Boy Am I Annoyed!!!!!

Now I'm seriously un happy. I have had to make three attempts at placing a posting on my Xanga Site (http://www.xanga.com/smudger59kes) - and I'm starting to lose patience.

Before this , the posting was going to be about what hadn't happened.

But now I'm seriously annoyed -  

I was , and am, going to talk about the following:

I like toolbars - that is to say I like add-on toolbars for Internet Explorer, and I have had, for a while, the Google toolbar.

The above is an image of the latest Beta toolbar - version2 ( Available here - http://toolbar.google.com/index-beta.php). And what I do like about it is the "Blog This" button. It is only available for Blogger, as far as I can see, but even so - you find a site you like, you want to blog about, and you can do it off the same browser page. I do like that.

The other new addition to my web experience is a program called Newz Crawler (available at http://www.newzcrawler.com/ ). This is a news browser, amongst other things, and until now I have never found a program that I can get on with. Web News was something that I never bothered with - but a workshop in the Web-User Magazine changed that. The workshop was aimed at the use of Usenet services. I read the article and liked what I saw. Downloaded the trail version and gave it a try. I was so impressed with what I saw, within two days I had "put my hand in my pocket" and coughed up the $24.95 (approx £15). As far as I concerned - well worth the money. And as a bonus - you find an item you like - and you can blog-this from the program as you could with the toolbar. Brill

Finally - a little program I'm not so sure of.

The program is called KlipFolio (available from http://www.klipfarm.com/farm.php if you are interested). And I'm not really sure how you would describe it. You "subscribe" to various types of information, which then appear, in a shortened form, on the KlipFolio "browser". You then read the one line stories, clicking on them if you want "the full story". Will let you know what I think of this in the future.

OHS

Catching Up

I feel I have to catch up with what has happened over the past 10 days or so.

One of the "visits" I have had to make make was to our Occupational Health People at a private Sheffield Hospital.

To be honest, this worried me. I have had a lot of time off work with the various Sinus / Chest infections there's no two ways round this - what has happened has happened. But at the minute we have a temporary "Boss", and , in some ways, he is covering his back - so I have got a referral to the OHS. Maybe I'm being a bit unfair (and as it turned out I probably am) but you always suspect alter ea motives for such moves.

So it was with some trepidation I set off Thursday Dinner time to drive over to Sheffield. After a bit of a search, I found the Hospital, went to Reception and booked my self in.

The Occupational Physician was a really nice chap - very thorough. He asked a few questions, checked whether I understood what was wrong, whether I had understood what had happened to me in the first place (and he confirmed something that I had suspected - but was never sure of).

It was really re-assuring to find that I was doing everything possible to keep a track on the Sinus's (as far as he knew there was NO further treatments - NHS wise anyway)

After discussing what he would put in his report, and how much information I would allow him to put (Medical Confidentiality and all that). He did suggest that it might be worth my while to try something "Eastern" so to speak. Instead of the "blunt" tools of Western Medicine, try some of the subtler "Eastern" treatments. Acupuncture and Yoga were mentioned amongst others in an attmept to calm down the "autonomic systems".

I'll be honest - this would be a bit of departure for me. I have sort of dabbled with Aroma-therapy, and it did help a little, but Yoga?. It looks like it could be research time.

I'm Back!!!!!!

As they say - "the best laid plans of mice and men .........".

I promised I would log on as soon as the computer had been repaired, but , as usual, life got in the way.

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As you can see, the computer is back in service. The strange thing is , that when the repair man came and powered it up to test it, it came straight back to life,as though nothing had happened. You can imagine my surprise and shock ( there was a few choice word muttered under my breath I can tell you). Credit where credits due, the lad that came did check the machine out, trying to reproduce the fault - but it just didn't happen. The only conclusion that he could come up with involved static build up and the fact that it had been stood for over a week NOT connected. I sort of understood - but we will wait and see.

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At the end of last week was Liam's Football Awards night. As A general rule this is just a thank you session for the lads, the managers and the parents. Liam got his players trophy, a "diving goalkeeper" in keeping with his position in the team, whilst the other lads got more appropaitely posed figures.

The Parents Player and the Players Player of the year went to a nice lad called Ben. He's the teams best defender, and a nice lad with it. He's played like a trooper all year - the plaudits where well deserved. Liam did, however, win the Managers "Most Improved Player" award. Two trophies on the night - not bad huh?

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I don't normally talk about politics, but this week has been so funny, to me at least, I had to say something. Following on the Euro Announcement here in the UK by the Chancellor,Gordon Brown (what a cop-out - I wish they would say one way or another), Prime Minster, Tony Blair, has been "re-arranging" his Cabinet. To me, at least, this has been one of Mr Blair's less successful weeks. It would seem things altered from day to day, with various cabinet Ministers not really seeming to know which job they have. hardly builds confidence.

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Have had to wait this A.M. to even get on line. Couldn't do much yesterday as I was rostered in for my occasional Saturdays at work, and I always feel a "bit off it" after a Saturday in. I still haven't got used to it I suppose. Anyway - tried to log onto the Internet this morning, and every page then came up with an "OH OH" warning. After a few calls and checks it would appear that BTOpenworld where having trouble with the Broadband Gateway that I had access to.

Never mind - tomorrow is another day.

 

God Bless

Just a quick Entry!!

This is just a quick entry using my work laptop, not as easy a prospect as it has been set up to use the works system and not the general Internet, but there is always a way round.

Anyway, it's another two days before the computer man comes to repair the computer - it's been one of the few times I have been glad that we paid for an extended warranty, normally I'm not a big advocate of them - but we certainly have had our moneys worth out of the warranties for the computer and the washing machine.

It feels has though my right arm has been removed - I hadn't quite appreciated how much of my day involves the computer. How many transactions we carry out on the computer. How many bills and the like. How difficult it has now become to deal with some companies now the Internet has become a big part of the way a lot of companies do business.

Many thanks for the comments from my fellow Xanagians', it is reassuring to know that I'm am not the only person to have suffered so. I know, logically, you can not be the only person to affected by "this and that" - but when something does happen, you can't help feeling that EVERYTHING is happening to you, and you alone.

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The sickness effecting Chez Smith is still here. Although Laura has got clear of "the coughs and colds", Liam still has a bad infection, and , to some extent, the medicine has made things worse. His illness progressed to severe lethargy and then sickness. It got that bad we had to take him back to Doctors. He "blamed" the antibiotics. I have encountered people who have had "the Runs" as it is put round here (diarrhea is a common side effect so I'm told), even an allergic rash (I've had that one) but Headache and sickness?. Anyway in the last few days he seems to have pulled through, only for me and "she who must be obeyed" (if Cathy ever see's this I'm dead meat - ) to go down with the same thing, as if I didn't have enough of infections at the minute.

In the next week I have to go and see the Occupational Health People at work because of the enforced time off I have with my Sinus's. I hope they can suggest something - it's beginning to really drive me down.

Hopefully I will be able to give a report from the proper computer later in the week. Hope to see you then

What a weekend !!!!!!

I shall not actually type the words that come to mind at the minute. As the saying goes - "If you can't say anything nice - say nothing at all!"

This particular blog was going to be a "happy" report on what had, to that point been a pretty good week. Everything was OK'ish.

The kids had been to the Doctors and got medicines and treatment for their various ailments.

We had just got a reasonable webcam to play with (the old one worked and that was it really). The kids loved it. Used it make "movies" with the software that came with it.(It is a logitech quick Cam with imagestudio - pretty good)

And that is where everything comes apart.

I was on the computer, as usual, yesterday morning. Looking , and sorting, as it happens, a new template for my Blogger.com blog. They have just upgraded their operating system and the template I was using had got corrupted in some way. To be honest it was just the impetus I needed to do the alteration I had been wanting to do for several weeks. Anyway I found a good choice on Blogskins , and having picked a simple , straightforward, template,applied it and altered it to suit my site.

Basically everything was OK.

So I closed down the computer and went on to do "bits and pieces" of house work, you know - the normal minutia of family life.

After tea, Stars in Your Eyes Kids, and a couple of moaning kids, I thought I would have five minute on the computer  before Bath and Bed. Powered Up, watched the two drives boot and then silence

Nothing.

I tried again. Nothing

"Luckily" we had an extended warranty with the computer. With trepidation I rang the number. I had heard, and experienced various bad stories involving trying to get "what you've paid for".The number rang. Then the dreaded "Voice Platform"

"Press 1 for ............, Press 2 for ........."

Anyway, through this section to be answered by a chap called Pete. He asked for the details he required, Customer number and the like. Two questions and a couple of checks later he came to the conclusion I had already suspected was the case - The Hard Drive had given up the ghost. Major pain. Had not backed up my files for about three weeks ,and we had just transferred some digital birthday pictures. They've now possibly gone -  along with several other projects and the new Smith Family Website .

My problem. The lad on the Customer Support line, Pete, was a great help. In fact he was the total opposite of what you sort of expect of a computer support line techie.

This posting?

I have borrowed a machine for the morning - so it maybe a week or so before I can do this again.