Personally, I have about:blank as my homepage for both Internet Explorer and FireFox. Why? Two reasons, primarily because I only have a measly allowance of 700 Mb per month, and also because the application loads a little quicker when it only need to display a blank page at start up. (Has anyone else noticed IE7 still takes a silly amount of time to achieve this?)
However, if I was not data limited, I would have setup a personalized homepage over at NetVibes.com a while ago - you can either create an account there, and have your choices saved permanently, or if you prefer to experiment with it a little first, you can just rely on a cookie saving your preferences for a certain amount of time. (If you do settle on one design, do reg an account, else you risk losing your choices eventually)
Thanks to a postie over at the PPP forums for the heads up on this site, I’ve forgotten who you are, but if you leave a comment, I’ll gladly link to you
This post is NOT sponsored, I’ve just been meaning to write about it for a while, apologies for the delay…

(UK Relevant)

The next time Ira and I return to Cheltenham, as Mum now lives in Clydach, and Dad is in Evesham, we might need to check hotel rooms. Luckily, there is a site specifically for Hotel Rooms & Accommodation in the UK, and after a quick check, they appear to have a fair selection. Should you wish to co-ordinate your trip all in one go, there are a number of options available to you, such as the Coastal Classics, Country Retreats & Short Breaks.

Couple of small problems I noticed, though nothing that will actually prevent you from finding a room. Using FireFox, the Javascript that pops up a calendar to choose your date on didn’t work, and when searching for a town from the index page, pressing return, instead of clicking on ‘Go’ made the server think I was attempting to join their mailing list. As you can enter dates manually, and click the button, these problems didn’t detract from my overall experience. Also, if you use Internet Explorer, both problems disappear.

(UK relevant)

Some people need quick loans to build an extension to their existing home, others have seen their dream car at a price that it is rare, whilst others may need a little help to finally go on their dream holiday.

For whatever reason, if you need a loan, and need one fast, www.Quick-Decision.co.uk may be just the site you’re looking for!

The site offer both secured and un-secured loans, and the application form is really easy to fill in.

They also have a run down on all sorts of companies you may need when looking for a loan.

If you happen to have the Skype plugin for FireFox installed, you will either need to disable it, or use Internet Explorer to see the site as originally intended, however this is the fault of the plugin, not Quick Decisions themsevles…

I’d like to tell you about a service I recently came across. I’m sure you are all aware of the favourites (Internet Explorer) or Bookmarks (FireFox) feature found on most browsers. Whenever you come across a site or particular page you are interested in, you can simply add it to your list, ready for recall the next time you need it.
BookmarkAll.com takes this idea, and progresses it to the next level, adding several very useful features, whilst retaining the familiarity and simplicity of your existing bookmarking system.

So, what are these new features? For those users who still use Internet Explorer 6, I’d particularly like to draw your attention to the fact you can add RSS feeds to your BookmarkAll list. No other (online) bookmarking service currently offer this feature. If you want to check if this blog has any more posts since your last visit, for example, you could simply click on the RSS feed bookmark, and a list of my most recent posts would appear.
This saves time, and if, like me, you have a limit on your downloads per month, will also help you, as you won’t use as much bandwidth, just to check if there are fresh posts. If you have any questions about RSS in general, feel free to leave a comment here. If you’d like to know more about how the RSS feature is such a great asset to the BookmarkAll system, please check their helpful explanation here.

The portability of the service means you can be anywhere - your friends house, at work, even on the opposite side of the world, and still have easy & convenient access to your favourite sites & news feeds, for example.

If you find that the type of site you visit may raise eyebrows at work - for example, you enjoy reading left-wing or liberal articles, and your boss is of a diametrically opposed belief system, you can keep your list away from prying eyes with this service.

Once you install their toolbar (available for both FireFox & Internet Explorer), you can easily access your bookmarks with just one click.

For a typical example of how the service will look, please see the following image…

Another interesting fusion of ideas is that this service can, if you wish, utilize the social side of public bookmarking. If you wish to expand your horizons, on a particular subject, then you can check what sites other people look at, that are related to the same subject.

So, give the service a go, and see what you think.

I’ve previously mentioned that if people use Internet Explorer 6 (rather than FireFox, or IE7) to view this site, they will not see what is intended. I’ve now discovered what caused the 2nd sidebar column to ’slip’ down the page, below the bottom of the 1st sidebar. It was when a site with a long URL was listed in the ‘We’re Linked From…’ section on the right.
I’ve now removed the original widget, found the JavaScript code to use from www.wholinked.com , and inserted it in a King Text widget. Problem solved.
One day I’ll move onto why the default FireFox extension for viewing online videos (WMVs in this case) results in a loss of audio/video sync, whereas WMP or off-line viewing displays no such errors.
Also created a proper 404 page this week, as I noticed some sites were using incorrect URLs to link to entries on this site, and the original error page wasn’t very useful. To check it out, enter in this site’s name, then invent a page, for example, you could try www.chrismerriman.com/THISpageDOESnotEXIST.htm or www.chrismerriman.com/ABCDEFGH.php etc. etc.

[EDIT] And, thanks, but there is no need to leave a comment that the links don’t work, as requested in the error page - save it for links that are SUPPOSED to open real pages ;>

This is a little video clip surrounding the London premiere of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

The audio isn’t perfect, as I had to raise the volume a little post-production, sorry. A reminder again, that FireFox users may experience a lack of audio/video synchronisation. Try viewing it in Internet Explorer for now.

Feel free to leave a note by clicking on the comments link below…

EDIT : If you find the first link to the video doesn’t work, please try This one instead. Thanks

EDIT2 : Wow, this page (well the alternative link for the vid) has suddenly eaten nearly all of my hosting bandwidth available for the rest of the month, so for now, it is the first link only. Leave a comment if people find problems with the first link, and I’ll try uploading it to youtube or something.

EDIT3 : Many months later I remembered to upload this to YouTube, so watch it all you like…

To see if it was able to render this site any better than v6. Good news is that the sidebars now appear correctly (next to each other), and images that are too wide for the post column no longer cause IE to throw a hissy fit and nudge the post containing the image 1/2 down the page. I could try and fix the issues for IE v6, but TBH, it isn’t very likely to occur.

OK, so I just happened to check how this site looks in IE, rather than my usual browser - FireFox - and the picture a couple of posts below this appears to have caused major issues. I tried fiddling with posts, modifying some CSS and swearing directly at the screen - loudly. Nothing worked. Afraid Internet Explorer users will just have to wait until the post appears below the bottom line of the two sidebars, then I think it will return to normal…