This was an interesting one, I've had about 42 subscribers for months (or there abouts) and then suddenly on Friday I lost nearly half.

I know they're not big numbers but I wonder if Feedburner have noticed a glitch in their code.

I was looking for an adjustable 4 hole punch today so I thought I'd quickly pop onto Staples' website thinking they might have one I can buy and then I was faced with this monstrosity:

I know they've got a large product catalogue to share but why make it hard for me? Where's the search box I ask you! I actually had to think to find what I suspect is the most useful thing on their site.

Why make the user think? Make the search box BIG bright and bold so I don't need to think about where to find what I'm after.

This one made me laugh today, Chris Anderson alerted me to it but you would have thought the MS guys would have picked up on it...

Incidentally, it's the first time I've seen this message on any site...

Sometimes it's the little things that keep workers happy so when I saw the little surprise that online conference callers Powwownow do with their cards I thought I'd share.

When you sign up at www.powwownow.co.uk you get the option of being sent your number on a card to hand around to your friends, clients and anyone else. It comes through the post in a little card holder (mine was missing our spare cards but hey). If you rip it open, on some of the folds, they've put jokes for the people putting them together! Look:

Just like the jokes on lollipop sticks -costs next to nothing (in this case I would imagine it was free) but makes that works day just a little more entertaining :).

One of my friends in Denmark has been working on something quite special over the past few days and I thought it was time to share. I'm really blown away by the "quick job" he did with this.

And one for the fellas

This is one of the most bizarre stories I've heard in a while, you really can't make it up. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/7496923.stm

I don't mind when I get told I've made a mistake -or there's a problem with the system but this error message kinda takes the P! Quite what the developers were thinking when they wrote this one I'm not sure!

What do I do? celebrate that it went through ok or commiserate because it failed?

The "Ok." relates to the transaction completing without an issue, the "Stop" actually says that it failed so it's not even "Part A was ok, but Part B failed". Really odd, someone needs to look into testing their system.

Looks pretty though!

As fantastic as it is, and I love the Flickr plugin (being new to Flickr this was what convinced me) but although they look the same, there are a couple of differences (that or I've not found them yet). One of the big issues I've found is that you can't filter the results by ranking, here are two screenshots, the first from Windows Photo Gallery:

And Windows Live Photo Gallery:

So where has the "Ratings" tab gone I wonder.

The other thing that I've not yet worked out is how to flag photos as "Private" and be able to hide them -perhaps that's not possible.

Facebook is many things to many people. When it first hit our shores, to me it was one of the coolest things out -mainly because I lost track with a fair number of people that I wanted to get in touch with. No doubt like many others I found looking at other people's photos fairly addictive and lost countless hours seeing what others were up to.

More recently however I've not made the time for Facebook -much to the annoyance of certain friends who still live on the website. To me Facebook has become boring and stagnant, because now I've caught up with most people I lost touch with -and I don't have enough time to play all the games-, what's left?

For quite some time now Stacey has voiced concern over the fact that Facebook encourages people to live in the past -which I agree with. It's not a bad thing catching up with friends you've lost track of but after that what value is there really in Facebook?

Her point really hit home the other day when a particularly unpleasant person from school joined, I suspect they have been a member of Facebook for quite some time but nobody bothered looking them up. I know some people consider Facebook as a competition of "who knows the most people" but to me I've only really ever added friends, admittedly there are one or two loose "friend" connections in my list of friends but I'd happily enjoy a pint with any of them. So when this particular person added me I decided not to accept, since then I've been bombarded with repeat requests and messages asking me to add them.

It sounds silly but I find it a little hypocritical adding someone to my "friend" list who I have no affiliation with or desire to get to know. My reasoning is not that unjustified as I and a few other people I know have met up with the person in question since leaving school in the hope they've changed and sadly everyone agrees that they've not changed in the slightest. So why would I want to appease their conscious?

We've started to use Google Docs to manage the workload of our remote workers -which I have to say works pretty well, logging on today I was really impressed to see that Google Docs had gone all out to pimp out their interface.

I think it's really nice so for those of you who don't use Google Docs click the image to see the results :)

It's little things like the heart instead of the star...

Ok, back to managing peoples time :P

I recently signed up for a new Google account for client related stuff and ever since have found that the entire user interface has changed into another language -I would guess Greek or Polish but I don't really have a clue. I don't know why it started like this as I sure as damn-it chose English but it makes me laugh every-time I see it.

I've even tried changing all my settings to English but Google just doesn't want me to read what it's saying -luckily I'm familiar enough with the interface that I can navigate around it without needing to know what it's saying ;)

Thanks to Chris Anderson for this one -shame I missed it the day he posted it due to mega issues but worth sharing:

1. Goto Google (www.google.com incase you're that uneducated :P)
2. Type into the search "find Chuck Norris"
3. Click the "I'm feeling lucky button"
4. Enjoy

Well it made me smile at least

*Goes off to find a good CN movie*

I don't know when Britain decided this but it seems that every time I read the papers at the moment I read yet another absurd idea from up high but this one had me laughing so I thought I'd share:

The Justice Ministry is calling for the removal of the word "prostitute" - which has been around for almost 200 years - from criminal statutes. Ministry officials argue the word carries too much social stigma and are pushing to replace it with the phrase "persons who sell sex persistently." Try saying that with a mouthful.

I don't know whether it's just I've had my head in the sand for the past few years or whether there really is an influx of autobiographies hitting the book stores, either way after finding time to read Duncan Bannatyne's book I thought I'd try another -"Gerald Ratner: The Rise... And Fall... And Rise Again" which I only bought out of curiosity but have found to be most interesting.

I don't know why many people read these sorts of books, I guess there are some looking for that "golden ticket to the riches" but I like to find out where someone's come from and what sort of attitudes businessmen have to life. One thing is for sure is that most of them want to write books¹ ;)

I realise the book is his take on the events that passed (my mother is still insistent that he MUST have said the jewellery was crap as otherwise the press wouldn't have pursued him as ferociously) but either way what I found most interesting are the values that he learnt along the way.

One can only feel sorry for what he has been through -regardless of whether he was seen to be "flash with his cash" when he had it or not (to be fair who wouldn't be if they could be), to see that he's managed to recover from it is a real achievement.

Until recently, when asked the "If you could meet one person who's alive" type question I would probably have said Peter Jones as he always came across as an entrepreneur with a little gusto and flare about him but recently -perhaps just due to the producer's discretion I've gone off that idea and would much rather share a beer with Gerald Ratner. I wish him and geraldonline.com all the success in the future.

The book is an easy read and can easily be picked up and put down as needed so if you've not had a chance to read it, pick up a copy of "Gerald Ratner: The Rise... And Fall... And Rise Again" your local book store (or Amazon if you live in the sticks!).

¹ For those of you interested, I have already got my book underway, it's going to be an epic -and exciting- tale of woe about my raise to fame (and hopefully without fall...). I think I'm going to name it "Coming from nowhere to go somewhere". I wish I could say you can pre-order it somewhere but you can't -if you want a copy email me and I'll add you to the list (you'll probably be the first...)

Ever since Amy Winehouse hit the UK music scene Stacey, her father and I have been wanting to see her live because there's no doubt she'll be entertaining so when the opportunity to go see her just down the road from here came up there was no turning it down!

If you're like me and don't have enough time to follow the latest celebrity gossip headlines you'll not know that her husband has been jailed, I'm not entirely sure why still but I think it's got something to do with her beating someone up and then him trying to pay them off to drop the court case. Anyhow I digress.

I spent the entire week looking forward to the gig as we don't get to see many gigs (the last was a superb gig by Jack Johnson in the NEC) though despite my celebrity news ignorance even I knew the gig would be controversial as the first time I saw her on Jools Holland's show she was wasted out of her mind swaying on the stage and the second time she was just as wasted at Glastonbury but I wasn't expecting what we got.

After turning up 40minutes or so late for her performance she was clearly in pain. She started rushing through her set, from past sets I've seen her perform she tends to introduce her band before starting but that didn't happen and even her songs seemed to be rushed. Within two songs I had a feeling was wrong.

After 4 or 5 songs she stormed off stage without any explanation and we were left wondering whether that was it or not -a few people got up and left but after a while she came back on stage and started again but she was in tears though most of it. I can't say her words were overly legible and at times it sounded like a bag of cats.

It was one of those historic gigs that was awkward to be at but I'm glad I was even if it was just to see what everyone was going to talk about the next day. I really hope she sorts herself out (or as much as possible!) but I really disagree with her management who IMNSHO were out of order getting her up on stage.

If you ever get the chance to go see Amy Winehouse I really would because the band alone is worth seeing and her two dancers come backup singers are great. If you want to see photos of her gig you can check out my photo album of the gig here.

Stacey bought me a Canon IXUS 950 IS for my birthday which needless to say I was more than chuffed to receive, it's a fantastic camera with enough bells and whistles to make it more than just a happy snappy camera but not too many to make it cumbersome to transport so you can ensure you have it to hand when that un-missable shot is coming.

Problem was, on the weekend it developed a fault -Canon's dreaded E24 error. It's predecessor lasted about 4 years before a rainstorm when it decided to start (understandably) complaining for a while but the IXUS 950 IS hasn't had any (recent)¹ abuse so I called Amazon fearing the worst but hoping they would replace it as this would appear to be a software related fault.

¹ About a week after I got the camera I did drop it but that was mid July.

I first of all emailed them using their online panel as it was out of it's 30 day no-quibble return period but didn't get a response. A little inpatient I decided to call them yesterday and I spoke to a very helpful representative named "Donncha" who assured me that despite my mishap with dropping it there should be no issues in returning it no offence Donncha but I've heard that one before so I didn't hold my breath. He told me a courier would come and collect the camera tomorrow (today) and a replacement would be with me in 3-4 days.

A little later I received -what I assumed was- a collection email saying Royal Mail would be around at some point, I wasn't expecting what happened next. At approximately 10am our usual Royal Mail parcel guy arrived to collect the camera, then, about 5minutes later, another parcel delivery man arrives and drops off the replacement!

I have to take my hat off to you Amazon in this instance, that's superb customer service!

"Charge less and just do it quicker" -or- "Charge less, just spend less time on it"

That's what I got from someone that (infrequently) passes me work when I quoted him on some development yesterday. It sums some clients up though, they think you can do the work required -and- get the results by doing less and as for working faster -you can forget that, do they not think we go as fast as possible so we can move onto the next project sooner?

Made me smile so I thought I'd share :)

My mum gave me a slightly odd Christmas present this year -a beer making weekend. I like many 20 something relished the opportunity to spend a weekend trying out a multitude of different beers, learning what goes into making one and more importantly how I can concoct my own sweet ale. Why then did I start this post saying it was somewhat of an odd present? Well mainly due to my training and much to Stacey's delight I'm virtually tea-total which means my beer-drinking experience thus far in life has been vastly limited to the odd drop of Kronenberg Blanc or Corona (my two current favorite beverage choices) and I can in no way call myself a beer connoisseur (or indeed want to call myself a beer connoisseur). Always wanting to try new things however I went to the beer making weekend with a clear and open mind.

We arrived at Nether Stowey Brewery after a fairly straight forward journey (god bless in-car sat nav systems -they really do take the pain out of navigating) a touch later than planned which meant the other attendees of the beer making weekend had already had the chance to get acquainted with our teacher for the weekend "Ian". I don't know too much about Ian other than he enjoys beer, works -as and when he likes (or so it would appear)- as a very successful employment lawyer and that he likes good beer (I know I've already mentioned that but he really did like his beer...).

The weekend started with a short lesson in beer making, some of the different techniques/flavours produced and a little background behind beer, for instance, did you know that beer was drunk as the primary drink until fairly recently as water was not safe to drink? Or that pale ale was produced by running water through the already used mulch? It was then given to the children as a much weaker beer? Or how about: Most beer and wine is not vegetarian as they use "finings" to remove the impurities (cloudyness) which are made from Fish Liver...

Followed was a discussion on both which drinks we tended to drink at home and what sort of beer we were all looking to produce. There were 5 of us in our group, obviously we were all going to have different opinions of what we wanted from "our" beer. Before we made our final decision we had the part that I think everyone was looking forward to the most -the beer tasting.

The idea behind the tasting was not to get drunk or simply down a load of different beers, we were taught how to taste (and so appreciate) each beer's qualities. It's amazing how different beers that you would assume were similar taste. The names of different beers was also intriguing. My favourite was the acclaimed "Titanic". Having won numerous awards I thought it was going to be a delightful drink, but lets just say the drink went down as well as the boat...

Ian and his most hospitable wife Lynne also run a B&B (The Old Cider House) so your accommodation over the weekend is in very pleasant surroundings -and the food to an excellent standard, we quickly relaxed. It turns out that Ian not only runs beer making weekends, he also produces a selection of fine ales for the local pubs -some of which go down a storm, others not...

The Saturday was primarily spent mulching the various ingredients in a giant vat before leaving it to simmer for a few hours -during which we were left to our own devices -Sam, Pat and I resorted to wandering the streets and playing Pooh sticks of all things in the village's stream.

We then spent most of Sunday naming our new creation, I really dislike trying to name things, naming my company "The Site Doctor" was hard enough but something that came over time, we had a matter of hours to name the beer and create the label. We went round in circles trying to think of something witty yet meaningful, comical yet serious. In the end we settled on "That" with the slogan "Making Life Taste Bitter" -I can't say it was my first choice but the majority ruled.

It was a good 6 weeks before Nether Stowey Brewery finally sent us the products of our weekend of hard work. Carefully packaged in a large cardboard box were 12 bottles of fine ale. I for one (as I'm sure is true with the rest of the group) was not sure what to expect from them so decided to store them away for a special occasion. When I did finally crack one open, I was pleasantly surprised, I can't say it's something I would choose to buy in a pub but it was certainly more drinkable than I was expecting! I've still got a few bottles remaining so if you are -or were- the recipient of one of my bottles, you were either very much liked by me -or disliked, depending on your outlook ;) Needless to say the "Gaunt Brewery" will remain little more than a dream for now...

If you're interested in learning how to make beer, why not try out Nether Stowey's beer making weekend for yourself? I would think it'd make a good stag do. Check out www.4ale.co.uk for more information.

Stacey and I were enjoying our last meal in Croatia last night when the subject of where we "go" next came up. I've never hidden the fact that I want to be wealthy, in fact I would imagine many who know me would go as far as it's what drives me. This is true in a sense however you will notice I used the word "wealthy" rather than "rich" or "loaded".

What many people seem to do is confuse what I mean when I say I want to get wealthy (or sometimes rich), I don't mean I want to have stacks of cash sitting in the bank or a huge number of shares under my belt, what I in fact mean is I want to enjoy myself, ok I need cash to do that but it's more important that I -and those around me- are happy.

Anyhow, I digress. As I was saying, Stacey and I were talking about how we were going to get our incomes to a level that would support the somewhat luxurious lifestyle we have imagined for ourselves when she said "The people with stacks of money have inherited it". This -in many cases- is true, people such as Paris Hilton for example haven't "done" anything to get the money, it has been -or will be- inherited.

That got me thinking, does that run true in today's society? Of course there are people who have inherited serious sums of cash but there are also a large number of self-made -and young- millionaires cropping up all over the place. A few that sprung to mind almost immediately are Bill Gates, Larry Page and Sergy Brin (the Google Guys), Richard Branson¹, Sir Alan Sugar, The Bechams, Duncan Bannatyne, Peter Jones² and more recently the plethora of web 2.0 start-ups that are getting sold off for millions.

¹ Ok, I know many say that he was given a pretty good start by his father but you still have to have something to make it work

² IIRC Peter Jones (from BBC's "Dragon Den"/ITV's "Tycoon") was also bankrupt a few years ago

So it got me wondering -disregarding those who were able to make a serious amount of money through "lucky breaks"³ in technology and successful "celebrities"- has the birth of the Internet made making large amounts money a whole lot more reachable?

³ Personally, I think it takes more than just being in the right place at the right time (which undoubtedly helps), I think you also need to be able to spot the opportunity and have what it takes to grasp that opportunity.

Well, we're back from Croatia (I'll post all about that later I'm sure) but I was just wondering if anyone else has seen this weather icon before? While we were over in Croatia, it would have been a bright sun and a number around 40C so it's somewhat of a shock...

Nice graphic though!

In a somewhat random chat with Chris Anderson today I decided that I wanted to obtain the IP address 80.08.13.55 (IP6) or even better 53.180.0.8 (both timeout atm). It got me wondering whether you can you purchase a specific IP like that and whether that could be the new trend...

Chris wantsfelt 7.107.73.45 was more appropriate for our American comrades but I think that’s a little boring...

For those of you who didn't make it to school, type it into your calculator without the periods and see what you get (note my primary school calculator example -I'm returning it to it's roots)...

See it yet?

No? Turn it the other way up:

Quite why I’m posting about my new mug I don’t know but hey why not –it’s all good for a laugh!

Basically Stacey got me a new mug for Christmas and it’s put my last ones (largest “old” mug was ½ liter) to shame so much that I just had to write about it! This mug is awesome, I can make a cup of tea in the morning before I go into the office and it’ll keep me going until at least mid-morning.

The stats

Height

14cm

Diameter

12.5cm

Circumference

39cm

Capacity

1.2 Liters

Teabags per brew

2

Time to drink

15mins+

As usual, this post is more just about fun than anything else ;)

What with the incredible storms Britain has been hit with over the past week it was inevitable that we'd run into some form of technical hitch with either the broadband and/or power. Until today we'd been really lucky and not hit with anything.

Today, at lunch however was a different matter, I popped out to get some milk to go in my tea, on my return all my messengers and VPN programs had thrown a wobbly and the router's ADSL light was off. I've had this happen once or twice in the past and it's rectified itself within a few minutes so I decided to have an extended lunch and it should all be sorted, if not I'd call BT.

After another 30 mins had passed there was still no sign of connectivity so I called BT. Having called BT before I was ready for the IVR but BT have obviously added a new twist. I was -to my surprise able to quickly navigate the menu options to end up about 6 options later being told to call the broadband technical support on 0845 600 70 30.

Great I thought* and I quickly got through to an advisor (not surprising when it was no doubt costing me £1 per minute). I immediately had a steak of fear driven into me when I quickly realized I was through to an Indian call center. I explained that I just wanted a "line status check" but he didn't really understand what I meant and wanted to know what email client I was using. Being as co-operative as I could I decided to play along and after a few more questions he asked if he could put me on hold for a minute. After 5 minutes of being on hold I hung up.

*But why didn't they put that on the first option with "If you're having broadband issues".

I then managed to get hold of BT's line status report system (thank Julian) which for the record is 0800 169 0199). All sorts of issues were being reported except for mine (sometimes in a completely in-audible voice). At the end a helpful voice says "If your issue is not reported here, please unplug your router/modem, restart and then try again". I would have expected him to then go on and say "If this still does not sort it please call xxx and report a potential fault" but instead it hung up.

So I went back to good ol' 150 to test the options and get through to an advisor and then I head option 4 - "If you'd like to report a fault please press 4" - I did.

- I waited -

- I waited some more -

Just as I was about to hang up I heard a voice say "You typed in 01384 261779" which is indeed the office telephone number but I didn't type it in. There were no instructions so I thought I'd wait some more. After what seemed like an age the voice came back again and asked if I'd like to report a fault and gave me some options including testing the line myself, checking the status of a previous report or talking to an advisor. So feeling that I needed some human help I went for that at which point it hung up on me.

So back I went to try and do the automated check but that didn't get me any further, no wonder BT's not getting any complaints atm -you can't report them!

In a last ditch attempt I decided to try my usual tactic of Button Bashing™ as it usually gets me to an operator on the basis of "it's a stupid caller" but this time it didn't work and resulted once again in me getting cut off.

As it happens in this instance, it was only a matter of time before the problem would rectify itself...

My mobile contract expired just before Christmas and because of the issues I was having with Orange earlier this year (Seeing Orange) I decided I’d take my business elsewhere.

Every year we go through the same charade trying to find a new contract, something that has what we want at a reasonable price and every year the sales people completely ignore what you ask them. This year however SERIOUS took the biscuit and we couldn’t help but walk out laughing.

In our local shopping centre The Merry Hill Shopping Centre (aka Merry Hell) we have all the usual names within walking distance (in fact IIRC Phones4U and Carphone Warehouse are next to each other) so we spent an hour or so wandering around them all, having being seduced by the adverts for Phones4U I thought we’d give them a go.

First of all we were accosted by a guy on the door who, once we’d got past all the pleasantries asked what we were after. Having gone through this routine a couple of times already today I reeled off: “We’d like two separate contracts, one 2-300 minutes £20-25pm and the other 5-600 minutes £30-35pm. We’re not too worried about the amount of texts we get as neither of us text much so show us your best (cheapest) deal”.

The guy then asked me what phone I currently had, quite how that was relevant I couldn’t figure out. He then asked to see my current phone so I gave it to him mainly out of curiosity as to why he wanted to see it. He had a look at it and then told us he would take us someone that’d sort us out.

He then walked us over to some kid sitting behind a desk and told him that we were looking “for a contract* that has lots of minutes and texts** and could this guy help us?” I couldn’t help but laugh as they both had cheap matching pin stripes on.

*We were looking for two
**We didn’t want any texts

The representative then started taking details like our names, phone numbers, postcode, names (again) and then he started wanting things like home phone number by which time we were growing impatient, trying to work out the relevance. So Stacey subtly asked what relevance it had to finding us the cheapest deal. He went a little quiet and then proceeded.

Looking a little lost I thought it would help to repeat “We’d like two separate contracts, one 2-300 minutes £20-25pm and the other 5-600 minutes £30-35pm. We’re not too worried about the amount of texts we get as neither of us text much so show us your best (cheapest) deal and we’ll sign”. Sadly though it didn’t help, he just mumbled something about cutting to the chase and then told us he would get his manager to help us find the best deal.

So over comes his manager to help us, but instead of acknowledging we were there she decided to talk to the sales guy (loud enough so we could hear), he pointed out the notes he’d made on the form emphasising that we’d not given him many personal details or told him about our current contracts though why that’s relevant seeing as I told him what we needed.

The manager then spent a couple of times ticking and crossing the form and told him that we didn’t have one of the phones. Rather than telling us they then started muttering to each other again before she nodded to him and told him to suggest it. Rather than telling this herself somewhat like a parrot he repeated exactly what she’d just said, then they decided to confer a little more and again he repeated that they weren’t sure they could help us as we know what we wanted. Throughout the 5mins the manager was there, she never once made eye contact or spoke to us directly without using her puppeteer of a sales person. She then mentioned something about going away and she’d be back (hardly audible) and left us wondering what was going on.

I think the best of it all was when the sales guy felt it would be a good idea to make some small talk while waiting for his manager to return so he asked whether we were at Merry Hill shopping. Instead of then listening to Stacey’s response his eyes wandered around the shop –clearly not paying any attention to us so I said a couple of times “Stacey, he’s not listening to you” –the fact that he didn’t notice while we were talking to him demonstrated that. It was the most bizarre situation I’ve ever been in, to top it all, he waved to a friend and then a few moments later actually got up and walked away WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING!! I still can’t believe how un-believably rude that was and I’m just glad that we got up and walked out.

Funnily enough, I have to agree with what Stacey has repeatedly said since about Phones4U –the weird people from the adverts are really the sales people…

I’m still wondering why sales people don’t take on board what you’re telling them instead of trying to sell you something that’s clearly unsuitable for your needs or just irritating you so much that you just walk out. If one of the three sales people we spoke to at Phones4U had actually listened to what we were saying or even interacted with us normally they may have got their £70 commission.

Anyways, I ended up getting the phone I wanted at the price I wanted but obviously not from Phones4U! Perhaps this is a more realistic logo?

I'm not a fan of YouTube but I was sent this video this morning and it made me smile, I must find out when the choir's next in town...

I saw the new Debenhams Christmas advert this morning which featured a young father Christmas dancing around what I can only assume was a modern Santa’s grotto and I couldn’t help wondering whether this will be the way forward for Santa in the future –no more fat old bearded man…

I hope not anyhow, why should he have to go on a diet and trim his beard neatly!

For those of you who like to dabble in a little festive cheer, I thought I’d share this 40% discount voucher for the Threshers Group. The main catch is you’re only allowed to spend £500 at a time –best get that printer started…

Download the 40% discount voucher for the Threshers Group.

The voucher is valid until 10^th December 2006

Update: If you're looking for some naughty fun this Christmas, check out the Miss Mays Adult Store discount voucher

A man was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog, and put it in his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will tell everyone how smart and brave you are and how you are my hero" The man took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it, and returned it to his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will be your loving companion for an entire week."  The man took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it, and returned it to his pocket.

The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you for a year and do ANYTHING you want." Again the man took the frog out, smiled at it, and put it back into his pocket.

Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, that I'll stay with you for a year and do anything you want.  Why won't you kiss me?"

The man said, "Look, I'm a computer programmer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog is cool."

I was sent this comedy prank call this morning so thought I'd share it...

Demolition Girl prank caller (DemolitionGirl.mp3)

I'm forever downloading application trials to see how other developers write applications, partly out of curiosity but moreover to improve applications we’re developing –seeing what we’ve left out, how we may be able to do it better etc.

I keep a fairly clear desktop but today I booted up and noticed a “setup.exe” file sitting there and I had no idea what it was, I knew it must be something I downloaded to test so I ran it which probably wasn’t the most logical thing to do but hey. Luckily it was something I’d downloaded but it got me thinking, what if it was a malicious script that a virus had placed there for me to click? I wonder how many people would be caught out by that…

I was a fan of the last Bravia advert partly because it featured José González but also because I was left wondering whether it was a computer render or really happened (aparently they really did it) but the new Sony Bravia advert is incredible, ok there are a few computer GFX effects in there to remove peoeple etc but oh my word...

One of the reasons I started this blog was because I felt I often came across nuggets of information that someone else out there may find useful in some small way and that I should share the information where possible. I also wanted a place to store all those little gems that I’m forever forgetting. That and I am forever asked similar questions that I think the “masses” (all three of you) would like to hear about.

For quite some time I’ve been writing sets of articles that I was hoping to raise the profile of The Site Doctor with but as with many things in atm it seems they’ve been slow in getting finished. I have however been collating the various snippets together and collaborating with a number of sources and nearly every time I speak to a new “source” I get asked the same question “why would you want to write about this stuff –it just increases your competition”.

That never fails to make me chuckle to myself (not at you mind), I say why not? No offence but if we’re that unconfident in our knowledge that a few articles about common (and often simple) issues people run into that will suddenly make my competition take over then so be it, but personally I like to feel I’ve got enough knowledge to share and not feel threatened –perhaps the wrong tack to take but hey!

I also feel that by sharing the information with other people (not just developers, there’s stuff here for everyone) that in my own small way I’m making the web a better place –even if I’m not personally writing the code something here may have influenced you –even if it’s just answering a simple question you’ve been tearing your hair out over such as “Do pineapples grow on bushes” –yes they do, you can see photographic proof here.

Anyways, that’s my 2p worth, if you don’t feel secure enough to share your findings that’s up to you!

Ok, I think this has to be the most random post yet, I'm forever forgetting how old I am so popped onto Google and got a little calculator to tell me, the result was 24 (I was pretty darn sure about that already) but what I did find out was that I was born on a Thursday, thinking about that old Wives' rhyme I had to find out what I am:

• Monday's child is fair of face,
• Tuesday's child is full of grace,
• Wednesday's child is full of woe,
• Thursday's child has far to go.
• Friday's child is loving and giving,
• Saturday's child works hard for a living,
• But the child born on the Sabbath Day, Is fair and wise and good and gay.

So apparently I've got far to go, I hope it means I'm going to do well in life rather than I'm going to have to travel far but only time will tell!

I wish I could say I’ve not posted anything for a while because I’ve been burning litres of fuel in the RX-8, sadly however that’s not the case, although I have done nearly 2,500miles in it and spent something silly like £600 in fuel, but I’ve not posted anything for a while because I’ve been up to my eyeballs in work.

Those of you that have spoken with me recently know that not only is The Site Doctor currently going through a few alterations, but we’re also in the process of moving house, and in addition to this we’ve got a fair few projects going on -both paid and unpaid ;-) so watch this space for updates!

For those of you interested, I’m still working on the articles about SEO and eCommerce which I hope to get online soon as well as a few more updates re life the universe and just about everything else.

As for you Doug, thanks for your comments the other day, I'm working on it, but unlike you Yanks we don't all not work at work. Well, that is except for Craig...

This morning we had the TV on while getting ready to go out and a new L'Oreal advert came on. If you haven't seen it, it has features Jane Fonda telling us how the product helps firm the skin etc, that she's 68 and look how great her skin is -the usual junk. Although the advert doesn't actually say the product is why she "looks so good" it leads you to believe that it is (great marketing btw) anyway, where am I going with this (other than stating the obvious)? Well, when the advert finishedI was left thinking "ok, so this cream makes your skin feeling younger" and "L'Oreal is the answer to all your old age prayers" but surely they're contradicting themselves a touch? Firstly they've got this attractive 68year old promoting this product as well as a 20-something saying "Use this and you won't look old when you're older". Well if Jane's 68 and looks like that (yeah yeah with all that plastic surgery etc) then why invest thousands in the anti-aging creams? -You can just use that one when you're 68. Oh and if she's 68 -don't people think "Hang on, she looks good, she's been around well before L'Oreal started pimping these promises so why should I buy it?" -just a thought! As I keep saying to Stacey, it's been long known that it's all in the genes -any guy that wants to know what his lovely lady is going to look like at 40 all he needs to do is look at her mum...

Here's a shot of Jane for those of you who don't know who she is/was (I didn't know it was her until I checked out the L'Oreal site ;-))

L'Oreal Website (For the product of the advert)

On that note, another advert was listing the signs a woman had noted of getting older -a grey/white hair here-or-there, a wrinkle or two and loosing her eyesight/hearing which again got me thinking, I don't think I'll even notice getting old. During the summer my hair goes white in the sun, I can't see, my hearing's not great at the best of times and as Stacey keeps reminding me I've already got wrinkles on my forehead so...