Unfortunately, the pressures of life mean that Noelinho.org is currently taking a more back-seat role in my life than I would like right now. However, there are some developments that should soon be arriving on Noelinho.org and associated websites:

• A Sassenach CMS update to include somwe nice new media such as images and video;
• Comprehensive coverage of the 2009 F1 season;
• Those long-awaited book reviews (there are almost some read and able to review!);
• A quick guide to AJAX and how to make it work (you can tell what I've been working on recently...);
• A quick guide to using Apache's mod_rewrite module;
• A brand spanking new section on... The West Wing.

Ok, so maybe that last one needs a little explaining. I mean, the West Wing is a little old now, but it does still have a cult following. And you know what, if Lost can have Lostpedia, then the West Wing badly needs something to match. It gives me something to do.

I have, of late, been fairly on-the-mark with my political predictions. When many people predicted, at the start of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, that Labour could hold the seat, I scoffed at the thought. As the campaign continued, and Labour members realised that winning was not the most likely of possibilities, I predicted a 6,000 majority for the Conservatives. People scoffed. "You're just being pessimistic. It can't be that bad." It wasn't - it was worse.

When David Davies resigned his seat in Haltemprice and Howden, people jumped up to attack Davies as opportunistic, trying to undermine David Cameron, trying to grab attention. They didn't take him seriously. They thought David Davies could be cast as a loony. I saw a man who was standing by his convictions, and those alone. A man who wasn't going to get rolled over. I saw Labour's refusal to stand as a big mistake. I still think it was a big mistake, albeit one that hasn't hurt them as much as it could have - but it will continue to hover in the background.

I knew, in all probability, that Boris Johnson would win the London mayoral elections, although I tried my best to ignore it and convince myself that Ken Livingstone could, like he had many times before, defied the Labour Party - and its electoral fortunes - and snatch victory. But even for Red Ken, that was always going to be one step too far.

In Henley, everyone knew it would be bad. Hardly a "natural" Labour area - but something I'll come back to. The point here, is that these things were all bad for the Labour Party.

But Glasgow East was different. No-one predicted Glasgow East would go. No Labour people predicted it. No SNP people really seemed to truly believe it would happen, but were certainly confident they would get close. Me? I thought they'd get within, depending upon turnout, of course, 2,000 - 3,000 votes of winning. So, on the election night, I went to bed. There was, after all, nothing interesting to watch or listen to.

Quite some misjugement. The SNP may not have won with a large majority, but they didn't need to. Winning by one vote was enough. It was more than enough. Winning this seat is quite some achievement. The last time the Labour Party didn't win this seat was in the 1945 General Election. Except that doesn't really count. Why? Well, it was won by the Independent Labour Party, which broke away from the Labour Party in 1932. The winner of that seat was someone who originally stood for the Labour Party, broke away with the ILP and then rejoined at the end of the 1940s. Basically, the Labour Party, in their history, with the exception of this rather misleasding exception, have never lost this seat. The SNP have never recorded more than 20% of the vote in the area of Glasgow East.

On Thursday, that was thrown out of the window. Gordon Brown can grit his teeth and say that it was down to Scottish issues, like the lack of a Labour leader in Scotland, but everyone knows that is rubbish. The voters of Glasgow East don't care about that. It's not even as if the candidate wasn't known in the area. The Labour Party needs to stop blaming every loss on exceptional circumstances.

This does not, of course, mean to say that the SNP will hold this seat at the next election. Given the size of their majority, that is highly unlikely. However, as they have shown in Hamilton and Govan before, once they win a seat, they don't give it up easily. They are an electoral force with exceptional sticking power.

The Labour Party cannot claim to be the party of the poor. The Labour Party is not the party of the poor. It should not be the party of the poor. It may make me sound like a one-nation Tory, but I don't really care. Labour go on about the many not the few, but at the same time, talk about "natural" Labour areas. This is not how it should be, and especially now. The problem with relying on your "natural" vote is that when that vote shifts somewhere else, you're in big trouble.

The best thing the Labour Party can do right now is listen to the unions. They need the money the unions are offering, but in order to do so, they need to agree to a number of the unions' demands. And quite frankly, when one of them is universal free school meals, they may find that they find some much-needed support.

People aren't just going against Labour because of difficult economic circumstances. It's not just Scottish issues. It's not just a resurgent Conservative Party. It's not just because Labour have been in power for so long. It's not just because they don't like Gordon Brown. It's because they just don't see Gordon Brown, or the Labour Party, taking the country forward.

If, however, they see real ideas, like free school meals, or the People's Rail, then maybe, just maybe, they might change. People don't vote out parties simply because they get old and boring. They vote them out because they think they're old and boring because they run out of real ideas and start spewing out rubbish, like hospital stab visits.

The Labour Party should be thankful to Barack Obama. He has completely overshadowed the loss in Glasgow East. The Labour Party, outside of Scotland at least, will get away with this. Just like they did in Haltemprice and Howden, which didn't do enough to set the political world on fire (sadly). Just like in Henley, where they could say they never do well anyway. But there comes a time when people think they're not being taken seriously any more. I fear that Glasgow East is the sign of an electorate who think they're not being taken seriously - that their votes are "in the bag". Let this be a lesson - they're not.

Many of you will be aware that I do some work for the Baptist Union of Scotland with regards to their youth website, and occasionally their main website too. However, I am working on their Step Out mission teams over the summer.

About 50 people take part in Step Out mission teams over the summer, but there are 5 of us who are on the team for the whole summer. On the far left at the front of picture is Laura Hart, with Cindy Nelson in the middle and Rachel Findlay on the far right. There is, for the observant, myself at the back on the right, and on the left at the back, Jillian Annan, and both of us were on the summer team last year.

However, unlike last year, where the summer team were together all summer, we are split up this year. In fact, I am not on the same team as Jillian at all this year! This week, Jillian and Laura were working with children in Alva, whilst the other three of us were in Thurso, where Rachel is from, working with both children and youth. The week has gone very well, with 15 children choosing to become Christians during the week in Thurso. I even got a wonderful photograph of the sun setting over Thurso and Scrabster on Tuesday, for your enjoyment.

That is, quite frankly, a wonderful picture. Oh, and don't you just think that the first photograph looks like a Christmas card picture?

 I have used Linux regularly for about 4 years. I that time, I have, for the most part, used Ubuntu Linux, but I have on many occasions tried other flavours of Linux, including Fedora. So, how do the latest editions of Ubuntu and Fedora compare?

It is fair to say that Ubuntu generally has the edge on Fedora in my experience. I have tried Fedora Core 4 and Fedora Core 6 before, with little success, Fedora Core 4 suffered from dependency problems when installing programs, and Fedora Core 6 just wouldn't install. I also tried Fedora 9, which ran very nicely from a Live CD, but didn't install properly.

On the other hand, I have used every version of Ubuntu since the first, 4.10 (Warty Warhog). It is fair to say that I have generally been impressed with it - no installation problems at all. The early versions I used - 4.10 (Warty), 5.04 (Hoary) and 5.10 (Breezy) were solid, but unspectacular.

This changed with Dapper Drake, (6.06, LTS), the first long-term support release. It was accompanied with a much more integrated feel, and generally just worked out of the box, with few changes required. All the releases since then have carried on building upon this release, none of them being spectacular, but all solidly pushing forward. So, how would Fedora 10 and Ubuntu 8.10 fare?

The fairest test is to run a clean install of both. For both, I used a Live CD, with my desktop PC, which is a 2.8 Ghz Intel Processor with HT technology (the most over-rated technology of the last 5 years, if you ask me), 512Mb RAM and a 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6600GT. So, not slow, but not about to set the world on fire either. Hardware support shouldn't be an issue.

I tried Fedora 10 first. It booted without a problem, and quite quickly. It has quite a slick desktop, but I really wanted an installed system, so I installed the OS to the hard drive straight away. Everything was fine, and I re-booted. Now, in the past, Fedora has forgotten to add itself to the bootloader when installing, which is a fairly major error, but there were no major problems like that this time.

I selected Fedora 10 from the GRUB menu and watched as Fedora booted. It then came to a screen where I could finish the setup of my system. Error. My mouse didn't work. My keyboard didn't work. I tried using USB and PS/2, but neither worked. I was stuck.

I tried installing the whole system again (the Live CD recognises the keyboard and mouse without any problem), and booting again, but the problem re-appeared. Given my previous bad experiences with the Fedora installer, I cut my losses and gave up.

Next, I tried the Ubuntu 8.10 installer. I had previously upgraded an install from 8.04 to 8.10, but this test is for a clean install - and clean installs are generally better anyway. I booted the Live CD - no problems. I ran the installer - no problems. The graphical installer is very slick, and the partitioning tool that Ubuntu uses is very impressive - Ubuntu manages to make partioning a joy, whereas Fedora has, in my experience, made it a very complicated affair, despite using the same base package. Anyway, I answered a few questions, the whole thing installed and it asked me to reboot.

At this point, I would like to mention something. When Fedora finishes installing, it just gives you a button to press to reboot. This is fine, but it leaves the CD is the drive, and if you don't take it out, you can end up booting from CD again when you reboot. Ubuntu automatically rejects the CD from the drive, tells you to remove it from the drive and to then press the "enter" key, thus eliminating this annoyance. It's a very small matter, but it saves a lot of hassle. Big thumbs up to Ubuntu on that one.

I then rebooted and logged in. No problems. The desktop is very slick. The background wallpaper looks fabulous. I was quickly prompted to install my updates, which I always like. The user panel at the top of the screen has been integrated fantastically to enable you to lock the screen, log out and reboot with the minimum of hassle. You can even start a guest session within your own session, giving someone else access to your computer, but without giving them the ability to log you out or accidentally shut your computer down. It even saves where your music was in the middle of playing and starts playing it back instantly when you end the session to go back to your previous session.

There are many more neat touches that impress. Pidgin integrates fanastically into the user applet to set your availability status. The codec finder works wonderfully so you don't have to worry about having to download the correct codec yourself. You can even buy licenced codecs if you want.

Pulseaudio now seems to work fantastically. I can play music in Rhythmbox and watch videos in Firefox without then having to kill pulseaudio in a terminal afterwards. Olive - the GTK frontend to bzr, has now evolved into a much friendlier program. The only slight disappointment is that OpenOffice 3 isn't included by default, although it is easy enough to add. Overall, very impressive. So, what's the verdict?

Software: Ubuntu 8/10, Fedora 9/10. They have virtually identical programs, but Fedora includes OpenOffice 3, so it shades this area.

Desktop Integration: Ubuntu 9/10, Fedora 7/10. Fedora's looks good, but Ubuntu's integration of user sessions, Pidgin and hardware drivers puts it out ahead.

Speed: Ubuntu 8/10, Fedora 8/10. Both are nifty, even on a machine that's starting to struggle slightly for raw power in an age where RAM is key.

Installer: Ubuntu 10/10, Fedora 6/10. Fedora's installer is quite slow, whereas Ubuntu's is fast, asks very few questions and has the best partition editor I've seen anywhere, ever. I'd use it over proprietary software any day.

Overall: Strictly speaking, Ubuntu 35/40, Fedora 30/40. However, I think I have to disqualify Fedora and give it a big fat 0/40.

It might seem harsh, but at the end of the day, my Fedora installation isn't useable - and not for the first time. It's not like I'm using cutting edge hardware. The keyboard is a fricking Cheery Linux keyboard for goodness sake! There's clearly a problem with the Fedora installer somewhere. And yes, I know I could spend hours on the Fedora forums trying to find an answer, but I shouldn't have to - not when every other Linux distro has no such problems. Linux Format may have had Fedora 10 down as beating Ubuntu 8.10, but there's no such judgement here. Ubuntu wins an easy knockout.

I am very blessed in living in Sheffield. Although there are other places I would rather live if I were choosing where to live, Sheffield is still a lovely, beautiful place. It is also next to the site of Britain's first national park, the Peak District. It is a wonderful place, stretching most of the way between Sheffield in South Yorkshire and Manchester in Lancashire, taking in parts of Derbyshire and incorporating the Derbyshire Dales too. If you go a little further north, there's the Yorkshire Moors, the Lake District to the west and the North Yorkshire Moors to the east. It is a beautiful place and one that I really should take more time to explore.

Yesterday I went with a few other people from my University for an evening barbeque on the Longshaw Estate, near Grindleford in Derbyshire. It was rather cold when the sun wasn't out, but thankfully the sun was out most of the time we were there. It's wonderful to be able to go out and to just enjoy places without having to worry about writing 20,000 words of research, of the five exams you have to take the next week, or the essay that you understand absolutely nothing about, or the group presentation that your group are showing no interest in. No, I can just relax - for now.

This weekend marks the start of the 2009 Formula 1 World Championship. This year certainly promises to be an interesting year, with the grid appearing closely matched and with many of the traditional front-runners struggling at the moment. So, with all that in mind, let's take a look at the teams, the drivers and their prospects for the championship, and for the Australian Grand Prix!

The Usual Frontrunners - Ferrari & McLaren

Over the past 11 years, since the last major changes to Formula One's rules, in fact, Ferrari and McLaren have dominated. Before then, Williams and Benetton had dominated, but the resurgence of the Prancing Horse with Michael Schumacher, put with McLaren's "Flying Finn" and a fantastically-designed, Bridgestone-shod car, put McLaren and Ferrari in command at the front of the field. Since then, these two teams have dominated almost single-handedly. Williams did manage a few wins in the years 2001-3, but didn't ever really look like breaking through, and although Renault did win two world championships with Fernando Alonso, one of these championships was heavily influenced by the tyre controversy of 2005 (not their problem, admittedly), and they were unable to keep up with McLaren and Ferrari when Alonso moved to McLaren.

Neither team has had the perfect winter, though it has been much more promising for Ferrari than McLaren. Both teams put maximum effort into the bid for the Drivers' and Constructors' Championships last year, which has, to a certain extent, hampered their efforts with this year's cars - although for teams the size of Ferrari and McLaren, this really shouldn't prove to be a massive problem.

Ferrari

Ferrari certainly appear to have a fast car. They have been consistently fast in pre-season testing, probably just about edging the rest of the field, barring the Brawn GP cars, which were, quite frankly, a sensation. However, they have struggled a little with reliability. Even this weekend in Australia, Kimi Raikkonen lost time with a hydraulic problem in Saturday's free practice session. They are, however, well-placed if their cars last the distance. They do have a fast-car, and they are running KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), which will give them a nice boost down the straights if they are needing to pass other cars. It should also help them off the start line.

They also have what is probably the best driver line-up on the grid. Kimi Raikkonen has more raw speed than anyone else on the grid in my opinion - more than Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa, all three of whom are also extremely quick. He does, however, sometimes appear to struggle with motivation. He did appear to struggle in last year's car, but I would not question his desire to win. The slick tyres we have this year should suit him well. If the car sticks to the road, no-one will drive it faster. Massa also impressed greatly last year, winning more Grand Prix than anyone else. In my view, he would have been a more deserving champion than Hamilton, but a couple of mistakes at the start of the season, along with a heartbreaking engine failure in Hungary and some unfortunate pit lane incidents cost him dearly. Very often, if he can get his nose in front of the pack, there is no stopping him, but he sometimes struggles to chase other drivers down.

As long as Ferrari solve their reliability woes, they will be up there this season. They are a good bet for the Constructors' Championship, but their strong driving line-up could potentially cause them problems with the Drivers' Championship - and there is no clear Number One in the team - so if one driver starts the championship better than the other, it could prove crucial, and historically, Felipe Massa is a relatively slow starter to the season.