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 our guys managed to recover enough to finish third. Franck started and finished the race, and it was nice to see him on the podium.

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 reasons it isn’t Office 2008 isn’t all it’s cracked up to be on the Mac. The @ key is in a different place. I don’t care who is right or wrong, but some standards wouldn’t go amiss. Switching from Mac to PC is a real pain. There’s no hash key (why the hell not?) I have to reformat my iPod. I can’t find any decent personal finance software. I’m sticking with what I’ve got on the PC.

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. The Peugeot was hit by another car and smashed into the barriers. Zonta is unharmed, but this has put them on the back foot slightly, with only a short amount of time to rebuild the car.

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: Pos Class Drivers Team Car Time Gap 1 LMP1 Lamy, Sarrazin, Wurz Team Peugeot Total Peugeot 908 3:18.513 – 2 LMP1 Montagny, Zonta, Klien Peugeot Sport Total Peugeot 908 3:18.682 +0.169 3 LMP1 Gene, Minassian, Villeneuve Team Peugeot Total Peugeot 908 3:20.451 +1.938 Stephane Sarrazin set a serious benchmark, posting the fastest time that anybody has been around the Le Mans track since 1989!

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 from his office A LOT. I still don’t have the schedule clear in my head, it’s every day except Mondays and Fridays, I think, and obviously there’s a time difference between here and the US.

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 if you have an Apple TV. At the moment, we don’t have an HD TV so it doesn’t really matter anyway, but that does seem an unusual tactic from Apple. I know they like to keep you using Apple products, but what harm would it do to allow users to download to their Macs?

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 down on the 2007 Le Mans 24 Hours.

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 in iTunes?

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 pretty limitless. You can put a password in to make it more protected, and if you run over your 100MB, you can pay very little for more.

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 just don’t, and I don’t really know why that is.

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 dominating the UK’s podcasting charts. Who is behind these recordings and why do they make them?”

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.

Whilst the demise of Super Aguri is both sad and a seemingly interminable story, the highlight of reading the articles for me, is the odd mention of Franck. He drove for SA briefly in 2006, replacing Yuji Ide and being replaced by Sakon Yamamoto. Montagny was third driver initially, and got the chance as the FIA believed Ide wasn’t necessarily experienced enough to be a full driver. Franck raced for seven races, with the results:

Apologies for not writing anything about Franck after the event, but he took part in the A1GP race at Brands Hatch at the beginning of this month. He didn’t do too badly, finishing 8th and then 5th in the two races, but it wasn’t enough for Team France to finish higher than fourth in the championship. Switzerland took the title, with New Zealand and Great Britain behind. Speaking afterwards, Franck said:

TWiT Live Update I keep meaning to blog about Leo and his incredible live streaming plans. For now, this will do.

Olinda - a new radio For some reason, this strikes me as very bizarre. 7 Skills Every Woman Should Master How long do we have to get these down? :)

Thinking of Having Kids? Do this 11 step program first! Any advice that has “Buy an octopus…” in it, is good in my book.

Elizabeth Arden Color Intrigue Shakes Off The Catherine Zeta-Jones From Catherine Zeta-Jones — StyleFrizz Photoshop is scary. Start a Business - Five First Steps Something tells me it’s a bit more complicated than this, but it helps to start somewhere.

Standing versus Sitting I’d try it, but sitting is soooo good.

Mevio Dumps PodShow Name & Distances Itself From User-Generated Content Never believed in user generated content?? That is an untruth if ever I heard one. Willis to play Murray Walker in F1 biopic? This is beyond bizarre. Our Videos at One Year: Facts and Figures More lovely statistics. Major oil pipeline to close down Don’t.Panic.Buy

Stuntman hurt in Bond car crash What is going on out there?

Ovation for Darius’s Rhett Butler I didn’t know this was what he’s doing now. A step up from Popstars, eh? Still, if the critics hate it, it’s bound to be good. McDonald’s savours designer look Wow. How much do I want a scarf with a big fat M on it? Driver fined for Bond car crash Right, sorry, isn’t he a stunt driver? How can it be dangerous driving when it’s his job?

For a while now, I’ve had del.icio.us set up to post whatever links I bookmark during the day to post on this blog at 1am. I hope that’s okay. The thing is, I look through a lot of links and I want to share them with everyone (particularly the other half, otherwise I’d spend all day emailing him URLs). I don’t usually have enough to say about each that it would warrant a blog post, but the little snippet you get to fill in as a note with each link is more than enough.

When The Archers became available as a podcast, I was excited, simply from a podcasting fan’s point of view. Then I started listening, and was intrigued by the way radio soap is put together. The little things fascinated me – having to say character’s names more than you would in real life because they’re not always distinguishable by their voices, managing to make an entire 13 minutes listenable, despite very little happening, and clearly doing plenty of research into current and potential farming techniques.

I know, I know, this blog has been about television far too much recently. The problem is that at the moment, it’s the only other non-Sidepodcast thing I’m interested in. ITV hasn’t really featured in my thoughts recently, but now two things have happened that sort of cancel each other out. Let me explain. The Good ITV shows are now available on iTunes. Get your hands on Cold Feet (yay!) or Lewis (uh…) and that’s about it at the moment. But shows are being added all the time, and this makes me happy. And very, very poor.

As I mentioned briefly in the previous post about Franck’s successful outing at Long Beach, it looks like FKM had a confirmed Champ Car drive for 2009. Before the race, he said: It was disappointing to have a deal three weeks before the season, and then nothing. But we’ve kept very close with Forsythe and we have a very good relationship. Maybe there will be a chance to do IndyCar with them next year, I hope so.

I can only apologise for not posting this news immediately, it is definitely worth a blog post or two! In his one and only Champ Car race, Franck managed to finish 2nd with an inspired drive. But let’s start at the beginning. It appears that Franck had a confirmed Champ Car drive, which is why he lined up on the grid in Long Beach this past weekend. This was his debut for the Forsythe team, but as the series no longer exists, and the team are not going to participate anymore, it was also his last Champ Car appearance.

Podcasting News » LonelyGirl15 Creators Get $5 Million For EQAL Startup I both love and hate LonelyGirl15 at the same time. It’s an interesting mix! Podcasting News » Audience For Audio, Video Podcasts Way Up Everyone loves a good set of stats. Quelle horreur! How can the French Eurovision song be in English? It irks me when songs have both English and their native language in there. Pick one and stick to it.

I’ve been away this week, and missed out on all the action of last weekend, which is typical because Franck was… both good and bad. We had a moment to celebrate when he hit the top of the time sheets in the final Free Practice session, just ahead of favourites Switzerland. Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps 1 Franck Montagny France 1:35.470 – 23 2 Neel Jani Switzerland 1:35.556 +0.086 19 3 Edoardo Piscopo Italy 1:35.703 +0.233 21 4 Jonny Reid New Zealand 1:35.834 +0.364 23 5 Robbie Kerr Great Britain 1:36.040 +0.570 23 It didn’t last long, however, because in the actual races Team France suffered disappointing results. The Sprint Race saw Franck make up six places on the opening lap - but the disastrous qualifying placing meant this only left him in 12th. The Feature Race at least saw Team France picking up some points, with Montagny finishing in 8th.

Vine to take over Points of View An interesting choice. BBC NEWS | Technology | BBC announces Nintendo Wii deal Coooool. Podcasting News » New Adobe Media Player Could Change Internet Television Looks very swish. I’m an Adobe Air fan, so interested to see how this goes down. Showbiz - News - Elton signs up for ‘Phantom’ sequel - Digital Spy No, don’t do it.

Seth’s Blog: Write like a blogger Surely everybody does have a blog, don’t they? Podcasting News » Watch Twice As Many YouTube Videos I just have one question - why? EastEnders - Soap Scoop - ‘Enders begin filming in Weymouth - Digital Spy Bit different from their original plan of Spain. No way the weather will hold.

Thanks to Andrea in the comments, we now know that Franck has been snapped up by A1 Team France to take part in a couple of A1 GP races. There are more details here (link retired), but FKM will be driving in Shanghai on the 11th-13th April, and at Brands Hatch on 2nd-4th May. I was tempted to visit A1 GP when I saw some footage from it at Autosport International this year, so now I have no excuse not to go!

Space truck’s big moment arrives I find it amazing that it’s going to do it all by itself and “Ground controllers and the station’s astronauts will not get involved unless there is a problem.” Also, the live tracking at the bottom is cool. Seth’s Blog: Waiting until the last minute “In a nutshell: don’t.”

Amazon.co.uk: America Unchained: A Freewheeling Roadtrip In Search of Non-Corporate USA: Dave Gorman: Books Buy it, buy it now. Moving on to new projects - Veronica Belmont (link retired) But Mahalo Daily is so good… Podcasting News » Free Skype Call Recorder Where was this when we needed it? Amazon Payments Account Management (link retired) Earlier I told you to buy a book - now I’m telling you how. Cult - News - No romance for Doctor and Donna - Digital Spy

It looks to me like Franck is going to debut and finish up his Champ Car career in one and the same race. According to this story (link retired), Franck is one of 13 drivers confirmed to appear at the Grand Prix of Long Beach. I was not aware of this, and I’m finding it hard to find out any more information. If anyone else knows more, let me know!

Daisy Whitney » Blog Archive » New Media Minute 3.31.08 An interesting look at the demographics, but doesn’t this just prove that you can never really rely on stats THAT much? US TV - News - Ioan Gruffudd joins US drama pilot - Digital Spy Mmmm, yum.

I have been putting off writing this blog entry for a long time because, well, basically because it means admitting that I watch Dawson’s Creek. Before you laugh at me, I’m going to tell you a little story. I used to watch it when it was on originally, I saw the first few series, then it moved to Five. At the time, I couldn’t get Five, it was a snowstorm of Dawson’s head with no sound. Wonderful.

Brigitte’s Archives » Blog Archive If you haven’t seen Brigitte’s videos before, you MUST watch. I love them. Even a ten minute shout out show is good fun. Music - News - U2 sign 12-year deal with Live Nation - Digital Spy Surely the state of media/entertainment industries right now means you would want to steer clear of a 12 year deal?

WordPress Gets Major Overhaul We’ve done it over on Sidepodcast. It’s… interesting. Adobe AIR Desktop App For FriendFeed Coming Not sure about FriendFeed yet, but the picture looks good. Reporting from the slopes - The Best of YouTube (Link retired) My god, people spend hours trying to perfect moves like that.

TV Scoop: TV Review - Sleeping with my Sister, Channel 4, Thursday, March 27, 9pm (Link retired) I didn’t watch it, and to be honest, it creeps me out a bit. Eastenders: HILARIOUS!!! Bianca’s Jackson Five Spoof Video - Unreality Primetime (Link retired) Clearly the singing leaves something to be desired, but now the song is stuck in my head. 10 Millionth Article Written on Wikipedia I don’t know why, but I would have thought more than 2.3 million of them were English.

I don’t actually watch Eastenders, but I have had a look at the YouTube clips associated with this story. So, Eastenders featured a buried alive storyline. Max Branning (who?) apparently cheated on Tania Branning (who?) and she got her revenge by burying him alive. This was something he was particularly afraid of. She and her new boyfriend dug a grave, put him in a coffin in the hole and left him there.

I’ve just been looking at the official Franck Montagny site, and it’s a bit odd. The news is in French, and I don’t speak the language, which makes things a little bit tricky. What I am confused about is the beginning and the end. Beginning of news article: Hot wheels,hell yea !!!! Pas beaucoup de news ces derniers temps hein ?? End of news article: Voilà vous en savez tout autant que moi ! Have fun Fkm

Soaps - News - ‘EastEnders’ burial prompts 100 complaints - Digital Spy I don’t watch Eastenders, but I know that some things are just not necessary.

In a recent interview with Ed Gorman at The Times Online, BBC 5live pit reporter Holly Samos talks about her scariest moment in the heart of the action. The pits are a dangerous place so you have to have your wits about you. One of my scariest moments was when I was about midway down the pitlane talking with a photographer. Franck Montagny, who was driving for Super Aguri at the time, went past us, and, just as he did so, his steering snapped and he brushed the pitwall. My photographer friend and I looked at each other as we realised that if he’d gone the other way he could have crashed into us.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Leaping stingray kills US woman “It’s just as freakish an accident as I have heard.” Battle Of The Podcasting Geek Chicks I watch three or more of these - how about you? The Next Chapter : LOL: The Life of Leo Ambitious - I like it.

WALL•E trailer The newest film from Disney Pixar… to be honest, it doesn’t grab me as much as I’d hoped. Showbiz - News - Beckhams preferred to Brown in Downing St - Digital Spy I pray that this isn’t true.