• Everything you ever wanted to know about Lotuscript - a full-fat, 90 minute expansion of the BLUG presentation I did earlier this year
• Web Services. An overhaul and update of the web services presentations, including xPages REST and v8.x client experiences, as well as calling Web services from c#, Flex, etc.

I wont have much time there - I arrive late Wedesday night, and thanks to commitments at the Marykirk Raft Race on the following Sunday, I have to leave on Friday afternoon.  Tony and I will be manning the hadsl booth

On a personal aside, I'm really hoping to get to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum for an hour - I was last there when I was 12, and I'm sure its got some great new stuff since I last visited...

A Kawasaki Versys 650 tourer sounded perfect. And with a zero percent finance deal, only £100 down and £210 a month. So I popped into the dealer in Aberdeen, and tried to get on one. It was about an inch and a half too tall for me. There was no way (without platform soles) that I'd get my feet on the ground. Something that I like to do when I stop at lights, for instance. Or try and park. 

The good news was that there was an aftermarket knuckle fitting for the rear damper which lowered the seat more than enough. Fantastic. Could they fit it and I'd go for a test drive? 

Ah. No. I'd have to buy it myself (around £100) and have them fit it, so I could get a test drive. "Okay", I said, "I'll think about it".

I then went around to the BMW dealership in Aberdeen. Got there and there was a big RT1200 at the door. Excellent. I went in, holding a motorcycle helmet, and asked the nice receptionist where the bike sales were. 'Dundee' came the answer.

'Wait. So here in Aberdeen, the oil capital of Europe, and home to a huge number of engineers who all love riding bikes - they have to go 30 miles south to actually buy a BMW?"

"Yes". So I left.

All of a sudden my 22 year old ZZR 600 was a lot more comfortable, responsive and above all - short - than anything else I could think of. Perhaps next year.

So on the way home, wearing normal trousers, battling a 30mph headwind and punching through a sudden cold downpour - I still grinned. 

Hadsl - the company behind FirM - the best user management tool in the Domino Community is sponsoring at least two user group events in the next few weeks:

• BLUG - the Belgian User group event ran by Theo. Its a fantastic event, in a very nice city - Antwerp - in a very nice country - Belgium - famous for beer and chocolate. Well, thats two of my favourite things to start with.
  
  I'll be presenting Everything you ever wanted to know about Lotuscript
  
  xPages as we've been told is the future, but there's a very large amount of lotuscript-based business critical apps out there. My session intends to give you the low down on everything you need to know, including maintaining, coding, tricks, traps and pratfalls. 
  
  Richard Sampson, the quiet and studious member of HADSL will be manning the stand. 
  
  Just to add difficulty to this, Paul Mooney has insisted I drive my 22 year old motorbike (currently being repaired after its last outing with Mooney!) on a 1,500 mile, 7 country, 4 ferry marathon. Whats the betting it'll actually get there and back again?
• Roy and Tony are going down to AUSLUG in Melbourne, for its second year. Roy will be going down a wee bit early to see the Formula 1 season kickoff - he being a first class Petrolhead. So if you have the absolute pleasure of going to Auslug - and I wish I was - go and say hi to Roy and Tony.

Later in the year, we're also sponsoring UKLUG in September and look forward to that too.

Its going to be a fun year!

It came back with a location less than 15 meters away. Its at the wrong end of my house... In rural Scotland. Not bad. And it came back with screen shots (I'd to blot most of it out) and flicked my on-board camera on (without me noticing it). Both images, when clicked, go full res.

So is it good? Yes.

Okay. It relies on the scrote who nicked it to switch it on, plug it into the internet, and be stupid enough to be caught. Fine. And that might never happen. They might just wipe the machine and resell it. Well thats fine by me - at least all my personal data won't have been harvested. 

If they do switch it on, I have a nice evidence pile ready for the police.

Is it worth it? Yes.

1. Google and download 'Perian' - its a free codec pack meaning you can view all those dodgy internet video formats
2. Dropbox.com 
3. Stick logmein.com on it (the free edition). Handy for getting back into those machines you might have left at home.
4. Buy 'hidden'. Its excellent.
5. Mozy online internet backup.
6. Either an external USB hard drive or an Apple Time Capsule for time-machine backups. Invaluable.
7. A decent soft case. You will drop it.
8. Relevant dongles for VGA, HDMI and DVI video output. You're a presentation sort of guy.
9. Keynote. From the apple mac store. Honestly. Its the best Powerpoint killer out there. You'll love it.
10. The Apple remote. For presentations. And lying in bed, watching TV.
11. Buy and download Air Display for your iPad (iTunes store). Use your iPad as a second screen for your Mac, when you need it.
12. Buy iPassword for all your computers and mobile devices, and use Dropbox to keep them in sync. Now go through every single one of your online systems and give them strong, unique passwords. 
13. If you've never heard of a 'Get Things Done' app, go download Things on all your Mac and iOS devices. 
14. If you are *really* paranoid, get a small external USB drive/SSD, and use SuperDuper! to image your drive over there regularly. So when your main drive/SSD goes 'phut', you just plug in the USB one and you're up and running. 
15. Pixelmator - a cheap, quick, image editing tool. Far easier (and cheaper!) than Photoshop.

So whats on your newbie list for the Mac?

(I'm really glad I was asked for this as I've just switched Macs and forgot to put Hidden back on there. So its worth reviewing once in a while)

(Photo by David Clark)

And in fact, David is responsible for introducing Einstein to us. In that David picked Harley - Einsteins brother - and then posted these cute pictures of him on Facebook, thus thawing out the doggy-part of SWMBO's heart.

So far he's been magnificent. Basically housetrained from the word go, tolerant and respectful of the cats (who have tried hard to ignore him), playful, quiet, and above all - non-hyperactive.

I came home after a 10-day business trip to find that Einstein had became SWMBO's dog.

So this week he gets his final innoculation shot, and this means next week we can actually take him out for walkies. Drumochtie glen, here we come!

This week (as well as last), I stayed at the rather posh Marlin apartments. Lovely folks. Well, aside from the time in Stratford where the hot water failed for 24 hours and I couldnt leave the apartment. But - hey - aside from that.

So this week, I'm sitting in this flat, feeling really warm. Finally pull off my shoes and burn my feet on the floor. Yes, the previous berk had not figured out how to set the thermostat on the underfloor heating and had just cranked the lot up to 11. And left it on forever. Nice. Even the glue under the carpet was starting to get a bit whiffy. No worries, I lept (or hopped or skipped) to action, turned all the themostats down, and thought nothing more of it.

Until last night where the flat was an icebox. Leaving my coat on in bed. Not pleasant. Cranked it all back up again - no - nothing doing. Till I opened the flat this evening to feel - yes - you guessed it - a heatwave.

Anywhoo. I've found the manual for the flat and the three thermostats are all from a Deviheat 550 programmable system. So. If you're picking any system to control your underfloor heating - and you actually want to live in the place you're installing this in - then dont pick this one. Its utter shit. You will die of extreme tempertatures before you can command it. Its an invention from Belizub himself.

And so this evening, after beating the heatwave, I thought I'd use the microwave. So lets see. Unwrap/stab the M&S meal for one (sad lonely person), chuck it in the microwave, set the timer, press go. Drink a glass of wine, come back, enjoy the meal. 

Ah. No. This microwave - a AEG MC1751/MC1761E 'Microwave oven' - is completely impossible to operate. You're talking to a man who used to debug serial cable issues with satelite communications. Who thinks nothing of hotwiring some Cat6 cabling, or indeed finding the hidden reset sequence on a BMW 5-Series (Its the start button and trunk-open button, BTW).

No. My meal for singleton/sad person is stubbornly cold. I'm still hungry. The wine is disappearing at an alarming rate, and here in the frozen concrete wilderness of Docklands, its dark and the morlocks are roaming the streets.  I shall just starve.

Readers, should you ever wish to install household appliances, use the 'drunk' test. You can be as drunk as an IBM salesguy in the fourth quarter who's just finally landed the QuickR/Sametime part of his quota, and yet should still be able to operate your house. Nothing less.

Update: Clearly, I shall never starve. Just stabbing the 'quick start' button gives you 30 seconds on full. So another 8 times, and my meal shall be ready.. Bwa-hahaha. But yeah. AEG. Its shit. Hang your head in shame.

Unfortunately, we discussed this in front of the peanut gallery, and before we could stop them, sponsors were being organised, bets were being made, forfeits negotiated. I think we even did a 'This Week in Lotus' interview, but it was quite late, and we were 'tired and emotional'.

Basically, if we smoke between Sunday and next Lotusphere, we donate $200 (USD) to a worthy Childrens Cancer charity. If we fail to make our weight loss - around 1 pound a week (and therefore a sane diet plan), then its another $100 to charity.

Scary stuff indeed.

Well, Victor and I are still up for it. The Domain 'SocialLoser.org' has been purchased and a site placed there in the next few days. The first weigh in - for me - happened this morning and I weigh 265 pounds. My last cigarette was in the early hours of Saturday morning, on my balcony at the Sheraton Safari Suites in Orlando.

As we get the website together, we shall invite folks to place bets on our success (or otherwise) and post more information on the nominated charity.