After discovering that Joost works on the PS3 browser I then decided to to see if the BBC iPlayer worked in the same way and it did! The BBC iPlayer web site now detects if you have a Playstation 3 and then serves up a smaller vision of the site for the PS3. It even tells you to press the right controller in to maximise the content you are watching. I must say there were a lot less complications with it than there was with Joost, probably because the BBC kept it simple, simple works for me it means less goes wrong.

Now I know the iPlayer has been working on the Wii for a while now but its nice to see it working on the PS3 as its the only console I usually keep plugged in because it plays my Blu Ray discs, DVD's and is a lot better at playing streamed content from my Windows Media Centre PC better than my Xbox 360!

You can also see past episodes of Hero's on the iPlayer now BTW.

Okay to anyone in the know this is probably old news by now and the reason I missed this exciting news is I have been locked in a room for 6 months delivering a web site (its pretty cool).

Anyway I got an announcement from Joost today saying that the old Joost client will soon stop working and that I should now watch Joost content directly from the browser. I visited Joost and fair enough all the content was available to view from a browser it then got me think, this all works on Flash right? So it should all been viewable from the PS3's web browser. I hurriedly rummaged around the back of my Xbox, pulled out the fibre optic surround sound cable and plugged it into my PS3 (I had been playing Halo 3 on the Xbox 360 previously). I visited the Joost site and low and behold it works! It also works in full screen! How cool is that I know longer need to plug my laptop into my TV to watch Joost!

Only problems I have had so far is the PS3 sometimes complains about the content not having the correct certificate when I try to click accept it just doesn't highlight the selection and the browser gets stuck so I have to go out and go back into the browser. Other than that its not to bad, however I still get a considerable amount of pauses in the content. It must be my broadband connection not being fast enough (8 megs measured at 6 megs tops) or just a lot of people requesting content?

It always astounds me how bad Sky Customer service really is. Sky I believe is a victim of its own success, they have a large percentage of the pay TV market and appear to struggle keeping up with servicing their existing customers. They have made an attempt to put some of this online so customers can attempt to service their own accounts, but at the moment it just doesn't cover everything that is needed.

To give you an example. I wanted to reactivate my Sky Multiroom room subscription for over Christmas because I had family staying with me who may want to watch other TV shows. You would have thought it would be a simple thing to do right? Well here is what went wrong.

Not sure who to phone I contacted the general Sky Customer Service phone number. The choices they had available with their automated operator service was confusing none of the options for multi room were there so I ended up having to choose something I could find as close as possible to what I wanted. So I am first put through to an automated operator which asks me for my details such as my phone number (you could get this from caller display surely), my postcode and my date of birth.

Finally after 4 minutes I get through to someone and ask the lady if she could help me she told me that she could reactivate my multiroom but that all their systems were down great! I asked her if I could do this online, she said she was not sure. I had to phone back later that night, so I did and got through a call centre in India after being on the phone for 5 minutes who told me the same thing! What really annoyed me is their automated operator could have said "All of our systems are down at the moment please phone back later". Okay I would have to deal with Sky the next day maybe their systems would be up and running then?

The next day after going through the automated operator and telling it all of my details and after waiting the usual 4 minutes I get through to an operator. The operator then goes and asks me these same details again! I explain to him that I have a Sky Plus Box and an additional Sky box that I would like to to re-enable Sky Multi-room on and that I have an existing viewing card for that box. He tells me that he has to put me on hold while he goes away and asks someone after about a minute he returns and tells me that they will have to send me a new viewing card. I ask him if he is sure as I have perfectly good card here, he decides to go away again and ask and about a minute later is back again. I am afraid to ask this guy any more questions because he just doesn't know anything. He tells me he will have to read me Sky's customers agreement on the phone. I resign myself to this and am grateful when the call is over.

Two days later my new viewing card arrives and put it in the box,m but then it tells me I need to activate it ahhh! First of all I log into my Sky account online to see if I can activate the card online without having to wait in a long queue...no! Okay so I ready myself by the phone and call the number suggested on the paper that comes with the card. I get the automated operator who asks me for all of my details to speed things up, I give her my details and then I get put into a queue for 4 minutes..joy! Finally I get through to a call centre in India where the lady first asks me for all the details I gave the automated operator and then tells me I don't have a phone password setup on my account, so I set one up. Then I tell her about activating my Sky card and she tells me she will have to put me through to the correct department and there is a 3 minutes wait! "Okay" I say biting my bottom lip, before she puts me through she gives me the number to phone them directly (why wasn't this on the instructions?) funnily enough I get through to a centre straight away in Scotland, well the lady sounds Scottish and I can understand her perfectly. I explain the problem I have an she also notices that now I have two extra Sky box's registered to my account! I tell her what happened with the guy yesterday and she tells me he shouldn't have sent me an extra card and he should have just reactivated the existing card. She asks me if I would like to to reactivate the old card. I tell her yes, I then ask he about the extra card and I am worried I am going to be charged yet another 10 pounds a month for another subscription. She says because the card isn't activated I shouldn't be charged for two multi room subscriptions. Okay fair enough, she tells me that I will have to 2 minutes to 4 hours for the channels to come through on my additional Sky box.

So after waiting 5 hours I still don't get any channels on the extra box and decide to reboot the box just to make sure but still the same problem. You guessed it I found myself on the phone again to Sky the annoying automated operator asks me the same details again and then when I finally get through to Sky after the usual 4 minutes the guys checks for me and tells me he is going to send the channels to my box again (why can't they add this feature to their web site and let customers do this themselves?) anyway I tells me to wait at least 4 hours again to make sure the channels come through. "very well" I say and then query him on two sky multi room subscriptions being added to my account. He takes a look and goes "oh yes I see" and then he pauses "oh no what's going on" then there is another pause "oh my computer just turned itself off"  I can't believe it! He then tells me I will need to phone back later! Anyway at least my channels are now coming through on my extra box but I am still worried I am going to be charged twice for multi room.....ahhh!

Can anyone tell me if they have the same problem with Virgin Media or Tiscali?

I have often been irriated beyond belief by inconsiderate train passengers who choose that very moment in life to call every number that exists on their phone. We've all sat next to them, they are the people who are uncomfortable with silence. They talk on the phone not because they have to but because they can't help themselves. They are the reasons you yourself only makes calls on the train if its necessary or keep them short. They are the reasons you usually say "I am on the train now I'll call you back later". Anyway C2C trains are introducing a membrane on the windows of their quiet carriages to stop this once and for all. The membrane basically blocks all radio signals from penetrating the train. Wehoo! Now if they could just find a device to block loud personal steros.

My wife and I decided since they had a deal on laminate flooring at Home Base (like Home Depo for my American readers) this weekend, to finally replace the old carpet in the dining room with laminate. What I saw in the advert was 3.98 per box what it actually meant was 3.98 per meter about 8.83 per box. Oh well it’s still pretty cheap right? Well that's until you have to buy all the extras to lay it down it son starts to add up. You'll need a fitting kit and Homebases cheap kit at 9.99 is a bit noddy, you will need a mallet or Homebases equivalent about 14.99. Is that all? Nope far from it, you'll also need a circular saw at 40 pounds, for those long planks if you like me are useless at cutting straight lines. Otherwise a normal saw will do. A foldaway cutting table will also set you back 50 pounds if you don't already have one. Don't forget corking at 9.99 a bag, you will probably need two and then if you are laying it on concrete floors you'll need a vapour barrier at 19.99 for 10 square meters (we needed two box's). See how it all adds up? Fitting the stuff isn't the easiest thing in the world. Now I know my grammar and spelling is nothing to rave about but the instruction that came with the flooring was riddled with mistakes. Anyway if you are planning to lay some laminate flooring, please enjoy yourself! :)

I think its a bit too convenient that the Osborne or "yaughtgate" affair gets brought to our attention now when the government has its old king of sleeze Peter Mandelson back on board. It almost appears that it was a well thought out manouver to entrap Osbourne and take some of the heat off Labour for a while. Its a clever move on Labours part, the thing is it all seems so blatantly obvious. Labour if anything comes out from an enquiry can just say "oh tut tut Mandelson you'll have to go" because you were also on the boat, while Osborne leaving is major blow to the Torys. You can almost imagine Mandelson walking past Osborne in the house of commons saying "nothing personal old chap politics is politics" with a grin. Osborne is probably kicking himself now, the thing is he did nothing wrong all that happened was a play on words. Even if the loan or donation had been made it would be via a British company. I believe there will be a high five exchanged between Mandelson and Gordon Brown tonight. Mandelson reminds me of the person in those old gangster movies "a friend of the family" you bring him in like a trump card to sort out "the family's" problems and then he's gone again... PS appologies for any spelling or punctuation mistakes this article was written from a small PDA screen on the train.

I am so annoyed with Windows Vista it has got to be one of the most annoying operating systems. Why does it have to take so long after unlocking it to resume? XP used to take a couple of seconds tops. Why does it take so long to resume after hibernation? Again XP was a hell of a lot better. Don't get me started on booting up, I delibratly decided to keep my Vista install clear of clutter and place everything on Virtul MAchines and as predicted 4 months later Vista grinds to a holt. In my min it officially blows. When will they come up with an OS geared towards people on the move who don't want to wait on their PCs to resume the PC should be waiting on you not the other way around.

Its pretty much astounded me what home repossessions have done to whole neighbourhoods in parts of the US. Basically turning neighbourhoods into areas that are derelict and vandalised as the banks have been unable to sell the houses they repossessed.

It made me wonder after seeing the article Ministers plan repossession help on the BBC web site, wether it would have been better to the neighbourhoods and to the banks if they approached these people and said "Okay how much can you afford to pay us?". As apposed to saying "Lets get them out of their and get our money or as much as we can back now". Surely this would work out better to the banks, because at least they would be getting some type of income on the money they are owed even if it is lower and if they help these people, when they get back on their feet they would be the first to benefit. I am pretty sure that the other alternative leaves both parties out of pocket and could devalue a property market even further making once thriving neighbourhoods ghost towns.

I've just been reading a fascinating article about the soldier of the future on how he will be more than just a normal foot soldier but part of a wireless network his clothes, armor and possibly even his gun integrated into a network that provides a wealth of information to him.

The soldier of the future will know as much information as say the military planning room. He will be able to feed into a network to make strategic decisions. His clothing and armor will help keep him cool in hot climates and warm when its cold. He will be able to interface with his units robotic drone that can relay aerial photographs to him or to land based "mules" that carry supply's for more ammunition, water and various other supplies.

What could possibly go wrong?

Now the above vision is probably nothing new to you if you have played games such as Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon  and yes wouldn't it be so cool if the soldier of the future had all of these abilities? The thing is it really got me thinking about the issues we have with computers today and lets use Microsoft Windows as an example. No matter how fast your PC is the damn new operating system still takes for ever to load even to recover from standby. Imagine the operating system for the soldier of the future was based on a Windows Vista (scary thought isn't it?). I am not saying it will be I just wanted to give a shock example. The soldier of the future would be in mid conflict when his screen display would malfunction complaining that the USB/FireWire connection with his gun had failed and that advanced aiming systems was down. "Would you like Windows to find an alternative driver for you?". He may also get a message stating that the preferred wireless network "USMILUNIT678" was not available would you like to connect to "ENEMYNET101" instead? Or for some unknown reason his system was unable to get an IP address because it could not find the DHCP server. Or half way through fighting, Windows suddenly rediscovers his gun and tries to reinstall it. Another thing that may happen is Windows for no reason at all starts to use up 100% CPU every time he plugs his gun or camera in. Or half way through making a tactical decision gets a message saying "Windows is low on resources  try closing down some programs".

While trying to destroy an enemy target he make get an interruption such as "Windows has noted you are trying to take a sniper shot would you like to make use of the sniper wizard?" When chosen he may get a message "Windows is now installing the software for this operation please have your install CD ready" or "You now need to reboot for these changes to take effect".