Category Archives: Other

Shaving for a great cause – The Leukaemia Foundation

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I’m going bald.

For Charity. And I need all of you to help me help the Leukaemia Foundation by donating here http://my.leukaemiafoundation.org.au/lukehayler

Today, 31 Australians will get the news they have blood cancer. Your donation will help the Leukaemia Foundation support them from the moment they are diagnosed, free of charge.

The money you give will also help to fund Australia’s best blood cancer research.

I have also been dared to have my legs waxed, which stupidly I agreed to, but only if I reach $1,000. If I reach this goal I’ll have the waxing done here at work in front of about 60 people…and I am sure that someone will video it.

So please donate (but not too generously, am not keen on the waxing idea).

And if you don’t want to donate, then please at least share this update with your network.

Thanks!

PicPick. Because it’s pure awesome.

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This is THE little screencapturer that definitely could. I used to be an avid fan of Zing. It’s still good. But PicPick beats it hands down.

It’s not just a screen capture tool. It’s an image editor, a whiteboard, and a ruler too. And one of the features that I love best (and I loved this about Zing too) is that the screen capture is triggered by hot keys (Shift + Print Screen, for example).

Oh, and it’s FREE*.

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Go get it from picpick.org or go here to download it directly. Highly recommended!

*For home/personal use.

It’s Movember–Don’t forget about Men’s health!

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It’s Movember time again, and that means ridiculous facial hair for many men. Much to the disgust of their spouse. But it’s not about looking ridiculous, that’s just a by-product. It’s about awareness and education of men’s health.

Think about this:

  • On average men die five to six years younger than women.
  • The suicide rate is four times higher for men than women
  • More than five men die prematurely each hour from potentially preventable illnesses

Men’s health is all too easily forgotten or pushed by the wayside. Men are notoriously adverse to seeking medical help when they need it most; believing that they should ‘tough it out’.

The Movember campaign is all about raising awareness of men’s health issues that often get ignored; Prostate cancer and depression (in men).  There are two key charities:

And let’s not forget the Movember Global Action Plan that aims to accelerate prostate cancer outcomes through global research collaboration.

Some stats (Because data is cool right?)

The Movember campaign has been alive since 2003 and each year builds on the success of the last. It’ll be interesting to see how 2011 fares.

So what can YOU do?

 

Fancy a party?

I’m hosting an event later this month called SQL Server Social. It’s a great event. People meet, talk, drink, network and generally have a great time. This month we are turning the event into a Mo Party. It’ll be wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling Mos. There’ll be prizes and giveaways and even a free drink on your arrival. If you’re interested head on over to http://sqlserversocial.eventbrite.com and register. All the details about the event are listed there too. SQL Server Social has several online presences:

 

 

Do your bit. Grow a Mo!

Lovin’ me some Wunderlist

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A few weeks ago I happen upon [yet another] list taking/task keeping/GTD app that has become my List App of choice. It’s called Wunderlist. And it’s Awesome. And it’s FREE.

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It’s awesome because it’s so simple. Create a list, add some tasks, complete the tasks. Job done. No flashy-pants contexts/locations/durations/responsibilities/icons/groups/etc. Just nice, clean and simple.

You can share your list with others and if they have Wunderlist too the List that’s being shared will stay in sync. Print or email your lists, or send them into the cloud where anyone, who has the link, can view your list.

This little app is available for PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad & Android. You can also use the web-based version where ever you have access to a browser and an internet connection. Happy days.

Need to know more? Go see http://www.6wunderkinder.com/wunderlist/

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Bacon Brekky Baby!

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Normally I’d leave blogging about food to The Novice Chef (@TheNoviceChef), however these breakfast morsels are too awesome to NOT talk about.

I first had these at this tiny little restaurant in Parkhurst, Johannesburg a few years ago and couldn’t get enough. I don’t recall the name of the place, unfortunately, I was too busy enjoying the taste sensation that was Pancakes, strawberries, bacon, mascarpone cheese and maple syrup.

I suddenly remembered about these on Shrove Tuesday and decided that I had to try and recreate them. Whilst I did manage to pull it off, I have to admit that they weren’t quite as good as what I had had at that little restaurant. They are dead easy to make too: make (or if you MUST, buy) pancakes, top with fresh strawberries, smother in mascarpone cheese and then top with crispy bacon and a good drizzle of maple syrup (or indeed any sweet syrup).

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I haven’t stacked them here, but in the restaurant there were a good 3 layers….nomnomnom, as they say :)

Cloning VirtualBox Virtual Disk Images (vdi files)

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I have recently starting using VirtualBox as my medium of virtualisation on my laptop and it works pretty well – I’ve even got Mac OSX working. But one thing I struggled with at first is the cloning of the VirtualBox Disk Images – the hard disk files that the Virtual Machines use. Once I had found out how to do this without encountering any errors I figured I would make a note of it so that I always have a referral point – and now so do you.

Copy/Paste Anyone?

No. That won’t work. Trust me I’ve tried…What you will end up with is two .vdi files with conflicting UUID’s. This means that you won’t be able to run them side by side, or indeed have them on the same physical machine.

Using the Command Line tool VBoxManage

You’re getting warmer now. This is the tool to use to clone your existing .vdi files. But you can’t simply bash out your script and expect it to work straight away. There’s a little bit of prep to do. So take note of the following steps and, if you follow them, you’ll have as many copies of your .vdi files as you want.

Assumptions:

  • VirtualBox is installed
  • You already have a base VM set up, complete with Virtual Hard Disk (vdi) – i.e. you have installed an OS

 

 

  1. Open VirtualBox
  2. Click on the Virtual Machine you want to clone
  3. Now click File>Virtual Media Manager image
  4. When the Virtual Machine Manager appears, click on the .vdi file that you want to clone and then click Release – this will release the .vdi from the VM. THIS IS IMPORTANT. If you miss this step you will encounter UUID conflicts. image
  5. Fire up command prompt (Start>Run>cmd [enter])
  6. Enter the following command:

< File path of VBoxManage> clonehd “<file path of the source .vdi file>” “<file path of the target (cloned) .vdi file>”

For me this command was:

“C:Program FilesOracleVirtualBoxVBoxManage” clonehd “D:Virtual MachinesVirtualBox VMsWindows7Windows7.vdi” “D:Virtual MachinesVirtualBox VMsWindows7SQLServer2005Windows7SQLServer2005.vdi”

If you see the following, your .vdi base file is being copied correctly. Check your target directory for the cloned .vdi file.

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Once the clone is complete you should see the following:

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The key thing to note in this screen is that a New UUID has been assigned to the cloned .vdi file. Remember, if you hadn’t released the base .vdi file from its VM, then you’ll get an error when executing the clonehd command – See step 5.

 

  1. Go Back to Virtual Box
  2. Click the New icon, to create a new VM
  3. Enter a Name for your new VM and select the Operating System that you’ll be using.
  4. Adjust the amount of memory that you need for the VM
  5. Now, on the Virtual Hard Disk screen select Use Existing Hard Disk.image
  6. Click on the folder icon and navigate to the .vdi file that you have just cloned and then click Next.
  7. Review the summary, then click the Finish button and you’re done. The new VM should now be available in your list of VMs

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That’s it!

My Current Favourite iPhone (3G) Apps

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This is a list of my current favourite iPhone Apps. Most of these are free and where they aren’t, they’re almost free. I use each of these regularly and can highly recommend them. Just thought I’d share the love…. 

iPhoneApps_TweetDeck

Tweetdeck 

Cost: free

Category: Social Networking

Multiple accounts, multiple columns to segregate your groups & searches, synchronization with your desktop version, Facebook integration (if you like that sort of thing), choice of picture services (twitpic, yfrog, tweetphoto), geo tagging, In-app browser. I could go on. It’s my app of choice for Twitter. Follow @iandodsworth if you want updates from ‘the horses mouth’.  iPhoneApps_QikVideo

Qik 

Cost: £1.29

Category: Utilities

Video recording on iPhone 3G anyone? No limits on length of recording, wifi sharing, 200×152 or 400×304 resolution (higher resolution means slower frame rate though), on-screen settings for zoom | brightness | resolution | audio boost | special effects (normal, Black & white, Red only, ‘Avatar’). Size of files only limited by size of your device.

I had tried iVideoRecorder for a while but the 1 minute recording limit kept catching me out, especially when it then takes another minute to save the video you’ve just recorded. I will say this however, iVideoRecorder’s video quality is better. Both apps are the same price. iPhoneApps_SmartRecorder

Smart Record 

Cost: £0.59

Category: Utilities

Way better than the Voice Recorder that comes standard with iPhone (3G). Records for as long as you want (caveat – the most I have attempted was about 2.5 hours). App is quick to get started, is simple to use and quality of recordings is good, if not great. Syncs with Box.net, SyncDocs & over wifi, sharing via email, takes pictures during a session (remembers place in conversation when the picture was taken), appending to previous recordings. It also has a great help section if you do get stuck, which is rare.

iPhoneApps_UltimateToDos

Todo

Cost: £

Category: Productivity

Getting Things Done anyone? If you’ve read the book you’ll know what you need. This is the ‘electronic device’ that you’ll be wanting to play with all the time. It syncs to Toodledo, an web-based version of the app. This is the single most used app on my phone. The one thing I feel it is lacking though, is geo tagging of your to-dos (which is a feature of Remember-The-Milk). So if a future update of the app gets this feature it’ll be complete.

iPhoneApps_AmazonMobile

Amazon UK

Cost: free

Category: Online shopping

It’s amazon.co.uk in the palm of your hand, need I really say more? My only gripe with this one is that it took so long to come out (in the UK).  

iPhoneApps_NationalRail

National Rail  

Cost: £4.99

Category: Travel

Up-to-the-minute updates on your trains whereabouts, location aware, set a ‘home’ station, next-train-home router planner, journey planner, live departures & arrivals, platform information.

After debating over the purchase price for a while I finally cracked and bought it. I still think £5 is steep for what you can do via their website for free, however, they have managed to make their site so unusable (from an iPhone) that you don’t have a lot of choice. A while ago a chap named Malcom Barclay developed an app that showed all the train information (route planning, etc) and gave it away for FREE. Sure enough, National Rail decided this was too much of a good thing so took away his license to publish information and created their own application. Make what your will of it.

Is it a good app? Yes, for all the pain they put you through (on purpose in my opinion) on their website (via iPhone), they make up for in the usability of this app. If you travel on British rail I think that it’s something that you can’t do without (Well, you can, but this makes your life a LOT easier). For the price of two high-street coffees you get an app that is stable, user friendly, intuitive, and (in my case) the information provided has been spot on.

iPhoneApps_Ping!

Ping!

Cost: £0.59 (+ in-app purchase of £0.59 for picture messaging – worth it)

Category: Communication

You pay £0.59 for the app and you text for free. Add to that an in-app purchase for picture messaging and you are good to go. Any messages that you send or receive are free of charges – just make sure you have an internet connection. Only one other thing with this is to say that it only works between Ping! apps. So, in order to send a text/picture, your intended recipient will a
lso need to have Ping! installed.

With the growth in application-based mobile devices nowadays it won’t be long until many more handsets/Mobile OSes are supported.

iPhoneApps_DropBox

Dropbox 

Cost: free

Category: Utilities

Sign up for a Dropbox account and sync all your files to the cloud and with any other computer you want. This is the app version, so now you can view all your files right on your iPhone. Sharing is by way of a link to the file in your Dropbox (which is placed in a email for you). In order for you to quickly view files you need right away you can select any number as favourites. These then are downloaded to your phone for when you don’t have a connection to the tubez. What would make this more of a killer app? Being able to attach the files directly to an email.

iPhoneApps_WhiteNoise

WhiteNoise 

Cost: Free

Category: Utilities

When I was growing up I always had a [desk] fan going (it was helluva hot where I used live and it kept away the mosquitoes), so I’m used to having some sort of drone whilst I am sleeping. White Noise does this wonderfully. It has loads of background sounds that help to immerse you in audible bliss. I find that the ‘Brown noise’ works brilliantly in drowning out all other sounds – and on the rare occasion that we have a party we use this to help our son sleep. It works wonders.

iPhoneApps_LetsGolf

Let’s Golf 

Cost: £1.59

Category: Games

Golf fan? This might make you one. A simple little game with great graphics and good challenges. Play a course at Fiji, USA, Scotland & England at varying levels. Earn a few prizes and get your name in lights along the way. A great way to pass the time waiting for trains….

iPhoneApps_NetNEwsWire

NetNewsWire 

Cost: free

Category: Utilities

Get all your RSS feeds into one place on your iPhone. Download the feeds whilst you have an internet connection and you’ll have something to read where ever you go. That is unless some blogs only give an excerpt in their feed, which narks me off royally. For those of you that don’t feed the whole post go read this post.

iPhoneApps_Units

Units 

Cost: free

Category: Utilities

All your conversions in one handy place. For free.

iPhoneApps_AbsoluteRadio

Absolute 

Cost: free

Category: Entertainment

Absolute radio. Absolutely awesome. Absolutely Free. Internet connection required.

iPhoneApps_AngryBirds

Angry Birds 

Cost: £0.59

Category: Games

Because it’s addictive. Apparently some Pigs stole eggs from the Birds and now the Birds are pissed. Your aim (‘scuse the pun) is to destroy the pigs by flinging different [angry] birds at various structures housing the bacon pigs. Loads of fun and fairly simple, what more could you ask for to waste away the time?

iPhoneApps_LondonTubeDelux

London Tube Deluxe 

Cost £0.59

Category: Utilities, Travel

This app is another must for those in London. Covering all of the underground lines, London Tube Deluxe has an up-to-date status for each line (including a description of the fault, if any), a map overview (PDF), journey planner, departure times and locates your nearest tube station.

 

That’s my list for now. I’m always on the lookout for more great apps so if you have any recommendations let’s hear about them!

Let the games begin!

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If you haven’t noticed from my Twitter feed, I am a Formula 1 fan. I wasn’t always a fan but had followed it on and off for a few years – those years where a certain Ferrari driver won race after race, championship after championship, and it got a little boring. Then, in 2007, a young upstart entered the fray for McLaren and really stirred things up a bit. Heck, he almost won the world championship in his debut year. Lewis Hamilton came in 2nd to Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.  Without the red cars winning every race, a great deal of tension throughout the season, and some awesome competition, I was taken with a sport that now entertains me every couple of weeks from March to November each year.

I like the way Lewis drives. I like the aggressiveness (although sometimes reckless) nature in the way he overtakes and defends for position. Yes, having a good car to race in helps a hell of a lot, demonstrated perfectly by Brawn GP, Red Bull & Toyota earlier this season.  (Perhaps I should have said “having Ross Brawn helps a hell of a lot”). Just look at the results. Now, however, the cars seem to be on a more level playing field. The Qualifying times for the Hungarian GP show that the top 10 times for Q1 were within just 0.1 seconds of each other. And just 1 second spread all 20 drivers. That’s a remarkably small amount. Compare this to last year’s qualifying in Hungary – the top 10 times for Q1 were spread over 1.2 seconds, with all 20 times being spread over nearly 3 seconds.

I have often wondered, & am probably not the only one, how Hamilton (or indeed Vettel) would compare to Michael Schumacher. As Schumacher retired from Formula 1 at the end of 2006, we have not had the opportunity to find out, and have had to rely on imagination and speculation. Until now.

With Felipe Massa’s horrible accident during qualifying at the Hungarian GP ruling him out of the European GP, and possibly the rest of the 2009 season, there is a need for another Ferrari driver. Speculation had been rife that Michael Schumacher may ask be asked to come back for a short time until Massa returns. This announcement confirms that he will indeed be Massa’s substitute.

I am thoroughly excited by this. It will shake things up a bit and we will finally get to see a number of great drivers (Schumacher/Alonso/Raikkonen/Hamilton/Button/Vettel/Webber among others…) competing with cars that are currently performing on a very similar level. I can’t wait. And I am sure that there are thousands more that feel the same way. If you weren’t enamoured by F1 before, this may change that.

A few quotes from the intertubz:

The BBC: “Lewis Hamilton against Michael Schumacher for the first time ever? Jenson Button up against Michael Schumacher? How will Kimi Raikkonen respond? It’s going to be fascinating.”

Eddie Jordan – “..I’m sure he [Bernie Ecclestone] has a little magic wand somewhere involved in this, because things just don’t happen…he has made this happen…”

The Telegraph: “Old green eyes is back. And boy is Formula One pleased to see him. Never mind Ferrari, Michael Schumacher is digging the sport out of a hole following BMW’s withdrawal from Formula One.”

The New York Times: “To return as a fill-in and not commit for a full season and run for the title could be something incredibly appealing to him”

Are you into Formula 1? What are your views on Schumacher’s return?

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