With the G1 only available on T-Mobile, I had to cancel my Vodafone contract. Firstly, it was almost impossible to find out how to do it, with the information tucked away in the smallest corner of the Help section of the site. I can understand a company's desire not to lose customers, but if you're going to have a help section, it'd be good if it was actually helpful. I …

I'm not entirely sure why, presumably just as an exercise in corporate relations, but Peugeot Sport took their Le Mans team to the Michelin factory in France. They had a look round they tyre manufacturing plant, but also learnt some of the basics of production and had a go at making a tyre themselves. Wurz, Gene, Sarrazin, Minassian and Lamy were all very impressed with what they saw, but here's …

I use the alarm on my phone to wake up of a morning, so was happy to see how easy to use the G1 alarm clock was. I even got to choose a sound! The first time I set it, at midnight, I thought it would be hilariously brilliant to choose the rooster alarm noise to wake up. It wasn't so funny in the morning. Also, my boss has the …

I got myself the Google Phone last week, and have been playing around with it for a while. I'm not going to do an extensive review of it, because there are gadgety types who can do that much better than I can. All I will say for now is that I love it, and as I find things I really like, I'll be sure to tell you all about them. …

I was listening to Buzz out Loud, and they pointed out a phishing email scam test. I'm never one to pass up the opportunity to rate myself, so I looked into it. The idea is to see if you can tell the difference between a legitimate email and one that is phishing for your details. There are ten questions, and each one shows you an image of an email, and …

I was just checking out the official Franck site for any news and updates on our favourite Frenchman and the latest article is about his test with AGR. However, at the end of the post, there is a snippet of information. Since then, Franck returned to Europe on our good old continent. On the agenda this week, a Training Camp in good and due form! Franck joined his coach and …

After a relatively good showing with AGR's American Le Mans team, Montagny was given a road course test with the IndyCar team a couple of weeks ago. Franck already had a go in the Indy car back in September, testing at the Kentucky Speedway, but this time he got to have a go at Sebring - which should be a more preferable circuit style to him. He tested with Tony …

This is a story a friend of mine told me: She was walking back to work after lunch, through the underpass, and a mother pushing a buggy with two screaming kids was coming the other way. Now, when I say screaming, I mean enough to make you want to rip your own ears off. The mother was trying to quieten them but not having much luck. A policeman also entered …

Even though I consider myself to be somewhat "down with the kids", I've got to say that txt speak and internet slang are starting to confuse me. I'm not above using the odd lol, omg or wtf, but it's becoming a bit baffling. Firstly, I want to point out a very useful site for fuddy-duddies like me: Internet Slang Dictionary. There's a translator in there, if you come across some …

One of the things I regret from my lack of time these days is not attempting to play the piano anymore. I can't honestly say that it's all down to being busy, as I did hike a keyboard around with me through a couple of flats and it didn't get much use. I don't know where the motivation went but I do miss it. Playing music is great fun, and …

I've just finished the second of two exams this week. I'm pretty sure I failed both of them, but that's okay. In fact, I'm really happy about it because I now know at least one path I don't want my career to take. The reason for this post, however, is because of the severe cramp I have in my right hand. My exams have always tended to be a lot …

Michael Crichton died yesterday, and I don't think I'd be lying if I said he was my favourite author of all time. I didn't even know he was ill, which is so unusual in this day and age that it makes me like him even more. Obviously the usual applies, with thoughts and feelings going out to his family, but on a purely selfish level, I'm sad that there will …

The new look. Yes, okay, you can still view via the 'old Facebook' but presumably this will not always be the case, and I'm not a fan. It takes ages to upload photos. I tried to put up 5 pictures and it literally took half an hour. I timed it and everything. Messages from groups. I join groups to visit occasionally, have a look around, see what's in the discussion …

It's been a while, but I return with good tidings. Franck won his first ALMS race this weekend, taking the top stop of the podium with team mate James Rossiter. The win came after some good strategic calls from the team, some good decision making in the pit stops, and some good driving from Mr FKM. The team waited until the minimum amount of time a driver has to be …

Via the iPlayer, I watched a four-part series about Mark Beaumont. He's a cyclist from Scotland who set himself the challenge of crossing the world - 18,000 miles - in under 200 days to set a new Guinness World Record. If you missed the programme, there's plenty of information about it on the BBC website, including when and where it will be on (if it's repeated). The guy was absolutely …

Just wanted to point out that I'm currently in the midst of loving identi.ca. If you're fed up of Twitter's flakiness, and want something a little bit prettier, then identi.ca could be for you. I'm busy posting there at the moment, amazed at how many 140 character sentences I have come up with already, having only been registered for a week. If you're interested in following me, head to identi.ca/christineb. …

I know I'm very late to the game about this, but I just wanted to say that Google Docs is actually rather cool. I've just set up my very first co-ordination project for Librivox (as in, encouraging chapter submissions, rather than recording them) and I used Google Docs to host the text for each chapter. Being able to publish the document at the click of a mouse is amazing. I …

Apparently I am suddenly interested in lots of different sports. I vaguely remember watching bits of the last Olympics, just because it was on, and I was bored, and I liked TV. This year, I actually seem to care how well we do. This is a weird development for someone who hates sport, and I don't like it. The BBC page is brilliant, of course, with live video and an …

Did anyone else realise that along with the new redesign of Delicious, they're pushing delicious.com instead of the del.icio.us crazy url? Apparently they've always had the .com domain but redirected it. Now they're a bit more popular, the crazy url is a bit too complicated, so it's delicious.com from here on in. I've stopped embedding my delicious links in this blog, in the hopes that it will make me write …

Since the dawn of time, but also quite recently, I have been looking for a decent to-do list manager. This is how it used to work: While I'm out all day, I keep a list of things that I need to do, remember, or think about on a scrap of paper. When I get home, I action all the ones I can and cross them off the list, then transfer …

Well, I can only apologise for not updating more often. There are no excuses, except I don't really understand the Le Mans series very well, and therefore don't find myself going looking for news every day. It looks like Montagny is showing well in the series, but having some small bouts of bad luck. At the moment he's partnered with James Rossiter, I believe, and they raced this weekend at …

Another Firefox extension I have just found has made my day, and I must spread the word. It's quite simple: Copy Link Text. Basically, once enabled you can right click on a link, and get the additional option of copy link text, alongside copy link location. This should be filed under: Things You Didn't Realise You Needed Until You Found Them.

I have recently upgraded to Firefox 3 and am writing a post about my experiences so far. The main problem I have had is that none of my old extensions work on the new version. This is slightly annoying, but at the same time, they really were due a clear-out. I had a weather thing in the top nav bar that I never even looked at. Sometimes I would accidentally …

Whilst the new Amazon design is very fancy and navigation is supposedly easier, there seems to be an elemental problem. Being from the UK, I signed up ages and ages ago, via the .co.uk side of Amazon. Today, I accidentally logged in via the .com domain. For a moment, I thought the stupid site had lost my wish list. But the truth is, it doesn't seem to be able to …

Sometimes, as holiday cover at work, I am in charge of changing the backup tapes for the system. You'll find me huddled in the dark corner of a server room, standing in front of a rack of hardware, eyeing up the blinking lights and wires, and tapping away on the keyboard. It's like being in Mission Impossible. It's wonderful.

Out of the Blue has been axed. Well, that's out of the blue. Ha. Sorry, couldn't resist. If the numbers in that story are to be believed, chances are you won't have even heard of this programme, and now you probably never will. But I want to take a closer look at what happened, because it makes for an interesting story. The problem Here is how to systematically undermine a …

It's hula-hooping, right? Who knew that hula-hooping was actually hard work? Okay, so you've probably guessed it: I am now the proud owner of a Wii Fit. And it's brilliant. At the moment, I'm still suffering the effects of a cold and wintry three-day stay in a tent, and can't put the maximum effort into a routine. However, from what I know already, it's brilliant. I'm not entirely sure how …

It started out well for Franck, as he finished the first practice session on top, although only by a tenth of a second. He then went on to hold a provisional pole during the qualifying sessions, but ultimately finished seventh. Afterwards, however, two Audi drivers were given penalties and pushed back to ninth on the grid - which helped our boy somewhat! Overall, Montagny finished 6th, and three laps down, …

Having performed so well in the Le Mans 24 Hour race, Montagny has been snapped up for the American Le Mans series for the remainder of the season. Now, I'm a bit late with news, and the race this weekend at Lime Rock sees Montagny teaming up with Marco Andretti but it looks like he will have various team mates throughout the season. The new lineup is somewhat unexpected, as …

Disneyland is the host of a new "Home of the Future" - an interactive tour through a house chock full of technology you can only dream about. The Gizmodo story has tons of pictures, and CNET have a fab video. It is quite possibly the coolest thing ever. The best part, in my eyes, is the wardrobe mirror thing. Even though I am not your typical girl, and most days …

Wimbledon is always on at the same time every year, and yet this year, it completely slipped my mind. At one stage in my life, it was the sport I followed. Much easier than F1, as it only spanned two weeks of the year. I even created a massive wall chart to follow the progress of players throughout one of the championships. It was gaudy, but I liked it. This …

Have you heard about the "Awesome Highlighter"? As Web 2.0 gets bigger and better, it seems as though people are always trying to find ways to do online things that they have previously manually done on paper. I know that seems obvious, but you would think it was impossible to replicate the act of marking something with a highlighter for future use. Apparently not. Check out awesomehighlighter.com (link retired). Like …

You know it was Friday 13th last week? (And yes, I had a bad day.) Did you know that the subject warrants its own page on Wikipedia? Firstly, Friday the 13th is observed by many, many countries. But in a few, Greece and Romania, for example, it is Tuesday 13th. In Italy, it is Friday 17th. This totally blows the superstition out of the water, because it’s roots are in …

Oops. Turns out that when I said this year was his best result, I was wrong. And my only excuse is that clearly I cannot read. To make amends for my error, here is the full run-down of Franck's achievements at Le Mans. For the last few years, there's been a nice trend of the results going up, for Franck, but it appears this year was not to be. Never …

Franck did an amazing job. He started second, and at one point was driving so fast he could catch the leaders at four seconds a lap. He overtook the front runners to lead the race at one point, and then made the big mistake of handing the car over to Klien. A couple of laps in, Klien through the car in the gravel. Still, we have to be impressed that …

Top five reasons the Mac is winning me over Installing things is too easy. Flickr Uploader is a thousand times better than on a PC. The Mac has approved software lists. I'm starting to get used to (and like) the fact that things are open without having an actual window open. It took a long time, but now I'm adjusted, it's a plus. I can make enhanced podcasts. Top five …

Peugeot continued their fine form from the first round of qualifying, and took the first three spots on the grid. Franck’s car is second, behind Stephane Sarrazin, and ahead of Marc Gene. The finishing times were over three seconds quicker than Audi. The full qualifying results can be viewed here. Unfortunately, Montagny’s team mate Ricardo Zonta was having a go in the car when he was involved in an incident. …

First qualifying for Le Mans 24 Hours took place last night (thanks to Andrea in the comments for the heads up). Our Peugeot boys were on top form, taking the top three spots, with main rival Audi taking the next three: Stephane Sarrazin set a serious benchmark, posting the fastest time that anybody has been around the Le Mans track since 1989! But of course, we are interesting in Franck, …

I’m trying to quit Coke Zero and it’s killing me. Two weeks now, with a couple of lapses. Apparently Diet Coke is the beverage of choice for geeks, but it can’t be good to consume as much as I used to. How long before I stop thinking about it, though?

Leo Laporte is turning his life into an internet show. But this isn’t like Justin TV, this is podcasting at its finest. He joined in the group of people who were live streaming themselves recording a show, which meant you could interact with people via the chatroom and it was all real time. Then he took that idea and brought it to a whole new level. Now he broadcasts live …

You can now buy or rent films on iTunes in the UK, and there’s quite a lot to choose from. Considering how few TV shows there were when that was first introduced on the UK store, I’m quite impressed. There are some questionable decisions on the part of Apple, when you look at the HD side of things. You can’t buy an HD film and you can only rent one …

Peugeot turned up for the test day this past weekend, with the Sporting Director Michel Barge, summing up the day for the team: "We have prepared extremely thoroughly for this monumental competition. We have raced at Sebring and in the three rounds of the 2008 Le Mans Series, including Spa where we fielded two complete driver line-ups, not to mention an extremely busy programme of testing since the flag came …

AjaxTrans Too cool a tool not to bookmark.

Been browsing through the iTunes top 100 songs for a while. Not planning on buying, just seeing if I'm missing anything. Having my head so buried in the podcasting cloud, I barely have time to listen to the radio anymore. The answer was not much, by the way, although there were a few surprises along the way. What the hell is Neil Diamond doing in the top 100 downloaded songs …

I haven't talked about drop.io over here yet, although we've been raving about it over on Sidepodcast. It's a relatively new service that I heard from someone who heard it from net@nite. The idea is pretty simple. Sign up for an account, get 100MB for free, and start dropping. If you open it up, anyone can put in links, files and notes. The files could be pictures, audio, video, it's …

We had the previous tech dilemma of whether to buy Photoshop to help me be more interested in pictures, but not really being able to justify buying Photoshop because I don't take enough pictures. Here's another. I want to blog more on Smarter Than Your Average, I have things to say about the state of the web and I want to share them with you. But I find that I …

The caption competition is back Should be entitled: How to be funny.

Exam papers had answers on back What.The.Hell? Animal Utility Clips Oh, I want some of these. Especially the cow. I'm always getting told off for having wires all over my desk. These would solve that problem. Vandals in attack at Stonehenge "English Heritage said souvenir hunting was once a legitimate practice and chisels would be handed out to people visiting the stones." Crazy. Podcasts prove break from routine "Comedy is …

Design revamp for '$100 laptop' I always thought the old one looked like a cartoon, and whilst aimed at kids, I found it quite off-putting. The new one looks beautiful. Twitter: Something Is Technically Wrong Well, I gave up already. Gyllenhaal confirmed for 'Prince of Persia' Firstly, I didn't know there was a film. Secondly, that Gemma Arterton is everywhere right now, and I still haven't seen her in anything. …

Coldplay's piano gift for school They're nice boys really.