Just time to write my traditional message celebrating the new year, which will arrive in about 55 minutes time.
Lucky for me I got the website upgraded in time, otherwise I would have had to have missed it. That would have been a shame since it's something I've written for years now.
One of my resolutions for 2011 was to write more blog posts. Unfortunately I think I failed at that somewhat since my last entry was in October - coincidentally exactly the same as in 2010. The hold on blog posts was down to the database upgrade rather than the lack of any ideas so perhaps if I carry the resolution over, I'll be more successful in 2012 than this year. Perhaps I'll have even more to write about thanks to a little event occurring in February.
My other resolution was to learn more French, and whilst I'm certainly nowhere near competent enough to even attempt casual conversation I think it's fair to say I'm better than I was this time last year. Of course, learning a language has to be continuous so I'll continue to attempt to improve over the next twelve months and, with the lack of anything better, I'll carry that resolution forward as well.
So, with 48 minutes of the year remaining; happy new year!
Lucky for me I got the website upgraded in time, otherwise I would have had to have missed it. That would have been a shame since it's something I've written for years now.
One of my resolutions for 2011 was to write more blog posts. Unfortunately I think I failed at that somewhat since my last entry was in October - coincidentally exactly the same as in 2010. The hold on blog posts was down to the database upgrade rather than the lack of any ideas so perhaps if I carry the resolution over, I'll be more successful in 2012 than this year. Perhaps I'll have even more to write about thanks to a little event occurring in February.
My other resolution was to learn more French, and whilst I'm certainly nowhere near competent enough to even attempt casual conversation I think it's fair to say I'm better than I was this time last year. Of course, learning a language has to be continuous so I'll continue to attempt to improve over the next twelve months and, with the lack of anything better, I'll carry that resolution forward as well.
So, with 48 minutes of the year remaining; happy new year!
Just a quick note to say Happy New Year for 2011.
I have a couple of resolutions. The first is to increase the number of blog posts I make. Over the last 12 months I really haven't put finger to keyboard very often - the last entry being back in October. For some reason I've had ideas of things to write but just didn't bother too. I'll make a conscious effort to do so, even if they are short posts (like this one).
The second is to learn more French. I visited Paris for the first time in August and a lot of what I learnt in school came flooding back and I also picked up a fair bit (in comparison to what I knew before going there). As a result I now want to continue to learn new words and phrases. To aid this, I am following some French posters on Twitter and also reading a French learning blog.
That's all really. So for everyone that reads this, have a great 2011!
I have a couple of resolutions. The first is to increase the number of blog posts I make. Over the last 12 months I really haven't put finger to keyboard very often - the last entry being back in October. For some reason I've had ideas of things to write but just didn't bother too. I'll make a conscious effort to do so, even if they are short posts (like this one).
The second is to learn more French. I visited Paris for the first time in August and a lot of what I learnt in school came flooding back and I also picked up a fair bit (in comparison to what I knew before going there). As a result I now want to continue to learn new words and phrases. To aid this, I am following some French posters on Twitter and also reading a French learning blog.
That's all really. So for everyone that reads this, have a great 2011!
As is tradition, here is my final blog entry for the year - and this time, the final one for the decade.
Blogs all over the internet seem to be doing it, so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and take a look back over the last ten years, from a personal point of view, on how things have changed.
Back in December 1999, I was just 17 years old and awaiting the turn of the the popular millennium. (Of course this didn't really happen until 2001 but why let technicalities get in the way of a good party? The roll-over of 4 figures seems much more significant anyway). I remember all the comments: where's our flying cars, jet packs and silver suits so often dipicted in futuristic novels and films. Of course none of these came about, but a lot has developed in technology. Things that may have been unthinkable at the time.
I'm looking around my living room at the tech that sits in front of me. Computers, digital photography, a big screen High Definition television, blu-ray, Sky+HD ... Really all amazing things that probably most people would take for granted nowaday.
The Computer
Ten years ago, I didn't have my own PC - the most powerful computer system I owned was a Sony Playstation. The desktop machine was a shared family machine running Windows 98. I don't know what it's spec was but obviously it was nothing compared to now. Internet connectivity was via dialup modem - the cheapest way to get online was via congested 0800 services such as IC24. No networking, multimedia consisted of poor quality video and 128kbps MP3s.
It wasn't until 2001 that I could afford to build my first desktop computer - a measly 1GHz Intel Duron machine running Windows ME before changing to Windows 2000. There was still no networking so I had my own modem in order to get online.
2002 was the year I first became connected to broadband at the seamingly blisteringly fast speeds of 512kbps down/256kbps up. Of course nowadays these speeds can be achieved by mobile phone and the thought of speeds like this on a fixed line would be sneered at. It was 2002 that the connected world meant I could start properly developing my website.
From then it's been more computers, the addition of wired and then wireless networks leading to the sitation now where I operate a home server, a desktop machine used as a media centre, a desktop machine used for amateur radio and general use, the laptop computer and a 3G/WiFi connected mobile phone.
Gaming
I've always been a bit behind the times when it's come to computer games. I've never had a machine of high enough specification to seriously consider PC gaming bar the odd game here and there, so it's been left to the games console. In 1999 I'd saved up enough to buy my own Playstation and I remember being amazed at the visuals of games like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil and Final Fantasy VII. Of course by now this machine was already aging - the Playstation 2 was only two years away.
The later machine I didn't purchase until 2006 and it is this machine that sits under my TV. As of now, I'm still working my way through Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Even comparing the PS2 to the original machine though, the visuals are vastly superior and the games more immersive. I know the Xbox 360 and PS3 will be a huge leap again but I don't intend to get the latest Microsoft console until later in 2010 - 5 years after it was originally released.
Talking of the players in gaming ten years ago, the likes of Sony, Sega and Nintendo where the big three. Since then Sega has dropped out of manufacturing, and Microsoft came onto the Scene with the original XBox machine. Nintendo looked shaky with it's first machine of the noughties (Game Cube) but was now stormed ahead with the Wii - the first mainstream machine to feature motion control.
Multimedia
The CRT was king for television back in 1999. I had my own personal 14" TV/VHS combi and the family unit was a 28" (I think) beast. Over the air signals were mainly analogue with me not experiencing Freeview until 2002.
Now, my screen is a 32" LCD and I like the idea of upping the size to 42". Such screen sizes would not be possible ten years ago - imagine how much room a CRT of such a size would be!
Of course VHS just didn't cut it anymore. The DVD was released in 1999 and I got my first disk in 2002 which I played through my first computer - not a dedicated player. Now I barely touch the old tapes. I have however bought myself a Video Recorder for the pricely sum of £2 in order to dub some old cassettes.
Now I'm again experiencing a format change with the move from DVD to Blu-ray. Okay it's not as dramatic since I can still play my older DVD collection, but the appeal of High Definition video is too great to resist. Sky HD provides superb broadcast picture quality compared to the often poor standard definition equivalent.
Whilst broadcast picture quality may have decreased with the introduction of digital to terrestrial broadcast and Sky; the number of channels available now is staggering. Compare Freeview today to analogue television a liittle over 10 years ago, featuring just 4-5 stations. For better or worse, no-one can argue that today we are all spoilt for choice.
Photography
Taking photographs has had such a radical change over the last decade. Ten years ago the idea of having a digital camera was completely unrealistic - much too expensive. I had a compact Praktica camera taking 35mm film allowing for 24 or 36 exposures per film. Photography was not a cheap hobby for the casual photographer. The cost of film and development had to be considered each time that shutter was clicked. I like to think that this forced me to consider each shot more carefully but I don't really think this is true - I didn't know what made a good picture so just took the snaps that appealed to me.
Nowadays, there is little if any choice in film cameras for the casual photographer. Many compact cameras now are digital, small and cheap. Where the digital cameras of ten years ago featured perhaps a maximum of 2mp, todays cameras range from 8mp upwards. We are in the situation where those who don't know just believe more megapixels equals better quality photographs. The camera in the mobile phone has now reached 8mp and more despite not having the optics to support it.
My first digital camera was the Sony DSC-P200 - a high end (at the time) 7mp camera. This suited me until 2008 when I bought a Casio Exilim EX1080 10mp compact camera. It features little in the way of manual control, but is good for quick snaps. It was also in 2008 that I bought my first DSLR - the Nikon D80, and started taking photography much more seriously than before. I'm sure I've got a long way to go but my picture taking is vastly better than pre-2008 and a world away from 1999.
Digital photographs have also led to the reduction of printing (for me anyway). Most of my pictures are on my server's hard drive and are shown in a slide show on my general computer screen. One of my presents to my partner Kate was a digital photo frame. Ten years ago, I never would have thought that by the end of the noughties a device would exist that allows easy viewing of those files - a complete album or more on show on a bookshelf with pictures changing every 15 minutes. That's so much better than a static printed picture in a frame.
The Mobile Phone
I don't know if there is another device that has changed so much in ten years that it is almost unrecongisable compared to the earlier devices.
Ten years ago, my experience of the mobile was a device with a monochrome screen, simple games like snake and the best ways of communicating with it were by voice call on the 2G GSM mobile network or by SMS text message which became popular in the late 90's.
Within a year I had experienced the first stage of mobile internet connectivity via WAP. Looking back, this was pretty pointless but at the time I thought it was amazing. I could get online and look at websites designed solely for the mobile phone. I remember speaking to a work colleague in the early 2000s who simply did not believe that getting online via a mobile phone was possible. Yes it was crude and slow but it did work. Of course HTML browsing didn't exist on the mobile for a few more years, but by using a PDA such as a Psion Revo to connect via the mobile using it's infra-red connection did allow access to the full interent (albeit in low resolution monochrome).
Nowaday's my mobile has an always on internet connection either over the 3G mobile network or via WiFi. The phone (HTC T-Mobile G1) features a full colour touchscreen display, can play high quality audio files, play certain video files, take photographs and low quality video, automatically poll my Google account for emails, calendar updates and RSS reader updates and automatically receives updates to Twitter and Identi.ca. In short, the full internet is accessible via the built in browser with very few exceptions. Nowadays, a significant percentage of my internet time is via mobile phone.
Honourable Mentions
Obviously I can't talk in-depth about every technological development, so just to mention other things that have developed in the last decade:
Music downloads; online on-demand media (BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD etc., spotify, last fm and others.); worldwide internet gaming via consoles; casual online games such as flash games; the portable media player (NOT just the iPod, but all of the others); eBooks; and presumably many other things that have slipped my mind
Technology - Where next?
I'm not going to fall in to the trap of trying to predict what technology and the 21st century lifestyle will be like in another 10 years. I think the last decade has proven how difficult that would be. We'll likely see new technologies that very few of us can imagine. Existing technologies will be developed further. I can say with some confidence that computers will continue to become more powerful and mobile phones will do more further decreasing the need to sit at a desk to be connected to the online world.
Personally, I don't know where technology will be for me more than 2 years into the future. I'll likely obtain a surround sound amp and speakers to go with it before 2012 and also upgrade from a PS2 to Xbox 360. More than that though, I just don't know.
The last ten years personally
Outside of technology, the noughties has been very interesting for me. I started working in telesales before quickly starting work in an off-licence in April 2000. 3 1/2 years later, I found myself working for the local council via a temping agency and then in 2005 I became a permanent member of staff at my current job.
I passed my driving test in 2003 and have since bought and disposed of two cars - the first a Ford Fiesta which almost literally fell apart, and the second a Peaugot 405 which I sold for scrap when I no longer needed it or had anywhere to keep it. Now I'm back to not owning a vehicle although I do still drive.
I have moved home three times with Kate, in all cases moving into rented accomodation, before settling into our current flat which has for the most part served us well since 2007.
After a number of years listening to and using CB radio, I obtained my first amateur radio licence on 2001 before obtaining my full licence in 2007.
Happy New Year...Happy New Decade
So with that, what has become quite an essay for me, I'll sign-off with a Happy New Year for 2010 and a Happy New Decade for the Tens. Oh, and for the record I'll be saying twenty-ten.
Blogs all over the internet seem to be doing it, so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and take a look back over the last ten years, from a personal point of view, on how things have changed.
Back in December 1999, I was just 17 years old and awaiting the turn of the the popular millennium. (Of course this didn't really happen until 2001 but why let technicalities get in the way of a good party? The roll-over of 4 figures seems much more significant anyway). I remember all the comments: where's our flying cars, jet packs and silver suits so often dipicted in futuristic novels and films. Of course none of these came about, but a lot has developed in technology. Things that may have been unthinkable at the time.
I'm looking around my living room at the tech that sits in front of me. Computers, digital photography, a big screen High Definition television, blu-ray, Sky+HD ... Really all amazing things that probably most people would take for granted nowaday.
The Computer
Ten years ago, I didn't have my own PC - the most powerful computer system I owned was a Sony Playstation. The desktop machine was a shared family machine running Windows 98. I don't know what it's spec was but obviously it was nothing compared to now. Internet connectivity was via dialup modem - the cheapest way to get online was via congested 0800 services such as IC24. No networking, multimedia consisted of poor quality video and 128kbps MP3s.
It wasn't until 2001 that I could afford to build my first desktop computer - a measly 1GHz Intel Duron machine running Windows ME before changing to Windows 2000. There was still no networking so I had my own modem in order to get online.
2002 was the year I first became connected to broadband at the seamingly blisteringly fast speeds of 512kbps down/256kbps up. Of course nowadays these speeds can be achieved by mobile phone and the thought of speeds like this on a fixed line would be sneered at. It was 2002 that the connected world meant I could start properly developing my website.
From then it's been more computers, the addition of wired and then wireless networks leading to the sitation now where I operate a home server, a desktop machine used as a media centre, a desktop machine used for amateur radio and general use, the laptop computer and a 3G/WiFi connected mobile phone.
Gaming
I've always been a bit behind the times when it's come to computer games. I've never had a machine of high enough specification to seriously consider PC gaming bar the odd game here and there, so it's been left to the games console. In 1999 I'd saved up enough to buy my own Playstation and I remember being amazed at the visuals of games like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil and Final Fantasy VII. Of course by now this machine was already aging - the Playstation 2 was only two years away.
The later machine I didn't purchase until 2006 and it is this machine that sits under my TV. As of now, I'm still working my way through Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Even comparing the PS2 to the original machine though, the visuals are vastly superior and the games more immersive. I know the Xbox 360 and PS3 will be a huge leap again but I don't intend to get the latest Microsoft console until later in 2010 - 5 years after it was originally released.
Talking of the players in gaming ten years ago, the likes of Sony, Sega and Nintendo where the big three. Since then Sega has dropped out of manufacturing, and Microsoft came onto the Scene with the original XBox machine. Nintendo looked shaky with it's first machine of the noughties (Game Cube) but was now stormed ahead with the Wii - the first mainstream machine to feature motion control.
Multimedia
The CRT was king for television back in 1999. I had my own personal 14" TV/VHS combi and the family unit was a 28" (I think) beast. Over the air signals were mainly analogue with me not experiencing Freeview until 2002.
Now, my screen is a 32" LCD and I like the idea of upping the size to 42". Such screen sizes would not be possible ten years ago - imagine how much room a CRT of such a size would be!
Of course VHS just didn't cut it anymore. The DVD was released in 1999 and I got my first disk in 2002 which I played through my first computer - not a dedicated player. Now I barely touch the old tapes. I have however bought myself a Video Recorder for the pricely sum of £2 in order to dub some old cassettes.
Now I'm again experiencing a format change with the move from DVD to Blu-ray. Okay it's not as dramatic since I can still play my older DVD collection, but the appeal of High Definition video is too great to resist. Sky HD provides superb broadcast picture quality compared to the often poor standard definition equivalent.
Whilst broadcast picture quality may have decreased with the introduction of digital to terrestrial broadcast and Sky; the number of channels available now is staggering. Compare Freeview today to analogue television a liittle over 10 years ago, featuring just 4-5 stations. For better or worse, no-one can argue that today we are all spoilt for choice.
Photography
Taking photographs has had such a radical change over the last decade. Ten years ago the idea of having a digital camera was completely unrealistic - much too expensive. I had a compact Praktica camera taking 35mm film allowing for 24 or 36 exposures per film. Photography was not a cheap hobby for the casual photographer. The cost of film and development had to be considered each time that shutter was clicked. I like to think that this forced me to consider each shot more carefully but I don't really think this is true - I didn't know what made a good picture so just took the snaps that appealed to me.
Nowadays, there is little if any choice in film cameras for the casual photographer. Many compact cameras now are digital, small and cheap. Where the digital cameras of ten years ago featured perhaps a maximum of 2mp, todays cameras range from 8mp upwards. We are in the situation where those who don't know just believe more megapixels equals better quality photographs. The camera in the mobile phone has now reached 8mp and more despite not having the optics to support it.
My first digital camera was the Sony DSC-P200 - a high end (at the time) 7mp camera. This suited me until 2008 when I bought a Casio Exilim EX1080 10mp compact camera. It features little in the way of manual control, but is good for quick snaps. It was also in 2008 that I bought my first DSLR - the Nikon D80, and started taking photography much more seriously than before. I'm sure I've got a long way to go but my picture taking is vastly better than pre-2008 and a world away from 1999.
Digital photographs have also led to the reduction of printing (for me anyway). Most of my pictures are on my server's hard drive and are shown in a slide show on my general computer screen. One of my presents to my partner Kate was a digital photo frame. Ten years ago, I never would have thought that by the end of the noughties a device would exist that allows easy viewing of those files - a complete album or more on show on a bookshelf with pictures changing every 15 minutes. That's so much better than a static printed picture in a frame.
The Mobile Phone
I don't know if there is another device that has changed so much in ten years that it is almost unrecongisable compared to the earlier devices.
Ten years ago, my experience of the mobile was a device with a monochrome screen, simple games like snake and the best ways of communicating with it were by voice call on the 2G GSM mobile network or by SMS text message which became popular in the late 90's.
Within a year I had experienced the first stage of mobile internet connectivity via WAP. Looking back, this was pretty pointless but at the time I thought it was amazing. I could get online and look at websites designed solely for the mobile phone. I remember speaking to a work colleague in the early 2000s who simply did not believe that getting online via a mobile phone was possible. Yes it was crude and slow but it did work. Of course HTML browsing didn't exist on the mobile for a few more years, but by using a PDA such as a Psion Revo to connect via the mobile using it's infra-red connection did allow access to the full interent (albeit in low resolution monochrome).
Nowaday's my mobile has an always on internet connection either over the 3G mobile network or via WiFi. The phone (HTC T-Mobile G1) features a full colour touchscreen display, can play high quality audio files, play certain video files, take photographs and low quality video, automatically poll my Google account for emails, calendar updates and RSS reader updates and automatically receives updates to Twitter and Identi.ca. In short, the full internet is accessible via the built in browser with very few exceptions. Nowadays, a significant percentage of my internet time is via mobile phone.
Honourable Mentions
Obviously I can't talk in-depth about every technological development, so just to mention other things that have developed in the last decade:
Music downloads; online on-demand media (BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD etc., spotify, last fm and others.); worldwide internet gaming via consoles; casual online games such as flash games; the portable media player (NOT just the iPod, but all of the others); eBooks; and presumably many other things that have slipped my mind
Technology - Where next?
I'm not going to fall in to the trap of trying to predict what technology and the 21st century lifestyle will be like in another 10 years. I think the last decade has proven how difficult that would be. We'll likely see new technologies that very few of us can imagine. Existing technologies will be developed further. I can say with some confidence that computers will continue to become more powerful and mobile phones will do more further decreasing the need to sit at a desk to be connected to the online world.
Personally, I don't know where technology will be for me more than 2 years into the future. I'll likely obtain a surround sound amp and speakers to go with it before 2012 and also upgrade from a PS2 to Xbox 360. More than that though, I just don't know.
The last ten years personally
Outside of technology, the noughties has been very interesting for me. I started working in telesales before quickly starting work in an off-licence in April 2000. 3 1/2 years later, I found myself working for the local council via a temping agency and then in 2005 I became a permanent member of staff at my current job.
I passed my driving test in 2003 and have since bought and disposed of two cars - the first a Ford Fiesta which almost literally fell apart, and the second a Peaugot 405 which I sold for scrap when I no longer needed it or had anywhere to keep it. Now I'm back to not owning a vehicle although I do still drive.
I have moved home three times with Kate, in all cases moving into rented accomodation, before settling into our current flat which has for the most part served us well since 2007.
After a number of years listening to and using CB radio, I obtained my first amateur radio licence on 2001 before obtaining my full licence in 2007.
Happy New Year...Happy New Decade
So with that, what has become quite an essay for me, I'll sign-off with a Happy New Year for 2010 and a Happy New Decade for the Tens. Oh, and for the record I'll be saying twenty-ten.
Time to explain why I've been so quiet lately. Over the past few weeks I have been busy moving apartments!
After two years of living in South Essex, Kate and I decided that we'd had enough of the noisy upstairs neighbours; noisy chavvy cars driving by disturbing the peace; and the occasional bar brawl outside of our window, so we decided not to renew our tennancy and look to live someplace else.
So after looking at a suprising small number of properties, we found an apartment we liked and put our request in to become the new tennants. That was back on the 21 July which gave us just over 3 weeks to get everything sorted before we had to hand back the keys to the original apartment.
Three weeks really isn't a long time to organise everything including completing the packing; clearing out what wasn't wanted any more; notifying companies and organisations of the change of address; arranging a removals company to move all the larger items such as heavy boxes and furniture and the most important thing of all - get the keys to the new place.
Once all the reference checks had gone through and the deposit paid, it was Saturday 4 August when we obtained the keys and knew for certain that this apartment was ours. Before then, if the referencing had fallen through for any particular reason it would have been a mad rush to try and resolve problems or get somewhere else. Fortunately this didn't happen and we could finally start moving things in, just over one week before the original keys had to be handed back.
Luckily we managed to arrange for a removal company to do the move on the following Tuesday so by the end of that day, our old apartment was empty save for the broadband equipment and server which we didn't move until Sunday 12 August in order to minimise downtime of my website and to ensure we still had internet access should we have needed it (and it did prove useful).
With the move of most things completed, we now had the oh-so-exciting task of cleaning the old apartment to try to get as much of the deposit back as possible. So for the entire of the following weekend, Kate and I were cleaning, scrubbing and hoovering the place, trying to make it look reasonable. As it happens, on the final inspection they still weren't happy with the carpet or oven. They also marked us down for damaged blinds (they were cheap and nasty and literally fell apart) and marks on the wall (note: white walls mark very easily when one accidentally catches the edge of furniture on them). To be fair though, it was pretty much what we expected to be marked down on. The flat was never going to look quite as nice as when we had moved in. It was brand new then, and is two years older now.
So as of the end of last Monday, we had completed the move into another brand new apartment. This time it's a top floor (second floor) apartment so there are no noisy upstairs neighbours to worry about. It's much bigger than the old place with the living room still echoing slightly even with all our stuff in it. There is more space in both the main bedroom which includes an en-suite bathroom, and the second bedroom which I am again using as an office.
There are small things which make a lot of difference too. The office has a telephone point which means the broadband equipment doesn't need to be in the living room any more and I don't need to use a wireless network for the main computers (just for Kate's laptop and my iPaq); there are two satellite sockets in the living room which means I can get Sky+ (I've wanted that for a while); there is also a socket in the living room that I can plug the RF output of the sky box into, so that whatever is being watched on Sky can be viewed in the bedroom; there is loft space which we should have access to as soon as we are given the key to open it, so there should be less boxes in the office; the front door shuts in it's frame better so it doesn't rattle when there's a draft or someone else opens their front door; and there is a building-wide fire alarm system. The transport links are excellent as well with easy access to the bus and train.
There is still only one allocated parking space though, and the opportunity to park a second car on the surrounding streets is very small so I made the decision to get rid of my car. So on Sunday 12 August, I took my old Peugeot 405 to a car salvage company in West Hanningfield where I let them have it, minus the tax disc, for £50. I know I would have gotton a bit more for it if I had sold it, but there wasn't a lot of time to go through the selling process and it was getting on a bit. So I am now without a car and am mainly using public transport to get to work which works very well unless I have to pay with a £10 note and get a miserable bus driver like I did on the first day. He still took it though.
Whilst I'm on the subject of the car, I have to mention what a weird place the salvage yard was. Four blokes sitting around chatting. At least one of them was drinking Tennants Super - the beer of choice for alcoholics. I did feel that I needed to watch my back just a little bit whilst there, but there wasn't any problems.
So today marks 4 weeks since we chose this apartment and everything is pretty much done. The phone line is connected and the broadband came on today (top marks to BT - it wasn't due until Wednesday). There are a couple of boxes still to unpack and others to go in the loft once we have access to it. That loft access; an issue with a non-working energy saving lightbulb with an odd connecter (BC3 Bayonet); and the boiler being wired up slightly incorrectly are the only outstanding 'niggles' that I can think of and they're not exactly pressing issues.
It has definitely been a busy few weeks though, and I am glad it's done.
After two years of living in South Essex, Kate and I decided that we'd had enough of the noisy upstairs neighbours; noisy chavvy cars driving by disturbing the peace; and the occasional bar brawl outside of our window, so we decided not to renew our tennancy and look to live someplace else.
So after looking at a suprising small number of properties, we found an apartment we liked and put our request in to become the new tennants. That was back on the 21 July which gave us just over 3 weeks to get everything sorted before we had to hand back the keys to the original apartment.
Three weeks really isn't a long time to organise everything including completing the packing; clearing out what wasn't wanted any more; notifying companies and organisations of the change of address; arranging a removals company to move all the larger items such as heavy boxes and furniture and the most important thing of all - get the keys to the new place.
Once all the reference checks had gone through and the deposit paid, it was Saturday 4 August when we obtained the keys and knew for certain that this apartment was ours. Before then, if the referencing had fallen through for any particular reason it would have been a mad rush to try and resolve problems or get somewhere else. Fortunately this didn't happen and we could finally start moving things in, just over one week before the original keys had to be handed back.
Luckily we managed to arrange for a removal company to do the move on the following Tuesday so by the end of that day, our old apartment was empty save for the broadband equipment and server which we didn't move until Sunday 12 August in order to minimise downtime of my website and to ensure we still had internet access should we have needed it (and it did prove useful).
With the move of most things completed, we now had the oh-so-exciting task of cleaning the old apartment to try to get as much of the deposit back as possible. So for the entire of the following weekend, Kate and I were cleaning, scrubbing and hoovering the place, trying to make it look reasonable. As it happens, on the final inspection they still weren't happy with the carpet or oven. They also marked us down for damaged blinds (they were cheap and nasty and literally fell apart) and marks on the wall (note: white walls mark very easily when one accidentally catches the edge of furniture on them). To be fair though, it was pretty much what we expected to be marked down on. The flat was never going to look quite as nice as when we had moved in. It was brand new then, and is two years older now.
So as of the end of last Monday, we had completed the move into another brand new apartment. This time it's a top floor (second floor) apartment so there are no noisy upstairs neighbours to worry about. It's much bigger than the old place with the living room still echoing slightly even with all our stuff in it. There is more space in both the main bedroom which includes an en-suite bathroom, and the second bedroom which I am again using as an office.
There are small things which make a lot of difference too. The office has a telephone point which means the broadband equipment doesn't need to be in the living room any more and I don't need to use a wireless network for the main computers (just for Kate's laptop and my iPaq); there are two satellite sockets in the living room which means I can get Sky+ (I've wanted that for a while); there is also a socket in the living room that I can plug the RF output of the sky box into, so that whatever is being watched on Sky can be viewed in the bedroom; there is loft space which we should have access to as soon as we are given the key to open it, so there should be less boxes in the office; the front door shuts in it's frame better so it doesn't rattle when there's a draft or someone else opens their front door; and there is a building-wide fire alarm system. The transport links are excellent as well with easy access to the bus and train.
There is still only one allocated parking space though, and the opportunity to park a second car on the surrounding streets is very small so I made the decision to get rid of my car. So on Sunday 12 August, I took my old Peugeot 405 to a car salvage company in West Hanningfield where I let them have it, minus the tax disc, for £50. I know I would have gotton a bit more for it if I had sold it, but there wasn't a lot of time to go through the selling process and it was getting on a bit. So I am now without a car and am mainly using public transport to get to work which works very well unless I have to pay with a £10 note and get a miserable bus driver like I did on the first day. He still took it though.
Whilst I'm on the subject of the car, I have to mention what a weird place the salvage yard was. Four blokes sitting around chatting. At least one of them was drinking Tennants Super - the beer of choice for alcoholics. I did feel that I needed to watch my back just a little bit whilst there, but there wasn't any problems.
So today marks 4 weeks since we chose this apartment and everything is pretty much done. The phone line is connected and the broadband came on today (top marks to BT - it wasn't due until Wednesday). There are a couple of boxes still to unpack and others to go in the loft once we have access to it. That loft access; an issue with a non-working energy saving lightbulb with an odd connecter (BC3 Bayonet); and the boiler being wired up slightly incorrectly are the only outstanding 'niggles' that I can think of and they're not exactly pressing issues.
It has definitely been a busy few weeks though, and I am glad it's done.
I just wanted to put a small note on here to say that I have started a course at university. 7 years after leaving the education system, I'm now taking a course called the University Certificate in Advanced Office IT Applications.
Okay, it's not a degree or anything, but unlike other courses and qualifications I've done which have all been inside my work place, this one is run by my local university and I am officially classed as a student. I can join the Student Union if I want, and even become a Student Rep (although I won't).
The course is a progression on from the basic ECDL that I completed (if I recall correctly) early this year. It incorporates the Advanced ECDL but also has an extra module added on which requires that I develop an IT solution to a real world business problem.
It's classed as a 1 year part-time course, but it's expected to be completed by just after Christmas so it's not a long term thing. My favourite bit is that on completion of the course, not only can I apply for a further certificate called ECDL Expert, but I can become an Associate member of the British Computer Society (BCS), and put the initials AMBCS after my name!
Okay, it's not a degree or anything, but unlike other courses and qualifications I've done which have all been inside my work place, this one is run by my local university and I am officially classed as a student. I can join the Student Union if I want, and even become a Student Rep (although I won't).
The course is a progression on from the basic ECDL that I completed (if I recall correctly) early this year. It incorporates the Advanced ECDL but also has an extra module added on which requires that I develop an IT solution to a real world business problem.
It's classed as a 1 year part-time course, but it's expected to be completed by just after Christmas so it's not a long term thing. My favourite bit is that on completion of the course, not only can I apply for a further certificate called ECDL Expert, but I can become an Associate member of the British Computer Society (BCS), and put the initials AMBCS after my name!