So my new project and blogging interest is going to be the switch of my Vista PC to Ubuntu and the issues/solutions I come up with.

Boring, well bear in mind that I’ve worked with Windows since version 2.1, yes that far back.  I won’t say I love it, and many times it drives me freaking nuts, but I do know it. and also all the little things that make it work better/easier.

My needs are modest and I think the same as most people so lets see if an IT Engineer can do this, cos if I can’t there is little hope of Joe Daily doing it.  (and while I don’t officically have an IT title I’ve been at the front end of desktops, servers, mid-range and enterprise wide systems for almost my entire working career.  (just to set the stage).

So read along, i’ll try and make sure I document all the frustrations and lessons etc.

Maybe it was having the big brother version of Gastric bug that’s going around Tokyo, cos I’m totally sick of Vista crashing on me and acting all bloated when it shouldn’t be.  (which was exactly how I was feeling as well).

My install of Vista is not heavily loaded and not asked to do a lot yet it seems to feel it needs 5 mins to start up and still crash. So I did some serious thinking and research.

A few weekends ago my laptop decided to not start up.  As I use it daily this was rather highly annoying and only made slightly less so by the fact that it chose Friday morning to do it and I had the weekend to put it back together again.

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Microsoft. Having worked on Microsoft products for over 18 years I know my way around them and the knowledge of them provides me with a fairly good living.

The hate bit is that some of the products are just crap.  Vista being one of my current hates with Office 2007 not all that far behind, oh and the only reason I have IE7 is for Sharepoint (which is a cool product).

But Microsoft do cool things, and this set of video’s I found by accident demonstrate that.

And the full 5 minute one can be found here

Below the fold is a review I just wrote on the Villa we stayed at in Antigua.  

You can goto the booking site here.

I’ve finally done it and organised all the pictures from my 40th Birthday in Antigua.  The location has moved from before as I’m trying to use a system for my photo’s as I add them to the site.

You can find all the pic’s with comments in the gallery here.

To my dear friends who were there thank you so much for a wonderful holiday. It was my best significant birthday ever!

That may sound strange, but having a birthday just after christmas is awfully boring as every is just over christmas mode and in NZ on holiday at the same time.  My 21’st was very nice with alot of family and friends around, but not quite me.  My 30th the next big holiday was spent in a flat in London with the flu and everyone out of the house on holiday somewhere (and a breakdown in the heating, which if you have ever lived in London, is quite and issue in London).  I was still very happy as I’d started my travels.

more after the fold.

I was trying to find a slick title for this entry, but my mind is not really in full processing everything at the moment.  Call it brain overload!  I think after almost three weeks of holidays (we had public holidays here before I left for Antigua) my brain hasn’t quite switched on fully yet.

Then again will all the information I process on a daily basis its not really all that surprising.  These days I need a good 10 seconds to switch between subjects.  In geek terms page out all the information I’m currently working with, then load in the new problem someone whats me to look at.  Unfortunately they haven’t figured out how to upgrade brains yet!  Cos I certainly need brain 2.0

Its been a very up and down week with news from home about family and friends not being all 100% and then re-connecting with old friends from New Zealand and my travels all within days.  It been great to catch up with these old friends and I now have a number of emails I need to write, along with a tonne of work ones as I’ve not been working at night since I came back.

Well, better to be busy that wondering what next I should be doing.

Today has been a really odd day for me.  This morning I was trying to form an entry to say that my friend from a previous entry is doing really well, and when I got home tonight I had an email telling me an old school friend had been caught up in a porn scandel in New Zealand.

I’ll leave the entry on the recovering friend for few days as he is doing well, and concentrate my focus here on what is happening to my old school friend.

The major article is in the New Zealand media at the moment.  The main article is here.  It lists all the names, Garth Stirrat and Steve Parnell (They are publically listed so I’m not revealing anything here.

I’m actually really rather appalled at what is going on here.  I haven’t seen Garth since we parted as friends over 20 years ago, but I still keep some track of what they are doing.  He has been the head of the NZPGA for a number of years and to all apparent records served them very well during that time.

Today I got news from New Zealand that one of my families dear friends has enter the final few days of his life.  He is still in great spirits and sending out group emails to everyone on how he is.  He has not been well for a long time now yet his spirit pervades us all.  Before I loose the plot completely here is a link to some of his wonderful photos.

Ted Chappell a photo tribute.

more below the fold.

Back now from two glorious weeks on the Caribbean Island of Antigua!  Took a bit of effort to get there from Japan, but was totally worth it!  Had the most fantastic time there and was so good to catch up with the friends who came.  We had the best time and it was a truely a fantastic way to celebrate a big birthday.

Pictures are coming shortly.