The solution to all my backup and storage needs:
1TB (RAID0) of external USB & Firewire goodness. You can get your sticky mitts on it from December for about £700. I’ll take two.
[Originally from C|NET]
All posts by alex
Liquid
To help try and reign in my Crohn’s, tomorrow seems me start a polymeric diet. This involves having nothing but liquid "food" for 4 weeks.
Look, 8 of these a day!
They come in "fruit juice" or "milk shake" styles, annoyingly all sweet. I use inverted commas because it’s so artificial – it contains about 1.5kcal / mL (a Mars Bar has about 300kcal) and apparently is nutritionally balanced.
Stay tuned for a food critic’s review of the "flavours"…
Photographic Map of London
Houseboats
Very seriously, we’re looking at buying a houseboat.
Reasons for:
- They’re detached
- Generally have a fabulous river view
- You can just move your entire house if you hate your neighbours
- Cheap (c. £100k-£200k for 2-3 bedrooms)
Reasons against:
- Mooring fees
- Bottled gas
- Possible problems getting a telephone line
- If poorly converted, they can be cold & damp
- Having to been replated / repainted in a dry dock every 5 years
So far, the best sites I’ve found are http://houseboats.apolloduck.co.uk/ & http://www.waterview.co.uk/ and these deal in houseboats for sale in London.
Books? Not a lot that I’ve found so far:
Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 SP2
Windows Sharepoint Services SP2 & Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 SP2 have been released today. You need to install WSS SP2 first and then SPS SP2 on top of that. SP2 includes the fixes from SP1 as well.
Good luck downloading them – download.microsoft.com has been dreadfully slow this side of the pond of late…
CAPTCHAs
I’m really, really fed up of comment spam on my blogs now.
MT 3.2 was supposed to kill it once and for all, but it really hasn’t worked out like that. This morning I woke up to 50+ email notifications of "unapproved" (but not junked) comments.
So, I’ve enabled CAPTCHAs using the SCode plugin. If you’re using screen reading or other accessibility software, then you won’t be able to input the CAPTCHA properly, but don’t worry. Your comment won’t be lost – just drop me a mail and I’ll recover it out of the junk pile for you 
Windows Vista October CTP – Build 5231
As an interim release between Beta 1 & Beta 2, Build 5231 is now up on MSDN for subscribers (both 32bit & 64bit).
It contains Windows Media Player 11, a new version of IE7 and a few other bits and pieces – some more screenshots to follow tomorrow once I’ve installed it.
Wireless Xbox Porn Games Controller
Little did I know that you could get a wireless xbox controller. Now I can watch stuff through XBox Media Centre and all that lovely goodness without wires.
No XBox owner should be without.
MCSE
This is the little lot you need to study for an MCSE these days.
To save you scrabbling for an Amazon search engine, it’s these:
MCSA/MCSE Windows XP Professional Study Guide (Exam 70-270)
MCSE: Windows® Server 2003 Certification Kit (Exams 70-290, 70-291, 70-293, 70-294)
MCSE Windows Server 2003 Active Directory and Network Infrastructure Design Study Guide (Exam 70-297)
MCSA/MCSE: Exchange Server 2003 Implementation and Management Study Guide (Exam 70-284)
New smart tags / person tags in Office 2003 SP2
Another nip and tuck in Office 2003 SP2; smart tags are out, "person tags" are in. These replace the outdated Windows Messenger look and feel with an Office Communicator one. Of course, it integrates with your Communicator & Live Communications Server setup as well.
New person tag showing the sender as "In a meeting".
Same old options screen, just rebranded with person tags and a new icon.