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Showing posts from April, 2006

The end of my PhD

So my PhD is finally at an end. Yesterday I received the bound versions of my PhD. I used a binders called mythesis.co.uk who did everything including printing and binding for a quite reasonable price - well reasonable considering the hassle that I avoided. The quality was pretty good, with thick paper and high resolution printing. It did though have a few pages with black scuff marks, but I do not think that will matter (well I hope not anyway).

At considerable expense I sent two copies to the research degress examination office via registered mail, so I know it as arrived. Lets just hope everything is ok.

Now all I have to do is find a way to distribute it to my supervisors!

Paper published

After more than a years worth of work one of my PhD group's papers is out. It is titled "Ranked prediction of p53 targets using hidden variable dynamic modeling" and can be found here. I would just like to congratulate Martino and Mike for getting it dnoe, I know it nearly killed them.. I did not contricute that much to the paper, but was involved in a lot of the discussion and the protein measurements. It is also very
connected to my work.

Internet supermarket shopping

One of the pains of living in Epsom and not having a car is that there is not really a big supermarket that close. The best there is, is a Waitrose which is a bit pricey or a small co-op. The nearest big one is a Sainbury's which is more than 30 mins walk away.

For this reason we have started to experiment with internet grocery shopping, with the idea being that we do monthly shops using the internet, get fruit and veg from the market and other bits and bobs from co-op or Waitrose. So far we have tried two: Asda and Tesco. Asda was a right pain in the butt - the internet site did not work on anything apart from Windows internet explorer and even then the navigation and update were slow slow slow. In actual fact we even managed to lose the whole shopping list and had to repeat the hours of work. Also, the delivery did not arrive in the designated slot and some of the replacement items were dodgy.

Tescos was a considerable improvement. The main point is that the web interface was so much better and it worked on firefox which is always a plus. In actual fact the food did not arrive in the first designated slot, but early on in that slot I received a phone call to inform me that a van had broken down and to arrange another time. From then on it was plain sailing, even though they did manage to place a £5 choclate egg in that we did not want. I quick call from Alice though and we got the money back. SO the customer service was very good.

The question is, do we stick with Tesco or try Sainsburys.

Thomas Arthur Hunter

A bit late I know, but I just wanted to big up the arrival of Thomas Arthur Hunter - the Son of some good mates of mine. He was born on Monday 27th February 2006 at 22:33pm.



More details can be found here.

Back in the land of the living

We have finally back in the land of the living ... that's right broadband has finally been installed at our new place in Epsom. I must say that is a relief, because dialup not only sucks, but I think cost us a fair wack too.

The reason it took so long is that I was waiting until the exchange got upgraded to 8 MBit/s. The broadband company we are using are freedom2surf - as recommended by my bro. All seems fair and well so far although it is typical that on the very day that I get broadband talktalk announce that they are giving it away for free. Surely there must be some catch. Luckily I can always change to it after 3 months as that is the length of time I am bound to f2s.

The speed I am getting seems very good with a top speed of about 400kb/s, but it took a bit of trouble getting it that fast. I brought some buffalo airstations and with one of them came with a free ADSL2 modem, but the speed I got off that was way down. Must be cheap or maybe I just haven't worked out how to use it yet. Anyway I just reverted to my old router/modem combo and that seems to work fine.