Wednesday, December 20, 2006

How common is your name

Check out NameBrain and see just how original were your parents being when they named you?

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Photoshop CS3 - Beta

Yesterday, Adobe announced a public beta of Photoshop CS3 , you will however, need a valid keycode for CS2 to be able to run it for more than 2 days...

EDIT: Deleting "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\AMT\application.sif" removes the 2 day limit!!

On the same day, Lynda.com have released a free preview showing some of the major new features. Best-selling author and Photoshop guru Deke McClelland has teamed up with lynda.com to create the first professionally produced instructional training on every new feature in Photoshop CS3.
Access this free preview training online at http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=327

Friday, December 15, 2006

Stopping the Form Spammers!

Some time ago I set up http://www.rockbox-themes.org to host themes created, by users, for use in the Rockbox alternative firmware program. As part of that site, I created an upload page to allow users to send their work directly to my inbox. However I seem to be attracting quite a lot of junk/spam thro' this route.

One solution may be to introduce a 'Captcha' graphic, you know the sort of thing - enter the following code to proceed (from a distorted image). Seems that this can be implemented quite easily, using code from here:

http://www.white-hat-web-design.co.uk/articles/php-captcha.php

A Totally Bizarre Site

Daily Monster

This guy seems to make an ink stain on a piece of paper every day, and then proceeds to draw around and with the ink blob to produce some truly amazing and totally bizarre pictures...

Definitely one to check out every now and then.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

A Young Lady

The Biological clock has started ticking, and our new Teenager, is now also officially a young lady.

This is also the first time I have used the e-mail publishing feature, where you can send an e-mail to a 'Secret' address and it appears here!!

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Nice Evening...

Last night I was in Chester with two friends from work.
We were attending a 'tech transfer' for a new server product from STRATUS on Tuesday, but arrived on Monday night to avoid an early morning start. We eat out at a rather nice Italian restaurant 'Piccolino' (32 Pepper Row, Chester).
The Pollo Valdostana was very nice, but the Tiramisu was really quite special... The waitress was excellent, the atmosphere was really nice and I would recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to visit.
verdict: Not cheep, but still well worth the money

Sunday, December 10, 2006

New 'Look and Feel' for the blog

New Title, far more representative of the actual content, new colour scheme, Labels for each posting - still the same crap author tho' I'm afraid ...

Boy, am I tired

Tonight, I am working a 12 hour night shift at work, covering for one of the guys who wanted to attend the staff Xmas 'do'... It's currently just a little short of 5AM, and it's still almost 3 hours till home time! I have been awake for about 22 hours now, and am really starting to flag. Mind you , the overtime will be usefull, just after Christmas...

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Amy's Birthday Party Pictures

Online at http://photoalbum.rockbox-themes.org

All pictures taken by Amy (Except the few with Amy in them) - I take no responsibility for the camera work!!

Monday, December 04, 2006

Amanda's 40th Birthday Meal

Online at http://photoalbum.rockbox-themes.org/


Can't Leave Alex out...

even tho' it's not his birthday, it seemed only fair to take his picture too... so I present Alex - Aged 8 1/2



As before, click on the image to view the 170 KB larger version

Amanda's 40th Birthday Portrait

With the success of Amy's birthday Picture I decided I had to do something similar to mark Amanda's landmark birthday too...



As before, click on the image to view the 210 KB larger version

Long Gap in the Blog...

Well, since the end of October, I have been a bit lacking in the Blogging department... What has been happening ?

OK, This week is obviously Amy's 13th Birthday - so quite a major event. We took her and a few friends to TGI Fridays yesterday as an alternative to a party. Much fun and merryment was had by all present, and the staff were fantastic. May take a day or two for my hearing to return to normal though... 5 (almost) teen girls in one car makes a Motorhead concert seem quite tame in the volume stakes...

Last Week, that was Amanda's 40th Birthday - another milestone event. On that occasion we took 18 guests to the 'Himely House Country Club' for a meal on the Monday night. Again, a good night was had by all - it turned out to be a late night for the kids (11pm on a school night is not really reccomended), but they coped well, and enjoyed it.

A few days before that, we were at Symphony Hall, Birmingham to see Katherine Jenkins in concert (again), and once again she was fantastic. Her 'guest' tenor was an Iclandic fellow named "Gardar Cortes", and he was quite spectacular in his own right - and thats from someone who does not really like Tenors!!

The 'BBC Good Food Show" was also a recent event - waaaay too much money was spent on that day! Including £20 for a small(ish) bottle of 12 year old, oak matured, Balsamic Vinegar!!

Finally, I got around to putting some pictures from Deb's wedding into an album. If I get time later I will try and sort out the Birthday Pictures for Amy and Amanda...

OK, enough time on the computer for this morning... I have two days off, and I really need to spend some time in the Gym - I have managed to put on about 4 pounds recently... That really has to go!

Amy's 13th Birthday Portrait

Following on from the picture I took last year for Amy's 12th Birthday,
I have this year taken one for her 13th!!



Clicking on the thumbnail above, will load a larger version of the image (179 KB)

I am rather pleased with this photo, and have ordered a couple of 8x10 enlargments for the garnd parents

Friday, December 01, 2006

Which browsers are using my website?







November - www.rockbox-themes.org
RankBrowserHitsPercentage
1Firefox 2.0152531.47%
2Firefox 1.5110522.80%
3Internet Explorer 6.0104721.61%
4Internet Explorer 7.03747.72%
5Opera 9.02465.08%


So a good showing by the new boys, FF2, IE7 & Opera 9