Last Sunday (10 May 2009) it was Mothers Day in the US.  To mark this occasion, my parents sent Jen some flowers and a card.  This was completely unexpected and a wonderful surprise, and as you can see from these pictures, the flowers are wonderful too.

Check out this YouTube video of three guys messing around drifting some trikes down some US country roads.  This is completely stupid and I sooooooooo want to give it a go :-D

For most of my professional career I have been a Windows guys with some Sun Solaris and Linux experience interspersed.

With my role change to an Enterprise Architect and my current interest in computer security, I thought it was about time that I took a closer look at what’s happening in the Unix world.

SPSS support a number of Unix distributions and Red Had Enterprise Linux.  While I was over at Red Hat, I discovered that the free distribution with all of the potential future packages is now distributed with a different brand, Fedora.

I’m a big fan of virtualisation for playing around with technology and therefore I wanted to install the latest Fedora distribution (Fedora 10) within my Virtual Server 2005 environment.

A bit of Google hunting found a blog post by Paul over at The Ideal Copy, Running Fedora 7 on Virtual PC 2007.  Paul has detailed the changes you need to make in order to get Fedora to work in a Virtual Server environment.

• Download the i386 Fedora 10 DVD torrent (Fedora-10-i386-DVD.torrent)
• Setup the environment with network share and boot with the downloaded Fedora DVD ISO
• When the virtual environment boots, Fedora will present a start page with a number of options.  Press Tab and enter the following:
  • vmlinuz initrd=initrd.img vesa i8042.noloop psmouse.proto=imps clock=pit

Fedora will now install using the graphics installer, follow the wizard selecting the options you want.

Just came across a post on the http://www.sans.org website called CWE/SANS TOP 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors.

The top 25 most dangerous programming errors is a very interesting list of which I have working knowledge but could do with more focus.  As I push forward with my Technology New Year's resolution, I fully intend to get a much better working knowledge of computer security, penetration testing and Test Driven Development (TDD).

My intention is to find / build an automated TDD .NET toolkit for these errors and other common testing issues.

Happy coding.

As part of my technology New Years Resolution, I've decided to take a more structured approach to get my Microsoft .NET development skills up to scratch.  While reading one of the many emails I get from Microsoft I came across a link to the Visual Studio 2008 Ramp.

As a piece of free training material, I've been very impressed and if like me you've let your .NET development skills get a little rusty I recommend you give it a go.

The following link will take you to the MSDN page for the Visual Studio 2008 Ramp up http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/rampup/cc562987.aspx.  There are two tracks:

• Visual Basic 2008
• Visual C# 3.0

Development track notes

I will list any notes related to the steps of the C# 3.0 development track below:

Step 4: MSDN Virtual Lab: Microsoft Learning- What's New in C# 3.0?

Step 4 uses MSDN Virtual Labs, these are great resources for learning without the pain of setting up your own environment.  Microsoft use their own Virtual Server 2007 technology to provide virtual environments in order to complete the learning tasks.

However, there are a number of limitations:

1. You only get a set amount of time to use the lab - 1.5 hours for MSDN Virtual Lab: Microsoft Learning- What's New in C# 3.0
2. No way to leave the lab and return another day with your state saved
3. No way to get data on/off the lab
4. These restrictions makes sense for Microsoft but may cause you problems.

Luckily the lab exercises and the lab environment can easily be created in your own environment.  Items needed:

• Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Training Kit (ensure your environment meets the System Requirements)
• Microsoft Virtual Labs C# 3.0 Language Enhancements manual, available to download when you start the Virtual Lab

Step 5: MSDN Virtual Lab: Building Web Applications with Visual Studio 2008

Like step 4, step 5 can be setup in your own environment.  Items needed:

• Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Training Kit – as used in step 4
• Microsoft Virtual Labs Building Web Applications with Visual Studio 2008 manual, available to download when you start the Virtual Lab

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 are approaching fast, so now is a good time to start getting a handle on what's coming.  Microsoft have released a CTP installed on a Virtual PC/Server VHD.

Brian Keller, Technical Evangelist for Microsoft Visual Studio Team System has recorded a vodcast: http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/10-4/10-4-Episode-1-Working-with-the-Visual-Studio-2010-CTP-VPC/ explaining the steps needed to get the CTP up and running in your environment.

If you follow Brian's vodcast, you have to write down the user login password or go hunt on the Internet; to save you time check out the CTP download page: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=922B4655-93D0-4476-BDA4-94CF5F8D4814&displaylang=en

In the video Brian used Virtual PC 2007, I've dropped the image on Virtual Server 2007 and that seems to work too.

The CTP VM image contains walkthroughs for the new features of:

• Visual Studio
• .NET Framework
• Visual Studio Team System

The image is built of the following technologies:

• Windows Server 2008 Standard SP1
• SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
• Office 2007
• Windows Media Player 11 and Encoder
• Visual Studio 2010 CTP
• VSTS Foundation Server 2010 CTP
• .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
• .NET Framework 4.0 CTP

There's a huge amount of material here, so should be fun having a play.

One of my colleague sent me a link to an advertising short produced by SPSS Germany.  I love the message and I love the presentation style.  Go check it out for yourself at: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2GVC50UyA7Y

For years I've been stating that I don't make New Years resolutions, bad time of the year to start anything new (horrible weather, dark during non-work hours, etc).

This year is different and most of the resolutions are actions that I've started / thinking about for a while and I'm using the New Year as the catalyst to get on with it.

Resolutions:

1. Have a date night with Jen every week
2. Have diner with my family every day - this means leaving work at 17:00!
3. Structure the weekend to have fun with the family
4. Help Jen with the household chores
5. Spend time with friends - been a real struggle over the last couple of years
6. Get fit (this is a recurring one, see how I do this year)
7. Give up carbonated, sugar, caffeinated drinks; in my case giving up my bottle(2l)-a-day addiction to Irn-Bru
8. Become better at technology
   • Spend more time on technology research (blogs, podcast's, books, etc)
   • Spend time coding - No longer a key part of my day job :-(
   • All with a focus on my Enterprise Architecture role and team technical role as the SPSS Dimensions and Microsoft specialist

So I've got lots of things to focus on this year and plenty of things to blog about.

Have a great 2009

With my job I spend a lot of time away from home but with a need to access my home network resources.  Because of this, I've been thinking of buying a new router with built in VPN support, like the Linksys RVS4000.

I have been aware that there is built-in VPN support for Windows however, until tonight I'd never looked too closely.  Surfing around the excellent Site Tom's Hardware lead me to a straight forward article detailing how to configure the built-in Windows VPN solution between a home Windows XP/Vista workstation with a portable Windows XP/Vista Laptop.

I'm away on business for the next couple of days, so I'll test the solution out and let you know how it goes.

If you're interested in setting up a basic VPN solution, check out the article at: Secure Remote Data Access for Home Users : On The Move, Without External Data Volumes

As a Associate Enterprise Architect for SPSS, I spend a lot of time talking to customers about Predictive Analytics and the Predictive Enterprise.

As you can imagine this is often with financial institutions, telecom's, insurance, etc; so it was great to receive a link to MC Hammer talking about his use of Analytics in the music industry, check it out: Hammer on Analytics

I recently bought myself a new iPod Nano Chromatic (4th generation) after my old iPod Mini (1st generation) gave up the ghost.

Quite simply, I love the enhancements of the Nano over the Mini, some highlights are:

• Increased battery life (8hrs -> 24hrs)
• Increased capacity (4GB -> 16GB)
• High resolution colour display
• User Interface improvements
• Blue dot next to new Podcasts - really helps avoid accidentally playing the same podcast twice
• Album artwork
• Switch shuffle songs, albums from playing audio file
• Go to Artist or Album for the playing audio
• Speaker icon next to playing track when viewing playlist, album track listing, etc
• Current track number of total tracks in current playlist
• There are lots of other big and little touches which all add up to a better user experience
• Video playback
• Pictures - I now carry pictures of my family around with me and the pictures keep up to date :-D
• Size and weight
• Genius

Some things that would make the Nano even better:

• Improve the jog dial
• WiFi support for iTunes especially for Podcasts
• Shake to Shuffle the current play list not every song on the iPod
• DVD ripping within iTunes
• Genius doesn't work for all audio tracks, this can be very annoying
• Time estimate for remaining battery life
• Improved picture organisation e.g. nested folders, use image tags, etc

So that a summary view of the iPod Nano Chromatic and if you're thinking about getting one, go for it.

My Xbox 360 has died again!  This time, the process was even smoother, the Xbox 360 support specialist asked me a few questions and then sent me some information to send the console back.

After about 2 weeks I had a reconditioned Xbox back at home.  In addition, they sent a voucher for a free month of Xbox Live; I pay by direct debit each year, so I'm curious to see if applying this to my account will actually give me the free month...  I'll let you know how it goes.

I completed my St John Ambulance Activity First Aid training course last weekend.  During the training we talked about Heart Attacks and were presented a short video created by the British Heart Foundation.

This video clip is great and I hope that I never experience this for real, go watch: BHF - Watch Your Own Heart Attack

I can't believe that a year has passed since Liam was born, but it has and he's growing fast.  Here are some pictures from his first birthday. Liam's 1st birthday picture

I just spent a very enjoyable weekend away in North Wales with the Black Water Valley Canoe Club (BVCC) http://www.bvcc.org.uk/

This is the first time that I've been away kayaking since before Holly was born and a quick look at my diary shows the last trip as 12-13 November 2005!  How time flies by, changing jobs and the joy of two little people in my life.

The weekend was great for lots of reasons, time with old friends, making new friends, the Tryweryn (my favourite UK summer time river) and the Dee in spate (another wet summer) :-D

Some of the guys had cameras and video cameras, as I get the links I'll updates this post:
Bob's photos: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/activebob1/Tryweryn67Sept08?authkey=b22vTWygEC4#
Mike's video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9TEwhm2yj0&fmt=18

So last weekend we had a party for Holly's second birthday!  I can't believe that she's 2 already and Liam is 9 months old!

So we had a Camberley Arena party, as it turned out the party was fun however, I would not recommend an Arena party to anyone else.  They have messed us around leading up to the party and we had some 'issues' on the day too.  Well the good news is the kids enjoyed themselves and I think the parents had fun too.

In addition, we tried to measure Holly (not easy when she won't stay still...) Anyway, she measured in at 85.5cm.  I've been told that a child is half their full height when they are 2.  So if this is true, Holly will be 171cm (about the same as her dad).

Last weekend I had the opportunity to head up to Nottingham to paddle at Holme Pierrepont Slalom Course (HPP).

It's been a couple of years since I last paddled at HPP; that's what happens when you have a couple of (great) children!  It was like visiting a long lost friend, basically the same with some minor changes.  Paul, cK and I all enjoyed our time on the course and are looking forward to heading there again.

I recently learned that HPP is to get some major changes, for the low down head over to the Nottingham HPP whitewater course users group  http://hppconcern.wordpress.com/

I do hope that part of the changes will see a refurbishment of the building slalom control, this building holds the toilets and showers for course users and it's not got better with age.

Looking at the latest information Holme Pierrepont plans finally revealed, I'm not sure that I'm happy with what is being proposed.  From a playboaters perspective there are only a couple of spots on the current course worth travelling for.  One of these is the fun play hole The Muncher.  Looking at these plans this play feature will be gone for ever and I'm not convinced that the Omniflot (plastic bollards) system is going to provide a great replacement.

If the BCU push on with their plans, the course is going to be changed forever come December, I may have to plan a trip end of November to say goodbye :-(

This film is total rubbish, don't go.

Jen and I got a rare chance to go to the cinema, due to the time we got to the cinema we only had a couple of options.  Jen is a fan of the first two Mummy films, so we went for the third iteration.

A big mistake, The Mummy suffers from a boring script that seems to pull on the latest Indy film, with a strong play on a parent-child relationship.  As with the Indy film, this relationship is very one dimensional, mainly used for some poor jokes and pulls away from the central theme of the film series.

Jet Li is uninspired in the Mummy's role and looses a fight to Brendan Fraser that undermines the fighting strength and style of Jet Li and his character.

In short, don't bother watching this, even if you can see it for free.

In follow up to What happened to Freestyle by James Farquharson, I've just been watching the promo video for Steve Fisher's new film, Black Book.

Steve Fisher is an amazing boater that has invented some of the more impressive freestyles moves and watching this small promo video, I've spotted a couple more to try when Hurley and Shepperton come back on this winter.

Watch the promo video over at: http://www.slproductions.tv/blackbook_trailer/blackbook_highres.mov

Happy boating.

James has written an interesting and as usual with James a pointed poke at the world of Freestyle Kayaking.  One thing James fails to mention was his own involvement in the sport and the relentless pursuit of perfection.

Part 1 - http://jamesfarquharson.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/what-happened-to-freestyle-part-1/

Part 2 - http://jamesfarquharson.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/what-happened-to-freestyle-part-ii-dadageddon/

I love kayaking and freestyle in particular however, I do find myself agreeing with his commentary with a few personality exceptions.  I do miss the excitement of needing to buy new equipment every 6 months, especially kayaks in order to learn the latest moves.  A really great, fun time that I would love to see again.