# Sunday, June 20, 2010
From the BBC during Brazil V Ivory Coast What did Barnsley say when they went up to the Premiere League - Just =20 like watching Brazil. This us just like watching Barnsley!
posted on Sunday, June 20, 2010 8:05:50 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [1] Trackback
# Wednesday, June 16, 2010
On Forlan during the South Africa - Uruguay match

He could play in his slippers   
posted on Wednesday, June 16, 2010 8:07:13 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
# Saturday, June 12, 2010
Now I have an iPod touch I am very interested to have a wireless connection.  Increasingly I am irritated by the practice of hotels (in particular) to charge not only for a connection, but for each device.  In Brazil I took two laptops and chose a pay per byte tarriff because a pay per day tarrif would have only worked on one device.

The iPod motiviated me to find a solution, and I was very surprised to find Microsoft have provided the answer in Windows 7 for machines with a certified WiFi driver.  In short, any Windows 7 machine (except ones running starter edition) can easily be turned into a full wireless access point (not just establishing an ad-hoc network).

In this posting, I will describe the manual way of setting this up, and then link to software to do this for you.

Doing it by hand

The key to this is Microsoft's addition of a Virtual wifi miniport adapter (thanks to http://bink.nu/news/windows-7-as-an-wifi-accesspoint.aspx for a simple guide).
Step 1 - open a command prompt with administrative rights.  This is not simply open a command promp as an administrator - you need to right click on "Command Prompt" (usually found in the accessories folder of the start menu) and choose Run As Administrator.
Step 2 - allow a hosted network with the command
netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=MyNetworkName key=sesamestreet     
The ssid and password should be changed Smile
Step 3 - the created network needs to share onward access.  I won't explain here but it is covered in Steven Bink's article.  You need to choose the outbound connection (e.g wired lan, wireless on the same hardware or a 3G connection)
Step 4 - change the configuration so that the virtual network adapter is limited to using IP.  Again  I won't explain here but it is covered in Steven Bink's article
Step 5 - turn it on.  Again in a command prompt with administrative rights
netsh wlan start hostednetwork   

 

A software utility to help

Now to the software.  I am sure there is more, but I chose this OpenSource project:

http://virtualrouter.codeplex.com/

This allows easy setup of the virtual access point and then displays the devices connected.

Some thoughts.
Microsoft have been quite clever - they are able to support connecting devices to the Windows platform, such as Zune and Windows Mobile 7.  They have limited the functionality to WPA encrypted networks but are ensuring drivers should be able to support Wi-Fi Direct when it becomes a standard.
See also Errata Security
posted on Saturday, June 12, 2010 8:54:23 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
# Sunday, June 06, 2010
I have a new iPod touch and I have to say I am very impressed. I am not a massive Apple evangelist and regularly make fun of people with their nice shiny macs costing twice as much as any PC I would buy, though I did use a mac at college before it became a mac classic.
So for first thoughts:
  • It works well as an iPod including playback with my bluetooth headphones but doesn't support the headphones' control functions and doesn't support the microphone
  • The keyboard in portrait mode is just a bit too fiddly and I haven't found a way to view mobile web pages in landscape
  • The browser works well and I like the fact it doesn't support flash player E-mail setup for exchange was very good though I would like to be able to set up two exchange servers
  • How on earth does it do the location services on wifi? Works rediculously well.
Would I pay an extra £250-£300 for an iPod with camera, GPS, microphone and 3g. No, but if work offered it as an option I would go for it.
posted on Sunday, June 06, 2010 10:38:07 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
# Wednesday, June 02, 2010
I am surprised to hear (when listening to Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency) that the cat flap was invented by Isaac Newton.  Wikipedia agrees.
Cat flap - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
He did not invent gravity - apparently it had already been invented by someone.

posted on Wednesday, June 02, 2010 5:10:56 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
# Monday, May 10, 2010
I was in the ISO TC215 working group meeting today in wet and cold Rio de Janeiro.  A highlight was the floating of this quote from Philip K Dick.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing it, doesn't go away. 
Quite a powerful thought from the author of one of my favourite books - "Do androids dream of electric sheep?"
posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 3:25:55 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
# Thursday, April 15, 2010
I am grateful to Andy Wiesenthal of Kaiser Permanente  for this reminder.  Andy wrote:
I would like to describe a rule that I learned long ago from a wise primary care doctor working on our first electronic health record in Kaiser Permanente in Colorado. His name was Ed McAuliffe, and he reminded us of his principle often enough that we all took to calling it “McAuliffe’s Rule.” Whenever we were fretting about the (often important) flaws in the electronic solution we were considering at any particular moment, Ed would often say “yes, but isn’t this still better than what we do now?

So often we forget quite how flawed current clinical record management is.
posted on Thursday, April 15, 2010 11:12:39 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
# Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Aome americans introduced me to the term Marchetecture.  This fusion of marketing and archetecture is designed to show how some large equipment manufacturers use their marketing brochures to describe an implicit (if not real) archetecture.
Personally I hate it.

posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 8:02:00 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
# Monday, February 22, 2010
I witnessed a really amusing incident today in a meeting in Frankfurt, with people from around the globe including Gernany, UK and USA.  The common language was English.
A German was explaining the importance of a significant date in the future (a milestone).  He described the date as our "D-Day".
I wonder if he appreciated the origins of the phrase.

posted on Monday, February 22, 2010 1:34:53 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
# Thursday, February 18, 2010
Facebook is proving a bit provoking.  I saw a status update which just read It's done. )':

Having been provoked, I mulled over the power of those words and have to disagree.  The following is my argument, from a project point of view.

It's done. )':


No highlight report
No end stage review
No lessons learned log
No more jobs you can do

It's over; it's done

We have our memories
Our memories live long
Ideas don't die
Values are handed on

It's not over; not yet done

Your team is at hand
With your project plan
Your work is not over
This life you began

posted on Thursday, February 18, 2010 2:24:05 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback