I have a folking confession

As a close friend of mine once revealed a love for country music, I must also announce a love for folk music. I can often be found listening to Mike Harding's radio 2 show, but I am a folkin newbie.

I am however, a mash-up fan and know quite a bit about that. So I was overjoyed when i found the latest Mash-up album available via the internet. Go on, I dare you... this is good.


FOOLKLEGS : Folkloric MashUps (selected by Funky Belek & KrazyBen)

My love of folk music can also be seen in the following less than traditional comedy clip

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Flickr, Yahoo and BT

Well I like to give credit where credit is due, if I get good service I pass it on. If anyone remembers my concerns about where I could store my online photos when Yahoo remove their photo storage, then I have some interesting news.

I get my broadband account from BT. Now it is a little more expensive (I think, suppose I should double check) but I do get unlimited usage and a quite close to 8MB service. I have never had any problems with logging on and up time must be virtually 100%. But part of the package gave me unlimited photo storage with Yahoo. Now Yahoo are shutting down their storage and suggesting people use Flickr - now owned by Yahoo so why would they want two photo hosting solutions [yes they do offer slightly different options but that is probably not worth all the extra work]. No problem there but with Flickr I wouldn't get unlimited storage. However, I have just found out that as part of my BT broadband package my Flickr account has been upgraded to a Pro account. It will remain that way until I stop subscribing to BT. And they have a nice little utility that will import all my photos.

So once again I am a happy bunny.

Time for a Mac?

Well after seemingly fixing the email fault with Outlook it continued to return intermittently.

• give up on Outlook - Microsoft are of the devil
• install Mozilla Thunderbird
• Mozilla are not of the devil
• Test Thunderbird
• Thunderbird doesn't work either
• recheck settings
• Thunderbird has same intermittent fault as Outlook
• Apologise to Microsoft, Outlook and all the little Microserfs who created it and do a wonderful job keeping it updated
• Uninstall Thunderbird - no point in having two redundant email clients
• check facebook
• facebook down for maintenance
• facebook is of the devil
• realise that the only thing that could affect both Outlook and Thunderbird is Norton
• (now worry about whether I have used the right word, affect or effect - can't be bothered to check dictionary)
• turn off all of Norton and live update (I'm not getting caught out like before)
• Uninstall all of the Security software on the PC
• Hope that the PC doesn't get attacked whilst doing this delicate operation
• test Outlook, it works
• Reinstall security software - restart a silly number of times
• test Outlook, it works
• scan PC to check I haven't been attacked
• wait silly amount of time
• sleep

If anyone feels called to buy me one of these please feel free to leave a message in the comments

It's wet, grey and miserable

Yes, another typical day in the United Kingdom. When the buzz word (phrase) was global warming we were all looking forward to Mediterranean summers; who cares if the whole of Africa became a desert and the Sahara spread into Southern Europe. It meant that even a trip to Southend would mean a glorious warm day on the beach, followed by drinking too much for a dehydrated body to take and then trashing the joint - club 18-30 would be coming home.

However, what we have now noticed is that global warming was a slightly misleading phrase. The more accurate term is climate change and it seems like the UK is seeing that this year. So far it seems that all we have had is rain. If this weather is a result of climate change then things don't look quite so nice for us... and we'll have to keep going to Majorca.

There is an altogether more sinister reason that the weather has been so wet. Perhaps we are in the grip of some voodoo magic being channelled through that dreadful song by Rihanna, as long as she keeps blurting out 'Umbrella' we'll have to keep using them.

Dr Who RIP

Well I was hoping for McGann or Ecclestone to make a surprise appearance, but not this.

BBC - Doctor Who - News - Donna says "I do!"

The big question is whether Russel T Davies is trying to wreck the show totally before he leaves at the end of series 4.

I'm off to cry

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People looking like their dogs

I always thought that the character Captain Jack in Dr Who was a little arrogant. I could quite easily, if I was so inclined, call him a bit of a big head - but the revelation saturday's episode was really taking things a little too far.

I actually quite liked the episode - it was overly sentimental at times and, of course, a little over the top but it did leave me with warm feelings, and that wasn't becasue I spilt my tea. But - I am sure Andrew may have something to say in the comments.

Overall I liked the series, probably better than the last one due to Blink, and Human Nature being exceptional. Not sure if I really like Martha, and although she's gone she is due to be back for some of series four and a short stint in Torchwood too.

So five or so months until Voyage of the Damned brings Christmas cheer to us all, and it is the Titanic and eagle etyed viewers know that the ninth Dr was seen at that very same ship... what are the chances of Ecclestone appearing?

Outlook 2003, Norton Firewall and fun

Three things that don't go together and should never be used in the same sentence without the words 'Please Lord, why me?' This was my Thursday evening:

• Outlook can't connect to your incoming server (error code blah, blah, blah)
• Microsoft say this can be caused by an upgrade being applied to Office 2003 (very helpful - no seriously, I had identified the problem. I had added an upgrade)
• Solution, uninstall then reinstall Norton Firewall (drastic, but OK)
• Attempt to uninstall Firewall stopped as it informed me I was still running Live Update
• Stop Live Update
• Attempt to uninstall Firewall can't be done because it is now telling me it doesn't exist
• Norton Firewall still running
• OK, let's uninstall all of the BT/Yahoo software as that is what Norton is part of on my set up
• Unistalls everything (I think)
• Norton Firewall and Anti-Virus still running
• OK, let's reinstall everything from BT
• Installs everything apart from Firewall and anti-virus (can't install them as you have to remove them first... aaaargh)
• Go an watch Simon Quinlag on YouTube
• Go to BT/Yahoo centre on my PC and find that I can now unistall Firewall and Anti-virus from PC, they do now exist
• Uninstall them
• See if Outlook will now connect
• it does, email is again flowing
• Reinstall Firewall and Anti-virus
• Recheck email
• It all works
• Go to bed

The right man?

Alright Mr Blair was able to get Rev Ian Paisley to talk to Sinn Fein but can he really go one better and solve the problems of the Middle East?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6242788.stm

I can't help but think that this is a poorly calculated idea. If there is one guy who is not very popular within certain relgious groups in the Middle East it would be Mr Blair. Come next November when Geaorge W steps down, will he become Tony's assistant? Oh the irony if between them they could bring peace to the region.

Ooops

I seem to have destroyed the installation of Win XP on our family PC, oh well at least it means it will run faster.

To do list:

• reinstall WinXP
• reinstall programs
• reminisce over the files that I hadn't backed up

"I don't think"

*Dr Who Spoiler if you haven't seen this weeks episode*






Well we knew it was coming but I must hand it to Mr Davies, the return of the Master was handled quite well. A couple of nice additions to give you some 'aha' moments (no I don't mean going around singing 'take on me') and the best/ worst secret in Dr Who was revealed.

Derek Jacobi was outstanding as he went from bumbling mad professor to sadistic evilness, and although on first impressions John Simm played the character a little whimsically I can see him doing a very sly job in the final two episodes. I even didn't mind Captain Jack being back... he plays a different character when the Doctor is telling him what to do.

Okay there are still millions of questions to be answered... like how and when re the Master but we'll wait till next week beofre complaining too loudly. As episodes go this was nowhere near as good as the previous three weeks but for old fans, it was a welcome journey.