Eton Mess
An alterntive newsletter to the official press releases is now availalbe, hopfully every day. The Eton Mess is planned to be available every day.
August 20, 2006
Exploding Switches
The IT team continues to provide support for all manner of problems. The most common issue to date appears to be the inability to connect onto a printer - a Windows network with no nameserver can be temperamental at times. But we've sorted out the method for us first level support teams - try the IP and if that does not work, recyle the print server. And remember to put the IP range in the firewall ;-).
Outside of the general support, the biggest dram has been a switch blowing up. Problems with the generator and current resulted in a 72 connection switch smoking and burning. A replacement has now been cobbled together.
Next steps..we off to search for rogue access points.
August 19, 2006
Media Review
I've been looking round the web for digital activity associated with the World Rowing Champs and not finding too much. But that's because I started off in my usual places...like blogs..and it is not a sprt that appears to get too much coverage via that medium, with Technorati only listing 38 blogs that list the sport as one of their topics. But that is because the RSS feed has become my default mechanism but there's still a lot out there that does not use it.
The coverage of the sport in the UK is not too large, it does get mentions in the papers but not as much as it could givent he success of the British athletes. As this letter in The Times suggests, despite the medal haul, it is never going to be a top priority to the media. But the BBC are here (with their miles of cables) and the sport is broadcast in many other countries. It is popular enough to merit selling the rights and therefore having prominant notices up about what non-authorised broadcasters can and cannot do.
I'm going to working a lot of time in the media centre, which is pretty large. A lot of the IT infrastructure has been set up to support this - everyone has net access, there are dedicated lines to the broadcast media and a large volunteer team to support them. ALthough the official website has an online diary from Debbie Flood, the rest of the news coming out of the team is all very 'official', by which I mean it has that particular tone only associated with press releases. And they are cranking them out today - 6 already and counting. At least they have not put them up there are pdfs.
Almost all of the accredited media would be regarded as mainstream. A potential exception to this would be Rachel Quarrell, who has been running her Rowing Service site for 12 years. Seen as the most comprehensive list of links to all types of rowing resources, the site provides links to news around the world. I've always enjoyed the live updates of the events. But for a slightly different look at the world of UK rowing, the Tideway Slug always has the gossip.
April 08, 2006
Volunteer Briefing
Today was a volunteer briefing, held at Doreny Lake. In three sessions over 2 days, the committee are taking all the 'new' volunteers, ie those that did not help at last year's World Cup, through general information and a first meet and greet with the team leader.
The general stuff was very similar to the briefings I've been to before. Followign the general stuff, people were split into teams. I;d not been assigned a team before hand, but found out that I'd been placed in the IT team. Which could be interesting if it has anything to do with actually running the IT on site..my knowledge of that was neglible. I'd put on my volunteer form that I've got some experience with websites, so it may be in that area.
The only other action today was to pick sizes for the uniform - shirt, splash top and cap. There;s not likely to be too much more contact over the next few months, for many people it'll be mainly a matter of turn up.
Blue Water
A spring day at Dorney. The sky is blue, the sun is out but there is a fierce wind blowing.
