Month: August 2006

BBC News

Reading time: 2 mins

I WAS going to write about the article on Jacqueline Gold and discuss whether her Ann Summers shops were adding to the objectification of women, or whether they were helping women become more confident, empowered and… something else that fits the feminist checklist.

I WAS going to write about whether being normal was a good thing, or not and at what point ‘being normal’ becomes extraordinary.

I WAS going to tackle, as I said I would, the situation in the Middle East, hopefully offering some suggestions as to what (if I had the power) I would do to help rectify things but, in balance, I’m not sure there is much anyone can do. The simple fact, in that situation, is that there are two diametrically opposed groups, both of which are armed. The only solution is to disarm both. And that’s never going happen.

Instead I’m going to talk about one website that I visit every single day, usually more than once, and which has slowly been evolving.

In particular I want to mention the new ‘Show and Hide’ sections that have been added recently and, specifically the section that will supply “Local news, weather and sport”. It’s a great idea. I really like it but there is a tiny problem.

It loads AFTER the rest of the page!!

Previously when visiting the BBC News website, I only had to pause for a second to let things load and I could start clicking onto stories that caught my eye. Now?

Now I have to pause for a second then, just as I go to click on an interesting article in the top half of the screen… IT MOVES! The “Local news, weather and sport” section starts to load, causing the entire screen to shuffle to accomodate it.

This is REALLY beginning to piss me off, so much so that I even considered switching to another news source, something like FOX News maybe?

So, rather than switch to an entertainment channel like FOX, I decided to just delete the BBC News cookie from my machine so it would forget the local information I’d supplied. Now I can get the news I want, when I want, and where (on the screen) I think it’s gonna be!

August 22, 2006

Puppies and Mountains

Reading time: < 1 min

What a wonderful weekend.

Nothing much on Saturday, we pottered about the house for most of the day before heading down to visit our new god-puppies. I’ve not seen them for a week or so but they are growing up fast. They were very excited — I’ve got the scratch marks to prove it — and we had a ball playing with them. The ulterior motive was, of course, to get them knackered out so that they might sleep through the night.

And then, yesterday, we spent the day on a cabin cruiser on Loch Lomond. Photos will follow but I always forget just how stunning the scenery is as you get further up the loch. We stopped off at Tarbet for dinner, at the Ben Lomond restaurant which was excellent, before heading back down to Cameron House. I even got a wee shot, burling the boat about much to the delight of some nearby jetskiers (they like the waves ya see).

Top weekend. How was yours?

August 21, 2006

Currently…

Reading time: 3 mins

Out for a jog again last night, and the difference in pace within the group is starting to tell. A few of us ended up quite far out in front and ended up turning back… only to end up way out in front again. My new shoes are definitely making a difference though, not a niggle or tweak to be felt. It’s like running on, um, gel-filled trainers I guess.

~

Home to some paperwork as it’s re-mortgage time again. We are hoping to use the raised value of our house (it’s gone up by over £20k since we bought it) to get rid of a higher interest loan. Thanks to the Motley Fool website I can now understand people speaking mortgage-ese, and the lovely people at London and Country have been very helpful and very prompt. I spoke to Katie yesterday and received a thick envelope from them this morning, very impressive.

~

Tonight we will be visiting my father-in-law as he flies back to Spain tomorrow. Three weeks he lasted, one more than we thought he would, and all told I think Louise will be happier once he’s home. I’ll just be glad that we get our spare Sky box back as the footie season has started and, as we use it for the spare TV upstairs in the bedroom, it means Louise will be able to watch telly when I kick her off the sofa.

~

That aside there ain’t much going on. We’re trying to save some cash as we are away for a couple of days at the end of the month, and I’m always wary that the change of mortgage will incur more fees than I expect, so we’re having a quiet, cheap, weekend.

Oh wait, it’s only Thursday. Damn.

~

Almost forgot. Netgear Wireless Router (WGT624) installed and working. Yay! I had to switch my cable modem (Webstar 100) from being a USB connection to a CAT (network cable) connection (BlueYonder installation gave me USB, not my choice). It was pretty simple actually, although I’m not completely sure what goes on behind the scenes, here’s what worked for me:

First up you need to release your IP address, go to a command prompt and type “ipconfig /release” (without the quotes).

Next you need to uninstall the USB driver software from your PC, usually from Add/Remove Programs.. in the Control Panel.

Then turn off the cable modem, and remove the USB cable completely.

You need to leave the cable modem off for three or four minutes – apparently they need this so they can ‘forget’ the details passed to it by your ISP.

Then you can turn on your cable modem, and let it start up before doing anything else. My cable modem has flashing lights on the front so just wait until they settle down and you should be OK. Shouldn’t take more than a minute.

Next up, connect the wireless router to the cable modem using a CAT cable and turn on the wireless router. It’ll run through it’s own diagnostics and again mine has lights on the front that indicate what it’s doing (to a point) but shouldn’t take long either, let’s say another minute to be safe.

Then you can connect the wireless router to your PC, CAT cable again, and then step through the setup instructions that came with your wireless router – usually you’ll go to a web address. I didn’t need to specify a domain or system ID for my router.

So I now have the wireless router in my network and can connect through it (via cable) to the internet. Next step is to connect to it wirelessly. And that’s the bit I’m having problems with. My laptop is at work, but I have my Airport Express here. But for some reason I can’t find ANY Wireless connections. It’s almost like Windows has forgotten about them… I’ve got no icon in the system tray, and nothing in Network Connections. Had a quick Google last night but to no avail, I’ll try again over the weekend. Bloody annoying though, especially considering the hassles I had getting the Airport Express to work in the first place!

August 17, 2006

Taming Outlook 2003

Reading time: 5 mins

Matt over at Life Without Toast was moaning about Outlook 2003, in particular about the Favorite Folders area. As I use Outlook 2003 at work, and in particular couldn’t live without my favorite folders so I offered to write a post about how I’ve tamed them for my usage. This is that post.

Warning: this is kinda long. If you don’t use Outlook just skip it.

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August 15, 2006

Hic!

Reading time: 3 mins

Parents look away now.

(bet they don’t)

Meg admits to ‘learning about alcohol‘ when she was in her teens, and I thought it about time that I come clean as well.

My first illicit experience with alcohol — other than a shandy or two with my parents agreement — was at the tender age of 15. I was helping out at a Boys Brigade dance, looking after the cloakroom with two other boys, Scott and David. Now Scott was one of those boys who just seemed older and more mature than everyone. He smoked, he swore, he was pretty popular at the time. That night, as we sat in a tiny room cloakroom completely bored out of our minds, he revealed that he had managed to buy alcohol a couple of nights beforehand.

At first David and I didn’t believe him, so we dared him to buy some more, to prove to us that he wasn’t joking.

We searched our pockets and gave him what cash we had and he sneaked out of the window. The plan was that David and I would cover the cloakroom (the dance was underway already so there was literally nothing for us to do other than sit there) and when he got back we could take turns drinking.

I remember being rather nervous, not in case we got caught but in case I spluttered or choked or did anything remotely uncool! I hoped he’d buy something that I’d heard of, and that wasn’t like some of the harsh burning liquids I’d sipped from my father’s drinking cabinet. Some of that stuff was vile! How could people drink it, the way it burned the back of your throat, and coated your mouth, yuck.

So David and I sat there, talking about nothing and everything, babbling away to make sure there was no silence, no time for our thoughts and nerves to build, and when Scott chapped the window to be let back in we just about fell off our seats.

He had just finished clambering back in when one of the officers (Boys Brigade, remember?) wandered by to see how we were doing. We told him everything was fine, but we were a little bored seeing as how there wasn’t really much to do. He agreed, and fishing in his pockets he said he’d keep an eye on things here if we wanted to nip across the road and get ourselves some chips. Result!

I whisked the five pound note from his hand and we almost sprinted out of the door, all of us with the same thought in our minds. As we turned the corner we agreed that the alleyway to the back of the hall was best, as we’d get plenty of warning if someone was coming but it remained out of sight of the road.

As we turned into the alleyway Scott pulled out a bottle of clear liquid. Smirnoff vodka. Now, I knew enough about vodka that you were supposed to mix it with something. But Scott and David said we didn’t have enough time and next thing I know I’ve got the bottle in my hand and I’m being encouraged to “just take a big gulp and swallow it quick”.

So I did.

Now, you’ve all seen that comic moment where a guy takes a slug from a bottle and wheezes as it kicks the back of his throat. He maybes gives a little twitch of the head a la Jack in Easy Rider “Neh! Neh! Neh! Fuh! Fuh! Fuh! Indians”. You know what I mean.

Multiply that by 3 and you are close to what it felt like.

A million hot pokers slammed into the back of my throat, raced down my gullet and set fire to my belly. I felt my face flush, my eyes tear and I inhaled as much of the cool night air as fast as I could. WHOWZA!!!

In my minds eye, of course, I hid all this, I was hanging out with the cool kids after all.

A few more swigs each and we headed back inside to discuss the finer points of what we had just consumed. My head a little blurry, all of us a little giggly. That was my first brush with alcohol. And yes, I kept the fiver.

After that I moved onto beer — my first ever pint was a “pint of heavy”, ordered purely because it was my first time in the bar and that was what the guy next to me had ordered — although I wasn’t drinking regularly for another couple of years. I was reasonably sensible with it though, honest!

OK, so I’ve fessed up, you’re turn! How old were you and what did you drink?

August 14, 2006

Weekender

Reading time: 3 mins

Where to start? How about Friday evening? In fact, how about Friday afternoon.

As I had a half-day I took the opportunity to head to Achilles Heel, a running shop on Great Western Road, where Steven fitted me for my first pair of proper running shoes. If you are shopping for anything that can be considered ‘specialist’ then it’s always best to get good advice, and I have to say that I was hugely impressed with the service at Achilles Heel.

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August 13, 2006