So here we are, post election, looking forward to a hung parliament (or a “balanced” parliament as we’re now supposed to call it, perhaps to avoid giving anyone ideas). Of course, after all the squabbling over ideology from the leaders debates, we now have the amusing situation of watching both the Conservatives and Labour pretending that all their differences with the Lib Dems that were such an issue a few weeks ago (and a reason not to vote for them), are now minor things that can be worked around.

Add to that, continual references to Gordon Brown “hanging on to power” (er, no, constitutionally he doesn’t resign until a replacement government is ready to take over), and general statements that seem to indicate that quite a number of senior MP’s either do not understand the way elections are run (here is a hint, no British Prime Minister is elected directly), or are happy to deliberately mislead the public, and we seem to have a continuation of the same old self-serving politics.

Have any of them learnt their lesson? Will the requirements of a coalition lead to a more co-operative (maybe even more democratic) government? Or will it simply lead to another general election sometime in the next 6 months?

The latest release of SpamCheck has been released, and should be available for download. SpamCheck is an Open Source email spam and virus filter provided by Dial Media Group.

The latest version fixes issues with selecting an email when the subject is blank, and ensures that when a user is set to use the domain default scores they will always use the current values.

If you are responsible for a small network at work, then ensuring your data is backed up can be an ongoing struggle. Tape backup is often the obvious choice, but how often do you check that the backup is working? When was the last time you did a test restore to see if the data is actually usable? Maybe you have looked into remote (over the wire) backups, and been put off by the time required to back up data over your existing connection, or the cost of upgrading your connectivity so that remote backups are feasible. There is, however, another option.

Here at DMGi we have been working on a system called DoubleBack that provides both local and remote disk-based backups, allowing regular snapshots of your network servers internally, and regular remote backups to our own secure Data Centre. The combination means you have fast, easy to access, regular backups locally, making restoring individual files as simple as browsing a directory tree through a web interface, and off-site backups for your Disaster Recovery procedure, or even to access a file you need when out of the office.

For more details, please visit the DoubleBack website.

So here we are in an election year, and no-one seems to be talking about the price of a gallon of fuel. Despite the odd fluctuation, the price has steadily increased over the last year or so, and yet not one political party seems to want to comment publicly on this.

Now, we all know that public finances are stretched, and whoever wins, taxation will rise and expenditure will be cut, but the current level of duty and taxation of almost 66p a litre is a ridiculous burden on commuters. Once again, we are being penalised for being a flexible working population – the further you are prepared to go to work, the more you will be taxed for the effort.

Surely, now is the time for a forward-thinking party to propose either a direct cut in fuel duty, or an allowance/rebate to encourage the economy on a local scale. More money in peoples pockets, equals more money spent on goods and services, where it will be taxed anyway, and end up in the government coffers, but at least others will benefit from the circulation first.

On my drive to work this morning I was struck with an alteration to a cars power transmission that seemed to me to be both fun and fairly obvious. Currently when choosing a car you have a choice between  4 wheel drive, front wheel drive and rear wheel drive, with proponents of all making various arguments for their chosen system.

My idea, which occurred whilst changing down to take a bend, in order to supply a bit more torque, is simple – a system that allows power to be variably fed to either, or both of the front and rear wheels, depending on the circumstances. Now, ideally this would require an additional pedal, that in standard configuration would send power to the front wheels. When fully depressed all power would be sent to the rear wheels instead, and somewhere in the middle both sets would be driven in four wheel drive.

To achieve this, the car would need an automatic transmission, as the clutch pedal would make way for the new control. As I am not a fan of automatic transmission, my ideal would be an automatic shifting manual gear selection (similar to Saab’s Sentronic system). The end result, the best of all possible worlds?

I was listening to breakfast television this morning, and two people debating who was at fault for the current economic situation (apparently it was “the other guy”), and it struck me that surely, this is exactly not what is needed at the moment.

Would it not be better if politicians of all persuasions worked together to get the country out of the huge amount of debt it is currently in, rather than finger-pointing and trying to score cheap sound-bites against each other. From what I can see, the politicians we have are more interested in using the situation for their own gain, and as a tool to get elected next year, rather than working together to sort the mess out.

Ultimately, it really does not matter whose fault it is – I am sure the public will make it quite clear during the election – what is important is working with each other to minimise the damage.

Sad news indeed that the world’s oldest sheep, Lucky, has died in Australia. The Internet Sheep salutes you.

There seems to be a growing trend (or at least an increasingly vocal movement) to decry the current governmental thinking on climate change and the various efforts being made to reduce carbon production and energy usage.

Now, here at The Internet Sheep we must admit to not being 100% convinced by all the arguments, and we are certainly open to the possibility that current variations in temperature might not be man-made. However, we do feel that this is perhaps missing the point. Surely, the point is that there is a chance that our own actions are damaging the environment and that we will be the ones to suffer if this is true. It therefore makes sense to do what we can to reduce this, just in case the projections are real – to take the other viewpoint is surely gambling on a potentially huge risk for very little reward. Most of the big proponents seem to take the line that environmental reductions will cost various economies – for which we can read it will reduce profits in various big corporates – to be honest the message here for them is to get on with it, if their only method of making short term gain is to potentially damage the planet maybe it’s time they ceased trading.

To put it another way, it’s a bit like a game of Russian Roulette – the gun may or may not be loaded, and we’re being asked to put it to our head and find out – surely the better advice is not to pull the trigger.

Maybe you agree. and maybe you don’t, but one of the problems with party-based politics is the fact that it is party based, and a large part of the population seems to vote based upon party lines, rather than individual party policies, or even based upon which of the candidates for their local MP is the best match for their beliefs.

Now, perhaps the best way to get around this would be to have all prospective MPs standing as independents, but that is never going to happen – there is too much party-based infrastructure, and even if you could convince everyone to stand independently, over time you would get groups of MPs joining forces, and eventually end up where you started.

However, perhaps the problem is not so much the existence of political parties, but the actions of the voters – is there a way to prevent, or at least make it harder for, the voter to simply vote for a party rather than individual candidates and their policies. Thinking about this, the following came to mind.

If voting forms removed party allegiances, and simply stated candidate names, at least voters would need to spend a bit of time researching who was standing (and who they were standing for), before entering the voting booth. Hopefully this would encourage the public to engage a bit further with politics, as a bit of prior thought would then be required in order to cast a vote.

Having thought this over for a bit, there is then the intriguing possibility of taking this even further – remove candidate names and parties from voting forms, and replace them with stated policies, perhaps a limit of 5 or so, that the candidate would be bound to abide by during their term of office. The public would then truly be voting for a policy, not a party. If sufficient candidates pro a certain policy are elected, then that policy is guaranteed to be put into force. Some form of oversight would be required to ensure that stated policies are enacted, and that the policies placed upon the form are not abused. Perhaps there would be 3 standard policy statements decided upon by an election committee that each candidate would state their position on, and 3 individual policies provided by the candidate themselves.

The end result would be to require the voting public to engage in the political process and learn where candidates actually stand – it would not be impossible to identify a candidate and their party, but the research required only increases the knowledge of the voter. In addition, the voters are guaranteed that having elected a candidate on the basis of certain policies, they will receive that representation – a candidate cannot promise one thing and then deliver another.

You’ve got to love HP Printers. Slight crisis at the Sheep Pen when the smallest Sheep in the household needed to print out her homework. Of course, the black ink cartridge chooses that moment to run out, and homework has to be in tomorrow and the shops are shut. Having located a spare cartridge, I note that the “install by” date is sometime in 2003, but carry on regardless.

A couple of cleaning cycles and the output, is to say the least, streaky, and it looks like nothing is getting printed tonight… however, a rinse under the tap, a few rubs with some tissue to get the ink going, and  a print run later… the output isn’t perfect, but it’s better than nothing.

Many years ago, at work, we dug out an old HP Deskjet (possibly a Deskjet II, that’s how long ago) from a dusty store cupboard where it had sat for at least 4 years, stuck in a fresh cartridge, and away it went.

Maybe you can get something cheaper,  maybe you can get something that printers higher quality. But, they do seem to work even after being ignored for years.