Stardate .. May 30th, Location ... Earth

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As anniversaries/Birthdays go it started as it meant to go on.

A gentle wake up from Charlie the www.cats.org.uk at 5:45 am  as he smashed his way out the kitchen again and proceeded to run over the top of us whilst screaming "For God's sake someone feed me, do you not see I'm starving ...." in cat speak and pointing at his www.asda.co.uk food. 

Beth unwrapped @6:00am and was slightly disappointed that only half of her presents were Chococat (http://www.sanrio.com/characters/) or Chococat related although enjoyed all the www.moonpig.com and all the www.moneysupermarket.com .

A sumptuous breakfast of scrambled eggs (for Beth) and Cheerios for me (must remember to write to  www.nestle.com , I had them and didn't feel any fricking Cheerier).

Off to http://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk for a day of pampering and other high jinks.....

Park up at  http://www.victoriacentre.uk.com after carefully selecting the exact space I wanted (N31) from a mere 6,500 available - made a note that this was a new record for myself having done it in only 43 minutes this time.

Time to Spoil everyone so its time for finest beef with free range eggs, freshly baked bagels and freshly ground coffee, yup it's time to go to http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk where you to can have a freshly cooked http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/food/breakfast/sausage-egg-and-cheese-bagel.mcdj?dnPos=-1495

Clothes were the order of the day so for the best in quality and value it's off to www.primark.co.uk where amazingly it was the busiest shop in http://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk by far, a massive handful of summer outfits and stuff for a mere £28 and we're off on more travels.

Beth actually spends more money than seconds in http://www.buildabear.co.uk/ , she was in there for 32 seconds and spent £40.

Off to (www.bigwok.co.uk)  or not ... Beth decides she's not feeling too www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk so it's off back home for a snack, Barbara had her http://www.gourmet-food.com/gourmet-cheese/harlech-cheese-102832.aspx from http://www.trentham.co.uk/shopvillage.html with a glass or two of Cava from www.morrisons.com - where I had just taste tested the new cook sauce from http://www.pataks.co.uk/news/ - Authentic curry made easy, but I decided to have http://www.redskysnacks.co.uk/#/products/sea_salt as Harlech cheese taste too much like poisoned snot to me and topped it off with some http://www.westons-cider.co.uk/Shop/Organic-Ciders/Premium-Organic-Cider~~12x500ml/.

Thanks everyone for the cards etc - we're planning on having a Chinese for tea tonight, I think his name is Wan Lee.

Hairy Spuds ? No ... Crispy Spuds ....

Nothing makes Sunday dinner go down worse than crappy spuds so as yet another batch of megga spuds came out and I had a camera handy here's a sad but awsome pic of this Sundays spuds.

I nabbed the one far right and a couple of hidden ones that  were even more crispy than the ones on the top.


All I do ... use whatever spuds you fancy, I think these where marfona but use King Edwards or Wilja, Red Rooster or anything you like.

First ... Peel your spuds and get them in some water ready but not on the heat yet ... Wait for it Soldier ......

Pop your oil into a good roasting pan, I use sunflower and a good pan with plenty of room.

Get the oven on - ours is fan assisted so 200 degrees or 220 if your on gas.
While the roasting pan is getting hot turn the spuds on and bring to the boil.

Once boiling time 5 mins and simmer the spuds (your oil should be getting nice and hot)

meanwhile .... prepare the secret ingredient...

For 4 people I use 4-5 heaped tablespoons of plain flour, 1 tea spoon of cornflour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder.

Mix well then grind a good measure of black pepper and some salt, stir again so it's all well mixed.

As soon as your 5 minutes are up, take the pan of spuds and drain quickly, you don't need to worry if the spuds are still wet, in fact it helps the next step so to drain mine quick I dump the pan into a bit colander then put the spuds straight back into the saucepan.

Put the lid on the pan and shake back and forth once or twice, you should notice when you take the lid off the spuds have fluffed up.
Now sprinkle most of the flour mixture over the spuds, put the lid on and shake to coat the spuds, if you need more flour then put some more in.

Take the roasting pan out with the (hot) oil and I lift the spuds out the saucepan they were boiled in into the roasting pan, that way you leave any excess flour behind etc. The spuds should sizzle as you put them in, a good sign your pan is hot enough.

All I do is put the spuds into the oil, don't worry that the top of the potatoes stays "dry", that will help if you leave it like that so one trick is not to have too much oil in your roasting pan. Just put them in the roasting pan but don't turn them over yet and don't be tempted to splash the oil over them to "get them started" you find using a little less oil and not turning them in the oil they turn out better !

Pop back in the oven, in 15 minutes check them and I normally turn them over at this time (gently please ... they will already be crisp on one side but will be slightly soggy on the other).

Back in the oven for 15 more minutes and check again (I turn them one last time here and you should have signs of some perfect spuds coming soon).

Another 15 minutes and they should be done, if you like them really dark and crispy (which we often do), turn the oven up to 220 for electric or 230-240 for gas when you first start and/or adjust cooking time if you find them cooking too quick.

When your done I lift them out the oil as much as possible rather than simply pour them out as if you coat them all in oil just before serving they can be a little oily but this is true of anything you serve like this.

So ... lift them out (I put them in a colander) and let them drain for a few moments before slapping peoples hands as they try and grab them ... Get OFF !!

I find keeping a large metal ladle in the hot fat essential for keeping grasping hands off, the combination of a physical smack with searing hot oil normally deters the casual spud pincher until next week.
Don't forget to check each spud as it comes out so you can carefully serve out the potatoes while keeping the choicest ones for yourself - something that's difficult with these spuds as they all come out great but others will argue comparing each spud with their own preference for crispness or colour against the select few you keep back for yourself.

You should end up with a spud that you can break windows with on the outside, crispy and firm that even stays crispy with some gravy on it ...... nice and crunchy with the salt and pepper giving it a little seasoning and taste, inside they are steaming, fluffy and soft.

The great thing about cooking them this way is if anyone you know is on a diet then you can eat them all yourself.

P.S they even keep well if you let them cool, we often make more than we can eat and our daughter has the left overs for tea which is not fair in my book !

Come out Marshall

After much waiting, Red Dead Redemption was released and delivered.

Had a few hours on it and it looks like Rockstar are onto yet another winner.

People ride or wander past, often with a "hello" or "Good morning", wagon trains drive by and I've even witnessed one character ride past, stop then stand by a rock taking a piss.

Whats also interesting is that I played for about 90 minutes then accidentally loaded a saved game taking me back almost to the beginning, I retraced my steps and the mission I had just done changed into a completely different one !

Multiplayer is also great fun, people running everywhere firing antique weapons, no large magazine clips here, just good old fashioned "get up close" guns.
Horses are animated amazingly and the atmosphere is staggering.

At one point I rode up to a ridge and thought "ah this is the edge of the map", many games hide the boundaries with wide valleys and far off scenery, looking at my map I realized I was no where near the edge of the map and I will end up going across this enormous canyon.

How Rockstar have fitted such massive scenery maps into the game is beyond me, it looks like the game will have tons of missions and time needed, I suspect like GTA and Fallout 3 I'll be coming back time and time again to find new things to do.

One tip though .... don't try to shoot a hangmans rope when your wielding the knife, the person dies !

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

Although I've been running Ubuntu 10.04 beta since it went live I have put the 10.04LTS release on.

My preferred method is to download the Alternate install CD, this allows you to mount it either with a loop command (so you mount the ISO as a virtual CD) or simply burn a CD and open that.

Either way you get the option to run the updater and if you select "no" to the option to download update files from the internet you can migrate quite quickly whilst the 10 million or so other users are putting some strain on the servers.

The only program that didn't seem to work in the Beta version was the automatic wallpaper changer that my and my daughter use.

This appears to have been put into the current repository though as this works perfect in the final release.

Everything else works exactly as I would expect it to, the only difference you notice is the new button layout (although mine stayed the same as I was using Emerald as my screen decorator and not the default decorator.

Anyway, if your buttons are on the left and you don't like them just install MWBUTTONS, it's a simple script that lets you move them around and do all sorts of clever stuff with them.

Ubuntu is going from strength to strength and although I hated Vista with a vengance of a thousand cursed souls I feel the future will narrow down to Windows 7 and Ubuntu for the average user.

I have no gripes against Windows 7, just that I can do everything I need to do in Ubuntu, in fact I was so used to it simply working I forgot how much it was protecting me until I went to an innocent looking web site (looking for a birthday present for my daughter) and Firefox warned me the site was attempting to install files onto my PC.

The good news was 1) It simply couldn't as I wasn't running windows, 2) Even if the files had somehow got onto my PC they would have been useless and 3) I spent a while annoying the site by just clicking "no" to the warning and refreshing the page.

At one point just to really annoy it I opened multiple firefox sessions to the page getting something like 14 warning screens up - and still the PC ignores them and carries on regardless.

New in Ubuntu 10.04

• VERY fast boot up and shut down, I have one machine (P4 1.8ghz) timed at 7 seconds to boot up and 3 to shut down !
• EXT 4 file system as standard on new install
• Grub 2 loader on new installs
• New user interface - nice dark looking but I still prefer my "glass" effect windows
• Empathy is the supported messenger client in 10.04 - I was getting some strange issues with Pidgin which was a shame but Empathy works very well.
• Support for status (on line, busy etc) right next to the log off area for single function control.
• Gwibber - status alerts to all your social networking clients in one application
• Firefox 3.6 

Lots and lots of other tweaks but none that should be an issue.

A very worthy successor to 9.10 and a painless transition from 9.10 to 10.04 with no issues at all.

Spam spam spam spam spam spam spam

As well as being an amazing Monty Python song there's a bit more info on these people pretending to be Microsoft.
The company may also be using names Comantra or Supportonclick or Logmein123.

This YouTube video helps a lot, major respect for the chap here for leading them on and playing dumb.
Some people even report leaving them on hold for long periods while they go and do some washing up or laundry.
Another excellent tip is to put them on hold then have a friend take the phone call and pretend to be the local police, the scammers normally claim you called them !

If you listen to that Youtube audio very carefully you will realize that they don't know anything about your computer, they are asking for all the details and they are simply asking you to show event viewer messages.

Event viewer will have notifications and warnings, that's it's purpose - don't forget you can export the current view then clear all your logs, come back a few weeks later and see what's going on.
In normal use you will get messages in there, that's it's purpose and the scammers are simply playing on your fears and attempting to get money from you.

Another youtube link that has lots of "supportonclick" scam recordings is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6-IzN46-L0&feature=related

I have added Youtube videos on the right hand navigation bar so you can view the most useful ones anyway.
If you can't see the video list then you might need to check browser settings.
(Ubuntu users may need to check plugins - I have "mozplugger" and "mozilla-plugin-vlc" installed so the videos appear fine on my system).

As long as you remember not to install any software , let them link up or give them any personal details then have fun annoying them and wasting their time.

Don't forget, when your finished with them, tell them to fuck off !

Click for a fix ? I don't think so matey

Looks like the imposters and scammers pretending to be Microsoft are still at it.
They rang one of my team this Thursday, to keep him anonymous lets call him "Dave"...

Anyway they went through their usual story that they were calling on behalf of Microsoft and that he had lots of PC errors and they would fix them.
Dave led them on a bit and asked them who they were - they then told him they were a company called "clickandfix" - now then, before anyone starts emailing this company and given them a piece of their mind I need to point out this company has posted a message on their home page advising that people are posing as them in and attempt to extort money from you.

The bottom line is it's not that company at fault, someone has pulled their name from the internet and is using it illegally to attempt to rob you of your money.

So they were giving Dave all the jargon and asking him to look at all the errors he had and telling him they could fix it. He then told them he knew it was a scam and they were trying to rob people of their money, they carried on talking so he then told them he was a Microsoft certified professional so he knew they were talking bollocks.

Eventually they put the phone down and left him in peace.
A short while later the little fuckers rang him back, a new person said "Oh so your the person who thinks he's a Microsoft expert are you ?"

The cheeky fuckers had the nerve to ring him back and have an argument with him !

He ran through some of the things I put earlier in my blog...

How have they tied your IP address to your phone number and details ?
Who gave them your information (they said Microsoft - this is a lie as it is in contravention to data protection act and lots of other laws) ?
How have they been gathering data about your computers errors without your permission ?
Why have they called your phone in contravention to the TPS ruling ?
Why are they idiots ?

Actually I made the last one up.

Ask yourself though, if someone called you up and pretended to be your bank and asked you for your credit card details would you give them ?
If someone calls up and pretends to be Microsoft or anyone else why would you give your details then ?

The best advice is to tell them they are a bunch of fuckers because you run Linux so they are thieving twats, tell them to fuck off and put the phone down.

I think it fair to say we're trying to track them in more detail so we can shop them to Microsoft - I'm sure their lawyers will be more than happy to have a chat with them ?