Just a quick note to let everyone know that I've updated the SSL certificates for the site as they were about to expire. Don't worry if your browser or email client lets you know that they've changed!

I recently decided to sign up for a DVD rental service, so I could catch up on all those movies I wanted to see, but didn't want to buy. After an initial look at the market, there appears to be three major players: Amazon, LOVEFiLM and Blockbuster. I discounted Blockbuster as they were more expensive in every case and didn't appear to have an i…

When writing up part of my doctoral thesis, I need to take charts from Excel and put them into a LaTeX document. The best way to embed figures into LaTeX is to use Encapsulated PostScript (EPS). Unfortunately Excel does not have any ability to export directly to EPS or any other vector graphics format. There are a couple techniques. If you have a vector graphics package, like Corel Draw, then select the chart in Excel and hold down Shift and then Edit->Copy Picture. Then paste the chart into Co…

Read three good posts about the job roles of CTO vs. VP Engineering. The essential difference being that CTOs are future looking and VPs are now looking. The role of the VP is to ensure product delivery and the role of the CTO is to thrash-out the future products the comp…

I've turned on DNS Black List on our SMTP server to try and reduce the amount of spam being handled by the system. I was inspired by this kuro5hin post (wow K5, I thought they were dead!) I'm only using zen.spamhaus.org as it appears to be the least risky according to the DNSBL resource.

In the last couple week Dawn and I have seen both Stardust and The Golden Compass. Both are excellent films and well worth the price of admission. If pressed to give a preference I think Stardust is a more satisfying film, being a complete story. While The Golden Compass ends with a lead-in to the next film (if it is ever created). The Golden Compass did have some of the feel of the disappointing [http://www.imdb.com/t…