Archive for May, 2007:

This blog has been written since November 2005, racking up a cool 325 posts from myself and 1,312 comments from you, at the time of writing.

Being a self-proclaimed Geek, I often talk about geeky things in my posts, to which Adamskii, Byron and others enjoy replying to - again, in a geeky way. Unfortunately not all my visitors are geeks themselves, so the geeky posts and comments tend to alienate them. I apologise.

But, don’t expect the geek to disappear. Ever.

Instead, I will try to create plenty of not-so-geeky content to keep you interested and, more importantly, coming back for more. For the geeks out there, I plan to continue my geeky posts too - which means I’ll have to step up production of the posts, in order to satisfy both parties.

For starters, I’m planning on posting many articles in the near future that will document my experiences in Web Design, but also a few tutorials and tips for other designers out there.

On the flip side, I’ll carry on blogging about more sociable things, such as films and beer. Which reminds me, I’ve got several bottles in the fridge still - and I’ve not been to the cinema for a good few weeks too…

Oh and I also plan on coming up with a solution to the plenty of random ’spam’ comments that populate these pages, but for now, keep them coming!

Friday the 4th of May was a big day for many - it was my last day at my current employer; it was Star Wars day (May the 4th be with you); Anneka finished her 3rd year at Uni; Emily finished her 2nd; and Simon, Rachel, Anneka and myself headed down to Pinewood Studios to see series 2 of The IT Crowd being filmed.

The movie-buffs out there will instantly recognise the name Pinewood from the James Bond and Carry On series, but also from films such as Mission Impossible and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As it was a bank holiday weekend, we expected some traffic but were quite surprised at how quickly we drove from Lincoln to the M25. However, Simon’s conversation about Pizza Hut meant that we missed a crucial turning, putting us back another 20 minutes or so. The traffic from the M25 to the studios itself was pretty bad - though we made it on time, only to be greeted by a man of the opposite team who called me a beautiful man. I’ll treasure that moment forever.

Once inside, there wasn’t much to see; all the buildings looked like huge warehouses, with a uniform look of a prison camp. The only building that did stand out, however, was the 007 stage - which was pretty much 3 times the size of the others, with a huge 007 sign towards the peak of the roof.

We were ushered, by, well, ushers - who all seemed to be of the camp variety. They took us on a crazy paving route towards the canteen, before then taking us back the way we’d come and a little further, to the relevant studio. All the important people appeared to be driving golf carts around, leaving us to shuffle to and from the ushers, who directed us in all sorts of directions other than the most direct.

A few moments later and we were walking into the building where the second series of The IT Crowd was being filmed. It looked like any other building until we walked through a break in the dark back-drops to be confronted with the new set. It’s at this point that I’ll point out all the obvious set changes from Series 1 to 2:

• The budget for the basement seems to have increased tenfold
• There’s acrylic tables and speakers; flat screens on every desk; weird and wonderful gadgets
• They’ve now got an XBOX 360 and HD LCD TV in the basement, along with Guitar Hero 2
• All of the older hardware appears to still be on set, albeit in the back store room
• Jen’s office is a bit more lived in, with ambient lighting and weird things

I could go on and on - but I’ll summarise the set itself in saying that it’s not much like the original. They’ve pretty much kept the desks where they were, but altered everything else. It’s a welcome change, which appeared to bring Series 2 up to date.

Oh, one prop I shall focus on is the new computer sitting in the boss’ office (I’ll keep it to boss for now) - an Antec P180. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t connected up to the screen on the desk itself, but I wont dwell on it for fear of being branded a geek.

Once we were seated, we awaited the start of the show which seemed to take forever. Luckily they had some weirdo who entertained us for a few minutes, but we wanted to see the show itself, not some unknown prancing about, ripping the piss out of hoodies. Though admittedly, he was funny at times.

Fast forward a bit and we were introduced to the writer, Graham Linehan (Father Ted, Black Books) along with the series producer - Ash Atilla (The Office). We were also introduced to a surprise actor, Matt Berry (the 2nd on this invitation) who I remembered from Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (Dr. Lucien Sanchez), but Simon and Rachel saw in The Mighty Boosh (Dixon Bainbridge). Either way it was fecking hilarious to hear him talk normally, as his voice is really the deep and weird one that adorns the aforementioned shows - complete with his long locks and a beard of sorts.

I wont spoil too much of the new series, but Matt Berry replaces Denim Denholm, who apparently dies earlier on in the series. He’s his son, whose first name eludes me.

We then sat for about 4 hours, watching VTs (which I since learned stand for Video Tapes) and the live recording of various scenes. There were many bloopers that will no doubt be on the out-takes of the DVD.

The only disappointments were the distinct lack of anything IT. I’m not complaining though, but they appear to have focussed more on the character development this time around, rather than the hilarities of the IT call-outs in the 1st series - as in the whole episode they only appear to make the one. They do, however, start the episode with a bash at Guitar Hero, which looks like a lot of fun.

Overall, it was a great experience - one that highlighted a lot of elements that go into making each episode. It also showed us some of the most extreme fans - those that can recall all 20 numbers of the emergency services from series 1! To brand us a geek is insane when there were people there that lived and breathed this show. I’m very much looking forward to seeing Series 2 of The IT Crowd, even more so than before - and I think we’ll be expecting at least a 3rd and possibly 4th out of them in the near future.

If you’ve never encountered The IT Crowd before, then have a look at the channel 4 mini-site; what appears to be a fan-site and wikipedia. IMDB has a bit on the show too, but not nearly as much as you would expect.

Any questions about Series 2? Then feel free to comment, as you’ll have 4 of us to answer.

Frequent readers may remember me mentioning my Dad’s new Logitech Z-5500 speakers when I wrote a brief post on his new setup - consisting of the aforementioned speakers and a Dell 30″ LCD. In the same post I said that they were on my wishlist - not realising that my Dad would read my blog. By the way, if you’re reading this Dad - hi and thanks!

As it’s my birthday in a week or so, my parents came up to Lincoln to both pick up my sister, who’d finished Uni and also to celebrate in advance. My Dad also brought his present for me along with them - a set of Logitech Z-5500’s (hence the post).

To cut a long story short (as Lucas and Walliams are on TV) I’ve now setup the Z-5500’s and have already given them a good testing via Project Gotham Racing 3 and iTunes - with the former lasting over an hour of selecting the loudest cars and driving over all the rumble strips and sand traps to experience the, well, experience.

I’ve only taken the volume up to what appears to be 10%, due to neighbours in the vicinity - so there’s plenty of decibels left in them yet; 500w of 5.1 sound is pretty cool…

Google appear to be dominating the IT world, in pretty much all areas of the industry. Not content with being the #1 search provider, they’re expanding into all corners, enabling us to benefit from their new services. Their founders were voted as the most influential people in IT, so you know they’re big.

You may have heard on the radio, or read online that Google have recently launched their ‘PayPal’ style Google Checkout service in the UK. If you’ve visited any online retailers you may have also spotted the £10 off promotion too.

Having been a user of PayPal for a year or two now, I have to say that it’s great, but limited in its use - I don’t think I’ve used it anywhere other than eBay. However, Google Checkout has already been banned by eBay themselves, obviously because they didn’t want the competition or revenue losses.

So, today I decided to use Google Checkout to purchase 2 Gigabit Switches - a 5-port for the loft and an 8-port for the bedroom, as I’m finding 10/100 to be too slow for my needs. Both Ebuyer and Aria offer the products at a very reasonable price - around £90 for the pair including postage. Add in the Google Checkout (£10 off) and my new switches have dented my account by just £80.

I don’t know how long this promotion is going to last, or even if it is a promotion anyway - but if you’re needing to purchase anything online within the next few weeks, then make sure you opt for the Google Checkout option. It’s a lot less hassle too - my details are stored now after the first purchase, which means I can simply login with my Google account and away it goes. All my orders are stored in the one location, instead of requiring me to trawl through countless websites to find past expenditures.

Putting Google Checkout to one side, I’ve also explored a few more of their many services, over the past few months. I found the Google Maps to be extremely helpful, as they’ve shown me a route to my new job that’s 1.3 miles shorter! The Google Docs may come in handy sometime, but I find working on a local application a lot more satisfying - even though I spend many hours typing these waffling posts using WordPress. I’ve even used Google Mail once or twice and am still considering it as a permanent alternative to hotmail and my domain email.

The only worrying thing about all this is the security and the fact that Google now has my card details somewhere on its servers. But I’d rather that Google had it than Microsoft…