Drop50.com

The Easiest, Fastest Way to Update or Install Software

2012-01-25T10:53:00.000Z

The Easiest, Fastest Way to Update or Install Software

http://ninite.com/

2011 Year Review

2012-01-18T11:42:00.000Z

So I’ve now been blogging for just over 3 years (that’s if you discount the 4 months or so that I didn’t blog in last year and if you call what I do blogging and not what it actually is [randomly posting stuff I find useful])

Hooray me!

I have found 2011 to be a tough year and now I think back on it January 2011 seems like a very long time ago. To think around this time last year I helped form Tuesday night football in the form of SevenF (that’s to say I am one of the original 10 who started playing in the current format [5v5 friendly]), I went to China on business and saw what Shanghai has to offer, I visited Baltimore and witnessed my first ever live NFL game! I visited New York City (and loved every moment of it)

While away Maddy sadly had an accident, no one truly knows what happened to her, but she has made a real mess of herself, 2 bouts of surgery later and she seems to getting better. For those interested she’s had femoral head ostectomy, which really is incredible when you read up about it.

Work seems to be weighting in on me recently, XenServer 6.0 upgrade doesn’t seem to have gone all that smoothly and we’re not witnessing some fallout on multiple sites it’s also caused some stability problems with our Exchange environment which has prompted me to investigate moving to a hosted environment, if I can get approval for that then I think I’ll breathe a big sigh of relief when it’s completed.

I also made a difficult decision in December and I have now called it a day on TTFE, having not been happy with the quality of football on offer for at least 12 months (possibly 18?) I have moved on with a few others to form something new, ultimately it’s a better playing surface and so far I’ve found that I’m getting home 30 minutes earlier.

I have also decided that 2012 will be the year that I change cars, originally I was looking at a Saab 93 TTiD Aero, however with Saab GM filing for insolvency I think we can rule that out (I am more than a little bit gutted, seen as I’ve pined for a Saab for about 3 years now) I am currently looking at a Toyota Avensis Tourer T-Spirit, which seems to come highly spec’d but it does carry a premium price tag, I’m also looking at a Mazda 6 Sport (Hatchback or Estate). We shall see!

Backups

2012-01-09T16:43:00.000Z

I discovered a new backup tool today

EaseUS Todo Backup Free

http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/download.htm

From my initial testing this looks very good (especially for a free product)... I'm currently waiting to find out what the snag with this product is

GMail Update

2011-09-27T13:00:00.000+01:00

So I've been using GMail for a little under a month now and I am still very impressed. I am still unsure how it would fit into a larger organisation (with 10+ seats) there are 2 things I dislike about it at the moment.

Firstly there's the username issue, I finally managed to get my username straightened out and in fairness I may have been partly to blame. I had assigned my required forename.surname as an alias to my current account, so I was unable to rename until I removed this alias - so after waiting the required 5 (or was it 7 days? I actually waited 14) I finally started to rage at Google, hammering my keyboard with search terms until I finally gave up and decided to mess around with my account settings the error message in a round-about way lead me to believe removing the alias would work, and it did!

Secondly I don't like how the username you sign into email with follows you across all of Googles sites. Now for most people this isn't a problem and its actually benefits them but for me it doesn't. For my personal business I have my own domain and therefore use that for all my email, I have a separate signon for Blogger and for YouTube (although I think I somehow ended up managing to link the Blogger and YouTube accounts)

It's not really a problem, but it is an annoyance.

How things change

2011-09-26T15:09:00.000+01:00

So a little under 2 years ago I started the Drop50 blog, it's always been something that I've done "when I felt like", some months I'll try and do a blog a week, others I simply forget about it completely.

What I've realised lately is that I haven't really been looking at the "whole" picture, I have no idea when Blogger decided to start offering these very dynamic and fluid looking blog templates, I happened to notice and icon informing me that I could upgrade. BOOM Drop50 looks different. I like it, I hope you do to =]

Google Chrome

2011-09-09T10:53:00.002+01:00

I never got caught up in the hype of Google Chrome when it first came out. Since I first got online I’ve been a massive fan of tabbed browsing and I used to use a bit of software called “Kitty Browser” This is back in the Windows 98 days but I believe it just wrapped IE5 and added some additional functionality. Fast forward a number of years and we now have Firefox (and recently IE7,8 and 9) thrown in some “Add-ons” and you have a very solid browser.

Enter Google Chrome, I tried it a year or two ago and quickly uninstalled it after 30 seconds. Today I’ve tried it again and given it a really good go. I’ll report back anything of note but my first impression is that rendering of web pages is amazingly quick, this thing is like lightning compared to IE/Firefox, I’d dismissed what others had said about it but having now used it I am very impressed.

Canoe Day

2011-09-08T13:48:00.001+01:00

Myself and Laura were invited along to “Canoe Day” the trip involved canoeing from Ross-on-wye all the way down to Symonds Yat. It was the first time I’ve been canoeing and it was an enjoyable experience. The 14 mile (approximately) trip did take a staggering amount of time (6 hours or so) the guide did say with 1 stop for lunch it would normally take 4 hours. Not sure Maddy enjoyed the whole boating experience, while the life jacket we bought her might have been a little bit over the top I still think it was worthwhile as it restricts her fidgeting in the back of the car and also has a convenient “grab handle” on the top of it, which made getting her in the canoe a breeze, I’d also still urge on the side of caution around water flash flooding is called flash flooding for a reason. Costs around £20 per person (£40 per canoe) to hire one and is very good value for the money.

GMail

2011-09-08T13:33:00.000+01:00

I’ve run into this problem before and it serves are reminder of how anal Google can be at times. Internet at my home as gone down (BT line problem) as a result I have no email as everything was coming into an Exchange box in my attic. I’ve now decided to shift my email over to Google.

The Google Apps for Business (http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html) is an excellent bit of software, it really is. The migration wizard (step by step guide) explained things and provide further information if needed. I’d say within about 5 minutes I was up and running, now this may have been where I went astray. Google only allows a username to be created once (and it ignores . [full stops], so forenamesurname and forename.surname are the same) Having signed in at admin and created 2 new (additional users) I started to look at how much this would cost, a reasonable £2.75 per user per month (if signing up for 12 months [£33]) however Google wants me to pay for 3 accounts! Administrator and my 2 users, so I promptly set about deleting myself and trying to rename the admin, however as I’d already created a user (even though I deleted) I am now unable to sign in with forename.surname@domain, very annoying. What solution do Google offer to this? Adding forename.surname as a nickname (alias) to the admin account, this is just stupid. I tried it and also fiddled around with the reply-to address, but it still always shows as admin@domain

The only possible saving grace in this is that I think the username may become available again after 5 days... it still seems farcical that I only made the username 5 minutes ago but I now have to wait 5 days in order to reclaim it (very annoying considering I own the domain name)

Excel Tips

2011-08-08T10:37:00.000+01:00

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of working with Excel and I’ve really pushed myself to solve some problems that have bugged me for a number of years.

I wanted a way to convert between column letters and a numerical value. As you may be aware you can reference a cell via its row number and the column letter, but you can also reference it via row number and column number e.g. A=1, B=2 and C=3

It’s useful sometimes (when programming especially) to switch between the methods you use. Not wanting to type out (in this case) 153 strings e.g. A,B,C,D ... EZ, I found the following formula which can be copied into A1 and downwards and it will give you the running values

=SUBSTITUTE(ADDRESS(1, ROW(), 4), "1", "")

Very useful.

The second formula (actually function) I’ve come across is

=SUMIF(range,criteria,sum_range)

Usage: Range is the range of cells you want to query on e.g. Place, Sex, Unit of measure, Criteria is the what records you want it to match on e.g. London, Male, KG. Sum Range is the range of cells you want it to total up.

Very simple, yet very powerful

Fallout Tactics

2011-06-06T22:52:00.000+01:00

So I bought Fallout Tactics from Good Old Game it only cost me $5 and I've been wanting to give it a whirl ever since it got released (having been a real big fan of Fallout 2) turns out most of the things I'd heard / read about it are true... it really is a little bit shit.

How to sort listview by clicked column

2011-06-06T12:36:00.000+01:00

Found an excellent article on another blog http://www.fryan0911.com/2009/05/vbnet-how-to-sort-listview-by-clicked.html I'll also post the article here in case Fryan's blog is ever down

1. On your existing project, add a new class with following code:

Public Class clsListviewSorter ' Implements a comparer
    Implements IComparer
    Private m_ColumnNumber As Integer
    Private m_SortOrder As SortOrder
    Public Sub New(ByVal column_number As Integer, ByVal sort_order As SortOrder)
        m_ColumnNumber = column_number
        m_SortOrder = sort_order
    End Sub
    ' Compare the items in the appropriate column
    Public Function Compare(ByVal x As Object, ByVal y As Object) As Integer Implements System.Collections.IComparer.Compare
        Dim item_x As ListViewItem = DirectCast(x, ListViewItem)
        Dim item_y As ListViewItem = DirectCast(y, ListViewItem)
        ' Get the sub-item values.
        Dim string_x As String
        If item_x.SubItems.Count <= m_ColumnNumber Then
            string_x = ""
        Else
            string_x = item_x.SubItems(m_ColumnNumber).Text
        End If
        Dim string_y As String
        If item_y.SubItems.Count <= m_ColumnNumber Then
            string_y = ""
        Else
            string_y = item_y.SubItems(m_ColumnNumber).Text
        End If
        ' Compare them.
        If m_SortOrder = SortOrder.Ascending Then
            If IsNumeric(string_x) And IsNumeric(string_y) Then
                Return Val(string_x).CompareTo(Val(string_y))
            ElseIf IsDate(string_x) And IsDate(string_y) Then
                Return DateTime.Parse(string_x).CompareTo(DateTime.Parse(string_y))
            Else
                Return String.Compare(string_x, string_y)
            End If
        Else
            If IsNumeric(string_x) And IsNumeric(string_y) Then
                Return Val(string_y).CompareTo(Val(string_x))
            ElseIf IsDate(string_x) And IsDate(string_y) Then
                Return DateTime.Parse(string_y).CompareTo(DateTime.Parse(string_x))
            Else
                Return String.Compare(string_y, string_x)
            End If
        End If
    End Function
End Class

2. Declare a private variable on the form where the listview you want to be sorted is located.

Private m_SortingColumn As ColumnHeader

3. Then on the listview's ColumnClick event, add the following code

Private Sub ListView1_ColumnClick(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.ColumnClickEventArgs) Handles ListView1.ColumnClick
        ' Get the new sorting column.
        Dim new_sorting_column As ColumnHeader = ListView1.Columns(e.Column)
        ' Figure out the new sorting order.
        Dim sort_order As System.Windows.Forms.SortOrder
        If m_SortingColumn Is Nothing Then
            ' New column. Sort ascending.
            sort_order = SortOrder.Ascending
        Else ' See if this is the same column.
            If new_sorting_column.Equals(m_SortingColumn) Then
                ' Same column. Switch the sort order.
                If m_SortingColumn.Text.StartsWith("> ") Then
                    sort_order = SortOrder.Descending
                Else
                    sort_order = SortOrder.Ascending
                End If
            Else
                ' New column. Sort ascending.
                sort_order = SortOrder.Ascending
            End If
            ' Remove the old sort indicator.
            m_SortingColumn.Text = m_SortingColumn.Text.Substring(2)
        End If
        ' Display the new sort order.
        m_SortingColumn = new_sorting_column
        If sort_order = SortOrder.Ascending Then
            m_SortingColumn.Text = "> " & m_SortingColumn.Text
        Else
            m_SortingColumn.Text = "< " & m_SortingColumn.Text
        End If
        ' Create a comparer.
        ListView1.ListViewItemSorter = New clsListviewSorter(e.Column, sort_order)
        ' Sort.
        ListView1.Sort()
    End Sub

PHPBB3 Tables and Excel

2011-05-03T10:27:00.001+01:00

One of the forums I currently host and manage makes use of PHPBB3, the user’s post a lot of different tables (league standings e.t.c.) so being able to post tables is a must so I added some BB codes for [table], [tr] and [td] and they can now happily post all the tables they like.

The source data for these tables is held in excel, and having to upload and update 3 different tables each week is a little tiresome so I developed a little VBA Macro that will convert a selection to PHPBB3 Table code.

Throw a button on the toolbar and link it to the macro and job done!

Private Sub CommandButtonClose_Click()
    'closes the form
    End
End Sub
Private Sub CommandButtonCopy_Click()
    'Copies the content of the TextBoxTable
    Dim ansDataO As DataObject
    Set ansDataO = New DataObject

    ansDataO.SetText TextBoxTable.Text
    ansDataO.PutInClipboard
End Sub

Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
    Dim i_ColumnCount As Integer
    Dim i_RowCount As Integer
    Dim i_ColumnLoop As Integer
    Dim i_RowLoop As Integer

    'Gets the number of columns / rows in our selection
    i_ColumnCount = Selection.Columns.Count
    i_RowCount = Selection.Rows.Count

    'stores the phpbb code
    TextBoxTable.Text = "[table]"

    'loops through each row in our selection
    For i_RowLoop = 1 To i_RowCount
        TextBoxTable.Text = TextBoxTable.Text & vbCrLf & "[tr]"

        'for each row we loop, now loop through the column
        For i_ColumnLoop = 1 To i_ColumnCount

            TextBoxTable.Text = TextBoxTable.Text & vbCrLf & "[td]"

            TextBoxTable.Text = TextBoxTable.Text & Selection.CurrentRegion.Cells(i_RowLoop, i_ColumnLoop).Value

            TextBoxTable.Text = TextBoxTable.Text & "[/td]"
        Next

        TextBoxTable.Text = TextBoxTable.Text & vbCrLf & "[/tr]"
    Next

    TextBoxTable.Text = TextBoxTable.Text & vbCrLf & "[/table]"

End Sub

2011 NFL Draft

2011-04-26T09:47:00.000+01:00

I am very excited about the upcoming season, while there is every possibility of a lockout I’m pretty sure that a deal will be done and we will have a 2011 season. I am very excited about this year’s draft as the Ravens could realistically draft a player at any position (it’s unlikely that they’ll go QB early on but I have heard rumours that they could be evaluating a backup QB however I feel that we’ve found out franchise QB in Flacco)

I remember a few years ago I tried watching the draft and it was boring as hell... I may give it another go this year!

Impromptu Ravens night?

(Please don’t go WR in Round 1)

PHP IIS Got a whole lost easier

2011-02-10T12:18:00.000Z

I can't remember if I’ve ever blogged about my problems setting PHP up on Windows under IIS, it can be a real headache... sometimes it works as per the documentation, other times (even on a clean server) it doesn't and I end up messing around with all kinds of settings and NTFS permissions, after several system reboots things finally start to work.

Recently I’ve been working on a project that involves using PHP and MSSQL (something I've not done before) it looks like php_mssql.dll is now history (up to PHP v5.2) the latest version of PHP uses a slightly different dll.

To my relief my latest PHP installation was a breeze, fire up the URL below, check all the stuff you want it to install and off it goes, all configured, all working (I wonder what the security is like)

http://www.microsoft.com/web/Downloads/platform.aspx

Online document conversion

2011-01-19T11:26:00.000Z

I needed to convert a PDF document to an image today (didn't want to screen dump it due to resolution loss) after finding 2 or 3 services that boasted they could do the job 'online' and for 'free' (all 3 of which failed or couldn't handle a PDF as large as 1MB) I came across Zamzar. This website can handle a lot of common file conversions (e.g. mov to mpeg e.t.c.) It also features a YouTube video ripper (that could come in handy)

Check it out at http://www.zamzar.com/

Working with PDF’s

2011-01-17T16:24:00.001Z

Occasionally I get asked to edit and amend some PDF documents, we only have 2 full Adobe Acrobat licenses on site and I don’t have access to one. I can create PDF documents pretty easily from Word and Excel 2007 by using a Microsoft Office Add-in (available here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=4d951911-3e7e-4ae6-b059-a2e79ed87041&displaylang=en) I can also produce PDF documents from any application that allows you to print by using CutePDF, which installs itself as a printer (available here: http://www.cutepdf.com/)

I few years ago I needed to actually reorder and edit some documents I found the PDF Toolkit Builder (PDFTK) immensely helpful as it allows you to collate and / or split existing PDF documents (you can also stamp and even rotate existing documents) check out PDFTK Builder (available here: http://portableapps.com/apps/office/pdftk_builder_portable)

Remove Blackberry SIM Security / Password

2011-01-11T13:31:00.000Z

We just moved mobile service provider (from BT to O2) and the first thing we noticed was that O2 has put a SIM lock on their SIM Cards.

In order to remove this from your Blackberry device you must first activate the Blackberry by entering your PIN (default with O2 is 0000) then go to Options, Advanced Options, SIM Card, Open the menu by pressing the Blackberry button, select Disable Security.

Wedding Speech

2011-01-05T15:32:00.000Z

I took in a lot of advice when writing my wedding speech, I'm not the greatest of public speakers and was not looking forward to giving my speech one bit, I think I spend all the morning and afternoon dreading it. Friends of ours did their speeches before the meals (great idea) however I remember feeling very hungry at their wedding and when we planned it out we wouldn’t be eating until much later.

I’m not sure how well I spoke at my wedding; I know I received a lot of compliments and as I took some inspiration from the web I feel I should give something back by sharing my speech.

To shed a little background, my wife is from Italy and we had approximately 10 Italian guests, 6 of which spoke little to no English, I also told a few friends that I’d managed to slip an Alan Partridge quote into my speech (I don’t think any of them actually spotted it, see if you can)

My Wife and I would like to extend a very warm welcome to all of you who are able to join us on our very special day.

I know many of you have travelled a long way to be with us, most notably those that have travelled from Roma – Italia, and it is to those guests that I would like to say

Prynhawn da, Croeso i Gymru.
Ciao, Benvenuti in Galles.
Unfortunately after 7 years and a handful of trips to Italy my Italian has improved very little, fortunately I do know the Italian for TV remote and volume, and like all good travellers I know
Una birra, per favour.
For those of you who understood me, great! For those that didn’t, “Mine's a pint!”
We hope that today is as enjoyable for you as it is special to us.
Today would not have been possible without a huge amount of support from both my parents Annette and Raymond and Laura’s parents, Maria-Laura and Malcolm. We cannot thank you enough for the guidance and support you have provided us over the last few years and we hope you accept these followers as a token of our appreciation.
I’d like to personally thank my best man Cid, who has always spoken his mind and provided me with the best advice he can.
Laura and I would also like to thank Ciora for being a wonderful bridesmaid today.
Cid and Ciora, please accept these gifts.
Lastly I have to thank Laura; I think you’ll all agree looks stunning today.
Laura and I have been together now for over 7 years, in that time it is difficult to recall of an occasion where we have fallen out, argued or had crossed words. As a couple we complement each other very well, and as both our parents will testify, if someone doesn’t get done today, then maybe it will get done tomorrow, if not tomorrow, then maybe next week.

Ladies and Gentlemen please raise your glasses to my very beautiful bride, my wife, Laura.
Cheers

I put you now in the capable hands of my best man Cid.

No December updates

2011-01-05T15:09:00.000Z

Title of the blog says it all really. I was on honeymoon and the last thing on my mind was blogging. Had a really good time, took a load of photographs with my new camera.

None of your e-mail accounts could send to this recipient

2010-11-04T11:33:00.000Z

Ok I had a very strange email issue today. One of my users tried sending to various email addresses and kept getting a bounce message with “None of your e-mail accounts could send to this recipient” error.

After some investigation a number of contacts had been setup to use “MAILTO” rather than “SMTP” (you can check this by double clicking on the contacts name) to resolve the issue I deleted the contact and typed them in, then doubled clicked on them to verify that it had defaulted to SMTP.

October Update

2010-10-26T13:53:00.000+01:00

Well October nearly came and went without a blog, I couldn’t let that happen! October for me is normally busy and this year is no different as I get heavily involved in financial reporting (its work I hate, but keeps me busy and the days go by really quickly)

October makes a lot of people depressed; I figure it’s the dark nights, abysmal weather and cold. In the last few days I’ve noticed it get notably colder and it feels like a long time since I’ve been this cold. I’m on countdown until December when I Jet off to go on honeymoon (I’m rather proud of the fact that I have 3 days of work in December and then I don’t come back until January)

I am somewhat disappointed that I won’t be going back to Berlin this year, that was a really enjoyable break and I cannot believe that I went almost a year ago, with the wedding and everything this year time has just flown by.

Preparations have begun for this year’s TTFE Christmas celebration and awards ceremony; yet again I am shooting off on Holiday the following day... these things need to be planned better ;)

Prague

2010-09-08T13:56:00.006+01:00

Recently it occurred to me... I didn’t do a review of my Stag Do in Prague, so here it is.

Guests arrived at my house around 8.30AM, as predicted Cid (and Barri) arrived last, Maddy enjoyed the attention.

We had originally booked a mini bus via Roy’s Travel however a mini bus with “Mike’s” written on the side turned up, we all piled on and set off for Bristol, the ride was pretty uneventful, Dale was being a cock and had the one of the few seats next a window that opened and refused to open the window more than an inch which resulted in me feeling hot, I really wished I’d packed some beer for the trip down to Bristol, it would have been a cracking way to start the stag do, however my main concern was burn out, I know from other stag do’s that drinking so early on day one can be punishing... and I’m a bit of a wimp... old before my time.

I’d pre-printed everyone’s boarding passes so checking in was simple, Dale... being Dale had to buy something so he decided to buy some clear plastic bags... I’m not sure if he collects them (like Starbucks mugs) or if he actually had to buy them for his carry on luggage.

Doug being American was forced to take pretty much all his clothes off and bend over whilst British security forces searched him, I don’t know what it is about Doug but airport security really doesn’t like him.

We ambled through the newly designed duty free and eventually assembled upstairs at “Bar Zero” this is where we had our first meeting with “The other stag do!” A few of us ordered breakfast, I went for a regular breakfast at a pretty reasonable £5.99 and ordered a pint of Grolsch, lovely! My cutlery arrived and I have been to honest provided one of the first few laughs of the stag do (I’d almost forgotten about Barri’s rather “leather” looking shorts – for which he took some ridiculing for) it seems Bristol airport are rather worried about passengers having knives, and so provided me what can only be described as a metal spatula, the fork wasn’t much better, luckily most things on the breakfast menu can actually be shovelled into one’s mouth, another good thing about Bristol airport is that they don’t charge you for sauce and Mitchell did his best to make his money back on his breakfast by covering it with the most ketchup any of us have ever seen.

If you happen to go to Bristol airport I’d recommend upgrading you breakfast to one of the larger options as they seem like much better value for money. I’d also forewarn you that you can’t order anything apart from Breakfast until something like 11.20 (which Pete discovered when he ordered burger number one of the weekend) which came with a slight thawed wedge of cheddar cheese.
Dale, most likely remorseful for his reluctance to open the window fully on the mini bus, bought me a second pint! Now we are cooking! I can’t actually remember if I had a third pint or not? No I wasn’t wasted, just honestly can’t remember.

We boarded the plane and I managed to read a chapter of my book, before my mind wandered and I made a start on “The Times” Sudoku, we were tempted to try and put things in Dale’s mouth while he slept, but we resisted.

Prague airport is fairly pleasant; I had a flap because I couldn’t remember who I’d given the money to pay for taxis to. Luckily the airport staff decided not to steal anyone’s luggage so we could proceed to the hotel. The taxi ride took 30 minutes, we had prepaid (via the hotel) so the actual route and length didn’t bother us (Prague Taxi’s have a bit of a reputation for extending the route to bump the fair up)

Monica (who a number of the lads took a shine to) checked us all in, the hotel had arranged for all our rooms to be next to each other. The room was average in size and the toilet had been separated from the bathroom, perfect for stag do’s! The room also had a TV, mini bar, kettle (including tea and coffee) and a safe.

Everyone was given an hour to settle down, shower if they liked and get changed before we met in reception to head out into Prague town.

I didn’t need a lot of time so I headed down with my brother to the hotel bar, only to find Barri had been even quicker and was already well into his first pint of Krusovice (which is one of the better pints of beer we had in Prague) being a hotel the bar wasn’t that cheap, however a pint of beer was still only around £3, Mitchell and Elliot were last to arrive and ceased the opportunity to have a pint (we had actually almost finished ours) so this threw a spanner in Cid’s plan to leave, Doug got another round in much to everyone’s delight.

The hotel is only is only an 8 minute walk from the nearest Metro and the Metro is only a few stations away from most of Prague’s attractions, a 24 hour ticket on the Metro costs about £3 and its worth noting that we did get stopped twice to see our tickets, the Metro was clean and easy to use so I am quite happy to have paid £3, don’t forget that you need to validate your ticket before you travel.

View Larger Map

We got off the Metro at Muzeum (which is only 1 stop away)

View Larger Map

It took us several minutes to find the Beer Factory despite being incredibly close the Metro station.
I’d recommend checking out the Beer Factory, it’s certainly different to anything any of us had seen before; the novelty of pouring your own beer right at your table wore off pretty quickly once we’d tasted the beer. If I’m being honest I could have stayed at the Beer Factory for several pints, the beer was actually starting to grow on me but I guarantee several pints of that stuff would give you a serious hang over. The food was also pretty special, our steaks where pretty much raw... tasted lovely... just pretty raw, Pete had his second burger of the trip. The stag do we encountered in Bristol airport arrived and was pretty rowdy. We settled the bill and decided to move on. From here the stag do (or at least the Friday night) went a little downhill, we crawled to the Irish bar and then some sports bar (where the beer was quite decent and cheap) we all watched in awe as Doug necked 3 Irish Car Bombs in a row (he didn’t even get charged for them) At some point the group got separated and we wasted a lot of time wandering up and down Prague’s streets getting hassled by black pimps, people got frustrated and hacked off, some headed to a night club (that at the time may or may not have existed) the rest decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel.

Breakfast in a hotel, for me is a wonderful thing. Sadly the breakfast at the Ametyst was far from great, I don’t have any major gripes with it, just it was rather basic. I tend to have a larger breakfast when travelling, maybe something light for lunch (if that) and then have a decent evening meal.

Despite my size (weight wise) I really enjoy walking, especially when exploring a foreign city, Prague much like Berlin is a very walk able city, I had campaigned with my best man long before we’d gotten to Prague that we should really try and walk as much as possible, a number of people in the group agreed with my idea and it was a group decision that we could and should walk from the hotel to the castle. The walk is about 3miles in length, I’ve attached an approximate Google map

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The walk hit most of Prague’s major sites including The Museum, Charles Street Bridge, Astrological Clock and Prague Castle. You have to climb a big pile of steps (seems like thousands) to get to Prague castle, but once you get to the top the view is pretty special!

On the way to the castle Cid managed to get separated from the group, no one knows where he went, but there are rumours he went for a Thai massage.
I also can’t remember if Pete had his 3rd burger and possibly 4th burger during the walk, I know Dale managed to buy his Starbucks mug (a souvenir much like the plastics bags he bought at Bristol airport)

Just before we crossed Charles Bridge we stopped and went into the torture museum (it received mixed reviews from the group) but looking back at it now it was quite an enjoyable experience. During the crossing of bridge Cid had managed to ring Barri and the group was finally whole again. By this point it was approaching lunch time, we couldn’t agree on where to eat so all decided to go our separate ways, I went with Pete, Mitch and Elliot and had a fantastic Pizza and Mojito! Doug, Andy, Cid and Barri went to some other restaurant and the rest of the guys went to Subway.

Including in the price of the Mojito was a free game of “Wheel of Fortune”, we all took a turn to spin the wheel and apart from Elliot all lost. Elliot’s prize? Another Mojito! “Cash back!”

Quite full from lunch we climbed the 6000 steps to Prague castle, the view was fantastic, we wandered around Prague castle and then decided we’d done enough site seeing for one day and once again split up. Cid wanted to go back to Hard Rock cafe, some of the guys wanted to walk back and some others wanted to get the Metro.

I decided to stick with Doug and my brother and catch the metro back. We arrived back before anyone and decided to stop off at one of the local cafe / bars just around the corner from the hotel. My word was this place enjoyable, cold beer for about £1, it was cheaper than Coca Cola! After 2 pints or so, the walkers (Gavin, Hutchence and Dale [I think]) arrived so we all stayed for yet another pint. I wish we’d visited this place earlier, I could have spent most of the day sat outside putting pints away it really was one of the highlights of the trip for me.

We arranged a time to meet and headed back to the hotel. With the problems of the previous night fresh in memory we formulated a water tight plan of places to visit that evening. First port of call, the hotel bar followed by that cafe bar we’d spent the late afternoon at, then onwards for food (Pete had another burger) We’d decided earlier on that we’re going to TGI, simply because it saves arguments and saves wandering aimless around Prague looking for somewhere to eat, settling the bill caused some arguments but I got over it pretty quickly (the 2 huge Tequila sunrises helped)

Next? Coyote Bar followed by Hard Rock Cafe, I found great difficulty in letting myself “go” so much hype had been made over the stag do that I wanted to enjoy it, every second! So it was difficult truly enjoy myself as people kept planning my down fall (with ridiculous drinks – thanks all the same guys)
From here we decided to check out a strip joint, if I’m completely honest strip joints aren’t really my thing women taking their clothes off can be great fun but Atlas wasn’t partially cheap. The few of us that did go enjoyed ourselves with the provided entertainment.

We met the other guys back in the Irish bar and decided to check out the Karlovy Lazne night club that some of them had been to the previous night. This is located right next to Charles Bridge and is the other side of the building to where the torture museum is. My word... they don’t do night clubs like that in Cardiff! 5 floors of sheer sweaty madness! Beer was about £1 the sauna was free. If there had been a fire in this joint we’d probably have died, seriously! Highlight of the night had to be some random people dancing like “The Sims” to “We no speak Americano”, hilarious stuff, after dancing like a loon for a couple of hours we decided that we were all far to sweaty and needed sleep, problem was we’d lost Mitch...

Following morning we found Mitch, who’d managed to get back to the hotel, £40 lighter after being stung by a taxi driver. Mitch claims he paid him £40 not to bum him, the rest of us think otherwise.
Sunday was pretty uneventful, Pete had some more burgers, some of us had more beer then we headed back to the airport to have an uneventful flight home.

Blogging... don't hold back now!

2010-09-08T10:48:00.001+01:00

A few months ago, while signed into Blogger I was viewing my blog, I don’t remember the specific reason, perhaps I remembered I’d blogged about something “coding” related anyway at the top of the page you get some sort of settings panel that lets you know who you’ve signed in as and provides you with various links to edit settings and search your blog e.t.c it also provides you with a link entitled “Next Blog>>”

Clicking things link takes you to another random (I think) blog (every time I’ve clicked on it I get a different blog) Personally I’ve found this fascinating and I’ve spent a lot of time skipping through these blogs looking at what people are actually blogging about, the wealth of authors out there is amazing. I’ve recently read the thoughts of a communist, Interesting to know what’s going on in the communist party, I saw some very interesting art work, by an amateur painter but the thing that struck me MOST was the number of blogs about Cricket and about peoples bloody kids.

I don’t claim to be an author of any sort; I don’t even claim to have a good grasp of the English language (despite being my primary language) I have a clear objective with my blog, which primary focus is to provide me with a sort of “scrap book” of code, solutions, articles and links that I come across online, recently I’ve expanded a little to product reviews and I do have my random mumblings about American Football and amateur five-a-side (Provided for the benefit of my close friends)

What I fail to understand (or appreciate) is why the fuck anyone would want to know what Connor, Brady or even Martin did today. Oh no Connor fell over and hurt his knee today, Brady helped bake some cookies... seriously? Apart from your parents (who if they are anything like mine, mash the keyboard when sending an email and don’t know what a blog is) would read or what to read what a young child has done today. Is this what paedophilia has boiled down to? I reckon of a sample 10 random blogs that 3 would be about someone’s kids or family, 3 would be about Cricket, 2 would be about religion and maybe 2 might be of some interest. Seriously annoying when you’re looking to waste some quality time!

So Fuck you, Connor, fuck you Brady, fuck you Martin and just because I dislike the name... fuck you TOD!

"Ravens Night II" - Planning - Part 3

2010-09-08T10:30:00.001+01:00

With the season kicking off this weekend and the Ravens featuring in the first ‘Monday Night Football’ match it seems only fitting that we host a ‘Ravens Night’. Peter has decided to take up the reins on this Ravens Night.

I’ve only booked the morning off on Tuesday so I’m undecided on going ‘gung-ho’ regards to drinking, but I’ve definitely decided to get some foot long (or as close as can be) hotdogs (something Dave Watt started at the Super bowl night) ketchup PLUS mustard on mine please sir.

I believe Dale is planning to make an appearance, but I personally have him as an outside bet, he can come, so long as he doesn’t bring shitty spar brand kettle chips.

If Pete’s cats come even remotely close to snagging my Ravens shirt then they better learn to fly... and quickly, because they’ll lose most of their nine lives when I deliver a Riv special (toe punt) to them!

I’ve already been told Maddy isn’t invited, this hasn’t sat very well with her so far and she is currently suffering from bouts of depression. I’m sure Maddy would have helped with ‘pest’ control on Monday night.

The game (and the Ravens) for that matter is shaping up to be a real belter, with two solid defences colliding and the Ravens new and improved offense it could really set the tone for our season.

TTFE-L Review

2010-09-06T13:36:00.002+01:00

From the highs of last day season promotion to the lows of 2 losses on the trot TTFE battle on. Our season in division 4 has yet get on track and TTFE are suffering from a lack of able body players. This Sunday saw a heavy defeat, losing 7-1 to Shipmen AFC, a team who I believe TTFE have beaten on all previous meetings. Despite losing 2 on the bounce I have personally found the games enjoyable. It’s difficult to see where our wins are going to come from this season, especially when we seem to have only 5 players. It’s difficult to explain the mood with the team at the moment. We held our own for so long in Division 3, but from memory every game was pretty much a real battle; our personal has also changed since those days, with me become more regular and us generally having less than a ‘regular’ turnout from others. Perhaps we will survive in division 4, after only 2 games it’s difficult to call; I don’t think any of us are worried about making another trip to division 5.

Form_Load and Textbox.Focus()

2010-08-17T11:38:00.000+01:00

I was working on a project recently, where I had MDI forms with SplitContainers and I came across an annoying issue where the Split Containers split bar had the focus, and it made the form look really ugly, so upon load I wanted to set the focus to a textbox, however the normal method of Textbox.Focus() doesn’t seem to work when used inside the Form_Load event, the solution to this is rather simple

Me.ActiveControl = Me.Textbox

Firefox "advert" removal Plug-in

2010-07-26T13:36:00.001+01:00

I recently came across a fantastic plug-in for Mozilla Firefox.

Ad-Block Plus lets you toggle adverts on and off, sounds pretty simple and it is. Browsing has become somewhat refreshing recently, not being constantly bombarded by adverts!

If you use Firefox I’d recommend you check it out https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865/

Helpdesk

2010-07-23T14:10:00.000+01:00

At work we have a lot of projects on the go at the moment, worldwide we have undertaken a massive server and network upgrade to our major sites, as you’ll have seen we have completed Romania and are now moving on to China (which will be very interesting) We are also looking to bring all our European sales offices online with our new SOP system, this will require them connecting into our site and managing their data (could involve some travel if remote training is not successful)

The last few months of the year also puts heavy demand on IT staff to crunch numbers and produce reports for the budgets (We still have the problem of having to format and upload sale office budgets, but this will be resolved once they come online [a goal for next year])

Throw in my stag do, wedding and also honeymoon and you have a very busy close to the year.

So I decided I really need a better system of keeping track of issues and thing than my current one (which is a pad of yellow post it notes) Helpdesk systems come in all shapes and sizes, I wanted something simple that wouldn’t require much time or effort, I also didn’t want to pay for anything. There seem to be a lot of PHP based helpdesks around but ideally I wanted something that wouldn’t involve me messing around with IIS, I also wanted something that utilized an Access database (for simplicity)

I ended up using Liberum, which is free and runs against a variety of databases (I ended up pointing it against our Microsoft SQL Server.

It is very basic, but it does the job and because it’s written in ASP I can do some mods as and when I see fit.

At the moment I am recycling some code I wrote for my CRM application. I want to be able to convert emails to helpdesk tickets (rather than having to login and create them myself) I also want to be able to add email history to open tickets.

Once I have my small Outlook plugin working I think it will be a great benefit to the company.

Data Recovery

2010-07-23T11:11:00.000+01:00

I recently backed up my PC (A job that was long overdue) it’s at least 4 years old now and is starting to show its age and I’m loathe to replace it for a number of reasons.

I constantly question myself over my PC usage, on the one had I don’t really do a lot of intense gaming, but then again there are games like Fallout 3 that I must simply play, and who can predict what games will come along in the next few months? I seem to have a pattern of PC buying over the last 15 years, manufactured, self built, manufactured, self built so in theory I’m due to treat myself to a manufactured system. However these types of systems do not come cheap, especially if you opt for a 3 year warranty, I guess I’m somewhat resided to the fact that a decent PC will set me back around £1000 and I’ll have to budget for it at some point in the future.

Back to the blog topic, after backing up my PC I proceeded to format and reinstalled Windows (Vista Ultimate x64) I plugged in my external hard drive and was shocked to see that somehow the drive had become corrupted. Luckily (for me) I had a similar episode 7 or 8 years ago and I was forced to purchase some commercial data recovery software. R-Studio by R-Tools Technology has now saved me on 2 occasions, and it costs only $79.99 which is very cheap when it comes to data recovery (you can look at anything from $100 per GB if you send your drive off to some companies)

They even offer a free trial so you can try the recovery to see if it would work.

TTFE-L Review

2010-07-05T13:36:00.003+01:00

Things are really heating up for TTFE-L as we push for promotion. At the end of last season there was a lot of disappointment around the camp and mixed feelings about the direction of the team. A change of formation for the last few games did bring a lot of positivity to the style we play and also to team moral. The team is still struggling to get 7 players on Sunday but we have made use of some good backups when we’ve been in a tight spot. Rumours had been bubbling around the squad of certain people quitting the team or at least taking a much less than disciplined approach to attendance, this combined with the other issues outlined forced us to consider dropping down a league or two.

We start our new season in Division 5... the lowest of the low, the teams we play really are a car crash of players, for me it’s really interesting and fun and division 5 is probably about the right standard for me, there’s a number of slow fatties who can’t control the ball nor shoot and I’d fit right into any of the teams in our division and not look out of place.

Having said that, I am frustrated with having lost two games out of 7, the first lost came to top of the league (and currently undefeated Iranian Allstars) It’s a game we should have won, or at last drawn, but that’s football, if you don’t take your opportunities then some teams will punish you (We lost 2-1) Our second loss came again Large Belts, a team that on paper (ability wise) we are probably better than, however fitness and determination saw Large Belts take a 3-0 win.

A huge whole that is currently glaring in the TTFE-L armour is the lack of substitutes we seem to have on a Sunday, if memory serves me correctly we played with the bare 5 in both those games.

I really want to win-out the rest of the season, but it will be tough given the lack of depth we apparently have, coming top will be a personal achievement for me, however sometimes I feel like we’ve cheated a little when we field Jon Pride (one man football machine) that guy single handily destroys teams

"Ravens Night II" - Planning - Part 2

2010-06-15T09:09:00.000+01:00

I came across the following blog and it's really got me exctied about the up coming season, take a look and see what you think;-

http://baltimoresportsandlife.blogspot.com/2010/06/local-media-previews-ravens-training.html

On a side note, the North Cardiff Ravens Nest has now been stocked 60 bottles of Miller MGD, so whatever happens this pre-season / season, the next Ravens night is sure to be a good one.

MySQL Disaster Recovery

2010-06-14T11:28:00.001+01:00

I’ve been asked to recover one of my old projects off my HP DL130 that sadly died around a year ago. The disks in the server are fine so I was able to mount them in a caddy and access the data.

I didn’t have any backups as this isn’t a production server, plus it was mainly university work from my degree that was running on the server. Long story short I needed to find a way to recover MySQL without using a backup.

It turns out MySQL has a “data” directory which contains a folder for each database it hosts. I first attempted to simply move the named database folder from within the data folder to my new server. This partially worked, when I opened MySQL Workbench it saw the database and allowed me to access the majority of the tables, however when I tried accessing some of the newer tables I’d created on the old server it threw an error and said they didn’t exist.

I then downloaded and installed XAMMP on a spare system and moved the whole of the data folder from the old server to my new XAMMP installation. I needed to open my.ini from the bin directory of MySQL and change the size of the log file from 5MB to 170MB to match the actual size of my log file; I also needed to comment out the time zone that XAMMP had setup.

Last thing I needed to do was change the logon username and password for MySQL under phpMyAdmin\config.inc.php this then allowed me to use phpMyAdmin to administer the databases, from here I could export the data in any number of formats and restore it to my new server.

Road users move over!

2010-06-10T12:20:00.001+01:00

Other road users have really been pissing me off recently. People who don’t use their indicators really bug me but my biggest bug bear is these people who buy small cars like the Fiat 500 then drive them like they are as wide a Hummer. I’m all for slowing down to go through Lisvane lanes, but every time these people pass a car coming in the opposite direction they flash their break lights and come to a stop, it’s really annoying and totally unnecessary.

Busy May

2010-06-04T09:33:00.000+01:00

I’ve had a really busy May. Got some Wedding stuffed sorted and got the Romania project out of the way. Romania was nice (in a way), Victoria is small town with the picturesque backdrop of the Carpathian Mountain range. People were friendly, the hotel was basic, and the food and beer was good. It’s somewhere I could live and enjoy a comfortable life, but 10 days there on Business away from creature comforts is a long time, hopefully if I have to go back next time it will only be for a brief period.

Chernobyl Pictures

2010-04-29T12:59:00.001+01:00

If you get 5 minutes today I’d check out the following blog http://villageofjoy.com/chernobyl-today-a-creepy-story-told-in-pictures/ Personally I find this kind of stuff very interesting (much like abandoned underground stations) The title of the blog says it all creepy, very creepy indeed.

Things I learnt today

2010-04-29T12:22:00.002+01:00

Back away from aggressive bears slowly, if provoked throw sticks and stones and make loud noises, don't play dead; if you fight back you'll statically stand a better chance.

I’d love to know who tested the play dead theory!

If attacked by a Shark, claw at its eyes and gills

If you happen to be swimming with a pencil, I’d suggest using that... I suppose the thing I’ve really learn is to always take a pencil into the water with you!

Apply vinegar to box jelly fish stings and remove any barbs with a credit card

I’m assuming a MasterCard works best?

Let a hippopotamus know you’re coming by making lots of noise.

There’s not a lot you can do if attacked by a hippopotamus other than getting out of the way. I suppose it would die soon enough if you jabbed both its eyes out with a pencil!

Charging Elephant? See above

Crocodiles major jaw muscles are used for closing, so sit on its mouth and then it can’t bite you!

Finally a real useful benefit from being a fatty?

Stare large cats directly in the eyes, if they are close enough punch and kick them in the face.

I don’t know how best to define a ‘large’ cat, I’ll assume that means overweight, and I’ll also assume that those sounds its making are threatening! Die Kitty!

A king cobra can rear up so it looks you directly in the eye!

Good news! I can proceed to stab it with a pencil!

How to Remove the Popup Ads in Avira Antivir

2010-04-27T10:25:00.001+01:00

I came across the following article on wikiHow http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-the-Popup-Ads-in-Avira-Antivir, which gives details on possible soluitions on remove the popup adverts in Antivir, I belive this will break the terms and conditions of using Antivir, and again if it is a product you like and find useful I’d recommend spending the money and purchasing it legally.

I’ll reproduce the information here from the wiki for ease of access and future referencing.

Windows XP Pro

1. Go to Start > Run.

2. Type gpedit.msc and click OK.

3. Navigate through User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System.

4. Double click "Don't run specified Windows applications".

5. Enable it and click show.

6. Add "avnotify.exe".

7. Click OK on all open windows.

8. Restart.

Windows XP Home

1. Boot into Safe Mode (Press F8 while your system is booting up)

2. Log in as administrator.

3. Open C:\Program Files\Avira\AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic.

4. Right click on avnotify.exe and go to Properties > Security > Advanced.

5. Click on Edit-> Traverse Folder / Execute File-> deny-> OK.

6. Repeat for all users.

7. Reboot your computer normally.

Windows 7 or Windows Vista Business/Ultimate

1. Open the control panel through Start > Control Panel.

2. Go to Administrative Tools > Local security policy.

3. Click on Software Restriction Policy > Action > Create new restriction policy.

4. Right-click, and go to additional rules > new path rule.

5. Click Browse and navigate to C:\Program Files\Avira\AntiVir Desktop\ and double-click avnotify.exe.

6. Set the security level to Disallowed.

7. Click apply and OK.

The wiki gives details on removing the popup from Vista home so if you are running Vista home please hop on over to the wiki and check it out. I’m not yet able to confirm if these steps work but will no doubt check it out at some point in the future.

Free Antivirus

2010-04-27T10:09:00.002+01:00

I see a lot of personal laptops of work colleges and friends and I am always surprised by the number of people not running an anti virus. Now days it seems you need a good antivirus and a good anti spyware. Very few antivirus packages provide both.

There are a now a number of free antivirus products on the market; many years ago it was just AVG but recently products like Avast! and Avira’s AntiVir

I always take online antivirus statistics with a pinch of salt, and I much prefer to go with personal experience. If you have the cash I’d recommend going with ESET NOD32 and also something like Prevx, I happen to be a reseller for both these products (Surprising that I’m recommending them then?) However if you don’t have or want to spend money, then I’d recommend going for Avira’s AntiVir. The only drawback to the free version of their product is the rather annoying popup adverts.

Check out the AV Comparatives tests at http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/main-tests

If you have any questions or concerns over security feel free to pay me a vist at http://www.atp-software.com and I'll be happy to arrange home visit of service on your IT equipment.

Corrupt profiles Windows 7 (Domain users)

2010-04-26T12:20:00.001+01:00

This is the first real problem I’ve come across in Windows 7. My work college has been having some issues with his laptop, installers have been complaining that his ‘My Documents’ folder (redirected to H:\) doesn’t exist. After pushing and poking some settings I decided the quickest and easiest thing to do would be to recreate his user profile.

Reboot the system and login as another use (preferably Administrator) then browse to C:\Users and rename the user’s folder.

Normally when the user logs in next Windows will create a profile automatically, however under Windows 7 it decided to create a temporary profile.

It turns out Windows 7 stores the path that a user should be using for their profile under the following registry folder;-

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

Look through the various folders listed until you find the one with your pesky profile, delete it and then login as normal.

"Ravens Night II" - Planning - Part 1

2010-04-21T08:53:00.002+01:00

I am feeling slightly guilty while I write this blog, I figure I should really spend some of my spare time planning and sorting things out for my Wedding, however I decided I’m not going to feel guilty. Laura has her wedding to plan... I have my Ravens Night!

The schedule got released yesterday and I was initially worried by reports I’d heard that we would only be getting a solitary prime time game, I am however very pleased and massively excited about the season starting.

Ravens @ Jets

Monday 13th September 7.00PM

Ravens @ Falcons

Thursday 11th November 8.20PM

Steelers @ Ravens

Sunday 5th December 8.20PM

Ravens @ Texans

Monday 13th December 8.30PM

That’s right, the Ravens opening game against the jets is going to be show live. Fantastic news, I’d recommend to my fellow NFL fans (and previous “Ravens Night” participants) to select this game as their preference for the next “Ravens Night”

This weekend is the NFL draft, which will no doubt see me constantly refreshing the draft page on BlackBerry

5-Minute Management Course

2010-04-20T10:11:00.000+01:00

I recived this via email earlier today and liked it enough that I though I'd steal it and share it with the rest of you.

5 Minute Management Course

Lesson 1 :

A priest offered a Nun a lift.

She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg.

The priest nearly had an accident.

After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg...

The nun said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'

The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again. The nun once again said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'

The priest apologized 'Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.'

Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way.

On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, 'Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory.'

Moral of the story:

If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.

Lesson 2 :

A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp.

They rub it and a Genie comes out. The Genie says, 'I'll give each of you just one wish.'

'Me first! Me first!' says the admin clerk.. 'I want to be in the Bahamas , driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.' Poof! She's gone.

'Me next! Me next!' says the sales rep. 'I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas, and the love of my life.' Poof! He's gone.

'OK, you're up,' the Genie says to the manager. The manager says, 'I want those two back in the office after lunch.'

Moral of the story:

Always let your boss have the first say.

Lesson 3

An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.

A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, 'Can I also sit like you and do nothing?' The eagle answered: 'Sure, why not.'

So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story:

To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Lesson 4

A turkey was chatting with a bull. 'I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree' sighed the turkey, 'but I haven't got the energy.'

'Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull. It's full of nutrients.'

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.

The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch..

Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree.

He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

Moral of the story:

Bull Shit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there...

Lesson 5

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field.

While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him.

As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was.

The dung was actually thawing him out!

He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.

Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Moral of the story:

(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.

(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.

(3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep your mouth shut!

Upside down Printing in Word

2010-04-15T12:44:00.000+01:00

So the decision was made that for some of our wedding invites we would design and make them ourselves. Laura also wants to put a poem on a card inside the invite and we decide to make the most out of the situation we could print directions and contact details for the venue on the back of the poem.

That’s easier said than done. The card itself is A6 in size which means we should be able to get 8 cards from a single piece of A4 paper; you would think Microsoft Word or even Publisher could handle easily? Sadly it has turned into a major three way battle, Me versus Microsoft versus HP Printer.

For the actual wedding invite I was able to use an A5 template that Publisher provided me with, I made some A5 templates from regular paper as to not spoil / waste our more expensive paper and managed to figure out which way to insert the paper and after a few attempts I managed to rotate and resize the text accordingly so the prints were coming off perfect.

Well that seems all well and good, fairly simple. Now not to the printing the A6 inserts. My original idea was to setup a document with 2 pages (front and back of the insert) and on each page have 8 textboxes to house the text for the insert. I created the 8 textboxes and divided the A4 document up equally on screen and printed a test. Despite reducing the page margins to as close to 0 as possible the document just didn’t look right and things got worse when I tried to duplex the document.

After several failed attempts with Publisher I moved onto Word to see what options that would offer me. I setup an A6 document entered my text and told it to print 8 pages per sheet of A4, very impressive but my document only has 1 page so my print preview only has 1 insert. At this point my brain went into overdrive, how do I tell the print driver I want 8 copies of page 1 on 1 page? Well, I could have made my Word document 8 pages long and simply copy the original page 7 times, that’s a little bit too Neanderthal for me (an IT guru don’t you know?) After about 15 minutes trying to work out what the best way would be to resolve the issue I thought ‘Why not look online?’ well that would have been too easy and this is something I wanted to work out for myself then BINGO! I’d found it...

I could simply specific the range of sheets to print as 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 and trick the printer into thinking it needs to print page 1 8 times, ingenious I hear you cry. Don’t stop reading there my printing situation becomes even more farcical.

My original word document had 2 A6 pages (front and back of the insert) and as I’d discovered above I would be unable to use the built in duplex unit of the printer (it was even worse in word, as the bottom of each page has a large margin that you cannot change, what is difficult to understand [as I write this] is why this caused such a big problem? Surely the margin would be on the bottom of both pages respectively [front and back]? Anyway it wasn’t) so the solution to all of this? Print the one side as above then put the paper back into the track but flip it around so the text is upside down as you look at, then I can simply invert the textbox (turn it upside down) in Word and it will come out perfect. Wait a second! You can’t turn text upside down in Microsoft Word? What the hell are you talking about? Of course you can, I’ve done it before... haven’t I? After much frustration I went online to find a solution and it turns out you can’t. You can turn text on either of its sides but you can’t turn it upside down. You can invert word art, but who the fuck uses that? Kid’s making posters for school? It’s huge and would ridiculous on a wedding invite. The best solution I found online was to convert the text to an image via paint and insert the image back into the document, real convenient right?

There’s a reason I didn’t buy a real cheap shitty printer, I remember being ridiculed by family for having such a massive home office printer (they forget quickly when its spewing out documents and pamphlets for their organisations and meetings with minimal effort required from me)

What are my requirements for a printer? Reasonably fast, networkable, a duplex unit (that works) and fairly cheap to run, so what printer did I buy? A HP 2430dn, considering the work it’s done it has been a good value purchase to date, when it dies I’ll definitely consider buying another one (perhaps even new)

That’s enough side tracking, the reason for the over joyous chorus of self delight is that within the HP driver for that printer I can actually enable an option to print upside down. Bloody brilliant! 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2

TTFE-L Review

2010-03-22T13:34:00.001Z

It’s one of those days were I don’t really feel like doing anything. I’ve had a 5 day cold that seems to hopefully be coming to an end. Thankfully I haven’t had it as badly as Laura has.

I had been hoping that I could escape a punishing run around on Sunday and I’d be turning up simply as relief and rest bite for the other guys sadly with only the minimum 5 being available I had to play. Turns out I wasn’t too shabby. Being serious a good shift was put in by everyone and I’m quite gutted that Billy didn’t get to keep a clean sheet, it leaves me wondering what would happen if I had run into the box and cleared the shot off the line, penalty of course however would it have also been a blue/red card? Perhaps I shall find out one day. Big shout out to Big Nose who turned up fresh off his death bed with a case of nothing less than flu (Swine or Man variety yet to be determined). Instant impact with 2 goals to his name, Pete also turned the game physical and dirty... don’t know how he does it, but he did.

Last week saw us play PLS Wales. Yet again we had the minimum 5 and yet again we turned in workman like performance with all of us chipping in to share the goals (all bar Joe ‘Fatman Scoop’). Joe did however make up for last week’s no goal by smashing in the first goal of this week’s game. The next 2 or 3 games could really shape our season; maximum points will surely see us in the nose bleeds of the league table.