Stewart Priest

Another year…

// April 25th, 2010 // No Comments » // Mini Post, Personal

So, tomorrow is my birthday. Yes, 28. I’m not completely sure what I’m getting this year, but some cash wouldn’t go amiss.. I’ve still got a wedding to pay for! If you’d like to donate some cash, just leave a comment, and I’ll be round to collect..

I still haven’t been on the Off-Road driving experience which Jen got me for my last birthday. I am, however, going next weekend. I can’t wait! You don’t get the opportunity to wreck a Land Rover too often. I’ve got my neck brace on order, just in case!

Who fancies going out for a drink in Glasgow to celebrate my birthday then? Come on… it’ll be fun!

Mum’s (not) gone to Iceland

// April 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // News, Twitter

Why? Well, for a start, she doesn’t have a passport. Even if she did possess one, she wouldn’t be able to get there. Scottish skies are still closed.

So what’s all this volcano business about? Personally, I think it’s just a misunderstanding on the Icelandic government’s part. We, in the UK and also The Netherlands, got stung when Icelandic online back Icesave went under, and we’re now looking for that money back. We asked Iceland to “give us cash”, and well, I guess they misheard or misunderstood.

So, the result is a massive cloud of volcanic ash, containing rock and glass. It looks a bit like this:

Image by Árni Friðriksson. Used under licence.

The effect this has had on the UK, Europe, and to a lesser degree, the rest of the world, has been huge. With UK and European airspace essentially closed since last Thursday, the whole world has pretty much ground to a halt. With no planes in the air, holidaymakers are experiencing huge problems either getting to or from their holiday destinations, children and teachers have been unable to return to school for the start of the new term, air freight is waiting around in airports, and fresh fruit and flowers are rotting in warehouses. You see, we rely so heavily on air travel in our every day lives, that when we find that planes can’t get into the air, we’re affected in ways we’d not ever considered. You don’t need to be trying to get on a plane to be impacted by this problem. You just need to try and get an orange from the supermarket.

As I write this post, there are tweets flying around on the Twitterverse suggesting that the other volcano in Iceland has erupted. At this point, it looks like this may not be true, but if it is, we may find ourselves noticing the impact of the eruption in something other than the hypothetical.

Maybe now is the time to look at our lives and investigate how we can be more self-sufficient. Not in a living-in-the-woods Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall kind of way, but we can maybe try not to rely on as many imported goods. Try sending an email instead of a letter. That kind of thing. It can’t be that hard, can it?

One of the most bizarre news stories to come out today was that British Airways has asked the EU and UK Government for compensation for the lost business due to the closure of UK and European airspace. Seriously, BA? You’re really asking for compensation? Is this because your insurance company won’t pay out due to an ‘act of God’? You asking for compensation for closed airspace is like me asking for compensation from my local council when they close a road because it’s dangerous. Your test flights and those of your competitors didn’t actually fly at the height you usually fly. Those that did (KLM) flew directly into an area with no ash – how are those proper test flights? You’re all saying there’s no danger, but NATO have already damaged a couple of F-16s by flying proper test flights.

I’m sorry to say it, Willie Walsh, but it’s things like this which show up weaknesses in your industry’s business model. A lot of your competitors are ‘staring bankruptcy in the face’ if you believe the news reports. Well, that’s just the business world. If you can’t afford to pay your bills, you go under. Only the fittest survive. The Free Market’s a bitch, eh?

Smiley Face Factory

// April 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Fun, Mini Post, Tech, Viral

So that’s how they do it! Ahhh!

The Whale Has Failed

// April 5th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Mini Post, Twitter

Twitter is broken. Instead of worrying about it, why not kick back and head on over to The Fail Whale Fan Club. Unless you’re seeing this post via Twitter, in which case, it’s fixed.

Bye.

Lunch @ The Lansdowne

// April 4th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // Food, Reviews, Twitter

Ahh… Good Friday was indeed, good. I had the day off and so did Jen. We spent the morning lazing around watching TV and we decided to head out for lunch. I wanted to let Twitter decide where I went, so I posted a message to that effect and @lansdownespy got in touch. Full disclosure here: I’ve already been to The Lansdowne – for Glasgow Twestival – but I’ve never had the food before Friday.

The lovely Emma and Barry were both serving, and you couldn’t ask for better service – very attentive, keen to make sure you’re having a good time, got enough to drink, etc, so Jen and I were both happy. If we thought the service was good, we were in for a real treat with the food! We decided to go for a main course and a dessert. I had the Chicken Supreme, which is chicken breast stuffed with black pudding, wrapped in bacon with sauteed potatoes and a whisky sauce. Jen had the Haddock Supper, pretty self explanatory – battered fish and home-made chips. Great stuff.

After we dispensed with the mains, we moved on to the important business of dessert. We both opted for the Chocolate & Orange Cheesecake. Oh. My. God. Sara Lee can suck it. The Lansdowne’s cheesecake is amazing! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. The person who tweets for them is also a fan of this particular dish. Oh, and did I mention? They serve it on an actual slate:

The food at The Lansdowne is out of this world. Follow them on Twitter at @lansdownespy, visit the website and visit them in person. You’ll not regret it!

Media Browser on Windows Media Center

// April 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech Tips, Windows 7

Have you got loads of movies and TV shows “backed up from a legitimate copy of a DVD or Blu-Ray”? Are you finding it difficult to organise them using the default video and movie libraries in WMC? Well, there’s a solution. It’s a plugin called Media Browser. You can create categories for all kinds of video – there are even plugins available for the plugin which allow you to categorise your music and play podcasts/vodcasts directly from WMC!

If you create the folder structure properly for your TV shows, the end result is amazing. You get cover art for the show, the series/season, and even synopses of the individual episodes. Just click on each of the images below to get the full picture:

Amazing, isn’t it? What, you aren’t convinced yet? What about your movie collection? For movies and other video files, things work pretty much identically: you get cover art, plot synopses, and background poster art. If there’s more than one background available, they’ll transition automatically:

It should be noted that Media Browser gets all this data dynamically from themoviedb.org and thetvdb.org. If for any reason these sites are down or your connection to the web is broken, Media Browser won’t be able to pull the artwork and XML data down from these sites, so you’ll have a very empty looking library. For that reason, there’s another application which works in tandem with Media Browser. It’s called Meta Browser. I’ll delve too far into the operations of Meta Broswer in this post, so I’ll just say that it downloads this data and stores it locally for you so Media Browser doesn’t have to query these 3rd party sites each time you want to watch a video.

Are you convinced you need Media Browser now? If so, get it here, and set it up!

Setup is very simple indeed. All you need to do is install it and set your folders. Installation is incredibly intuitive, but if you need any help, you’ll find it over at Media Browser Support. I like all the fancy front end stuff like the cover art and background poster art, but for me, the best feature is in the backend. You can set up your categories of video: movies, TV shows, etc, but within each of these categories, you can specify as many folders as you like! They can be on seperate drives or even seperate machines altogether! Imagine: all your videos in different locations, and you can bring them all together in one library. No more looking in loads of folders to find the video you want, just click on the cover art and away you go!

I’ve been a user of WMC since its XP days, but WMC on Windows 7, coupled with Media Browser, its finally matured into the product its always wanted to be. If you have a spare PC/laptop, stick Windows 7 on it, get a WMC remote from Maplin (they’re only £20!), download Media Browser and you’ll be laughing. No more watching your movies and TV shows on your PC. Get them back on your TV where they belong!

My Bad (Ikea experience)

// April 2nd, 2010 // 2 Comments » // DIY, Twitter

After a slight bedroom mishap on Sunday, I had the need for a replacement bed. Not the mattress, just the bed. Jen and I hunted around and looked at a number of different places, but we decided on Ikea. I’d coped with a half-broken bed for four nights now, and it was time to bite the bullet and buy the bed. So off to Ikea Braehead.

We wandered around the upstairs one-way system for a while before we found the bedroom section. They’ve changed the layout, don’t you know? We had a look at a few different beds, toyed with the idea of getting at mattress too, but eventually picked the bed we wanted. We picked the Heimdal bed frame. We really liked the look of this bed, and we REALLY liked the look of the price. £55 for the full kit. I took a note of the aisles and locations of the various components of the kit and proceeded to collect everything. It turns out that Ikea sometimes don’t put things where they tell you. The slats for this bed, specifically. However, I eventually found them and moved on to the checkout. Ikea are more efficient and taking your money than they are at putting things in the right place, it would seem. Now, off to the car park.

Rather than trying to get the (very large) trolley over to the car, I left Jen at the pickup point with everything until I went to fetch the car. No problem. The car’s all parked up, the back seats are folder down and the boot is open. Now, in with the kit. Oh. Wait. Hang on, I need to tweet about this:

Shit. Do I await the advice of the Twitterverse, or do I come up with a plan of my own? Well, knowing some of the people I follow (Alan Ogden), I’m expecting less than helpful replies, so I need to come up with my own solution to this. It’s time to phone my sister. Her fiance Robert has a bigger car than me, and access to a van if required. Great. He’s on his way. While I wait for him to arrive, I get the smaller stuff in the car and check what delights Twitter has offered up in reply to my problem:

Great. Alan’s replied. In a fashion which was expected. Not to worry though, the cavalry has arrived. Robert’s here! We get the oversized bed part into the back of the car and head home. That reminds me, I’d better get Robert some beer for digging me out of this hole. We manage to unload everything into the house and Robert heads home.

After that, it was just a simple case of chucking out the old bed and building the new one. A relatively simple process, and one which didn’t take too long! We had the bed built and ready for use in half an hour! Buying the bed and getting it home took longer than actually putting it together.

Maybe Ikea should consider giving the measurements of the packaging as well as the items within. It could save a lot of heartache in the long run.