AboutArchiveRSSpc256.netProject Sputnik - DOADell recently announced Project Sputnik; a plan to equip developers of the world with it’s flagship ultrabook running Linux. Dell’s track record at supporting Linux has been terrible but I tried to be positive they’d have a decent stab at it this time. Why would they do this you might ask? I’m guessing someone at Dell got pissed at people coding in coffee shops and thought “we need to get in on that”.Anyway, the sands of time have passed and Dell have now announced availability for the beta. I’ll put it out there that I didn’t get into the beta as they decided to make it US-only (because all code is written in the US?). The other glaring problem with the beta is the price (yes, you need to buy the laptop to participate) but the promotional price is $1199 (for an $1499 laptop). Ouch. That’s no cheaper than a MBA and in the same price range as the new Lenovo X1 Carbon - both of which are better machines.So given only the brain-dead will buy the hardware, it’s almost certain ‘Project Sputnik’ will wither and die pretty quickly.Tags: delllinuxAugust 29, 2012, 7:10pmPermalinkMy quiet bicycleOver the past month I’ve been getting increasingly aggravated by my bike which was making an awful clanking sound.  Having failed to diagnose the problem myself, Jakub suggested the pedal bearings may have failed meaning every time I drove the pedals round it made the awful noise. Another option was that the bearings in the bottom bracket had died (but it only seemed to happen on one side so I thought it’s probably the pedals).To try and resolve the problem, this weekend I got my first set of clipless pedals and shoes - Shimano A530 pedals with R064 shoes - choosing the right set is a bit of pain to ensure you get compatible pedals and shoes but after some reading I managed to work it out.  Fitting them was really easy taking less than 20 minutes.I’ve been on several rides in the past few days and am amazed at having silent pedals again - it just makes cycling so much nicer.  The SPDs are comfy but take some getting used to (like forcing yourself to unclip before slowing down).So if your bike is making an awful noise when pedalling - check the pedals (it sounds so obvious now it’s written down like that!).PeteTags: cyclingSPDsAugust 28, 2012, 3:09pmPermalinkNew day new siteWell having been rolling my own (and now being too busy) I’ve decided that time is better spent elsewhere so I’m moving over to Tumblr.  Going to spent a little while migrating some older posts (which looks like it will be painful but here we go).UPDATE.Turns out migrating posts from wordpress to tumblr isn’t very easy so the solution ended up being very manual.  Luckily I hadn’t actually written that much so it didn’t take long.  So what now? Well hopefully more regular updates than previously (couldn’t be much worse).Aug