Disabling bluetooth on startup in Ubuntu

I recently bought a new netbook (Samsung NC10) for taking on the train when I go to London, Birmingham etc. for meetings. So far it’s been an excellent buy, except that the battery life has been nowhere near the five hours quoted in the literature and I’ve only managed to get less than two hours […]

Holiday to Alderney

After failing to book a proper holiday since I started my job (most of my weeks off work have been consumed by UKUUG events and other voluntary groups), I have decided to go back to Alderney for five days in October. Apart from being beautiful and quiet, it also has military history (the Germans occupied […]

BarCamp Manchester 3

This Saturday I attended my first unconference, in the form of BarCamp Manchester 3. Part of the reason for attending was to see how the unconference model works in preparation for UKUUG’s FLOSS UK Unconference in October this year, and also to do a bit of networking within the web development community. Things stuttered slightly […]

Thoughts on the emergency budget

George Osborne stood up in the House of Commons earlier this week and pronounced that we’re all going to be stuffed for the rest of this Parliament as a result of foolish Labour overspending, and an age of austerity (i.e. spending cuts and tax rises) awaits. Here’s my thoughts on some of the measures announced […]

My emergency budget

Tuesday will see George Osborne’s emergency budget, which I expect will contain a swathe of cuts and an increase in VAT. Since my A level in economics makes me more qualified to write a budget than Osborne (with his Modern History degree from Oxford) here’s what I would do: No tax cuts: It would be […]

Trip to Bletchley Park

On the off-chance that there are some people who read my blog but aren’t on Facebook, a group of us will be going to Bletchley Park on Saturday 19 June for the Vintage Computer Festival. Full details can be found on the mailing list archive of the original email. Join us for old computers and […]

A plan for buying Manchester United

I’m not a big football fan—I don’t even understand the offside rule—but I’m somewhat concerned about the finances of football clubs in the UK, especially Manchester United, after watching Panorama this week. Apart from anything else, United is part of the culture, heritage and landscape of Manchester, and no doubt provides a boost to the […]

Don’t upgrade Ubuntu on old Thinkpads

Basic message of this post: If you have an old Thinkpad with a built-in Intel graphics driver (particularly a R50e), do not upgrade to the latest version of Ubuntu (Lucid Lynx) as there is a critical bug with the graphics handling. I made the mistake of upgrading this weekend and now I’m stuck with a […]

Don’t break up the banks

(Disclaimer: I own, or have owned, shares in some of the companies mentioned below) There has been a lot of talk recently about breaking up the banks by separating their retail and investment arms—more so now that Vince Cable has a position in government. What makes me rather cross is that the politicians have clearly […]