Matts Meanderings

Now, I know that there's all sorts of rules around for "what happens on a bucks weekend stays on a bucks weekend", but never fear, I've taken this into account, and the following is the clean, censored, nice version. We won’t mention the hens party that we "met", or the gay bar we were in, or anything like that...

To take about 3 steps back, last weekend, Biscuit and I joined up with a few other guys and went to Ghent, in Belgium for Marks stag weekend. Cath and a few others headed off to Sweden for Andreas hen do. Seeing Mark is a big fan of good beer, Belgium was just the place to go.

Of all things, we drove there, via the channel tunnel - we drove onto the train at one end, and sat in the car while we went under the channel. Really not that exciting all up... It was great being able to just jump on a train and end up in a different country. Not that exciting if you're European, but cool to an Aussie...

Belgium seems to be a really nice place. The place we went to, Ghent, speaks Dutch, so I was able to dig out my half-dozen phrases to impress the locals (who all spoke better English than the English ). Its outskirts are fairly industrial, but the town centre is pretty cool - everything is really old and picturesque. A lot of it has been rebuilt since WW1, but they rebuilt it in the same style. Definitely got to go back there - especially how easy it is to get there with the tunnel. Would be nice to hire a car and go wandering around, driving wherever we feel like.

Anyway, I think I'll gloss over the actual night out - too many incriminating things that we don’t want Andrea to find out about. I'm gonna upload the non-incriminating photos soon . Lets just say that it was a really good time, and fun was had by all, and we made it back home about 6.30am...

Annoying thing was that I dropped my camera, and the little display doesn't work so well. I tried dropping it again to see if that'd fix it, but alas, it didn't. Maybe I'll have to sort out the purchase of my new camera sooner rather than later.

On the way back from Ghent, we dropped into Ieper/Ypres/whatever its called this week. Cool little town, built with a big moat around the entire town, and full walls. Check out the pics - they're cool. Also had some big gate memorial commemorating the thousands with no known grave. Was very moving. Was almost a case of not allowing myself to think about it, as it would've affected me too much.

Anyway, that’s about the weekend. There's more to it than that, but, well, that stays between the boys...

Currently sitting here in good ol' Edinburgh, relaxing in the castle rock hostel, whiling away the day, revelling in the joy of not having to do anything. It is a very nice feeling. Much better than having to work on your birthday...

But, I've been thinking lately, trying to sort out what I'm gonna be doing. London is starting to get to me, starting to annoy. I've got some great friends there, but the little things are getting to me. Its not so good.

I'm definitely heading back to Melbourne for Christmas - I think I'd be hung, drawn, quartered, and then yelled at if I didn't come home (and yes, the yelling would be the worst bit). I'm also getting a bit home sick too - really want to see the family. But after that, well, who knows what I'll do.

Work is okay - nothing super exciting (then again the last project was a study in how not to create a new product), and the promised exciting new project doesn't seem to be materialising at all. Its been just around the corner for about 6 months...

But, heading to Edinburgh, its been really good. I s'pose that whenever I've been in Scotland, I've had a good time. So it could be that, but its also a case of the food that I've had here is much better than London fare, and little things like that. Its got a defined city centre, and a very picturesque centre too. Also getting back into the backpacker mode again is a good feeling. Always something mad happening - its great.

I've definitely got to keep working and pay off some credit card debts, but should have those sorted soon. Once that happens, I'll be able to save a bit, so I can do some more travelling.

Also got a thing or two in the pipeline - things'll be better if they go the way I hope. If they do, I'll let you know what they are; if not, well, we'll just forget I said anything.

So, I think its almost definite I stick with the current situation for the rest of the year, and see what happens next year. Maybe London, maybe Edinburgh, maybe Paris, maybe New York, maybe I'll just start travelling and see where I end up. If I run out of money, well, I'll get a job somewhere. Who knows. Maybe I just need to do something different.

Anyway, this was a bit of a ramble. Not even sure if it helped me to get it out, and it probably didn't enlighten you at all, but, hey, who cares? (that's 5 minutes of your life that you're not getting back )

Time for a show now, so au revoir.

Is it a boat, or what???

Check the Hydro-Foam - very cool. I'd want one, but I know it would only sit on the shelf and gather dust....

First of all to my regular reader (okay, readers, there are 2 of you, after all) - this is a very techy post, so feel free to just skip over it...

A few weeks back, I managed to resolve an issue we were having with intermittent HTTP 403 errors while attempting to remote sync to Exchange 2003.

We started off all peachy. Then we enabled forms-based authentication, with SSL, to get some slightly better security on OWA. This lead to us getting consistent HTTP 403 errors when attempting to sync. KB article 817379 - “Exchange ActiveSync and Outlook Mobile Access errors occur when SSL or forms-based authentication is required for Exchange Server 2003” told us how to fix that.

That allowed us to synchronise (synchronize to you yanks) remotely most of the time. Only, randomly, it seemed to pop up a 403 error saying that my account didn't have permission to sync, even though I'd successfully synced 5 minutes previously, and could often sync successfully 5 minutes later. Other times, it would just prevent me from syncing for hours (kinda annoying when you're trying to sync via gprs in some random foreign country...).

After a long and drawn out process with a Microsoft tech support guy (thanks Wen Sun!), we managed to resolve the issue. Turns out, in step 14 of method 2 in the kb article above, you need to add all ip addresses of the server. It seems that its not fixed what ip address it uses when it goes in (apparently there's a bit of bouncing around to various locations, so its not as logical as it sounds at first), so it can come from any of the servers ip addresses. If you've only included one of the ip addresses, it sometimes comes from that ip, and therefore works, and sometimes comes from other ip's, and therefore fails.

So, hopefully that makes sense, and helps other people. I would've loved to have been able to get back in contact with the guy that emailed me with the same issue, but alas, his email isn't valid any more (So, if you're out there Ross Minney - give me a yell!)

Edit [02/05/2006] - added a link to the article to clarify based on Shen Li's comment.

Just a quick note to say how disgusted I am with the state of IT recruitment in London these days. I mean, if I get another (effectively) spam email that outlines a job where the only relation to me is that its in IT, and hey, I just happen to work in IT, I'm gonna go mental.

I have never told any recruitment agent that I'm looking for a permanent job, and I've never told anyone that I was looking outside London. It was always contract, and it was always in central London. But, these days, all I seem to get are bulk emails with job outlines.

It seems that recruitment companies don't even bother with any kind of data mining/data analysis/searching their own databases first. They just send out a bulk email and see how it goes. The nicely add “The following vacancy may be suitable for you.  If it is not then accept our apologies and update us as soon as possible with your current skills.” Gee. Thanks. My skills haven't really changed (okay, so they have - i have learnt a few things in my current job), but I never met the criteria for this role, so why am I getting emails?

What happened to the agencies that actually knew their contractors, looked out for them, treated them with respect?

I've also had a glimpse lately of the other side of the coin. My team lead put out an advert, with the first line being “No Agencies”. Within hours, he was getting phone calls from agents. What, cant they read now? These guys are harassing my team lead, phoning day after day, after specifically being told “no phone calls - email only”.

Gah! Where's the professionalism gone? (Then again, was it ever there???)

... how to destroy the earth.

I mean, really. Properly. It lists all sorts of technically and scientifically accurate methods of destroying the earth. From being sucked into a microscopic black hole, to it getting hurled into the sun to it being gobbled up by stranglets (whatever they are) - its all listed, along with how feasible each method is.

It even gives you some general geocide strategy tips to help out in your planning.

There's even a “current earth destruction status”, from the “international earth-destruction advisory board”, which helpfully tells us:

So, anyway, go read the site. Even if you aren't interested in destroying the earth - its a good laugh.

Went out to dinner with my buddies Nathalie and Celine the other week, and we started talking about traveling. Nathalie started talking about how much she liked Scotland, but didn't get enough time there. That led to me saying that I'd absolutely loved it. We got talking about the detail of the trips we'd had there. I said that Biscuit and I'd gone with MacBackpackers, which it turned out that Nathalie had too. She asked when I'd gone...

M: “August last year”
N: “I was there in August... When in August?”
M: “late August... ummm... about the 27th...”
N: “from Castle Rock hostel, in Edinburgh?”
M: “yes...”
N: “I thought Biscuit looked familiar when I met him...”

So, freaky, freaky, freaky, turns out that Nathalie was on the same bus as us for the morning. Also turns out that she's visible in the background of one of the photos I've got from the Edradour Distillery that we stopped at (damn fine cream liqueur there).

Given that we met Nathalie¹ early this year via Birte via Eva via Margo, who we met in Inverness, its a small world, eh?

And, she actually remembers talking to Biscuit... For shame, Biscuit for not remembering her...

¹ Oops... seems I don't actually have a proper photo of Nathalie! Sorry, Nat!

Okay, now that I'm in the mood to write some stuff on this blog-thang, I might as well keep writing for a bit...

Vague travel plans coming up...

• August 6th - 8th - Rotterdam for the weekend to visit Margo and Mara
• August 21st - 27th - Edinburgh for the fringe festival and military tattoo
• September 3rd & 4th - Nottingham to visit Wendy for her birthday
• September 10th - Mark and Andreas wedding (well, if she gives up her smoking, at least)
• September 11th - 14th - Barcelona with Rob and Matt - maybe
• September 15th - 20th - Munich for Oktoberfest¹
• October sometime - going to Morocco - maybe
• November sometime - going diving in Egypt - maybe

And then we kick into the big travel plans... December 15th or so - I'm planning on flying to Melbourne, possibly stopping in Singapore for a few days (if Jo ends up moving there), then 2 weeks over Christmas, up to Queensland with Jeremy (plus one?²) and Leigh and Allison for a weeks diving just after new years. After that, a few final days with the family, then over to New Zealand to visit a few random strangers that I've met (in a random countries, of course) for a few days. Then, over to Los Angeles to jump on a 3 week backpacker bus trek thing across the southern part of the US, ending up in New York. As far as i can tell, that will take me till about the 8th of Feb, then it will be back to London to pay off the credit card debt for a few months...

Anyway, this big travel plan is kinda reliant on there being some reasonable priced flights available - Was looking to pick up a round-the-world ticket for about £1100 or so. But, putting that itinerary into a few websites (like opodo or expedia) gave me a price of around £3500, which is a little more than I was planning on spending... Will have to drop into Flight Centre or something to find out if its feasible...

So, thats the plan. If you're going to be anywhere near where I'm gonna be, holler out, and we'll raise a glass to, well, something.

¹ Yes, i do know that its odd that they have Oktoberfest in September
² Yes, i know that its unlikely that Jeremy will manage to get himself a girl by then, but, hey, stranger things have happened...

I've just been told off by someone for not writing anything for my blog lately... Admittedly, she's probably the only person who does read it, but hey, at least someone does...

Anyway, I've got a big list of things I've been meaning to write about for a long time - each time I find something to write about, i put it in an email to myself, and put it in a folder to look at later... However, later hasn't been happening lately (there's 33 emails there). Not entirely sure why... Just haven't been feeling like jumping online and writing anything lately.

Could have something to do with the huge project that we've been working on at work. Its a *huge* project, thats been poorly defined, and therefore, when we've been putting it together, we've had to clarify lots of stuff as we go along. I've put the same page together three times so far (and then there's the rest of the site that I've done as well).

But, that said, it seems to be coming together now. Its at a point where its getting harder to find the missing bits, and the broken bits. Part of the problem is that I know I wont be able to point at the site and say “I did that”, cos its all password protected - all you can see is a funky front page... Well, you will be able to when its been uploaded. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure I'm allowed to mention the name of it...

Anyway, before that I was on another less-than-perfectly defined project - at least this one was a lot smaller. However, it still took a lot longer than it should've, for many and varied reasons... Wont go into them here, but it went live today (or was it yesterday), and apparently everyone loves it. Its fast, its smooth, its amazing (they say). Tom's told us (Biscuit and I worked on it together) that he owes us a beer or 6 - any beer, any pub, all night long. I told him I knew a great pub in Melbourne, but he back-peddled a bit on that one...

Anyway, thats roughly whats been happening. I might put together another post to say what the vague plans for the future are... Lots happening, coming up soon...