I received the gravest software news possible today that Google is set to abandon Wave
Whilst it is certainly true that almost all my personal invitees have failed to even take a look at what Wave offers, those who have taken the time to try it appear to have abandoned it almost immediately.
It is such a fantastic collaborative tool and a brilliant demonstration of what cloud computing is all about, I am simply left speechless.
Shame on all of you who didn’t even take the time to look at it.
Living out in the middle of nowhere has its pros and cons.
Here’s a pro – water is free, since it comes from a bore hole.
Here’s a con – the water system is prone to failure from time to time
Now we actually have two systems, a well (the pump is currently out of action presumed dead) and a bore hole. As long as the electricity supply is available we have, to all intents and purposes, a water system much like everyone else’s, except for the fact that once the tanks are filled the onward flow gravity fed (no hose pipes or power washers for us).
I have documented elsewhere the belt ‘n’ braces approach I took after two flooding incidents, whereby I had an additional pump float valve added to a second of the three tanks in the attic, along with a very hi-tech water detector alarm coupled to an alarm system (the excellent Vocaliser from Pyronix) which has an inbuild GSM facility, so can text me when the water might be about to overflow.
Recently the system has been trouble-free. Occasionally the box of elec-trickery trips out and the tanks eventually drain before we realise anything is wrong; and so it was the other evening I heard the good lady wife calling down to say that the cold water had stopped flowing whilst running a bath.
A quick check revealed that the pumping system was all Ok and the kitchen taps worked fine, so I went upstairs. The sink taps were fine too, as was the shower and the hot water to the bath.
The cold tap to the bath had no flow, so I scratched my head a few times, did a few sharp intakes of breath just like a plumber on the cusp of delivering a hammer blow, soon to be followed by a pound symbol, some arbitary digits and followed by several zeros.
I left it overnight having tried all the taps for a while to see if it was an air lock, but by the morning it was still not flowing.
There had been a few “bits of black” according to Lydia, though I hadn’t seen them as they’d gone down the plughole by the time I had arrived on the scene.
So I called on my secret engineering weapon, a man who only goes by the name “molosar” (he works under cover) and by the time he arrived I had a theory.
“Molosar” found which of the taps, valves and screws (from a fair array dotted around the place) isolated the single tap and set to, taking it to bits.
As he worked on I suggested it might be … and shortly after I told him what I thought it was he plucked out the very thing.
A bat (out of a well)!
Just setup an email account and tested it.
Look what Microsoft claimed to have sent.
IT Project Manager £1.00 per day Greater Manchester
Application £35000 – £45000 per hour + fixed term Glasgow, Lanarkshire
Web Developer / 6 Months Contract / ASAP
£195.62 – £196678.12 per day Netherlands
As opposed to this one:
Web Developer £1 per annum Leeds, West Yorkshire
Straight from an agency website:
Graduate PHP Developer – Cheshire – Graduate, Junior, Trainee
£15 – £18 per annum Cheshire
After 24 hours trying to register for the ‘viamichelin’ site to upgrade a friend’s SAT-NAV (the catchall message was ‘there is a technical fault at this time, please try later’), I decided to call someone.
Except there was no phone number and the company is based in France, but they do have a webform, on their ‘Contact Us’ page, so I thought I’d give that a shot, you know along the lines of “I am using your website to contact you about registering, for which I need the use of your website …”.
Anyway, there’s a request to read the FAQ before using the ‘Contact Us’ form, so I did.
Here’s what I got:
Can you see the input boxes on the left? No me neither.
As if we hadn’t had enough of bank rip-offs, this one is so absurd you probably won’t believe it, but it is nevertheless true. I recently noted a charge of £4.72 on my bank statement (where no charges have ever been applied to that account). I called to find out why I’d been charged when my account was, and always has been in credit.
The answer – because I have paid a sum of money into my account in cash, which carries with it a 2% commission charge.
Should I name and shame ….
One of my all time heroes Buzz Aldrin who has been very activer on twitter @TheRealBuzzAldrin during the last twelve months or so, has recenty appeared on facebook.
As a 12 year old I got special dispensation to stay up to watch the moon landing (in the middle of the night in the UK) and it was one of the best moments of my life.
I sent Buzz a message togther with my story about being next to him in Atlanta airport a few months ago in a strange twist of fate. GIven the huge volume of fans around the world I did not really expect a reply, but I got one, which means me and Buzz are officially friends. Wow!
Take a look at Buzz’s excellent autobiography “Magnificent Desolation”
[/caption]
