Nothing of note

That is one of the worst titles I've ever used. That's not drawing people in! What school of Marketing is that from? Maybe if it was some sort of ironic in-joke that regular readers would be familiar with, then it'd be ok, but, and I haven't checked this mind, I'm assuming I'm not exactly writing for an audience of thousands here!

However, it is kinda accurate. Nothing particularly of note has occured that's compelled me to write in depth about it of late. But that's not necessarily anything new, a quick examination of the dates of my posts shows their sporadic nature. I can go weeks without feeling compelled to write. This is something I'm trying to focus on, I'd like to make sure I write something on a more frequent basis, just to make sure I'm writing. It's too easy to let these things slide, it's happened to me with drawing. While I'm not really doing this to accumulate legions of readers, (though I do appreciate anyone who does stop by to see my ramblings, and hope it's at least of some moderate entertainment) I would like to get a regular habit of actually writing something.

So what nerdy things of interest have occured? Well, last week I noticed this news piece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8302286.stm
I firstly thought it was brilliant that Microsoft announced they were readying a security update to cover vulnerable areas, then mentioned the vulnerable areas! A day before the update! Hey you have 1 day to go exploit these areas! Just seemed pretty irresponsible to me.

So said update goes out on Tuesday. Wednesday, I receive a call from my future in-laws. Their e-mail is playing up. I go round and find that when they run a send/receive, the mail servers cannot be found. I check everything I can think of, we discover that oddly the e-mail is retrieved perfectly from another laptop running XP and from an iPhone. Neither of which had at that point recieved any security update, though it's assumed the main Vista computer had. The problem had not started until late tuesday.

Finally, I hit upon the idea of downloading Thunderbird and seeing if that would recognise the servers. It did. So it was purely a Windows Mail program issue. I cured the problem by updating to the latest version of Windows Mail. While I have no technical proof, it does seem logical that the security update broke Windows Mail! It seems to be a one off incident, I've seen nothing else about it, and another Vista machine with the same version of Windows Mail has no issues with the same mail servers. Still weird though.

Then over the weekend, I heard my Father express his surprise at how impressed he was when he tried Open Office. Brilliant! More people should be trying Open Office and realising how free software can still be great software. Soon they'll all be running Linux, heh heh heh.

I don't know why I added a dirty laugh to that, unless I'm planning to customise my ubuntu version to pornbuntu or something. Which I'm not. However I did pick up a Linux magazine this week too. This is a rare event as they're really damn expensive! Which I thought to be somewhat ironic as it focussed on largely free software. However, it finally hit me, they probably can't sell much advertising space! Why advertise in a magazine largely aimed at people shunning big corporations?

Finally (yes, finally, for a blog where I start by saying I have nothing to write about, I've blithered on for a while now. It's like urinating in a crowded pub toilet. It's really difficult to get started, but once you do, you just go on and on. Probably because you've involuntarily held in the last 8 beers. That's probably just me, and I've probably revealed too much...) my lovely fiancee and I have begun watching The Big Bang Theory. It's a show I've been aware of but only just recently properly watched any episodes. That and Wil Wheaton's recent discovery of it, which quickly led to a guest spot (that probably won't happen to me though) got me keen to see the whole thing. Season 1 arrived yesterday and I've watched one episode, in our breakfast comedy time before work. It's equal parts hilarious and scary as it holds up a mirror to my own character. Like when someone expresses excitment to watch Battlestar Galactica Season 2 again, 'with the commentaries!'.

Yep, it's a miracle I've even kissed a girl, let alone got one to marry me!!