Weary

Weary, bug ridden, paint splattered and it's work tomorrow

Hi guys, it is once again Sunday, and another week has vanished silently away into the annuals of history.

It has been another of those - "oh is that all!" sort of weeks. Not that much has happened here at chez Smudger. The week has been pretty much School or Work. Nothing exciting has happened at all, well nothing much anyway.

Normal household chores to do, and a certain pre-teens bedroom to paint and paper, and another cold come sinus infection, but life just plods on.

It has been a little bit of an upgrade week for the computer, software wise at least. Several of my favorite programs have issued amendments. The only one that I have had to "force open the wallet" for was for ACDsee. This is an image manipulation/album type program that I was introduced to several years ago by a Customer I fitted a line for, and I have used it ever since. To be honest it is not the easiest program to get into to start with, but once you have worked out it's little "fobbles", I find it pretty useful.

I have also upgraded Newzcrawler (what I am writing this on at the moment) and also the IE replacement Avant Browser

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New version of Google Toolbar released "The Google Toolbar increases your ability to find information from anywhere on the web and takes only seconds to install. When the Google Toolbar is installed, it automatically appears along with the Internet Explorer toolbar. This means you can quickly and easily use Google to search from any website location, without returning to the Google home page to begin another search." (Gretchen)    [via Lockergnome's Technology News]

I like the google toolbar, and have done since it was released. I know there are many other alternatives out there now, but Google was one of the first, and is still one of the best.

This carries on with my upgrades theme. Having read a few things, I also came across a notice about hacking possibilities on various versions of bulletin boards. I used to use "pre-made" boards on places like Bravenet and the like, but, unless you coughed up more money than it was worth to me, the control and adaptability of the boards were pretty much limited. Then I came across Invision Board and PHPBB Bulletin/Community Boards. I have used both in the last few years, and they have the benefit of being very adaptable and FREE. Seeing that I have had a few Meg of storage space free on my hosting package, I have installed both of them at certain points in family history ( the present incumbent can be seen at http://www.smudger59kes.co.uk/forum if you are interested). Anyway the Smudger luck struck again. I tried to install the upgrade patch to the invision board we had working and bogged it up. Tried installing (or rather reinstalling) the latest version of the phpBB board, and made a pigs ear of that. Totally uninstalled both of them (and that took a while because they had to be manually removed, entry by entry, using my FTP client), walked away from the computer to scream and curses under my breath.

Went back to it yesterday morning, and started again. Luckily for me there weren't many posting to loose, but now I have, again , a working Forum Board - for now at least -

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F1: Big chance for pretenders Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen are poised to seize the championship lead at the US GP.

[via BBC News | World | UK Edition]

 

Hurray, it's Grand Prix day, and it is the US Grand prix today. Mind you I not sure whether I will get to see it though. I have a bedroom to paint and somewhere to go tonight - and they are showing the whole race from 06.00 p.m.

 

At least, it appears, it will be a good race

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Antibiotics crisis 'looming' Thousands could die because antibiotics are becoming ineffective, a UK scientist tells the BBC.

[via BBC News | UK | UK Edition]

 

Don't you find this scary - I do. It has been commented on for some years that the over use of Anti-biotics may become a problem, but over the last few years the stories of Hospital Infections, that have become "immune" to antibiotics has grown. From what I understand, however, there is little or nothing they can use as an alternative.

 

Where do they go from here?

 

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Doctor Who to return to TV - official No longer lost in the Vortex    [via The Register]

Am I sad or what. I used to watch Doctor Who as a child, usually from behind the Sofa - LOL. I must admit, my favourite was John Pertwee, and then, probably , the last "TV" doctor Sylvester Mcoy. Part of it's attraction where the dodgy "cardboard" sets, the "desolate" planet surfaces that seemed to have been filmed in the same abandoned quarry, and then, of course where some of the equally dodgy Monsters. The Darleks and the Cybermen seemed to have had some thought put into them , even if the Daleks did threaten mankind with a sink plunger and that most deadly of weapons, the hand whisk.

I'm glad that they appear to be making the arrangements for a new series although, like most things these days, they seem to make a lot of the "who will be the doctor?" part of the story.

I don't really know who I would like to be the Doctor, but every time they changed the actor, they, generally, seemed to find someone who fitted the bill.

All I hope is that they don't spoil it by trying to be to "modern" if you know what I mean. TV series have been spoiled, not because of the stories, or the actors and actresses, but because they have over done the modern special effects, usually because, as far as I can see, they have the technology and they ARE going to use, whether the program needs it or not.