Scribbles 'n Scrawls

Chelsea Youth Report - September 26th and 27th 2009

2009-09-24T18:33:00.008-04:00

Blackburn vs Aston Villa
Sept. 26th

Franco Di Santo returns from a hamstring injury to start for Rovers. He put the Villa defender under pressure leading to an equalizing goal for Samba in the 24th. Shortly after he headed to David Dunne who was denied by some fine goal keeping by Friedel. With rovers down to 10 men for most of the second half he was reduced to chasing long balls. Di Santo chased one such ball in the 89th winning a throw in. The resulting throw was flicked on to Franco who controlled with his chest before driving an effort on goal. The ball hit Richard Dunne's hand which was above his head and referee Clattenberg pointed to the spot. Dunne converted and Rovers held on to win 2-1. All around good performance from Di Santo on his first game back.

Sunderland Wolverhampton
Sept. 27th

Michael Mancienne had an up and down day, getting beat by both Bent and Jones, the former leading to Sunderland's third but also putting in a number of blocks and clearances and leading a couple of Wolves moves forward. He's also credited with an own goal for Sunderland's 5th which sums up the sort of day he and his teammates had. The final score of 5-2 is rather flattering to Sunderland as Wolves had leveled twice and at had looked the stronger team for much of the game.

FC Twente vs VVV-Venlo
Sept. 26th

Miroslav Stoch returned to his customary spot at the top left of a 4-3-3 after getting a rest in midweek cup action. He was involved in the attacking play as usual, providing the cross that lead to Ruiz's opening goal for FC Twente. He later hit the corss bar after neatly dribelling past two defenders on the break. The only negative issue would be his defensive play. On VVV's loan goal he didn't give his team mate Douglas an outlet and he could have come back a little deeper on another occasion to help out. FC Twente went on to win 2-1 staying level on points with table toppers PSV.

Slobodan Rajkovic is still out injured.

Wigan vs Chelsea
Sept. 26th

Scott Sinclair was not in Wigan's squad in accordance with the terms of his loan deal.

Fabio Borini was an unused sub for Chelsea.

Coventry vs Middlesbrough
Sept. 25th

Jack Cork played the full 90 for Coventry in their 2-2 draw.

Patrick van Aanholt made his return from injury as a half time sub.

Reading vs Watford
Sept. 26th

Ryan Bertrand played the full 90 for Reading in their 1-1 draw.

England U20 vs Uruguay U20
Sept. 26th

Nana Ofori came on as a half time sub.

Michael Woods was an unused sub.

Czech Rep U20 vs Australia U20
Sept. 27th

Jan Sebek was an unused sub for the Czech Rep in their 2-1 win.

Upcoming Matches

England and Czech Republic U20s are both in action on Tuesday.
Chelsea travel to Cyprus to face Apoel Nicosia on Wednesday.
FC Twente host Steaua Bucharest on October 1st in Europa League action.
Wolverhampton host winless Pompey on Saturday the 3rd.
Wigan travel to Hull on Saturday.
Blabkburn face a tough trip to the Emirates on Sunday.
Coventry are away to Watford on Tuesday the 29th
Reading visit Preston on Tuesday the 29th

Chelsea Youth Report - September 21st to 24th 2009

2009-09-24T12:30:00.012-04:00

Chelsea vs QPR
Sept. 23rd 2009

Sam Hutchinson and Fabio Borini got their full debut in this 3rd round Leage Cup encounter. Hutchinson had an excellent match alongside Ivanovic at centre half. He didn't set a foot wrong the whole match and was instrumental in the build up to Kalou's goal. Borini did well on his full debut paired with Kalou up front. He had a couple shots saved by QPR's keeper and held up the ball well on the break. Chelseafc.com have an interview with Sam here

Jeffery Bruma and Nemania Matic were unused subs.

Full Match: 1st 2nd credit Splatypus @ fbtz.com

SC Joure vs FC Twente
Sept. 23rd 2009

Miroslav Stoch was given the day off as Twente hammered SC Joure 0-8 in KNVB Beker action. He was however named to the Erdivisie team of the week after his performance on the weekend.

Nottingham Forest vs Blackburn
Sept. 22nd 2009

Franco Di Santo was not on the bench for Rovers.

Manchester United vs Wolverhampton
Sept. 23rd 2009

Mancienne was given the night off as Wolves fell 1-0 to the holders.

Upcoming Matches

Wigan host Chelsea on Saturday the 26th.
Wolverhampton travel to Sunderland on Sunday the 27th.
Blackburn are home to Aston Villa on the 27th.
England U20 take on Uruguay on Saturday in the U20 World Cup
Czech Rep U20 face Australia on Sunday in Egypt
FC Twente are at home to VVV-Venlo on Saturday

Chelsea Youth Report - September 19th and 20th 2009

2009-09-21T21:56:00.018-04:00

SC Heerenveen vs FC Twente
Sept. 20th 2009

Miroslav Stoch had an excellent day, helping to defend against the early Heerenveen pressure before opening his FC Twente account in the 22nd minute. The goal was a nice give and go with Nkofu finished by Stoch. Twente should have been up 2-0 soon after but Ruiz failed to finish what Stoch had started. Ruiz made up for his earlier mistake putting Stoch through on goal in the 72nd. Stoch didn't disappoint slotting home for his second on the day.

Highlights including a post match interview (in English) with Stoch

Wolverhampton vs Fulham
Sept. 20th 2009

Michael Mancienne continued his string of consecutive starts for as Wolves played hosts to Fulham on Sunday. Mancienne along with the rest of the back line put in a spirited performance shutting down everything Fulham had to offer. The only blemish on his day was a penalty given to Zamora when Mancienne was judged to have pulled pulled the Fulham striker down. It didn't affect the outcome as Wolves went on to get their first home victory of the season.

Everton vs Blackburn
Sept. 20th 2009

Franco Di Santo was not on the bench for Rovers 3-0 loss.

Arsenal vs Wigan
Sept 19th 2009

Scott Sinclair was an unused sub in Wigan's 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Arsenal.

Preston vs Coventry
Sept 19th 2009

Jack Cork started for Coventry but was eventually subbed in the 77th minute while the score was 3-1, it eventually finished 3-2 handing Coventry their second consecutive loss.

Patrick van Aanholt is still a couple weeks away from return from his groin injury and has been back at Cobham for treatment.

Peterborough vs Reading
Sept 19th 2009

Ryan Bertrand played the full 90 in Reading's 2-3 loss.

Upcoming Matches

FC Twente are home to VVV Venlo on the 23rd in a Dutch Cup matchup.
Wolves are away to Man Utd in midweek Carling Cup action on the 23rd.
Blackburn are away to Nottingham Forest on the 22nd in Carling Cup action.
Wigan are home to Chelsea on the 26th.
Coventry are home against Middlesbrough on the 26th.
Reading are home to Watford on the 26th.

Chelsea Youth Report - September 15 - 17th 2009

2009-09-17T21:05:00.008-04:00

Fenerbahce vs FC Twente
Sept 17th 2009

Stoch got the start for FC Twente in their Europe League match vs Fenerbahce. He was very lively and was central to most of Twente's attacks, especially in the first half. Ruiz should have put them up a goal after he was picked out by Stoch. McLaren subbed Stoch in the 69th minute in favour of a striker. Twente won 2-1 to top their group.

Full Match (in English) 1st 2nd credit to kublican @ fbtz.com

Chelsea vs Porto
Tuesday Sept. 15th 2009

Sturridge, Hutchinson, Bruma and Boroni were all on the bench for the Champions League tie against Porto but none saw any action.

Coventry City vs Sheffield United
Tuesday Sept. 15th 2009

Jack Cork played the full 90 in Coventry's 3-2 win. He put a shot just over the cross bar towards the end of the first half and committed 3 fouls.

Patrick van Aanholt is out with a groin strain and is not expected to return for a month.

Reading vs Cardiff
Tuesday Sept. 16th 2009

Ryan Bertrand played the full 90 for Reading.

Upcoming Matches

FC Twente are away to SC Heerenveen on the 20th.
Wolves are home to Fulham on Sunday the 20th.
Blackburn are away to Everton on Sunday the 20th.
Wigan travel to Old Trafford in a Carling Cup encounter on the 23rd
Coventry are away to Preston on the 19th.
Reading are away to Peterborough on the 19th.

Chelsea Youth Report - September 12th 2009

2009-09-13T10:21:00.014-04:00

FC Twente v FC Utrecht

Miroslav Stoch started on the left of a 4-3-3 formation and was very involved in play. Unfortunately his first major contribution didn't end well, the winger tracked back and won the ball from his opponent only for Stoch's teammate Perez to promptly give it right back to Utrecht on the edge of the box. Seconds later it was in the back of the net to give the visitors a 0-1 lead. Stoch won the corner and played a crucial role in the buildup leading to Twente's 2-1 goal at the start of the second half. The Utrecht keeper saved very well from Stoch on two separate occasions midway through the half and in the 87th minute he was brought down down for a penalty (saved from Perez). Perez made up for it with a injury time winner to keep Twente level on points with table toppers PSV.

Rajković is still out injured.

Highlights from NOS Studio Sport Saturday by Kraiden @ fbtz

Blackburn v Wolves

Michael Mancienne continued his string of consecutive premiere league starts for Wolves but had a day to forget. Twenty minutes in he wasn't able to get across and deal with a terrible backwards pass to empty space from Henry. Diouf was was the lucky recipient of the error and had the home side off to an early lead. Just after the break Mancienne and Hendy teamed up again to give Rovers their second. Both stood and watch as Givet rose for a free header from a corner, Roberts got the last touch and it was 2-0. Wolverhampton continued their terrible defensive display going down 3-0 just seven minutes later. A late consolation effort made it 3-1 but McCarthy has a lot of work to do if Wolves expect to shay in the top flight.

Franco Di Santo was on the subs bench returning from his hamstring injury but was not called in to action.

Wigan Athletic v West Ham Utd

Scott Sinclair was a time wasting sub in the second minute of injury time for Wigan in their 1-0 win.

Coventry v Bristol City

Jack Cork returned from England U21 duty where he was an unused sub to start for Coventry. He was subbed in the 78th in manager Coleman's attempt to break the 1-1 deadlock. It finished 1-1.

Patrick van Aanholt is still out injured and was not in the squad.

Reading v Doncaster

Ryan Bertrand started at left back alongside Shaun Cummings who started for the first time since he was sold by Chelsea. He played the full 90 with the match finishing 0-0.

Sendai Cup U19 - France U19

Gael Kakuta didn't play in their 1-0 win over South Korea on Saturday but started again on Sunday against Brazil. He was subbed in the 72nd. He is listed as winning some sort of award on the Sendai cup website but Google translate is not very clear at to what it is.

Upcoming Matches

FC Twente travel to Turkey to take on Fenerbahce on Thursday in a Europa League group match.
Wolves are home to Fulham on Sunday the 20th.
Blackburn are way to Everton on Sunday the 20th.
Coventry are home to Sheffield United on the 15th and then away to Preston on the 19th.
Reading are home to Cardiff on the 16th and away to Peterborough just 3 days later.

Matej Delač set to sign for Chelsea F.C.

2009-09-11T22:46:00.005-04:00

Matej Delač, the 17-year old Inter Zaprešić goalkeeper, who is considered to be the brightest prospect in Croatian football, is set to sign for Chelsea F.C. The fee is reported to be around one million euros plus another two million once Delač signs for the London giants, as Chelsea plan to leave the talented goalkeeper on loan for two season at Zaprešić, before he completes his move. Chelsea have been scouting the young prodigy from the start of the year and believe he would be the ideal replacement for Petr Čech.

Source (Croatian): sportske.jutarnji.hr

Delac has spent his entire club career with Inter Zapresic, playing at all levels of their youth setup. He made his debut in the Croatian league when he was 16 and sensationally saved a last minute penalty taken by former Croatian international Davor Vugrinec preserving a 1-0 victory over Croatia's most famous club, Dinamo Zagreb. In his following match against Hajduk Split he saved another penalty and later stating he had been studying the patterns of their expected penalty takers.

At 16 years and 182 days old, he is the youngest player to have played in the history of the 1.HNL. Delac is a member of the Croatian Under-19 team, and previously he played for the Under-15s and Under-17 side as well.

Benfica were interested in his services and he went on a trial there. Benfica would not match his valuation and he returned to Inter Zapresic. Dinamo Zagreb had apparently offered 1m euro plus a sell on clause but again Inter Zapresic refused.

Matej Delac has all the qualities to become a great goalkeeper. He has excellent reflexes, good positioning, great aerial ability and he is great in one-on-one situations.

Many goalkeepers play for a number of years and don’t save two penalties, Delac has already proved his ability at saving penalties but he is not just highly-rated because of that. His skills and performances prove that he is likely to play at a very high level.

Thanks to his great height, Delac is excellent in the air but it also means he sometimes struggles with low shots on the ground and he needs to improve this aspect of his game. For such a young goalkeeper he is also shy and does not yet command his box and needs to force his authority on his team mates, be more assertive and loud.

Since he is just 16, his more experienced team mates don’t always listen to his instructions but this will surely come with age and experience.

Source: imscouting.com

Compilation of some of his work including the two saved penalties

Link:

I think this is a fantastic move by Chelsea, he'll get to play another two more years at home at a high level of competition while at the same time ensuring Chelsea are planning for the days when Petr Cech will no longer be between the sticks.

Chelsea Youth Report - September 4th to 9th 2009

2009-09-10T10:42:00.004-04:00

U21 Euro Champ Qual - Netherlands vs Finland
Friday, Sept. 4th 2009

17 year old defender Jeffrey Bruma made his debut for the Dutch U21 side as they beat Finland 2-0. His defensive play was flawless and his composure on the ball was evident as he was not satisfied to simply clear the ball after breaking up play, but rather to lead the next charge forward. He's getting lots of praise from Dutch football fans.

Compilation of Bruma's plays vs Finland

U21 Euro Champ Qual - England vs Macedonia
Friday, Sept 4th 2009

Daniel Sturridge played his first match for the England U21 alongside U21 veteran Michael Mancinne. Sturridge had a shot saved early on and provided the link up to Jack Wilshire who was brought down in the box for a penalty that gave England a 2-1 win. Jack Cork was as unused substitute.

World Cup 2009 Qual - Slovakia vs Czech Rep.
Saturday, Sept 5th 2009

Miroslav Stoch was on the Slovakian bench but was not called into action.

U21 Euro Champ Qual - England vs Greece
Tuesday, Sept. 8th 2009

Daniel Sturridge and Micheal Mancienne featured in England's 1-1 draw with Greece in U21 qualifiers today. Sturridge scored England's goal in the 5th minute after he was setup by some nice work by Rose. He was subbed off in the first half after an apparent injury. I was watching a Greek stream though so I'm not sure what the problems was. Mancienne was ok but got caught watching a couple times as England put in a very poor second half performance. The Lions were lucky to leave with a share of the points as Loach made a number of good saves to keep things level including a 1 on 1 with a Greek attacker. Jack Cork was on the bench, but not called in to action.

Sendai Cup U19 - France vs Japan
Wednesday, Sept. 9th 2009

Gael Kakuta played the full 90 in their 3-3 draw with hosts Japan. Kakuta scored the opener after just 7 minutes and later put France ahead 3-2 in the 60th.

Grub Splash Image on my Eee PC

2008-02-25T21:23:00.004-05:00

The default eeeXubuntu install doesn't setup a background image while the GRUB (the bootloader) is on screen. Quick google search and I found this post about enabling a splash image.

I installed grub-splashimages from the ubuntu repository and created the symlink to debian.xpm.gz. The next step was running update-grub, this added the necessary splashimage= line to /boot/grub/menu.lst but it got the drive numbering wrong and setup everything to boot from (hd2,0) instead of (hd0,0). I didn't notice this before rebooting so I had to edit the boot parameters in GRUB's shell to boot properly. I would recommend manually adding

splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/xubuntu.xpm.gz

to /boot/grub/menu.lst instead of running update-grub.

Once I fixed /boot/grub/menu.lst I rebooted and to my pleasure saw the debian splash image instead of black behind the GRUB menu.

None of the images that came as part of grub-splashimages were to my liking so I went on a hunt to find another image. After searching through many options on gnome-look.org and kde-look.org I decided to make my own. It's designed to fit with the default xubuntu GDM theme.

I'm certainly no artist and I'm sure someone else could do much better but it's sufficient for my needs.

Another quick search turned up a detailed Howto from Luis R. Rodriguez that contained contained the require steps for making your own image. After installing ImageMagick I converted the png I produced to the required format and gzipped it up.

 convert -resize 640x480 -colors 14 image.png image.xpm
gzip image.xpm

Here's the formatted and gzipped file for use as a GRUB splash image

Moving an eeeXubuntu install from SDHC to SSD

2008-02-25T21:00:00.005-05:00

When I first installed eeeXubuntu on my Eee PC I wanted to keep the default Xandros installation intact so I could use it to help sort out any issues that arose during the eeeXubuntu install. To this end I installed eeeXubuntu on an 8 GB SDHC card leaving the internal 4 GB sold state disk alone.

The install was painless and I never once booted back to Xandros so I decided it was time to dump Xandros and move the eeeXubuntu install to the SSD. I had already started customizing eeeXubuntu so I did not want to bother with a reinstall. A couple users on the EeeUser forums were asking how to accomplish this so I detailed the steps I took.

I just did this today.

First thing to do is repartition the SSD. I wanted to use suspend to disk so I needed a swap partition the size of the amount of RAM. You can just go with one partition if this is not important to you.

Partition Layout Before:


Device    Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1         300     2409718+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2             301         484     1477980   83  Linux
/dev/sda3             485         485        8032+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda4             486         486        8032+  ef  EFI (FAT-12/16/32)

After:


Device     Boot      Start        End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1         419     3365586   83  Linux
/dev/sda2             420         484      522112+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3             485         485        8032+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda4             486         486        8032+  ef  EFI (FAT-12/16/32)

Create the file systems (omit the second command if you're not using swap)

sudo mkfs.ext2 -L LABEL /dev/sda1
sudo mkswap /dev/sda2

Mount the new root file system

sudo mkdir /mnt/tmp
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/tmp

Clean out old *.deb files (optional)

sudo apt-get clean

Copy the old directories to the new new root file system. (Exclude /tmp /sys /proc /dev /lost+found /media /mnt)
This will take a few minutes (open a second terminal and use "df" to check on progress)

sudo cp -a bin boot etc initrd initrd.img lib opt root sbin srv usr var vmlinuz home /mnt/tmp/

Create empty directories for the omitted directories

cd /mnt/tmp
sudo mkdir dev sys proc mnt tmp media

Create the required device nodes in /dev

cd /mnt/tmp/dev
sudo mknod -m 660 console c 5 1
sudo mknod -m 660 null c 1 3

Open /mnt/tmp/etc/fstab with your preferred editor and make /dev/sda1 your root partition

# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
/dev/sda1       /               ext2    defaults,noatime,errors=remount-ro 0       1
tmpfs           /var/tmp        tmpfs   noatime         0       0
tmpfs           /tmp            tmpfs   noatime         0       0

Modify the Grub configuration on the SDHC to boot from the SDD
Open /boot/grub/menu.lst and copy an existing entry, changing the root parameter so it looks like this

title           Ubuntu 7.10, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic from SDD
root            (hd0,0)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=/dev/sda1 ro quiet splash
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
quiet

Reboot the system choose the newly added "from SDD" option

Once booted verify that you've booted from the correct disk by typing "df"
/dev/sda1 should be your root partition

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1             3.2G  1.9G  1.1G  64% /

Final step is to install grub on the SDD

sudo grub-install /dev/sda

Remove the SDHC and reboot the system, it should now boot directly in to xubuntu from the SDD

You may need to change the BIOS boot order to keep it from booting off the SDHC when it's inserted.

19 new scarves

2008-02-18T21:50:00.008-05:00

Finally got around to cleaning and photographing all the scarves that a friend in England had been gathering for me. Really cut down on the postage costs to have things shipped to the UK. Thanks Johnstun!

Got official club scarves for the FA and Carling Cup finals and Real Betis 05-06 as I never liked the one I had. My favourites of the lot are these two:

1986 Full Members Cup Final

1997-98 Cup Winners Cup Semi Final vs Vicenza (in Italian)

Checked eBay for scarves for the first time in a while and got a nice Greek Olympiacos scarf for the upcoming CL tie. Missed out on a 2006 Community Shield one split half with Liverpool but it's almost the same as the 05 Arsenal one and the 05 Carling Cup final one so I'm not too concerned.

See the rest of my scarves at http://cleverone.org/scarves

Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo

2008-02-03T19:29:00.000-05:00

Just finished reading Mike Cohn's excellent book "User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development". The buffalo bit one of the examples Mike uses to illustrate the problems with rigid requirements specifications written at the start of a traditional waterfall project. I've always hated trying to sift through a lengthy requirements document only to find ambiguous language that raises more questions that it answered. Mike explains in great detail how using short user stories that act as a reminder of a conversation can deliver requirements that are easy to understand as well as encouraging communication.

The start-up I work for is in the process of formalizing our process and Mike's book provides insight and ideas that are helping us to reap the benefits of agile development. Whether you're a development manager, team lead or a developer you'll benefit from Mike's in-depth knowledge and real world experience.

Gmail + Google Reader Integration

2008-01-26T23:47:00.000-05:00

Released v3.4 of the Gmail+Reader Greasemonkey script today. Fixed some breakage caused by the latest Greasemonkey update as well as problems caused by the Firefox 3 beta 2 now throwing WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR (NS_ERROR_DOM_WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR) if you if you try to add a node created from an external document. Gmail uses iframes so there are multiple documents that you must deal with when manipulating the DOM.

There are two possible solutions, importNode and adoptNode. Since adoptNode is new with Gecko 1.9 it's not available for Firefox 2.0 users so I used importNode.

I also moved the feed list navbox on the left above the chat and labels navboxes to reduce the amount of scrolling needed when on a lower resolution display like my laptop.

You can install the latest version of the script from Userscripts.org