TerraCycle

Recently I have just started upcycling my Tassimo TDiscs and wrappers to a company called TerraCycle, rather than putting them in the waste bin and sending them to landfill.

TerraCycle turns the TDiscs and wrappers I send them in to bags etc. Here is a video that explains what they do.

Twitter

Decided to join the world of Twitter, as I thought it would be a fun way to let my friends know what i’m up to, and post items of interest.

If you would like to follow me on Twitter, visit http://www.twitter.com/johnnyrit and ask to become one of my followers.

Mary's Boy Child

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An interesting take on Boney M's version of Mary's Boy Child, performed by Roger Whittaker and the Black Gospels.

I Dreamed A Dream

On Monday I bought Susan Boyle’s new CD, having heard her performance on Britain's Got Talent, which was amazing. I think it is a really brilliant CD, and just through listening to it, you can hear how good Susan’s voice is, and be amazed at what talent she has got.

There is a great mixture of songs on the CD, including some classic Christian hymns - How Great Thou Art, Amazing Grace and Silent Night. It’s brilliant that Susan was able to include these on the CD, as an expression of her Christian faith. I also think she sings I Dreamed A Dream, from Les Miserables really well, and Wild Horses is another great track. I hope this is not the only CD she does, it would be really great if she made another CD, as I am sure there are more great tracks she could perform.

Opening Hours

Just had a holiday in Rouen, France for a week, and it’s great to see that nearly all retail stores, do not open on Sunday, except for the small local supermarket, which is open for an hour or 2 to allow people to get fresh bread etc. I also noticed that not all restaurants open either on Sunday. This makes for a far better way of life, as it means that families can spend time together, and that retail employees get at least one day off a week.

It would be really great to have a situation like this in England, but I suspect as a country we have become used to the fact that supermarkets etc. are open 7 days week, to cater for our each and every need. Maybe one day change will happen?

Clothing Sizes

Went shopping yesterday for a new pair of Jeans. I thought it would be easy, but no it wasn’t. Went in to 2 retailers and one had nothing in my size - 30inch wasit, 29inch/small leg length, and the other had one colour, and I wasn’t sure whether the colour was a good one and whether it would suit me. Naturally this left me rather angry that 2 retailers had a very bad range of clothing for short men.

It seems to me that if you are around a height of 5 foot 4 inches it is harder to find clothing that fits, and it some stores near on impossible, this seems to be the same in France, when I go in to clothing chains in France I like, finding my size is impossible. Its time that retailers stopped discriminating against people of my size, and started to sell clothing that fits us. after all there are a lot of us about - where I work there are 6 to 8 of us, who are around 5 foot 4 inches tall, which leads me to think that it is not just me who has a problem.

What do you think? Comments welcome.

Wanchai Ferry

Discovered in a local supermarket 3 new Chinese dinner kits from a company called Wanchai Ferry. There is a choice of Xiang Gu Chicken, Kung Pao Chicken and Bo Luo Pork. As a someone who enjoys Chinese cooking, I found these dinner kits a refreshing change, as it made cooking Chinese food easy, and created a great meal that everyone liked.

On the front of each kit is a list of the ingredients inside the kit and also a list of extra ingredients you will need, such as pork, chicken and any vegetables. To make a meal with the kit you simply follow the instructions, and voila you have a simple and easy Chinese meal that serves 2-3 people. I have tried the Xiang Gu Chicken and the Kung Pao Chicken and am looking forward to trying the Bo Luo Pork. Have a look at http://www.wanchaiferry.co.uk for more information on their products.

Fozzie Bear vs Statler and Waldorf

This is a great clip from an episode of The Muppet Show starring Bruce Forsyth, in which he “shows” Fozzie Bear how to deal with Statler and Waldorf in the balcony. Very funny and worth watching.

Lotus Symphony

Been using a new office suite on my Mac recently. It’s called Symphony and is made by IBM Lotus, based on OpenOffice. What IBM Lotus have done is taken OpenOffice, making it in to an office suite better suited to an office environment. IBM Lotus Symphony can be downloaded for free from the Lotus Symphony web site.

At the moment Symphony has a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software built in, along with the ability to add plugins. There is also a web browser built in as well which is useful for surfing the web, while you are using the software, as it saves you switching to another web browser. Symphony is fully compatible with OpenOffice as it uses the same Open Document standard file type that OpenOffice uses, as well as being compatible with Microsoft Office versions up to 2003 - Office 2007 file types are not yet supported, tho I guess they are coming in a future release.

I noticed that when using the word processor a formatting sidebar appears on the right hand side of the screen, and this is useful for selecting text size, font etc. This sidebar also appears in the Spreadsheet and Presentation modules as well, providing useful formatting commands for the file you are working on

I hope that IBM Lotus improve Symphony even further, perhaps adding some of the other OpenOffice tools such as Base and Draw. I think it is great addition to the office suite market, and will help showcase how good OpenOffice and its derivatives are. All in all if you are looking for a good office suite at no charge, give Symphony a go, I think you will enjoy using it.

Cycling 3

Been cycling a lot this year, and I am actually improving. I think this is due to the fact I purchased a new bike, as it is much better suited to my body height, being a bike with a smaller 14” frame. Compared to my cycling last year, I am now able to cycle for longer periods without resting, and can get up some hills in one go, which is great as it means I can begin to cover longer distances in a shorter time. Also I am now able to cycle a bit faster on flat roads, partly due pushing myself to go faster, and having a bike with a lighter frame.

Hopefully by the end of the summer, I will have improved even more, and be able to tackle even more hills in one go!

Another Site Design & iWeb Thoughts

Decided that while the design for my personal web site was good, it needed to be simplified, to make it easier to add and edit pages, and shorten the uploading process. So lo and behold I switched to this more simple design, which make my site more streamlined and look good. Comments on the design are always welcome.

Having changed the design of my site, I wish that iWeb would allow you to specify which parts of a page are the title, so that whenever you add a new page, such as a blog entry you do not need to keep having to change the page title, from the templates default design to your site title. I guess It would also be good to have an easy way to modify a template in iWeb so it is ready to use, customised to your needs, so that when you add another blog entry, there is no need to spend time customising the page to fit in with you site design. Hopefully a future version of iWeb will address this.

Sims 3

Just bought the Sims 3 - It is the first mainstream release game that really works on my MacBook. Whilst The Sims Life Stories worked well on it, it was designed to be Mac laptop friendly, and as a result it was a cut down version of The Sims, working on virtually all Mac’s. However Sims 3 is the first game from EA that has been designed to work on all Mac’s with a recent nVidia / ATI graphics card (one that appears in the new MacBook. MacBook Pro or MacBook Air and it will also work on an Intel X3100 graphics card, the one inside my MacBook. What’s good about Sims 3 is that the game is supplied on DVD-ROM and the same DVD-ROM will work in a PC, and as far as I am aware Sims 3 is the first cross platform release for Mac and PC that comes on the same DVD - It was great to be able to purchase a copy in Game, rather than the Apple Store, as it was cheaper, and earn reward points on my Game Reward Card.

Whilst the game may not look as good as some games, Sims 3 does not really need the latest ground breaking graphics as it a game that is designed around the gameplay. On my Mac the game runs with the lowest graphics settings, but still looks good and runs well.

It’s Great to see when playing, that the neighbourhood is now integrated together, so you can have your Sims living either in the middle of the neighbourhood, near the shops and leisure facilities, or on the edge of town. You can also redesigned the neighbourhood and re-designate lots as residential or community. Whats good about this feature is unlike previous versions of the game, if you take a sim to a community lot, time no longer stands still and others sims continue their life as normal.

All in all Sims 3 is a great game, and I hope that some great expansion packs appear, to make the game even better!

Marcia Barrett

Great to see Marcia Barrett still going strong in the music world. This YouTube video is her performance of Rivers of Babylon on German TV, with her Boney M. lineup.

This year she has released 2 singles - Seeing is Believing and I Don’t Know Why. Both of these singles are fantastic, and its really good to see Marcia Barrett trying to make a go of being a solo artist. I for one am looking forward to hearing her new album when it comes out.

Here’s to a great future for Marcia.

Termiate The Rate

Just found an interesting site on the internet - http://www.terminatetherate.org/ - a campaign to reduce the cost of calling a mobile phone in the UK from a landline, or to a mobile on another network, by reducing the "Mobile Termination Rate". This rate is a per minute charge, averaging 4.7p that you pay everytime you call a mobile phone from a landline, or call a mobile phone on another network. It seems serveral companies including 3, BT, MoneySupermarket.com and others are backing this campaign to reduce the cost of "Mobile Termination Rates". It would be great if they are sucessful in getting Ofcom to look at getting the rates reduced, so that calling mobiles becomes cheaper.

ovi.com

Been using a new service with my new mobile called ovi.com. This is is a new service from Nokia for synchronising your phones calendar and contacts with ovi.com on the internet, as well as a place to share files, download free and paid for applications for your phone etc. Also if you want it you can get an @ovi.com e-mail address.

It’s nice to see that Nokia has developed this service for their phones, as it is a great addition. However, having used the service for a while, I have noticed that there is one thing missing, that would make it even better, and that is the ability to sync from ovi.com on the internet, via iSync to Address Book and iCal on a Mac, as this would then make it even easier to keep all your information accessible, and in sync whether you are on your phone, home computer, or looking at Ovi.com on another computer, and if you could schedule the phone to sync your data at regular intervals, and get your computer to do the same, then you have a MobileMe like software tool for Nokia phones.

Kudos to Nokia for creating this service, I think will become a useful enhancement to Nokia mobile phones, now and in the future, especially this with 3G and or Wireless Networking built in. Maybe this will spur Apple to make MobileMe available to more than just the iPhone / iPod Touch.

Nokia E63 & MobileMe Ponderings

I have just purchased a new mobile phone, a Noika E63. This is a great smartphone, with standard mobile phone functions, as well as some funky features including WiFi, Qwerty keyboard, internet access, media player and a whole lot more.

It’s great being able to synchronise my data with my Mac via bluetooth, but while doing this I was thinking it would be great to be able to sync the phone withe my MobileMe account, without having to go via my Mac. I think Apple are missing a trick here, as being able to sync any mobile phone, that has calendar and contact facilities with MobileMe would be a good thing, however I suspect Apple have thought about this and decided not to do it, thus encouraging people to get an iPhone to use the MobileMe sync service. Thankfully Nokia have a service called Ovi, which is at http://www.ovi.com and does the same sort of thing with MobileMe, offering over the air sycnchronising of calendar and contact data with compatible Nokia phones, either via Wifi or mobile internet connection, as well as offering photo sharing, file storage and a free e-mail address.

I hope that in time Apple will add synchronising with other mobile devices to MobileMe so that those of us who don’t have an iPhone can still benefit from MobileMe on our smartphones.

Jurassic Fart

This is a great video I found on YouTube, very funny, had me in stitches.

There are some other great videos in this series and it is worth watching them all.

New Site Design & Blog Changes

Having found a really good iWeb template called Treasure I decided that my personal website would look good with this template, so I re-designed my site with the new template.

I am also hoping to post to my blog on a more regular basis, hopefully every 1 or 2 weeks with interesting things I find online, observations on life and entries about computers.

Slax Linux

Recently I have been using a new operating on my PC. It's called Slax and it is a Linux distribution that runs on a USB Data Stick or a CD-ROM, so it can be run without having to install anything on the PC's hard drive and can be taken to any PC that can boot from CD-ROM or a USB Data Stick. In these days of operating systems taking up gigbytes of space on a hard drive it is nice to have a system that is only a 190mb download.

When Slax Linux loads it goes in to the K Desktop Environment, which is a graphical user interface rather like Windows, and you can download and install familliar programs such as OpenOffice, Opera, Firefox, Thunderbird etc. This is great as it means you can take your essential e-mails, documents and web bookmarks with you wherever you go.

The only problem I had with Slax was getting it to recognise my wirless network, this was due to the fact that the inbuilt configuration tools only allowed a connection to a WEP network or worse, such as an unsecured network. As I use a WPA network Slax found the network, but would not allow me to connect. However once I worked out how to use the wpa_supplicant and wpa_gui tools from the command line it was not a problem to connect to my network. I hope that in future releases of Slax it is easier to connect to any wireless network, and I hope that someone writes a tool that will make it simple for any Linux distribution to go online with a wireless network.

All in all, if you want a fast operating system, then go for Slax Linux.

Divine Chocolate

Seems Tesco want to stop selling Divine Fairtrade Chocolate in some stores, so that Ghanian Cocoa farmers get not only their Fairtrrade income but also a share of the profits the Divine chocolate. Seems Tesco want to replace Divine with their own brand Fairtrade chocolate, which while giving a Fairtrade income to the farmers does not give them a share of the profits. Read more about this by Clicking Here Lets hope Tesco listen to what the public want.

Even More Digital Rights Management

Great news for iTunes fans - at the recent Macworld, Apple announced that iTunes had become DRM free, and that all songs would be offered in the iTunes plus format. This is due to deals that Apple have done with the 3 remaining music labels that hadn’t already signed up to iTunes plus - SonyBMG, Universal and Warner Music.

I’m looking forward to being able to purchase music on iTunes that I will be able to copy to my mobile phone to listen to, play through digital streaming on my new digital internet radio etc. The only annoyance I can see is the cost of upgrading tracks that have already been bought on iTunes - there will be a 20p upgrade charge.

For more on this exciting development, read this article from c|net