One of the new Formula 1 teams (Lotus F1) has announced it's driver lineup for the 2010 season. Jarno Trulli will be teamed with Hekki Kovalainen. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8411249.stm

Posted by Roy Holder At 1:09 AM Location My home office | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Bookmark :              

... the manufacturing home of the car I currently own, I've had a number of people ask me again "what exactly is it and what does it look like?". To satisfy them all, here is an actual picture of the car I took this evening rather than an image from the web.

Posted by Roy Holder At 7:48 PM Location My home office | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Bookmark :              

Having had a few inches of show back in November there's been at least 8" (20cm) here overnight. Now gritting, no snow ploughs. Schools shut. "Emergency servie" trains. Thank goodness we don't live in Scandinavia!!!

Posted by Roy Holder At 8:20 AM Location My home office | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Bookmark :              

This is a picture of the car (although mine is silver) that I bought in October. There's more detail of the car here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_VXR8

Posted by Roy Holder At 8:49 PM Location Swan Hotel, Orlando, FL | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Bookmark :              

We arrived on Thursday, moved to the Swan/Dolphin hotels on Friday. this was how the Dolphin looked this morning!

Posted by Roy Holder At 8:41 PM Location Swan Hotel, Orlando, FL | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Bookmark :              

Those of you who know me know my "passion" for motorsport. In the past year, my eldest daughter Michelle has turned me towards 2 wheeled rather than 4 wheeled action (as a spectator). However, sitting on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon can't be beaten by watching F1 racing - unless there's SuperBike racing on

So, continuing for abortive blog restart of last year, here's the 2009 F1 calendar.

Round	Grand Prix	Circuit	City / Location	Date	Time
					Local	UTC
1	Australian	Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit	Melbourne, Victoria	29 March	17:00	06:00
2	Malaysian	Sepang International Circuit	Kuala Lumpur	5 April	17:00	09:00
3	Chinese	Shanghai International Circuit	Shanghai	19 April	15:00	07:00
4	Bahrain	Bahrain International Circuit	Sakhir, Manama	26 April	14:30	11:30
5	Spanish	Circuit de Catalunya	Barcelona	10 May	14:00	12:00
6	Monaco	Circuit de Monaco	Monte Carlo	24 May	14:00	12:00
7	Turkish	Istanbul Park	Istanbul	7 June	15:00	12:00
8	British	Silverstone Circuit	Silverstone	21 June	13:00	12:00
9	German	Nürburgring	Nürburg	12 July	14:00	12:00
10	Hungarian	Hungaroring	Budapest	26 July	14:00	12:00
11	European	Valencia Street Circuit	Valencia	23 August	14:00	12:00
12	Belgian	Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps	Spa	30 August	14:00	12:00
13	Italian	Autodromo Nazionale Monza	Monza	13 September	14:00	12:00
14	Singapore	Marina Bay Street Circuit	Singapore	27 September	20:00	12:00
15	Japanese	Suzuka Circuit	Suzuka	4 October	15:00	06:00
16	Brazilian	Autódromo José Carlos Pace	São Paulo	18 October	14:00	16:00
17	Abu Dhabi	Yas Marina Circuit	Abu Dhabi	1 November	TBA	TBA

Posted by Roy Holder At 3:45 AM Location My home office | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category F1 Calendar 2009 Bookmark :              

It's over a year since my last post!! My bad.

Much has happened in those 12 months. That will be the subject of the upcoming posts

For now, I'm preparing for LotuSphere 2009 in Orlando, Florida. I leave on Thursday morning.

See you there?

Posted by Roy Holder At 3:14 AM Location My home office | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category LS09 Bookmark :              

Since the attack on my blog back in August I've not done anything to resolve the issues it caused. However, today I finally sorted it out. I've ugraded to BlogSphere 3.0.1 to prevent that happening again. Perhaps I'll even start posting some content again! I'll sort the final layout out in the coming days.

Posted by Roy Holder At 12:07 AM Location Home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category None Bookmark :              

The F1 race schedule for 2008 has been released. Here's the provisional calander:

Date	Country	Curcuit
March 16	Australia	Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit
March 23	Malaysia	Sepang International Circuit
April 6	Bahrain	Bahrain International Circuit
April 27	Spain	Circuit de Catalunya
May 11	Turkey	Istanbul Park
May 25	Monaco	Circuit de Monaco
June 8	Canada*	Circuit Gilles Villeneuve
June 22	France	Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours
July 6	Great Britain	Silverstone Circuit
July 20	Germany	Hockenheimring
August 3	Hungary	Hungaroring
August 24	Europe (Valencia)**	Valencia Street Circuit
September 7	Italy	Autodromo Nazionale Monza
September 14	Belgium	Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
September 28	Singapore**	Singapore Street Circuit
October 12	China	Shanghai International Circuit
October 19	Japan	Fuji Speedway
November 2	Brazil	Autódromo José Carlos Pace

*   Provisional
**  Subject to circuit approval

Posted by Roy Holder At 2:58 PM Location Home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category F1 2008 Bookmark :              

I'm not normally one to emphasise the limitations in others but, I have to break the rule here.

How is it that a major corporation such as Microsoft, given their global presence, can "prevent" someone from moving from one country to another (as is almost the norm here in Europe) and not allow them to move the paid-for-subscriptions to services with them?

Declan has had such a problem with his "Xbox360 Live" account having moved (as a legal alien) from Ireland to the US.

Any thoughts?

Posted by Roy Holder At 2:51 AM Location Home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category XBox360 Bookmark :              

Whilst I was away in Orlando last week (for Lotusphere 2007) a package arrived from Microsoft. Inside it was - amonst other things - a DVD containing "Microsoft Windows Vista Upgrade Business", one entitled "Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007" and a third containing all the other E13 applications.

So I thought I'd check if any of the hardware I have here was capable of running Vista by checking the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor page and running the Upgrade Advisor.

Once I'd downloaded the MSI file and started to run it, this is what I saw!!!
According to the FAQ halfway down the page this is why.

Quote:

Why is the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor only available for Windows XP and Windows Vista users? The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor depends on technology that only runs on computers with these editions of Windows: All 32-bit editions of Windows XP All 32-bit editions of Windows Vista, except Enterprise edition If you own a PC running other editions of Windows, you will need to carefully compare its system capabilities to the system requirements found on this site. In general, PCs purchased within the last two years have a better chance of being able to run Windows Vista as is or with affordable improvements to the system hardware."

Posted by Roy Holder At 11:23 AM Location Home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Vista Bookmark :              

Following a server hardware upgrade (thanks Prominic) I'm now running on a brand new system that is WAY higher spec than the last one.

Sorry to anyone who reads or has RSS Readers of my blog. I couldn't pass up the chance to get the server hardware upgraded.

Sorry to all the Seahawks fans - we had our chances and didn't take them

Posted by Roy Holder At 2:29 AM Location Home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category None Bookmark :              

If the updates to the site have screwed up your RSS Readers, sorry. As I've contributed a bit of my "free" time to do the "Agent Manager" stuff in the BlogSphere v3 template, I thought I should at least be using it. So here it is - and please bear with me whilst I get the CSS sorted out.

"Stuff" has been happening. Work, home, kids, (S)he (W)ho (M)ust (B)e (O)beyed etc.... hence the radio silence.

In a fraction over 7 days the HADSL possie will be in Orlando for Lotusphere 2007. We've been pretty organised this year. I think all but our shirts have been ordered (and delivered). Last thing to get finished is the code (Nah. How important is that? )

See you all in Orlando next Friday - unless you're not going of course.

Posted by Roy Holder At 1:24 AM Location Home | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category LS07 Bookmark :              

Some see the glass as half full.

Some see the glass as half empty.

I see the glass as being the wrong size!

Posted by Roy Holder At 2:27 AM Location My office at home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category None Bookmark :              

This morning I flew out of London Heathrow airport for the first time since the escalation in security measures. In that time, I've flown numerous times in and out of London Gatwick. Here's my impressions.

Baggage Check: Gatwick seems much less effected by the heightened security measures than Heathrow. Speaking to a BA bot as I waited for the "fast drop" baggage check, he said that at Terminal 4, they'd been changing the arrangements almost daily. Sometimes there were loads of desks open for this, other days there were very few. Even the number of self-service check-in machines apparently changes from day to day. Today, I only had to wait about 5 minutes to drop my bag off.

Central Security: The line for boarding pass and security check was almost endless. Even when I entered the terminal, the way pas was blocked by the queuing masses. It was probably 100 yards past the end of the zig-zag formation. The boarding pass check wasn't holding things up. It was the carry-on and personal checks that were taking the time.

At Heathrow, they're trying out a full body scan machine - aiming to reducing we hope, the need for physical body searches. My thought is that for a long time, until the technology is perfected, the number of people requiring to have even a cursory manual body search will increase. This is as yet to be seen.

Thankfully, the line I was ushered into did not require shoes to be removed. However, just in front of me, a family of 6 (including a very small child still in a push-chair and "grandad" in a wheel chair) basically dumped their bags and coats - I think I counted 11 bags of varying descriptions - into the roller track and went through the security check. Thankfully - only cos I'm a miserable old git - they were told to go back and put the bags and coats through the x-ray machine themselves. This also revealed that one of the bags had a laptop computer in it (which is required to be removed from the bag and placed through the x-ray machine separately now - only ever saw this in the US before, and what good is it) but, this just added to my delay and my amusement quotient.

Oh, and having asked the 4 girls in front of me in the line, without looking up and seeing my ugly mug sans beard, proceeded to ask if I have any make-up in my bag. When I replied that "no, I've left it all for the wife to use" she looked up and blushed.

Thankfully, having anticipated such extended delays by reading about the experiences from others, I had left loads of time to get the flight. As it turned out, once I'd walked to gate 19 at T4 (it's now where gate 15 used to be some 5 years ago) I only had 10 minutes before they started boarding the plane.

The rest of the journey was all very uneventful. The train from Zurich airport to Baden left at exactly 15:04 (the scheduled time) although the train on the next platform was running 10 minutes late. Probably because a cow had wondered onto the branch line tracks.

2 days of workshop on application migration to come. With all the migrations I've done over the past 3 or 4 years I should have a lot to talk about! But, there again, when don't I?

Posted by Roy Holder At 7:29 PM Location Baden, Switzerland | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category None Bookmark :