NiceGuyUK Blog

NiceGuyUK's blog

Thursday, July 31, 2003

Good girls don't eat prawn dip...
Yesterday's edition of the free Metro newspaper featured a review by one Siobhan Murphy of a restaurant in Hoxton called Shish.

In her review, Ms. Murphy states "the dip for the prawns tasted alarmingly like what good girls aren't supposed to swallow". Nice way to show that you're not a good girl there Siobhan!!!
Google toolbar new and improved! Now even, erm, googlier!
Google have some new toys to their toolbar. Its still in beta (ie, not finished yet for those that dunno what beta means), but you can check it out here if you want
Firebird XL5
A lot of my colleagues here are raving about a new browser called Mozilla Firebird - and they are web developers so it must be pretty good. I do know it has some nice features that Internet Explorer doesn't, the most useful-sounding of which is the built-in Popup Blocker. Might be worth checking this out, as its available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X
My favourites
Added a custom favourites icon for the blog - now when you add it to your favourites in Internet Explorer you'll see a customized icon. For those of you that want to know how to do this, just upload an icon to your webpage called favicon.ico, then at the top of your HTML <BODY>; tag, just add the following line

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="path to icon/favicon.ico">
AdAware is now more aware
Joel told me on the train this morning that there is a slightly newer version of AdAware available that seems to do a better job of removing spyware. Since they are stopping the release of updates for the old version (Version 6.0 Build 162), I suggest people get the new version (Version 6.0 Build 182

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Dance til you drop
Powershout Radio is back on the air! Yay!
[Listening to: Tremor - Meia Lua (Steve Gibbs Mix) (P O W E R S H O U T ! Pure Trance!) ]
The Adventures of Sir Steamhelmet
You can read the adventures of Sir Steamhelmet here...
Smile, your on Rob's blog!
Well, as you have probably worked out, I've got the last few bugs ironed out of putting images on my blog. From now on, most (if not all) blog entries will have a little icon next to the title. Its still not 100% perfect, since Internet Explorer didn't render the transparent backgrounds on my PNG images properly, so I've put them through a filter for IE that solves the problem. Users of NetScape/Mozilla/Opera etc can still see my blog entries as normal.

If you're wondering, my little icons come from the Crystal icon set by Everaldo
Uno!
You can get a freeware computer version of the great cardgame Uno here
[Listening to: Clokx - Clocks]
French Forest Fires - Update
Police have arrested someone in connection with the suspected arson attacks in the south of France where my parents live. You can see the affected area on this map - my parents live at Taradeau in the top-left of the map. Still can't get hold of them on the phone, which is a little worrying, but I'm sure I will soon enough.
Aaaargh
Lost my weekly train ticket on the train this morning. Now I'm gonna have to fork out for another one.

Tuesday, July 29, 2003

Playing a new GAIM
After my nasty experience with Messenger Plus, as chronicled yesterday, I've removed MSN completely. However, my friends on there needn't despair, for I'm now using GAIM instead. IT handles a lot more chat protocols (AIM, MSN, IRC and more), is free, open source, and customizable. Give it a look.
Four die in France forest fires
More forest fires right on my parents' doorstep - and this time its feared that the cause could be arson. See the full story here
Another thing that makes men go blind...
Apparently wearing a tie too tight could make you go blind - good job I can wear jeans and t-shirts at work then...

Monday, July 28, 2003

Spyware - its not big and its not clever
Once upon a time there was this really useful piece of software called Messenger Plus. It extended the functionality of MSN/Windows Messenger giving you lots of cool little toys. All its users were happy and much pleased wiht its author, Patchou.

But then Patchou sold his soul to the devil and bundled future versions with ten tons of Spyware that spies on all your computer and connects to internet sites by stealth, and downloads porn and all sorts of unpleasant and unwanted side effects.

And it came to pass that nobody wanted to use Patchou's program any more....

No piece of software I write will ever have spyware embedded in or bundled with it. For those of you that have already had your fingers burned by spyware, you can remove it using the wonderful Ad-Aware 6.0 from Lavasoft
Publish and be damned
Found a nice and useful little toy for making your own PDF documents . It acts as a printer driver so you should be able to make PDF files from most applications (Word, OpenOffice etc).
Fight The Power!
How Not To Get Sued by the RIAA for File Sharing
[Listening to: Public Enemy - Fight The Power]
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ping...
Some people still asking me about NicePing, so click the link if you want a copy.
The cheque's in the post....
Apparently my loan cheque (that's check for our American readers) is winging its merry little way to me, and should be here in the next couple o' days....
Title Fight
Got my own little tag customized out to do titles on posts now. Seems to work quite well.
Matrix Recoded?
The Matrix in ASCII - matrix_ascii-movie.zip
Only two things guaranteed in life - death and taxes....
Q: What does the taxman and a pelican have in common?

A: They can both stick their bills up their arse!

[Listening to: DJ Karel - Transit 6]

Thursday, July 24, 2003

Payday at last!

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Tune!
Finally managed to get this tune I heard on the radio!
[Listening to: Clokx - Clocks]
Was ill all day yesterday, hence no blog entry. I think it was either one of those 24 hour bugs or something I ate. Better now, although still a little weakened by the whole thing.

Monday, July 21, 2003

Found out my mate JimBob has a fun little site. Not quite a blog, but its nicely managed using PostNuke. You can find his site at http://www.evolva.biz

[Listening to: Man with no Name - Azymuth ]
Interesting animation called Conform Obey Consume - sort of like a Matrix / 1984 theme to it
Oh, so that's what you're supposed to do with a blog

[Listening to: Ayumi Hamasaki - M (Above & Beyond remix)]
<XML>
   <COMPLAINT Text="God I hate XML"/>
</XML>
Good weekend! Had a nice meal at my gf's sister's house Saturday night, followed by cocktails. Sunday involved sleeping, playing Pitch 'n' Putt on the East Cliff in Folkestone, and then having a big roast lamb dinner. Ah, life is good!

Gone back to playing Dungeon Siege for a bit - gives me something to do on the train.

Mondays were designed to crash...Screenshot
Now there's a film I wanna see - Freddy vs. Jason

Saturday, July 19, 2003

Big forest fires where my Mum lives. Scary stuff, but luckily the wind changed and the fires moved elsewhere. Family all ok.

[Listening to: Into the Sun (riva remix) - Weekend Players ]

Friday, July 18, 2003

Ping Pong Reloaded
What would happen if the Wachowski Brothers made movies about playing Ping Pong? Windows Media Player Required
Another nightmare train journey home from work tonight. I hate Connex and I'm so glad they lost their franchise.
We love the dog from the Churchill Insurance ads! See him answer your questions here
New from Deloitte Consulting...

Bullfighter is software that runs in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, within Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP. It works a lot like the spelling and grammar checker in those
applications, but focuses on jargon and readability
Gonna see if I can work out how Managed to get listed at Weblogs.com now
Looks like Microsoft is taking on SourceForge at the collaborative development environment game now. Check out this article Microsoft Takes Wraps Off SourceForge Competitor

Wonder how they will react to people using the GPL on the workspaces? ;-)
Got another cool blog toy - a plugin for WinAmp that lets me tell you what I am listening to! Right now that would be...

[Listening to: Fiji (cequenza mix) (D I G I T A L L Y - I M P O R T E D - European Trance, Techno, Hi-NRG... we can't define it!) - Atlantis - (0:-1)]


You can get this plugin from Minimal Verbosity and its available in Winamp 3 and WinAmp 2 versions
First meeting as President of Folkestone Rotaract went well. Lots to think about, as it was quite a busy meeting. What did come out of the meeting though was the possibility of working out in Alabama for 4 weeks next year. Gonna find out more about that, so watch this space...

This morning begins with me having to reinstall Microsoft Visual Studio .NET again due to a components update I did. Oh well, there goes another hour or two of the day...

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Started using a new tool called w.bloggar to edit my blog. It means I can work offline, and it also allows far more functionality than the web interface. Expect to see better laid out entries, pictures and more soon
Brought my laptop with me to work today, but left the power supply at home. Doh!

My loan has been approved - I finally have a way out of the mire!

Found an interesting snippet on the BBC News website today. Interesting approach to cancer prevention...

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Just added a Creative Commons license to my blog - so stop stealing it! :-P Click on the little logo on the side menu there to see what you are and aren't allowed to do!

Monday, July 14, 2003

Well, I've now been appointed President and Secretary of my local Rotaract Club - oh the power! Gonna update their site to a little more contemporary look and add a bit more content at some point, but for now, I'll just relax with my new chain of office and wait for the first Rotary dinner invite :-)
Got a really cool chair for my birthday. Its supposed to be in my computer room, but for now, its in front of my TV :-D

Its not the same fabric as the one pictured on the link above. Mine is in black Nordic Elk hide (which they no longer provide, much to the relief of the Nordic Elks).

If you want one, you can get them from my friends at Boyce Business Equipment

Saturday, July 12, 2003

Well, here we are again on party day. House is tidied (well, tidier than it was anyway), and shortly I shall start preparing food in readiness for the feast I'm providing. Bit of a mexican theme for this one, with chilli, enchiladas, fajitas and suchlike. Currently sat around waiting for Dan's MP3s to download. Taking a while, so though I'd blog something for the weekend.

Thursday, July 10, 2003

Birthday Blog!

Yup, I finally reached the ripe old age of 30 today! Doesn't feel any different to 29 to be honest, but if you like, you can still send me a birthday card

Wednesday, July 09, 2003

Last day at work for this week. Got a nice 4-day weekend to come now, cos its my 30th birthday tomorrow :-)

Monday, July 07, 2003

Good weekend - shame its over now :(

Cooked a nice chinese meal for my girlfriend, consisting of Kung Pao Chicken (which she keeps calling Kung Fu Chicken!) with beansprouts and mushrooms in oyster sauce. I love cooking, especially chinese food.

Did some more work on our Venetian Fete yesterday afternoon, and hence have blisters from all the construction work on our Daleks. Quiz night Sunday night at the Chambers in Folkestone, but we didn;t do too well at all this time around. Oh well...

3 day week at work this week, cos its my birthday on Thursday (30th) and I took Friday off too (to recover? we will see....)

Friday, July 04, 2003


Standards for creating domain names on the Internet (numbers and letters only; no spaces or punctuation marks other than a hyphen) have led to some interesting combinations when operations with multi-word names eschew the use of hyphens and instead run the words of their names together. One of our favorite examples is who represents?, a web site for looking up information about which agents, managers, and publicists represent various actors — their domain name could, at first glance, be taken as a place for web surfers to go when trying to find the perfect gift for that special hooker: whorepresents.com.

The "Who represents?" site prompted recent mention of a similarly humorous domain naming gaffe in the Sydney Morning Herald's "Column 8":

The web address of Who Represents reminded David Warrell, of the University of NSW, of a programming advice and discussion web site he frequently called, Experts Exchange. "For a surprisingly long time, their address was www.expertsexchange.com . It now has a hyphen, www.experts-exchange.com."
The Experts Exchange site reportedly adopted a hyphen in their domain name after receiving a few too many queries from prospective patients seeking information about transgender surgery.

The issue of inadvertently-chosen titillating domain names came up again in June 2003 when Powergen, the UK's leading integrated gas and electricity company, supposedly picked a rather unfortunate domain name for the web site of their Italian subsidiary, Powergen Italia — one that sounded like a shopping place for persons looking to purchase industrial-strength vibrators: powergenitalia.com. But the folks at Powergen maintained that they had nothing to do with the choice of domain name and didn't even have an Italian division. The powergenitalia.com domain apparently hosts the web site of a real Italian company which sells specialized battery products.

Thursday, July 03, 2003

Happy Birthday Blog! You're now 2 months old!
Managed to send the first bunch of HTML emails from DeVolution today. Yay for me!