mkjones

As previously noted my broadband connection with Be has been playing up lately.

I wrote many support tickets to Be detailing how I belived it was a fault with the router they had sent me, the ‘bebox’.

So, yesterday a new bebox arrived.

I have yet to set up and test the new device but I can at least applaud Be’s customer services for responding in such a pro-active manner. (Keep reading)

It was a bad game for Liverpool fans. I watched the match in a town centre pub which contained a vast amount of Liverpool-esq fans. Surprisingly it was a hell of a lot bussier than the FA cup final a few days previous and even more so than any recent England game.

The fans however should have stayed at home, where it seems Rafa Benitez’s brain had stayed.

Rafa blamed the lack of quality and depth in his squad for the defeat.

But this is a squad which Rafa himself has built up over the past couple of years while in charge. And now, sadly for Liverpool fans, this is a team which he has no idea how to manage.

Benitez seems to have a huge problem with multi-tasking. Hence his ridiculous rotation system at the start of the season.

Obviously he was attempting to create a 2-tear team, one for the league and one for cup competitions. He messed up on both accounts. (Keep reading)

I am starting to wonder just how much football news my blog can hold before I have to replace the logo with a malformed soccer ball.

However, I must prevail as although the season may be over tonight we can all to look forward to the Champions League Final between Liverpool and AC Milan.

The match is a replay of the 2005 final which some say was the best ever final in Champions League history.

It was a strange evening 2 years ago for me and a few of my friends. We had planned an evening of football and drinking but by 1/2 time Liverpool were 3-0 behind and we simply gave up and left the pub. After around 5 Gin & Tonics we noticed that somehow Liverpool had clawed it back to a 3 all and penalties were almost on the cards.

I now admit I remember very little about the last few moments of the game back in 2005, I recall cheering, excitement and a thoroughly wonderful couple of hours after the game was over when it seemed everyone, Liverpool fan or not, was happy that they had won.

It had the feeling an England international, not the Champions League.

So, to mark the occasion of this monumental replay I have come up with a rather fitting joke:

What do you call it when Kaká, Cafu, Nesta and Gattuso play Doom on their home network?

A MiLAN Party!

Rubbish I know. (Keep reading)

So I just upgraded to the new Wordpress (v 2.2).

It was quite painless although I did mess up by leaving out the $table_prefix option from my config file.

Thankfully I was able to import my back-up database and start over. I did however have problems after this with utf encoding. Basically all of my apostrophes were showing as ’ making words such as Isn’t and weren’t very interesting.

I fixed this by re-importing the database and then running the upgrade script again. Somehow it worked out ok the 2nd time around? Weird, but satisfactory. (Keep reading)

Oh dear. It seems my favourite podcaster and all-round web celebrity Major Nelson has a few issues at the moment.

His website has been down most of today and recently it was updated to this:

We’re aware that some users are having difficulty downloading the Halo 3 multiplayer beta via Crackdown. Bungie Studios is working with the Xbox Live team to resolve this as quickly as possible - stay tuned. Gamers entering the beta through other means, such as the Friends and Family remain unaffected.

I am headed back to Seattle in a few hours, so I’ll be offline while I am in the air. For the most up to date information, keep an eye on Bungie.net for the latest from Frankie regarding this issue.

This site is experiencing an excessive traffic amount of traffic at this time, so sorry for the temporary nature of this message. We’re working on getting back online as soon as we can.

Via: http://highload.majornelson.com/

This is a real shame and I bet Major is seriously pissed off that he has somehow become a channel for Halo 3 complaints. (Keep reading)

After my unfortunate time without broadband a few months ago (skybroadbanned.com) I was lucky enough to get back online with Be, the 24mb broadband providers.

Sadly, after just over a month of being with Be I can only report that their service has been quite terrible.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5….

I can count 5 times in the past 30 days when I have been without a connection for over 24 hours. 2 of these were due to planned outages but the other times have had no warning or explanation?

Today was the final straw. After a local power outage 2 days ago I assumed my local equipment was to blame for my lack of connectivity. however, after checking and double checking everything from my Router to my Xbox 360 it seemed this was not the case. (Keep reading)

The current trend for Premiership management insurrection continues as Neil Warnock resigns as the boss of Sheffield United.

He is the sad looking bloke in this picture:

So, this season gives us….

Alan Pawdew
Chris Coleman
Les Reid (shudder)
Ian Dowie
Paul Jewel
Stuart Pearce
Glenn Roeder
Sam Allardyce
Neil Warnock

….all either leaving or being booted from their club this season. (Keep reading)

First, Paul Jewel, the Wigan manager who fought so hard on the last day of the season to keep his team up with the big boys uncharacteristically quit.

Then, slightly less shocking, Manchester City manager and former fans favourite Stuart Pearce was sacked

These two events were summed up wonderfully by probably the most eloquent former centre back in England, Alan Hansen.

Of course, all of this is off the back of Big Sam Allardyce leaving Bolton and the rather sad exit of Glenn Roeder at Newcastle.

So, who will replace these Goliath characters? (Exclude Roeder from that description, but you get the idea…).. (Keep reading)

Its 6pm GMT on the 13th of May 2007 and the Barclays Premiership is over.

Manchester United took the title away from Chelsea by playing the best and beautiful football seen in the league for a long time. Arsenal and Liverpool again underachieved making it a solid 2 horse race pretty much all season.

At the bottom Watford (careful Firefox users, the Watford site crashed out twice on me….), Charlton and Sheffield United were sent packing down into the lower leagues, a place where some will struggle to bounce back from.

For me, as a relatively new football fan its been a great season. Especially off the back of a thoroughly disappointing World Cup.

Notably, the title race was, for once, just that. Man U held all the cards for most of the season, however a strong Chelsea team were a constant shadow chewing away at their league. If not for a few key injuries and sub-par summer signings (I’m looking your way Ballack) it could have been all different.

Also, the top 4 teams all got through to the later stages of the Champions League a fact which has promoted many pundits to label the Premiership ‘The best football league in the world’.

And Reading were a surprise package finishing in the top 10 after being promoted last season. (Keep reading)

Is Yahoo! worth $50b to Microsoft??

Of course.

And its nothing to do with Yahoo! search, the millions of Yahoo! members or their unrivalled web pedigree.

Some people may forget that Yahoo! own 2 of the most popular web movements in recent years, Flickr and del.icio.us

These, along with a few other choice assets (Kelkoo, Konfabulator, See Wikipedia for more) surely make Yahoo! a $50b bargain!