The main difference is the template, since WordPress.com didn’t have the one I was using. I suppose I lose some control, but I sleep easier at night…

Hope there aren’t too many holes. Let me know if you find some!

Dear Mr Wilcox

In recent months, there has been a steady worsening of the economic environment making it necessary for us to review our customer’s accounts. As part of this review we’ve taken the difficult decision to increase some of our rates.

Is it just me or is that a bit of a non sequitur?

On the reverse side of the letter, a Questions and Answers section includes: “How do I opt out?”. It’s not completely hidden, but it’s not that obvious either.

I’m sure there will be Ts and Cs to this opt out, but I think this is one “difficult decision” that I will also have to take….

First off a few weeks ago I started getting our data backed up via Humyo. Seems pretty competitive on space/price. £5 per month for 100GB. Works in a fairly windows-centric way, and so far all our photos and non-music files are now ‘safely’ synced into the cloud. 10GB for free.

Also trying out Dropbox. Much simpler than Humyo, and nicer interfacing: very web2.0 unlike Humyo which is quite windows-like. $10 per month for 50GB, $20 for 100GB. Is it worth twice the price? 2GB for free as a taster (or 2.25GB if you use my referral link above).

Also enjoying very much Evernote. Much like OneNote in approach, but nicer media options (include audio, images, etc). Works off the web, or via an installed desktop client. A client is also available for many mobiles and the version on my HTC Touch HD works great. Also it OCRs any text it can see in screengrabs or uploaded images – including handwriting! Syncs across all instances and ‘just works’. 40MB upload per month for free.

So, to get this Netbook working – I’m going to install F-Secure, and then see if these various apps will play with Windows 7.

1. Ask via Twitter whether or not this would be a good idea!

Ben was kind enough to suggest that he would willingly let me try first… He was also kind enough  to point me at this helpful starting point

2. Step 1: formatting

Couldn’t find a USB stick with 4GB or more, so decided to use one of our new iomega eGo portable drives. It needed to be formatted as a bootable drive, which requires a quick formatting first. The drive is 320GB, so this has taken up most of the day! I’m following the steps on this article (via the first one).

2. Step 2: making boot

Make the drive bootable. The above article suggests I use bootsect from my Vista disk. Oh dear, I don’t have that to hand.

A quick google suggests using: Virtual Clone Drive with which I can mount the Windows 7 ISO I have already downloaded. Have downloaded and installed Virtual Clone Drive (didn’t require a restart, and does seem to just work).

Now back to Step 2. I did what the article said, and got the following:

f:\boot>bootsect /nt60 d:

Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.

D: (\\?\Volume{c67ac67a-4b61-11de-bcbb-bc67a65cb956})

Updated NTFS filesystem bootcode.  The update may be unreliable since the
volume could not be locked during the update:
Access is denied.

Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes.
f:\boot>


hmmm. so was that successful or not?

2. Step 3

All copied across OK.

2. Step 4

Get the Netbook to boot off the USB disk. Another quick google says I don’t need to amend the bios, just hold F2 down on a restart. Oh, hang on. That just brought up the bios settings screen. OK – so USB drive goes second after ‘USB CD’ and before the main HD.

Having re-checked I’ve got no data of importance on there… 

3. Here goes with a restart…

Clicking through the various options and warnings, the main choice seemed to be Upgrade or Custom? The ‘help me choose’ link advised me that there was no upgrade from XP, so I’ve gone for the full monty. 

The installer tells me this will take a while, and involve some reboots. Its now 8.25pm…

8.43pm. OK, this would have been about ten to fifteen minutes quicker if I hadn’t been side-tracked. The install got to a point where it wanted to reboot. But, after it came back from the reboot it wanted to start the installation again (as the external USB drive booted first and setup the install again). 

So, I suspected I should just cancel and reboot without the USB drive in the way, but I wasn’t sure and googled around a bit before figuring that, yes, you do need to get back in the bios, move the USB drive to lower down in the pecking order, and let it restart from the hard drive. 

It’s now “completing installation…”

8.54pm. into the setup screens

9.14pm. oh dear – it wanted my procut key. Dutifuly entered from the label underneath the netbook. I now have a spinning circle of animated lovliness which has been going for about ten minutes.

Maybe I should have un-checked the ‘Automatically activate Windows when I’m online’ box?  

[pause for sustanence & present wrapping!]

11pm. I’m writing this in Windows 7. In answer to the above, it was something wrong with the activation, and leaving this blank made it all work.

Success…

I’ve been a parent governor at my daughter’s school for about a year. So far it’s been an interesting challenge, albeit fairly demanding in terms of time and commitment. However, it is about to become significantly more demanding… Earlier tonight, I was elected Chair of the Governors.

I’m honoured (and indeed a little bit proud) to have been considered a suitable candidate for the role – I hope I can do a good job. Obviously, I’ve not done this before so there are many unknowns ahead, but thankfully there are experienced governors still on board (including the previous chair and a very experienced new vice chair). I’ll need an awful lot of their input and advice to ensure that things are handled properly.

It’s clear to me that I was nominated, and subsequently voted in, partly because I’m seen as “the new kid on the block”. I guess I bring a degree of knowledge as a parent, and as an internet professional, that could be very useful. I hope I can live up to the other governor’s expectations!

Over the years I have tried various ways to speed it up. For a while I stuck a 2GB SD card in and ran ReadyBoost which helped. Also I tried the advice on the first two items on this list: http://mostlysavingmoney.com/top-10-windows-vista-speed-tweaks/ which seemed to help.

Eventually I upgraded to 2GB of Ram and things have been fairly decent since then. I stopped using the ReadyBoost as it seemed to make things slower on wake-up (probably too much of the session in memory).

But one thing I didn’t revert was the indexing (first point of advice on that URL above). So now I am, and I thought I’d just make a note of this here so that I can come and revert back if the need arises.

• Touch InCall Screen Tweak (makes the screen light up during a call if you take it away from vertical – i.e. away from your ear)
• BsB G-Config (adds G-sensor options to apps that don’t support it natively. not sure this works – or at least it doesn’t help google maps).
• CeTwit – small twitter client. Ok, but could do with better finger-scrolling
• QuakkSetup – just about to try this
• .NET compact framework 3.5 (needed for some of these apps)
• Diamond Saber (yes, a lightsaber application)
• GoogleMaps itself (did I install this? did it not come with the phone? I seem to have the .cab file lying around)
• SkypeForPocketPC (this actually works, but doesn’t do video yet AFAICT)

Frosty leaf

I’m liking my Christmas present. It’s not big but it’s quite clever… 

More on my Flickr (via the Slideshow in the main menu). EXIF-aware peeps can figure out what I got from Santa too…

playing with homemade play dough

Here’s her recipe:

• 3 cups flour
• 1/3 cup salt
• 2tbsp oil (veg)
• 1 cup water
• 7 drops food colouring.

1. Mix dry ingredients with oil.
2. add food colouring to water and mix together.
3. add water to flour/salt/oil mixture slowly ~ about 1/4 cup at a time and mix together with a spoon.
4. once you’ve added all the water, knead the dough with your hands.

The recipe I should have cooked tonight:

KALE WITH ANCHOVY AND CHILLI DRESSING

This pungent, piquant sauce, somewhere between a dip and a dressing, is quite delicious with earthy kale – or broccoli, or almost any other robust green vegetable. If you like, you can turn it into a more substantial supper dish by cutting the kale into thick ribbons and tossing them, along with the sauce, into hot buttered pasta. The leftover dressing will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks. Serves four, as a starter.

500g curly kale, or purple sprouting broccoli, washed and trimmed

2 knobs of butter

For the dressing

50g anchovy fillets, drained

150ml olive oil

2 garlic cloves, peeled

Leaves from a sprig of thyme

A few basil leaves

½ small red chilli, or a pinch of dried chilli flakes

1 tsp Dijon mustard

2 tsp red-wine vinegar

A few twists of black pepper

Blend all the ingredients for the dressing in a liquidiser until completely smooth.

Steam the kale or PSB for just 3-4 minutes, so it still has a bit of crunch. Toss with a knob of butter. Warm the sauce over a low heat, whisking in a knob of soft butter as it heats up. This should help to emulsify it but don’t worry if it separates a bit; it’ll still taste fine. Arrange the kale/PSB on warmed plates and drizzle over a generous amount of the warmed dressing. Serve at once, with soft brown bread to mop up the sauce.

This is of course completely copied from the Hugh and the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/mar/10/foodanddrink.features

Emma cooks this all the time and it’s fab. My feeble attempt tonight was more complex and not as good. (Although I suspect that my olive oil-drizzled baked beadcrumbs as a garnish may well make a repeat appearance!)