Mar 12 2008
Before I forget, I came across the following pictures over at the BBC News website. Thought you might like to see them?
So, no great surprise that none of my friends got round to reading the previous posts yet, but I see most of them on messenger, so I’ll assume no one’s house or car got trashed by falling trees etc.
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Nov 19 2007
The title pretty much says it all. Although I had seen her on Facebook since her plane had landed, I managed to catch her on Messenger earlier this morning. All appears to be going well, and she intends to add a post to her Dryad Musings blog soon. There was one in the middle of composition, but her net connection died, and I didn’t manage to give her the following piece of advice before it occurred…
For anyone who finds that there internet connections dies after hitting save or publish on their blog, and so they think they have lost the post…
1) Wait until you have got a successful connection to the internet again – DON’T do ANYTHING in the browser window/tab that was being used for your post composition
2) Hit the back button in your browser
3) Hit the forward button in your browser, and when you get a warning re. POST data, click OK
4) Ta Da, data should be magically saved.
Of course you could just regularly save drafts as you write the message 🙂
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Jul 21 2007
Chris has finally moved out from his parents. Good luck to him. He sadly has not moved his PC over to his new place yet, so I do not see him on messenger as often. I am sure he is enjoying his new found freedom, and that his parents are perhaps feeling ambivalent about their son no longer living so near to them, but also having made the final step towards independence.
If you ever get around to reading this Chris, please do let us know how things are going. Oh, and WRITE A POST ON THIS BLOG re. LAST YEAR’S TRIP HERE….
Anyway, I hope he enjoys his new place, does not get too drunk too often, or at least no more than previously 😉
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Jul 17 2007
In a similar vein to the previous post for Alex’s bro, this post is being written as a friend needs some help, and I am too appalled at the thought of typing it all into a messenger window, only to need it again in the future. I hope some other random person will one day find this post through a search engine, and find the contents useful. For anyone else, please indulge me a moment, normal random postings will resume shortly 😉
Firstly, some basic terminology / concepts to get a grip of, before proceeding.
PPC – For the purposes of this post, PPC can be safely assumed to refer to a Windows Mobile powered Pocket PC, such as an iPAQ.
RAR or ZIP files – These can be safely opened on your PC. See later for details.
EXE files – These are normally installation programs that will use ActiveSync to install a program for you automatically, the next time you plug your PPC into it’s cradle or USB lead. However, occasionally, you will find an EXE file that produces an error on your PC, when you try to run it. It may state something like ‘Not A Valid Win32 Application’. If this is the case, don’t despair, it is simply a program meant to run directly on your PPC, not your PC
CAB file – do NOT ever open or extract these files on your PC. In that path heart ache does lay. Follow instructions below.
Sync – for the purposes of this post, any mention of sync refers to you plugging your PPC into your PC. Whether it be via a cradle, USB lead, bluetooth or WiFi (if you have an old version of ActiveSync, before such usefulness was disabled), the end result is the same – the little circle in your system tray, that belongs to ActiveSync, should eventually go green, and stop rotating.
Anyway, back to the main reason for this post – how to install programs…
Open ONLY RAR or ZIP files on your PC :
Extract them somewhere temporarily (don’t delete until you know for certain program is working, not just as a demo, if you have ‘purchased’ a full version)
IF, and ONLY IF the extracted files is a CAB, then copy it via to your PPC (see below)
Always check the included documentation, but you can normally leave any other files on your PC – TXT NFO DOC files etc
How to copy CAB files?
Either eject your SD memory card, and put it in card reader in your PC, then copy the CAB file as you would any other type
OR plug your PPC into it’s cradle or USB lead, make sure ActiveSync says Synced or Connected. Right Click green circle icon in your PC’s system tray, and select ‘explore’ OR open the ActiveSync main window, select the File Menu, then ‘explore’
In either case navigate to My Windows Mobile-based Device (or words similar), then Storage Card, then copy the required file(s) as you would to any other directory or drive, such as a memory stick.
What now? Now open your favourite file explorer program on your PPC, navigate to the SD card, and THEN you can open the CAB file. It will install the program semi-automatically for you. When given a choice between the internal memory or your SD card, there are two factors to consider before deciding which location is best. In almost all cases, a large program should only be installed on the SD card. If the program is small, but is not needed often, or not likely to require fast transfers to operate normally, again install it to the SD card. If the program is something that will automatically load each time your PPC is started up, or is very small AND needs fast transfers or access times, ONLY then install to SD cards. Other may argue with this approach, but over time, you will find a few programs that give you no option as to where they will be installed – leave your PPC’s internal memory for those times. Also, the internal memory is dynamically split between storage space and operating memory. As a rough analogy, imagine you could use some of your PC’s 2Gb of RAM as a storage area (yes a RAM Drive before any geeks giggle and point). Now imagine you filled that 2Gb with crap you didn’t need very often. There would be little space left for anything interesting, such as large buffers or game playing resources.
If you happen to have found a PPC EXE file within your extracted RAR or ZIP file, copy them in the same manner as I mentioned above, except you will need to create a directory for the EXE file somewhere on your PPC first. You can dump it anywhere, but it makes it easier to spring clean / trouble shoot an issue if each application has its own distinct directory.
If the file you have is a normal PC EXE file, then when you run it, the program will actually copy and run the CAB file it contains for you automatically, the next time you sync your PPC.
May 06 2007
Today we popped over to the in laws, and had a nice meal. I had burgers for the second day in a row, so I’m happy. Although I had to return home a little earlier than usual, more details in a sec, we managed to fit in a little planting of potatoes in the back garden, which went surprisingly well. It now appears my major weakness, in horticultural terms, is just turning the soil over, prior to the planting phase.
Anyway, we’re now back at home, and I’m communicating with ChrisD who is (aside from a lazy git for still not writing a short entry on his visit to Kazakhstan last year & hopefully coming later this year) at Mum & Johns, trying to sort their two PCs. John and I have managed to sort a small amount of issues over Messenger, but some things require a little familiarity with PCs, and I can work wonders remotely, but not miracles :-P. I’m sure John will forgive me when he reads this.
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Mar 16 2007
Unfortunately, since I ended up re-installing XP just prior to getting my ADSL connection working & therefore downloading a lot of updates, I’ve used up my 700 meg quota this month, so I’m back to dial up for the rest of the month 🙁
Not many UK friends seem to be reading this blog right now anyway, judging from the IP addresses of visitors, so you’ll probably only end up asking my why I disappeared the next time I’m on-line in Messenger, but it was worth a shot.
Before I forget, if anyone knows :
a) Where Windows Update downloads are stored, and if you can simply copy them across from one install of XP to another, to save downloading them all over again
and/or
b) Why I’m unable to remember a simple list of two things whilst typing out the first
then PLEASE leave a comment below….
Finally, thank you to the random blokes from Britain who kept me & Ira entertained last night on Skype – I’d just used the ‘Skype-Me’ mode for the first time, and they were looking for people on-line from strange countries to talk to. I’m apparently 46% chav & 31% emo, according to the questionnaires they sent links for!
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Nov 30 2006
For the last couple of hours there was no http transfer, at first e-mail still worked, and Skype was working fine, but web sites and Messenger didn’t work.
Then e-mail dropped out.
It may have just been flaky DNS servers, as nothing was resolving, but I’m thinking it was a little closer to the back bone servers than a simple Kazakh Telecom dial up servers though, as K-Cell’s GPRS service had the same problems. Unless K-Cell use the same DNS servers as Kazakh Telecom !??
I’m guessing not a large amount of other people will have noticed, as the problems took place approximately between 2 and 4am…
Oct 13 2006
I’ve been working for 3 hours, and the final shock…. I’ve already had a full nights sleep!!!
Looks like there is hope for me eventually going to bed the same time as most people around me, and getting up before midday :>
It will, however, mean that I’m not online with Messenger when my friends in the UK are, other than weekends…
Irina’s Mum now has ADSL, at a whopping 128Kbit ! We’re still waiting for WiMax to progress out of it’s testing phase, or if that fails, for our phone line to be transferred out of the clutches of our flat’s maintenance/telecommunications over-charging company, so we can get ADSL as well.
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Aug 18 2006
OK, as promised, here is some more info, from Mum & John’s perspective.
This is basically a cut’n’paste job from an e-mail they sent to family and friends (with permission I hasten to add ;>)
“”For those of you ancient enough to Radio 4 be familiar with Alistair Cooke’s “Letter from America” this is likely to seem a pale comparison. Certainly less erudite and not as well crafted – but hopefully it will inform and maybe even amuse, though the political comment will be markedly absent!
This is Carol’s second visit to this amazing country and my first. As we flew in at night the lack of any settlements for hundreds of miles prior to landing in Astana was perplexing. It was hard to comprehend such vast tracts of land without population. Then Astana appears on the Kazakh Steppes resembling a modern Emirate city. Disney could not have bettered it! When Carol was here last she arrived through the back door, via the old capital of Almaty, then a twenty three hour train journey across a hot and dusty terrain. She made the trip for her son (Chris) & daughter in law’s (Irina) marriage. Jokingly she had said as she left to Irina’s father that he was to have a new airport built on her return. He did – and a pretty impressive airport to boot! It is so refreshing to see architecture which is not afraid to be adventurous, particularly in the teeth of such extreme weather conditions. Thankfully on this trip it has been kind to Carol & me, between 21°C & 30°C. The temperature can famously vary between -30°C in the winter to +40°C during the short summer months.
Continue reading “A Little Later Than Intended”
Dec 08 2006
This Week, I Have Been Mainly Using
OK, as promised a long, long time ago, here are all the Plugins & Widgets used on this site. Some links are not directly to the author’s site, as a few domains have expired, or their servers are too flakey to rely on…
About Me – A wonderfully simple, does-what-it-says-on-the-tin widget.
Adhesive – This plugin’s effect will be familiar to forum readers, as it keeps a particular post ‘sticky’ at the top of the page, rather than naturally slipping down the page as newer posts appear.
Akismet – This is wonderful! It has prevented me from having to manually check almost 100 spamming comments so far. There are alternatives, and other approaches, but it has certainly saved me a lot of grunt work…
All Consuming – This is responsible for showing which books I’ve read recently, and which I’m currently reading. I noticed a bug/feature in an earlier release, and the author kindly gave me credit for noticing how to fix the error. This problem has now been solved properly, but it was good to see my thoughts actually helped someone…
Auto-Hyperlink URLs – If I forget to assign a formal hyperlink to an internet address, this plug-in tries to help.
Commenter Spy – not quite as scary as it sounds, just gives me a shortcut to find the approx. geographical location of a commenter’s IP (or more accurately, their ISP).
GetWeather – The 3 weather reports on the right hand side of each page are generated from this plug in.
IM Online – As in I’m online and IM (instant messenger). Shows whether I am connected to the internet with Windows Live Messenger and Skype.
King RSS Widget – WorkInProgress – will edit my post once I’ve used this plugin properly.
King Text Widget – VERY, VERY useful widget. It allows you to basically convert any script or normal plugin into a widget. Currently used extensively on this site, at least until ‘proper’ widgets are found for each purpose.
Manage Me – Makes managing multiple posts/comments a lot easier in the admin area for this blog. (Author’s relevant post used to be found at http://www.stilglog.com/wordpress-plugins/manage-me/ , but site is down, as of 10/04/2009 at least)
No Ping Wait – Currently disabled for trouble-shooting purposes, but this plugin allows me to carry on working immediately after Publishing a blog entry, rather than waiting for a response from each service I ‘ping’ to inform them of a new entry here.
Simple Cache – Prevents identical data from being constantly reloaded. As an example, the weather report for Cheltenham, Swansea & Astana aren’t likely to change every 5 minutes, so this plug in checks the last time the data was retrieved from GetWeather’s servers, and if it was recent, will simply serve the cached data.
VideoPop – This allows me to post videos with a simple pop-up player, rather than requiring people to know too much about file types etc.
WhoLinked – Displays which sites link to this one.
Word Stats – This allows you to easily post (& automatically update) the vital statistics of your blog. It can be downloaded from Google.
Zap_NewWindow – This one makes sure that if a reader clicks on a link in one of your posts, the site will open in a new window, so you don’t lose the reader. There is an annoying pop-over ad at his blog right now – close it, then close the new window/tab to see the real text.
Sidebar Widgets – Without this, none of the widgets mentioned above would work!
The theme currently used on this blog is Ainslie Johnson’s Chameleon 1.1.
Oh, and btw, this post’s title refers to a Fast Show quote, in case it makes no sense to some people…
[EDIT]
OK, having compiled this list, I remembered a couple of things I wanted to try out, so you can now add the following two to your list of things to check out if/when you have a WordPress blog…
Inline Ajax Comments – This means you can check the comments on a post without leaving the main page. Took me a while to trouble shoot the insertion of two simples lines of code. I finally realised that the ‘Show Comments’ text would only actually appear under posts that already had a comment! (Used to be found at http://kashou.net/blog/inline-ajax-comments/ , currently the whole site just appears to bring graphic up)
WordPress Mobile Edition – Trying to view this blog on a PDA or SmartPhone just takes too long (GPRS speeds not being that great in Kazakhstan at least) & results in a difficult page to navigate (even with a good browser like NetFront on a PDA), so I decided to give this plugin a try. It seems to work like a charm, picking up both IE & NetFront on the iPAQ…
[EDIT2]
24/2/07 Update
Do Follow – Allow commenters own sites to get the juice they deserve :>
PostPost – A way of automatically adding content (in my case adverts) after your posts. (Also has a lot of other options available)
WordPress Related Links – I’m still not 100% on whether to keep this one or not. It adds links to related sites at the end of my posts. Will have to monitor sometime, and check it isn’t just earning someone else a lot of money from my drivel :>
Google Sitemaps – I’ve had this installed since the first day this blog existed, but never got round to using it for some reason. As I had to re-create all my article web sites, and so re-submit their site maps, I decided to give this plug in a go.
Cloudy – Finally, a plugin & widget that does what I need, without having to remember to edit some PHP next time I wipe a file accidentally. The word cloud you can now see on the right, in the second column, is the result.
Tags: Adhesive, Adverts, Ajax, Akismet, All Consuming, Astana, Auto-Hyperlink, Chameleon, Cheltenham, Cloudy, Commenter Spy, Comments, Country, DoFollow, GetWeather, Google, Google Sitemaps, GPRS, HP iPAQ Headphone/Headset, IM Online, Inline Ajax Comments, instant messenger, internet address, IP address, ISP, Kazakhstan, King RSS Widget, King Text Widget, Manage Me, Messenger, Microsoft Windows, NetFront, No Ping Wait, PIE, player, Plugins, RSS, Simple Cache, Skype, Smartphone, Spam, Swansea, United Kingdom, VideoPop, Weather, WhoLinked, Widgets, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Mobile, Word Stats, WordPress, Wordpress Database Backup, Wordpress Mobile Edition, Wordpress Related Links, Zap New Window
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