Happy Christmas!

To my loyal readership, a happy Christmas and best wishes for the new year.

I shall be on holiday, so my blog might be a bit sparse for the few weeks while I'm away. (Unless MMS now works internationally in South Africa.)

At home with JD

Just me and a few bottles of Jack Daniels!

Gone mobile

Cool! Blogging about my mobile blog. My Sony Ericsson K610i has built in blogging capability, and it really was so simple to set it up to send articles to my blog. You get a claim token sent back to you in a text; just enter the token at go.blogger.com. Make sure you're logged in first, then you get the option to move your post and future posts to your own blog.

Sense of humour failure

The opportunity presented itself so well in my local Tesco this afternoon, I thought I'd give it a go.

I couldn't see what I was looking for, so I asked an employee: "Excuse me, do you have chestnuts?"

And without batting an eyelid, he replied "Yes, they should be on the shelf over there."

I ask you - where do they get these people from?

(Mind you, it was only after the moment passed, I realised I should have replied, "Doesn't that hurt?")

How to get a PS3 for free

This conversation really happened:

Grandson : I want a Playstation 3.

Nan : How much do they cost?

Grandson : £299.

Nan : Wow, that's quite a lot of money, you know.

Grandson : Yeah but I know how to get one for free.

Nan : Really? How?

Grandson : You get one for Christmas.

Priceless!

Java for Mac OS X 10.4, Release 6

Apple have updated Java for Mac OS X 10.4.

Don't get too excited, I got confused by the name as well... it's not Java 6 for Mac OS X, it's Java Release 6 - an update for J2SE 5.0 and Java 1.4

Still no Java 6 for OS X :-(

[UPDATED]

Looks like I spoke too soon.

Custom domain customised

How easy was that?! I wanted to use my own domain to 'host' my blog.

I looked at going down the FTP publishing route, but that requires the articles to be published to my host, thus using disk quota (albeit only a tiny amount of space).

Using a custom domain for my blog requires one update to my domain settings - I want to use an address like blog.spfweb.co.uk, so I just followed blogger's instructions on using custom domains

My host provider is UK based 34SP.COM. They allow you to update your own DNS records:

1. Login to your account at 34SP


2. Click the 'more' link next to your hosting account


3. Scroll to the DNS MANAGEMENT section


4. Add a new DNS record:




• Record type: 'CNAME'


• Domain: the prefix for the domain, in my case 'blog'


• Canonical name: enter 'ghs.google.com' (no trailing dot), and the drop down next to it should be '.'


• Click 'add record'

You will have to wait up to 24 hours before the changes take effect. Use dig or other name lookup tool to confirm that your new host name resolves to ghs.google.com.

When the update has taken effect, continue with the instructions to update your blog's publishing settings. (If you don't wait for the DNS changes at 34SP to take effect but continue with changing your blog's publishing settings, your blog will be inaccessible for a while until the changes take effect.)

Am I a terrorist?

OK, so now we've established I may be a bit weird with these electric shock games, my only worry is what will happen when I attempt to take one on holiday (on a flight) with me in a couple of weeks?

If I put it in my hand luggage, what will the security x-ray scanner make of it?  If it's in my suitcase will it still be x-rayed? 

I'll pack a tube of K-Y Jelly just in case...

Am I a sadist?

Among the presents I've bought for friends this year for Christmas are a Shock Ball and Who Dares Burns chilli sauce

Does that make me a sadist?

Sadism. Noun. "The deriving of pleasure, or the tendency to derive pleasure, from cruelty." 

   - dictionary.reference.com

I don't know, but it's going to be fun finding out!

Back home

Ah ha! I knew I wasn't on Pacific time!  

Blog settings > Formatting > Time zone. 

Now I'm back in London.

RUN_

Well, I never thought I'd get around to it, but here it is - my own personal blog!

For my penance, I am a software engineer (or computer programmer, or software designer, or computer geek?). I work for igence, a small but growing company in Surrey.

So, what will this blog bring forth to the world at large? I expect the majority of articles will be about my take on software, and I might even surprise some of you with non-software related stuff as well!

(For some strange reason I find myself wanting to write blob instead of blog.)