I’ve been a fan of Hugh Macleod’s (GapingVoid) work for a while (the Blue Monster helped me make the decision to join Microsoft and I even use one of his designs on my business card) so it was particularly nice to have an opportunity to purchase one of his limited edition prints – Wolf vs Sheep. Just got to be patient now while they are produced ;)

Meantime – thanks to the magic of Deep Zoom this is what I’ve just ordered (if you miss out on this one keep an eye on GapingVoid to see what other treasures come up for sale)…

Not long ago I realized I was getting a little heavier and slower (and yes, older) so to help motivate myself (there’s nothing like walking past an expensive piece of equipment every day) I got an elliptical.

It was great. I started to lose weight (and thanks to the pushups and situps I felt able to do get into slightly better shape). Of course motivation remains an issue (it’s always easy to find excuses).

Pounding away for half hours at a time (especially just before Christmas when the girls were away) gave me some thinking time… how to combine the aspects of motivation with the social networking tools that we have today – Facebook and Twitter for instance.

Twitter seemed like an obvious choice. Nice short messages that force clarity, and a really approachable API so that even I – now coming up to 18 months since I actually wrote code for a living – could get to grips with.

You may have noticed the occasional Twitter message from me (and a few other folks now) that reads like “@gtFtr Elliptical Lvl 7.5 30 mins 2.2 miles cal 318 77 watts 4.4 mph HR 152” – well those are sharing the stats from my latest workout with my pet project.

The trackers (different exercises) are all outlined on the blog, and it’s fairly easy to add new ones if you don’t see something you need. It is very much a part time project and there’s quite a to do list… assuming I ever get the time to do any of it (open to suggestions from folks with more skill, more time, or a good plan).

Feel free to check it out, suggest some new trackers or just laugh at my progress…

Spending some time this evening writing down thoughts and strategies around some impending changes at work (one thing I’ve learnt that stays the same at Microsoft… Change!) and I thought of one of my favorite GapingVoid cartoons.

I’m not worried that there is change ahead – in fact it’s probably a very healthy thing as we react to changing conditions and adapt. My biggest concern with any change is that I will continue to be successful – both in how I’m perceived but also in how I feel I’m being utilized. The latter is probably more important… if I’m not challenged and feel that I’m able to rise to the challenge in a meaningful way then am I in the right job?

Once again Hugh summed it up very well (it was this cartoon that helped cement my decision to join Microsoft)

I came a fairly long way to do what I’m doing today, and hopefully in the last 18 months the big deliverables as well as the smaller ones have helped in their own little way to improve peoples perception of what Microsoft is (especially in the Web space). Going home is not on the agenda!

There’s change ahead… but it’s all for the good.

I just got a new set of speakers for the living room. While they're not high end audio for a family room where ease of use is pretty important the Logitech Z-5500 seem to fit right in.

Of course out of the box all the cables are the wrong length and we're going to have to move some stuff around but it was really easy to get it set up and wired into the main audio source via digital co-ax and the Media Center PC via the (supplied) 3x3.5mm adapters. Unfortunately (and if I'd have read the small print) there's no optical links (or co-ax) where supplied so I've got to pick one up tomorrow to finish getting the TV and XBox360 all plugged in.

I love the wireless remote. It's a big step up on what we had in the living room for the first few months.

The Z-5500s are replacing a Z4 2.1 setup (also Logitech) which have now been banished down to the rumpus room where Rhiannon has her PC, the washing machine and my elliptical all live. The main reason for them going down there is to let me not have to reply on the iPod when I'm working out, and let Rhiannon stream music from upstairs when she's doing her homework.

For cheaper, low-end speakers the sound from the Z4s have impressed me over the last few months. The subwoofer makes that little bit of difference over the usual run of the mill "PC" speakers and it's robust enough to have taken a few knocks so I'm hoping they'll do well in the rougher environment downstairs.

So for both the living room and rumpus downstairs music is a pretty important part of the equation. With three of us living here with fairly varied musical tastes (if you look at my Last.FM listing it's very different to Storms!).

We could have solved the problem with CD players and physical disks but it all seemed too messy and low-tech, and with the Windows Home Server sitting upstairs a fairly obvious solution was to install SqueezeCenter and get a couple of SqueezeBoxes.

The SqueezeCenter (frankly I prefer it's previous name of SlimServer, but since Logitech has purchased SlimDevices they've gone through a bit of a re-branding) runs quietly upstairs merrily cataloguing and of our CDs that we rip to the network and allows us to play them back on either Squeezebox (independently if upstairs and downstairs are catering to different people) or synchronized so you can wander around the house and not miss a beat.

You can control the Squeezeboxes either from their own remotes, or a Logitech Harmony remote, via a web browser (the SqueezeCenter has a Web interface to control the players) or various 3rd party utilities. We use all four methods depending on who is doing what where!

Annoyingly even though Logitech have purchased SlimDevices they have not yet released any integrated products. I would love to see the Squeezebox able to control the speakers (on/off, select the correct input source etc) - especially with the top-of-the-line Z-5500s, but both they and the Z4s have control inputs so I hope we'll see something on the market that uses the SqueezeBox IrBlaster connection to directly control the speakers. As it is, when I'm done on the Elliptical I have to turn a couple of things off, instead of just one.

The other annoyance with the Z-5500s is that they're not that smart. When there's no input for (say) a couple of minutes I'd want them to go into standby, and wake up when there is input. They seem to auto-select based on a hierarchy (optical, coax digital then analogue) which is cool but it would be neat for me to be able to pre-define that (say) the coax input should always be Dolby Digital music and the XBo360x/TV optical input should always optimize for TV/Movie. I guess that's another price point though.

Oh, and while I love the Squeezebox because when it's off the screen dims (or goes completely blank - that's user configurable) both the speakers display a garish blue light when they are on, and the Z-5500s have a red glow when they are in standby mode.

Until we moved to Redmond a year ago Rhiannon has spent all her life in a tropical climate. Luckily she seems to be adapting to the weather here quite well.

Looking on Weatherbug the temperature has dropped to 25.7F already this year (on Nov 22nd)... I wonder how low it'll go (and if we'll get snow).

Both she and the dog seem to be enjoying the changing seasons and variety in the weather. It doesn't even seem to rain as much as everyone says (but it's early days yet!)

If I'm a passenger in a car I can't read a book without getting motion sickness. It's been a curse since I was a child (though luckily Rhiannon doesn't seem to suffer from it) but I'm fine reading on a bus, ferry or aircraft.

I've never managed to work out why that difference exists but I've just accepted it (and been grateful for the fact I can read on planes because I find sleeping incredibly difficult).

For various reasons this week I've been using my laptop on the way home from work on the bus. Or, that is, trying to use my laptop. 10 minutes into the trip the nausea comes roiling in and I have to turn everything off and stare out of the window unless I want to embarrass myself and inconvenience my fellow riders!

I had no problem reading a magazine or playing Chuzzle on my phone.

I'm hoping this isn't going to be a generic thing - I've got a few flights coming up and want to be able to use the laptop to make the time productive.

I wonder if it's the screen or the lighting or... any ideas/solutions?

I discovered William Gibsons Neuromancer just before I discovered the internet (in the walled garden CompuServe days!) and it has shaped my expectations of technology.

That first book got me hooked and over the years I've anticipated and enjoyed every new book he's published.

Last night was pretty awesome for me - to be in the same town as William Gibson and to be able to go and get my copy of Spook Country signed by the author.

It was great to hear him read a random extract from the book and to take some pretty random questions from the audience.