I’ve had a great 3 years working at PS, and we’ve done some amazing things. I’ve been lucky to work with some really passionate and talented people, who I’ll miss. Mind you, I’m not leaving the country, so stay in touch!

On Monday, I start at Modality Systems. Modality specialise in communication and collaboration technologies. This probably means that you’ll see an increased number of posts related to unified communication technology here, as my attention and knowledge tends that way.

I’m really excited to have been given the chance to work at Modality. As Microsoft’s UK Lync Voice Partner 2011 they clearly know their stuff, and it’s really exciting to go to a company that’s actively pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

The other thing I noticed, whilst I’ve been trying to gather information about Lync and Unified Communications in general (so I can hit ground running), is that I keep coming across technical specialists in this area, only to find out that they work for Modality!  For me, that was a really encouraging sign, and I’m looking forward to working with such talented people.

If you’ve started a new job recently, you’ll know that the first month or two is 200% brain-drain and early nights whilst you try and get your head round how things are done. If that results in a drop-off in blog postings, I apologise, but it’ll result in new and exciting posts about UC, so it’ll be worth it.

used with much thx from: http://questionmark.blogsome.com/

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas, whatever you’re doing, and a Happy New Year. 2011 has been a pretty good year for me, hopefully 2012 will be even better.

As you read this, just spend a moment imagining all the servers, switches, routers, stations, towers and other paraphernalia that need to be on and functioning to bring you this post over the net to wherever you are, whatever you’re reading this on. Heck, I’m writing this on Friday 23rd, and relying on geek-magic to publish it for me.

And then spare a thought for all the poor engineers, support desk workers and other geek-staff who have to work today to keep the whole thing working for you and running smoothly, just so you can check Twitter after your turkey.

Have a great Christmas, and see you in 2012.

Tom

We moved house a few months ago and since then I’ve been trying to do small things to improve it, things I can do myself and which don’t cost a lot of money. For some reason, one of the bedrooms at the back of the house was considerably colder than the others, so I went up to the loft to investigate.

The loft space is in two parts, reflecting the additional work done on the house in the past. The main part is original1890′s: high pitched roof, plenty of space. This area already had lots of insulation on the floor, some of which I’d recently upgraded when I part-boarded it for storage.

The second part adjoins the main part, and is a 1960′s extension. Because it joins onto the side, the rafters from the main roof come all the way down, so the only access to this new part is through a gap at one end. The dimensions of this gap are about half a metre squared. In case you’re having trouble imagining that, it’s slightly narrower than my shoulders. In fact, it’s also slightly narrower than  my hips as well.

Shining a torch through the gap, I saw the beams holding the ceiling up, and absolutely no insulation.

Now, why on earth would you choose to add an extension anytime in the last 50 years, and then NOT add insulation? Is loft insulation a modern phenomena, younger than ARPAnet and what we now call the Internet? I’m not really up there on my history of loft insulation, but according to at least one source, in the 1950-60′s there was a minimum standard for loft insulation of 50mm. So, our Norwich-based builder of yesteryear was both silly AND illegal?

I’d already bought some loft insulation – the sort that can come apart into two layers to allow you to put a thinner layer between the joists. Luckily it was already pre-cut into small sections of about a foot width, so it was relatively easy to roll it up and shove it through the gap. All I had to do now was follow it through.

This was probably the worst part: going through for the first time. I had two torches to give some light (the single bulb in the main loft did nothing in this corner). I’d bought some extra loft boarding which I laid in front of the gap. This allowed me to lie on my font facing the gap. By twisting my body and pulling myself through I managed to get my shoulders the other side, and I could turn around again, back onto my front, wedged between the rafters.

I pulled myself forward until my hips hit the rafters, then repeated the process. The further forward I went, the harder it got, because I had to be careful to only support myself on the joists, so that I didn’t go straight through the ceiling. Finally I was through, although I was more worried about how I was going to get back out.

The maximum height of this space was about a metre and a half which decreased to nothing at a 45 degree angle over about 2 metres. So, I had to stay at a crouch all the time. My original plan was to pull through one of the loft boards, but I gave up on that as a bad idea, opting instead to kneel on the joists.

The actual laying of the insulation was the easy part, more or less. I’d shoved through almost enough insulation to do all of the base layer (between the joists). In order to push it into the gaps at the ends where the roof met the floor, I had to lay right down again, supporting myself across 2 joists. Good for the stomach muscles, but I was convinced I was going to put a foot wrong and come through.

From this position, amongst the dust and fragments of mortar, I could see the blue British Gypsum logo of the plasterboard used for the ceiling. Well, that was good: I had pretty much resigned myself to finding the dusky off-white of asbestos there instead. Even the loss of one of the torches didn’t put me off now, the other one was still going strong.

Once I’d been in and come out once, it didn’t seem so bad. I had to keep going in and out to retrieve more insulation. The second layer is supposed to be laid at full, 200mm thickness. That means that I couldn’t keep it rolled out as it wouldn’t fit through the gap, I had to unroll it, then try and pull it through at an angle. Insulation is really good at sticking to everything, so each roll would fragment as I pulled it, meaning that I needed to go out and come in twice for each length.

Moving around reminded me of diving on an old and fragile wreck, performing a tricky penetration in silty water. You had to be aware of your surroundings in 3D (including behind and above you), plan every move and execute it slowly and deliberately. It was whilst I was delicately turning  round 180 degrees to face the entrance gap to pull through another wad of insulation that the final torch battery gave out. That was when I decided to call it a night.

So, now both torches are charging up again, I’ve had a shower, and now a rant, and feel better for it. I’ll finish off tonight, hopefully avoid putting my foot through the ceiling, and that room had better warm up considerably and make the whole thing worth while!

I was chatting to a colleague about Evernote notes and about how cool it would be to be able to share out notes to other people, either the whole word, or between selected people, to allow collaboration.

Thinking “well, they MUST have thought of that”, I went digging in the Evernote Windows Client. If you right click a notebook title from the list of Notebooks on the left, and choose Properties, there is a link to Sharing and collaboration options.

This jumps you to a webpage where you either make the contents of a notebook publicly read-only, or sharing on either a read-only or modify basis (you need to be a Premium customer to set to modify). You can also choose a friendly URL suffix.

Simple, yet brilliant!

I’m therefore happy to offer you a small selection of my favourite recipies, safe in the knowledge that this URL will always have the very latest collection of recipies, as it’s tied directly into Evernote – which I use to store any recipies which aren’t in my books.

http://www.evernote.com/pub/tomorgan/recipies

Well now I know. I’m very glad to find out that it isn’t just a film quote,and that there’s a real story behind it. (in fact, the real-life quote IS slightly different, but not really.

Anyway, should you also be wondering about the origin of the famous quote meaning that an unexpected problem has occurred, then you can read an account of the events by the guy who spoke it: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-13-1.html

There’s some fascinating other stories there as well.