Dave Williams

Yeh you better believe it baby.

I demonstrated this phone for ACB Radio last week and promised to post some comments here. My existing
phone is the Nokia 6600 so there are some comparative points here.

Cons: The keypad is very fiddly with the keys decreasing in size toward the
bottom of the phone making composing SMS and email pretty tricky; Annoying 5
directional navikey which does not feel as sturdy or as rugged as the
joystick on the 6600; The pop port is yet another annoying proprietary
standard requiring a proprietary cable, would have much preferred a standard
USB type B connector; The reduced size MMC is a limitation which could have
been avoided by using the much more widely available and affordable SD
cards; The headset connects to the pop port so a USB connection can not be
made at the same time as using the headset; It is not possible to connect
standard headphones to make the most of the stereo mp3 playback; the socket
for the charger is set at a 45 degree angle making using the phone in one's
left hand cumbersome; Simbian security feature making it impossible to
complete an application installation via Bluetooth from a PC, this can make
installing Talks pretty fiddly; Finally, my first unit turned out to be
faulty with the seven key not responding and the cover for the RC MMC being
loose. Contrary to some reports there is no FM radio on this phone. And US readers should wait for the 6638 which is going to be to the 6630 what the 6620 was to the 6600.

Pros: Supports 3G with data speeds up to a theoretical maximum of 384k, I've
yet to see this in practice; Much more responsive with it's faster processor
and more memory (10MB onboard and 64MB on the removable media card;
dedicated voice tag button on edge of phone; newer version of Simbian which
consolidates many of the menus; improved camera resolution and video
recorder which will now shoot upto 1-hour; stereo mp3 playback through
proprietary headset; improved onboard speaker; supports improved Nokia PC
Suite 6.5, raised rubber lip around camera lens providing greater
protection, although I don't know why nokia couldn't develop a rotating lens
cap; seven short cut keys with all 5 positions of the navikey being
configurable in addition to soft key 1 and soft key 2.

Over all I like the 6630 and think I'll probably upgrade which will mean
regrettably the people at Orange may get to keep my custom after all. We'll
see what happens when I visit the Orange shop this week. And the rumours
are that Orange customers with Wildfire may get to keep the service after
all. We shall see.

It's been a while. But then it usually is. Ok, it's all going on. Where
to start?

For anyone who hasn't heard I'm going around the world. That's right all
the way around. I David G Williams, all being well before this July is out
will have completely circumnavigated the globe! Exciting isn't it? The
fact that I'm only stopping at a small number of English speaking countries
along the way is neither here nor there. I didn't say I was travelling the
world did I? I didn't say I was about to embark on a world tour or anything
quite so pretentious. But I am going all the way around, mostly in a big
metal thing with wings and airhostesses. But it's still very exciting. At
least it is to me anyway. I spent an obscene amount of money with a company
I'd not heard of 3 months ago, and really I have no clue what I'm doing,
where I'm likely to end up, or whether I'll even be able to afford a bag of
chips by the end of it. But I will try to blog as much as possible, some
text, some pictures and all being well some audio.

So watch this space. And if you want to read about a real traveller then
visit www.palinstravels.co.uk

You better believe it baby!

Yep, it's definitely all or nothing for the red men tonight. I still haven't decided if I'm going to watch it at home or in the pub.

In other news I've been playing with the Nokia 6630 and I'll post my thoughts here soon.

.. and I loved every minute of it. The Telegraph probably has the most colourful write-up of the 50th Eurovision Song Contest. You wouldn't/couldn't find anything quite like this anywhere else in the world. It makes one proud to be European. :)

Well she'll go eventurally I guess. So in memory of Wildfire here for your listening pleasure is the "Mad Cow" Easter Egg. You need to be very bored to find this, but I'm proud to say I did. :blushes

1. Call Wildfire from your Orange phone on 123 before Orange pull the plug.

2. Say "do me a favour", Wildfire should respond with "what kind of favour" in a pretty suggestive voice.

3. Say "what does a cow say", nine times out of ten you will here a cow mooing. But every tenth time you'll here Wildfire say "That's getting boring, here's what a mad cow says". If what follows doesn't even make you smile just a tiny bit then I'm sorry I can't help you.

Here's what a Mad Cow says!

In a few weeks my mobile phone network Orange plan to delete all my contacts and messages. Which in view of the fact I spend around £150 per month, more than all my other utilities put together, I feel is unforgivable.

Even if you don't use the service, and wouldn't be too upset if it went away, Wildfire is a symbol of the days when the Orange mobile phone network would innovate. Orange were the first network with caller ID in the UK, the first to price match any other operator's price plans, the first to offer free call forwarding (Orange anyphone) which they later cancelled, the only network to send you free wine if you used your phone enough (which they also later cancelled), the first with free customer services, still the only UK mobile phone network allowing one to have a second line on the same handset, etc. Orange were probably the most innovative of the UK networks in the years 1994-2000. But following the change of hands away from Hutchinson the network has steadily gone down hill with the increase in waiting times to customer services, and withdrawal of services such as: Orange Equity, Orange Anyphone and now Wildfire. If you are a mobile phone user, no matter which network, the cancellation of Wildfire is another blow to innovation and customer service.

At the end of this month Orange will switch off wild fire. And in doing so will delete the thousands of contacts and messages which customers have stored in the system. Should telephone networks be allowed to destroy personal data like this without any apology or compensation? I guess they can do whatever they please.

I have set a termination date for my Orange contract. I don't want to leave, but Orange's conduct leave me with little choice.

Please support the Wildfire campaign. I don't expect it will change Orange's decision to pull the plug on Wildfire, but it will register as a protest vote, and maybe next time Orange decide to crap on their customers they'll think twice before doing it.

Campaign web site:
http://www.croftsfamily.com/campaigntoaccessorange/

Online Petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?orangewf

Articles from the Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/11/orange_wildfire/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/13/orange_wildfire/

I'm still not one hundred percent. I don't know what it is, I haven't felt
right since the middle of last week. I seriously hope that whatever it is
goes away pretty quickly as I've got a busy few months coming up. I could
do with a few less sessions like the one I had in the smallest room in the
flat earlier this morning. Yuck. TMI! I know.

Had some good news yesterday. Work have approved some time off in July
after the convention which means I can finally press ahead with my travel
plans. Watch this space.

Today I managed to drag myself out of bed after another late night in front
of the computer doing audio production. I spoke to Geoff in Australia, and
was gutted to hear the news about Kylie having breast cancer. I lost an
aunt to cancer around 15 years ago. Is it me or are cancer rates up? Or
are detection methods improving?

I had to go into town this afternoon to order a visa for Australia. Heh I
told you to watch this space! Basically my online travel agent need my
passport number in order to order the visa, and last time I checked my
passport wasn't in Braille. Anyway, the lovely ladies at Thompson relieved
me of £25 and promised that my Australian visa would be created
electronically and I didn't need any bits of paper or cards or anything.
Fingers crossed.

Visited the bank for about the 4th time to try and get a PIN for my
replacement debit card, as they seem incapable of sending it to me in an
accessible format. Even Egg can manage to let you view a PIN online. So
after months of haggling I came up with a compromise where the PIN will get
sent to the branch and I'll go in and suffer the indignity of having them
read it to me. But can they send it straight to my local branch? Can they
bollocks! Apparently it has to go to the branch where I originally opened
the account a dozen years ago, and then be forwarded via snail mail to my
local branch. Welcome to the digital age.

I dropped by the Stanley to see who was in. Tom, George, Tony and Brian.
Apparently young Kev has tonsillitis. So no food there at the moment. In
spite of my dodgy guts I was feeling peckish so I dropped by MacDonald's and
tried their new Big and Tasty. Hmm, not bad. Tasted a bit like a flame
grilled burger with plenty of cheese and relish and source etc. Hope it
doesn't aggravate my already precarious digestive system.

First Direct Computers apparently wanted £55 to reinstall Windows on my Mesh
PC, so I opted to take it away in it's still unbootable state. I'll have to
give that one some thought. Although I do need the machine in order to
retrieve some projects which are half completed. So I'll pull the drive out
later and plug in an IDE cable and pull off the work and hope that one of my
friends can be bribed in to assisting with a reinstall for less than that
£55 extortionate nonsense.

Just spoke to my sister and filled her in on my travel plans. I have a
stack of work to do so time for me to crack on.

Quite fitting that I just found this recording from 5 May and only just got around to posting it.

A little something to help one sleep.

Labels: Books

Ding dong.

Well here we are again on one of Virgin's finest replacement bus services from Crewe to Preston at the end of another full weekend.

On Friday I Travelled from Preston to Epsom via London. I was feeling pretty under the weather and came very close to cancelling. But it was Martin's Girlfriend's birthday and last October she had honoured me by coming to Preston for my birthday. So it was only right, no matter how shockingly rough I was feeling that I make the effort.

Friday evening the 3 of us went to an excellent French restaurant and ate steak, drank Californian wine and listened to British and American music and were served by a lady called Rebecca. And while the place wasn't very French, it most certainly was very excellent. The service was fantastic as was the steak. Definitely up there in my top 5 steaks of all time.

Saturday Martin hosted a barbecue. The rain held off although the wind was a tiny bit on the chilly side. I met Tina and Paul who sells heart valves, Dan or went to the same college as Martin and I, Dan's girlfriend who has recently given birth to Zakk their first child, Steve is the proud owner of the world's greediest dog, some bloke called Patrick who seems pretty cheesed off with the world right now, and hmm did I forget anyone?

Following the barbecue, which incidentally was cooked by Dan and Paul, we all sloped off down to the Riser which is Martin's local. A couple of pints of the award winning Surrey bitter later and it was time to head back to the flat for copious cans of John Smiths Smooth.

Amongst the birthday celebrations I was keeping in contact with some of the crowd from last weekend via SMS, and coordinating with Geoff and Rachel to support ACB Radio's coverage of the Florida Council of the Blind's state convention.

Today was definitely beer gardening weather, and I enjoyed a roast lamb and new potatoes Sunday lunch, while Martin and Dan had curry, before I caught the London train on my way back up to Preston. I had to be back for 9:30 as we were having a staff meeting. And it's now stupid o'clock again and I'm pretty exhausted after the meeting so it's time for me to sleep. Lots of work to do tomorrow. Or is that today.

There's one or two people I can't stop thinking about right now. But that's a topic for another day. Get a grip Williams.

Night.

Ok 3rd time lucky. the last two times I tried to write this I managed to hit the back button on the laptop and lost it.

The Mesh box babbled a load of cack at me on Wednesday before diing never to reboot. I took it down to 1st Computers in Preston who are promising a dianosis by the weekend. so now I'm getting a ton of email which refers to the old email to which I don't have access.

Had several rather incomprehensible conversations with: Rachel K on Skype, Rob and Martin on the phone, and myself in bed. This may be partly due to visiting both the Market and Stanley public houses earlier in the evening where I bellyached about the cost of beer, the injustice of Liverpool not being able to defend the European cup should we win it for a 5th time at the end of May, and sundry women troubles. don't ask.

Well I better catch some zzzzs and yet again try to contact my employer to see if I can get a vacation any time soon.

Pip.

What is? You may ask. Ho hum. At least 3 people have contacted me today who read this little opus, this little feeble attempt at a blog, this stream of consciousness which is basically a way for me to remember that life actually still goes on outside work.

Although the fact that I put this nonsense on the web, and the fact that some folks are now bored enough to read it presents me with an interesting dilemma. Should I continue being honest and unrestrained? Should I go back to just blogging news stories? Or now I know I have a small yet devoted readership do I pander to the whims of that readership in some vane hope that they will stay with this blog and continue to grow? And in the hope that I don't hurt any of their feelings.

While I may launch the occasional diatribe, it is not my intention to offend. Just tell ya what I'm thinking, take it or leave it.

Right, it's 3:07 and I'm getting far too exhausted and serious. Good night. Normal service will resume shortly.

Well apparently I hit a couple of landmarks in my processing of SETI@Home units. I'm now ranked in the top 50,000 of 5 million and I'm processing an average of over 5 work units per day. you'll sleep well tonight now knowing that. Oh and in the group Q5 to which I belong I'm second behind the group found who hasn't processed anything for months so I may just sneek up on him yet.

Arrived Cardiff around 5 on Thursday and met Jo and some bloke called Tofara from Zimbabwe in the Prince of Wales. Within an hour the group had grown exponentially to include Gail and Tom plus 4 or 5 people I didn't really know. Pubbing pretty much became the trend for the rest of the weekend, which was no bad thing, although it's all beginning to catch up on me now.

Friday included a string of ATMs which refused to work instead prefering to throw out random bits of paper and make dialing up to the internet type noises. Eventually found some money from a working machine, or at least a machine which would take my card.

Food was the order of the day on Friday, starting with a full English Breakfast in a café in an area called Canton. Later Gail, Jo and I visited Henry's, a lively bistro in town where I got me a 12 ounce steak. Think I'm putting on waight. Ug.

The Classical concert was great. At the aptly named St David's Hall Gail and I heard Schubert's unfinished symphony, a concerto for double strings by Tipit and Beethoven's piano concerto number 5. Met Jo and Toff in a pub afterward.

Saturday we met up with Del, Lee, and Anne. Toff was still around for a little while as the trains were disrupted as a woman was threatening to jump off a bridge on to the line on the approach to Cardiff Central. Saturday night was not quite as carried away as the previous two evenings, although I did manage to spend substantially, and a decent enough time was had all round.

During the night, Del's snoring rocked Jo's flat to it's very foundations. One of our number made a hasty exit pretty early on Sunday. It's unclear if these two events were related.

Sunday afternoon Del Jo and I rounded things off with a tremendous Sunday lunch in yet another of Cardiff's finest public houses. The Rumma I think it was called.

And at around 6PM Jo did the honours and walked me to catch my train from Cardiff Central back to Preston. I'm expecting a replacement bus service for part of the journey as the work on the west coast main line seems to be continuing. Oh joy. Hope to be in before 11PM as I have work tonight.

There are many anecdotes from the last few days which are probably deserving of a blog post of their own. But I really don't have the energy to write them up and they probably wouldn't work as well in this medium.

So back to work now.

I wrote this on thursday but couldn't get it to post.


It would appear I am on my way to Cardiff via Bristol. The 12:28 service from Preston is running 12 mins late, but with any luck we'll make up that time before we get to Bristol.

This morning was pretty frantic, catching up with email and doing some washing, but I did manage to find time to vote in the UK General Election. It was all pretty painless. My nearest polling station is about 5 mins walk from the flat and as always the staff were very helpful. And while I was able to cast my vote in private with the aid of a tactile template, blind people still can not verify their vote, and I had no way of knowing if the pen was actually working. So I made sure to press pretty hard so there was little room for doubt.
There seemed to be quite a few people around outside the polling station, mostly older people, and apparently the turn out has been pretty good thus far. This may be due in part to the rain holding off. It's a real shame that something so fickle as the weather can impact turn out.

Well I'm off to get stuck into my bacon sandwich and coffee and catch up on a couple of podcasts.
If I can find the courage to avoid feeling foolish, I'll try recording some audio before I get to Cardiff.

Just trying out the Sharp minidisc mic on the Thinkpad.

It's doing my head in. Why does blogger screw up the line breaks when posting via email? Is this an outlook thing or a blogger thing? It's driving me bananas. It means I have to bugger around reformatting posts which takes just as long as writing them in the first place! Blogging ... Pffff.

It feels like an age since I was last out of Preston. Not that Preston is such a bad place, I actually rather like it here. But I do get itchy feet, even if this only means going away on the train for a day or two.
Tomorrow I am headed to Cardiff to stay with someone I vaguely knew from college. As tomorrow is the UK General Election, before I leave, I must remember to vote early and vote often.
Friday I'll be meeting up with Gail and going to a concert of some description. Details are a little bit sketchy, think it involves a Beethoven piano concerto somewhere along the line. Following the concert I'll be in New Port on Friday night staying with Gail and Tom.
I haven't quite figured out Saturday. I have a couple of options. I may go to see Rob's new pad in Woking Surrey. Failing that I may check in with Del who lives somewhere in the Welch Valleys. Although meeting Del usually involves stupendous amounts of alcohol resulting in 72 hour long hang-over. And I do have work on Sunday evening.
We shall see where the weekend takes us. Charging laptop and cell phone batteries as we speak.

You better believe it baby! I used to go see Liverpool 20 times a season during the dark days of the 1990s, and these days am a bit of an armchair fan. But good on all the real supporters who really got behind the boys last night!

But no Kylie! :sniff

It was billed as the greatest show on earth and I clearly remember being stuck to the TV for hours on end, which was very uncomfortable, following coverage of the original. Although with no Wembly available at the moment the question has to be where would they put it? In Cardiff?

Audio blogging and podcasting and all that jazz comes to DaveWilliams.co.uk. We speak with my good buddy Rob on a slightly suspect mobile connection, and what do you know Rachel K calls in via Skype from Aus.

On Saturday afternoon the time had finally arrived for me to get myself over to the cinema and checkout the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy movie. The UCI 10 here in Preston is as the name suggests a ten-screen multiplex showing all the latest offerings from Hollywood and and Hollywood and elsewhere. It has been a long time since I went to the cinema alone, and I was quite looking forward to the experience. Although I did have some nagging doubts in the back of my mind about what to expect from the silver-screen adaptation of what was truly one of the seminal books of my early teens. However, I tried with every will in the world to put my best foot forward and not be influenced by the mixed reviews I had read thus far.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy started life as a BBC Radio series in the late 70s. The books and TV series followed shortly after. And more than a quarter of a century later the eagerly anticipated movie. This was going to be big, I mean you won't believe how mind bogglingly big … ok enough. You already know all that stuff right?

The Hitchhiker's Guide story has been chopped and changed any number of times over the years, and to some extent the over-all plot isn't really critical to having even a basic appreciation and understanding of the Hitchhiker's experience. In the various Hitchhiker's Guide retellings, details are revealed at different stages in the story; Plot points have been reworked; Different perspectives have been emphasised; And even key sections of dialog had been tweaked. For me continuity is not important in Hitchhiker's. You can take all the little pieces, mix them up and you still have the basic premise. This illustrates the simplicity yet genius of using a reluctant Englishman as the protagonist, and infinite improbability as a plot device. Each time Hitchhiker's has been adapted it has been enhanced. In all of the previous formats I have found a new and refreshing perspective on material with which I had previously become extremely familiar. So there was a part of me very much looking forward to seeing Douglas Adams's epic at the cinema. Hitchhiker's in a new format? Not a problem. This is exactly what the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy legacy is all about.

What is important for me and so many others about hitchhiker's are that certain core elements are there, and are there in just the right quantity, not entirely unlike making a good cup of tea. For example, Arthur's sarcastic and whimsical nature and his faint disgust leading to occasional indignation at the events taking place around him; Marvin's enduring boredom. Not just depression, but sheer boredom at having a brain the size of a planet and nothing to think about. And so on. And while the actors turned in perfectly respectable performances, These attributes amongst others are things which fans of the previous incarnations of this story will seriously have to let go if they are going to even attempt to enjoy this film.

I have no problem with Arthur having a cell phone, this is the 21st century. Or even that they cut some of my favourite jokes, maybe they weren't everyone's favourites. And that not long after everyone reaches the Heart of Gold the plot takes a huge trans-galactic detour from which no one, including the audience, ever really recovers. Digressions are part of the Hitchhiker mentality. Nor do I have a problem with the predictably cheesier than cheese happy happy ending with the earth being rebuilt and everyone flying off into the universe complete with racing car sound effects. Or even the introduction of the "Point of View Gun" which I think is a brilliant yet sadly misused plot device.

In my humble opinion, Arthur is meant to be a slightly tragic figure and he would not in a thousand years declare his feelings in a genuinely romantic way to Trillion. At least not without having had a couple of drinks first, in which case he definitely would have messed it up. Arthur is slightly dysfunctional and is a tragic lonely figure, for goodness sake don't give him meaningful relationships. This is why we like Arthur because he represents a tiny part of our selvs which just craves acceptance. This is why we have the irony that Arthur's only friend in the world is not from this world. Ford is the equivalent to an imaginary friend. An imaginary friend which we would all like to have.

The last thing Arthur is is a superhero, and several times throughout the film we witness him finding himself in very physical situations. Any heroics on the part of Arthur are purely accident, and on the few occasions Arthur Dent saves the day he should be just as surprised as everyone else.

Why is ford an American? A point for which the script even has to apologise as it completely destroys the Guildford joke. And why does Zaphod sound not unlike George W.

Dear reader, I was expecting a train reck. And what I got was much much worse.

There are a couple of gems amongst the wreckage, most notably a visit to the Jatravartid world where we find the natives praying to the The Great White Handkerchief in a hilarious sketch worthy of Python. The other laugh out loud moment is when one of the mice (pan dimentional beings) shrilly exclaims "bollocks" much to the amusement of a little girl sitting somewhere in the cinema off to my left.

Look people if your expecting a movie version of the radio series forget it.
This has been through the Disney machine good and proper. I'm sure it will appeal to someone somewhere and will likely clean up at the box office. If this draws people in, who then go on to read the books etc then it's a good thing. The existence of this film doesn't detract from the radio series which incidentally restarts on Tuesday. Don't take it too seriously. It's like sex, you'll enjoy it much more if you relax. But I don't know about you, I can't enjoy crap sex. And for me this is worse. Apparently Adams himself approved the script, although I'd be fascinated to know what if any difference he could have made once the cookie cutter movie industry got their teeth into this. Sadly that's what it boils down to. It doesn't matter if me and people like me don't enjoy this film. We are not who this film was made for. Go see it if you're curious and don't mind handing over your £5.60 just remember when you've stopped spitting teeth you can bask in hours of radio drama and hundreds of pages of prose which in the opinions of many embody the true spirit of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.