New bike - Cycle to Work Scheme

I love these Cycle to Work schemes. To supplement my running I've been wanting a new road bike but they can be quite expensive. However the government cycle to work scheme means that 40% tax payers end up paying about half price for a new bike so I've ordered one of these. Boardman Performance Hybrid Bike Comp Large 09. Follow this link for more info (not sure how long it will work for) http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_502557_langId_-1_categoryId_165534.
I'll pick it up on monday and then start cycling to work on it. Also gonna use it for the London to Cambridge charity bike ride (see my posting further down).

30 Twitter Tools For Managing Followers

Found this article via somebody else's Tweet.
http://pelfusion.com/tools/30-twitter-tools-for-managing-followers/
I take no credit for it but it looks useful if you are a Twitter user. Sticking it on my blog will help me remember how to find the article. I haven't actually checked out any of the tools as yet.

Doodle Jump iPhone Game

Wow! What a cool game. It looks fairly rubbish but it's certainly got a strangely addictive quality. As soon as a game is over you just have to try again to beat your score. It seems so easy that you feel that you could keep going forever but then you mess up and start over. Every time I pick it up for a couple of quick games I find myself "wasting" 20 minutes. Hehe!! Such fun. Download it now and pay the 59p. It's well worth it.

Zoostorm Desktop PC

Following my "Home PC is Dead" posting I bought myself one of these. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161642. It's a great machine (so far) but a couple of words of warning for the less IT savvy buyers out there. If you get one of these one of the supplied quick start docs states that you must use the DVI port on the graphics card and ignore the DSub VGA port on the motherboard. They're not lying. The VGA port will not work at all. So if like me you don't have a DVI cable, go out and buy one now or you're stuffed before you get started. Secondly the docs also say that you must complete the initial set up the very first time you turn the PC on or you will be left with a non-functioning PC. Again, they do not lie as I found out the hard way. The PC keeps booting into a Windows error message and your only option is to reboot but of course that just returns you to the same error message.

So what do you do? Well you'll need a Vista Recovery disk. I didn't have one but managed to find a torrent to get to a recovery ISO which I was able to burn to a CD from another PC. Here's the link to get to the torrent. http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/. Once I booted from the Vista Recovery disk I elected to get into a command prompt window. From here I found that my PC had a C: D: and X: drive. The D: drive had an os.wim image file which was a pre-canned Vista image for the PC. I found a "restore" script which called various other CMD files. To cut a long story short I only actually needed 2 commands to reset everything. One blew away the C:\windows folder. The second reimaged the C: drive using the os.wim file. Once that was complete I was able to reboot and it was as if I was turning the PC on for the first time. If you need the exact commands or more advice please post a comment and I can give you even more precise details.

Anyway once I'd got over those initial challenges the PC has been working like a dream and is very fast. I'm happy with it based on working on it extensively over the weekend configuring it with all my software, tools and windows updates.

ToneMatrix

Once again good people of the Internet I bring you a cool sound utility. Check it out here. Lots of fun to be had. http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix. It's a simple sinewave synthesizer triggered by an ordinary 16step sequencer. Enjoy!

Best 40 Features of iPhone 3.0

Just found this interesting article. Enjoy! http://www.ismashphone.com/2009/06/how_to_use_best_40_features_of_iphone_3.html

Home PC is dead!

And as if my evening wasn't frustrating enough my home PC has died a death. It's quite old and has been dodgy for a while but as of today it hangs during boot up with no error messages. I can't even google the problem without errors. I've tried the usual stuff, safe mode, last known good start, etc but to no avail. I tried the recovery console and that was useless. I've done a chkdsk /R for good measure but nothing. So I tried a reinstall of the O\S over the top of the old version and now my computer keeps crashing with the blue screen of death. It's just not my day. Oh well!

Denied! iPhone O\S 3.0

Was it a dumb idea for Apple to release their new O\S for the iPhone at the same time across the world? .......... YES!! The inevitable seems to have happened and Apple's Activation server seems to have crashed presumably due to extreme demand. Here's the message you get (with the name of my iPhone removed - you never know!!) I guess I'll be waiting a while longer for the upgrade then. It took ages to download the 230MB update.

Honour Amongst Bloggers!

Hello good people of the Internet. My brother has just set up a blog and as he "bigged up" my blog I feel it only fair to reciprocate. His blog can be found here http://richardjenkinson.blogspot.com/. Not much to read as yet but hopefully he'll be getting more stuff up there real soon. One thing you will find is a family photo of the two of us from when I was about 2, therefore he'd be about 3 and a half. Enjoy!

SQL Plan Management in Oracle 11g

Okay here's a more professional posting. As an Oracle DBA I have often experienced situations where stored procs suddenly become very slow. They've switched to a sub-optimal execution plan. Often it's because the Stats have changed on the objects referred to by the SQL. But how do you stop this happening without having to use hints or worse without having to stop gathering stats (you really wouldn't want to do that). Well I'd try to tell you myself but why bother when Arup Nanda has written such a useful article on a solution to this problem in the Mar\Apr edition of Oracle Magazine. The answer is to use SQL Plan Management if you have Oracle 11g. Here's the link to his article: http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/09-mar/o29spm.html

Great North Run 2009

While I'm on the subject of fund raising I'm also participating in the Great North Run this year. It'll be my first half marathon and takes place on September 20th. The charity is Cancer Research and your donations would be massively appreciated. Here is my fund raising page: http://www.runningsponsorme.org/davidjenkinson.
I think we've all lost someone to Cancer so I'm very proud to support this charity in the hope that one day Cancer will be 100% curable for all. I'll re-post this message nearer the time. By then hopefully more people will be reading my blog and may be kind enough to sponsor me. Any amount would be appreciated. It all adds up and will make a difference.

London to Cambridge Charity Bike Ride

It's a shame that my blog is so new that people probably aren't reading it yet. However I'm taking part in the London to Cambridge Bike Ride to raise money for "Breakthrough Breast Cancer". Here's the link to a Just Giving page in case you would be so kind as to sponsor me (and my colleagues). http://www.justgiving.com/playdotcombikenutters

Running

Just been for my tuesday lunch time run with my running buddy James. We did 5 miles at (what is for me) a good pace. It took 37:56 which for those that care is 7 mins 35secs per mile. It's my current PB. That'll do nicely. Anybody else out there wish to discuss running with me?

Linked In

Who uses this? I'm on it but to be honest I don't really use it. Who can advise how to make Linked In work for you? How do I derive value from it. Dunno if there is an easier way to provide a URL to yourself on Linked In but this is mine hopefully....
http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=28320188

Twitter

I've decided in the last 10 minutes to ditch Facebook in favour of this blog and also a more focussed list of people to Follow on Twitter. I'm gonna mix business and pleasure on Twitter and follow clever people working in the same field as me to see what I can learn. However I'll still post non-work related content on Twitter. I'm "TexasDavey" on Twitter for those that care. It's early days for my blog and the only person reading it at present is my trusty and reliable bro. God bless you mate. Spread the word. Let's get some juicy discussions going.

Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly

Oh yeah I meant to say, I was listening to my iPod in the car tonight on the way home and I happened upon the "Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly" album from a few years back. It was sounding great. If you have spotify here's the URI for the album. "spotify:album:6pbu958qTzgT1isULmoqrK"

Ball Pilates

I did my Ball Pilates class today. Oooh blimey it was painful. It's been a few weeks since the last class and my stomach muscles were screaming by the end of it. Mind you it's doing me good. My running has really benefited from having much improved core strength due to the Pilates. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Facebook Backlash

So I'm thinking of giving Facebook a rest. I only use it to track pointless status updates from my "friends". Occassionally someone says something worthwhile or inspirational but otherwise it's just garbage. I'm just as bad as everyone else. But I think it's time for a rest. I may suspend my account unless I can think of a good reason to retain it. Ideas please?

iPhone again

While I remember I'm looking forward to the new O\S coming out on wednesday for the iPhone. I'll be getting it for my original iPhone 3G. How significant will the "S" be on the new 3GS. Will it really be much more speedy? Who knows? Time will tell when I ask my friends who are buying one.

iPhone Games

Hello people. I just downloaded "Flight Control" from the App store. Cool game. I'm not great at it yet but it does have a strange addiction to it. Not sure what the longevity will be like. I usually end up getting bored and switching back to the best £2.99 I ever spent on an iPhone game - Texas Hold'em Poker. Genius!! I love it!!

Trying out Blogging

Hey, I've never done this before. What will blogging mean to me? Anything at all? Who can read this? who cares what I say? Is this heavyweight Tweeting (as per Twitter)? Any advice from bloggers out there? How should I use this for maximum value?