An anonymous individual, going by the the pseudonym of "The Crap Bog Detective" has left a comment on a previous post suggesting that if I didn't blog any more the world would be a better place, or words to that effect.

Having had a quick peek - and that's all, at his blog where it seems his only intent is to slag other people off and see what sort of a reaction it gets, can't say I'm overly bothered by his comments. I'm not either going to bow so low as to delete his comment. It's a free world after all.

If people don't want to read my blog that's fine by me. I certainly won't be joining the throngs (well 24) followers of his blog.

Any DIY astronauts with a few bob going spare?

How's about this then? Fancy being propelled (sic) into space by Virgin? Richard Branson's dream of bringing space flight to the masses (or very rich and famous more like - it's only 6 at a time) comes a step nearer.

This BBC article tells you more. Who's first?

Packaging

I've purchased a couple of items from Amazon recently and been disappointed by the packaging (or not) that the item came.

To be fair to Amazon I suppose, these were sellers selling though Amazon, not Amazon itself, but as the customer, to me it's one and the same thing.

The first item was one of these wind proof lighters. I wasn't expecting any velvet box or anything, but I wasn't expecting it just to be shoved loose into a jiffy bag with the small paper instructions also loose in said jiffy swirling around together.

I've also has an 8GB SD card arrive in exactly the same way today - loose in the jiffy bag. No plastic case for the card or anything. I appreciate that online retailers don't have the overheads of high street retailers, and don't need fancy showcase boxes, but not even a plastic cover for an SD card? Where do they get them from? Do they come in a job lot via a tipper truck an just get piled onto a warehouse floor? Maybe they do.

Website move complete

I've now completed the migration of my cricket club's website from my own ISP free webspace and built in Serif's WebPlus, to a Google Sites website. Everything has gone OK, and I'm quite pleased with the results.

Next step is to set up some other people in the club who can edit it, so everything's not entirely reliant on me.

You can checkout how it all looks at www.dinaspowys.co.uk

Getting better: City 1-0 Preston

Despite alleged strong words and hard work on the training ground, much of the first half of this match had echoes of last week's disaster against Ipswich. Dave Jones made several changes, including altering 75% of the back line from last week.

The first half was very scrappy with few fluent passages of play from either side, although City looked most likely to score. Chopra and Bothroyd both let decent chances go astray.

The second half was a different story though. Gerrard went down after a clash with fellow defender McNaughton and went off for stitches - whilst he was off, City went one up courtesy of a great strike from Chris Burke. Gerrard didn't return, Kennedy replacing him, and then Jones swapped Chopra for McCormack. Chops has looked out of sorts - no goals isn't helping, but when Ledley limped off injured, that sub looked to be a luxury City needed to hang on to. With all three subs made, but a goal up, City were playing the best football they've done for a while, playing with pace and width. Preston were admittedly chasing the game by now, but City unlike several recent performances hung on for the win and a valuable three points.. Two away games now, so perhaps less crowd pressure. C'mon City, let's get a run going.

Up the City!

Mac update

Time for an update on my venture into the world of all things Mac.

So far, it's all going swimmingly well with a few exceptions. I'm getting used to the Macbook Pro which I find to be a very nice machine. That multi-touch trackpad is just a dream to use and I never miss a mouse

Currently my main uses are email, browsing, some (albeit limited) wordprocessing, some minor spreadsheet work, Twittering and updating my Google Sites cricket club web pages. In many ways I guess it's being used like an expensive netbook, but I'm cool with that.

Other than the trackpad, the bonuses for me are a great battery life, a superb screen and virtually no noise operation - fan is almost inaudible, keys are quiet and you almost never hear the hard disk. I still drool and dribble over the design, and luckily, being aluminium that's easy to wipe off.

The ability to connect and write as well as read my NTFS formatted external drive is a boon too - not sure where that came from, but it appears Snow Leopard may have that ability hidden away but not publicised very well. The web is full of people saying they can't without some dark magic, but I can and I'm very glad of it.

There are a couple of things I haven't yet managed to get to grips with, but I suspect that's a matter of time/use.

I need to spend some time with the iWork suite. I'm sure Pages (wordprocessor) has a lot to offer, I just wish I could get it to save to Word format by default - maybe it's possible, I just haven't found the setting yet. NeoOffice can.

I've tried editing some photos in iPhoto without too much joy. I've also download the GIMP, but that looks like it could be overkill. I've got a £50 voucher from my birthday for the Apple Store (we have one in Cardiff now), and I'm toying with getting Photoshop Elements 8 (I have v2 for Windows and like it a lot). Having said that, I'm not sure the Macbook Pro's 13" screen is designed for lengthy photo editing sessions.

One other thing , coming from a Windows background, I wish screens could open up full screen width. By default most screens open up leaving plenty of room either side of the active window. I don't know why, but that irritates me to hell - again, there might be a setting somewhere that resolves that - either that or I have to learn to live with it.

Having the MBP has also seen me make more of a concerted effort to utilise the "cloud". As I've previously noted, I've started to make far more use of the exceptional Dropbox online storage solution, whilst MobileMe keeps my contacts and calendars and email all nicely synced.

With one of the two websites I manage in the process of being migrated to Google's Sites and the other one heading that way, I'm doing more and more stuff in, and via the "cloud" - and it feels good.

Crap: City 1-2 Ipswich

Well this was an afternoon to forget. Freezing cold, wet and windy, and taking on Roy Keane's Tractor Boys, a match I'd long had down as a potential banana skin.

City looked dire all day sitting off the opposition, lacking movement and, it seemed from where I was sitting any desire or ambition.

Even when they went one up courtesy of Peter Whittingham's 13th strike of the season (he'll be gone come January I reckon), there was still a sense that the game was far from over.

In the second half, City got even worse (if that were possible). Enckleman on for the injured Marshall made some farcical attempts and kicking and throwing the ball out, and it looked only to be a matter of time before Ipswich, who were by now having most of the ball, scored.

And so it was. Despite a couple of late substitutions City couldn't get a grip on the game, and Ipswich wrapped it up with their second shortly before the end.

City were roundly booed off for what was a hapless performance. They'd better buck their ideas up and soon or even a play-off place, let alone automatic promotion will be far beyond them

Wheels, tyres and stuff

Tomorrow I'm going to get my wheel alignment on my car checked out. I had some tyres changed last week, and normally these places "urge" you to have your alignment checked at the same time - this time they didn't.

I had the other pair of tyres done earlier this year, and at the time the alignment was done. The result was that my steering wheel is now off-centre - it looks like I'm constantly turning the wheel to the right slightly just to go in a straight line.

There's no vibration or anything, but there is a constant pull slightly to the left. I seem to be getting through tyres at a rate of knots, and my fuel consumption seems to be dropping slightly, so some-thing's not right.

Hopefully I'll find out tomorrow and hopefully (!) it won't cost too much!

Web site changes - Google to the rescue

As regular readers of this blog will know I manage a couple of web sites. One is the Chepstow Male Voice Choir site (my Dad sings in that choir), and the other is the site for my cricket club, Dinas Powys CC.

Over time I've used - and still do, different software for creating and maintaining these sites. Currently, the choir site is done in an old version of Dreamweaver, and the cricket site in Serif's WebPlus X2 program. Both have their pro's and cons.

Dreamweaver is a far more technical program, although my knowledge of HTML is very sparse, and I use very little of the power of the program remaining pretty much within the wysiwyg part, although I have been known to get my hands dirty with code occasionally.

WebPlus touts itself as a much more user friendly program, hiding most technical stuff right away from the user - it can still be a very powerful program if you put the time and effort in, but as you generally go no-where near code (or need to have any grasp of code) the results can be somewhat crude if you don't take care. To be fair, I've been using Serif products for years - their desktop publishing program PagePlus, WebPlus, DrawPlus and PhotoPlus and always found them to be very good both value wise and capability wise.

Either program though leaves me with some dilemmas.

If I'm not at my desktop I can't edit, update or maintain the sites. Even if I'm using my Macbook I'm stuffed as these are both Windows programs and I haven't installed Windows on the Mac - yet.

The other main problem is that only I can update the sites - they're hosted on my personal web space and I'm the one with the programs and files on my PC.

I need a solution that will allow me to edit the sites from anywhere, on any machine, and ideally allow others to contribute. The solution? Google Sites.

I've been fiddling with the idea of this for a while, but am now taking the plunge and am moving the cricket site over to Google Sites.

There are issues - it's not as flexible as Dreamweaver - or even WebPlus, but what it does, it does well, and more easily in many ways than either of my two current solutions. And of course it's free. I get more space than my personal web space gives me (which might ultimately be a blessing in disguise as hosting these sites has ultimately kept me from moving from Pipex/Tiscali/Carphone Warhouse as an ISP and the service from them is frankly getting more dire by the day).

I can (when I'm ready) move my domain name over so people are still pointing at dinaspowyscc.co.uk. I can allow other people access to edit and maintain (use with caution!!)

Have a look and see what you think.

The current site is at www.dinaspowyscc.co.uk

The new site will be at http://sites.google.com/site/dinaspowyscc

Idea Organizer for iPhone

Saw this on Web Worker Daily today, and it might be a useful app for those iPhone users looking for a basic app to record their ideas/notes whether written, photo or audio based.

Idea Organizer is an app for the iPhone that I recently discovered that makes logging those ideas incredibly easy. There are other ways to do what it does, some via built-in tools offered by Apple itself, but no other solution brings all the features and functionality together in the same place.

If you take lots of simple notes, it may be worth a look.

Sky on demand - on my PC!

One of the things that came as a surprise in Windows 7 was the announcement that it would include a Sky player as part of Media Center - and more excitingly Sky subscribers - such as myself, would be able to access content for free.

Disappointingly, the Sky Player wasn't initially available, but it is now!

This evening, after reading about it in my PC Pro RSS feed, I opened up Media Center and got the update. The player requires you it install Microsoft's Silverlight, a web application framework (no I don't understand it either).

After the update and Silverlight install which took all of about 3 minutes, I logged in to Sky (I already had a registration), and bingo! Live Sky TV on my PC.

I was expecting a few random crappy channels, but no - Sky News, Sky Sports News, Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 and Sports Extra, ESPN, British Eurosprt, Gold, MTV, some kids channels including Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel (please God don't tell my daughter).

Amazing. I tested it out on Sky Sports 1 which is showing the Preston v Newcastle game. Full screen I got some initial buffering messages. The picture quality wasn't bad, but you can choose from High, Medium and Low. I eventually settled for low, and re-sized the pic to about a 5 inch x 3 inch box, and it was highly watchable. The High quality setting suffers from very occasional buffering but the quality is superb, although the buffering did settle after a while. Here you can see it running top right of my screen, with Blogger and Tweetdeck also running.

For info, my broadband connection isn't very fast - I'm supposed to get up to 8meg, but in all the time I've had this I scratch around just over 2meg.

I'm well chuffed with this - especially as it ain't going to cost me any more than my normal Sky sub. If you're not a Sky subscriber, you can still access this, but it'll cost you - £15 a month I think, but better check.

Once I whack this on my other W7 PC, We'll be able to watch Sky on 4 different device in the house. Overkill? Maybe, but very cool.....

Oh, oh...growing up

Reached a big watershed moment today. Went shopping for jeans for Min-Stats, and found the biggest junior ones went up to 14 years. He's 15, and they'd have come half way up his legs!

So over the the adult section, where the smallest sizes are marginally too baggy and too long (but he'll grow into them).

Bizarrely, the biggest junior size we could find would have cost £18. The adult ones.....£9.50. The shop...M&S!

Freshen up

I thought it was about time I gave the blog a bit of a freshen up, so I've smacked a new template on it. Hope you like it. I think it needs a change every now and then to liven it up a bit.

Camcorder suggestions

Ok, next up in the shiny gadget stakes is a replacement camcorder. Currently, I've got two camcorders - a JVC VHS-C model of many years vintage that's about a foot long and half as high, which hasn't been used in anger since about 2003, and a Sony TVR19E Mini DV model of about late 2003 vintage which is still used as our main camcorder.

Intrinsically there's nothing wrong with the Sony. It's relatively compact, I've got an extended battery so I can get 3 hours shooting out of it, and the picture quality aint bad. But it is still heavy if you're carting it about all day. We're off stateside at Easter to the land of the Mouse, and as we'll be on our feet for a fortnight walking around the parks I think it's time to upgrade to one of the newer HDD or flash based compact units like the Samsung F30 pictured at the top of this post. These are barely larger than a compact camera, and are very light, and can easily be slipped into a pocket.

The trouble is, I don't know which one to get. Typically I'm up to my ears in users reviews from Amazon and other sites, and have been trawling the displays in Curry's and Comet. I don't want to spend a fortune - I'm not Steven Spielberg - I want something that I can shoot basic video with, transfer it to my PC (or Mac - and that's not always straightforward looking at reviews because of the format some of these things record in) and edit it and burn the resulting output to DVD for playback on a PC or TV (for those luddites in my family that haven't embraced the digital age).

The Samsung is only about £140 which seems like real value (if it's any good), but I'm also looking at the Panasonic SDR26 units and lower end Canon Legria series.

Has anyone out there got one something like this who can give me some feedback ?

Dull, wet and windy and a last minute loss. Barnsley 1-0 City

Dull wet and windy. And that was the game. The weather not much better.

And to cap it all, City concede in the last 15 seconds of added time. AAAAARGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Not much to say really, and I'm not in the mood, so I won't.

Nuff said.