My Computer Has Hiccups

I mean this quite literally. Every so often my computer makes a 'hiccup' sound (just did it then). I'm fairly certain its my main hard-drive, which is really annoying because I've only had it since October 2004. My secondary hard-drive has been going for over 6 years with no problems! To be fair, I suppose it gets a lot less use (the reason its me secondary hard-drive is because its smaller).

What's more annoying is that I wasn't even getting ready to replace it - its still plenty big enough! And I've only just managed to get everything back the way I like it after upgrading (and reformatting) my computer at Christmas. Just hope I can transfer everything across to a new drive without too much difficulty! If I can, I really just want to transfer everything across and not have reinstall Windows and everything else. Has anybody done this successfully? What's the best way to go about it?

Scandal and Local Elections

There has certainly been no shortage of political scandal here in the UK over the last week or so, but how much of a difference will it make in the local elections in just a few days time? Whilst John Prescott's affair is embarrassing and the Home Office's (Charles Clarke) hash up with releasing foreign prisoners without considering them for deportation is appalling, will it, or should it, affect the local elections?

My personal opinion is that in local elections, you should vote for local issues and leave the national issues for the general election. I don't know, maybe I'm over simplifying things. Maybe you should treat Labour as Labour and Conservative as Conservative, whether local or national - after all, they should still be pursuing the same goals and have the same attitudes.

What does anyone else think? What is the arrangement in other countries with local/national government and how do issues affecting one affect elections in the other?

Battery Converter

I read an article a while ago about someone who uses a GPS receiver and got fed up of it going through his 'AAA' size batteries so rapidly. What he did was to make some kind of adapter so he actually powered it by a couple of 'D' size batteries which were connected to a couple of dummy 'AAA' size batteries in his GPS receiver. This way, because 'D' size batteries are more powerful, he didn't have to change them as often.

I am interested in making a similar adapter, but my electrical engineering skills aren't quite up to the job. I was hoping to find something on the Internet about how to make one, but I can't find anything. Does anyone have any ideas?

Backlinks

I think I have now got the Backlink code about right, but the trouble is I have no way of testing it! None of my articles have backlinks at the moment, but I'm assuming that's because no one's linked to them!

I wonder if somebody would mind putting a link to one one of my posts on their blog, just so I can find out whether or not this is working!!

I know I haven't posted for a while, but I do intend to get into the way of posting a bit more regularly.

This is a test link to a previous post.

Blog Updates

Well, after getting a few more spam comments, I've decided to turn on 'Word Verification'. I'd rather not do, but I'd much rather not have spam comments.

The next thing that I intend to do is to use the Backlink feature. However, I'm going to have to work out how it works because I would like it to work exactly the same way as my peek-a-boo comments do. Will it be easy? I doubt it, but it will maintain a certain amount of consistency across the site. Fingers crossed!!

Problem with Nokia PC Suite

I have recently started using the Nokia PC Suite to synchronize my phone with Outlook. I have all my contacts stored in Outlook already and I make use of both the 'Name' fields and the 'File As' fields. This allows me to record someones full name as Johnathon Smith but still lets me use their nickname of John.

However, Nokia don't understand that I would rather him be called John on my phone. They use the 'Full Name' field as the name when I synchronize with my phone. This means that in my phone he is called Johnathon Smith. The only other way is for me to tell Outlook that his fullname is John, which is just silly! At least give me the option of whether I want to use the 'Full Name' or the 'File As' name!

Back to the Future E-Mail

I have just read this article about a website that allows you to send an e-mail to yourself in the future. Looking through some of the public examples, there are a range of ideas that people are sending themselves. Some are quite deep & meaningful, but most are just light-hearted.

I'm definitely going to send myself something, probably in 5 years time. I just need to work out what!!

Cheap At Half The Price

... or is it?

I have heard this expression a lot recently, but to me it doesn't make sense. People seem to say it to indicate that the item being referred to is cheap. When I look at the phrase, it isn't actually stating that though. To me what it says is "if this item was half the current asking price, then it would be cheap". This doesn't imply that the current asking price is cheap, conversley, it implies more closely that it is expensive!

I have always thought that the saying is meant to be "cheap at twice the price", thus implying that if the item was double the asking price it would still be cheap, therefore the actual asking price is very cheap!

What does anyone else think on this subject? Please vote and leave a comment.

Who Killed Cock Robin?

I saw an article on the Reuters website about a poor little sparrow that caused a certain amount of mayhem in Amsterdam.

It would seem that the sparrow got into an exhibition hall where they had spent weeks setting up four million dominoes for a world record attempt. You can imagine the result - it knocked thousands over! Unfortunately for the sparrow, an exterminator shot it.

Unfortunately for the exterminator (and everyone else involved), sparrows are a protected species in the Netherlands!

Here's a nicely illustrated version of the nursery rhyme (tedious link or what?!?!). [Edit - looks like that page doesn't exist anymore (11th June 2006)]

Stomp

I have just got back from seeing Stomp. It is an absolutely amazing show! You wouldn't believe how entertaining it can be to watch 8 people hit everyday objects (brushes, bin lids, even kitchen sinks!) in a rhythmic fashion. The energy and rhythm is fantastic and there is also a good deal of audience participation, though I don't think there was even one word spoken! If you get the chance, please do go and see it, you won't be disappointed!