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I finally got annoyed enough by people abusing my referer list that I have spent an hour this morning writing a filter process. I haven’t formulated a policy as yet but if a referer is dodgy (i.e. porn) or seems to be using my list for advertising purposes or to try and build their google rank then they will be blocked. Apologies to anyone this causes problems to but this is almost as annoying to me as spam.

After a couple of good days, we are back to normal:

There is a lot of documentation out there about how and why to switch from being a Windows user to the Mac platform (OS X). I have done a lot of reading recently and these are the links which I think are most useful. Bear in mind that my point of view is going to be skewed towards the techie side of things and there are a lot of other areas which will have a major impact on you decision but this is what interested me:

Although I have my new toy more important things were happening this weekend so I haven’t had much chance to play… yet.

With guests for the weekend the weather couldn’t have been better. It’s the summer we just haven’t had but we did make the most of it with a barbeque last night and lots of lazing around for the rest of the time.

The trains are back to normal tomorrow although I am expecting the journey to be a long one. To give One their credit, the organisation of the last couple of months couldn’t have been done much better. Let’s just hope that it has all been worthwhile.

I mentioned last week that I hadn’t tested the new search feature on here with a Mac. Well I have now as my new toy finally arrived yesterday.

Yes it’s a maxed out 17″ PowerBook monster. I got very annoyed with my Windows laptop recently as it was taking forver to do anything and I was spending an increasing amount of time just securing it rather than actually working. Not very good reasons for such a major change but I know several other people who have switched (either partially or completely) recently. The common factors between us – we are all developers, we all write lots of Java and we are all involved in the Notes/Domino world, they are all very positive about the move.

It’s still very early days and I am feeling my way a little but so far I am impressed. No make that extremely impressed. Over the next few days / weeks / months I will post my experiences and any tips which I pick up.

My only gripe so far – Where is the Domino Designer for Mac?

I decided to catch a black cab into the office this morning. Lazy I know but there you go. It costs about GBP4.50 from my hotel to the coffee shop where I get my breakfast and not having any change I handed over a 20 pound note to the cabbie. His response was “Ah, I don’t have any change”. Apart from this being a surprise in it’s own right (why would you be taking cash off people and not be able to break a 20?) the next bit of the conversation surprised me even more.

We both ummed and ahhed a bit not sure what to do. Then I noticed that I had some Euros in my wallet and offered to pay with them fully expecting him to go off into a right wing rant (Back off Brussels and all that). But, to my surprise, he pulled out a conversion chart and promptly told me what the fare would be in Euros and worked out what change to give me as well (in Sterling).

Cabbies have a bit of a right wing nutter reputation but this guy has changed my preconceptions with a nice surprise to start the day.

It was my last working at home day yesterday. I am down for a couple of nights in London and then back to the hard grind commuting proper. In fairly typical fashion the summer has seen appalling weather but as soon as I am back at work the sun comes out so, being the cause of the bad weather I apologise!

Two upgrades in three hours. The laptop is up as well now and it’s revealed the only visible difference. There seem to be some improvements with wireless networking. The interface has changed and for some reason my network speed has changed from showing 80-90% strength to 100%. Not sure if Windows is telling fibs but if that’s the only issue I have then I’ll be a happy man 🙂

I decided to take the plunge and install Service Pack 2 on one of my machines today. Apart from a fairly large download (266mb) and a very long install time (you’ll need an hour or so) it was entirely problem free.

I have yet to test all of my sfotware but the important stuff (networking, virus scanner, Notes, Domino, WSAD, Office etc) all seem to be running fine. So the question is now, do I upgrade the laptop as well? I think that deserves a couple of hours thought.

The barbeque happened yesterday and was as good as ever but because it was so cold (the sheepskin coats were out much earlier than usual) no-one got thrown in the pool. I can’t tell you how glad that made me as I think there would probably have been a few cases of hypothermia afterwards.