Desktop Widgets

I have discovered a great tool made by Yahoo! - the Yahoo! Widget Engine. It seems that Widgets are the next thing on PC / Apple Mac desktops. A Widget is a small tool that can display all sorts of information such as:

• Latest news via RSS or a direct site feed
• Web cam images
• Weather
• Sudoku
  

and more. It's great to have these tools on your desktop, as its the quickest way to get the information that you need, and have it at your fingertips. It's nice to see someone come up with a tool that's great. My desktop currently has 3 widgets - a Stock Widget to display my share prices, a Day Planner overview, which connects to my calendar in Thunderbird, taking the info from the calendars in there, and an RSS feed widget, to display the news I want on my desktop.

I have also created 2 widgets. One displays the latest posts to my blog, and the other the latest entries to the discussion groups I run at Yahoo! Groups (Boney M Discussion List, James Last Discussion List and Goombay Dance Band Discussion List) If you want the widget for this blog, you can download it from my personal website, and the widget for my Yahoo! Groups is available in the files section of each group.

To get the Yahoo! Widget Engine visit http://widget.yahoo.com

Speed Cameras

Finally, the Government is seeing sense - that the motorist doesn't like speed cameras. Supposedly they are there to make roads safer but in my opinion some cameras are only there for the following:

• To make enough money to pay for more cameras, and make the camera partnership loads of money
  
• To enforce a lowered speed limit on a road

Speed Cameras are a good idea, but they should only be used as a last resort, once all other road safety avenues have been explored. The Government is right that the time has come to halt the numbers of speed cameras being put on our roads. I feel that some speed cameras are placed in places designed to make loads of money, for example just before the A3 becomes the M275 in Portsmouth by the ferry port, and the speed limit changes from 40 to 70 there is a Truevelo speed camera, cleverly placed to make money, as it is just before the limit changes, and catches motorists who have speeded up to early. If a speed camera is to be used then there must be a good reason such as a High accident rate where the camera is to be situated, or the need to keep speed at a reasonable level, not just to make money.

It's time that traffic police went out and caught drunk drivers, drug ridden drivers and any driver, or those tailgating / committing road rage, rather than penalising those who might go 3-4 miles per hour over the speed limit!

Bloggin from my mobile

Tis 00:16 and I am testing adding posts to my blog via my mobile. seems to be working well. Stay tuned for another blog update shortly!

More Places to Read Jonzo's Rantings

I am now also publishing this blog at http://my.opera.com In doing so this will give me the chance to upload an entry to my blog via the Opera Mini browser installed on my mobile phone! So even if I am not near to a computer, I can still upload posts to my blog for you to read.

You can view my blog at My Opera using the following web address (entered in to your web browser, or Opera Mini): http://my.opera.com/jonzo247/blog/ When you access this address, not only can you read all my latest entries, but you can also read entries right back from when I started blogging, as Opera had an option to import a blog from Blogger! You can also read my blog at my MSN Space as well at http://spaces.msn.com/members/jonzo247 or in your e-mail by using the subscribe button on my blog, when you read it at my website.

It doesn't matter where you read my blog, all the entries will be the same. I'm simply publishing to several locations in order to get a nice big readership. Enjoy reading my blog, and thanks for visiting it.

More iTunes / Legal Music Downloads

Well having used iTunes for a few weeks, it has opened my mind. I have started listening to new artists, something that a month ago I would not have thought about doing! My music collection now includes songs from: Rachel Stevens, Sugababes & Madonna. I suspect that over the coming weeks my collection will grow with more new artists! Since iTunes has a feature that suggests tracks I should purchase, and has just recommended I get a track called Love Generation by Bob Sinclair feat: Gary Pine, which having heard the 30 sec clip does sound rather catchy.

I think Digital Music Downloads are the way forward, as you can have the music where you want it - on your Mobile Phone, Portable MP3 player on burnt on to a CD. In the future we will probably buy HiFi's with connections for MP3 players to be connected to them so we can hear our favourite music any way we want to!

The only thing now that has to be solved with Digital Downloads is the following:

1. Record labels must ensure that all their artists are available on at least 1 digital music store, ideally on them all, and artists should not be able to say I don't want my music available digitally
2. Artists / Record Labels should promote legal downloading
3. A full back catalogue of an artist should be available where possible, along with rare and hard to find tracks.
   
4. Exclusives should be offered to digital downloaders to encourage them to buy full albums digitally rather than on CD (if I wanted an album by an artist that was available digitally I would still buy it on CD, as I have no incentive to get the digital version, and can rip the files from the CD for use in my PC, MP3 player etc), such as bonus videos with albums, or exclusive mixes, something that iTunes does with some artists.
   
5. Once you have paid for and downloaded a track you should be able to use that track in whatever device you want, as long as you don't share the file.
   

Once those few things have been solved digital downloads will in my opinion be perfect, and the day will come, I think when you can go in to a record store, select the digital tracks you want, and have them burned on CD, thus giving you the tracks you want, and not those you don't.

iTunes

I have recently joined iTunes, and I think it is a fantastic service - the best place to go to get legal music downloads, partly because there are many exclusives on the service, for example Madonna's new album is available for download complete with video for her new single, and a digital book, whereas on other download services you just get the songs. You can also download music videos, at twice the price of a song, and Podcasts for free.

If you have not got iTunes I recommend that you do. You can download it from http://www.itunes.co.uk. Not only is iTunes a good music store, but it is also a good media player for your PC, and uses Apple QuickTime to play videos. It also features a Party Shuffle mode, which plays your favourite songs in a party mix style, and can create a playlist based on what you want in it, such as 15 minutes of music by x artist

I have one gripe with this service though. I recently purchased Hung Up by Madonna, and decided that I would to have the song on my mobile phone's music player my Sony K750i can be used as an MP3 player, and take removable memory cards to boost the memory available to the phone. Unfortunately iTunes will only let you use music you have bought on an iPod, an iTunes phone or burn it to CD, which is no good for users of other digital music players or non iTunes mobile phones (many high end mobile models are coming with built in MP3 players). I think it is time that iTunes supported more digital MP3 players, as I think if they did that they could sew up the market for legal music downloads!

Opera Mini

Recently I have found a wonderful piece of software for my mobile phone. Made by Opera Software, the people behind the Opera web browser, they have released an internet browser for Java compatible mobile phones called Opera Mini. I have been trying this software package for a few days and I must say it is excellent. It allows you to surf the internet on your mobile phone, by using a special processing system to make the pages work on a small screen. I tested the browser with the BBC News page and my GMail account, and both pages worked well.

What I also like about the browser is that can also be used to access WAP pages as well (sometimes faster than your phones built in WAP browser), and you can store bookmarks, complete with bookmark icons, just like in PC browser such as Firefox and IE, so you don't have to type in where you want to go. If the web site supports cookies then you can store usernames and passwords, making access even quicker. When Opera Mini loads it comes up with a start page that can be customised with the addition of your favourite bookmarks.

Opera have created I believe an essential tool for mobile phones, and I believe that it should be included on all Java compatible mobile phones that are released in the future as it is a very good way of accessing the internet, and when it comes to having a 3G phone, it will become an essential piece of software, as full blown websites will be able to be seen on your phone, in a quick way, making access to webmail such as Hotmail or GMail a reality for many phone users.

If you would like to try Opera Mini, go to http://my.opera.com/community/ and follow the Opera Mini download instructions from there. You will need to download the software via your phone, rather than PC.

Put your Hand in the Hand

Recently the lyrics to the song "Put your hand in the hand" have been providing me with some inspiration, iny my life at present:

Put your hand in the hand of the man that stilled the water,
Put your hand in the hand of the man that calmed the sea.
Take a look at yourself,
And you can look at others differently,
By putting your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee.

Every time I look into the holy book I wanna tremble.
When I read about the part Where the carpenter Cleared the temple.
For the buyers and the sellers are no different fellows Than what I confess to be,
And it causes me to shame to know we're not the people we should be.

I realised when listening to this song, that I have to keep my hand in the hand in the man from Galilee and that he will guide me in my life. I also realised that I am not the person that I should be, but by putting my hand in the hand of the man from Galilee he can help me to be the person I should be, and can guide me down the right path.

Mobile Phone Contracts

At the weekend I decided to sort out an upgrade to a new phone on my current mobile phone contract, as my contract was coming to an end within a few weeks. I went in to the Carphone Warehouse to enquire what my options would be. I explained to the assistant who served me that I wanted a Sony Ericsson K750i No problem he said, but upon looking at my contract explained to me that the upgrade price was £150. I was disgustedbecausee a new user on the same contract could get the phone for free. So I had to get a new contract, still at £35 a month. No problem I signed up for one. The Downside of this though, is that I had to have credit check done and change my mobile number. I don't mind having a new mobile number, as it ensures that only those that need my mobile number have it, but it comes with the hassle of telling everyone you have a new one.

I think it is disgusting that mobile phone companies will happily give free phones to new customers, but not to existing customers. This means that many customers will go elsewhere as they feel let down by their network. I have said to Carphone Warehouse, in my cancellation letter, that I am unhappespeciallyly when they have adverts on TV saying they treat all new anexistingng customers the same.

It is about time the law in this country was changed so that companies have to offer existing customers the same as new customers, for example my former bank gives new customers a great deal on a current and savings account for new customers, with a 6% interest rate on the savings account, yet can't give existing customers the same interest rate on the same savings account.

DAB Digital Radio

Today I invested in a new DAB Digital Radio, the sound quality is awesome, however I do not get the range of stations that you can supposedly get on Digital, for example, I cannot receive Wave 105.2 FM, or any other of my local radio, such as Ocean FM, or Radio Solent. It's great to be able to get the new BBC stations, such as 1xtra and 6 music, and I must say that PrimeTime and Core have some great tunes on their stations.

It would be good if I could receive my local stations as well as the national ones! I guess that the Midhurst transmitter is not yet fully DAB enabled, or the same excuse they used to say I couldn't receive Channel 5 on my TV is used, that more radio stations interferes with French broadcasts. Come on Ofcom / Government give us radio listeners a better choice, not just national stations, but local ones, especially if Digital Radio, like Digital TV is to become the only way to hear the Radio!

One of the features I really love is the fact that not only can I get the station name on screen, I can also get information such as the artist currently playing, or the latest news etc, which makes all the difference, as I often have times when I think, I know this song, what is the title or the artist!

Another useful feature of this radio is an alarm clock - you can have up to 4 alarms, and they can be set as every weekday, weekends, every day and once only. The strange thing is that when you want to set it as a once only alarm, not only do you give it the time, but you also have to give it the date as well! There is no need to set the clock as that is done automatically via the radio system, very useful for when you have power cuts, or the clocks go backward or forward etc.

Updated Business Website

For those that know me and a friend run a computer business, I thought I would let you know that our main business website has been updated. Browse through it at http://www.downingsit.co.uk. We have also updated our internet services website at http://www.downingsnet.co.uk.

I'm really hoping that this business becomes a full time occupation for both me and my friend, as I really enjoy running a company, knowing that the money I'm making is me and my friends, and not going in to someone else's pocket!

So, if you live in the Petersfield area and need a health check on your PC, a security check, or just want some new ink for your computer, call Downings IT! and see if we can help you out!

Email for Keeps

An idea came to me a week ago, concerning e-mail. I thought wouldn't it be great if there was an e-mail service that gave you an e-mail address for life, but without all the advertising, spam and viruses etc. Well I decided that as part of Downings IT Support, the computer business run by me and a friend, I would set one up, so readers, if you want an e-mail address for life, head on over to http://www.emailforkeeps.co.uk and sign up!

I think it's time that services such as Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail etc realised that people do not want to send e-mail tagged with an advert underneath, or see loads of adverts when they try to view their e-mail, also they should not be subjected to loads of spam, just because they have joined a well known e-mail service. That why I hope that e-mail for Keeps, becomes a well respected service, as I believe it can, because it will not allow advertising at the bottom of e-mails, bombard its users with advertising in e-mails nor allow viruses to get in to mailboxes.

Also take a few moments to check out Downings Today - the news and weather portal at http://today.downingsnet.co.uk - you might just find that it's a webpage you want to visit again and again!

Jabber

The other day I downloaded a new instant messaging client from Google called Google Talk. This is Google's first foray in to instant messaging and rather than building their own connection system, they are using the Jabber (aka XMPP) system. The best thing about this system is that it is Open Source, therefore anyone can create software that works with Jabber.

The way Jabber works is that people running internet servers, can install the Jabber software on their servers, and offer a Jabber service. This means that you are not tied to the services of one company, as you are in MSN Messenger etc. Jabber servers can also offer "Transports" which are designed to connect you to people on legacy Instant Messaging services such as AIM or ICQ etc.

I think Google have made the right decision in going with a Jabber client, mainly because of the open source nature, and the fact that the Jabber system seems to be the future of Instant messaging. Their Google Talk client can't yet handle connection to Jabber users on other servers, file transfers and Transports, I suspect these will come in a Beta build in the future.

I am encouraging all my friends to migrate to Google Talk, as it means they will be using a service that is free, does not have an instant messaging client laden with unused feature or adverts, and they will get an e-mail address with the best webmail provider there is.

Try Google Talk for yourself at http://talk.google.com

Boney M

I'm writing this blog entry, to give you an insight in to why I like Boney M. I'm listening to another Boney M cover I found on the web. The song is Hooray! Hooray! It's a Holi-Holiday and this version has been done by band called Beach Patrol. I find it fun to listen to other groups, and hear their take on classic Boney M songs, except for the Cheeky Girls, as their cover version of Hooray! Hooray! Its A Holi-Holiday, renamed to Hooray! Hooray! Its A Cheeky Holiday ruined the song, especially with the different words they chose to use!

It seems strange to think that on the 8th November 1975, the day I was born, Boney M came in to being, in a record studio in Munich Germany. I guess that must be why I like their music so much, run a website and a Yahoo! Group (with 440+ members) all about them. Some of my friends think I am bankers for liking Boney M, but I think there music is great, and testament to that is the fact they are the only group with 2 songs in the top 10 best selling singles of all time in the UK, with Rivers of Babylon at no 4 and Mary's Boy Child at 10.

Here is a one of my favourite album covers from Boney M - it is the cover to Love For Sale. Amazingly this album only made it to number 60 in the UK charts, most of us Boney M fans think the cover was to blame, as the ladies from Boney M look naked, though, in fact they are wearing body stockings, considering the fact that the singles on the album all made the top 10, and the next album Nightflight To Venus was on chart for 65 weeks and made number 1.

If you want more information on Boney M go to my Boney M website - Boonoonoonoonoos, The Magic of Boney M.

Gmail

I recently managed to get a Gmail account, and its a hard process to get an account, unless you live in the USA and have a mobile phone that accepts SMS, as GMail accounts are not available to anyone with an invitation. I managed to get one by doing a web search in Google and A9.com for a Google invite.

I think its the best webmail account I have used, as it so much better than the offerings from Microsoft (Hotmail) and Yahoo! For a start you don't get loads of banner advertising on any of the page, just standard Google text adverts down the right hand side of the screen, and they do not interfere with the interface. You can access your e-mail via POP3 (ie getting access to your e-mail through any e-mail client) at no extra charge.

One thing that is different to most standard webmail / e-mail programs is that Google do not use folders, but labels. Labels are much better, as they work the same way as folders but you can have more than one label attached to an e-mail, making viewing of e-mails better.

I think Google are on to a winner here, as there e-mail system is so much better than the competition. I also like the fact that you can only sign up by asking Google to SMS you in the USA or via invite, as that stops people signing up for Gmail accounts that they may never use, and means that there will be plenty of good addresses available.

New Computer Support Forums

As you know I run my own computing business with a friend, and I had this brilliant idea "why don't I set up some online support forums". Well I have done and they can be found at http://www.downingsnet.co.uk/support

If you ever have a hardware or software problem, drop on by the forums, and see if your problem can be solved!

HX52 YNT My new Toyota Yaris

Last Thursday, I picked up my new car, it's a 2yrs 11 months old Toyota Yaris, with 5 doors, 7,412 miles on the clock, CD player, cassette deck, central locking, electric front windows and a lot more home comforts than my previous car L273 VBP an 11 year old Renault 5. The colour is a great Island Green Metallic.

The driving position in the Yaris is great, as it is a bit higher than most small cars, so you get a better view of the road ahead, with the downside being you can't really see the end of the bonnet, but I've got used to that. The only things on the car, that will take me a while to get used to is the fact that the door locks work the other way to my old car, and the fact that the fuel hatch is located on the left side of the car, rather than the right, and is opened by a lever under the drivers seat, rather than a key in the fuel cap.

I was amazed that I found this bargain, as I only started looking for a new car last Saturday. I had the Yaris at the top of my list, and when looking at Yaris' cars in the Toyota dealership WKB Toyota Waterlooville, spotted this one, at the right price, and asked to have a look at it. Once I spotted the mileage I thought, this is a car I should have as it is a great one at the price. So I had a test drive in another Yaris, decided I like it, and bought it there and then!

I love the car, and am so glad I've got a new one, as my old car was very old, and based on a 1972 car design, updated in 1985, but with no major changes to the body styling. The picture on the left gives you an idea of what my old car looked like, apart from the colour, as mine was a metallic blue, and of course a right hand drive model.

I'm going to have a lot of fun driving my new car, and it will be great to have a good car to drive down to Meanporth in Cornwall at the end of August for my camping holiday!

A Question

Regular readers of my blog will have read my posts on Ethical Banking. As a result of these posts, and some of the comments I have received I would like to ask my readers a question. Does your bank deal with your money in an ethical way, and invest in companies who care for the world?

I used to think that when you put money in to a bank account, that the bank simply held it in your account and did nothing with it. Then I realised that this was not the case, and that they invested my money as they saw fit to make a profit on it. This I thought was OK, until I realised they could invest my money in any company, even those companies supplying weapons to terrorists, polluting the atmosphere etc. I'm glad I switched banks, as my money is now ethically working for my bank and me.

It would be really good if more and more people started to bank ethically, then perhaps more banks would take ethics seriously!

Ethical Banking Part 3

Ethical banking is great. I have read comments on my blog, in support of my ethical stance, and I decided that I would take the plunge and open a 2nd Smart Saver account and a current account with the Co-Operative Bank. I have also been encourage by my new bank to vote for which charity, I would like a pecentage of the money I spend on my Visa Debit card to go to.

One other thing The Co-Operative Bank is doing, is asking people to vote for trade justice. If you have not voted, then go to click here to be taken to the voting form at The Co-Operative Bank. I think in this critical year for Make Poverty History, we should all be casting our vote, and telling the world what we think. If you would like to find out more about the trade justice movement, please click here

Strange Comments

As some of you will know, I also publish this blog on my MSN Space Recently a reader of my blog there, wrote the following comment, in reply to my thoughts post "you truly are an ugly boring b*stard. dort the f*cking tash out mate..." Now anyone who knows me, will know that I am not a boring bastard, and I certainly didn't think my blog was boring, I believe it is an ok blog, and gives some insight in to my life, online and offline.

Feel free to respond to this entry, by adding your comments, and letting me know what you think of me!!

Ethical Banking Part 2

In my last post I was talking about Ethical Banking, and my plans to think about banking with The Cooperative Bank. I have taken things a step further, and opened a Smart Saver account with them.

The only problem I will have with the account is the fact that the nearest branch is 15 miles away from where I live, and their nearest cash machine is about 5 miles away. What is good though, is the fact that I will be able to use The Cooperative Bank;s internet and telephone banking services, and also bank with the Post Office as well. If this account works out, then I plan to open another savings account with them, and may then look at opening a bank account with them as well!

Ethical Banking

Over the last week or so I have been looking at my banking needs, as I have become more and more convinced of the idea of banking ethically. What this means is that I want to ensure that people I bank with are not going to invest my money in a company that is involved in human rights abuses, pollutes the atmosphere etc. I'm also unhappy that my current bank is thinking of outsourcing some departments to India.

It looks like that when I open my next savings account to put money aside for my next car, I will be opening a Co-Operative Bank Smart Saver account Not only is the interest rate good, but they turned away £8.7 million of investments etc, because it did not meet their ethical policy. One of the major downsides of opening an account with the Co-Op Bank is their small number of branches, however I can use the Post Office's network of branches to carry out deposits, so no problems there, and I get an ATM card as well, so I can use a cashpoint machine, either a Co-Op one or one from another bank.

Watch this space, and in the coming weeks I will report on how my approach to ethical banking is working!

Chinese Food

Last weekend I went to a favourite store of mine Wing Yip. I am a big fan of Chinese cooking, and went there to get the Chinese groceries I needed for my Chinese cooking. I picked up some strange things (well they would be strange when used with British cooking), including 2 jars of chili Oil, some Fine chili Sauce, Hot chili Sauce and Thai chili Sauce. It seems that the Chinese are really into different ways of cooking with chili depending on how you want the food, either hot, sweet or normal etc.

I really enjoy cooking Chinese food, and am really into the idea of using different flavours to enhance food. I have just joined the "Kumunity" at Lee Kum Kee my favourite manufacturer of Chinese and oriental food products, and found loads of interesting recipes. I have now discovered that Chinese food can be cooked with pasta, and found an interesting variant on Spaghetti Carbonara - instead of using Egg and Cream to make the Carbonara sauce, Black Bean and Garlic sauce is used instead, along with the ham and spaghetti.

One of the things I love to do have what I call a Chinese Night, where I invite my friends around for Chinese food. This meal usually consists of a pre-dinner appetiser of Prawn Crackers and various dipping sauces, usually Hot chili, Thai Sweet chili and chili Ketchup. Then Dim Sum is served with chili Oil for dipping, next comes a Peking Duck with pancakes, Hoi Sin Sauce and sometimes Spring Onions and Cucumber. Finally the main course arrives, which is normally 4 dishes served with rice and sometimes noodles. To drink during the meal Chinese Tea is offered, either Po Nee or Jasmine, and in the future I will also be offering OoLong tea, also known as Iron Buddha in English, as I have just been introduced to this tea by some Chinese friends of mine.

Broadband Arrives

Last Thursday I finally got myself onto ntl: Broadband. I had been thinking about it for a while, and a week before that finally got round to ordering broadband. It's a great service £17.99 for 1mb connection to the internet, through a cable modem. Its a revolution in access, no more waiting for pages to load, videos and sounds arrives in seconds, and software downloads are fast.

Having seen connections to the broadband internet via Cable Modems and ADSL Modems I think that Cablemodemss are far better, as they can plug into yourEthernett port (or USB port) and are literally always on - when you turn the machine on you are connected to the internet, and unlike ADSL modems, there is no nee toinitiatee a connection to the service. If you are thinking of getting a broadband internet service, and you live in an area which has access to cable services from either ntl: or Telewest then go with a service from one of these providers, as you will find you get a better service.

The only downside with this connection is the cap on the service 3gb per month. This unfortunately is the same for most broadband ISPs in the UK, which is a shame, as broadband internet access should not be capped.Especially if the UK wants to be at the forefront of Broadband access.

The Browser Wars are Back

Well I think they are, now that Netscape have released version 8 of their browser! Netscape 8 is built on Mozilla Firefox technology, and renders pages as Firefox would, but it also has a few tricks up its sleeves.

If you use Firefox, you may come across a site, and the site refuses to load, because it is not Firefox compatible. This meant you had to load Internet Explorer to view the site. Not anymore, because Netscape 8, can switch the page rendering to Internet Explorer, and lo and behold the site you are trying to view will work! You may be thinking that's a good idea, but what about the security implications! Well Netscape have implemented Site Controls. What this means is that they have an online database of websites that can be trusted, so that if a site is dodgy, it will only be rendered in Firefox mode. You can also use the site controls feature yourself. Netscape, like all good browsers do, uses tabbed browsing. Next to the site name on the tab is a security shield. When you click this shield it brings up a list of preferences you can apply to the site, such as which rendering engine to use, and how much you trust the site. In the advanced settings you can specify things such as whether to allow popups, JavaScript etc, and if using IE mode Active X.

Installation is a breeze, but I hated 2 things about it: 1) You download the installer, which runs and downloads Netscape, thus meaning you can't save it to your hard drive and 2) Internet Explorer is set as the default rendering engine. Luckily you can change this, but I would have thought that being a browser based on Firefox, (that supports all current web stands, whereas IE does not) Firefox would have been the default engine. Luckily if you click on advanced when installing, you can change this.

Find out more about Netscape at http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/start8.jsp and download it at http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/

Microsoft should take note - Firefox / Mozilla SeaMonkey and Netscape are here to stay as web browsers, as is Safari and Camino on the Mac and Opera, another great internet browser. Stay tuned for more on the browser wars!

Thoughts

It's been just over a year or so since I started writing a blog on the internet. I amazed that I manage to keep going with this blog, and keep adding entries to it. I was thinking to myself, I wonder if many people read this blog, would be nice to have people I didn't know read it. That though is probably asking just a little too much.

Been thinking recently about doing something to get in shape, and improve my fitness. I reckon doing scanning on the checkout at work is a good start to fitness, as you are constantly moving your arms from right to left when scanning, although that only helps the upper body I guess, and not the rest of the body. I did get my bike out and start cycling, but got bored of that, I guess because there was no one to do it with. Hopefully thought, in the next week or so I will be doing regular exercise with a friend! More on this to follow...

Democratic Rantings

Read an interesting article in yesterdays UK daily newspaper, The independent. They have started a campaign for a better way of voting in this country, as from what I read 1 in 5 people voted for the Labour party in the recent general election, yet the Labour party is still the party with the majority of votes. It seems they share the same views as I do that our voting system is not right and needs to be changed. I fully support the Independents campaign for a fairer voting system in this country.

If you want to make your vote count in the next election visit http://www.makemyvotecount.org.uk and sign their petition. Also visit http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/publications/briefings/avplus.htm and read all about the AV+ voting system, which to me seems a great way to vote, and an easy one at that. All you do is mark on the ballot paper, the candidates you would like to see elected in order of preference. The votes are then counted, and if no one candidate has 50% of the votes, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and his votes are re-assigned to other candidates, depending on which is the voters 2nd choice etc. Eventually a candidate will get 50% of the vote, and be fairly elected. There will also be a county vote as well to ensure that all parties get fair representation in Parliament. I think this makes a great voting system, and gets my vote.

In summary, I really believe that one day we will all be able to vote, safe in the knowledge that our vote has counted.

Comments

Just a reminder that if you want to comment on what you read in my blog, feel free to do so! Simply press the comments link below the blog entry.

Thats it for 4 Years or so

Oh well, another 4/5 years of Tony Blair's Labour government. Still at least he has a reduced majority. It would have been really good if he lost the election, but that didn't happen. It was good on the night to see that Michael Howards Conservative party won quite a few more seats. Labour have 356, losing 47 seats the Conservatives 197 gaining 33 seats and the Liberal Democrats 62 gaining 11 seats.

It's great to see the Liberal Deomocrats doing well. It means that we are entering a period of 3 party politics at last, something that is needed in this country. Now if we could only get the way we vote changed to something like this, 75% of seats decided on 1st past the post - ie get the most votes to win, and rest decided on voter share - ie get 22% of vote, get 22% of the remaining 25% of seats decided this way, so for example if there where 600 seats, 400 would be decided by the most votes wins, and the remaining 200 by share of the votes. If voting was done this way, then the Liberal Democrats would have a much better voice in parliament, and it would be easier to topple a governing party.

In my own constituency, the news is not good Michael Mates is still the MP, but with a reduce majority of 5,509 which means that his majority has gone down again. Once people realise the Liberal Democrats could win round here, Michael Mates may well be history!

Build it Yourself

Yesterday I bought a new computer operators chair for my room, with a leather trim, from a local store. This chair required making it yourself, which I had no problem with. When I unpacked the chair I thought it shouldn't be too difficult as long as I follow the instructions. Upon reading the instructions, I realised that if I followed them I would not be able to put the chair together. Eventually I got 95% of the chair built, and came to the arm rests for the chair. One of the arm rests fitted like a glove, the other refused to, as 2 of the 3 holes were not cut out correctly. After making the holes bigger, buy removing some of the fabric I managed to get the arm rest to fit.

It seems that manufacturers of build it yourself furniture, cant seem to be able to make holes for screws that align up correctly, are too small, or hidden by fabric that hasn't been cut correctly. I feel it is about time that manufacturers made sure that everything worked as it should when it left the factory.

Only thing I have to do now is change my mouse pad from an ergonomic one to an ordinary one, as due to the height of the chair, my wrist does not work well with this type of mouse pad. I might even be tempted to lower the height of my monitor, so that I get a better view, tho I am not sure on this.

Its Vote 2005

Wow, sometimes there is hardly any movement on this blog, sometimes more than one post in a the space of a few days.

Its another General Election on May 5th. I took an online test to see who I should be voting for. I usually vote for the Liberal Democrats, and this test said that who I should vote for!

Labour -30
Conservative -25
	Liberal Democrat 30
	UK Independence Party 5
	Green 22

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Who should you vote for? Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

The biggest problem tho with the general election is our voting system, it is so unfair, as bascially all you gotta do is get the most votes to win, regardless of the percentage share you get. This means that should you get say 20% of the vote at the election, you wont get 20% of the seats in Parliament, only those seats where you polled the most votes. There was after the 1997 election an agreement between the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats that if Labour won the election they would look at a fairer system of voting. This never happened.

I read an interesting advert in the Daily Mail today, which said that 39% of people would vote for the Liberal Democrats if they thought they would win, and the advert showed a map of the UK with loads of it in yellow to indicate the seats they would win in. So if you like the Liberal Democrats, vote for them, don't think that just because they cant win you shouldn't vote for them!!

I hate itv

I can't stand British tv broadcaster itv at the moment. I am a big fan of Formula 1 and enjoy watching it on TV, however what itv did at the end of the race yesterday was disgusting. With 3 laps to go they inserted an advert break!!!! Naturally this has created uproar amongst British F1 fans, as after all we don't expect an advert break in the last few laps of the race. The problem is itv do not care about the viewers, only their contractual obligations to their advertisers.

It would have been quite different if it was a football match, after all they wouldn't dare show an advert break during a football match, because there would be uproar. itv need to realise that Formula 1 fans deserve better, after all we should be able to watch qualifying 2 live, rather than get a 2 minute or so update during the bits before the race, and we deserve sensibly placed advertisements.

Apparently itv have apologised for this, and Jim Rosenthal, the itv F1 anchor has said he didn't like the situation. I wonder what Bernie Ecclestone thinks of this debacle? Maybe OfCom the viewers watchdog will do something about it, as I understand it they have in their rules that advert breaks must be taken at a sensible time in a live event, so as not to spoil it.

Watch this space for an update!

Feedster Claim

Yep, this is a strange post, it's only here on my blog so that www.feedster.com knows I own this blog, thinking about it its a good way to confirm it, as I had to inlcude their text below in my blog!

No Need to Click Here - I'm just claiming my feed at Feedster feedster:50035a8c30f88893aa7c936af36abd38

Dangerous Road Users

How I hate dangerous drivers. Only the other day, I was driving along, coming up to a junction where I had priority, and this double decker bus pulled out in front of me, causing me to brake hard. After breaking I sounded my horn so that I could make sure that he was aware that I was not best pleased with him.

I really hate drivers who think they can pull out in front of you, regardless of the fact it is illegal to do so. If I see a driver trying to pull out of a side road, or enter a roundablout to soon, I drive slowly past them, in order to teach them a lesson. Why do so many drivers have to be in a hurry, surely a few extra seconds waiting to safely pull out of a junction is sensible, rather than risk the chance of causing an accident. My understanding of the highway code when pulling out of a side road, is that you can only do so when it is safe, and when you are not going to force the traffic you are pulling out in front of to slow down.

Now I understand it that we have speed cameras on a section of the M4 in Wiltshire, to ensure that drivers do not break the speed limit. I'm in favour of this. I read a page giving peoples comments on this, and most said that the speed limit on a motorway is 70mph, therefore if you break the limit you should be done for speeding. The biggest problem with motorway driving and speeding is when you are overtaking at the speed limit on a dual carriageway or motorway, and you get someone come up behind you, going at 80mph+ and flashing their lights, who expects you to immediately get out of the way for them, not caring that you have the right to be in that lane.

I remember overtaking once on a 2 lane motorway, and a large 4x4 came up behind me, trying to get me out of his way. When it was safe for me to do so, and return to the left hand lane, he overtook me, with his left tyres in my lane, I guess trying to run me off the road, for delaying his trip. For him its a good job there where no police around, or he would have lost his licence for dangerous driving, as I had the right to pull out and overtake!

Domain Name

Well I finally did it I bought my self a co.uk domain jonzosplace I'd been thinking about it for years, and yesterday took the plunge. So next time you come my website, use my new domain rather than connect.to/jonzosplace

It seems so easy to get a domain name these days, went to the registrar ukreg.com and ordered the domain name for £6.93 for 2 years, not only that I get forwarding to a website of my choice and can also have subdomain forwarding as well, along with 50 forwarding e-mail address! Now if you thought thats a great domain package, well you can also add an 0845 internet dial up service for free to your account!

Maybe UKReg are right when they say that domain names are going to be commodity in the future, I certainly see more people owning them at the price I bought this one!

MSN Spaces

Downloaded MSN Messenger 7 today. I wish I could use it as my instant messaging tool full time, but I have friends on other networks, which means I am gonna haveta continue using Miranda IM. It would be so nice if all networks could be interoperable with each other.

MSN Spaces looks good, but it is not as good as Blogger, as you cannot add things as HTML Links with graphics in your page, change the date you are posting to your blog etc. The plus side of MSN Spaces is that you can see when a person has updated their space, and you can e-mail your posts to your blog.

I'm giving this a proper trial to see if this service is good, and if it is, I might consider moving away from Blogger. Of course if this happens I will let you know.

Make Poverty History

You may have noticed the new white band on the top right corner of my blog and personal website. I'm now supporting Make Poverty History! I believe that we as the very well developed western world need to make an end to the poverty in the world.

Click on the link and go to Make Poverty History, show the world you care.

I also believe that when we go shopping in supermarkets we should purchase Fairtrade goods, yes they cost more, but the benefits to the producer outweigh the extra cost, for example fairtrade banana growers have been using the extra money they make on their bananas to start growing coconuts. Try eating Fairtrade chocolate, you will find it still tastes as good as ordinary chocolate, if not better. If you want to find out more about Fairtrade then go to www.fairtrade.org.uk

A Real Alternative

Do you play video files on your PC, such as Real Media files, QuickTime files and the various Windows Media formats? If you do then you have probably installed the various players needed to play the different file formats. Well I have big news for you, there is now a media player called Media Player Classic that changes all this, because it plays ALL the media types I mentioned above, along with all major sound file formats.

Media Player Classic looks like version 6 of Windows Media Player, and you would be forgiven for thinking at first glance it is, however it is not, it's an open source written software package, that is a far better version of Windows Media Player 6, and of course, it's Windows XP compatible.

This means for me as a user of these files, I

• no longer get bugged when loading a QuickTime file to upgrade to the pro version,
• no longer have to wait for Real Player to load (which can take a while) or go hunting on their website to find the download for the free player
• get a better set of audio & video codecs (to decode some media file types)

You can download Real Alternative, which includes Media Player Classic here: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_alternativeness along with loads of codecs and other programs such as QuickTime Alternative.

Give Real alteration / Media Player Classic a try. I'm sure you will come to love it as a great media player!

Legal MP3 Downloads

As I said in my last post, I felt that MP3 legal download companies should not DRM encode their files so you can only do certain things with it - which sometimes means that you can only copy to a portable device 3 times, which is fine if you have a 20gb device, but for those on a a 256mb device that can be a problem if you like to change your muisc taste all the time!

Ideally if you use a legal download service you should be able to choose the format you download the file in eg MP3 or Windws Media File, if your MP3 player is compatible with those, or in Apple iPod or Sony Atrac3 format. The best way for these companies to achieve this, is by offering a conversion filter once you have downloaded the file in to the format you need, for syncing with your device.

If your device supports expansion cards, that adds another problem into the mix as when you transfer a legal file on to it, it may not play on your device, as the file thinks the device does not have the licence to play on it!

One day all formats will be supported on all devices, and when you purchase a track you will be able to listen to it on whatever device you want! without worrying about the license!

Digital Rights Managment

Bought myself an MP3 player at the weekend, a Thomson Lyra 256MB player with SD/MMC expansion. I thought it would be easy to get working, and I would be able to join a legal MP3/WMA download service and transfer tracks to my new player. So on Sunday evening I joined Napster, after a 9 meg download (which took forever on Dial up) I installed Napster only to find out it didnt support my device, then I discovered that it works with any device that works with Windows Media Player - no problems there my player does. I then tried to install the Napster plugin for Windows Media Player, that didnt work, so thought I best upgrade to WMP 10 another 11 meg download (and a long wait for the download to finish). Still couldnt get the WMP plugin to work.

Come Monday morning I was not a happy bunny, as I had spent money on this MP3 player in order to listen to my MP3 collection, (which I could as they happily transferred to the device) and purchase legal downloads, and transfer them to my device. I go into Napster in WMP and it says that it can't detect it. I thought to myself why can you not detect it when it is installed on my PC. So I click the button to get Napster expecting to have to sit through another 9meg download. Turned out that this download was a WMP plugin for Napster. So I installed it and Napster worked in WMP. Great I thought, lets buy a track to put on my MP3 player, so I bought the track, and couldnt transfer it to my device due to a licence problem. Worked out the best way to get a file to my device was to burn to an Audio CD, then rip it back to the PC and transfer. That worked great, but didnt solve the problem.

Tuesday came, and I went to Thomson's site for my player, hoping to find a place to report this problem, I did not find a place, but while looking through the support pages I saw a firmware update for my player, and was overjoyed as it added support to my player for DRM encoded WMA files, from legal download providers. So I installed the firmware, a lengthy process, that involved formatting my device, and finally my Napster download worked on the device. I'm now going to purchase more MP3 files that way.

I wish that legal MP3/WMA download companies did not DRM enccode their files as we the consumer should be able to play our downloads on any device we like, without have to sort out licensing problems!!