Passwords

It's a pain when you have to change passwords


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London Pride

You had the chance to drink some London Pride all I can say is that it's very nice and it will be a real ale that I shall try again.


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Dirk Maggs Website

Just had a look on Google to see where my main website is today....the good news is at this time I am first... Yeah.....!


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Podcasts

Just a note to me that the Ben Nicky podcasts of which there are only some 6 episodes as I write this are really rather good, the only two things against them are that there are not many of them and the other is that each podcast is only about a hour long which on some of the mixes is too short as I am left feeling cheated somehow!

So the mixes are good some very good track choices and some very good mixing going on most of the mixes flow really well.

I shall have to let you know later as to how his podcasts go, will they be better? Longer? or just about the same?


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New book

I have another new book that for reasons that will become very obvious in a minute I can't claim to have read only use, and have used it on lots of occasions which is good as that's what this book was written for.

The book is called The Cloud Collectors Handbook and it's by Gavin Pretoria-Pinney and I must say it's been a real easy book to use.

It goes through all the differant type of clouds that you a able to see, I am not sure if every cloud type is seen in the UK but it gives you information on the cloud it's Hightower and it also shows you pictures and that's something that has been most useful.

As a reference book worth every penny.


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Rain

So it turns out that the weathermen were correct and it is indeed raining for the first time in about six weeks, I am sure I have heard lots of the plants in the garden sigh!


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Reading

Just completed reading yet another book that I brought on impulse if I have to admit to myself.

The book is called I never knew that about the River Thames by Christopher Winn he has also written other books in the I never knew that about series.

This is a book that can be read two way either from the start to the end or it can also be read by dipping in handout of it as is your want.

I must admit that I enjoyed reading it and did learn lots about place and the River Thames that I never knew, it must have made me a bit more curious about some of the the stuff that he talks about in that I went and looked up stuff in greater detail.

Worth the time and money to read and yes I was entertained while learning!


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Weather

The weatherman have said that this Saturday we will have have some rain for the first time in six weeks, it will be interesting to see if the weathermen are going to get it right for once.


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Rain

I have not seen any rain of any sort for six weeks


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Frost in May

Is it possible to have frost in May in southern England?

It certainly felt like it this morning


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Thriller Live

Went to the theatre last night to see a show called Thriller Live and the good news is that I liked the show, not all of it it must be said but most of it, the show as you can guess from it's name is basically some of Michael Jacksons most famous song set to some good dance routines and light show.

The problem for me is that a lot of his early music I just don't get, what I mean is that it just does not give me a buzz like his later stuff.

As the show has been set up so that it runs almost in chronological order it meant that most of the first have not all of it was songs that I had never heard and did not do any thing for me musically.

The second half of the show was much better for me as it was all songs that I had at least heard and I did get musically.

The only other thing that I did note was the cast did look a bit tiers in parts of the show, which I suspect may have something to do with the fact that they have had a long tour and the fact that the show is very physically demanding and that has to take it's toll.

But was I entertained?

Yes

Would I say it's worth a night out to see?

Yes, it's worth it and there will be songs that you will know and the dancing and the energy that the cast put into the show are catching.


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Gorse

Just notice that the gorse in my area has bloom early this year and that the blooms on it do not last very long but that the brightness of yellow is much brighter this year than I remember it from previous years.


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Pollen

So it's now early May and the trees and plants in my area are producing pollen as if it's going out of fashion.

I know this fact as my car has now developed a light yellow cast to it, when we get some rain it will all go, but as we have not had any for some eight weeks it may be a while before the car stops being two toned.


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Bank holidays

So this is the last bank holiday until august which seems to be an awful long way away, but in fact will come just soon enough.

Although the sun was shinning and there was blue sky all day the wind which has been gusting all day was cold and I am afraid to say rather put the dampers on it being a really outstanding day, but must not complain as it was a mostly restful day and you can't have too many of them.


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Reading part 2

Another book that I read is one that I did not buy it was given to me as a joke as part of a Xmas present, it was not part of the present it was what was inside of the book that was the present, and if you must know the present was a book token.

Any way as we have had some bank holidays here in the UK I had some time while waiting for my old desk top computer to start up I picked this book up and started to read it.

The book is called Stupid white men and it's by Michael Moore, now it's a very American-book it does talk about a lot of American politics which this bloke in northern Europe does not have a clue about it and even with the stuff in the book I am still not sure that to this day America has two political parties because from where I am sitting they look both the same!

Anyway this book caused a bit of a stir in it's day, and so reading it has been interesting in that I did not realise just how dirty American politics is and the lengths that they will go to to get and to hold on to power, but then again this might also be the case else where in the world, it's not something that I take much if any notice of.

The book was a read but I can't say it was a good read as just too many things that Moore talks about jar me.

I suspect that it has made no difference to what happens in the USA, but has made a lot of money for Michael Moore.

So not a book I would read and the subject matter if all that is in the book is true does not matter to me either, but then I am from Europe and we already know that the folks from China will soon own everything in the USA and then not long after Europe!


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Reading

Another book that I read just a short while ago is called Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, for some reason I brought this book in hardback, perhaps because it was on sale, who knows and it was some time ago...

Any way the book is a good read in that for me it was a fun read and it was entertaining and that's all I want for a book these days if I am reading for my pleasure.

It's a book about all those questions that you have had about what the astronauts have to put up with and all that sort of stuff.

Stuff like how you go to the toilet when there is no gravity to help the process, the fact that smells in space linger.

The most interesting thing that I learnt was that most astronauts suffer space sickness at some level and that it is something that can not be predicted on Earth before flight, so an unpleasant time is had not soon after orbit is achieved by most who have got there.

A book that is great to dip into and out of


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Website editing

Well I have had some time to do some editing of my main website that I do, that is the Dirk Maggs Productions Website, which is now getting on in years and is as I type this number two on Google when you search for Dirk Maggs, why Wikipedia is higher I just don't know as my site has far more information and goes into far greater depth. Than they do, but then again as my site is very specialist I suppose it does not get many direct links to it, or if it does I am not aware of them.

Any way I have edited a few more page mainly the Flywheel Shyster ones now the strange thing is that there are 3 pages one for each series two of the pages edited okay and work correctly the pictures that I added show up and look fine and great, the last page that I edited uses the same pictures as the other two but when I go on line to check it it appears complete with no new pictures, I don't know what is going on as it all looked okay when I edited it and also when I saved it, to make matters worse I did exactly the same thing to all three pages, so go figure....

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Writing

I have not done much work on the book that I started earlier in the year, one reason or excuse is that the software package that I was using stopes at random times which is not good and does not help ones temper when you don't know if you are going to loose all the work that you had put into a document of the last several hours or so.

The book is as I said the last time in the stage between first and second draft with it more in the second draft stage.

I have decided to see if the word processing software has had an update, if so I will update mine to the ladder version then try again at doing the second draft.


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Trip out

So as yesterday was a bank holiday and the weather was good we decided to go out, the original idea was to go to a beach on the south coast, well to tell the truth we left it a bit late in the day to set out.

Try 11am! I know but it's a day off the weather was nice and well that's the time we set off, the first order of business of the day was to fill the car with petrol, and if you have been reading this blog then filling the car has and no days always appears to cost more and more money.

So there was no surprise that the cost had gone up again and 78 pounds later the deed was done and the car was ready to go.

So we set off for the coast and hit our first stoppage only 2 miles from home!

After that the roads where very good and we soon hit the coast, we decided to take a random approach to which beach we would go to, so we ended up at Chichester!

I don,t know how we ended up there either, the place was vey busy and I was surprised on just how many shops had decided to be closed on what was a very busy day.

Luck was taken at a pub called The Nags Head, yep straight out of only fools and horses.

The food in the pub was very good the price of a large coke was and is another matter as it would have been cheaper for me to have drunk beer, not that I could as I was driving, but when the soft drink costs more than the beer what's going on?

Any way it was a nice day out and that's all that matters, we did see the sea for about 30 seconds on the way home!

But no beaches perhaps next time.


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Warm

Very warm still, which is nice and I must admit that it is very nice that it is warm at this time of year some 10c warmer than average at this time of year.

Yesterday we had an unplanned BBQ and we were very lucky with the weather as it rained very heavily near to us, but we stayed dry all night, so a result I suppose.

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Dirk Maggs Productions Website

The main website that I do, has suffered over the last few months in that I have not done anything to it, as a result it now appears only to get 10 or so visitors which is down an awful lot when it used to get thousands.

What is also strange is that the site is still in the top three on Google!


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Hot

Today has been I think the hottest day of the year so far. It is also the first time in I don't know how long that I have heard thunder, which is typical as we have planned to have a BBQ tonight, will it be wet or dry?


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Sunrise

Sunrise today was a bit red, well actually very red, not sure if that means bad weather or not as the weather people are saying that it's still going to be a warm day with lots of sunshine.

I suppose that only time will tell.


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Dirk Maggs website

The main Dirk Maggs website has had two or more pages updated, I know! I just don't care!

I have finally updated the programme that drives the site, and lucky for me it all went well and the site is now on the most recent version.

One of the direct benefits of the update has been the fact that I have now been able to start adding back the pictures that I have of the various actors of all the different Dirk Maggs audio productions.

This is good as the website has not had any work carried out on it for a long time and it was mostly complete except for the fact that there where holes left for the pictures on those productions that I have pictures for the actors.

I did look to see where the website appears on the google search and it's currently Third, which is not bad considering that I have not touched the site in such a long time.

I am not promising, but I hope to edit the odd page or two now and then so that I will in a shortish time will have edited every page.


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Semantic web update

The truth is that I have not done any more work on the DIrk Maggs semantic website mainly because I have not had the time to sit down and get my head around it in a way that will allow me to code all the different information so that it is easier to read and also to get at.

I think and from the way things are going that it may be some time before I revisit the semantic website.


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Hot

They say that today it got to 26c I think I have to believe them as it's been rather nice and warm.

Look at weather records for the last fifty years for this day it's some 10c warmer than it normally is, not that I am complaining


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Cold

A bit surprised just how cold it is out there this morning and yet the weathermen or man are saying that it get as high as 26c, it will be interesting to see if they are right.


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Solar lights

The solar lights in the garden are working well and it's so nice to see


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Hot

The weathermen are saying that we could hit 25c today which is 10c above the average which in one way is nice but in another is not so nice as it could suggest that the weather is having something like a hiccup.

I suppose that only time will tell what is going on.


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Cancer

They say that all our lives are affected in some way by cancer and that 1 in 3 of us is directly effected by cancers, so I must be very unlucky in that I have now been touched by it 4 times all are close family members, 2 have died from it 1 is a long term survivor of it and one we don't yet know what the outcome will be.


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Weather

Wonder if the weather will hold out for Easter


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Bluebells

For some reason that I just don't know the answer to the bluebells appear to be out earlier this year.

So to make sure we at least saw some in the way that they should be seen, we went to a near by wood to see them.

The trip was well worth it as they were out and looked very good not only that but we actually had some sunshine in to the bargain.

The wood that we go to has only the real bluebells, that is the English bluebells and I must admit they look really good.


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Kite Jolly Up

Went to a kite jolly up this weekend which was fun and also very relaxing, which is sometimes just what you want and need.

I even flew a kite for the first time this year.

I flew a 4m2 ozone samurai which was fun especially as it was at times the only thing flying in the sky!


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MRI

Wonder how many times a day around the world someone enters and gets scanned by a MRI scanner


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Mobile phones

How come mobile phones stop working correctly just when you need them?

I suspect that it's some unwritten universal law.

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Go karting

Last night went go karting with a bunch of folk from the place that I work at. It was mostly fun until the second session when I got t-boned on a high speed corner.

My kart got life's up in to the air and then back down again and I nearly got thrown out of the cart!

To say that it hurt would be an understatement and I retired from the race, in fact it hurt that much that I walked off the race track, I thought at first I had broken some ribs.

My back then started to hurt, the lower back and pelvis area.

So I thought that this is going to be with me for a while.

Well that's not what happened....

I drove home and when I got out of my car I felt a slight crunching and heard a click, you what?

Yep my back does not hurt!

I don't know what happens I am just glad that it did and that I don't have any back pain.


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Travel

Just been reading a blog where the guy is a service engineer for a company in the states and from my very poor knowledge of the USA seems to have to travel 1000 miles or so to do a service visit, I hate to imagine how many miles he has flown and just how many different hotels he has had to put up with in his travels.

His time with his family must also be in very short supply, how does anyone cope with that sort of life?

I am sure that I would not be able to cope with what he does.

I suppose in a way because the UK is not the States that you just can not compare his way of working with what happens in the UK.

For one thing the UK is much smaller, fly a thousands mules here and two ways you fly you end up over water the other two over land that is not the UK!

So I am in a way glad I am where I am, but it's also interesting just to see how other people live their lives and just how different it is to mine.

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Music

How come when you listen to music on your headphones it's not the same as hearing it from a room speaker system, even if the headphones you listen with are high end 300 pounds noise cancelling type, with extra base?

I suppose that it is just one of life's mysteries

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Car service

So wife's car was serviced yesterday and cost us some 800 pounds as the camm belt had to be changed, due to it's age...

Today my car had to have it's service and the brake fluid changed, cost 250 but I have a service plan with the main dealer and so the final cost out of my pocket was 37 quid still more than I wanted to pay.

At least both cars have now been serviced for another year.


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Paint garden chairs

I had over the weekend the chance to repaint one of the garden chairs, I only painted one and it took me 2 hours.

Hate slats especially the small ones!


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Weather

Well one of the reasons for there not being many blogs posts is that for once the weather and the weather men both agreed with each other and we had wall to wall sunshine and blue skies...


Lovely it was, I enjoyed it.

So you can guess what the weather is going to be like for the rest of the week?


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Painting garden table

I had the pleasure! Of having to repaint the garden table, even with help from Donna it still took us more than 2 hours there was just so much that needed painting.

But I must say that the end result was worth it.


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Cars

So Donnas car needs it's service and MOT, this is always not good and so it was this year, the car has to have it's camm belt changed on a Cilo this is not a small task, the belt is only 20 pounds the labour to fit it 500!

Why?

Why is it so expensive?

Still cheaper than a new engine I know but wow talk about expensive, I said to the service person at this rate it was going to be cheaper getting a new car!


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Cars part 2

Well as you can see from my previous post Donna had here car serviced today and it's the turn of my car tomorrow.

Let's hope that there are no nasty surprises in store.


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Blue sky

Very nice blue sky this morning


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Car service

The joys of servicing a car, it's amazing just how much you realise that you need the car to go about your day to day activities


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Course

Been on a course for the last few days, nice the place that it took place in.


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Stuff

Amazing how your free time can just disappear without a moments notice, so all the things that I wanted to do on Sunday never happened due to other stuff getting in the way.

I suppose there is always next weekend, saying that the garden does look a lot better since I cut the grass.....


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Film Red

Just seen this movie on DVD at the weekend, when not cutting the grass!

All I want to say about it was that it was a good film to watch and that it made the evening go quick, and I did laugh as it's billed as an action comedy.

There is plenty of action and also plenty of comedy well worth a look and a hour or so of your life.


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Car parks

Car parks can be interesting places to people watch, and in this case the car park is not a multi-storey one but a single level one.

Mind you the width of some of the car parking spaces leaves a lot to be desired.


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Go carts

So a chance has come about in that I can go go karting, now I must admit that I am not very good at it, but it is fun to go.

I have been several times before and I have each time got faster around the track. But at the end of the day it's all but the experience right?

I me we are racing for fun not prizes or money..

I will report back when it's all over as it's 2 weeks away.


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Cold

April and it feels colder than March did, but according to the weather men it's been the driest March for the last 50 years here in the UK, I must admit that the third week in March was very warm and sunny.


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Petrol

Just filled my car up and £69 later my car has a range of 433 miles, I still have trouble understanding why we pay so much for our fuel in this country and why we let our government put so much tax on it.

I am told that out of the 133 a litre that we are getting charged for it that about 80 percent of it is made up of taxes!

I am also told that there is no shortage of oil in the world and that there will not be for some time to come, as we are better at extracting it from the ground and that we make far better use of it than we ever did before, and as time goes by we will continue to make better use of it.

So why the very high taxes on it?

I was going to say because Thayer can, and they can as there is not yet any other way of powering car and truck that is so easy and convenient at this time.

I suppose that you could argue that because of the high cost of fuel people will start to look for other ways of powering cars and trucks.

The downside of this is that once we have a new fuel source that is easy to use and that we start to use it, the government will then start to tax it, then tax it more and more and we will be back to where we started with petrol!



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BBQ

I have just had the stupid thought when will the weather be good enough to have a BBQ?

I would like to put my prediction that late April will be about right.

It will be interesting to see how accurate this prediction will be, knowing the UKs weather it will either be too early or too late.


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Blogs

I see from looking at how many blogs that I posted this month that it's going to be the least amount posted so far this year, not by much it must be said.

But taking in to account that I have had a week away and did not blog during that time.

I find it amazing that I have found so much to talk about or make notes on.


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Websites

Looking at the website logs from a few days ago, I wonder sometimes just how folks find my webpages, the things is that as my websites are very specialist the search terms used tend also to be very specific, so in a way I have not really found out how the site is found.


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Mixing music

I compose music, which for some reason or other tends to happen in phases, with it sometimes being months between tracks that I write.

So I have a track that has been work in progress know for more than a year, the problem that I have with it is that the track has five drum tracks.

What is the best way to mix these tracks in the overall mix?

At this time I have one track on the left and one on the right and then the rest in the centre, I don't know if this is the best arrangement for the drum tracks I think I should also add here that all five drum tracks are live at the same time so it's not a case of turning each drum track on and off as the track progresses.

The track itself is about six minutes long and runs at about 140 beats per minute.

Perhaps the best thing to do is to leave the track to rest and then come back to it, and then compare the old mix with the new and on that hearing choose which track to use.

I suppose that this is a case where only time will tell.


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Stuff on the go

Just a note to me.

I have the following projects on the go at this time

1. Dirk Maggs Semantic Website
2. Music tracks for new album
3. Book train and terrain
4. Website update Dirk Maggs Productions Website
5. Website update James Follett Website


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Bishopswood

Donna and me for reasons that now quite escape us decided to go for a walk that included at the end of it a walk through Bishopswood in hind sight this may have been a mistake as the assent up Bishopswood is not only long but comes with rather a large incline.

To say that we were rather exhausted by the end of it.


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1002

So I have just noticed that some how or other I have just written 1001 blogs, this being my 1002

I am also very surprised on just how many blogs I have written this year, it I suppose has something to do with the fact that I now have an iPad and also some good software on it that allows me to blog when I want, and to upload them when I have a wifi connection.

It also helps that the software that I use to do the blogging has a spell checker, and that is something that I really do need!

So this year I have written a lot of blogs so far I don't know and I don't care if I beat any of my previous years blogging as this a site that I use as a notebook for myself so there are no targets as such only that I should record anything that takes my fancy.


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Weather

So last week I was on holiday and the weather was such that I could sit in a tee shirt on a patio drinking wine and very nice it was to.

This week?

Yep

Looks like it's going to be a bit wet, blue sky has become very rare.

Such is the weather in the UK


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Wiki

The Dirk Maggs Wiki has because of my holiday stopped, I did not carry out any work on it or even had any thoughts about it.

But never fear it is something that I will pick up again and start work on.


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Castles

Went to Chepstow castle while away and was very lucky that we had a blue sky day with it also being warm, which is always nice.

Anyway the thing that amazed me was kist how big a castle it is.

And it was great to see some young kids running around it and wanting to see what was in the next room or in the next bit of the castle, I don't think at a young age castles are anything but a really good playground that is absolutely huge and fun to be in.

Donna and me must have spent some 2 or 3 hours just walking around it with time to just enjoy what was there and the views that you get from the castle over the River Seven.

A place well worth a visit, even better if a blue sky day can also be arranged at the time of your visit.


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River Seven

So the River Seven is a big river here in the UK, and it has the second largest tidal range in the world, some 46 feet is what I have been told.

It is only when you actually see it with your own eyes that it strikes home just how big that range is.

Seeing bridges that have been designed to take the tidal range into account is also eye opening.

I wonder what it would be like to see the River Seven in full flood, safely not on any bridge!


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Weatherspoons

Over the last few days I have had the chance to be in several different Weatherspoon pubs, one in Wales and one in Guildford.

Both were very good, all were clean, service was good and the food and the beer that we had was also very good.

I was lucky that there are doing a real ale week, so I had the chance to try some real ales that I have never had before.

The one thing that did catch us out was that weatherspoons have regional menus, which when you stop and think about it does make sense, but when you come up against it for the first time it does make you stop and think.

But at the end of the day, you know what you are going to get when you go to a weatherspoons and that's all I want if I am visiting a part of the UK that I have not been to that has a Weatherspoons.


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Reading yet again

What happens when you are ten pages into a new book only to discover that you have already read the book two years ago!

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Another read

Another book that I have just read while on holiday is called Private and it's written by James Patterson and with Maxine Paetro who wrote what I don't know and really I don't care, all I want is to have a book that tells a good story and this book does that apart from one observation that I want to make.

This book is very very American and as a european I had in places difficulty in understanding the distances that some of the places that the characters visit in the course of the story.

But apart from that the story is good and the bad guys are bad and the good guys are good but with some rough edges.

The book is the first in a new series and I suspect that I will look out for the second book when it comes out.


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Reading

Just finished reading another book, this one while on holiday, in the resting times between walks ect.

Anyway back to the book it's called The Silent Sea and it's by Clive Cussler and it's in one of the various series of books that he appears to write these days, or should I say the person who just gets the with credit on these books.

Have you noticed that there appear to be many more books with more than one author these days?

The book is a good read, it's not making it's self to be anything but an entertaining thriller and that's what it is, some of the action scenes I suspect are just not possible in real life but in the book they work, and as I have said before the bad guys get what they deserve and I loved they way that the books authors stage the big set scenes.

Well worth several hours of your time if you want to get away from life.


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Real ale

Just trying a new real ale that I have never had before called hopping hare by the badger brewery, it's only a 4% but so far the taste has been great, now all I want is a nice hot summers da and a steam chair to sit on in the sunshine with this beer in my hand.


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Holiday weather

One thing that I always start to look at is the weather and what is going to be like when I am on holiday.

So one thing that I have been very surprised at is how quickly in hours it seems to change.

So as it is I still do not know for certain if I am going to get wet, sunburned or fog bound on my holiday.




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Red nose day

So here in the uk it's red nose day, wonder how much response we will get,at work or around the place


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Wiki tables

Not too sure if my wiki should be all tables or a mixture of both, either one has an advantage but also disadvantages.

At this time I am not sure which way to go or if the way to go is to have a mixture of the two.




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Time off

Did I say that I having some time off soon?

Well only two days to go!


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Holiday

Going on holiday only for a week but I am sure that the break will do me good.


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Dirk Maggs Wiki

So the wiki has gone a bit slow, I have got distracted and have spent time on learning how to do tables in the wiki, and I must admit that the results are far better than I thought that they would be.

I also managed to get from the mediawiki site the help pages and with help form the mediawiki site installed the public domain help pages into my wiki!

Which is really neat.

It all works well.

So when back from holiday, I will have another look at the semantic side of things, I am sure that in the end I will work out what I want and also work out how to get it all working the way that I want it to work.

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Cold

A bit of a shock again this morning as it's really rather colder than I expected it to be.

I am not sure but should I still be removing ice from the window screen in mid March?


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Mercury

Last night just after sunset I was luck to see both Jupiter and Mercury in the sky together with out any clouds in the way, if I am luck I shall have another go tonight to see them, it's really a rather nice sight.

But knowing how fickle the weather can be here in the UK it will either be raining about to rain or foggy!



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Reading

I have finally finished reading The Wrecker by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott, now for some reason I felt a bit disappointed with the book, as to me parts of it where very formulaic which is something that I don't like in a book.

In the story the main characters seemed to sped an awful lot of their time catching trains, sometimes just because they can.

Finding out who the wrecker was so early in the story was a bit of a letdown and then to find out that his behaviour changed after we found out who he was, was to me also a bit of a letdown.

Did the book entertain me?

Yes but if I was to treat this book as a movie, then I would say it was a feature that was realised straight to DVD with no cinematic release.

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Bumble bee

So my first bumble bee today.


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Bread

Baking some bread only 2 hours to go


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GarageBand iPad

So I found myself buying this app for my iPad.

So far it's been real fun playing with it, no I want to start importing my vocal parts into it, as mp3's and it does not work for me.

I wonder what I am doing wrong, I have read on the Apple forms for GarageBand iPad that you can,t do this?

Why?

I would have thought that importing and exporting would be one of the major items that this type of software should be capable of doing.

So at the moment until apple see fit to release an update it will remain a toy, which is a shame because it is a nice app to use.


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Ill

Starting to feel a bit run down and the old throat is also starting to hurt, I have a feeling I may have a cold coming on.

Let's hope that I am wrong.


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Ipad2

Just read some more reviews on the ipad2 and as the owner of the iPad 1 there does not appear to be that much different from the unit that I have.

Two things stop me from updating and they are the cameras fitted to the iPad are not that good if I am going to spend all that money on a new iPad I want the cameras to be of good quality as I am going to be using the iPad for some time, I mean the iPad is expensive and I will have to use it for some time.

Why did they put such low quality cameras in?

Perhaps they had some very good reasons why

But asan end user I am sorry to say that for me the decision sucks

The other reason for stopping me upgrading is that the screen needs to be better than the existing unit, don't get me wrong the screen on the iPad is good but when you have seen the display on the iphone4 you have to ask yourself why can't the iPad have the same?

I suspect that one reason for the ipad2 not to have the display was that units where not available in the numbers needed so the ipad3 will have this better screen, will apple wait a whole year before releasing the ipad3?

The other minor point is that the memory in the machine does not appear to have been increased ?

Because of cost?

I don't know, all I do know is that I will be looking at the ipad3 and not the ipad2 when I update.

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Plotters

How is that never mind how many times you have used a plotter it's always fun to watch them at work.

Why?

Not a clue....


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Pancakes 2

Just a post note to myself, always cook pancakes slow.

Maple syrup and butter make a nice topping.


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Stress

Stress can do strange things to people and how they react to the world and the other people in their lives.


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Butterfly

So this morning my very first butterfly!

Not sure if that is the earliest that I have ever seen one, in fact there were two and they were I think yellow.


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Bright

So today has been I think one of the brighter days of the year so far.

Because it's still early March that means that tonight is going to be a hard frost, did I tell you that I hate having to deuce the car before setting off to work.

That's of course if I can afford to continue putting fuel into the car it's at £1.33 a litre.



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Dirk Maggs semantic wiki

So I did do some work on the wiki, but for reasons that I yet to work out I got carried away with finding information on some contributors from an early Dirk Maggs production and ended up creating pages for them, instead of making my mega semantic form, if I did not know better I would say that I am doing displacement activities.

I must admit that I do know now just what I need to do, all I now have to do is do it.


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Cold

So it's spring very soon or so I am told, so why was it -3 this morning and had to scrape the Car for ages?

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Dirk Maggs semantic wiki part something 2

I have to admit that I have not done much work on the wiki this week, I just have not felt that well and really not that interested in anything especially anything on the web or anything to do with the web.

So the wiki has not therefore progressed.

But I have made the decision that a semantic form is the way to go as that's the best way of making sure all the properties that I require are used in a proper way.

Hopefully if the semantic forms are used in they way i hope they should be I will be able to store the information on the wiki in the way that will allow me to do the searches I need and also perhaps has information that has been so far hidden in the detail and also hidden in the 100's of pages on the existing website in a format that you can't search for.

So hopefully this weekend I hope to get the main semantic form setup and running.

I will report back in this blog what happens.


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Dull

So you what it's like when the day is just dull,dull and dull?

I just wish that it would be a bit brighter you know some actual sunshine and even a blue sky.

But as I am in the UK there is not much chance of that!

Oh well I can hope I suppose.


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Spring

So is spring really just a few weeks away?
I hope so as I want it to at least be a just a bit warmer than it has been.

I know that the days are now getting longer in fact you can see it as you go about your daily activities, it's nice.

It's even better if you get a day that has sunshine, but I suppose you can't have every thing can you?


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Ipad2

So the ipad2 has been announced the question for me is it worth upgrading?

I know that my current iPad will go to the wife and by how often she uses mine so that's not a problem.

Will having a faster iPad make much difference to how I use it now?

I don't know the answers to these questions at this time, I do know that I do need more storage and that 32 gig is looking to small and that 64 would be better, I was very surprised that there was not an increase to 128, but I suppose there must be a good reason or reasons why

Perhaps the reason might be cost or they can't get hold of the parts I suppose that we will never know the reason.

One thing I did notice is that there is yet another new version of iTunes to install and that there is an update of the OS that powers the I devices, thing is will I notice any difference with the new OS.

I shall report back, but note that the OS does not get updated until the 11 march so that over a week into the future, but the iTunes update is now available all I have to do is download it and install it.

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Casual

Can you be too casual while having lunch at work?

It's a good question and I am afraid that I just don't know the answer to it.

Is reading a book something that could be considered too casual?

I don't have an answer.


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Reading

Just started to read yet another book, I know that's the 2nd or even 3rd book this year!

So I am only some 29 pages into so far and I can't say if the book is good or bad yet it's still too early into the book.

The book is called The Wreckers and it's by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott, although I think most of it was written by Scott with perhaps Clive providing the brief and doing some editing, I just don't know how the writing collaboration thing is set up between these two but it's possible that that is the set up, not that it matters.

As all that I am interested in at the end of the day is am I going to be entertained by this book.

As I said I can't say yes or no.

Will report back when I have something to say about it later

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Sleep

I need more sleep or having a sleep is making me tied, I am not sure which it is.

I woke this morning feeling more tied than when I went to bed!

Why?

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Dirk Maggs Semantic wiki pt something

I know that I have talked a lot about my Dirk Maggs semantic wiki, which as it's a large task is naturally something that you would expect me to talk about, and as this is my blog I can do whatever I want in this blog.

So I found that I have a choice to make I can either make a form which can collect almost all the information that I need and create the page for me or I can go the other way and code each bit of a page with the semantic properties that I need.

The second choice gives total control but at the cost of a lot more work, the first choice allows for a lot of the work to be carried out automatically which means I suppose that in the long run less errors.

The problem is that it means that there will be lots of templates that need to be created and I have to admit that I have not found yet an easy way of editing them correctly so that I don't break them.

Which sadly is something that I have managed to do now on more than one occasion, but in the end I did find out what I had done and managed to sort out the problem.

So I think that an automatic solution is they way to go forward as I have some 500 pages that I think are needed in the wiki, as I will list every production that Dirk has done, and he has done just a few since 1987.

I also want to provide a page for every actor, writer, producer and mixer that has also been involved in Dirk's productions, it's a tall order but as it's going to be the only website or wiki dedicated to a audio producer, director I think that it should be the best I can do, I don't think the wiki will ever get huge hits to it, as it's a very specialised site but I do think that I will learn a lot about databases and semantics, well I must admit that on the later I already have and the learning curve so far has been straight up!




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Fuel

I have a 2 litre car nothing out of the ordinary and it's a petrol powered. I just paid £77 to fill it up, what's going on?

This driving a car is starting to real expensive...


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Rest

I must admit that this weekend I have had rest from the computer and my blog.


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