Musings Of An Idiot

  • India, Zak & Chloë

    Personal Ed Courtenay
    No Comments February 20, 2009

    I can’t quite believe that they’re all grown up and going to school... more

  • Eden's Arrival

    Personal Ed Courtenay
    No Comments February 14, 2009

    Eden Grace Courtenay was born at 22:56 on the 7th February 2009, weighing in at 7lbs 14oz - Mum and daughter came home the next day. Although we'd blanked out the 'joys' of sleepless nights, she' … more

  • Eye eye...

    Personal Ed Courtenay
    No Comments January 27, 2009

    Had to take Chloe in to Dorchester this morning so she could have an operation to correct a severe squint. Back home the same day after having the procedure at 9:00AM.  Chloe sleeping … more

  • These Boots Are Made For Walking...

    Personal Ed Courtenay
    No Comments April 23, 2008

    Well, it had to happen sooner or later: after 8 years with IS Solutions, it's time to move on to pastures new - I'll be starting a new job with Clarks in the next few weeks as a Microsoft … more

  • Vista SP1 + Flash

    Personal Ed Courtenay
    No Comments February 19, 2008

    I installed Vista SP1 last night and all appeared to be well, but when I tried to access YouTube this morning, the Flash video player wasn't working; instead, I got a dialog pop up complaining that … more

  • Repton.NET Reloaded

    Repton.NET Ed Courtenay
    No Comments January 21, 2008

    I was contacted the other day by someone who couldn't get my (now ancient) port of Repton 3 running under Vista; mostly because Microsoft seem to have hidden the .NET 1.1 runtime download (or made it … more

  • Opening .NET

    .NET Ed Courtenay
    No Comments October 4, 2007

    Scott Guthrie's blog entry "Releasing the Source Code for the .NET Framework Libraries" details how Microsoft are finally going to allow access to the .NET framework source code without having to … more

  • Untouchable Virgin

    Personal Ed Courtenay
    No Comments September 28, 2007

    The BBC News website has an excellent Q&A article up at the moment dealing with the implications of DRM infested music files in the wake of the closure of Virgin Digital. In case you've not heard … more

  • Cracked Pepper

    Personal Ed Courtenay
    No Comments July 30, 2007

    I've just stumbled upon one of the best mash-up albums I've ever heard; it's called "Cracked Pepper" by ccc / Ill Chemist which takes each track from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in turn and … more

  • Shambo-lic High Court Ruling

    Personal Ed Courtenay
    No Comments July 16, 2007

    Here we go again; why is it that the moment a group of people invoke their own version of the ‘magical sky-fairy’ myth, they're imbued with some form of special privilege? Today’s case in point is … more

  • Celebrity Lookalikes

    Personal Ed Courtenay
    No Comments July 11, 2007

    Just stumbled on this face recognition system on MyHeritage.com (via Phil South's blog) and just had to have a go. And the results are, well, slightly dubious! David Lloyd George? Naah. more

  • Wendy Houses Of The Soul

    Personal Ed Courtenay
    No Comments April 26, 2007

    I just stumbled across this video by Pat Condell while I was looking around www.earthsgreatestlawsuit.org (I hope they're serious; if there's one thing I despise as much as religion it's … more

  • Happy 25th Birthday!

    Personal Ed Courtenay
    No Comments April 24, 2007

    As various sources have reported, yesterday was the 25th birthday of the ZX Spectrum - the launchpad of many a software developer (myself included). The speccy was my first home machine, … more

  • Petition

    Personal Ed Courtenay
    No Comments January 3, 2007

    As a long standing atheist (product of a Roman Catholic education), I have long been uneasy about the grip on education exerted by various religious groups – be they Islamic, Church of England, Roman … more

  • Testing Times Concluded

    .NET Ed Courtenay
    No Comments December 8, 2006

    I shouldn't have got myself so wound up about the 70-536 exam I did this morning. The 'real world' questions were not nearly as bad as the Training Kit had me expecting, and there certainly weren't … more

  • Testing Times

    .NET Ed Courtenay
    3 Comments December 7, 2006

    I'm sitting the 70-536 (Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 – Application Development Foundation) exam tomorrow, and I sincerely hope that it's of a higher quality than the learning materials Microsoft … more

  • Elevate Privileges Shortcut

    Ed Courtenay
    No Comments November 30, 2006

    I stumbled across a useful shortcut in Vista for elevating privileges; often you'll need to run a command prompt or another application as an administrative account (if you want to run bcdedit for … more

  • And What Have You Done With My Body, God?

    Music Ed Courtenay
    No Comments November 22, 2006

    I've just finished having my mind mangled again for the umpteenth time by the Art Of Noise - probably one of the most infuential 'bands' of the 1980s, or at least before Anne Dudley, J. J. … more

  • One Born Every Minute

    Ed Courtenay
    No Comments November 20, 2006

    Good to see that the scalpers are out in force on eBay, proving that you can sell any old crap; how about a boxed copy of Windows Vista RC1? Sheesh... (You've gotta love the comment - "This is a … more

  • Monad Moanin'

    .NET Ed Courtenay
    1 Comment November 20, 2006

    Last week, Microsoft quietly released Windows Powershell 1.0 (formally known as Monad) to the world. This is a great piece of technology that's worth taking some notice of - it's destined to become … more