Buoyed by my recent, successful firmware upgrade of my Linksys wireless router, and for the sake of completeness, I decided to upgrade the driver software of the Linksys Wireless USB adapters to the latest version (2.0.2). In addition, prompted by my wife’s perceptive question of ‘Is it not working because someone has hacked into it ?’, I also decided to increase the security on my embryonic wireless network by disabling SSID broadcasts and enabling MAC address filtering so only specified PC’s can connect. ...

I have been experiencing more wireless weirdness recently. What once was stable and reliable has become increasingly sporadic, unreliable and damned irritating for no obvious reason. I am not a networking sort of guy. I am not particularly interested in wireless networking. I use WEP in an effort to secure my network and stop my neighbours piggy backing off it but that’s about it. I am ashamed to admit that, on one occasion, when my wireless network was broken, I briefly piggy backed on an unsecured network just to temporarily solve the problem. ...

Last night, I flew to Stockholm airport. I stayed overnight in a hotel at the airport. Today I went to a meeting in a conference centre at Stockholm airport. I talked, listened, answered a few questions and asked a few questions. Then I flew home from Stockholm airport. 18 hours in Stockholm and I never left the airport complex. Weird.

This may be contrary to corporate blogging guidelines but still… Just had the formal feedback from my annual review and it is excellent news. Seeboard - monthly bill down to £38 (down from £60) per month.

The Killers (Glastonbury 2005) has successfully been converted from DVD to WAV format and to ATRAC format on a CD. Thanks to two excellent software tools: MediaCoder (DVD to MP3 converter) and Audacity.

‘Yes. It is an 0800 number which is free. However, there is a charge of 10p per minute’ Newcastle Hilton Hotel.

Microsoft announce Virtual Server 2005 is now freely available. Whatever you can do, we can do (but a bit later).

A couple of years ago, I was working in Amsterdam (near Holland) chasing world records for loading lots of data into a Siebel database. It wasn’t working very well. The client was unhappy so long hours were called for. The Unix team said the expensive SAN was performing optimally. The DBA team said Oracle was performing optimally. The Siebel team said Siebel was performing optimally. Alex Ferguson unexpectedly joined a conference call and said the Manchester United team were performing optimally. ...

I was at my desk at 09.05 this Monday morning. Nothing extraordinary there but considering I live in South West London and this particular desk was in Newcastle, this represented quite an achievement. And this prompt start was only possible due to a considerate, thoughtful taxi driver. I ordered a taxi at 05.45 on Monday morning. I slept downstairs on the sofa bed to avoid disturbing the household at that unearthly hour. ...

…have a lot in common. I was interested to read that David Beckham suffers from OCD and simply can not abide an odd number of lines cans of coke in his fridge I have a similar obsession about cans of Grolsch in my fridge. 0, 2, 4, 8 but never 1, 3, 5, 6 or 7. If we ever get an odd number, I simply drink ’em scold the offenders soundly and banish them to the cupboard (where odd numbers only are allowed). ...