Nicholas Booth Dot Com

• Raspberries, at last! #
• Hey, @O2, once again a really c**p signal here in the area south of Dorking. Bad all day today and not just for me – friends said how poor #
• Amazing real-time map of underground trains as they run around London http://tinyurl.com/3yu2f4t #
• After long long call @O2 confirm there is a "cellsite problem" in area south of Dorking. Why take so long admit a probem? #O2fail #
• TV one end of office, Internet viewers at the other: Cheers and gasps divided by short delay. #DigitalDivide ? #
• RT @kenwolf: I too use Java. 🙂 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrfpnbGXL70 <=Made me laugh out loud in the office (the video, that is!) #
• Off to the Cock & Bull for a beer. #
• Off to a wedding shortly. Long hot journey ahead. #
• Now stopped at the biggest dolls house shop possibly in the UK so Grace excited but I have to sit in car with air con and look after the … #
• Cake #
• Waiting for the bride to arrive #
• Ceremony done. Photos in progress #
• Amazing disco where djs are participating like i have never seen before http://www.dickropa.com #
• Questions that don't need an immediate detailed answer: Munch munch "Daddy, What's black pudding made from?" munch. "Err….Meat!". #

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• I am reverse enginineering smtp/mail configs on web servers. How we send email at all I just don't know! Forced config changes in store. #
• Off to do a school run on a pleasant sunny morning. #
• Time to catch up with a cup of nice Earl Grey tea. #
• Linguine with creme fraiche, a dash of olive oil, finely chopped mush and toms with fresh thyme, basil and chives from the garden. Mmmmm. #
• Bloglines has become irritatingly flakey of late – so now trying alternative feed readers and having to get used to different view/usage. #
• Looks like some dubious SIP calls from China into my Asterisk server are trying it on. #
• Looks like some dubious SIP calls from China are attempting to get into my Asterisk server. #
• Looks like Twitter refusing at ack tweets, but posting them anyway. #
• Just completed a valve regenerative radio kit. Aerial attatched and the first distinguishable sounds are a Vuvuzela chorus! It works. #
• Emptied shed to extract lawnmower – then it starts spitting with rain. Everything goes back. Try again tomorrow I think. #
• For the first time in a long while, sitting reading a Sunday Paper. Will nod off if I'm not careful! #

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I have just completed a kit for a valve radio – a regenerative detector type. I bought the kit a few months ago from www.6v6.co.uk and with Serena and Grace both at the hairdresser’s this morning I had a few hours P&Q to fill so out came the kit, soldering iron and tools.

It’s quite novel in that it only uses a 12v power source – possible to run from dry cells if you’re feeling extravagant – but that’s the highest voltage in the circuit – so it’s very safe; no need for caution when touching contacts tracing faults with my soldering. Yep – there was a dry joint somewhere – I suspect on the variable tuning cap, but once sorted much sound came from the speaker, notably the sound of the vuvuzela horn.

Some confusion when troubleshooting – the engraved legend on the front panel has somehow got the “Vol” and “Regen” transposed!

Edit: After mentioning the issue to the kit’s creator he’s pointed out that I didn’t follow the instructions and that I should have connected the pots with wires instead of directly to the PCB. It’s still a great little kit, though.

• Relieved to discover that a small problem I found with New Scientist was set that way deliberately by the developers. No problem after all. #
• Last night's dreams seemed to be presented in HTML5 and Web 2.0 styles. #
• Holiday cottage now booked in Polperro. #
• Orange's on-line phone account management site is somewhat flakey and begins to make O2's look quite good in comparison. #
• How odd: after powercut last night, Joggler won't connect to LAN using WIFI without two DNS servers in its configuration. Hates DHCP? #

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• Waiting for a train at Ashtead. Off to the London Eye and the Planetarium at the ROG #
• Good cafe at ROG #

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