Hill Starts

Well as you may or may not know this week the winter weather has well happened and today we we got up we found that the weather men had been right for once in that the snow that they said we would get did arrive.

Now I happen to leave in a road that has a hill or incline at each end and the local council for reasons that our not known to us do not grit our road so when it snows getting out of our road on to the major road that is always gritted can be and has been very difficult.

In February 2009 when we had 3 feet of snow the result was that we were snowed in. Today we where lucky in that there was only 2 to 3 inches of snow and that we tried to get out of our road before the road had been turned into a sheet of ice.

It goes without saying that coming home from work was not to bad the only bit of the trip that I was not looking forward to was the last 200 meters or so.

Snow

Lots of very cold weather and so it goes without saying there is snow due and if I believe the weather men lots of it, not to sure if it will hit my part of the UK

Bum

How is it that the colder it gets the more visits I have to do to jobs outside!

Why?

Never happens in the summer, strange that....

Stress

Sometimes I hate this time of year due to all the stress in all the stuff people think you have to do or need to do just so stuff happens on the 25th.

I am beginning to think that it is not worth it.

If it does not get done then leave with out what ever it was that did not get done, I am sure life and universe will carry on.

Colder

So its going to get even colder.


Bum

Xmas Lights

So today I had the joy of putting up some outside Xmas lights, now we don't go for loads and loads we go for light colours that the other folk in the street don't have like pinks and purples, while every one else has blue or white.

Fun no cold yes, end result nice.

Cold

Looks like its going to get colder for the next week or so

Hunt the Lights

Playing one of my least fun games called hunt the missing Xmas lights, this time its a set of blue lights seen 11 odd months ago.

Fog

I have after this morning decided that I don't like to drive in thick fog in the dark

Reading Now 2+1

The other book that I have just finished in the last hour or so is by Jon Ronson and its called The men who stare at goats.

I really don't know what to make of this book, one part of me thinks that its all a load of S*** and that nothing in the book is true, then the other part of me for some weird reason hope that it is true, so the book was not for me overall entertaining, as I just don't know what is true and what is made up.

The book reports to be telling you the truth about some very strange physic stuff that the Americans are supposed to be doing, but there are no references or any thing like that to provide evidence that any thing in the book is true.

There is at the time I write this a film in the cinema called the same as the book, but I think the only thing that is the same between the book and the film is the title and as far as I can make out the film is a comedy of sorts.

Reading Now 3+1+1

Just finished, well not just about 2 hours or so ago another book by Charles Stross called Scratch Monkey, which is a book that I had never heard of but I am glad that I found it and read.

As it usual with books by Charles there are lots of good ideas in this book which I must admit at times did make me stop and think.

The old question? was it entertaining, the answer is yes, but I would say that it should not be your first Stross book to read.

200

Yes I have done it this is the 200th blog of 2009, I feel proud that I have so much stuff that I needed to share it with myself and anyone who happens to get lost on the net and find my blog.

Blogs

I see that this is the 199th blog that I have done this year which is almost a record, the record is 205 in one year, which means that I will pass that total before years end.

Updates 2

As I have said before on here I am now in the process of moving the Dirk Maggs productions website from hand coded into a database driven cms.

I did not realise just how many pages there are in the site, as it goes I will end up having to edit every single page on the site as the layouts from the hand coded site and the cms site are different.

I hope that by spring 2010 the job will be done.

Updates

I have continued to convert the old Dirk Maggs producer website to the new database powered one, progress has been slow as there is so much stuff to move.

I have nearly got all the basic productions by years moved across, with only the years 2006 and 2003 to go, which I think is not bad going as each production page has to be moved by hand.

The next task after that is to make each page look right, as some how or other some of the layouts gets broken in the process of being transferred.

After that task which will I think take weeks I have to restore all the pictures to each page, and I have no idea just how long that will take.

But when it is all done it should make it easy to update the Dirk Maggs pages and also to enhance the content.

Reading Now 3+1

I have just finished reading Genesis by Andy McDermott as entertainment goes it's good and it's a non stop ride, the main idea behind the book is a good one which I liked. For some reason or other some of the things that the characters do in the book are sometime not quite believable, but as this is a book that only has one purpose and that is to entertain I can forgive that as Andy does entertain and very well.

If Hollywood ever got hold of this story I would I think hate it as they would not leave the story as it is.

Cold

Cold and cold and some rain, yes there has been lots of rain and now I see we are due our first frost of the year.

Blues Brothers

Went to Guildford to see the Blues Brothers Xmas Party! yeah I know not something you associate with the Blues Brothers is Xmas, but actually it all seemed to work very well.

I must say that the band of which there where seven members all seemed to be having lots of fun especially the base and lead guitar players because at the end number then actually came down on to the stage and played, which is something I have never seen and it worked real well, all the normal songs that you would expect at a Blues night where there and for most of the songs we that is the audience where standing up and bogeying and singing the songs!

A good night out and as it has been a very long time since I experienced live music its something that I think we will do again

The we in the above sentence is the whole family.

Wet

it's been wet, wet and wet

Reading Now part ??

I have just finished reading yet another book by Charles Stross, this time the book is called Saturn's Children, it was a fun book to read with a some what complicated story/plot line, but in the end it all works out and it was for me good entertainment, which as I have said before is the main reason I read books.

It felt to as if the book had been cut down in some way, perhaps Charles had written too many words and was told to cut out some of them, if so I think we the readers were short changed as I am sure the extra words would have made for a better or smother ending to the book.

Not Happy

some **** idiot for reasons only known to themselves decided to key my car, its only 6 months old! no other car was vandalised.

I hate to think what the bill will be.

Windy

At this time it is very very windy, first big storm of the year.

State of fear

I have just finished reading State of fear by Michael Crichton, and as I said in an earlier blog the book to me was more the authors attempt to say it's not the fault of nations on the Earth for the way things are and the way that the worlds climate is changing.

In fact one thing I have taken away from the book is that global warming is a theory not a law or a fact its just a theory.

The book itself I think suffered as it was difficult to get lost in the make believe world when every so many pages or so there would be a footnote to a real world link on real information about what the characters in the book happened to be talking about at that time.

for entertainment I would only go as far as to say low to medium because of the real world stuff getting in the way of the make believe stuff.

Fog

Lots of fog today

Oh my!

Funny thing coincidence

by that I mean at this moment as I write this I am reading a book by Michael Crichton called State of Fear very recently I read a book by Clive and Dirk Cussler called Arctic Drift, now the first book was written back in 2004 or2005 and the Cussler book 2008 both have settings or scenes that are in the Arctic.

Both mention two British warships called HMS Terror and HMS Erebus no what is the chance of that?

That I pick up two book published so far apart and they both feature the same ships?

I must admit that I did then look up these two ships and it soon becomes very obvious why they are in both books as they are famous for what happened to them and the crews of the ships so in the end the coincidence is not that big as there are very few other ships that are so famous in that part of the world.

Reading Now 5

I have started to read a Michael Crichton book called State of Fear which I think may have been one of the last books he wrote before he died.

So far I am getting the feeling that the book is at the part that I have got to just a mouthpiece for Michael to show how clever he is in proving that there is no such thing as global warming.

he does give lots of real links to the papers that he has found to prove his point. The trouble is I picked up this book to be entertained not lectured at. If I had wanted to read a science book then I would have brought one on the subject.

So it goes without saying that so far the story has not been to me very entertaining.

if the whole idea of the book is to stop and make you think about the global warming theory and that not everything you see in print and on the telly might not be as correct as you should think, then Michael has to me succeeded in making think about the global warming theory.

One thing that I have taken on board so far is that what ever is going on it is not black or white its a grey colour as there is so much information that points both ways in the argument.

So I shall continue to read the book and hope that Michael does not short change me, and will give me a story and some entertainment, if a bit of learning is thrown into the mix I don't mind as long as I get to be entertained

Clouds

Tonight the clouds at sunset were red, this is something here in England big news at for 75% of the time its cloudy.

These were your very red clouds with lots of red shades, so it was really very nice to look at, because of this it was enough of a reason to record it here.

Someone reading this in the future will have no interest in this what so ever, but hey it was really nice.

Light

I have noticed just how weak the light that we are now getting during the day, so I am recording this fact here just so I don't forget.

Book Read

Just finished a fun read book, you know one of those books that is full of facts and for some strange reason you just can't help but read.

The book is called The speed of nearly everything by Peter Macinnis. It's not a big book in size or in the number of pages but it is a good fun read.

Hot news

It has just stopped raining

TGI Friday

As yesterday was my son's birthday, as a family we went for a change to TGI Friday's it was good, I just want to record here that the Jack Daniels sauce is well... great

Reading Now 4

I have just finished reading Arctic Drift by Clive & Dirk Cussler, and as I have said before I read books for entertainment, well this book did entertain me, but and I am sad to say there is a but parts of the book became to me a bit predictable, why this should be I just don't know but that's what it felt like to me.

The ending of the book was also a bit rushed? if you can say such a thing about the printed word, as surely the speed of the story is controlled by how quick you the reader read the book.

But overall the story was good there were a few twists in it that I liked, and as is always the case these days with a Cussler novel some of the stuff in the book is based on real events, which I like, and I am sad enough to go to Goggle and look up stuff and see what is real and what Clive has added to me the story flow.

Would I recommend the book to some one else?

Yes if you are looking to while away a few hours and you want to be taken away to some other place, this book will do that.

Ty

Well it's Ty's birthday today all of 24!

I know


Where did all the time go?

Arctic Drift

Still reading this book by Clive & Dirk Cussler, so far I have been entertained, and to me that's what counts and the book has become less formulaic if there is such a term.

Darkness

Click shift right

End of October right

So why is so dark so soon after the shift?

Broken Links 2

Just had a look at my main Dirk Maggs website, and still for some reason pages are not working.

I have re-uploaded, I don't know how many times, I have checked that the pages that I am linking to exsist and yet still there are pages that are not working.

Why?


It's doing my head in.

Scammed

No news on the scammed front, is this good or bad?

Only time will tell

Reading Now 3

Just started to read Arctic Drift by Clive & Dirk Cussler, so far the story is not bad, but in places I get the feeling that I am reading a book that has been written by numbers. Not sure why I get that feeling.

So I shall read the rest of the book hoping that I get entertained which is my sole reason for reading the book in the first place.

Books

I have just done a quick count on the books that I have in my to read pile, it stands at 6!

Which for me is a lot, 1 of the books is 1500 pages long.

At this rate I don't think I will need to buy a new book until 2010.

Book reading

Have just finished another book that I have been looking for, in fact I first heard about this book some 20 years ago but never managed to get a copy.

In fact for some reason I never even went to the library and requested it, even though it was a book that I had wanted to read.

The book was just reprinted as a special 40th year anniversary edition!

The book is call Carrying the fire and is by Michael Collins, now people of a certain age might know who he is but I can tell you that both my children had never heard of him.

He was the Command Module pilot of the Apollo 11, yes that's right, he was the chap who went all the way to the Moon and then went round it on his own while Aldrin and that Armstrong went and walked on the Moon.

Its a book I think of it's time in that it was written just a few years after Apollo 11 had landed and in fact after the Apollo flights had been cancelled.

I found it a good read in that to me Collins is one of the more forgotten astronauts, saying that, of the 12 men how walked on the Moon I would struggle to name them all, and I have an interest in space and that sort of stuff.

One thing that the book does not discuss is just how close to things going wrong was the whole Apollo missions, I think mainly because the book was written so close to the events it talks about.

So if you want to learn a bit about one of the more forgotten men from the man landings on the Moon this is a good book to read.

Timeshare Scam 2

Well the cancellation letter has been sent by recorded delvery

The TCA The Consumer Association has also written back saying that it was gross misrepresentation,they say I will probably loose the deposit and that they will threaten legal action.

As they claimed (lots of times) to be member of the OTE and RDO they should just refund the money and that be the end of the matter.

I have also been told to expect a phone call from them.

Timeshare Scam

It is with head hung low that i have to admit to being scammed while on holiday in Greece with a Holiday Club.

I have a bad feeling that I will loose the deposit paid, I just want to know why I shut the bullshit detector down while on holiday...

An expensive lesson is what I have learned, but will try and see if I can get my money back(deposit only, which is not so bad)

Put the debit card payment in dispute, so might be lucky

Did not realise that a debit card has less protections built into it than the credit card.

Will report back

Have even sent registered letter under the 10 day cool off rule to cancel everything, so watch this space

Posts

I have been looking back at some of my Blog posts, and I have noticed that they are getting much much shorter, I think that one possible cause of this is that I am also on Twitter, and 140 characters or less really does not leave you or even lead you into expanding your ideas and what you have to say about different things that you notice and want to record in your Blog.

I have read some of my very early Blogs and there is stuff that I talk about in them that I had completely forgotten about, what's more I did fell at times as I was reading some body else's stuff and not mine, which was a bit of an eye opener.

So what to do about my Blog posts?

Nothing is what I am going to do as it's my Blog and how I write the Blog at this time reflects who I am at this time, it goes without saying that it will all change soon anyway, such is the way of things.

Clouds

lots of cloud again, I do sometimes wish that the weather in the UK was well just a bit more predictable, but then again having weather that is always going to be different is I suppose what makes us Brits brits, if you get what I mean.

I suppose it was nice to have some blue sky but in the UK you pay for that by having lots of grey sky.

As I write this it's not yet raining, but I am sure that given time the weather will get round to it real soon

Blue

Today we had blue sky and warm sun, and it was great.

Read

Have just completed reading Quantum by Manjit Kumar, overall a good read and it went a long way to giving me an idea how quantum physics all came about and all the different people involved in finding out all about it.

It would have been great if the book had had another section on how today we use this physics today and not know it.

Another great addition would be what we still don't know and what we thought we knew but has since found to be wrong, may be that's a whole new book, if one came out then I would love to read it.

Reading 200000

Just a note to myself I am now reading Far Out by Mark Pilkington, this is a small book that has very short items on 101 strange tales from science's outer edge.

Only read the first 10 pages so far and , well not to sure I like the way that the tales are presented, as the authors tone is not quite right, in fact can not put my finger on what makes it feel not right, but it's not.

Blood

Just given blood the last time for this year, I have now given 113! units

Broken Links

Had a good look at my websites and I still can't find out why I have broken links to pages that are all stored in the same directory.....

Blog Layout

Not sure what has happened but the layout of the blog appears to have changed all by itself, I am looking into this.

Projects 2

If you have read some of the other posts on this little blog of mine, you will no doudt be aware that I have several projects that I have been doing for a long time and that one minute they are on and then the next they are off, deping upon what is going on in my private life.

We at this moment it's sad to say that all the various projects are off again.

The reason?

I simply don't have the time or the right software and also the expertise.

I will deal with each of the above separately

Time
Its in very short supply at this time, as things in the private life have some how or other expanded to such an extent that it leaves nothing left for anything else, and boy have I tried to make spare time, but there does come a time when you do have to sleep.

Right Software
This is one that is proving to be a bit difficault, in thaat in years passed I used Dreamweaver version 1 to do all the websites, now for reason that I just don't understand the software does not work very well, or not a tall under Vista, and I can't not afford to buy a new version of Dreamweaver, it's just to expensive, hey I brought the first version for less than 10 pounds!

I have sorted out the FTP side of things, in that I have found a freeware programme that does everything that I need to do.

Lastly

Expertise
A little while ago I changed web hosts, this is allways a very scary thing to do, the experance has not been plsent in that the transfer from one host to another took some time, now I have an exact copy of all my websites eg the Dirk Maggs site, and the James Follett sites, when I uploaded them to the new host I made sure that the storage of the files and all the other stuff was the same.

The result?

My Dirk Maggs site has links that are broken! I don't know how or why they are broken as I have not changed anything, I have rechecked the site and I have also uploaded it more than once, I even went so far as to delete everything and re upload it all, the result the same! broken links
Why!!!!

I am going to stop now before I start swearing

Winter again

I think the season has changed and that it happened in the last 7 days as the light levels and the wind have both changed and some how or other I have even noticed this event.

I have so far lived through more than 40 season changes, but I think that this is the very first one in which I am aware of the exact week and I think day that I noticed the changes that herald the fact that here in the northern hemisphere winter is on it's way.

Now in some ways winters nice, by that I mean that without winter you would not know what summer is like, would you?

I know that there are folks who live in climates where it is almost the same all year long, I don't think I could cope with that, having been brought up in a country where the weather at nine in the morning can be completely different at twelve mid day.

So welcome winter, may you be short sweet and with no snow!

Tanglefoot

Just want to record here that as far as I can tell there is no difference between Tanglefoot in a bottle and a Can, both taste great and both can tangle one's feett.

Low Light

I have noticed over the last few days when it was sunny that the intensity of the light when we get some is now much much less than it was just a couple of weeks ago.

Now I know that this is not to be unexpected as we are here in the northern hemisphere rushing towards the winter solstice or winter, but it's the fact that this year at least I have spotted it and have decided to record it here as a reminder to myself of this fact.

Winter 2

I think that for once the weather men have got it right and that winter is on its way the temps around here are dropping.

In fact I am starting to find it hard to believe that this day last week I was in a tee shirt and it was hot! no really it was nice and warm and the sun was so bright and all that, sunglasses were need, and not just to look cool.

Winter

So the warm weather we were having looks like it is coming to an end, and I can tell you the nights are now colder, than they were last week

Surround Sound

Why are there so many diferant cables need to connect a surrond sound box to a tv and a cable box?

I mean you have scart, Hdmi then component and also audio leads, why> so many, why can't there just be one cable type that does what ever it has to do and you just plug it in to each box?

I have had to buy a new surround sound box, nothing wrong in that I suppose as the old one did last a few years and it did get used very heavily.

Now because things have moved on (and not necessary for the better) I find that I need a optical cable to link the surround sound box to the cable box as that is the only way the surround box can get a digital signal... Why?

So as its Sunday I will now have to go get an optical cable from somewhere so that I get sound from the cable box on the tv.

Hissed off is what I am, wish that the audio and tv companies could get it all sorted.

And no before you say anything none of my tv or cable box is older than 2 years.

Hols

Been on a week holiday, and I must admit that was very lucky with the weather for this time of year in England, Dorset.

Lots of days with lots of sunshine and temperatures of 18-19 centigrade, the walking was good and the scenery was , well fantastic.

website troubles ?

Its been a few days since I last spoke here about the trouble that I have been having with my website since I moved it to another web host.

Well, I think I might have it sorted, mostly, so it will be interesting to see if I have got it right in the end.

It appears that I can not have a sub domain point to a file with a space in its name, why I just don't know. My old web host had no problem with doing this, but different hosts will have different ideas.

So I shall wait a few days and then look at the web site logs to see what is going on.

website troubles

I have had a slight problem since I transferred my websites for my old internet hosts to a new one, mainly for extra features and also cause it was a bit cheaper, I am now starting to have some doubts about it, as for some reason I still can not get the websites that I have fully working, and I just don't know why.

I have made sure that every file on the site is where it should be, in fact I have gone as so far to upload all the site files more than once.

I still get error 400 which if I understand the error codes correctly means page not found.

One of the problems is that there are quite a few websites that now point at my website and now all they are getting is error pages, I suppose that in the end people will just give up.

My master plan to convert my static websites, Dirk Maggs and James Follett is still some time away from being completed.

At this time both databases are set up and working. Both sites have the password system in and also working. The James Follett site has had some wiki extensions installed and working while the Dirk Magggs one has not.

The James Follett site at this time has about 186 articles and has only got to 1975! so there is a long way to go on adding the content.

The Dirk Maggs wiki is even worse for content, in that all I have at this time is the main index page and not much else.

Part of me want to just redirect all the web traffic to the wiki, but with no content that really is something I feel that I can't do as those folks who have used to internet to find out about James or Dirk really do deserve to find what they are looking for if I have it on any of my website pages.

Spotify

Been a user of the spotify music site for a while now, one I like about it is that so far most of the trance music that I have looked for has been there.

Sunrise

Today I saw a nice and interesting sunrise, it makes me just a little sad as it means winter must be on its way as it was only 7ish when I saw the sunrise.

It was interesting sunrise with some light clumpy clouds which all light up in some interesting ways, the colours and hues of the clouds changed as the sun rose, I must admit that I sat looking out of the window for a good 10 minutes or so

Projects

As you know if you look at other parts of this blog going all the way back to 2005, I have several projects on the go.

Some of the projects have been a success in that I have completed them and that I have been happy in they way they turned out.

Others have for one or more reason failed in some way, which when I read about failure of such things is not surprising as there are always failures of projects whether it's for work or for pleasure.

As all the projects that I talk about here are done because I want to it has also been a bit sad for me that a few of my projects have failed.

As I have just moved hosting sites it has been the cause of a delay now in all my website projects and has pushed the Dirk Maggs book project so far back that I really don't want to even think about it.

Actually that's not true as I did have a good idea the other day about it, and that was to change the name of the book from chronology to yearbook, I think that I will let that one similar for a while just to see if in a few weeks it is a good idea or not.

So I suppose I will like others have to get used to the idea that project failures are just a part of life and that the best thing to do is to just accept that and to move on and learn why so that it does not happen again or is less likely to happen.

Reading Now part something

I am still reading Wireless by Charles Stross, and I have to admit that one of the short stories in the book to me was a total misfire.

So it was just a bit of a surprise when I got to the afterword by Charles that he said it was very difficult to write humour, you should have got from that statement that the story in question was supposed to be a fun piece, in the still of PG Woodhouse, I can tell you now, that there are some very good reasons why Woodhouse is so admired, as what he does in print is very very hard as Charles goes on to say in his afterword.

So out of all the short stories that I have read in the book so far one misfire can't be bad can it?

Has the book been entertaining? Yes

Ipod Touch

Well yesterday that is the 9th September Apple updated the OS in my I pod touch to 3.1.1 now that's not a big event in the grand scheme of things, but for me and my I pod it is.

You see my touch which by the way is named DMP is a big part of my life as I use DMP to play a lot of pod cast's for my music that I like, and also for some of the other pod cast like the IYA year of astronomy pod cast and also the Astronomy pod cast, both of which I have listed to since they started, I also happen to like the fact that I can play the odd game or also check the weather while on the move.

Now as I was saying DMP got updated from 3.0 to 3.11 that all went very well in that I did not loose anything and DMP is okay and works okay, the problem is that when linked to I tunes it decides( and I suspect for a very few reasons ) that it needs to back itself up.

Now DMp is a 32BG touch and has left at this time 9 Gigs free, so why has it been backing up since 5 pm and it is now 8.30 pm, surly it should not take all this time to backup?

Then just to add to all that fun itunes has also been upgraded from 8.21 to 9.0. Now it looks nicer, but apart from that I can't see many other differences, although I am told that there are many.

As for the touch from 3.0 to 3.11 the only change that I have seen is that in the music section there is now something called utunes, at this time I don't have a clue as to what that is all about.

One pet peeve that I have on the backup system is that there are no percentages or tine remaing to give you a clue as to just how long the whole backup process is going to take.

James Follett wiki 3

I hope I have the spare time to push the wiki item count through the 200 barrier.

James Follett wiki 2

Things on the wiki are going okay, apart from some templates that for some reason or other I just can't get going.

the wiki system reports that it has 187 articles and I am still on productions from 1975!

Template and wiki's

Templates in wiki's why can't I get them to work how I want them to?

James Follett wiki

The wiki is doing great, I think, it is growing slowly which is what I expect, to tell the truth as it's a long term project I expect to be saying pretty much that for a while to come.

I have got to 1975 on the content that I am adding to the wiki and I only started in 1974!

So a long way to go.

Reading Now 2

Have just started to read yet another book by Charles Stross, I know I seem to be reading an awful lot of his books lately, and that's because I live the ideas that he puts into his stories, and they are also great entertainment, and that is the main reason why I read his books in the first place.

Now I have to admit that the book I am reading called Wireless by the way is the first time that I have read any of his short stories.

I have so far not been disappointed, in fact because the short story allows an author the chance to play, so far the twists and turns in several of the stories have been great.

It goes with out saying, that there are a couple of stories that I think Dirk Maggs could make into great radio shows.

One thing I like about short story collections, is when the author says a few words about the story as an afterword as sometimes it brings into focus just what was or what influenced him or her at the time they wrote the story.

Wiki pt 2

www.jfw.dswilliams.co.uk is the new James Follett wiki that I am working on, I must admit that at this time it's not very nice to look at and it does not have a lot of content.

Last count today gave it 139 articles, but some of them are very short articles.

I have a feeling that we are talking months before it's got most of the James Follett website.

Wiki pt 1

As you know I have started 2 new wiki's which in time are going to replace my existing static websites, I have to admit that it was something that I have looked at over the years, but for various reasons the use of the wiki's as the main websites did not take place.

But I know think that the time is right, so I have started, but to make it easier I have started with the James Follett site as it is smaller, and hopefully it will not take to long to get the basic content into it.

Once I have done that I will the move the old site out of the way and point everything to the wiki.

Currently I have 114 articles, and have only done 3 radio play and 1 TV show!

So I don't know how big it will be.

wiki

So I have a few new wiki's( 2 to be exact!) which in a later blog, I will give the url's to.

Now I must admit that I have played with wiki's before, and have had a lot of fun in working out all the different things that you can do with a wiki.

The thing is, that as the software that makes the wiki and in this case the software is (mediawiki has got much better) I suppose the time has now come to commit the 2 main websites that I have and convert them to wiki's

This is a process that is going to take a lot of time, which one thing about it is, not so unreasonable, as it took some time for the websites to get to the stage they are now, I think that as a first phase the conversion in that just getting the website content into the wiki would be a very good first step.

After getting the content into the wiki, the next step is arranging the content to take advantage of the wiki workspace as there are big differences in holding the content in the static version compared to the dynamic, which is what you get in effect, when the content is stored in a wiki database.

So for the next few months the plane is to move the content from the static website to the wiki, as I have two main websites the plane is to move the smaller static website, which is the James Follett one.

At the current rate of progress ( remembering that I have to learn the wiki mark-up language)it could take until December, (and as I write this, it's only September) so this is a project for the long haul, when I have got all the website content in the wiki it goes without saying that I will have to change the url pointers such that instead of pointing to the static website they will point to the dynamic of wiki website instead.

The day that I do the re pointing, is in the future as so far I have only done 30 or so pages of the James Follett website and it has over 200 at the last count.

Ark

Have just reading Ark by Stephen Baxter and I must say that for me it was great entertainment. The story does not have too many flat spots and does let you the reader into the Ark.

A couple of things that must have passed me by was what happened to the folks who saw ARK 2?

What happened to the folks on Earth II
What happened to the folks on the ARK after Earth III

Overall a good story told well, if the above is anything to go by there might be a book 3 in the series, not sure if I want it as in some ways its great that the author has left some questions for the reader to decided what happens.

I still think it would make a great radio show, which means that it will never happen.

Wiki

Got on the new host 2 wiki's very early days, but also lots of fun.

Bank Holiday 2

Aug Bank Holiday here in the UK as I write this at 8 in the morning the weather doesn't look good e.g its wet and there is wall to wall grey sky why?

Mediawiki

I have just got the 2 wiki's that I want on my websites working, lots of fine tuning to go but at least I have them working,

Domain Names

As I have said in this Blog earlier this month, or may be even earlier I have changed my hosting company.

Now that was not entirely a painless switch over from the old to the new, for some reason the new host took longer than I thought it would to move my old domain to their DNS system, not that I am an expert in these matters.

I also brought a new domain called www.citrusdreams.info, which at one stage was working well, now for reasons that I can't fathom it has stopped working.

According to one look up service eg whois there is no record on the hosts DNS servers of my domain that I have brought from them and what them to host ect..

So it appears that I will have to have a moan again.

Oh by the way did I tell you that I hate Cpanel?

Reading Now pt whatever 1

Still reading Ark by Stephen Baxter, and I must say that so far the story is great, as I have only just read Flood which is Part 1 of this series its nice to be able to see some of the events in Flood from other viewpoints in Ark!

I am not sure if that makes complete sense but I hope you get the idea as to what I am trying to say.

The entertainment quotient is I think high, I would love for this to be made into a radio series as I think it would work great.

600 not Out

So this is my 600th blog and has taken some time to get too, but there you go these things happen.

I came back from a very intense training course on Friday. Now the trip according to the GPS should take 4.15 hours to travel 241 miles. As you can tell from what I have written above that is not what happened.

Their was 2 hours before I started to travel a truck fire on the M1 near junction 28. The result the M1 was cream knackered from junction 32 to 25!

This added over 2 hours to the trip!

I count myself very lucky as the M25 was okay the way I was travelling and so was the M3!

Folks on the M5 had it much worse with a 28 mile tail back!

Reading Now pt whatever

Now reading Ark by Stephen Baxter, which is good as I have only just completed book one in the series the other week, and the idea of having to wait a year to find out what happens is not some thing I would like to do.

As I have only just started to read the book, eg I am on page 12 of 465 odd pages I can't say much as the first few pages set up things for later.

I did look to see what Stephen Baxter has got next in the pipeline, but nothing is listed.

Books reading

I have completed the Charles Stross book Iron sunrise, and like I said in an earlier blog the book bounces around in viewpoint and time.

You know what it works!

On completing the story it is the only way the story could have been told and for it to work the way that it does.

Well worth the money and the time a great little story.

Changing Hosts pt5

The last update for a while.

The main site www.dirkmaggs.dswilliams.co.uk is working okay
The James Follett site www.jamesfollett.dswilliams.co.uk is working okay

The flash intro to the Dirk Maggs site still does not work even though all the files and links are all in the right places, why? not a clue

The new web domain www.citrusdreams.info works but from cpanel I can't access it, why? not a clue

Changing Hosts pt4

Well just an update to say what I have got working and what is not working.

The subdomains are working now, and I am being to hate cpanel so www.jamesfollett.dswilliams.co.uk and www.dirkmaggs.dswilliams.co.uk are now mostly okay.

www.citrusdreams.info I have a holding page on as I have to decide just what I want to do with it.

What is not working is the flash page I had as the into to the Dirk Maggs website its all there all the files and all the correct links it just does not play, why? not a clue.

So apart from that the new host do give some great toys so that you can look real easy at what pages on the website are most popular.

Changing Hosts pt3

Things have got better I think!

My domain www.dswilliams.co.uk has been transferred to the new hosting company and appears to be working well.

My new domain www.citrusdreams.info also appears to be working well.

The only problem that I have is setting my subdomains on www.dswilliams.co.uk mainly www.dirkmagggs.dswilliams.co.uk and www.jamesfollett.dswilliams.co.uk

Have now tried all sorts and have decided that cpanel is not very friendly to idiots like me

New website

As I said the other day I am in the process of transferring my websites from one hosting company to another.

Now it's been some 7 years since I had to do this and so far the experaince has been poor and as each day goes by it's getting to be poo.

You would think that by now this sort of thing would be straight forward and well painless. But so far my experaince has not been like that, I have the feeling that one of the causes of the hassle I am having is caused by money.

Yes I said money the reason as far as I see it is companies don't want to loose customers even if one of the reasons the customer is moving on is because the company fail to provide what the customer need or wants.

So the company make it difficult, without doing anything illegal for you to chop and change.

So the result is that my Dirk Maggs site and my James Follett websites have for the first time in 7 years disappeared from the web.

To say that I am upset about this would be an understatement, but that is what has happened.

Both the above sites are or were on my website www.dswilliams.co.uk and for some unknown reason the transfer of this domain from one hosting company to another has so far taken 3 days and there appears at this time to be no end in site as to when this domain will once again be on the internet.

I don't know if it's because of something I have or have not done, as the process of moving a domain is a secret, why?

My new domain which I have got is up and running, the new domain being www.citrusdreams.info the only snag with it so far is that I have to learn how to use cpanel, which is something that is completely new to me.

So tonight I am going to plead stupidity and as the new hosting company why the domain transfer has appeared to have disappeared into a black hole, so wish me luck

Changing Hosts pt2

Things are at this time not looking to good.

According to the sites I have looked at my domain should be transferred in 72 hours or less. So far its not happened so all my websites are gone..

The new isp has also not made my new domain citrusdreams.info live yet so I have no sites at all in over 7 years on the net.

What I should have done was had the new site live for a while and then transferred content later.

The just to make me twitch a bit I have now read some very bad reviews on the isp I have just signed up with so not good.

Changing Hosts

Well in an effort to save some money on the running of my websites, I have decided to change to a web host that is some 60% cheaper offers more and has won lots of awards.

But the thing that has got me just a bit worried is the transferring of my domain name from the old host to the new, and all these things called TAGS and ULM's.

If all goes will I should be on the new host in 72 hours or so I am told, if it all goes wrong I suppose my websites will disappear from the web.

Pod Cast or not?

I have reported here before that I have a pod cast which is the audio version or part of my static websites.

As of Jan(2009) this year it had got to 16 episodes and then for some reasons that I can't quite grasp I have stopped, not because I have run out of things to say, it must be said that it did not help with the pod host company going through a bad patch, which also included loosing all my pod casts! luckily they had backups, which I have also, but its the fact that the lost the lot for more than a week, and then there have been problems with uploading and downloading from there site.

I know that I could do it all myself on my own web space, but I don't have the time to learn all about feeds and all that sort of stuff so hence why I went to a pod host.

yes I know that it is a free host so that I should not expect it to be anything special but I think not being able to download the pod casts is some what of a large problem in the grand scheme of things.

I could pay for a pod host, but and this is the big but what if I don't like pod casting it's a lot of money to throw away on something you don't like!

I suppose what I could do and this is a thought that I have had more than once is to just keep recording the episodes and then find another pod host and upload them and see if any one else likes them and the if I go with the host I am thinking of I can then convert the free hosting to a pro package which gives me more space and bandwidth.

Reading Pt 4

I am still reading the Charles Stross book and having got into the book, some 200 pages in I have to say that the multi view point and also flexitime line approach appears to be working and that for the story to work Charles had to employ something like it for it all to work.

I am also pleased that the story is not predicable and that's good, I want to be entertained and not get the feeling that I have been ripped off because the another has gone formulaic or predicable.

So far I have had a good read and have also been entertained, thanks you Charles.

Meteor Shower

Well it has to be said that the weather in the UK is such that you can all most guarantee that if there is anything almost interesting going on in the sky at night that it will be cloudy, and that was just so for where I live in the UK last night.

For you see last night the 12.08.09 was supposed to be a great time to see a Meteor shower, one of the better ones in the year, and the predictions where for a go show, some 100 meteors an hour or so, which is something that I would just love to see, I think the most meteors that I have ever seen has been some 4 or 5!

So you can imagine my disappontment last night when having a look at the night sky at 10.30 pm that not only was it cloudy but it looked like it was going to rain!

I am told that the next meteor shower is going to be in November, so I shall make the effort then to have a look, that's assuming that the weather for once gives us a chance to see what is going on up in the night sky.

Reading Pt 3

Iron Sunrise is going well so far not to sure about the several viewpoints and the switching between them and also going backwards and forwards in time but apart from that the story is good and I believe that the author Charles Stross is proving good entertainment and value for money.

I am at one level glad that it is not his first book that I have read of his, as I don't think so far that it shows just what he can and does do.

As a side note to the above the first book of Charles's that I read is one that he has released into the creative commons and that was called Accelerado, if you ever get chance to read do so it will really stretch your mind, it did mine.

New Book

I have a new book that I am reading yeah, it's by Charles Stross and it's called Iron Sunrise, as I have only read some 20 pages I can't tell you what I think about it as I have not got into it yet.

Odd Thought

I was reading somewhere, not to sure where it was now, but anyway I was reading about how in the late 1890's London's streets had a real problem with the waste material from all the thousands of horses that used the London streets back then.

Now my odd thought was where did all that horse manure go to, and who moved it all and when cars and buses started to come in and started to take over the jobs of the horses, what did the people who cleaned up after the horses do?

I know lots of questions, and when I did a Google it was not very good at giving me the sort of answers I wanted, for some reason it was far more interested in giving me results that lead me to stuff to buy, which not what I wanted, this is not the first time that I have been let down by Google, if this sort of thing carrys on I shall have to look at using a differant search engine.

Sunshine

For the first time in a while the sun is out and I can see Blue sky yeh!

Flood Pt 4

Just been thinking over the last day or so, since completing the the reading of Flood by Stephen Baxter could Dirk Maggs do an audio production of it?, how long would the show or shows be, who would be cast in the principle characters?

I think that yes, it could be done as an audio production, there would have to be some clever adaptation, but I think there is great scope for a fertile mind like Dirk's to get over to the listener just what is going on, since one of the best characters in the book is the flood itself, I am sure that someone of Dirk's talent could find a away to get this character across to the listener in interesting ways without going over the top on sound effects.

The duration of the production? that's a difficult one as the book covers a lot of ground, even with some adapting it will not I think fit into anything less than say 120-180 minutes, of course the big problem would be the cost of production and finding a market for it.

But it is nice to dream, well isn't it.

Flood Pt 3

So at long last I have completed reading this book. I got the feeling that the end of the book was some how a bit rushed? not sure why I think this but that's the impression that I got, I have since read other peoples thoughts on this book and they do not make this comment on its finish, so its just me I suppose.

Overall I did enjoy the book so much so that I even had a look on the internet at a couple of sites that let you see what the area you live in would look like if the water level started to get higher. I am safe at the 10 to 30 Meter mark but after that will Ben Nevis is looking real good.

As entertainment I think I had my money's worth, so I say thank you Stephen for some great hours of entertainment.

Flood Pt 2

Still reading this book by Stephen Baxter, and it has not got any happier, so it would make a great story line for EastEnders?

Flood

Still reading the Flood by Stephen Baxter, it's starting to get a bit ...well depressing with all the bad stuff that just keeps on happing. I am beginning to wonder what book 2 in the series called Ark is going to be like.

Otherwise it's a book to make you think..even if only a little bit

Books read

So just had some days off, and as is normal had the chance to do some reading, like you do. I some how read 2 books they were

Plague Ship by Clive Cussler

and

The Borgia Ring by Michael White

both were very easy books to get into and did there job in proving some great entertainment, I read them as a way of whiling away a few hours and that's what they did, neither of the books are presented as anything but a form of entertianmaent and for that they both delivered.