http://www.flickr.com/photos/mediaguy/sets/72157624865588298/

I don’t think Amy was impressed with the hat shot though…

My last website had a lot of problems with WordPress (the blog that powers this site) and it has stopped Amy and I from posting as much as we would like. We couldn’t install plugins nor upload photographs without going through a large number of manual steps, and it isn’t worth it.

So while the Internet was working out where to find my new site I decided to update it! Hopefully the pictures and tweets will be a bit easier to read (seeing as I update those a lot more often than this site). Bloggingit and Robinsonic will follow shortly (once I’ve told my parents their site is moving).

Hopefully once I’ve sorted the wedding site out I’ll update that too.

On the work side we’re getting ready for the battle of lecture recording systems. Interestingly they are all very different. We tested out a Windows Media / Silverlight solution for the LLAS e-learning conference last friday (videos are here) and are also looking at a H.264 / Flash solutions too.

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Now to write something that will help everyone who like us types something like ‘My breville breadmaker keeps failing’ into Google. Ignore the instructions…

We’ve found that the flour websites are normally a lot more accurate than the breadmaker instructions. We’re using the instructions here now – http://www.carrsbreadmaker.info/recipes/stong_white_flour.html and after two failed loafs with 180-odd ml of water we’ve found that some idiot made the manual. After changing it to 300ml the loaf has come out great.

Now I’m not a very shouty person but I nearly shouted at a good 50 idiots today in West Quay because they don’t seem to be able to follow this very easy set of rules for escaping during a fire alarm

1. When a fire alarm goes off with ‘wait for further instructions’ then listen
2. When the fire alarm goes off with ‘leave the area immediatly’ then find the quickest way out

Number 2 shouldn’t really be that difficult. If you’ve ever been in any public building you’ll see a little green man running towards an exit. This man will literally be running to wards an exit as there is an arrow telling you where to go. Just go in the f**king direction the arrow is pointing. It really isn’t that hard.

We have just walked through a fire exit from the main shopping walkway. The room is about 20 metres long and people are not moving. The people are trying to walk through a small walkway (we think because they’ve seen a member of staff going down there) when there is a giant two door exit with a fire escape sign above it straight in front of them.

48 people turn left (the walkway is actually the walkway above a road, if there was a fire they would all be trapped). We go through the fire exit, the people behind us go through the fire exit only because Amy says “This is the fire exit” to them. The 50 people behind us ignore everything.

I wish natural selection would work on these sheep.

So to re-iterate when you see this sign

You do not turn left. Easy. Stupid people…

I’ve been tracking it all on the healthy living chart (link is on the right) and have a nice graph. Everything is better as a graph.

It seems as though the flat we are going to move into has TalkTalk as its phone supplier. This in itself isn’t bad, but we don’t want it.

We intended to move with BT, taking our number with us. However when the current tenants cancel TalkTalk it seems as though the line just goes dead.

BT won’t automatically re-connect a number. There is a simple reason for this and that’s the £122.50 reconnection fee that muggins has to pay. Despite it being a TalkTalk line even TalkTalk will charge a £30 reconnection fee and force an 18 month contract on you.

We always intended to go to Sky for our Broadband and phone, but planned for it to be a BT landline underneath it all. But we’ve found out that Sky will charge a £39 reconnection fee (yesterday it was £25, but you can’t have everything). This gives us exactly what we want for £80 less than BT.

In actuality we can get

• A phone line reconnection
• Sky+ box
• Sky installation
• A months line rental

For about £115. And although it sounds a lot of money it is still £7.50 than BT just reconnecting the line.

Good news:
Looks like we’re moving to a nicer place. Gas central heating, double glazing, proper shower, working tv and satellite feeds. Like moving out of the 1900s

I ate Pizza on Friday and Curry on Saturday. By Sunday I’d lost 5 pounds in 2 days. Now there’s a diet I can follow.

Bad news:
New places mean new months rent, deposits, administration charges. All just after paying the wedding deposit. It’s never a good idea taking money out of an ISA but we might have to for the move.

My right eye has gone a bit out of focus. Hopefully nothing too drastic but it is affecting my ability to see a computer screen clearly. Will see Ultralase tomorrow and see what they say. Re-treatment (if needed) is only possible after 6 months and it’s been 2. Long distance doesn’t seem too bad, it’s just the 75cm between me and screen that affects me.