What to do with those old records?

Those of us of a certain age will no doubt remember playing music on vinyl. I remember getting my first "hand-me-down" record player, spending my pocket money on 7" singles, later on hunting down picture discs and other limited edition records, and generally having fun with my music.

Time passes however, and the scratchy old black discs have been replaced by shiny silver coasters. I've not been able to face the thought of ditching my old records and so they've been languishing in storage for the past decade. At least they were until I got the bright idea of trying to transfer them onto my computer.

Now a lot of it I've already re-bought on CD (or in some cases bought MP3s online), but some of it just isn't available in any format other than vinyl. It would be nice to get these lost classics (or old crap as my wife puts it) in an easy to use format. Of course, I've still got a stereo stacker system (remember those?) which I've hooked up to my PC and recorded off an album or two.

There are some disadvantages to this.

One is that the stereo is large, heavy, bulky and pulling it over to where the PC is also means that I'm tripping over the damn thing whenever I'm trying to record from it.

OK, so thats more of an inconvenience than a real problem. So do things get easier once you've plugged the earphone socket of the stereo into the soundcards line-in?

Nope.

The sound levels can be a bit tricky to set up correctly. Once you've set up the graphic equalisers on the front of the stereo to a nice level, found the right volume to avoid clipping when you're recording it back and finally managed to record the album you STILL find an annoying hum (from the stereo's built in amplifier).

Now you can remove the worst of the hum, hiss and crackle from the records using Audacity (or whatever other audio software you use) but sadly the more you need to clean up, the more the sound quality of the final track suffers. (Before any audiophiles get in and start telling me about resisters that need to go between this, that and the other, forget it. I'm trying to record some music, not take lessons in soldering.)

The final results were passable, but still contained a bit of hum, which was certainly noticable when playing them alongside regular MP3s.

So what are the alternatives? Well, these days you can get hold of USB Turntables reasonably cheaply. These plug directly into your computers USB port and allow you to record directly from there. If you shop around you can normally pick up a cheap one from just over £20 (or less if you can get something in the sales). I picked mine up for just over £11 which was a bit of a bargain. They're also small enough to fit on my desk next to my PC when I'm in the mood to transfer some of my music.

If you are using Windows then you can just plug in and go (* see the notes at the end). There is a "drivers" disk supplied with the turntable, which doesn't actually contain any drivers. Instead it installs a copy of Audacity for you. The accompanying instructions take you through recording, cleaning up and exporting your tracks using Audacity.

Using it with Linux was just as easy. I plugged it in, installed Audacity using the package manager and from there on in the provided instructions were fine.

Recording using the turntable is much more straight forward than using the stereo. Firstly there are no levels or volume to adjust, you just plug in, select the USB device to record from and that's about it.

The instructions probably won't be needed for most of us, but it's always nice to see how other people do things. Personally after recording the track I normalise it, use a low level noise reduction to remove the worst of the hiss and clicks, manually split it into separate tracks and then save it to MP3. You can, of course, save to WAV, FLAC, OGG or whatever else floats your musical boat.

For those of you who may be interested, I tested this out with what is probably the oldest album that I've got - Baby Grand's self-titled first album from 1977, which was the first album I owned (I'd won it at a fairground).

The annoying hum from the stereo was totally absent when recording via USB and the overall sound quality on the final tracks was surprisingly good. All in all a good solution to the problem of transferring my old music.


* One last note about Windows and USB turntables. Not all versions of Windows will work with them. Windows XP and XP Pro should be fine, but Windows Media Center ironically enough doesn't contain the necessary drivers and so doesn't work. Apparently Windows Vista doesn't either. Some of the newer ones do have support however, so if you are using one of these versions of Windows, then you'll need to check to see if your OS is properly supported.

Any current version of Linux should work "out of the box" as it were, but if in doubt check with your distro's supplier. Ubuntu 8.10 certainly had no problems. Plugged it in, selected DSP2 as the recording device in Audacity, and that's it. No drivers to install, no problems.

On the road again - Part 4

We're heading towards six months of my cycling regime, so it is time for a quick update.

Firstly (and most importantly) I've stuck with cycling to and from work, as well as making sure that I do come home at lunch time. The weight loss has pretty much stopped, or at least slowed down to the point that it isn't as noticable. From a starting weight of 13.5 stones I'm down to just under 12 stone.

I've lost a couple of inches around the middle too.

My fitness levels have continued to improve, and I can now (if I push myself) make the trip in either direction in around five minutes, without breaking a sweat.

This is something else that I was told about that I didn't really believe. Six months ago I'd sweat buckets after the short bike ride to and from work. I'd had to carry extra deoderant around with me (and when the weather got hot I was even carrying a spare shirt). Now that I'm a bit fitter I'm hardly sweating at all on my rides. Apparently this is very common amongst people starting back on cycling.

Something else to look out for if you are riding in winter is your bike chain. Don't forget to oil it (using proper oil rather than WD40). If you don't you'll find the chain starts to seize up

Re-using old hardware - Mac Edition

I've written in the past about re-using old PCs, whether you use XP or Linux to power them and so forth. But what about the "other side"? The land where the switchers are all young, happy, cool, editing their videos and using iTunes without so much as a backward glance towards us mere mortals?

Well, yes, there are what are affectionately referred to as Low End Macs (or LEMs). As with PCs the low end is a constantly moving target, but realistically to have any chance of doing something useful you'll need to try and get hold of a G3 or higher. In case you are coming from the PC side of things, a G3 is one of those strange breed of CPUs that Apple insisted on using (allegedly because they were better than the Intel line) before mysteriously switching to Intel based CPUs a couple of years ago.

I've just rescued an old beige Power Macintosh G3 off the scrap heap, so let's see what we can do with it.

Stage 1 - what the hell do I have?

So how fast is it? It's a 233mhz Power Macintosh G3. It started off with around 378meg of ram, which I've upgraded to 512meg. As far as G3 Macs go, this is about as slow as you get. To put it into some sort of perspective, when this Mac first came on the scene, a top of the range PC would have been a P2 400.

The default 4GB hard drive is still installed (but blank). USB support is via a plug-in card.

After a bit of a hunt around I installed OS9, which worked well and allowed me to get on the internet without problems. If you are a Mac novice, then you'll need to remember to hold down the "C" key when booting up if you want to install from the CD.

OS 9 only took less than 15 minutes to install, and worked OK. It certainly allowed me to test that the Mac actually worked.


Stage 2 - Installing OS X

However a Mac without OS X is less than useful. After another hunt around I retrieved a spare set of OS X 10.3 install CDs, at which point I encountered my first problem: You need built-in USB in order to install 10.3, which the beige G3 doesn't have. If I had 10.2 or lower I'd have been fine.

However all is not lost. Providing you already have OS 9 installed, you can download XPostFacto which allows you to install OS X on unsupported Macs.

One hint, download the .SIT archive rather than the DMG otherwise you'll have a fair bit of fun trying to open the damn thing. . .

Running XPostFacto allows you to choose your OS X install CD, and away you go.

Just be warned that this will take a while.

A long while.

One hour later. . .

Sorry, but it's still installing. I'll give you a shout once it's done.

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While we're waiting for OS X 10.3 to install a quick word about the various versions of OS X. There are one hell of a lot of them, all of them using various large felines for their version.

So we have 10.0 (Cheetah), 10.1 (Puma), 10.2 (Jaguar), 10.3 (Panther), 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard). Rumours that 10.6 will be called House Cat are entirely unfounded.

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Another point worth mentioning are the things that OS X doesn't support, like internal floppy drives and non-usb printers. Yes, I know that floppies are SO last century, but sometimes people do have things stored on them that they might need to access. Depending on what model of LEM you are using you can either try and install the Open Source drivers for the internal floppy (available from here) or invest in an external USB floppy drive and ignore the onboard one.

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The annoying thing about the long install is that I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have to blitz the install and drop in a larger hard drive anyway, and a lot of the install time is taken up by installing support for languages that I'll never use (for example my grasp of Chinese - simplified or otherwise - doesn't go much beyond "ni hao").

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Wow! It's finally installed! Taking nearly two hours, the install has finally completed. After a mandatory registration page (complete with your name, address and phone number) you can get to install the updates and start using the system.


Stage 3 - Post Install

After the install the 4GB hard drive has just under 1GB left, which to be honest is more than I'd expected. There were something like 150meg of updates waiting to be downloaded and installed, but really the whole thing, apart from it being time consuming, wasn't that bad.

I'm not thrilled with the registration process, something that personally I think is intrusive and unnecessary, but hey, this is the price you pay to be one of the cool kids.

So how does it work? It's not the speediest beast that I've ever used, I'll admit that. However it isn't as bad as I'd expected it to be. Moving and resizing windows is fast enough. Browsing the internet is a bit choppy, but not too bad. It's certainly usable, as long as you aren't in a rush to get things done.

So to answer the question posed at the start, yes, you can make use of that old G3. Just don't expect miracles from it!


Bonus Stage - Overclocking the G3

BIG FAT WARNING TIME: You'll probably break your Mac trying this. Honestly. Don't do it!

Still desperate to try? Well you could try the instructions here, and also the full list of jumper settings here, but if you do so then you're on your own. If you manage to fsck up your trusty old G3 whilst trying to get some more speed out of it then that's your problem.

You may also want to have a search on Google too. But just so we're clear on this, I DO NOT RECOMMEND YOU TRYING THIS!

I, however, are about to give it a shot, wish me luck.

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After following the instructions on the linked page, removing the "VOID Warranty if seal is broken" sticker, and setting the CPU jumpers to positions 1, 5, 6, 7 (which is for a 300mhz CPU) I powered on and. . .

Nothing.

At this point I noticed that I'd set the jumpers wrong (I'd set them to 1, 6, 7, 8 by mistake). After setting them to their correct position I powered up again - and everything worked!

The boot up was noticably faster, the "About this mac" screen claims that this is a 300mhz G3 on OS 10.3.9, in fact, so far so good as far as the overclock goes!

Trying to overclock higher just didn't work.

Ah well, time to test this thing at 300mhz. Internet browsing is better, but not perfect. Youtube sucks on this, but the fact that it is using Flash Player 7 probably doesn't help. Upgrading to Flash 10 isn't possible on this setup, as it is restricted to OS X 10.4 and higher, so that leaves me with upgrading to Flash 9.

Youtube performance still sucks, but not quite as bad as with Flash Player 7.

All in all, for basic browsing, email and the like (as long as you can live without YouTube) the overclocked G3 isn't that bad.

The New Arrival

I've not been in a position to blog much over the past couple of weeks, as the latest member of the family has taken up an awful lot of our time.

The birth (planned C-Section) had been a source of some worry for both of us.

Although both of our other children were born that way, my wife had been given general anaesthetic both times as they were emergencies. This time, however, it was a "planned" one. Not that we had any choice in the matter, even though the pregnancy went smoothly we were told from the start that this one would be born by CS - like it or not.

The big difference this time was that it would be done under local anaesthetic - and I would be there to witness the birth.

On Monday we visited the hospital for the pre-operation check up, and also to talk to the doctors about what would be done. We were booked in for this at around 1.30pm. It was about 4.30 before we were finished, but this was due to them having to rush off to an emergency half way through which meant that we had to sit around for an hour or so whilst we waited for them to come back.

Tuesday was the big day. My wife had been up at 2am to have a slice of toast, as she had been told that she wasn't to eat anything after 3am. At 6am we both woke back up again, had a last tidy round the house before the in-laws arrived to take the children to school, then we hopped in a taxi to arrive at the hospital for 8.30am.

At 9am we were seen by the nurse for the final checks, a last look at the paper work and consent forms, and a quick chat with the nurses who told us that there were only two sections booked in for that morning, but a third "might" be coming from a different hospital, so we could be moved down the list if that happened.

At 9.30am the doctors visited, I was presented with the blue hospital outfit and white wellington boots that I'd be wearing during the procedure and they went back through the checklist with my wife.

At 10am she was taken to pre-op. At this point I was left to my own devices whilst the anaesthetic was administered. This was one of the longest half-hours of my life, sat in one of the post-operative wards waiting to be led into the operating theatre. There is only so much entertainment that can be had from changing into your costume and silly hat ready for the procedure. After looking at all the posters on the wall, the mysterious machines, the taps, the floor, the ceiling, the view over the town, the posters again and so forth, a doctor arrived to take me into the operating theatre.

Any worries I'd had about seeing too much evaporated at the site of the six foot high partition across the middle of the operating theatre (basically a large sheet hung from a couple of poles), with my wife's head and chest poking out through the side nearest the door. I was escorted to a stool at the top and sat back to talk to my wife whilst the delivery was done.

Although we couldn't actually see anything, a lot of the sounds from the other side of the partition were extremely worrying. Even worse was when the partition sheet fell down half way through the procedure. . .

Once they'd put it back up the operation continued, and a few minutes later cries were heard from the other side of the sheet, and we were introduced to the newest member of our family - a beautiful baby girl!



Two days later they both were home, and it has been a steady routine of nappy changing and feeds ever since.

The final countdown

The clock is ticking before the birth of my third child - October 14 is the date we have been given for a C-Section. So if you are wondering why things are quiet (and why there haven't been much in the way of Entrecard clicks from me recently) - my priorities are obviously elsewhere at the moment.

I hadn't expected to be this nervous about the whole thing, but to be honest I'm really starting to get a bit edgy now. I didn't realise just how badly it would get to me, and how difficult things like blogging would become. So far I've written this same bloody paragraph six times and I'm still having difficulties with it.

This wouldn't be so bad if I could use the excuse of being drunk, but sadly I'm stone cold sober and still making bot-all sense, so I'll cut this short. I will, of course, be posting here once the new arrival is safely out, but probably won't be online much until then.

Here we go. . .

New Red Dwarf - coming soon. . . .

Yes, you heard me right, new episodes of the hit comedy show Red Dwarf are going into production!

Can we say yeah? I think we can. . .

YEAH!

Although the BBC turned down the chance of making the ninth series of Red Dwarf (the bastards! I want a refund on my license fee!) Dave, the free-to-air comedy channel has commissioned four new slices of Dwarfy goodness which will be shown to commemorate the show's 21st birthday.

As confirmed on the Red Dwarf website, the new episodes are:

Show One - The Making Of The Specials

A highly entertaining look at what goes on behind the scenes on a Red Dwarf production.

Show Two - Red Dwarf Special: Part One

The cast get back into character, and costume, a decade on...

Show Three - Red Dwarf Special: Part Two

The adventure continues...

Show Four - A Clip Show With a Serious Difference

The cast do it their way. Red Dwarf as you have never, ever seen it before!

So essentially that is one new one-hour special, a making of documentary, and a clips show. If it is a success (and how could it not be) then it could pave the way for a full series - or more specials.

Credit Crunch Cookery

Times are hard (so the papers are telling us) and so it is time to look at ways of stretching our resources a little bit farther.

Effective cooking is one way we can do that. What do I mean by effective? Not wasting ingredients, and being careful about where we shop.

For example, today being Sunday we have just had our family Sunday dinner. Roast chicken, Yorkshire pudding, braised carrots, cabbage and creamed potatoes (yum yum!). It being Sunday we all had larger than usual portions, so we are effectively catering for four adults (rather than two adults and two children).

The first place to make some savings is when buying the ingredients. To keep the price down I bought a large chicken from a budget supermarket, which came to £3.49. This is compared with a medium chicken from one of the larger "name brand" supermarkets for £4.49.

The chicken provided us with enough meat for two meals. The potatoes I bought locally for around £1.50 for a 4kg bag. My wife bought a "stew pack" from our local grocers for £1, which contained half-a-dozen large carrots, three onions, half a large cabbage and a decent sized turnip (so again, more than enough for another meal or two).

So the total cost for our Sunday dinner is around £6. But remember, that doesn't give us just the one meal. Half the meat on the chicken was used for the meal (and we were serving up LARGE portions here). The other half is going to be used in a Sweet-and-Sour sauce for our main meal tomorrow.

But wait, there is more. We've still got vegetables left to use, and the chicken carcass. As I type this the carcass is simmering away nicely to make chicken stock, this is going to be used tomorrow in a cabbage and cheese soup (using the remainder of the cabbage from today).

As for the rest of the vegetables, they'll end up being used in a vegetable stew (or we might use it to go with some stewing steak). The potatoes will be used throughout the week as parts of various meals too.

So our £6 outlay is going to give us the best part of four meals.

Thinking of Sunday lunch, another good budget stretching ingredient you can use is Pork Shank (ask your butcher for this one). This is the shoulder bone, shoulder meat and a good portion of skin (which is just the thing for making a good amount of pork crackling). A shoulder from our local butcher costs around £1.75 and easily provides enough roast pork for the four of us. The only thing to remember with a shoulder is to slow cook it for a couple of hours on a medium to low heat to get the meat nice and tender (three to four hours should do it).

Remember, just because you want to save some money, doesn't mean you can't eat well.

You don't know Jack. . . .

Famous shyster John "Jack" Thompson is to be disbarred within the next 30 days - but not for ten years as was originally recommended, but permanently.

The conclusion to the recommendation by Judge Tunis goes as follows:

The Florida Bar has recommended disbarment for a period of ten (10) years. This Court respectfully declines to follow the Bar’s recommendation... This case involves factual findings of cumulative misconduct, a repeated pattern of behavior relentlessly forced upon numerous unconnected individuals, a total lack of remorse or even slight acknowledgement of inappropriate conduct...

. . .

Additionally, the Court is taking into consideration a review of the Respondent’s conduct not only as proven by the evidence, but by what this Court has witnessed of the Respondent’s behavior throughout the eighteen (18) months of litigation. The undersigned finds no evidence whatsoever to indicate that the Respondent is amenable to rehabilitation, or even remotely appreciates the basis upon which a need or purpose for such rehabilitation is warranted...

Over a very extended period of time involving a number of totally unrelated cases and individuals, the Respondent has demonstrated a pattern of conduct to strike out harshly, extensively, repeatedly and willfully to simply try to bring as much difficulty, distraction and anguish to those he considers in opposition to his causes. He does not proceed within the guidelines of appropriate professional behavior, but rather uses other means available to intimidate, harass, or bring public disrepute to those whom he perceives oppose him.

Read the full recommendation here

The court has approved the recommendation, and so the clock is now ticking before everyone's favourite lawyer becomes an ex-lawyer (at least in Florida).

The Court approves the corrected referee's report and John Bruce Thompson is permanently disbarred, effective thirty days from the date of this order so that respondent can close out his practice and protect the interests of existing clients. If respondent notifies the Court in writing that he is no longer practicing and does not need the thirty days to protect existing clients, this Court will enter an order making the permanent disbarment effective immediately. Respondent shall accept no new business from the date this order is filed.

Is Jack going to take this lying down? Not likely. He is attempting to appeal the decision and, of course, is letting everyone know his own peculiar slant on the events, as evidenced in his latest press release:

Miami attorney Jack Thompson, nationally and internationally known by virtue of his effective and successful opposition over the last 20 years to the broadcast, marketing, and sale of adult-rated entertainment to children, has just been informed by the Florida Supreme Court that he has been disbarred from the practice of law today.

This disbarment is in retaliation, among other things, for Thompson’s Tyndale House book Out of Harm’s Way, published in 2005, which blew the whistle on the Florida Supreme Court’s earlier efforts in the 1990’s to literally pathologize his faith-based and successful activism against the American entertainment industry. The Florida Bar’s insurance carrier was forced to pay Thompson money damages for that earlier assault upon his First Amendment rights, which is the only known payment of damages by any state bar to any lawyer for improper disciplinary efforts. It appears that the State of Florida will be paying Thompson more damages this time around for its illegal, now repeated, use of “discipline” to punish a Christian lawyer for his activism in the public square.

The timing of this disbarment transparently reveals its motivation: This past Friday Thompson filed a federal civil rights action against The Bar, the Supreme Court, and all seven of its Justices. This rush to disbarment is in retribution for the filing of that federal suit. With enemies this foolish, Thompson needs only the loyal friends he has.

Thompson looks forward to successfully litigating his federal claims, now before US District Court Judge Marcia Cooke in the Southern District of Florida.

Thompson always wanted to own a Bar. Now, armed with multiple US Supreme Court rulings that no state bar can do what it has done to Thompson, he is set to own that Bar.

A wise man once said: "When you reach the bottom of your hole, you stop digging." Jack isn't a wise man and looks to be going out in his usual style - kicking, screaming and blaming various conspiracies for his current situation.

I'm going to make something clear. If it comes to the idea of restricting the sale of violent games to children then hey, I'm in favour of that. Age ratings for games and parental involvement (at least in the UK) achieves just that. Same for restricting access to "certain materials" on the Internet. As a parent, it is my responsibility to protect my children from that. My responsibility, not Jack Thompson's.

As an adult gamer I have the right to play the games that I want to, and as a parent I also have the right to prevent my children from playing those games, if I deem them inappropriate. I don't need some legal muchkin to tell me right from wrong. I'm capable of deciding that for myself thank you very much.

As someone in his mid thirties who has been a gamer for most of his life, I can honestly say that I've never murdered anyone, gone on any killing sprees, stolen any cars or any of the other things that Jack claims that games are training us for. And yes, I have played Grand Theft Auto.

Accepting responsibility for ones own actions is something that we all should be able to do, but if you think Mr Thompson is going to do that, then you don't know Jack.

references

http://kotaku.com/5023418/thompson-judge-recommends-permanent-disbarment
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/07/09/we-have-judge039s-report-recommending-permanent-disbarment-jack-thompson
http://kotaku.com/5054772/jack-thompson-disbarred
http://kotaku.com/5054801/thompson-responds-to-disbarment

First Aid at Work

Things have been a bit quiet this week on the blogging front. This has been due to my attending a four day "First aid at Work" course, and between that (and practising bandaging the kids) I've been more than a bit busy.

The course has involved pretty much what you'd expect, so as well as the bandaging, learning how to put someone into the recovery position, how to check for and deal with shock, poisons, breaks, burns, cuts and all sorts of other fun things, I've also spent a good deal of time learning CPR (or Frenching a rubber doll, as my Sister described it).

Today was the final refresher before my evaluation by the Red Cross to see if I have learned enough to be a qualified First Aider. Nervous doesn't even begin to describe it. As one of the other candidates put it, it is as bad as going to the dentist, or taking your driving test.

The tests were in three parts, first I had to perform CPR on the famous "Annie", after this I had to deal with a patient with severe blood loss from a cut hand (including treating him for shock), and lastly with an already unconscious patient to check for breathing and put her into the recovery position.

As the CPR one was first I wasn't as good on that as I would have liked, but after that the other parts went really well and yes, I passed with flying colours. Or with a small "First Aider" badge to be more exact. The final certificate etc are in the post to my company and hopefully should be there in the next couple of weeks.

Back on the Code Face - Chaos Caverns Redux

Chaos Caverns has been worked on (and off) since 2006. It was written because, quite simply, I wanted to write a good old-fashioned platformer in the style of Manic Miner.

And so it came to pass.

Some people liked it, some people didn't. It kind of depends on whether you played the games that it is based around. Classic games like Manic Miner, Blagger, Technician Ted and Chuckie Egg didn't skimp on the difficulty, and Chaos Caverns takes the same line. All of the levels can be beaten with practice, but getting through all the levels in one go is a real challenge.



Well, eventually I stopped development on Chaos Caverns as, to be honest, coding it wasn't fun anymore and I wanted to move on to other things. Around sixteen levels were completed for it, some based around the originals, some entirely new.

I'd always planned on having around 26 levels, many of them based on some of the other platform games of the time, but fell short of that goal. I've re-started development and have knocked out a set of "Chuckie Egg" themed levels (see the above screenshot).

My plan is to add new levels, drop some of the old ones and make some updates to the game code. I don't know how far I'll get, but it is nice to get back to coding something purely for the enjoyment of it.

I've no firm plans on any release dates yet, I'll have to see how things progress.

"And another thing. . ." - The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy book 6

"Anything that happens, happens. Anthing that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though." - Douglas Adams

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (in five parts) ended on a bit of a downer. If you haven't already read the books so far, and are planning to, then be warned, here be spoilers!

The last book "Mostly Harmless" pretty much guaranteed that there wouldn't be another book. Killing off all the major characters tends to do that. Bleak is one way of describing it. Gutting is another.

Douglas Adams did, however, regret ending the books that way, and was planning on one final book to give things a happy ending. Sadly he died before this was completed. The remains of what might have ended up as either a Dirk Gently book but was being adapted into the final Hitchhikers novel, was released as The Salmon of Doubt - and there the series ended.

Or so we thought.

I've often wondered what would happen if someone else tried to pick up the pieces and finish things off. Terry Pratchett would have been my choice to try this, or maybe Robert Rankin. I've even written some H2G2 fan fiction (not released anywhere, nor is it going to be).

It looks like I've not been the only one thinking about this. Eoin Colfer - the author behind the Artimus Fowl series - has been invited to write the final book in the series.

Eoin is going to be writing as himself, rather than ghost-writing as Douglas Adams (for want of a better phrase). I've got to admit that I've never read any of Eoin's novels, so it's difficult to say how I feel about this. I wonder if he is going to try and mimic the famous Douglas writing style, or if he is going to be writing a novel in his own style using the same characters.

George Formby - Cleaning Windows

I just don't know what to say. Really I don't.

Stevie Riks is, well, indescribable.



Head on over to his Youtube channel for more than 300 (!) different videos, including his impressions of The Beatles, Freddie Mercury, The Monkees, Leo Sayer, George Formby, David Bowie and loads more.

Just be warned, you could be there some time!

The Secret History of Classic Video Games

Cough!

Have flu again. Brain not work good. Watch this. It funny. More here.



Sniffle.

Squid in American Sauce

A couple of months ago I'd bought a tin of Ocean Sea "Squid stuffed with tentacles in American Sauce" whilst in our local Lidl. I quite like squid. I especially like the look on other peoples faces when I order it in a restaurant.

My children also like squid, and if I'm trying to eat battered squid rings it tends to be a fight as to who gets them.

Squid stuffed with tentacles is another matter entirely. Now I've had barbecued squid with tentacles once before, and quite enjoyed it, in fact the tentacles are the tastiest part of the squid (you'll probably have to trust me on this), but the kids for some reason didn't fancy trying any.

The big problem with the tinned squid is this: what the hell do I do with it now that I've bought it? The tin itself doesn't give any clues on how to cook it. Do I eat it out of the tin? Should I reheat it? Should I drop it in the bin and run screaming from the kitchen? What do I do?

Google wasn't a lot of help this time round, in fact other than finding other people with the same question about what to do with it, there wasn't an awful lot of answers.

I did, however spot some hints, so if you are brave enough to have these in the cupboard and want to know what to do with it then read on:

* * * * * *

Cooking Squid in American Sauce

Ingredients

1 tin of Squid in American Sauce
1 medium potato
2 tbsp vegetable oil

Method

Peel and cube the potato (1/2 cm cubes is probably about right), then fry in the oil over a medium heat until starting to brown (around ten minutes). Stir constantly as otherwise the potatoes will stick to the bottom of the pan.

Turn down to a lower heat, add the sauce from the tinned squid and cook for another five minutes, stirring regularly.

Finally, add the squid and cook for another five to ten minutes until the squid is tender.

Serve, and enjoy!

* * * * * *

I really should have photographed this (I'll have to do that next time), so you'll just have to trust me when I say that it really doesn't look that appetising, even to someone who actually enjoys eating squid. As my eight-year-old daughter said as she examined the pan, "That looks like yuck!"

The important thing is the taste, and boy, does this ever taste good! The potatoes melt in the mouth, the American Sauce turns out to be a spicy chilli, onion and tomato sauce, and works to flavour the squid really nicely. The squid was nicely soft with a pretty meaty consistency.

More surprising was the opinion of the kids, my daughter and five-year-old son both dug in and after trying the potatoes, both of them moved on to the squid and the tentacles. Seeing as they came back a couple of times for more squid (my son nearly ate as much as I did) I'll certainly have to look at getting this again.

You get around half a dozen small squid to the tin, and this works surprisingly well as a snack meal. Just don't look too closely at it before you eat it.

footnote

I've just had another search and have found an alternative recipe. Don't say I don't spoil you. . .

Seth McFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy

If you are looking for some more laughs between seasons of Family Guy then look no further than www.sethcomedy.com - the new internet comedy series from the man himself, Seth McFarlane.

Starting this week Seth is putting online new comedy shorts (much in the same style as the famous Family Guy cutaways).



With new comedy shorts every week this should be well worth watching. I know I'll be tuning in!

On the road again - Part 3

Here we are with the regular cycling update. I've managed to stick with my regime of cycling to and from work each day, and have found that the journey is getting easier all the time. My weight is down from 13.5 stone (around 85kg) to a much more svelte 12 stone (76kg).

The good thing about this is that it puts me into the "healthy" zone for my height (around 6 foot). My love handles are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, and my stomach is not far off being flat.

Another good thing about this is that I've lost the weight without having to diet (not that I was overeating before).

The time taken to and from work is down to around six or seven minutes each way, so I've started coming home for lunch too. This also increases the daily distance to around four and a half miles a day, which is probably helping to burn a few more calories.

My fitness level has also continued to increase. It now only takes a few minutes to get my breath back after a brisk ride, I seem to be able to breath deeper when cycling hard too. As an asthmatic this isn't a bad thing either. I've also gained leg muscles.

So far this is certainly turning out to be a very positive experience. Being able to leave work and go home for an hour in the middle of the day really helps my positive attitude about it.

Great North Run

A friend of mine is taking part in the Great North Run on October 5. He'll be raising money for Mind - The Mental Health Charity.

So, while you are here why not pop over to http://www.justgiving.com/dsh and sponsor him a couple of pounds (or dollars).

As I know you are all generous souls (and feel free to Digg / Buzz Up this post whilst you are on) I'm sure we can help towards his total, so come on guys, dig deep!

Alternatives to Adsense

Lately I've been looking at alternatives to Google Adwords, because (and let's be blunt here) it tends not to work.

If your page impressions are in the thousands rather than the hundreds, or you are managing multiple blogs then it may be worth it, but for the rest of us. . .

So what are the alternatives? WidgetBucks is being lauded as a better paying alternative. The ads are more customisable than Google's (although I'm avoiding the "pop-under" ads), apparently they pay more, between $3 and $6 a click in fact, and you can earn money through referrals. The minimum payout is $50, and they'll pay direct into your PayPal account.

Another bonus is that unlike some other ad networks, this one is free to join - no credit card needed here.

Worth using? I'll let you know. In the meantime click the link above and give it a shot. I'd be interested to hear how things go.

Adding Yahoo Buzz to Blogger

You've probably noticed the natty "Buzz Up" button to the left of my posts. This is a vain attempt to encourage people to vote some of my stuff up on the new Yahoo Buzz service - which is sort of like Digg only newer and more funky.

If you'd like to add it to your Blogger template then follow these simple instructions:

1 - Edit the layout of your page
2 - Put a tick in the "Expand Widget Templates" checkbox
3 - Look for the following line in your template:

<p><data:post.body></p>

Replace it with this:

<p><table align='left'><tr><td><script type='text/javascript'>yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = "<data:post.title/>";</script><script badgetype='square' src='http://d.yimg.com/ds/badge2.js' type='text/javascript'><data:post.url/></script></td></tr></table><data:post.body/></p>

Preview your template, and if everything has worked correctly and you are happy with the look of the button then save it and feel the Buzz love!

This will fill in the title of your blog post as the title of the Buzz'd article too.

And if anyone feels like Buzzing Up this article just to prove that it all works It'd be appreciated!

One Year of Half a Page of Scribbled Lines

Due to the hayfever incident (see the next post down) I completely missed the significance of yesterday - our first birthday!

Yes folks, on September 4, 2007 our first post crawled out of the primeval sludge that passes for my brain ready to pounce on any passing readers.

So happy birthday to me! Now where are my damn presents?

Damned Hayfever

I spent most of yesterday (and the night before) suffering from the worst bout of hayfever this year. It took a while for the antihistamines to kick in, so I had 36 hours of sore eyes, runny nose, constant sneezing, and generally feeling rather iffy about things.

I certainly feel a whole lot better today, in fact I'd go as far as to say that I feel more like a human, and less like a mobile snot factory. My nose may never be the same again.

Things are moving slowly with SpankMonkeys!, which is where all by IT / Technical / Geeky articles are going to go from now on. It will take a while for it to get on the Google radar, so I'll be pimping some of the articles on here - just to try and get things going.

Of Chrome and Chromium

You may recall my annoyance at the lack of a Linux implementation of the Chrome browser - and the note on the source code page:

Note: There is no working Chromium-based browser on Linux. Although many Chromium submodules build under Linux and a few unit tests pass, all that runs is a command-line "all tests pass" executable.

Click here to read the full post

This Week on SpankMonkeys!

Some pimpage of my "other" blog. . .

Google Chrome - First Impressions

Google, masters of the search engine, blogging, advertising and God only knows what else, now want the web browser market too.

Read full story here

Older stories. . .

For Sale - One Sun, Slightly Soiled

Latest on the rumour-mill is the possibility of Sun Micro being up for sale, with Microsoft being the potential buyer.

Read full story here


Pystar to Countersue Apple!

According to CNET Pystar, those wacky funsters who have been selling Mac clones (with genuine Apple software) are countersuing Apple!

Read full story here


iPhone Antics

Truth in advertising is a wonderful - if sometimes rare - thing. Apple have fallen foul of the UK's stringent advertising laws with their iPhone adverts.

Read full story here


Microsoft takes toughter measures against XP "Pirates"

They're at it again. The "Windows Genuine Advantage" (WGA) programme is being toughened up to make life less pleasant for users of pirated software. As well as a permanent watermark on screen, the desktop background will change to a plain black colour, and will revert to this once every hour if the wallpaper is changed. These changes are only being done against Windows XP Pro, because they are "focusing on the product edition that is most often stolen."

Read full story here


I Love IM - NOT!

I'm starting to develop a serious dislike for Instant Messenging. Don't get me wrong, it can be a useful tool to keep in touch with people, or at least it is if they use the same protocol as you.

Read full story here


Hans Reiser - Sentenced

Hans Thomas Reiser, former Linux file system guru, was sentenced to 15 years to Life yesterday (Oakland, California). Hans confessed to the murder of his wife (Nina) as part of a plea bargain which reduced his minimum sentence from 20 years.

Read full story here


KDE - The Long Shutdown

As the Alice Cooper song goes "It's the little things that drive you wild," and that is certainly true with KDE4.

Read full story here


Ubuntu on Macbook G4

I like Ubuntu - I'm not ashamed to say it. Don't get me wrong, it isn't perfect but it has a nice balance between speed and ease of use.

Read full story here

Star Trek Phase II - Blood and Fire Teaser Trailer

Well, we are nearing the release of the next episode of Star Trek Phase II (the fan film series formerly known as New Voyages) and just to whet the appetite, the episode teaser (the bit before the start credits) has been released.

Boy, does this look good or what!



For a high quality version download of the video, head on over to the Phase II website.

Classic Comedy: The Brittas Empire

"Since I have been manager, I am proud to say there have only been twenty-three deaths. And not one of them was a staff member."

Gordon Brittas (Chris Barrie) - one of the most memorable characters in sitcom history first appeared on our screens in 1991 as the new manager of Whitbury New Town Leisure Center. As far as Gordon is concerned this is the most important job he could do - safeguarding the physical and emotional well-being of all visitors to the center.

At least this would be the case if he wasn't so hugely incompetent. Initially Gordon was portrayed as pompous, arrogant and pretty dislikable. This was toned down for the later series in which Gordon was incompetent but well-meaning, and became a likeable - if infuriating - character who causes chaos wherever he goes.

The supporting characters were the perfect foils for Gordon: Helen - Gordon's long-suffering wife; Colin Weatherby - ex swimming instructor turned maintenance man; Carol, the highly emotional receptionist who keeps her children in drawers during work hours (it makes sense when you watch it); Laura - as efficient and competent as Gordon is useless; Gavin and Tim - gay lovers, only Gordon doesn't realise it; Linda, an extremely over-enthusiastic all-rounder; Julie - Gordon's secretary who really can't stand him.

The show lasted for seven series between 1991 and 1997 and is still regarded as some of Chris Barries finest work.

Brittas Opening



Clips Compilation

Classic Comedy: Do Not Adjust Your Set

One of the precursors to Python was a children's TV show called "Do Not Adjust Your Set" which ran for two seasons between 1968 and 1969. Starring Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, David Jason and Denise Coffey, the show was a mix of anarchic sketches, with music provided by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. A regular feature was David Jason as "Captain Fantastic" a bowler hatted super-hero spoof which could almost be seen as a precursor to Danger Mouse.

Just to add more of a Python feel to it, Terry Gilliam provided animations for the Do Not Adjust Your Stocking Christmas Special.

Even though this was intended as a childrens show, it gathered a very large adult audience and in 1968 it won an international award, the Prix Jeunesse, in Munich.

Most of the episodes of the show were wiped to enable to the tape to be re-used, but most of the surviving episodes (with the exception of the Christmas special, which has been shown on UK Channel 4) have been released on DVD.

Captain Fantastic - Episodes 1 and 2



Do Not Adjust Your Stocking - Part 1 *



Do Not Adjust Your Stocking - Part 2



Do Not Adjust Your Stocking - Part 3

Click here to view on Youtube

* The version of Do Not Adjust Your Stocking presented here was edited before being shown on Channel 4 at David Jason's request to remove all of his appearances, so the running time is reduced from the original 50 minutes down to 25.

Classic Comedy: Mr Don and Mr George

"I don't want to go to War. I'm too tall to die!"


Mr Don (Morray Hunter) and Mr George (Jack Docherty) originally were part of the sketch show "Absolutely" which ran from 1989 to 1993. The comedy could best be described as surreal, with the two characters inhabiting their own strange world which only just touches on ours.

The show, although very funny, was considered just too strange by most critics and only ran for six episodes. It is a shame that more episodes weren't made and that those that were have rarely been shown on UK television.

This gets my vote as one of the most underrated comedy shows of all time.

You can run, but you can't hide



Packing for the holidays

Classic Comedy: The Two Ronnies

"My great grandfather was killed at Custer's last stand - he didn't take part in the fighting, he was camping nearby and went over to complain about the noise."

The Two Ronnies, along with Morecambe and Wise, were a regular part of TV viewing in the 1970s and 80s. The mix of sketches, monologues and guest spots from popular musicians of the day set the gold standard for sketch shows for many years.

The show started and ended the same way - with Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett both reading comedy "news" items.

Unusually for a double act, both Ronnie C and Ronnie B had successful solo careers whilst "The Two Ronnies" was airing, including "Porridge" and "Open All Hours" for Ronnie Barker, and "Sorry" for Ronnie Corbett.

Less well known at the time was the fact that Ronnie Barker also wrote many of the sketches, especially those including word play, such as the "Four Candles" sketch.

Just before Ronnie Barker's death a couple of years ago, they resurrected the format for "The Two Ronnies Sketchbook", which showed just how funny their stuff still was.

And here is the news



Four Candles



Swedish Made Simple



Mastermind

Classic Comedy: Red Dwarf

"OK Suckers! I've got just one thing to say to you. . ."

I'm glad that I was able to follow Red Dwarf from the very first series. It came along at exactly the right time for me (at the time aged 12 years old and heavily into science fiction) and I'm still as much a fan now as I was back then.

So what is it?

Red Dwarf is the misadventures of the surviving crew of the Jupiter Mining Corporation ship Red Dwarf. I say surviving as almost all of the crew are killed by a radiation leak in the first episode, apart from Dave Lister (played by Craig Charles) who is in stasis at the time of the accident, as part of his punishment for sneaking an unquarantined pregnant cat on board the ship.

Revived by Holly (Norman Lovett / Hattie Hayridge), the ships computer three million years later Dave has to contend with being the last human left alive, his only companions being Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie)- a hologram simulation of his dead bunk mate and a creature who evolved from his cat (Danny John Jules).

In later series the crew expanded to take in a Kryten (Robert Llewellyn)- a 4000 series service mechanoid and Christine Kochanski (Clare Grogan / Choloe Arnette), a version of his ex-girlfriend from an alternative reality.

At the time sci-fi comedy was a bit of a rarety (no, laughing at Kirk's wig and corsett doesn't count) and there hasn't really been anything quite like it since.

The show lasted for nine seasons and a movie version was scripted - but is currently stuck in development hell (see the official Red Dwarf Website for more information).

All nine series (including re-mastered versions of the first three) are available on DVD - why not treat yourself?

Everybody's Dead



Teaching Kryten to Lie



Quarantine

The Experiment - Day 2

Yesterday I set up the new blog and added a couple of articles. I've also added stats reporting to it so I can see if anyone does visit.

So far: zero hits - apart from the three page views from me before I'd installed the blocking cookie for the site.

The next step is to submit the site to Google. This was done this morning, so we should be able to see quite quickly if things change once Google starts indexing the site. Like I said, this is it as far as promotion goes for this blog - it will be interesting to see how this affects things like Google page rank.

The Experiment

By way of an experiment I've started a second blog (which you can get to here).

This is where I'm going to experiment a bit with things, both with my writing and also with how I run and promote a blog.

There will be NO traffic increasing tactics used on it. That's right, none.

It will be interesting to see if word of mouth (and searches from Google) is enough to get a blog noticed.

Classic Comedy: Kenny Everett

"'Ello my leetle chickadees"

One of the funniest radio DJs the UK has ever produced made the transition to television and became even funnier.

With a set of regular characters such as Cupid Stunt, Sid Snot and Gizzard Puke "Cuddly Ken" kept us laughing all through the '80s.

Kenny's death in the 1995 is something that British Comedy never recovered from.

Here is a small selection of some of his funniest moments.

Reg Prescott - DIY



Kenny and the Bee Gees



Spider Man



Rod Stewart

Entrecard Update

I was going to wait a week before posting about Entrecard, but I think I've got a good enough view of it to make an early update.

Does it work?

Yes, there is a definite traffic increase which can be tracked to Entrecard.

What is involved

For those of you who may not have read the first part of this, a recap:

You get the extra traffic in two ways. The first is from adverts that you place on other peoples sites. You buy the adverts using credits which you earn by dropping your card on other people's sites, or by allowing other people to advertise on yours.

The second way is via the cards that you have dropped. In your "Drops Inbox" you can see all the cards that people have dropped on you, and click on them to see their site.

Show me the stats

Well, in my case I've had adverts running every day (between one and three so far). This has brought in 21 extra hits. Clicks from Entrecard back to me (mainly from drops) accounts for a further 123 hits. So for me that works out at around 50 additional hits a day.

So as far as extra traffic goes, that is fine. I could probably boost my traffic more by visiting and dropping cards on more sites (something I'm not doing an awful lot of).

When I last posted about Entrecard, Ria (from Ria's Crazy Movie Reviews) made the points that around 80% of the traffic you are getting is "Junk", as well as some people relying on drops to boost their traffic rather than posting quality articles.

These are certainly points worth bearing in mind, and is true for almost all of these social networking schemes. Almost all of them can be "gamed" in some way or another. Great for ad stats, not so great if you actually want people to read your stuff.

I'm taking the view that the additional visibility that this gives your site should - hopefully - give you more exposure to real readers too, and so is probably worth it.

Something that I have learned about Entrecard is that there are an awful lot of "Hello World" blogs out there. I'm not sure why people are doing this, but there seems to be a large number of new Entrecard members whose site just consists of "Hello World" and the Entrecard tool.

Advertising with these is just wasting your time and credits. Personally I think it may be time for Entrecard to start vetting some of the new sites to make sure that these fake ones don't get started.

Classic Comedy: Curry and Chips

This is a bit of a difficult one really. On the one hand you have a comedy created by Johnny Speight (the creator of Alf Garnett) and Spike Milligan, and starring Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes. By all rights this should be classic TV comedy.

The show was pulled off the air by London Weekend Television after complaints that the program was racist by the Independent Broadcasting Authority. Only six episodes aired.

So what was the problem? Well, the subject matter, even in those bygone days of the late 1960s, was seen as too sensitive. Spike Milligan made up to play the Pakistani lodger didn't help matters either.

Speight himself later remarked: "It was the English who were made to look bigoted in the show but the people at the IBA couldn't understand that. It was London Weekend Television's first year, but only six shows went out. The IBA made LWT take it off, saying it was racist."

Spike Milligan managed to improve on the infamy of this with his 1975 series "The Melting Pot" which was pulled after only one episode.

So was it racist or a brave attempt to lampoon UK racial attitudes? See what you think.

Curry And Chips - Part 1



Curry And Chips - Part 2



Curry and Chips - Part 3

Family Guy - Full Episodes Online

It is getting more common these days to be able to view full episodes of TV shows online - legally.

The only problem tends to be that most of the good stuff is locked to a particular geographic region. The BBC IPlayer for example only plays in the UK. Conversely trying to watch Star Trek in the UK doesn't work. So it is nice to find something that works in multiple regions, and Fox has done that with Family Guy.

If you head over to www.familyguy.com you can view five full episodes of Family Guy, as well as clips of their musical numbers.

The only pity is that if you follow the links through to the "Fox on Demand" side you get that old message that "This service is currently available to viewers living in the United States."

Arse!

Still, at least we can get to watch the episodes on the main Family Guy site. Which is nice.

Classic Comedy: Tony Hancock

Back in the 1960s Tony Hancock was one of Britain's best loved entertainers - both on the radio and on television. His deadpan style of comedy still works well today.

Many of you may be familiar with "The Blood Donor", "The Bowmans" or "The Radio Ham" - but less well known are the series of commercials he did for the Egg Marketing Board.

Just remember, "Happiness is Egg Shaped!"

Tony Hancock - Egg Commercials - 1965

I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again

Before "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and "The Goodies" came the radio series "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again" (ISIRTA).

The show, starring John Cleese, Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden, Tim Booke-Taylor, David Hatch and Jo Kendall was a mix of sketches and comedy songs, some of which were resurrected on "At Last The 1948 Show", "The Goodies," and the "Monty Python" albums.

ISIRTA initially was a radio version of the "Cambridge Circus" revue, and was first broadcast as "Get Off My Foot."

ISIRTA ran between 1964 and 1973 (with a couple of specials in the years since). It also spawned a long-running comedy panel show "I'm Sorry, I Haven't Got A Clue."


Thanks to the magic of YouTube here are some prime examples from 1968 of "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again."


Bee Keeping Interview Sketch



The Ferret Song



The Ballad of Oliver Cromwell

The Michael Phelps Diet

Michael Phelps is one hell of a swimmer - but the question I want answered is this:

HOW COME THE BASTARD DOESN'T SINK?

Seriously! Let's look at his daily menu:

Breakfast

Three fried egg sandwiches with extra cheese, onions, lettuce and tomatoes
One bowl of grits
One five egg omlette
Three pancakes with chocolate chip sprinkes
Three slices of French toast
Two cups of coffee

Lunch

1lb Pasta
Two ham and cheese sandwiches with all the trimmings
Four bottles of energy drinks

Dinner

1lb Pasta
1 Cheese and Tomato pizza
Four bottles of energy drinks

That works out at around 12,000 calories. That would be enough eggs to last me all month, never mind one day!

I'll certainly feel less guilty next time I have a kebab. "Honestly - I'm in training for the next Olympics. . ."

The Goodies - Who?

It has been pointed out to you that some of you may not have heard of The Goodies.

Bloody philistines.

So for those of you outside the UK, or who are too young to have seen them originally, let me introduce you to The Goodies!

The Goodies are:

Tim Brooke-Taylor "The Posh One"

Bill Oddie "The Scruffy One"

Graeme Garden "The Loony Scientist"

The Goodies was a very popular comedy show on the BBC throughout the 1970s, and for one season on ITV in the 1980s. As well as the TV show they released a series of books, appeared in comic form, and had chart success with "The Funky Gibbon."

I suppose you could say that they were a bit like The Monkees. Only funny. And they wrote their own music too. So there!

Unfortunately, in the UK at any rate, the Goodies has very rarely been repeated since they defected to ITV, and it has only been in recent years that the episodes have started to appear on DVD.

Really the best way to try and describe them is to watch an episode, and thanks to the magic of YouTube we are able to do that for you!


Hype Pressure (1976)

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3

The Can Can

The Goodies do the Can Can. . .

BlogUpp - More traffic boosting hijinks

BlogUpp! is yet another service aimed at bringing in some extra readers. This one is slightly different to the others - and I'm quite keen to see what it brings.

Firstly, it isn't promising thousands of targeted readers (and I'm looking at YOU here BlogRush).

Secondly you don't need to sign up for anything, you just generate the code and add it onto your site.

Thirdly - and this is the bit that I like - it uses the RSS feed on your blog to pull in your latest story, generates a thumbnail image of your site and posts that in the feed of other people using the widget. When you roll-over the thumbnail a preview of the article is shown and if you click it you are taken directly to the site (in a new window).

Nice one!

This looks like another one that will get the "one week to see what the results are" treatment.

Increasing visitors with Entrecard

As it has been a while since I've blogged about Blogrush (which doesn't really seem to work), Blogcatalog (which does) and some of the "scam" sites which are best to avoid, so it is time to take a look at another site which promises an increase in visitors: Entrecard

This is another "social networking" type site, in which you accept adverts for other peoples site, giving you credit to buy your own adverts on their sites. You can also gain credit by visiting other peoples sites and "dropping" your card. This is certainly a fun way to discover other people's blogs.

Does it work? Well, it is hard to tell at this point. I've definitely had an extra fourteen or fifteen visitors via Entrecard over the couple of hours since I've signed up, which is probably more than I've received from Blogrush in total.

It will take a couple of days before my adverts start appearing on other peoples sites, so I'll be interested to see if there is a sustained traffic increase from using this service.

As usual, I'll wait a week (unless spectacular results happen before then) and let you know what sort of a difference it makes.

Are you using Entrecard yourself? Is there a sustained traffic increase from using it? Let us know in the comments!

Update: Well, here we are 24 hours later and the results have been surprising - in that there actually are results! The adverts themselves which are currently running on two other blogs have brought in an extra 15 readers. Clicks from other users on the site has brought a further 32. So that's an extra 47 unique visitors that have come as a result of Entrecard in the last 24 hours.

I LIVE AGAIN!

Well, I've managed to crawl out of bed this morning, and so far I don't feel too bad.

I'm going to celebrate with a pot of coffee and some toast and see how I feel after that, but so far so good!

Comedy Magic

As I'm still feeling lousy - some comedy to beat the snots. . .

Summer Cold

Sniff. . .

Right now I feel lousy. The Summer Cold from Hell has come to pay a visit. One minute - I was fine. A couple of minutes later and I was in full snotty flow. *Cough*

Sniffle. . .

If there was an Olympic event called the "Snot Put" I'd be a Gold Medal contender for sure!

Sniff. . .

If one more person comes past and says "You look terrible!" then I'm going to breath all over them, and see how they like it once they catch it.

Bringing my bike to work may not go down in History as one of my smarter moves, I'll have to see if I'm up to riding it back as I'm having enough trouble staying upright on my feet, never mind on two wheels.

SNORT!

I'm currently dosing myself up with a heady mix of Vitamin C, decongestant, paracetamol and other goodies to at least allow me to pass as human, rather than a grey and shaking snot factory.

More later, assuming I survive.

Selling Out

As some of you may know, I also run the "Dan's Remakes" freeware games site (freeware games for Windows, OSX and Linux).

I've been toying with the idea of having some goodies to sell, and so have put together a little test site with Cafe Express to see if there is any interest in this.

So if you want to help support Dan's Remakes then head on over to our online shop and buy Buy BUY!

Ahem, sorry, came over all commercial there!

So far there are a couple of mugs and a t-shirt available - more designs and products coming soon.

The Empire Has Arrived

Some film clips you just have to love. . .

Pre-birth nerves

The big day is getting closer! Only a month or two to go and I'll be the proud father of another child.

You'd think after being through this twice before the nerves would go - well - they're back with a vengence.

I'm going to have to make the most of being able to sleep through the night - as once the new child arrives I get the feeling that is going to stop for another year or so (aargh!) - as well as getting back to changing nappies (no!), vomit (please!) and teething (mummy!).

On the other hand I've got another chance to see all those amazing firsts, such as the first steps, the first word, first time he (or she) says "Daddy" and so on.

So set your calendars for the second week in October (which is much closer than you'd imagine) and hope the world is ready for DanO v3!

Fear of Facebook

I've resisted joining Facebook for a long time, mainly because I thought it was a bit "sad" - you know - "let's pretend that we have lots and lots of friends, hardly any of which I've ever met or spoke to in person. . ."

I ended up giving in and joining up anyway, as it was the quickest way to get access to my sister's wedding photographs.

That was nearly two months ago.

I've got to admit it - I'm now hooked. The good thing about it (apart from being able to use it as a replacement for MSN Messenger) is some of the games. The fact that your high scores are compared with your friends makes it that bit more fun.

I've only added people who I actually know to my friends list so I don't feel quite as dirty about the whole thing*. I'm just going to have to get ready to sign up for Facebook Anonymous should it start getting out of hand!

* OK, apart from one. Yes, me and William "Captain Kirk" Shatner are "Facebook Friends." I hang my head in shame.

Silly Browser Tricks #1 - Fake Hacking

Practical jokes with web browsers. . .

Step 1: Find a popular site (such as the BBC's homepage) and let the page load

Step 2: Paste the following into your browser:

javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

Step 3: Edit the page as you see fit

Step 4: Re-enter the original URL (but don't submit it)

Now let the victim read the page. . . . . .

Mint O Fruit

Polos are one of the standard British sweets. For those of you who haven't seen them (anyone?) they are a shaped like a disc with a hole in the middle - a bit like a tyre - with the word "POLO" embossed on one side.

Polos have been in the news recently when Poundland started selling multi-packs of Polos at eight packets for a pound, rather than the standard UK price of thirty pence a packet.

The reason these Polos were so cheap was that they were imported in bulk from Indonesia. Apparently it is cheaper to import them into the UK than it is to buy them direct from the Nestle factories here.

It isn't just the multi-packs that they have been importing though. They have also started stocking the fruit and mint flavoured Polo Mint O Fruit sweets.



These are generally only available in Indonesia, and are different flavours to the standard fruit Polos we normally get in the UK. They come in these flavours: Raspberry Mint, Blackcurrant Mint, Peppermint, Lime Mint and Cherry Mint.

These sweets are great! The mix of fruit and mint flavour works a lot better than you would imagine (so far the Raspberry Mint flavour are my personal favourites).

I'm hoping that there is a proper UK release for these at some point.

On the road again - Part 2

Well, I've survived the first month of being a cyclist and learnt some important lessons along the way.

Travelling to work now only takes between five and ten minutes, mostly downhill. The journey back takes ten to twelve, mostly uphill. On the other hand now that I've got to grips with the gears, as well experimenting with different routes, I no longer feel like having a heart-attack by the time I arrive.

So I'm getting fitter (slowly), and more importantly the time spent travelling has gone from over an hour a day down to around twenty minutes, usually less.

One thing that has been noticed by other people is that I'm also starting to slim down a touch too. Not that I was massively overweight before (although my daughter was starting to draw pictures of me as a circle with legs) but I'm certainly getting back to a more streamlined shape.

There has only been one real problem, and that is that over the last week or so I've had a fair bit of discomfort in my legs. At the start I'd put it down to me not having been as fit as I used to be, but rather than the effect lessening as the weeks have progressed, it has been getting worse and lasting for longer.

I've tracked down what the problem is, and it is something that is well worth looking into if you are starting to ride again.

Incorrect seat height.

The seat on my bike was set way too low, so my knees where having to do an awful lot more work than they should have, hence the stiffness and discomfort.

So how should you set your seat height? Well, after looking into this a bit (otherwise known as spending a happy half hour on YouTube and Google) the general consensus seems to be that when the pedal is at its lowest position your leg should be slightly bent (around 20 degrees). Just watch out that you don't set the seat too high, as that apparently can be just as bad.

The Cleveland Show

Family Guy is set to have its own spin-off series when Cleveland Brown leaves Quahog, Rhode Island to set up house with his childhood sweetheart Donna and her family in Stoolbend, VA.



The new show is set to air in Spring 2009.

BlitzMax 1.30 out!

BlitzMax has recently been updated to version 1.30.

So what's new in this version?

***** 1.30 Release *****

Major sanity check release!

MaxGUI has been moved to its own module, maxgui.mod.

This means you will now have to manually import maxgui, eg:

Import MaxGUI.MaxGUI 'import maxgui core
Import MaxGUI.Win32MaxGUI 'import win32 version
Import MaxGUI.CocoaMaxGUI 'import macos version
Import MaxGUI.FltkMaxGUI 'import linux version

The default audio driver for Windows has been changed to DirectSound. This means if you don't call SetAudioDriver(), the DirectSound driver will be used. For Mac/Linux, FreeAudio is still the default driver.

Syncmods has been disabled and is no longer supported by BRL. MaxGUI modules are now available in zip form from the 'product updates' page of the 'account' section at blitzbasic.com

Internal changes:
Lots of MaxGUI fixes from Seb.
Added advadpi32 to bmk win32 link
Debugger fix for out of scope objects.
bbGCValidate() added to blitz_gc.c
MaxIDE updated
Brucey's patch: LoadSound method added to TAudioDriver
Fixes and updates from Seb
Fixed GC and final methods reflection bugs
Removed nan/inf docs
Added missing EVENT_HOTKEY ToString case (skid)
Dragbar canvas fix for win32maxguiex compatability
GNet now uses 32 bit floats
Added -bind_at_load to bmk mac linkopts
Fixed blitzmaxpath looping forever
Default win32 audio driver now directsound
Fixed getmodulehandlea/w param
Added exception to loadbytearray/loadstring etc
Sped up replaceall
Fixed macos-version issue with PPC 10.4
Changed to maxgui.mod

There is also (available via the forums) a further update available for the BlitzMax IDE which sorts out some crashing issues with Linux.

The help function under Linux seems to work better (finally!). I'll be playing more with this later on this week to see if it behaves better than the 1.28 release.