There are many things you can be sure of in this life. Death is one, but if you want to discuss something less morbid let’s talk about technology – the fact that if you purchase any item, as sure as night follows day, at some point in the not-to-distant future you will be disgruntled when the new / improved model is launched.

As it happens, I discussed this on the old dadams.co.uk web site when my iPod (the classic white model with the grey LCD screen) was superseded. That didn’t really bother me since it’s primary (indeed, only) function as far I was concerned is playing music. And it didn’t need a colour screen to do that.

However, in general, there’s probably no good time to buy technology. Buy too early and you’re likely to be the guinea pig who suffers the early teething problems. Buy too late and a severe case of device-envy could hit you even before you get home from the shop (or in this world of e-commerce, before the courier company finds your house).

So what’s with the Archos or iPod title? Well, I’ve been considering buying a portable movie player for a while. I have a few trips coming up, including one to South Africa – lots of time sitting around airports or on airplanes. And loads of DVDs and recorded t.v. programs that I’ve never watched (and probably never will). I’ve been pondering an Archos 604 for a while, but that’s now been superseded by the Archos 605. Seems to do all I require, plus it boasts built-in WiFi and can make use of the same software we purchased to enable the wife’s collection of chick-flick DVDs to be viewed on her iPod.

I was seconds away from hitting the purchase button when I entered into a conversation with Lakeland Steve (Florida resident and Apple share-holder). He informed me that the 5th of September was the day to watch out for the new product announcements from Apple, and the smart money is on a new large-screen touch-screen iPod (built along the lines of the iPhone). Let’s face it, Apple are pretty good at marketing and doing things at the right time, so they’d be mad not to update their product line before Christmas. However, this scuppered my Archos purchase – whether temporarily or permanently I don’t know. Of course, if I wait for the new iPod, it won’t be available in time for the South Africa trip.

So readers, what do you think? Archos now or iPod later?

Being smug about how well your football team is doing is never a good idea, for it is exactly the sort of thing that will come back and haunt you, bite you on the backside, at a later date (or if you’re unlucky, at a date in the very near future).

With two wins and a draw, and a game in hand, Arsenal actually have the potential to top the table. However, as anyone with any sense will tell you, it’s better to be in Chelsea’s position and actually have those points. Fair enough. And Liverpool also have that same potential.

But hang on a moment… what’s going on at the bottom end of the table? Man Utd, last season’s champions, in 19th place? Surely not. They spent over £50 million on new players during the Summer, how can they be wallowing around in the Premier League basement? Mr Ronaldo could know the answer, but is powerless to do anything about it while he sits out a few games following some rather ungentlemanly behaviour. Mr Rooney too can only sit and watch, although he’ll most likely be hobbling about following Coleen on yet another shopping expedition.

Amusing as I find ManYoo’s predicament, I’m not 24 hours old and know that they will soon be in the top four. To be honest, they could jump up to 8th or 9th (possibly even 7th) with a win over the Spuds tomorrow. And that won’t be anywhere near as amusing as the table as it stands right now. Ho-hum.

And spare a thought for poor old Derby… I know it’s very early days, but they’re already looking like they’re going down so fast they’ll burn up on re-entry into the Championship.

One last thing… that guy who writes for the Daily Mail who reckons that Spurs will knock Arsenal out of the top four… how are you feeling about that prediction now?

I am honoured. I have been badgering Darren for a while to get on and write down his thoughts on Billy and his gang’s latest offering, but with him being such a busy boy, he has asked me to do it.

I will be the first to admit that I have never been the Pumpkins’ biggest fan. Certain tracks from their past such as “Tonight, Tonight” from the Mellon Collie album and “Siva” from Gish have piqued my interest but it has never really led to a lasting relationship in the way it has with other bands.

But times they are a changing. Here on MTV in the US of A, in between constant re-runs of “My Super Sweet Sixteen” and “Pimp My Ride”, they find time to show an occasional video or two and there it was… the loudest and most brightly coloured offering I had seen in many a long day. I turned it up loud and it sounded even better. The track was “Tarantula”, the first single from “Zeitgeist”. Knowing Darren’s enjoyment of all things Pumpkins, and with a desire to hear more I blew an entire $10 (that’s five quid to you) on the CD. That was about a month ago and the album is rarely out of the CD player.

The opening track, “Doomsday Clock” sets the mood for much that follows. Both forceful and aggressive, it is a wall of noise that only Billy Corgan could produce. There are several stand out tracks, from the dark and moody “Bleeding the Orchid” through the single “Tarantula” to a track which Darren and I disagree about. “United States” lasts a full 9 minutes and 52 seconds. Darren says and I quote, “It is too long and self indulgent”. I on the other hand, am slightly older and was brought up on long and over indulgent stuff. “Stairway to Heaven” and “Freebird” spring immediately to mind. Thank you Billy for resurrecting an art form… the 10 minute album track. I also enjoy the surpisingly cheerful “(Come On) Let’s Go!”

My award for indulgent track goes to “Pomp and Circumstances” which feels slightly out of place. Listen to the album… you’ll see what I mean. The US version of the CD gets a title track, the acoustic “Zeitgeist” which for some reason is omitted from the UK version. Fret not, you didn’t miss much.

So, in conclusion, a splendid offering, best listened to either on your own in the car or on the iPod. The reason for this, for maximum listening pleasure, I recommend turning up the volume, very, very LOUD.

Not much I can say that Ed Brill hasn’t already said himself or posted links to, so you may as well head on over to his web site. Okay, I’ll say this… it’s getting rave reviews, people are loving the Notes 8 client (not just the new user interface but what it means for extensibility, integration and openness), and customers are seeing that the roadmap is not only solid but also innovative. The Domino 8 server represents an upgrade (that’s a true upgrade, not like some other vendor’s idea of what constitutes an ‘upgrade’) which offers immediate business value.

Furthermore, I’m seeing a lot of companies interested in the integrated editors – the idea of using something they’re already paying for (i.e. Notes) rather than paying big bucks for Office seems to be very appealing.

For more details on these new offerings, head over to the Notes and Domino pages at the Lotus web site.

Following the success of the Scottish Notes User Group (SNUG), we have resurrected the UK Lotus User Group with the announcement of an event on Wednesday 26th September 2007 at ComputaCenter’s Hatfield location. Registration is now open at the UKLUG web site… in fact we’re near to a capacity crowd already.

A couple of things you may notice. Firstly, SNUG appears to be a Notes user group rather than a Lotus user group. This is purely accidental, although if we named it the Scottish Lotus User Group, it would be known as SLUG. Secondly, what’s with having a Scottish user group and a UK user group (oh, and an Irish user group – more on that later)? What does this mean for SNUG?

Contrary to suggestions there was never any intention to name this new user group the “English Lotus User Group”. For starters that would annoy the Welsh customers (and we have some loyal and important customers in Wales). Does having an UK user group impact SNUG? No… SNUG members are more than welcome to attend UKLUG meetings – we have a vibrant established community in Scotland, but it’s a long way from London, so it’s important that we maintain SNUG as a sibling organisation that is part of the UK community. We have a wonderful corporate sponsor in the form of Standard Life who do a great job of driving the events and ensuring the momentum is maintained.

The Irish Lotus User Group (ILUG) – Paul Mooney of BlueWave and his band of devotees have continued to build this year-on-year, and it’s attracting people from all over Europe. Next year he’s hoping for 400 attendees. UKLUG and SNUG can learn from this and grow.

Anyway, back to UKLUG – Warren Elsmore has put in a lot of work, we have speakers from HSBC, Prudential and Scottish & Newcastle, and Mark Calleran (CIO of The Salvation Army) will be Master of Ceremonies (and discussing their own use of Lotus software). In addition to the customer speakers we have knowledge management guru David Gurteen and the chairman of OpenNTF, Vince Schuurman.

A final point… this is a free event. Due to a limit on the number of attendees we will be wait-listing people shortly. If you register and then cannot attend, please don’t let that place go to waste – let the organisers know and free up the place for someone on the wait-list.

It’s okay, no spoilers here. Today I finished reading ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’. No, it’s not just for kids, why should it be? I was slightly concerned that after all the build-up, the intricate detail of the preceding books, it would be a disappointment – that some detail that seemed so important and left us all hanging would be glossed over, be poorly explained, or just turn out to be plain rubbish. Nope, not in the least. Everything was pieced together, everything worked, and the conclusion was very satisfying. Quite a few surprises, although my guess about Snape was right (that’s not a spoiler, I was just right about Snape, that’s all).

Now the big problem for Warner Brothers… turn it into a decent movie. The Harry Potter movies to date have been pretty good and entertaining, and you couldn’t expect them to go into the minute details that the books do. So they have skipped some large portions of action and sub-plots, and there’s a general feeling of the approach being “well, we have to make this into a movie so let’s get it done” and hey presto, another Harry Potter movie rolls off the conveyor belt.

In ‘The Deathly Hallows’ there’s a lot of skipping to different locations (unlike the mainly Hogwarts-based ‘Order of the Phoenix’) and there’s a lot of flashbacks, a lot of action, and a lot of detailed explanatory dialogue. Miss out that stuff and the movie will be a confusing turkey. But it’ll still be better than ‘The Matrix’.

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit my grasp of the Spanish language isn’t great (my French is better). So it would be rather hypocritical of me to have a laugh at bad attempts to convey instructions in English by our continental friends. But what the hell…?

On an island with so many British tourists and relocated pensioners, surely there must have been someone they could have asked “do us a favour, check if that makes sense”. Mind you, gives me something to blog about I suppose.

This joins a growing collection of crap English spotted in Menorca, including:

• “It loks for your name” (on a display unit for key rings)
• “Same t-shirt wear the driver” (on the Son Bou Express tourist train)
• “Use only clients” (on a boat jetty)
• “Make camp or get bedding is not allowed” (okay, this was in Rome)

Does anyone have any other great examples of less-than-perfect English we can have a chuckle at?

Alright there dadams fans. The couple of weeks of silence was due to the fact that myself and the wife and offspring have been holidaying on the sunny island of Menorca. Two and a bit weeks of swimming, sitting in the shade, reading (the latest three books in Simon Scarrow’s absolutely top-notch Roman saga) and picking fights with people who smoke in restaurants. Well, okay, just the once, and it wasn’t really a fight. There we were, enjoying dinner at Dinkums in Cala Fons… four people arrive and sit nearby and before we know it this complete git has lit a cancer stick and the fumes are engulfing the wife and my daughter. Needless to say this p*ssed me off big time, the red mist descended and I said something to the effect of “either you move or put that thing out”. The sh*t-head then attempted to defend himself by saying he thought they’d finished eating, to which I replied that it didn’t matter whether they were eating or not, they didn’t want to breathe in his smoke. At this point he turned his back on me and held the ciggie away from us, and the wife persuaded me to drop it. Regrettably, unlike enlightened Britain, there are no laws against this kind of behaviour in Menorca (smoking I mean).

So, here we are back in old Blighty. The weather seems to have improved a bit. I still have a further two weeks off thanks to an old clause in the Lotus employment contract (a four week sabbatical after fifteen years of service) which IBM had to honour. Time to read the final Harry Potter volume (released the day after we left) and decorate the fourth bedroom.