November 5th, 2009
Every year my Dad very kindly takes me to a Formula 1 race. This year was no exception, apart from the fact that rather than choosing a European race he decided we should go to Abu Dhabi. The race at the Yas Marina Circuit was brand new on the calendar and the season finale, so was set to be an exciting one.

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October 12th, 2009
This Sunday Ian, Cat and I headed over to Descend Hamsterley to go downhilling. I haven’t really been on my bike for a while and a brief outing at Llandegla a few weeks ago had confirmed my rustiness. I certainly haven’t ridden anything steep since Les Gets / Morzine in summer 2008 so was a little apprehensive to say the least.

The uplift at Hamsterley is fantastic. For a mere £20 you and your bike get a lift from the bottom to the top 10 times so none of that nasty uphill peddling lark; It was even better for me as this was my birthday present from Ian, cheers dude. The weather was glorious although there had been rain overnight and there was a little moisture in the air when we arrived.
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October 9th, 2009
My first attempt at configuring Asterisk has finally been a success. I have started out with the sample configurations and have then emptied and re-written extensions.conf and sip.conf to setup my SIP users and dialplan … I have the following:
Posted in Asterisk, Computers, Linux, Ubuntu | Comments Off
October 7th, 2009
I’ve dug this up from an old blog of mine. Things have changed a little since then … we didn’t get to Les Gets, or anywhere else for that matter, mountain biking this year. Instead we had a baby who is very cute but not so downhill mountain biking friendly … wouldn’t change things for the world though ….
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October 6th, 2009
There is a lot of information on t’interweb about installing Asterisk on lot’s of different distributions of linux. However quite often they contradict each other and it seemed that most were written about version 1.4 rather than the lastest stable release 1.6. I don’t think I could have got to where I am now without this guide so fair play to Riccardo. So this is what I have done, it may not be the best way to do it, it may not be right, but it seems to work … or at least install anyway!
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October 6th, 2009
To get the install to run
- At install screen press ‘F6′ for install options then ‘ESC’ allowing a direct edit of the install options
- Replace ‘quiet splash’ or ‘quiet’ with ‘vga=0×314 noreplace-paravirt’
- Hit ‘enter’ to start the install
To get Ubuntu to run first time
- At GRUB screen press ‘ESC’ to configure
- Select the relevant kernel line, press ‘e’ to edit
- Select the relevant kernel line again, press ‘e’ to edit again
- Replace ‘quiet splash’ with ‘vga=0×314 noreplace-paravirt’
- Hit ‘enter’ to save
- Hit ‘b’ to boot
To get Ubuntu to run everytime
- sudo -i
- Edit ‘/boot/grub/menu.lst’ with your favourite editor
- Find the relevant kernel line
- Replace ‘quiet splash’ with ‘vga=0×314 noreplace-paravirt’
- Save the file
Posted in Computers, Linux, Ubuntu | Comments Off
September 27th, 2009
Last weekend we went to Wales with YCC for a Mountain Biking trip organised by Badger. To be honest it was more about testing our ability to survive a weekend in a bunkhouse with Caitlin and try and ‘do stuff’ as well. As well as Caitlin Fionn joined us (obviously with Orna & Ian) and we bagged the little room at the Conwy Valley Barn a nice little bunkhouse just outside Tal-y-bont. On the whole all went well, we all managed to get some sleep … we don’t seem to have been banned from further trips until Caitlin and Fionn reach beer drinking age and we both got to ride.
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Posted in Family, Mountain Biking | Comments Off
September 21st, 2009
This story starts a long time ago … in 2004 actually … for some reason someone convinced me it would be a good idea to run the Great North Run. Way back then you payed your money you got your place so once I’d coughed up I was in! I quite foolishly didn’t do any training. I did however finish the 13.1 miles in what is still my best time of 2 hours 32 minutes ish. This was the last year that the Great North Run didn’t have individual timing for all runners so this was based on the time on the clock at the finish minus the time it took me to cross the start line.
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Posted in Family, Running | Comments Off
September 7th, 2009
So I have decided to try this blogging thing again. The way I see it most of you probably don’t really want to read about the in’s and out’s of my life, but some of you might. There may even be some useful stuff on here at some point … anyway enjoy!
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