“I got a new football”

Good to see where the priorities lie with the young ‘un.

It isn’t that great a photo, but it is the first ever one, so I’ve used it. Baby is about 6 minutes old here

As yet, this model is un-named, but we’ll update you as soon as we know! There are some much better photos on Flicker in this photoset. Please send everyone there to have a look!

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…and cross my fingers that the update to WordPress 2.5 won’t totally hose all this hard work

Having recently recovered from the dreaded “PPP server is down” problem with my broadband internet access (using the wonderful Speedtouch 330 USB modem + latest drivers solution), I discovered this morning that we had been hit with the equally awful “no VOIP dialtone” on our Orange second home phone line. Although this is seemingly not as dire as losing broadband access, our lodger has been using the service to call New Zealand for free which is, naturally, quite a significant saving on… er… not free…

Having just switched (back) over to a dedicated Linux PC (dual boot begone!) I was re-he-he-healy not looking forward to calling Orange technical (un)support to find a solution so I decided to do a thorough internet scan for fixes. My first port of call for such problems was, as always, the orangeproblems.co.uk and broadbandbuyer.co.uk forums. Unfortunately, despite finding many people who have been suffering with the same problems for months, I found no one proffering a solution.

Fortunately, I found a very obvious one. I managed to solve the problem at my first attempt without recourse to Orange Technical Support at all and I’d like to pass on a very simple tip to anyone else who is having the same problem and who has a cordless DECT phone and has been using the BT phone adaptor provided with the Livebox. You may not need to have a DECT phone, but since I’m not a telephone expert and I only have a DECT wireless phone at present, this is the only phone type for which I can say this fix works. Chances are, there are quite a few of you out there who have this sort of phone and have this exact problem. However as is always the case with these things, your mileage may vary (YMMV) with this solution. On the other hand, if this tip sorts just one person out, I’ll be happy.

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So another year in the life of Master Thomas J. Scannell rolls around and I can quite definitely declare that he is now four. He assures us that he is now a grown up and is no longer a baby in any way. Furthermore, he has decreed that the booster seat he uses at the dinner table is no longer necessary and he intends - in the very near future - to ride his brand new bike to school.

This is a photo of Tommy, Hannah, Sonny and I taken today at the National Railway Museum in York - the destination for Tommy’s birthday treat. I’ll add some more pictures later. Tommy is calling for his bath to be filled!