Profanol - Tabletipedia - anti-rage (spoof)

Propofol (Diprivan) is used to induce anesthesia during surgery or medical procedures. However we are having none of that as today I invent Profanol (Corblimivan) a non-existent drug to moderate handling of situations that require an expletive. These situations often aggravate latent Tourette's syndrome or bring about its remission. 

Examples include waking up to receive this year's gas bill; reading that St Paul's Cathedral, a Christian church is evicting people with a similar mission on its forecourt; hearing MP Andrew Lansley spout the wisdom of a taxi driver on the National Health Service; or negotiating the perpetual road works throughout Cambridge, UK.  

I claim ownership of the brand having misread the name of the sleep-inducing drug cited in the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor.

PROFANOL

Form - tablet

Tagline - nil by mouth.

Toshiba TDP P4 / TLPLP4 projector lamp

Here's a tale for those who like their use of technology to be bulletptoof.


In 2001 I bought a Toshiba P4 projector (below) which at £3000 allowed me to travel from school to school to do training. Back then you couldn't be sure that the school's only projector was not already in use. It cost money that hurt: that amount could feed the family for a year. To ensure (sic) that we would starve for another month I bought a spare bulb (£350). That would make me bullet-proof, but by 2012 the projector was still working well. After a few attempts to sell it I got £65 for it.Bah! By the way, I also learned from a good source (the lovely Nigel Steljes in person) that the warranty on the bulb would have lapsed by now. So if the bulb was faulty at birth, buying a spare ahead of need does you no good.
 
WAS FOR SALE, NOW SOLD:


TOSHIBA PROJECTOR LAMP UNIT TLPLP4 for the Toshiba P4 projector. Brand new in box. The unit is very easy to replace by unclipping a cover. It simply screws into place so you don't have to handle the UHP bulb itself.  


This is the genuine Toshiba replacement lamp which I bought at the same time as the projector. It's never been used or damaged.  Sells for £150 on ebay.co.uk. Toshiba TDP P4 TLPLP4 TLPLP4 - this is what retrospect says wasn't a good idea to buy:

Lamp spec: 1100 ANSI Lumens; 2000 hour life; 120W

The projector looks like this (this lamp will fill fit some other models). It's tiny enough to fit in a laptop bag and travels in my hand luggage.

Groupon & Printerpix photobook deal

With a holiday coming up in the next few weeks I bought a voucher from .com offering a leather (value £34.99) for under £10. Postage would be £4.50 extra but the idea of such a book at £15 is surely a great deal. 

I laid out the book opting for a bigger book for a bit more.  Ultimately I paid £25 which is fair enough and the fee shown in the invoice here is correct.

Printerpix however do their VAT calculation oddly though. VAT should never be calculated before the discount so it seems to me that P'pix are paying HM Gov too much VAT. 

That point aside, the final product was good. I felt a lack of control laying out the book so it wasn't as I'd wanted. While Printerpix offer lots of page layouts there just weren't enough landscape layouts. It seemed that if you needed more than one landscape picture on the page you feel you're losing photo space and gaining blank margins. I've done a dozen of these books with great results but the Printerpix interface could be better. As could the maths.

Comparing the two services: 

Printerpix 26 pages; thicker paper; black leather cover total cost £25 with Groupon voucher
Snapfish 34 pages; regular paper; black linen cover total cost £23 with 50% offer

Sony Ericsson Xperia arc review - Android mobile

A reviewer of the HTC Sensation, fresh from the seduction by a press briefing, was talking about its 3D interface. Noticing that the weather icons now animate in 3D he adds, "this provides a more immersive weather experience'. Not only is this most hilarious, it typifies just how much the phone makers are driving people's wants. The wants seem to have exceeded the needs.  

Reviews about Sony Ericsson's awesome phone, the Xperia arc have majorly misled me over the last several months (mid 2011). After reading so many, you imagine that not having a dual-core processor in 2011 is going to have an impact on an already fast and responsive phone. 

But I have yet to do anything on the 'xperia arc' that leaves me waiting for a page to turn; a video to change orientation or a web page to load. It's pretty fantastic really that portable devices used to do things at a fraction of the speed of a desktop computer, but now they seem to have caught up.  

Reviews of Android devices by phone-kids on the web just occasionally focus on usability; lightness; the value of having hard keys; how well they nestle in the hand and how well supported they are by the maker. But instead of reviewing how a phone works for the user I read trivia. One kid doesn't like the quality of a plastic cover - even though it ends up hidden behind a phone case. Another kid remarks on the size of the included memory card even though I've not begun to fill it after several months. 


The Xperia Arc is a quality design and is fit for purpose and well fit even for playing around. The Xperia ArcS appeared in late 2011 and has the dual-core processor.











*http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/30/sony-ericsson-xperia-arc-review/

Public Contracts Scotland - win a tender - do the work - and wait wait wait for payment

Everyone but me knows that you need stamina to handle a tender for a government project. The stamina required isn't just for the several late nights to ensure your bid complies with the rules; it's also about being able to wait for your money. What was supposed to be a series of payment milestones was bulldozered by a "Procurement dept"into one final payment which arrived three months late.

A tip on submitting a tender is that if you do include a timeline for your project, you should expect it to be used and abused in your contract. No discussion will be allowed if procurement decides that the project needs to finish on a date of their choosing. You will find that your payment milestones are unachievable and so you'll not see money so soon. 

Do ensure you send only one address and one bank account. If you are outside the UK and have a UK contact, the procurement department will by default post to the address requiring the cheapest stamp. As a result of this we received our contract to sign by the time we were 75% of the way through. Cheques were sent to the wrong account and payments that were said to have been made, repeatedly turned out not be made.





Public Contracts Scotland may have its own one star iphone app. It may also be fair. It may also break new ground by asking new suppliers what their sexual orientation is - hec how groovy but incredible. Expect to feel bullied, not just into answering such a question in this context, but bullied all through your contract. And be sure to price for the time you will spend stuck inside its strangulated hernia.

Blog post file under: work I wish I had never done;

http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/

Windows mobile - for doctors and hospital patients

Hello. It's now day 1600 of my phone rage over Windows Mobile. Today's rant has nothing to do with the thoughtlessly-tiny OK box in this error message.

If I were a doctor, or a friend of a hospital patient, I'd be distressed over this common error message. It would bring my heart to a stop. The message, which occurs simply when making a call when there's no signal, can be dismissed with a fingernail filed to a point. The real message can't be dismissed so easily: despite having a fantastic user base, Windows Mobile at version 6 (SIX!) isn't going to last many more versions. 

Windows mobile is a pile of

A burst of inspiration today almost led to the creation of a blog to record my phone-rage since swapping a phone OS from Symbian to Windows Mobile. Alas my preferred title of "windowsmobileisapileof..." had already been used by several correspondents.

Ten years ago the Sony Ericsson P800 smartphone offered the freedom to gad about town with access to web; email; train times; diary and a phone. A couple of years on, it was followed by similar models including the P910. All were very functional but still ridiculous to use as such.

But Windows Mobile changed that not a lot. Today it offers access to the same web; email and all but still with yesterday's awkwardness and speed. What's changed is that more people now have it. What's nice is that more people have recognised that for doing almost everything in its feature list, Windows Mobile is a pile of do do.


Keep up the good work Android & Apple