Archive for category Technical

Day out at the beach

We spent the day yesterday at Broughty Ferry beach, down the road from our new house in Scotland. It was an absolute scorcher of a day, and we managed to have a splash around in the sea, eat big ice creams and even get a little bit brown in the process. It was a superb day, and is so close we expect to spend most of the summer down there. Anyway some pictures of our day.

A Year Without Spending – Day 54 – Still not bought anything

As anyone who follows the blog will have realised, I haven’t been posting much on the blog. This isnt because I have forgotten about it, its just that when you spend every day not spending money, you do very little that’s worth discussing in a public forum. Sure we go on a daily walk in the countryside, and we keep the business ticking over, but now I’ve made all the cutbacks in spending I can, and tend not to buy anything, even food most of the time, there is very little to talk about. I’m glad I’m still carrying out the experiemnt, but with the exception of the odd free daytrip I’ve been like a hermit, working alot from home and saving money to pay off my numerous student debts.

I’ll try to come up with good stuff to post, that won’t bore the pants off you, I just need some time to do something notable :)

A Year Without Spending – Day 25-27 – Free Activities to keep me occupied

Hall Street Depot - Transport Museum

Hall Street Depot - Transport Museum

Well I’m as good as a month into the project and it’s already getting a little tough. I need new socks badly, which I should have bought before starting the project. I’ve read most of the books I had backlogged so it’s a library job for them. We are also getting a little bored not spending money. Vicki by default isn’t spending, probably in sympathy, but as a result we have become like hermits, only leaving the house to go for a walk or to grab groceries. There is our daily journey to the post office to post out orders from Koolbadges but apart from that we do nothing. We where going to start going swimming as we live oposite a huge park with a leisure centre in the middle, however they have a problem with the filters int he pool and refuse to fix it so that is out of the question.

We also spotted the St Helens Transport Museum when we went to the walk in centre a few weeks back. We where going to go along today to see the old cars and buses ad have a small day out, but alas the website says they only open at the weekend so that will have to wait. If you want to check out the museum it definitely looks worth a visit.

In other news, the not spending whilst boring and not ideal, has improved our bank balance no end, and whats more we seem to be earning more money now we aren’t spending than we ever have. Our balance seems to be staying well in the black as they say, and I really do attribute this to the not spending. The money seems to be snowballing now which is positive, especially for me the eternal student :)

Also, after reading about my escapades and the running out of DVDrs, My cousin Adam donated 25 blank discs to me. I’m using them wisely at the moment as I don’t know when the next batch will be donated/stolen/borrowed.

We have a day out to Liverpool planned for tommorow which should be good. Go and see some free museums, Tate (the free exhibitions) and enjoy a picnic down by the docks. Will post up some pictures tomorrow. Also, if you not already on Twitter, get your arse over there and sign up! I’ll be closing my Facebook account shortly as it has come to my attention that they are selling data to third parties. So sign up to Twitter and follow me at http://twitter.com/jodsclass

iPhone Youtube Slow – Fixed

The iPhone 3G is an indispensable gadget - but will benefit from Firmware revisions!

The iPhone 3G is an indispensable gadget - but will benefit from Firmware revisions!

Well I’ve been having trouble with youTube on my iPhone since I bought it. Videos where taking forever to buffer and where really unwatchable. I have a Netgear wgr614 v6 Wireless router which was set to b & g for wireless. After endless testing and troubleshooting I have found that if I force the router into B only mode, although I take a wireless performance hit, youtube on the iPhone is perfect. I really don’t know why this is, maybe apple tried to tweak their 802.11g protocols too much for some routers. Anyways a quick fix that works for me. If your youtube on the iPhone is going slow over wireless and you need a fix, try setting your router to Wireless B only.

I will keep you updated if I find out anything else.

httpv://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz7lhENHrc4

Photo Sort out & Flickr

Give the gift that keeps on giving - Thats a flickr pro account for me!

Give the gift that keeps on giving - Thats a flickr pro account for me!

Well what a 48 hours I’ve had. Decided to sort out all the files I had stored across 2 desktop PC’s, a laptop and the iBook. That meant amalgamating 3 sets of My Documents from the windows machines, 3 Sets of My pictures and so on. I’ve copied all files onto the desktop PC in a single location and I’ve been sorting out accordingly.

Gosh. The amount of rubbish we accumulate on our computers is amazing. I’ve found documents created pre-millennium which is just wrong, and also found that I have 2,3 or even 4 sets of the same photos and word documents. I have my Masters Thesis work, and my Degree work duplicated across all machines and even in different locations on the same machine. So the cull has started in Earnest.

All documents have been copied to the desktop and the copies on the laptops and second desktop have been deleted. I then shared the My Documents on my main PC over the network, mapped the My Documents folder, and changed the folder locations of My Documents on the subsequent laptops and desktops to point at the network share on the main machine (confused?). this ultimately means we are both working from the same hard drive with regards our documents, and will hopefully allow us to check files in and out when we take them mobile (to avoid duplicates and random revisions).

Whilst sorting through over 20GB of photos we have amassed it dawned on me that my Flickr pro account has now expired. I really need to re-subscribe so once the pictures are sorted, I can back the whole lot up to flickr marked as private for a fail safe. Trouble is the £ is so weak at the moment against the $ so I’m putting off buying the Pro account until the exchange rate improves.

Don’t suppose anyone out there wants to gift me a pro account? username Jodsclass

Go On, you know it makes sense :)

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