All posts by alex

Live Writer

Personal, Tech

This is a typical “Ooooh look, I’m using Microsoft’s new Live Writer software” post. Except it’s not quite.

I found that I had a problem in using though. When I tried to add the blog in, it would detect the blog type correctly, but give me an “Invalid Login” error. Now, I now that my login definitely works, because I use it. The logs didn’t show up any failed login attempts either.

Then I found that Movable Type has a separate password for API access, which was disabled. Gah! If you have the same problem with Windows Live Writer and Movable Type, follow these instructions:

Log into Movable Type.
Click on your username in the top navigational menu to go to your profile.
Scroll down to the bottom where you see API Password.
Input a password of your choice and save. For security reasons, it should be different from your normal author password.
Use this new password in live writer.

You can get Windows Live Writer from Microsoft.

Fucking Hotels

Personal, Travels

I have just discovered that the hotel we were going to stay at in a couple of weeks’ time (Malmaison in Edinburgh) doesn’t include breakfast in its rates. This is despite the fact that we’re paying not an insignificant amount of money per night.

This seems to be a growing trend with hotels. Why on earth should they make you spend £20 a head on breakfast – which consists of a few stale rolls, some cheese and incipid coffee – when you’re spending £200 a night.

To be honest, I wouldn’t normally be so annoyed, however in this case Malmaison don’t make it obvious that their prices are "rooms only". If they did, then I certainly wouldn’t have booked with them.

Now it’s too late to cancel and find another room (especially as it’s festival time), we’ll just go out and buy some milk and cereal and take liberties with the tea & coffee making facilities.

Utter, utter cunts.

New phone

Personal, Photography, Tech

I have a new phone, a sony ericsson W810 :)

sony-ericsson-w810i.jpg

So far, it’s pretty much identical to my old K750 (it was free), however the worst thing about it so far is the ratherodd USB interface. It has two modes – one that emulates a USB mass storage device and another that uses drivers to talk to it (so you can sync to it etc.). This is wierd in itself, but if you choose the USB mass storage mode (say, if you want to copy MP3s onto it) it disables the radio (no calls!) and reboots the phone into some odd mode where you can’t do anything.

On the plus side, I’m really loving the ambient light sensor which dims the screen and brightens the keypad dependant on the brightness. It’s quite spooky and quite fun :)

The walkman application is a bit rubbish – you can’t order by MP3 track ID for example, but it’s enough for me and my occasional music listening. Oh, the phone has a flight mode as well, but if you were flight crew, could you tell the difference?