Jamie R

Microsoft have today released Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 to the public.

This is certainly a promising version, with several features that didn’t end up in Firefox 3, such as private browsing. IE8 now supports private browsing natively, a big step for privacy and security on the web. Microsoft have also included safeguards against dodgy addons - IE8 now includes automatic crash recovery. If an addon or a web page becomes unstable and causes IE to lock up, only the actual tab will be affected, not the entire browsers, as such was the case in browsers at the minute. The core of IE8 won’t crash and the other tabs will remain stable.

Although I am primarily a user of Firefox and Safari, from a web developers point of view I am certainly looking forward to what else future incarnations of IE8 has to offer.

You can find IE8 Beta 2 here on Microsoft’s IE8 site.

Jamie.

Well, September is rapidly approaching. This means a few things for me, some nice and some not so nice. Once again, I’m off to the PLASA Show at Earls Court on the 7th and 8th, which is always a good event and gives me an opportunity to play with a lot of new toys.

This year at ABTT (which I went to in June), I was intrigued by the differences in atmosphere between the two trade shows. Whilst PLASA is an event for the whole broad spectrum of the entertainment industry and generally holds exhibitors from a wide range of corners of the industry (such as DJs etc - the first day of PLASA is always full of 16 year old “mobile DJs”), ABTT is specific to the theatre side of the entertainment industry. It was very beneficial going to ABTT, seeing as most of the lighting work that I do is indeed in theatres and the fact that I had never been to ABTT before. ABTT is so different in the respect you can actually sit down and talk to people in a decent, relaxed atmosphere on the stands. Whist I felt the amount of exhibitors were rather disappointing, the whole trade show feels so much more professional. At PLASA, whilst it is a professional event, you can’t as easily communicate with reps and people that you know/don’t know from the industry properly due to every audio company having noisy, competing stands.

However, I am looking forward to the offerings that PLASA has this year across the whole industry. I’m especially looking forward to getting my paws on the new Avolites Pearl 2010 which Avo will be launching at PLASA.

RAF’s 90th Anniversary

On a non-technical note, I am also hoping to show up at Duxford’s RAF 90th Anniversary Air Show, commemorating 90 years of the RAF. This will be the first Duxford airshow to feature XH558, the recently restored Vulcan bomber which I’ve written previous posts about. I saw XH558 for the first time at this year’s Farnborough airshow. XH558 received it’s display authorisation from the CAA no less than 2 weeks before the airshow. Pics are being processed at the minute and will be up soon.

Something closer to the heart…

This September also means something a bit more personal as well. LJ will be moving out of her parents and moving up to Nottingham where she is starting a degree in Art History at the University of Nottingham. The thought of three years not seeing her as often is hell, but I guess we shall see how things go! LJ is also 19 on the 13th, so I think that’s a cause for a big party! Love you

Anyway, on a brighter note, my summer hasn’t been too bad. I’ve been mainly working and just chilling out with friends and everyone who is deserting me and going off to uni (lol).

Clacton Airshow 2008

I went to Clacton’s 2008 seafront airshow last Friday (22nd August) and it was amazingly shite usual. I’ve never seen any glorious about the “glorious” airshow that Tendring District Council try and put on. It was a bit better this year, we didn’t have to wait half an hour between each display.

The main problem with Clacton apart from the fact it’s a seafront airshow so one lonesome aircraft so easily gets lost as the display arena along the seafront is about a mile long, is the choice or aircraft. Again, having several solo aircraft (this year’s roundup included the RAF’s Short Tucano T1 ZF338, BAe Hawk XX325, Grob Tutor G-BYXM and Jonathon Whaley’s beautifully painted Hawker Hunter MK58A “Miss Demeanour” (G-PSST) and the Eurofighter Typhoon (no reg noted sorry!) was nice but meant that the aforementioned did indeed happen.

I was especially interested to see Miss Demeanour G-PSST, as I had never seen her at any airshow before. Mainly based at Kemble, I’ve never been up there and as far as I can tell, has never appeared at any Duxford airshow, so she was a nice sight. I think overall out of every aircraft that participated, Jonathon’s display in  Miss D was the most aesthetically pleasing.

Luckily the weather this year was better than the previous years (with the exception of about half an hour on Friday when it rained heavily). Again, the Red Arrows were this year the victim of bad weather, with most of their display being commenced in rain.

The airshow commentary was crap as person usual, lacking in any decent technical detail about any of the aircraft flying (but there again, this is a family airshow and is generally attended by people who don’t know shit all about aviation) so I guess everything being in layman’s terms for Joe Public is adequate. Fortunately I couldn’t hear it for most of the afternoon.

Anyway, you may be thinking that after reading the above, I am no more than an ungrateful bastard who slates a free seafront airshow. That’s what I’ve technically done yes. However, Clacton airshow *is* a good airshow, just it lacks any decent depth of character. TDC and the companies who sponsor the displays work tremendously hard to actually put the display on, so in that respect I am very grateful for the work that they put in, because otherwise we wouldn’t have an airshow in Clacton every year. What I want to say is that from my point of view, because the display arena is so large (over a mile/mile and a half across the seafront), a single display aircraft will easily get lost.

I feel every decent seafront airshow needs a wide variety of aircraft -whist Clacton does have a good variation, it could be a lot better. I am aware of the operational and financial restrictions that the organisers have and they do a bloody good job with what resources the do have. I was hoping to see Vulcan XH558 this year at Clacton, but wasn’t on the cards. I was also hoping to see a rescue demonstration, which is was a feature of the Lowestoft Seafront Air Festival, as was XH558.

Maybe it’s just me, I dunno…

Anyway, a good day out with a pile of decent pics - I’ll get them sorted out and they’ll be up here soon.

I’m gonna sign off and go and watch TV or something. Catch ya later.

Cheers

Jamie.