From the Orient

I got home at about 5:15 and because the clocks have “sprung” forward and it was light, I went out into the garden with the children. I mowed the lawn for the first time this year.

After putting the children to bed, I installed “Smoothwall”:http://www.smoothwall.org on my not-so-shiny, not-so-new, shiny, new, duff old 486 thing. It installed fine which was progress over the last not-so-shiny, not-so-new 486 thing which rebooted if an OS went anywhere near its harddrive.

Then I tried to configure it. Perhaps I should have read the manual. Perhaps I should have had more than a vague understanding of what I was doing.

After thirty minutes of dismal failure, I gave up and watched “Pirates of the Caribbean”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325980/ on Sky Box Office. It was great.

Last Mark and Lard, “listen now”:http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio1.shtml?listen

It’ll be a Bit O’Class, and it Beggars Belief that they are going, maybe they’ll fancy a brew now it’s all over, but F*ck my hat, Mark will be on in the evening, so when I get to bed, I can say Hiya Mark!, oh yesssss. They are splitting up, No Need! They’ve been skinning the competition alive for many years. They always said Wise Words. Let’s hope Fat Harry White and Reverence Lionel Blair.

Cool, Travis are in the studio. I saw them Saturday and they were most enjoyable.

Two games and Arsenal can make history twice. Manchester United stand in their way both times.

First of all, this Sunday, Arsenal aim to take their unbeaten run in the Premiership to a record breaking 30 games (this is from the beginning of the season). Liverpool and Leeds United (along with Arsenal) hold the current record of 29.

Liverpool acheived this in the 1987-88 season, when United finished a distant 2nd in Alex Ferguson’s first full season in charge. Leeds United did it 1974. The record for the most unbeaten games in one season in top flight football is 30 matches and “belongs to the 1920 Burnley side”:http://www.sportnetwork.net/main/s37/st47504.htm. However, there is still a few more games to go before they can match Nottingham Forests 42 game unbeaten record (over two seasons).

The other record is the potential 4th sucessive FA Cup final, never done before. I think honour demands this is the one United should stop, as United claim to have the best FA Cup record. They haven’t lost a FA Cup semi-final in my lifetime. Given the Premiership is virtually over, and winning the semi is very important, given the potential “easy” final.

Whilst on this statistical run, it is interesting to compare Liverpools 70/80’s league dominance with United. The have “identical championship winning patterns”:http://www.napit.co.uk/viewus/infobank/football/premiership/index.php

==

Liverpool  (starting 1976) WWxWWxWWWxWxWxWxxxxxx....x (until false)
Man United (starting 1993) WWxWWxWWWxW?

==

? means this season, so Arsenal to win this year, but I predict two more championship wins before the empire falls.

Digital Spy - Monday’s multichannel ratings roundup :-

bq. New show The Other Boat Race, following a group of out-of-shape contestants learning to row, had 67,800 (0.47%) at 9pm while Beckham Back In Time, a special looking at how Beckham measures up against the olden greats, entertained 41,100 (0.29%)

Statistics never lie!

I’ve had my T|C for nearly two months now and I’m more than satisfied with the device and the software on it. I’m reviewing it here with to compare “what I hoped for”:http://www.dellah.com/orient/2004/01/16/pda with what I got

h5. Looks

Well, I’d seen pictures of it, so I knew what was coming. It does look slightly odd, slightly asymmetrical with the keyboard, and it does look rather plastic in the flesh.

h5. Ease of Use

Very good, the keyboard is very easy to use with two thumbs, slightly better than the Zaurus keyboard. The D-Pad is slightly too small though, and too close to the edge. This makes one handed paging (in plucker for example) hard to do.

h5. Battery

No problems here, I get 3 days average use out of the battery which is more than enough. WiFi sucks the power though. The
app has a powersaving mode that does seem to work, but I make sure I turn it off when it isn’t working.

h5. MP3 playing

This is actually better than I was expecting. I’m not a serious sound fan, and although the mono sound isn’t so good, it is fine for me when I’m on the train. I use “this connector”:http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=106425 which I’ll talk more about below in the voice recorder section.

h5. Storage

I already had an SD storage card so didn’t have to fork out for new memory. It works fine, but integration with the Launcher app and other software leaves a lot to be desired.

h5. Wifi

Worked first time, out of the box. The device found my network straight away and has reasonable range (slight less than the card in my laptop). Syncing over wifi appears to be very slow, so I’m glad I don’t have to do this.

h5. Voicememo

With the above headset adapter this becomes useful and easy to use. When you plug the adaptor in, the voice Memo app starts. Clicking the button on the adaptor starts recording, clicking again and it stops recording.

h5. Screen

I would have preferred a larger screen, but had to have the keyboard and couldn’t afford the UX-50. The screen is clear, very easy to read, bright and responsive. It supports hiRes mode well.

h5. Overall

I’m very happy with my choice, and the Tungsten C is a very powerful, fast device. It more than meets my needs for a PDA.
But, at night I still dream of the “UX-50″:http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_BrowseCatalog-Start;sid=n9jSHVxLu8HSE2OHbj7YFhNafik50tAX99Y=?CategoryName=hp_InternetCommunicator.

Christopher Eccleston is new the Doctor Who.

No real suprise given the “Second Coming” link. I thought Eccleston was wonderful in “Our Friends in the North” one of my all time favourite series.

My only disappointment is that Paul McGann isn’t doing it.