Jun 29 2009
At least I think this was Singleton Park. Anyway, just after New Year, Ira, John, Gwen and I went for a walk in the park, and he took a few shots…
If I have remembered the location correctly, then click the read more link below to see a satellite photo of the area. If I’ve not remembered where we were, then, well, click the link to see a photo of the area we weren’t in at the time 🙂
Continue reading “Singleton Park”
Jun 23 2009
So, continuing the series of Amsterdam 2007 photos, here is the next batch…
We took a few snapshots of the apartment itself. Not exactly in tip top condition – fridge door disconnected from the cupboard door, broken slats on the camp beds, TV not working properly, but it was cheap, relatively clean, and central to the coffeeshops we were interested in.
This is Alex and me at the dining table
Next we have the bathroom
Alex on the apartment’s balcony
Finally, click below to see the rest of this post – a Google map embed of where the apartment is, roughly.
Continue reading “Amsterdam 2007 Photos #2”
Jun 18 2009
I have been meaning to process all the images stored on this server for a while, and watermark them with this site’s name. Why? Because I see from my server logs that quite a few are used across the internet (often in Arabic forums and MySpace pages, for some reason), and if others wish to use these pictures, I’d like to get a free advert out of it as well 🙂
However, a family in America discovered another reason for branding their own photos – a Czech company (that specializes in sales of imported Italian food) had taken their happy family snapshot, and used it in their own promotional materials! See an article on it here.
Anyway, unless and until I get anywhere near hitting my monthly data transfer allowance with my web host, I’ll be happy to just watermark the pictures with ChrisMerriman.com, and not take the drastic last step of replacing the file with an identically named one featuring a goatse. (The idea being that on your own site, you update any references to the new filename of the original image). Don’t go and google that word, unless you have a strong stomach, and aren’t at work/in front of children right now.
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Jun 03 2009
A friend here in Astana has created a web site for the Zhuldyz Centre (a centre for child development, based on the Montessori method). Currently, none of the major search engines have indexed the site, despite there being no apparent major issues preventing them from doing so. Knowing very little about the methods involved with this style of education/development, I took a while to read some of the pages, and also checked out Wiki’s entry on the Montessori method.
I would be interested to find out how progressive the methods used at the Zhuldyz centre are, as in whether they adhere to strictly earlier ‘pure’ Montessori, or whether they have followed other practitioners and modified the theories and approaches to take into account reviews and criticism. I could be wrong, but I think the last time I came across this method of teaching was a Newsround report, a good 20-odd years ago. (Newsround is (was?) a children’s news programme on BBC1, in case American readers have no idea what I’m on about.)
May 20 2009
Forgot 2incl GPS link previously. Feel free 2click & have a look around our Kazakh neighbourhood. http://is.gd/BCfC http://twitpic.com/5jn96
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May 03 2009
After leaving Dad’s in Evesham, we went on into Cheltenham, where Irina had managed to find a good deal on a room at the Queens hotel. Whether the room was not as plush as their standard rooms, or it was simply a case that the hype accorded to this hotel increases your expectations, we couldn’t be sure. Nothing wrong with the place per se, just not as ‘wow’ as we expected. We met up with Ira’s friends from when she worked at PKL and had a nice meal at Cafe Rouge. From there we went on to meet up with the other Irina and her boyfriend, as well as ChrisD, Steve and Emma, over in the beer gardens.
Apr 22 2009
Gwen had her haircut. Looking much smarter and cooler for it. AlexC, Mat & seb all arived fine. http://twitpic.com/3rggp http://is.gd/tQFc
Gwen Haircut Short Ears
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Apr 14 2009
german man or woman of good standing? http://twitpic.com/3boyi http://is.gd/srUs
London Hotel German Car Number Plate
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Apr 08 2009
Try setting a 1×1 BMP as the background image, on a Windows Mobile device. That will teach me…
(Yes, I now realise a 240×320 image makes more sense, I was hoping to save some memory by having a tiled 1×1 black background, but it didn’t work too well.) Also finally got around to installing the latest Barcorama install (see previous posts or pop over to XDA Developers, or just google 🙂 ). Will have a play and report back later.
Hmmm, problems with the transparency level I set in Resco Photo viewer now not being accepted, and also 240×320 is the resolution for the whole screen, not the area the today screen actually uses for displaying a photo. If I don’t use a custom background, I’m stuck with the one embedded in the TSK file, and I want to use the colour scheme from a TSK, but not the author’s image.
Finally… a 213×320 JPG that was slightly off-black seems to have done the trick – the 240×320 BMP exhibited some strange vertical banding as a background image, don’t know if that was an original colour/dimension/filetype issue, but all seems fine now.
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Jun 12 2009
WordPress 2.8 Upgrade Problems
OK, problem sorted. I don’t know which of this site’s plugins caused this blog to be unable to automatically upgrade to WordPress 2.8, but after deactivating all of them, the process completed at the first attempt. Just in case this helps other blogs, if you currently have any of the following activated, you may want to disable them all, upgrade, and then obviously re-enable them. Akismet, All in One Adsense and YPN, All in One SEO Pack, Auto Thickbox, Broken Link Checker, Comment Referrers, DandyID Services, Different Posts Per Page, Easy IP2Country, Executable PHP widget, FeedBurner FeedSmith, Fuzzy Recent Comments, Google XML Sitemaps, MiniMeta Widget, MyBlogLog: Just for you, MyBlogLog Recent Readers Widget, No Frames, Revision Control, runPHP, ShareThis, Subscribe To Comments, Twitter Tools, WordPress Automatic Upgrade, WordPress Related Posts, WP-Blackcheck, wp-GotLucky, wp-headlineanimator, WP-o-Matic, WP Calais Archive Tagger, WP Calais Auto Tagger, WP Security Scan and finally Zap_NewWindow 🙂
You can now see why I didn’t follow the correct protocol (disable one by one) to discover which plugin was the naughty one 🙂 If I had to lay money on it, I’m guessing the No Frames plugin caused problems (I had already tried disabling the external WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin), but I have no proof whatsoever.
Tags: Comment Referrers, correct protocol, DandyID Services, Different Posts Per Page, FeedBurner, Google, Link Checker, ShareThis, twitter, WordPress, XML
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