Representative ExpresionRepresentative ExpresionA personal weblog that discusses my views on life, engineering careers, humour and anything technical that I find Articles
Happy St. Georges Day
2008-04-24 00:00:00 It's a sad fact that more people in England celebrate St. Patrick's Day and even Bonfire Night than they do St Georges Day. I would also bet, most people don't even know who St. George was and when speaking to someone the other day, they didn't even know what a St. George Flag looked like. So head on over to the St. Georges Day website and take part in their campaign! So have a happy St. Georges Day... God knows what we do to celebrate it though... So I'm off for a cup of tea, some toasted crumpet and to watch a bit of Morris dancing. Then I guess it'll be Guinness and a curry tonight (or should it be a kebab). More About: Happy
Chris Miller: His story, his words...
2008-04-22 00:00:00 A few weeks back now, I made a rather large error in a post I made concerning a guy called Chris Miller and the problems he had with the airline Emirates . Having emailed Chris a few times, I asked his permission to re-post his account to which he kindly agreed. "Please think about this before you comment on any story published on a newspaper/tv media site: Firstly can I start by saying that yes I am the person at the centre of the story. We had a perfect right to ask the airline for compensation based on the whole experience which you can see below. You should realise that going to the media will of course have ended any outside chance we had to get any compensation from the airline so we only went to the media because the attitude of Emirates was so appalling that we wanted to publicise how truly bad they were as a warning to other families. More About: Story , Words
Am I in Bramley or Texas? | Hail Storm
2008-04-16 00:00:00 The sky darkened and suddenly I was reminded of our 3 years in Texas . I looked at my wife and said, "I think there's a storm a coming". One of our friends was visiting and as we all looked out of the window, the first few hail stones began to drop. Nothing ominous at first. In the last few weeks we've had a few hail/sleet showers, but looking at the sky you could tell this was going to be something a bit more substantial. Sure enough, there was a crack of thunder immediately following by an increase in the size of the hail. Now it was starting to remind us of Texas. (Although I will add here, the hail today never approached the golf ball sized hail we once had in Fort Worth). (Clicking on the images in this post opens up a larger version in the same window. Use your browser back button to return to the post) More About: Storm
Clueless about Malware (And probably life too)
2008-04-16 00:00:00 Here is an excerpt from a post made to a group that helps/deals with Malware reports on web sites. I can no longer visit this site through google. "Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!" This is just a lie and I think we all know why this site is being persecuted. Keep your personal opinions and the opinions of your investors out of it. The deeper I dig in to the StopBadware.org manifesto the more obtuse your definitions become. A couple clicks and suddenly "Site may harm your computer" turns in to "contains or links to badware or otherwise violates Google's software guidelines." I hope someone sues you silly. It just goes to show the general level of ignorance out there from people that: Don't understand the size of the problem with regard to the sheer number of infected web sites. Don't understand the dangers to there own machines when visiting such sites. Infected Web Sites In one case alone last ... More About: Life , Clueless
The quick way to shut down a phising website!
2008-04-09 00:00:00 Ok, so I open up today's spam mail folder and there at the top of the queue is a phishing email 'from' the NatWest Bank. Clicking on the "log in" button takes you to a perfect replica of the NatWest site with a page for visitors to enter in their information to 'verify' their account. The dead give away was the URL contained a non-NatWest looking domain. What caught my eye this time, was the fact that I recognised the website that had been hacked. http://www.companyA.com/folder/folder/nat west.com rather than http://www.natwest.com .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { backg... More About: Website , Quick , Shut
Time to get some new Bulbs again :(
2008-04-06 00:00:00 The boys were playing indoor football again... And it was bound to happen, he says looking at them mowing the back yard for me... Every bulb I use in this house came from one of the best online stores I've seen, not only for usability, but for the sheer numbers and types of GLS and CFL's they stock in their e-shop. I've just used my last spare bulb and on visiting the site, I see they stock a lot more items than when I last visited. I spent ages looking for a new bulb for the oven a few weeks back and in the end gave up. None of the stores round here stocked one, and the guy in B&Q even tried to convince me that they "don't make em' like that anymore, can I interest you in a new oven sir..." Having just logged into the ebulb shop, they jumped out at me, and low and behold, my lamp is the second one down on the list. Looks like I'll be ordering a couple of them as well. ebulb is just that... it's not just CFL's, I reckon if you get light from it, they'l... More About: Time , Bulbs
Holly Dolly - Dolly Song (Ieva's Polka)
2008-04-06 00:00:00 I herd ;) it once, now you lot can suffer More About: Song , Holly , Dolly
Harry to be withdrawn from Afghanistan
2008-04-06 00:00:00 Prince Harry is to be pulled out of Afghanistan after news of his secret deployment leaked out. View Original Article What has made me laugh about the press coverage are those arguing that the UK Media should never have kept it quiet because "the people" have a right to know. A right to know what? This is not just Harry's life we are talking about here, what about those around him who would be put in danger. And what possible reasons could "the UK public" have for wanting to know where he is and what he is doing 24/7 365 days of the year. Give me a break. He's human, just like the rest of us. He leads a different life to pretty much everyone else, but why should he be denied his privacy. (Obviously because of who he is and what he does there will be some aspects of this life that will always be public, but where do you draw the line ?) Those same retards that are harking on about how it's some sort of cover up and a denial of freedom of ...
Clueless about Malware (And probably life too)
2008-04-06 00:00:00 Here is an excerpt from a post made to a group that helps/deals with Malware reports on web sites. I can no longer visit this site through google. "Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!" This is just a lie and I think we all know why this site is being persecuted. Keep your personal opinions and the opinions of your investors out of it. The deeper I dig in to the StopBadware.org manifesto the more obtuse your definitions become. A couple clicks and suddenly "Site may harm your computer" turns in to "contains or links to badware or otherwise violates Google's software guidelines." I hope someone sues you silly. It just goes to show the general level of ignorance out there from people that: Don't understand the size of the problem with regard to the sheer number of infected web sites. Don't understand the dangers to there own machines when visiting such sites. Infected Web Sites In one case alone last... More About: Life , Clueless
Sad Money Grabbing Git
2008-04-06 00:00:00 An airline has apologised for wrongly telling a father a member of his family had died during a long-distance trip. From: BBC News Initially I thought how terrible this must have been for the guy to go through. I mean, I'm a father of 3 kids and I was be devastated if I received a phone call like this. That was until I read further on into the story. Mr Miller said he had received a call from someone saying: "I have a couple of numbers for you, the first number is the undertakers dealing with the body". Mr Miller said: "At that point I believed one of my family was dead. I said, 'What happened, what's going on?' but they put the phone down on me. Which must have been a terrible shock. But then you read on: "Then after 10 seconds they rang again to say it was a mistake." 10 seconds ? Now don't get me wrong. Even one second is one second longer than I would ever want to deal with those thoughts.... More About: Money
Internet Sharks - Domain Registration or Daylight Robbery
2008-04-06 00:00:00 A couple of years back I took advantage of an introductory offer on a .co.uk TLD domain name. I can't remember the exact deal, but at the time it was something like £2 for a 2 year registration. At the time, that was cheaper than my current registrar which worked out at about £1.99 per year, so £2 for 2 years wasn't to be scoffed at (especially when you are registering 50 or so .co.uk's a month). The first of them is nearing renewal and so the 60 day renewal warning turned up in my inbox, and as I expected they increased their renewal price to £9.99 a year. I'd already started the transfer to my current registrar so it wasn't a problem. As I said, I was expecting the hike, and I only registered with them to take advantage of saving a packet. What I didn't expect was an email from Nominet. Nominet is the Internet Registry for ALL .uk TLD's. How Domain Registration Works The next part is to give you a basic understanding of how domain name re... More About: Daylight , Robbery
Get Friends on Facebook (The Facebook song)
2008-04-06 00:00:00 So how many friends do you have on Facebook ? IceRocket Tags: Facebook Song , Facebook Friends Song
Google and StopBadware.org : Hide not Label
2008-04-06 00:00:00 For those web masters or indeed visitors out there that are not aware, StopBadWare.org is a site that lists sites that contain malware. This article doesn't discuss how they malware got there, but more the way that Google lists them in its index. StopBadware.org is a "Neighborhood Watch" campaign aimed at fighting badware. We will seek to provide reliable, objective information about downloadable applications in order to help consumers to make better choices about what they download on to their computers. We aim to become a central clearinghouse for research on badware and the bad actors who spread it, and to become a focal point for developing collaborative, community-minded approaches to stopping badware.From: StopBadware.org When a site is listed in Google as having badware on it, a warning is displayed similar to the following: The contentious part of the above warning is the "This site may harm your computer".When you click on the link within the Google index to a bad... More About: Label , Hide
NIMBY's vs. 36 Grays Lane
2008-04-06 00:00:00 A soldiers Story (fictional) You're on your last patrol before your unit returns home after a 9month stint in Iraq. You're on point covering for your squad as they return to the Warrior after inspecting a suspected arms dump on the outskirts of Basra. Spirits are high because tonight's scran in the mess tent will be the last meal before you get home to your mum's Sunday roast. In 8 hours, you'll be on the plane home in to the arms of the family you've been away from for so long. Your squad mates begin shouting, they are pointing towards 3 youths running out of a nearby building. You are almost at the Warrior when there is an almighty 'whoosh', followed by a loud explosion. When you open your eyes, you find yourself 20ft away from the Warrior. You can't focus on anything, you can't hear anything. The dust is settling and you begin to see your surroundings. You try to clear the dust from your eyes, but there is something wrong. You loo... More About: Lane
Robotic Rubic Cube Solver
2008-04-06 00:00:00 I hated that damn thing when I was a kid. We had a guy in our class who could solve the thing with his eyes shut, it wasn't worth competing with him (at least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it).Only way I could ever solve it was by peeling all the damn stickers off. I don't know whether the thing above can actually solve it, or whether it's just a simple, muck it up, and then reverse it's changes (screen doesn't match the cube).See, I hate it that much, I'm still skeptical about people solving the damn thing. Those damn nightmares are going to return again... More About: Robotic , Cube
Second Anniversary Of the London Bombings
2008-04-06 00:00:00 PLANS TO MARK THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF THE LONDON BOMBINGS The second anniversary of the attacks will be marked by a public act of remembrance and opportunities for private reflection. Tessa Jowell, the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and Transport Commissioner Peter Hendy will formally mark the second anniversary of the atrocity by laying flowers at Kings Cross station at the time of the bombings. 7th July Assistance Site There will be no national 2 minutes silence this year, but that shouldn't stop each one of us from reflecting on past events and ensuring that we do something to help prevent this from happening again. More About: Anniversary , Bombings
Lewis Hamilton : Will He? Won't He?
2008-04-06 00:00:00 He qualified first at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix, the first Englishman to do that for 11 years. In the very last lap of qualifying (by all of the drivers), he drove superbly and beat Kimi Raikkonen by 0.102seconds. (Raikkonen probably robbed himself of pole position by hitting the dirt in the very last bend). Lewis probably gained half a second from the support of the local home crowd as evident by the massive roar that could be heard as he crossed the line at the end of Q3. For someone so young to handle the immense media pressure is a testament to Lewis, his father (and family) and the support from McLaren. I keep waiting for him to make a mistake and throw the car off the track, but the more pressure there is, the better he seems to perform. 8 podiums in 8 races is a dream start for a rookie in his first full season of F1 racing. But as much as I want him to win this afternoon (1pm July 08th 2007), I have a sneaky feeling that in an effort to keep up with the ap... More About: Hamilton
UK Rainfall Radar
2008-04-06 00:00:00 What with all the recent rain and floods of late, I've just only found a great site for checking out the latest UK Weather Radar .There is one at the UK Met Office but the advantage of the new one I found at Meteox is that they provide an RSS Feed (see below). They also allow you to define your UK location using a neat Google Map API interface to give a picture of your actual location. With the weather coming up this weekend, it might be a good idea to use something like this to keep an eye on the rain. If you want to use the following JS on your site, just cut and paste the following code into your template where you want the feed to be used:<script language="JavaScript" src="http://yaps4u.net/feed2js/feed2js.ph p?src=http%3A%2F%2Frss.meteox.co.uk%2F&am p;chan=y&num=1&date=y&html=a" type="text/javascript"></script> <noscript> <a href="http://yaps4u.net/feed2js/feed2js.p hp?src=http%3A%2F%2Frss.meteox.co.uk%2F&a mp;chan=y&num=1&date=y... More About: Rainfall
Planning to Get Away?
2008-04-06 00:00:00 Over at RealTravel.com they have a great online trip planner that allows you to build your itinerary for your complete trip. Once you have added all of your intended destinations, you can sort out the dates and route that you intend to take.They also have a great dynamic route map that shows your planned trip in an easy to follow layout. When trying to organize a trip like this, one of the hardest parts is having to visit multiple sites to find all the information you need. I've used the site to plan an upcoming trip, and the trip planner made the whole thing painless. And if you are unsure of the place you are visiting, there are plenty of reviews and photographs from others who been there previously. It even allows you to create your own notes and any other useful links that you find and save them with your itinerary. Once you have saved your trip, you can email it to friends and family to keep them informed about your trip. (A great idea for young people to keep pare... More About: Planning
US Style Postboxes
2008-04-06 00:00:00 When we first moved to the US we were offered a 'cultural exchange' course. At first we thought things can't be that different, after all, they do speak "English".After living their for a few weeks you do begin to see differences between the way we live. Obviously you would expect there to be some differences, you just don't think about all the little things. Take the good old postman. Post is post right? Here in the UK we expect our mail to be delivered in the morning, (although gone are the days of first and second post, where if you didn't get your mail in the morning, you'd hope it would come later on that day). Then there are the old jokes and stories of postman being attacked by dogs as they made their way to the front door. In the UK, when I want to post something, I have to go to the post office or find a post box. There are 1000's of postboxes dotted all around the country, some dating back hundreds of years. Now they still have ... More About: Style
Clueless about Malware (And probably life too)
2008-03-18 00:00:00 Here is an excerpt from a post made to a group that helps/deals with Malware reports on web sites. I can no longer visit this site through google. "Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!" This is just a lie and I think we all know why this site is being persecuted. Keep your personal opinions and the opinions of your investors out of it. The deeper I dig in to the StopBadware.org manifesto the more obtuse your definitions become. A couple clicks and suddenly "Site may harm your computer" turns in to "contains or links to badware or otherwise violates Google's software guidelines." I hope someone sues you silly. It just goes to show the general level of ignorance out there from people that: Don't understand the size of the problem with regard to the sheer number of infected web sites. Don't understand the dangers to there own machines when visiting such sites. Infected Web Sites In one case alone last week, 10,000+ sites were hacked and malware placed onto th... More About: Life , Clueless
Harry to be withdrawn from Afghanistan
2008-03-03 00:00:00 Prince Harry is to be pulled out of Afghanistan after news of his secret deployment leaked out. View Original Article What has made me laugh about the press coverage are those arguing that the UK Media should never have kept it quiet because "the people" have a right to know. A right to know what? This is not just Harry's life we are talking about here, what about those around him who would be put in danger. And what possible reasons could "the UK public" have for wanting to know where he is and what he is doing 24/7 365 days of the year. Give me a break. He's human, just like the rest of us. He leads a different life to pretty much everyone else, but why should he be denied his privacy. (Obviously because of who he is and what he does there will be some aspects of this life that will always be public, but where do you draw the line ?) Those same retards that are harking on about how it's some sort of cover up and a denial of freedom of ...
Holly Dolly - Dolly Song (Ieva's Polka)
2007-10-07 00:00:00 I herd ;) it once, now you lot can suffer More About: Song , Holly , Dolly , Doll , Olly
Time to get some new Bulbs again :(
2007-09-03 00:00:00 The boys were playing indoor football again... And it was bound to happen, he says looking at them mowing the back yard for me... Every bulb I use in this house came from one of the best online stores I've seen, not only for usability, but for the sheer numbers and types of GLS and CFL's they stock in their e-shop. I've just used my last spare bulb and on visiting the site, I see they stock a lot more items than when I last visited. I spent ages looking for a new bulb for the oven a few weeks back and in the end gave up. None of the stores round here stocked one, and the guy in B&Q even tried to convince me that they "don't make em' like that anymore, can I interest you in a new oven sir..." Having just logged into the ebulb shop, they jumped out at me, and low and behold, my lamp is the second one down on the list. Looks like I'll be ordering a couple of them as well. ebulb is just that... it's not just CFL's, I reckon if you get light from it, they'l... More About: Time , Some , Bulbs
Get Friends on Facebook (The Facebook song)
2007-08-04 00:00:00 So how many friends do you have on Facebook ? IceRocket Tags: Facebook Song , Facebook Friends Song
Google and StopBadware.org : Hide not Label
2007-07-31 00:00:00 For those web masters or indeed visitors out there that are not aware, StopBadWare.org is a site that lists sites that contain malware. This article doesn't discuss how they malware got there, but more the way that Googl e lists them in its index. StopBadware.org is a "Neighborhood Watch" campaign aimed at fighting badware. We will seek to provide reliable, objective information about downloadable applications in order to help consumers to make better choices about what they download on to their computers. We aim to become a central clearinghouse for research on badware and the bad actors who spread it, and to become a focal point for developing collaborative, community-minded approaches to stopping badware.From: StopBadware.org When a site is listed in Google as having badware on it, a warning is displayed similar to the following: The contentious part of the above warning is the "This site may harm your computer".When you click on the link within the Google index to a bad... More About: Label , Abel , Hide
NIMBY's vs. 36 Grays Lane
2007-07-28 00:00:00 A soldiers Story (fictional) You're on your last patrol before your unit returns home after a 9month stint in Iraq. You're on point covering for your squad as they return to the Warrior after inspecting a suspected arms dump on the outskirts of Basra. Spirits are high because tonight's scran in the mess tent will be the last meal before you get home to your mum's Sunday roast. In 8 hours, you'll be on the plane home in to the arms of the family you've been away from for so long. Your squad mates begin shouting, they are pointing towards 3 youths running out of a nearby building. You are almost at the Warrior when there is an almighty 'whoosh', followed by a loud explosion. When you open your eyes, you find yourself 20ft away from the Warrior. You can't focus on anything, you can't hear anything. The dust is settling and you begin to see your surroundings. You try to clear the dust from your eyes, but there is something wrong. You loo... More About: Lane , Rays , Gray
Planning to Get Away?
2007-07-22 00:00:00 Over at RealTravel.com they have a great online trip planner that allows you to build your itinerary for your complete trip. Once you have added all of your intended destinations, you can sort out the dates and route that you intend to take.They also have a great dynamic route map that shows your planned trip in an easy to follow layout. When trying to organize a trip like this, one of the hardest parts is having to visit multiple sites to find all the information you need. I've used the site to plan an upcoming trip, and the trip planner made the whole thing painless. And if you are unsure of the place you are visiting, there are plenty of reviews and photographs from others who been there previously. It even allows you to create your own notes and any other useful links that you find and save them with your itinerary. Once you have saved your trip, you can email it to friends and family to keep them informed about your trip. (A great idea for young people to keep pare... More About: Planning
US Style Postboxes
2007-07-22 00:00:00 When we first moved to the US we were offered a 'cultural exchange' course. At first we thought things can't be that different, after all, they do speak "English".After living their for a few weeks you do begin to see differences between the way we live. Obviously you would expect there to be some differences, you just don't think about all the little things. Take the good old postman. Post is post right? Here in the UK we expect our mail to be delivered in the morning, (although gone are the days of first and second post, where if you didn't get your mail in the morning, you'd hope it would come later on that day). Then there are the old jokes and stories of postman being attacked by dogs as they made their way to the front door. In the UK, when I want to post something, I have to go to the post office or find a post box. There are 1000's of postboxes dotted all around the country, some dating back hundreds of years. Now they still have ... More About: Style
UK Rainfall Radar
More articles from this author:2007-07-16 00:00:00 What with all the recent rain and floods of late, I've just only found a great site for checking out the latest UK Weather Radar .There is one at the UK Met Office but the advantage of the new one I found at Meteox is that they provide an RSS Feed (see below). They also allow you to define your UK location using a neat Google Map API interface to give a picture of your actual location. With the weather coming up this weekend, it might be a good idea to use something like this to keep an eye on the rain. If you want to use the following JS on your site, just cut and paste the following code into your template where you want the feed to be used: <script language="JavaScript" src="http://yaps4u.net/feed2js/feed2js.ph p?src=http%3A%2F%2Frss.meteox.co.uk%2F&am p;chan=y&num=1&date=y&html=a" type="text/javascript"></script> <noscript> <a href="http://yaps4u.net/feed2js/feed2js.p hp?src=http%3A%2F%2Frss.meteox.co.uk%2F&a mp;chan=y&num=1&date=y&... More About: Rainfall , Fall 1, 2, 3 |
|
 |
|
 |
