My blog over at IT PRO has been a bit quiet of late, but there are three new posts this week that you might be interested in:
When is a free laptop not actually free? When it comes with a dongle!
Microsoft planning a Zune-based smartphone
Leaked pics of the Skypephone 2
Please take a look.
Behold the new QPR home shirt for the 2008/09 season:
As you will see (and counter to some of the speculation that has been buzzing around the net) it is still blue and white hoops. It also features a new sponsor, the nice people at Gulf Air, West London’s favourite airline.
This is a huge improvement on the last two seasons, when, desperate for money, we did a deal to be sponsored by the dodgy secondhand car dealer round the corner from our Loftus Road stadium.
And look, look I tell you at our stylish Italian-designed shirt, that doesn’t at all look like it was knocked together in a hurry for the Gulf Air photo shoot 
But seriously - nice one, my shirt pre-order has already been placed!
It’s the perfect gift for birthdays, christenings, grduation, or just a good read if you are stoned or just miss the greatest decade since we all realised the world isn’t flat.
Written by members of the greatest generation (those of us who grew up in the 80s), and edited by my friend and colleague Simon Brew, this book is the definitive guide to all things 80s - TV shows, music, films and proper computer games (the ones that came on tapes).
You can buy Celebrate the 80s now from Amazon.co.uk.
And yes, I did write some of it.
Seriously, its a brilliant book and it will bring back some fantastic memories, and a few that will make you cringe as well. Find out what all your 80s big and small screen favourites are doing now (not all of them are flipping burgers for a living) and read some exclusive interviews with the people who pioneered 80s entertainment.
WARNING: This book does contain a picture of me, with a mullet!
Following a huge amount of work by my editorial team and the Dennis web team, the new look IT PRO web site went live this morning.
The new look site represents an important stage in the progression of IT PRO, and will allow us to do a great deal more in terms of how we produce coverage what format we publish our content in.
There are one or two small kinks that we are working out, so if you find anything that looks like it might be a bug, please let me know.
Ok - here’s the thing. I need a new phone, and need it in a bit of a hurry (just a handset, not looking to change providers or sign up for a new contract etc at this stage).
Tomorrow (May 1st) is the London Mayoral election. If, like me, you live within the boundaries of Greater London, please do not ruin it for the rest of us by voting for the leftie Communist Newt-toucher Ken Livingstone or the damp lettuce-leaf ineffective copper Brian Paddick. Vote for Boris Johnson.
A VOTE FOR BORIS IS A VOTE TO SAVE LONDON FROM ANOTHER 4 YEARS OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FAILURE
I was born in London (in the Middlesex Hospital, which was opposite the IT PRO offices until it was knocked down a few weeks ago), I grew up here, I’ve worked here for almost my entire working life, and lived within the confines of the M25 for all but 4 of my 32 years on this planet.
In that time I have seen London develop and prosper. However, in the last eight years I have seen it steadily unravel and become a cesspit of hate, poverty, social unrest, failed public services, wasted local taxation, failed and unnecessary environmental projects, an underground rail system that is a worldwide joke, and unwanted Mayoral project after another. And there are too many buses on the roads!
Ken Livingstone has been responsible for destroying London over the last eight years, and given another term in office he will finish the job to the point that the effects of his ill-conceived and self-serving policies will not be repairable.
The Lib Dems have demonstrated themselves to be good local council custodians, but nothing more. Their choice for Mayor is inexperienced, a poor public speaker, and was an irritating politically-correct police officer who must share some of the blame for the woeful state of the Met and the frustrations felt by thousands of good coppers who just want to do their jobs. A London with him as Mayor would simply fade into the background, much like the current Lib Dem leadership.
Only Boris Johnson can provide common-sense leadership for the London Assembly and start the work on repairing London’s deteriorating public services and appalling record on law and order, putting London back at the top of the global agenda for businesses and investors, as well as tourism.
A vote for Boris is a vote for prosperity, for good schools, safe streets, jobs, good public transport, affordable driving options, environmental policy that makes sense and a London to be proud of again!
For the first time in years (far longer than I can actually remember for sure), I’ve forgotten to take my mobile phone with me. As I am now half way along my journey to work, this means I will be separated from my phone until at least 7pm today.
I already feel a bit cut-off, but that will soon change when I get into the office. For now, I’m making do with my 3G modm and the MacBook, which is how I am doing today’s post.
Suffice to say, if you need to reach me today, you will actually need to call my office landline for a change, rather than going straight to my mobile.
I do get rather fed up with people, usually work contacts, who insist on using my mobile phone number as the primary way of contacting me for work-related queries (and I’m talking about the pointless stuff like “did you get the press release we sent you a week ago” rather than the more useful “My client is running late for his lunch meeting with you”.
I have a perfectly good landline in my office - please use it in the first instance. The mobile is there so that you can get hold of me if it is urgent, or if you have genuinely failed to get me on the landline first - don’t just bypss my office number altogether.
I do reject about 70 per cent of the calls I get to my mobile number during office hours anyway (and definitely bounce unknown and withheld numbers straight to voicemail unless I’m not sat at my desk, then I will answer), so chances are you’ll still only end up talking to my voicemail before you talk to me, so you may as well talk to my office voicemail if it is not time critical - it’s more likely to get a reply, or at least listened to before my mobile voicemail will.
Visitors to this site will have noticed that it has been crawling for the last few weeks to the point of being unreadable.
I’ve been trying to work out what was causing it, as I had not made any kind of code change since I did the upgrade to Wordpress 2.3.
Anyway - today I have fixed it. Turns out that the problem rested with reCaptcha, the Captcha-based anti-spam measure I deployed months ago to try and deter the huge volume of unsuccessful spam attempts that hit this site on a weekly basis (I also run Askimet, which does a brilliant job of trapping comment spam before it ever reaches the site, but was using reCaptcha to reduce the amount I then had to scan through in the spam trap before deleting).
It would seem that reCaptcha doesn’t like Wordpress 2.3 or higher, so I have disabled it. Result - the site is now back up to full speed and is fully accessible again.
Let’s hope it lasts
A little April Fool gag from IT PRO and Firebrand Training.
Given the amount of data security blunders by government agencies, maybe some basic instruction in common sense isn’t a bad idea.
This one was a pre-announced April Fool gag - did you fall for it?
Announced on Diggnation Revision3’s flagship show announced that Revision3 has been aquired by Fox……….
more than just another IT news website, IT PRO differentiates itself by providing 100% business and enterprise news, reviews and group tests, as well as allowing IT professionals to participate in the exchange of knowledge and first-hand experience
An annual horror film festival in London’s Leicester Suqare. This year’s event takes place from August 24-27 2007 at the Odeon West End cinema on the south side of the Square
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