Another year has flown by already, and we are well and truly into the run up to Christmas.
It’s a great time of year to be in Manchester, with the Christmas market in full swing. The market is based on a German Christmas market, with log cabin style stalls and lots of sausages, pancakes, beer and whatever that hot wine stuff is called.
I still can’t believe it’s nearly Christmas, which is good and bad. Good side; its Christmas! Bad side; coursework, coursework, coursework!!!
I was looking at the stats to my website, and I am always amused but the search terms people have used to find this site. I also noticed that there are loads of questions so I thought I’d have a bit of fun by trying to answer some of the most frequent in no particular order!
minimagination
Minimagination is a site I developed recently and is for a business who produce cards from artwork kids produce in school. It’s good fun, and you can create your cards here.
Biggest tesco in europe
As far as I know, the largest Tesco in Europe is in Coventry at the Rico park. It is a huge structure which fell victim to flooding early this year.
Unitemps
Unitemps is a student temping agency based at The University of Warwick (which few people know is actually in Coventry). Last year a hacker broke into their system and stole everybody’s data, including mine! I did get a few jobs from them, and everything was fine there, so I hope they have increased their security.
Intension Church
Intension is a church based in Manchester’s Northern Quarter (also known as N4). I have been going to Intension for quite a while. Currently we meet on Saturday evenings at 7.30pm in the basement of 11 Stevenson Square.
Pinky and the Brain website
Pinky and the Brain was a great cartoon from my childhood. It involved two mice; Pinky and the Brain. Every night they would sneak out of their cages and try to take over the world! It was brilliant. I found a website which was quite funny: http://www-public.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de/~fischeni/
Cheep broadband
With broadband you generally get what you pay for. I’m with Tiscali who seem fairly good. I wanted unlimited downloads and low cost which I got for around £15. However Tiscali is not the best ISP, they do block some file sharing and I have been unable to access some sites due to exchange problems.
zen broadband
Zen is the best broadband I every had. Expensive though, but worth it. Shame about the download limits now.
Leaving tiscali uk
One of the problems when changing broadband supplier is having the risk of being without internet for ages. If you cancel your broadband supplier and then order another from a different company, this process will generally take around 3 weeks which a minimum of 1 week without broadband. However all is not lost! To prevent this lengthy wait, demand a MAC code (Migration-Authority-Code) from your ISP which they are obligated to give you. Give this to your new ISP and the switch will happen after around 7 days with an interruption in service of about an hour.
Weekend away alpha course & alpha course in manchester uk
The alpha course is an introduction to Christianity. It gives people to voice their problems with it and get answers. The weekend away is the vital part of the course. I have just got back from the Intension alpha weekend away which was great fun! Check out Intension Alpha for more info.
The Dancing Diggers
The dancing diggers are a display team of JCB drivers who push their diggers to the limit. I couldn’t find a video of the actual team but found one of JCB Ballet: http://www.luckykazoo.com/media/2005/06/jcb-ballet.html
UK Nova signup script
I wrote the uknova signup script to allow people to sign-up. The UKNova site is fairly poor for this as they don’t tell people the site is full, just shows them a blank page. However I am being accused of DDOS attack for using a script which makes 1 HTTP request every 30 seconds… sounds like slow surfing rather than DDOS!
How are google docs & spreadsheets implemented?
Using Javascript and AJAX. You will be able to see exactly how if you view the source while using the site.
How to host a server with bulldog
You will need a router that can do port forwarding (which nearly all can do) and forward whichever port you want to server on to your internal IP. For HTTP it’s port 80. Another thing to do is get a Dynamic DNS name from DynDns.org. It’s free and will allow you to point a readable URL like yourname.dyndns.org at your IP address. Then get a program to update the IP as bulldog gives dynamic IP’s which change regularly.
Internal company blogs
…generally hard to find as they are Internal!
fckeditor spreadsheets
I don’t think they exist, sorry! Try google docs.
starbucks in borders coventry
Coventry’s only Starbucks is in Borders at the Rico park shopping area. It’s quite a nice one, but Coventry desperately needs more coffee shops to replace the excessive amount of phone shops! I think we should start the campaign to get more in Coventry. If you want great coffee in Coventry, go to Java Joe’s on Corperation Street, it is part of my misspent youth but a quite fantastic place.
I’m bored of typing now, but the ones below are the one’s I was going to do, if you really want me to talk about one, leave a comment!
step placement
setting up zen broadband
coventry uk alpha course
channel 4 pro ana documentary
intension manchester
uknova shut down
manchester ikea treasure hunt
linux hp photosmart c3180
manchester’s big wheel
how much is a ride on the big wheel manchester
alpha course starbucks
pauls milk logo
gui-installer gentoo
manchester university blog
virgin broadband on linux
uk nova cant sign up
wagamama cook books
milkman supermarket milk prices
Fair-trade products have spread through the UK rapidly in the past few years with many people favoring them to standard ones.
These fair-trade products are generally identified by the Fairtrade Cooperation’s Logo, however only products from third world countries can be branded with this logo, leaving many other producers without any means of preventing loss of revenue by the forced reduction of price by suppliers.
Milk is a prime example, with supermarkets forcing down the price of staples to attempt to gain a greater market share in an already competitive market.
The supermarkets are starting to stock “premium” milk produced by local farmers. This milk is generally a few pence more expensive, however it yields a far fairer and greater profit for the farmer. In general the public does not know that by paying a few pence more for the “premium” locally farmed milk they are actually helping farmers stay in business. The supermarkets say the responsibility in now with the consumer as they are providing these products in store.
So all i can say, buy premium, locally farmed milk and support fair-trade in the UK!
Today the Adam and Baggy show blasted out on the airwaves of Coventry under the new name of “The Alex Show… with Adam”.
The Adam and Baggy show is the very popular podcast of two guys from Coventry, recorded on an old-school iPod, but now they have gone big-time on RAW which is the Warwick University radio station.
The show got of to a ropey start but came good playing an eclectic mix of tunes mixed with the traditional whit of Adam and Alex (Baggy).
You can check out the show on their website: http://podcast.evilfishadam.co.uk/index.php
[tags]Radio, Warwick University, Coventry, Podcast[/tags]