Why do problems never happen singularly? Just like the old adage about buses in the UK, you don’t see any for a long time, then three come along at once.

Well the last week has seen my three buses arrive in quick succession. Firstly I am snowed under with work right now, not a problem in itself, but definitely a problem when considered as part of the overall situation. Secondly, Nuth has been sick, meaning I have had to take care of Leon, no time for work, anyone who thinks you can take care of a baby and still get a full days work in is living on a different planet. Lastly, the Internet in the apartment building has been terrible lately, most of the time it is unusable. So between looking after Leon, and a dodgy Internet connection, I have managed to dig myself in to quite a hole with a huge backlog of work. This week I am going to need to put in something like 60 hours just to catch up! Oh well, fingers crossed I can clear my desk by the end of the week and take a couple of days off.

I am having real problems deciding between these two at the moment. I have switched between them several times over the last couple of years.

I really like IE7, but it has some things that really annoy me, most noticeably the fact you cannot customise the address bar. I like to add my key Google toolbar items to the address bar, switch to small icons and run a nice streamlined browser setup. This is no problem with Firefox, with IE7 it is impossible.

Firefox is fine right now, but it does not have the progressive image loading technology that IE7 incorporates, this is a really cool feature when you are running such a slow Internet connection as mine.

I think for now I have to stay with firefox, it’s the lesser of two evils basically. Why Microsoft decided to make such a mess of the IE7 interface customisation is beyond me. If they ever actually get around to doing something about changing it then I will definitely switch over to IE7, I prefer the surfing experience over Firefox.

Last night saw the first live usage of the mobile audio streaming rig I have put together, this consists of two laptops, one CDMA phone and another phone using a GPRS EDGE connection. The CDMA is used for the upstream and the less reliable GPRS to monitor the downstream.

I streamed 9 hours of dance music from the Temporary Insanity party here on Koh Phangan. Not a single problem was encountered, everything worked fantastically. I will definitely be doing this again, it was good fun and a first for the island.

The next challenge is live streaming video, although I have no idea how I would find enough portable bandwidth to achieve it. Maybe if I could multilink GPRS connections it might work but I have a feeling none of the GPRS providers here would allow it.

I used to have a really nice, lightweight and compact keyboard. I used to use this keyboard plugged into my laptop and rest it on my knees whilst sitting in my hammock on the balcony. This was a very cool way to work, comfortable and pleasant as I could look down over the garden. In the evening I could sit there and listen to the frogs and insects sing, all very relaxing and quite a nice work environment.

It was very hot this morning and I had forgotten that I had left the keyboard sitting on the balcony. I just went up there to get a glass I had used last night to clean it and I noticed my keyboard looked a little odd.

I picked it up and it flexed in my hands, the plastic has gone very soft, it looks like some weird piece of abstract art! I very much doubt it will work now even if I form it back into the correct shape and leave it to cool down. Oh well, at least my friend Bear is bringing a new one over with him from Ireland next week.

It can be a real problem replacing things like this on Koh Phangan, there is just nowhere to buy them, and a UK layout keyboard is pretty much impossible to replace anywhere in Thailand.