I have discovered a slight issue with WP2.0 (curently using the latest nightly build and it still affects that). When you goto a page in the admin site the execute-pings.php page takes an awfully long time to execute. I am however not sure why (it takes so long) and more importanlt why it is loding on every page in the admin site? surely it’s only needed on the post functon’s for the write post and page?

I will add it to the WP bug tracking list, see what they can do. For the time being all you need to do is use IE and press escape while the page is ’stalled’ and it seems to then render correctly.

Oh well, that’s Beta’s for you.

Cars, you say why plural? Well I have a fair few cars so here is the details.

• Skoda Fabia vRS - PD160 Induction, Remap, Avon ZZR3 Tires, Parrot CK3000 BT Kit.
• Skoda Octavia Estate PD140 DSG - New Unmodded (Wife’s Car), Nokia BlueTooth kit.
• MR2 AW11 SC TBar - Water Injection, Carbon Fibre panels, Fiberglass Panels, HKS SC Pulley, Work in Progress.
• MR2 AW11 NA TBar - Work in Progress.
• MR2 AW11 NA SR - Work in Progress

And there you have it, my car collection. I may post some pictures at some point (when there clean enough to photograph)

Meant to say, there are new episodes of both Lost and My Name is Earl out and about. Go get ‘em

There are a few good post’s over at B3ta today, however one of my favorite one is the one to the right.

If you have never had the pleasure of B3ta then I highly recommend a visit.

Looks like Toyota will be annoying Honda even more in 2007, it seems that they have won the right’s to host the 2007 F1GP at Mount Fuji instead of Honda’s Suzuka track.
It is said that Toyota have spent nearly 170 million dollars on getting the Fuji track up to scratch, and it seems that the FIA have noticed. 

So not only will Toyota and Honda be battling more closely than ever on the track they are battling for the track as well. 

Plus Mount Fuji is a beautiful place

Popped to see the new Potter movie over the weekend and though I should really do a review of sort’s. I would however like to make one thing clear before you read he review, I’m not really a Harry Potter fan, don’t think much at all to any of the previous movies, and because of that I have never read the books. It’s not like I dislike them, just do not think they are all that there cracked up to be; and on that note, here we go.

The movie starts off by showing us one of Harry’s dreams about Voldermort and the intro section has the Quidich world cup. The pace of the first section of the movie is good moving along at a fair pace and keeping everyone happy with the plot (of sorts) development. 

I say of sorts as we all know the plot to all of the Potter movies is going to be good (Potter and friends) vs. Evil (Voldermort and henchmen, one of which is undercover in Hogwarts). This is my chief criticism of all of the Potter movies, they are all too predictable. But then the books where written for children, so I won’t hold it against them. 

The movie unfolds with the 3 challenges and the likes all of which are superbly shot, and to be fair to the cast they must have been taking acting lessons as the acting and delivery of the lines is much improved over the previous movies. 

The special effects are for the most part wonderful, and some of the artwork in the building’s and dragons is beautiful, the texture artists deserve some very high praise. The dragons move very organically as well, and the underwater scenes are not bad (however it helps that they make Potter swim fish like rather than human). My chief criticism about the FX would be of the morphing scenes, not that good, and I thought morphing was perfected years ago.

As always the locations that the movie is shot are again beautiful, the countryside is a marvel to behold (even if digitally cleaned up).

Overall the movie was not too bad, the middle section of it was too long (in fact the movie would have probably been better if it where 120 minutes long rather than the 160 it is) but it picked up again fairly well in the final section.

Overall the Wife (Potter fan) liked it, and that’s really all that matter’s. I always take her to see them, and then end up watching out for the advancements and niceties in the FX. The movie this time was not all that bad and certainly should be seen if you have seen the previous chapters to the Potter story. It’s just that the story does not grab me; to be honest one of the best bit’s of the night was the trailers for Kong and Narnia.

I recommend you go see it for yourself, as it is a competent movie, just not as good as the hype (are they ever? Let’s hope Kong is!)

Dan has pointed me in the direction of Rory again as he has been on about the penis enlargment patches and the spam email that is doing the rounds (still).  I know I’m quite juvenile, but it’s funny

After the news from General Motors yesterday that they will be laying off 30,000 workers and close nine plants there is some good articles doing the rounds on the net.

Autoblog has a nice roundup on what the losses will mean to the people and the industry.

Personally I really think it was bound to happen sooner rather than later as GM have been resting on there laurels for far too long now.  Ford has bucked up its ideas with its new (European at least) range of models all getting better in build, dynamics and ride comfort.

That cannot be said for Vauxhall / Opel though, there cars are still in the dark ages in comparison to the equivalent Japanese / European manufacturers (and even now Ford). If the GM of America is anything like the European cousins then I can see where the problem lies. GM need to get there act together and build good high quality cars that people WANT to own, not have because the car lease plan says that is there only option.

After all I’m English so know all about the problems of car manufacturers struggling (all of the English marks are now owned by other countries), Take Rover for example, and I have witnessed first hand the problems that a manufacturer as big as GM laying off large numbers of people can cause.  However the only real solution is to go back to the drawing board and build a GOOD car that sparks peoples imaginations and desires. Fiat have done this recently with the brilliant but cheap Panda, so it proves it does not have to be a 30-50 thousand pound car.

Please GM get your act together, and make us all want to own a Vauxhall / Opel / Monaro / GM.

Well, I have been having a play about with the new WordPress beta (currently running live on the site), and my thought’s are as follows.

• New admin interface for the most part nice, lacking in some features (spell check and the likes).
• ChenPress does not work so I cannot fix the above problem.
• ieSpell is blocked in the editor page? not sure why, but probably has something to do with the way there implementing the Post Editor ‘window’
• Most plug ins (beside ChenPress and AjaxSpell Checker so far) work fine with the new version.

In other news, I have given in and bought Mint as Dan rates it very highly, and from what I can see so far it is very good (not as pretty as Google Analytics, but hey it is real time ;)) Pop along here to keep an eye on Peppers for Mint

So for now I would not put anyone else off doing the upgrade to the latest beta of WordPress, however I would say BACK IT UP before you begin.

This is just a little bit of a warning for all those that are, have tried or are thinkin about using Google Analytics.  Seems that Google where just not expecting quite the level of demand they have had So the service may be lagging a little in both collecting and generating the statistic’s.  Also they have closed the signup process down.