I've moved, but only a little way away.

[Obsolete]

If you have this page bookmarked as your entry point to my website, You need to update your bookmarks to point to http://markallanson.net/wordpress as I have moved there.

My feedburner feed now picks up it's details from the new location, this one is deprecated.

Sarah and I are Safe and Sound

After the events in London today I think it might be prudent to say that both Sarah and I are safe and sound. My office is on Fenchurch Street, a few minutes walk from Aldgate, however I was not affected by the tragic events of today.

Our thoughts and best wishes are with all those who have lost family members in the events of today.

Want to Ship?

Want to ship something locally or globally? For the sake of dissing UPS, You should do all your shipping with FedEx

(This is in response to Scobles post here. For the record, I think is juvinile, but its also a bit of fun!)

Easyjetsucks.com... owned by EasyJet?

Can you believe that the domain name easyjetsucks.com is actually owned by EasyJet!?

Here is the Whois... http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=easyjetsucks.com

Astronomical London Transportation Fares

So, after drunkenly fumbling through my wallet for 2 pounds late on Thursday night to take the tube from Liverpool street station to Tower Hill, It struck me that here in London we did manage to draw the (extremely) short straw with relation to travel charges. Hence here I am on Saturday night investigating transport costs on various public transportation systems worldwide (Give me a break, I have a cold and feel really shit so im not going to be doing anything else).

Anyway, I'm sure the table below will not be a surprise to any of us who travels around London on a regular basis, and it definately won't be a surprise to any tourists who have found their wallets and purses severely lightened by travelling on the underground.

The table below shows the various systems from a sample worldwide, the ticket type (I tried to include similar types of travel on rail based systems), the fare cost in local currency, the fare cost normalised down to the US Dollar (using XE.COM for currency conversion), and the percentage fare compared to the fare cost in London (with London being 100%).

The results speak for themselves. (And how I wish I lived in Russia)

A not so conventional recruitment email.

This has got to be the strangest receuitment email I have received in recent times. I wonder if he honestly expects his statement in the first paragraph will prompt people to consider the offer more legitimate.

"Please excuse the impersonal and frankly spam nature of this email but wanted to tell you about a permanent role I'm presently recruiting for (to develop music software), salary c.£35k. Read on if interested....

Regards
xxx xxxxxx"

Some great drift video's over at anti-lag.com

Head over to Anti-lag.com for some great drift and drag combat video's taken during an MC Motorsport drift training day & the drag combat competition, WA round.

I am really missing the Perth modified car scene and modified cars in general. They just don't know how to do it anywhere near as well over here in the UK. To many modified hot hatches and not enough real power cars. I guess with such confined spaces anything over a couple of litres doesn't make very much sense.

Looking forward to getting back to Perth and dropping some cash on something with a decent amount of power and turbo without having to worry about selling a kidney to pay the insurance bill.

JReg (1991) E36 BMW 316i Fuel Consumption

I took the BMW on its first long run today, 2 sessions of 1 hour and was impressed at the fuel milage being shown on the MPG meter on the dashboard.

I have decided to keep a record of fuel milage for every fill up to give others thinking of picking up one of these cars some food for thought. It will be a while before the table below begins to really mean anything though, so give it a few months.

• Date is in UK standard date format, Day/Month/Year
• Litres = Litres added in this fill
• PPL = Pence Per Litre
• Cost is in Pounds Sterling
• MBF = Miles between Fills, the amount of miles on this fill of the tank
• MPG = Miles Per Gallon for this fill

Chicago Arrival

What a great flight! Thank you American Airlines, I really needed a good flight. I cannot recommend AA more. Big economy seats, lots of leg room, fantastic food. The flight left late, and arrived late, but still early afternoon. The cab ride to the hotel was quick, thank god for Sunday traffic.

After checking in at the hotel I went for a walk down North Michigan Avenue to the Apple store with the intention of picking up an iPod Mini for Sarah. Boy was I in for a surprise. Beautiful store, however they were out of stock with no more in for at least 5 weeks. Despite this I picked up a bunch of iPod Mini Accessories, just because they are so much cheaper over here than if you were buying from Apple back in the UK. I picked up the iPod Mini Armband for when Sarah is working out, Griffin iTrip Mini FM Transmitter for those long car journey's and an XtremeMac iPod Car Charger for charging the iPod Mini on those long car journey's. I even sat in on a free Photoshop CS Pro workshop session, which was quite cool. Why doesn't Microsoft do cool stuff like this?

I also snapped some photo's from around about, and scouted where my training is going to be located. In fact, I can actually see One IBM plaza from my hotel room window (the room actually has 2 windows!

I have added some pictures to the gallery. I will keep them updated during the week when I can. (Free Wifi in the hotel, whatever next?).

The Championships, Wimbledon 2004 + Delta Goodrem

I have written a bit about our trip to Wimbledon and an encounter with Delta Goodrem over on Mark & Sarah in the UK.

Ash - Meltdown :: Review

1. Meltdown
2. Orpheus
3. Evil Eye
4. Clones
5. Starcross'd
6. Out Of The Blue
7. Renegade Cavalcade
8. Detonator
9. On A Wave
10. Won't Be Saved
11. Vampire Love

The album is a mix of rock, pop-rock and punk tracks mixed into one glorious jewel cd case. The first track, Meltdown is a fast rock track that immediately makes you want to get up and jump around the room. It is followed by Orpheous, which initially tricks you into thinking its yet another fast rock song with an intro full of toms and fast muted bass riffs followed by thrashy guitar but eventually settles down into a nice pop-rock song. Track 3, Evil Eye continues the Ash pop tradition with some incredibly catchy poppy riffs and vocals that remind me of The Mavis' (but definately not in a bad way!).

So, its definately a surprise when Track 4, Clones (The second single I believe) hits with a some nice rock power chords and yet more toms followed by some great guitar riffs with heavy open hi-hats. Starcross'd is next, and is my favorite track on the album at the moment, great soft rock-pop soft verses followed by powerfull melodic chorus that makes you want to sing along (but im not really that kinda guy :).

The rest of the album is a good mix of rock and pop. I have been paying so much attention to the first 5 tracks that I haven't get had a chance to explore in depth the final 6. I will update this review with my impressions of these last tracks in a day or so.

Mud & Worms

There's a new breakfast cereal for me! This Mud & Worms promotional cereal for Shrek 2 tastes great. Think chocolate corn pops with banana shaped "worms" inside :) Delicious stuff! Click on the picture to the left for a bigger version.

(PS. I am sorry for the broken design below, I must have some css wrong somewhere)

The end of the world, the flash!

You gotta check out this "The end of the world" flash movie!

Work can be draining

BEGIN TRAN MyPost

Just had a long 2 week period of late nights and in on the weekends. That combined with a dead notebook is the reason for not posting for a while.

On the up side, given the last 2 months experiences, I can delare the following things:

1. I feel that I am now confident enough with Java and the Eclipse environment that I could take a Java job. (note there is a large difference between could and want. I don't ever want to take a java job)
2. Even though most underground lines are unreliable, and despite the Central line being very crowded, Central Line > District Line
3. I now grasp the concepts and implementation of Web Services and .NET Remoting
4. London trains can be in general described as unreliable
5. I am beginning to become quite fluent in (T)SQL

COMMIT TRAN MyPost

I'm tired, but i'm happy...

...but maybe im not this happy!

8th Feb MC Motorchallenge Photo's

Thanks to Craig (Not Blogging) here is a gallery of pictures from 8th Feb's MC Motorsport Motorchallenge event.

Its a shame. If I hadn't moved to the UK I would be participaing this season in my pride and joy.

Some sweet cars there!!

Moving to the UK - Quick Financial Guide (For Renters)

If you're going to move to the UK, here are a number of bills you should plan to expect in the first month or 2 if you plan on renting.

1. 1 Months rent in advance, and 1 months rent as bond. This is standard fare, but can be painfull if you live in (expect a medium sized apartment to be about 250-350 pounds per week) or very near to London (In the area that Sarah and I are in expect anywhere from 500-900 per month for a decent place, dependant on size)
2. Over here rent tentants pay council tax (rates), expect about 700-1000 pounds per year. Luckily you can pay in installments so expect about 200-300 pounds in the first month
3. Sewerage Bill (Charged in 3 monthly blocks of about 30 pounds each)
4. Water Bill (Again charged in 3 monthly blocks), Most places are on a "rates" style system where you pay a fixed fee every 3 months but some places are on a meter. For rates expect about 50-70 per 3 months.
5. Telephone Bill (Charged in 3 monthly blocks), Price depends on what connection plan you use but you will pay line rental up front.
6. Gas Bill (Charged in 3 monthly blocks). Haven't recieved this yet so can't give an estimate in price
7. Electricity Bill (Charged in 3 monthly blocks). Again, haven't received this yet so can't give an estimate in price

So intial outlay could be anywhere from 2,800 - 3,500 pounds ($AUD 5,500 - 9,000) depending on where you live.

Some other things to watch out for:

• Everything takes a _long_ time to get done over here. Expect a lot of things to require your presence in person. There are a lot of things you can't do over the phone.
• Most furniture is made to order, and it can take a long time to make. For instance the sofa's that Sarah and I ordered are going to take 8 weeks for delivery (ordered 3 weeks ago now). Our bed that was supposed to be delivered in 1 week has now taken 3 weeks.
• People don't like to help you even though its their job. You will get a wide range of attitudes when trying to sort things out on the phone from the plain unhelpfull to the rude.
• Your US or Australian keyboard won't have a pound symbol (currency pound not the # (hash)) on the keyboard, which can be a pain in the butt :)

If I think of anything I have missed here I will update this post.

Punk Pop is mood altering

I woke up this morning tired and in a bad mood.

I sat down and read all my new rss feeds that came in overnight.

I checked email.

(note the order...)

I put on some punk-pop music.

I am now happy!

Offer From Accenture Technology Solutions

What a nice email title to receive when doing a routine send/receive.

Of course I have accepted the offer and I start with Accenture Technology Solutions on 23rd February as a C# .NET Software Engineer. I am looking forward to the challenges that this position within Accenture can provide me, and the solutions I am going to help provide.

I will be based in the London Denning House Delivery Centre.

New Travel / UK Weblog

I have moved all travel / UK related stuff over to a new weblog co-authored by both Sarah and Myself. If you just want to keep track of what we are doing in the UK, then the best place to check would be the weblog Sarah and Mark in the UK. I will not be posting any more travel related stuff to this weblog.

So, i will repeat this, for anyone only wanting to check out travel related stuff, things written by both Sarah and Myself, then you should visit http://www.markallanson.net/uk.

Contact Information

Here is the contact information for the new place:

Home Address
First Floor Flat
11a Marine Avenue
Westcliff-on-Sea
Essex, SS0 7PS
England

Phone Numbers
My Mobile Number: (44) 0796 333 1616
New Home Number: (44) 01702 354 133

Remember if calling from international, you need to drop the zero's on the front.

New Photo Gallery, Sarahs Rooms

I have put up a new photo gallery showing pictures of the room(s) that Sarah has been living in for the last 2 months. Pretty small stuff!

On another note, I have moved into our new flat. Theres been a lot of lifting, a lot of shifting, a lot of cleaning and a lot of mopping, but its finally beginning to look like a home. I will take some photos of the place soon and put them online. We have a fully stocked kitchen, but are still without much furniture, we went to IKEA to buy some stuff but they were sold out of /everything/ that we wanted to order (A sofa, bed and armchair), so we are going to have to wait for the new year before putting in any furniture.

Here are our movements over the xmas / new years break(s).

Now -> Wed 24 @ 4pm, At home
Thursday 25th -> Sunday 28th, Down south in Devon with my family for Xmas
Monday 29th -> Wednesday 31st, At Home
Thursday 1st -> Sunday 4th, Down south in Devon for my cousins (Victoria) Wedding.

I will put up a photo gallery of the new appartment before we leave.

Accenture Telephone Interview

If you read my last post regarding Intellisense makes you lazy, the test in question was for Accenture website (UK Website) Technology Solutions. I was required to do a .NET test online to gauge my .NET knowledge. Seeings as I didn't hear back from Accenture I was resigned to the fact that I had been passed over for a position, so you can imagine my surprise to get a phone call from Accenture's HR Department (whilst driving a hire car through busy UK peak hour traffic, no less) requesing a first round telephone interview.

I've been doing prep work for the interview this morning, reading the Accenture website (UK Website) etc. I have no idea what the aim of the interview is, whether its to gauge my personality or technical ability (which I would think is not easy to do over the telephone).

Wish me luck!

Justin Wilson not signed to Jaguar Racing in 2004

I'm extremely dissapointed that Justin Wilson was not signed to Jaguar Racing for the 2004 Formula 1 season. It seems like a raw deal to me, Leaving Minardi mid-season to join Jaguar after the dumping of Antonio Pizzonia, then left high-and-dry by Jaguar Racing for the 2004 season.

I hope he finds another ride for the 2004 season, though I doubt he will be able to find one.

Clio Renault Sport V6

Droool.. Can my budget stretch this far??? :)

Check out the pictures.

Here is a gallery of wallpaper quality pictures, and here is the best picture. If you are in the UK, grab a copy of this months Fast Car magazine for a feature on an awesome modded one.

Fifteen

I decided that for Sarah's birthday in December that I would book us into Jamie Oliver's Restaurant, Fifteen. Can you beleive that they are totally booked out for dinner until the end of January 2004! (See at the bottom of the page)

Time to think of somewhere else to go.

Young Persons Railcard

If you are between 16 and 25 (inclusive) and living in the UK and havent heard of the Young Persons Railcard then make yourself aware and get one. 1/3 savings on travel throughout the UK, it costs 18 pounds for the card but its worth its weight in gold, its going to save me about 759 pounds on an annual travelcard from westcliff-on-sea station through the to the underground, plus it saves me 20 pounds every time I travel from london to devon. Bargain!. Check it out.

We have found a flat.

After sifting through some absolutely terrible flats and houses, Sarah and I have finally decided on a place to live. It is in Westcliff-on-Sea, an area roughly equivalent to a suburb, just west of Southend-on-Sea. We are near the sea front, although not with a sea view. Time to walk to the beach would most probably average about 5 minutes as you have to go down a long flight of steps and a path to reach it. The beach isn't much to speak of anyway, its not white sand, just grey sand (maybe even shells / pebbles, we haven't ventured onto the beach yet).

There are some movie theatres about 5 minutes walk away, a number of hotels and pubs within 5-10 minutes walk away (in fact the nearest pub would be about 30 seconds walk to the end of the street away, but its inside a hotel so i'm not counting that one :) ) . We are about 5-10 minutes walk from the Westcliff train station so the commute into London shouldn't be too hard, just expensive :(.

The flat is a first floor flat, with cedar wood flooring through the hallway and living room, bathroom, kitchen (with included washer/dryer, fridge/freezer), large sunken master bedroom and reasonable sized second bedroom, so if anyone wants to visit, you're most welcome! The flat is recently renovated as well so everything looks brand new and is in excellent condition.

I have also added a new photo gallery in the pictures section, under United Kingdom, 2003. I took a trip to Windsor Castle after a mistake with Air Emirates cargo division left me with a hire car for a day and nothing to use it for. I did a tour of the castle and got to view the state rooms inside. Amasing stuff.

Stay tuned for some pictures of the house over the coming weeks. We should be able to move into the flat in 2-3 weeks time, hopefully before xmas.

On another note, I changed the pictures gallery around so its a bit easier to navigate, the picture narrative is now at the top of the screen, and navigation buttons have been placed at the top to. Look out for more changes to make it a bit easier in the coming weeks.

Arrival

Well I have arrived in the UK, flights were a bit of a drag, but then they always are. The luggage got stuck on the plane and it took them almost an hour to get it out, so that, combined with the fact that the plane was late arriving meant that I actually got out of heathrow about 2 hours later than I should have. Not happy!

Airport security at heathrow was, well, non existant, which was a surprise, I expected a lot of guards everywhere. Passport checks were incredibly lax. They just looked at my photo, looked at me, then let you through. Its a bit strange when you are used to proper passport checking. Still I cant complain, its better than tight security I guess.

I managed to sign up with Freeserve as my Internet provider, 9.99 pounds a month for the first 3 months, then 14.99 a month after than, so all is good there, connecting was easy, though they try and get you to install everything automatically using windows internet connection settings (.ics) files. No thank you! I dont want my ISP taking over everything with their own settings. Thankfully .ics files are text so you can just read inside and set everything up yourself.

Now its time to look for a place to stay, Have been browsing property rental websites, mainly FindAProperty.com. Its definately a bit strange looking for rentals online, it doesnt feel right, so its time to make some appointments to see some properties this weekend.

No pictures yet. I will go for a walk this afternoon and take some.

Getting things done

Well its been a bit hectic, i've been everywhere at once this week finalising everything and preparing to pack before I leave. It has been confirmed that I will be picked up by my uncle in london so that is fantastic news, the last thing I need after 27 hours of travel is to have to find a way of getting to their house on my own!.

At the moment it looks as if I am packing for a holiday, and i have a sneaking suspision that I am going to leave too many important things behind, but so be it, they can get sent over later if they are that important.

I'm sure there are 100 things I havent thought of yet that I will need to do before I leave, but hopefully at least 90 of them come to me before saturday :)

Verio Router a Wet Blanket

Whats the deal with this Win32 tracert to the FTO community website I co-founded. Its been like this for 4 days now. I figured that if Verio had a router problem it would get fixed pretty quick. No one in WA can get to the fucking website.

Tracing route to ftowa.com [63.251.216.72]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 160 ms 150 ms 150 ms i014-016.nv.iinet.net.au [203.59.14.16]
2 151 ms 571 ms 169 ms per-qv1-core1.iinet.net.au [203.59.49.162]
3 160 ms 150 ms 139 ms 203.59.49.177
4 144 ms 139 ms 150 ms hsrp-border.wa.iinet.net.au [203.59.24.247]
5 220 ms 200 ms 210 ms at-0-1-0-317.AR1.SYD1.gblx.net [203.192.130.65]
6 221 ms 210 ms 209 ms ge0-0-0-1000M.cr2.SYD1.gblx.net [203.192.136.85]
7 475 ms 410 ms 521 ms pos2-1-155M.cr2.LAX1.gblx.net [203.192.136.66]
8 351 ms 410 ms 410 ms so0-0-0-2488M.br1.LAX1.gblx.net [67.17.68.141]
9 381 ms 400 ms 380 ms alchemey.pos3-0.cr2.LAX1.gblx.net [208.50.21.218]
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * ge-4-2.a01.lsanca18.us.ra.verio.net [204.1.254.129] repo
rts: Destination net unreachable.

Trace complete.

Ben Cousins and Chad Morrison

It has come to my attention from very reliable sources that the following West Coast Eagles wear the following underwear. Why am I posting this? Because I can!

Ben Cousins: Bonds Dynamite String Bikini

Chad Morrison: Mooks Hipster Trunks (No Image Available)

The End and the Beginning

Today I handed in my resignation. It was a sad moment as I will be leaving behind some good friends and colleagues, however its mixed with the excitement of starting something new in the UK. If you haven't read my earlier posts, my girlfriend Sarah secured a position as dietitian in SouthEnd hospital in Essex. she will be leaving for the UK in a few weeks time and I will be following her over in the middle of November.

There is suddenly so much to do. So many loose ends to tie up at work, notes to write, car and bunch of other random stuff to sell, phone accounts to close, bills to settle. Still have a while to deal with it all though however I know the final 6 weeks at work will be very hectic.

If anyone is hiring in Essex or West London, please drop me a line, I'll be glad to accept your offer :). Alternatively, if anyone knows anyone looking to hire a C, C#, .NET, Clarion or Perl developer in the general vicinity then drop me a line to. Monster.com is so bare these days!

Freo vs Bombers Final Score

Freo lost bigtime :(

Freo vs Bombers Quarter 3

Freo 4 . 6 . 30
Bombers 11 . 8 . 74

:(

Freo vs Bombers Half Time

Freo 3 . 4 . 22
Bombers 7 . 6 . 48

Looks like its going to be painfull :(

Freo vs Bombers Quarter 1

Freo 2 . 2 . 14
Bombers 3 . 4 . 22

Whats the deal with James Hird's Haircut? It looks like he has stepped right off the set of The Bold and the Beautiful.

Welcome September, Welcome Spring

What a fantastic start to Spring! Balmy mid 20 degree celcius days with low humidity. What more could one ask for? (other than not having to go to work and sit in an office coding all day?)

American Pie 3 @ Gold Class

Going to see American Pie 3 (chuckle) at Greater Union Gold Class cinema's tonight.. This experience better be worth my hard earned $35!

If you don't know, gold class is a special cinema experience where you get served alcohol and other such luxuries in comfy armchairs with <40 people in the cinema!

Have had some requests (and complaints) about mReader. Will get to these this weekend, promise! its all just been a b it hectic lately

Monkey Island Collectors Edition

I bought the Monkey Island Collectors Edition set last week and its consumed all my free computer time since! I played the first monkey island game in 1992 when I got my first ever IBM Compatible PC, 486 DX2 66, and loved it. It came bundled with the Creative CDROM drive.

12 Years later I still love the game enough to play the rest of the series. Such a bargin! $50 for 4 games, Monkey Island 1-4. It has to be one of the most humorous game series ever made.

Hint/Tip: If you want to play Monkey Island 2 on newer PC's that don't have hardware adlib compatibilty then check out VDMSound. Its not just a sound emulator, but an entire Virtual Machine for older DOS based games that simulates Emm386, Sound, VESA and more. It works like a dream with Monkey Island 2.

Something for Kate Concert

Heading off to the Something for Kate concert tonight @ The Rosemount here in Perth. Should be a great alternative rock'n'roll evening :)

Check out Something for Kate! [ed: fixed link]

Hope everyone going to the Silicon Valley webloggers dinner tonight enjoys themselves as much as I do.

The Geek Test

I just scored "16.17357% - Geek" on the geek test.

Go the Scud!

The Scud (Mark Phillippoussis) is playing Roger Fedarer in the Wimbleton final tonight! Go the Scud! Keep the Aussies on top!

Nice Breakfast

Had a nice breakfast this morning at 'Bien', located on King Street in the heart of Perth. A great little cafe, and an indulgence in french toast and blueberry pancakes. Talk about sugar high!

Highly recommended for breakfast.

Dinner at Sarah's

Dinner tonight at Sarah's. Her brother is in town for a few days from Melbourne, so its time for a good feed. I don't know what we're having, but im sure it will be delectable. Damn she is a good cook! Have a good Saturday night everyone.

Thanks to scoble...

Thanks to scoble I am inspired to actually start blogging on a more frequent basis.

Let me introduce myself: I am a 24 year old Software Developer who lives in Perth, Australia. I work for PalmTEQ Limited, a designer of Hospitality Point of Sale software and hardware, centered on Wireless Ordering (ie Waiters use handheld devices to take orders at tables and fire them off via Radio Frequency to kitchens etc). My responsibility at PalmTEQ is centered around the development of our wireless ordering software (based on PalmOS) and some of our backoffice applications. I have a lovely girlfriend, Sarah who has been by my side for over 6 years now, but with no intention of marriage any time soon :)

So, now that my main homepage is this weblog, let me show you around my home. Above is links to general parts of my website that are not to do with the blog, pictures (mainly vacation) but I will start adding more stuff interesting stuff as time goes by, maybe even a photoblog there, but I need a phonecam before I can start with that business. Can anyone recommend a good photocam? The rest of the site needs a bit of a spit-shine as I haven't touched it in a while.

Anyway, look out for more activity here in the future. I have 2 categories, Me and Tech. I should imagine Tech will be more widely used in the short term.

Iraqi Information Minister...

Gotta love the Iraqi Information Minister. In fact somebody loves him enough to start up We love the Iraqi Information Minister

Some classic quotes, merchandise, even a doll resembling the minister are available somewhere. Good stuff!

Welcome

Welcome to my first weblog entry!