A Weeks Hiatus

So, it has to be said that, one week on, I am not missing anything that is Facebook-related. Not the petty arguments, the flame wars, random people being offended by random posts/shares, and certainly not those making wild, outrageous and downright nasty comments either in general, or on world events...

And I have to be honest here - there's not actually anything that interesting there anyway. If you get your world news or world views from Facebook, it's probably too late for you already. Half the "really funny" stuff is older than rock, and the other half is filled with videos of people pissing around on Vine.

I did get one message - a text, that is, I'm logged out of Facebook AND Facebook Messenger - asking why I was posting so much to Facebook, considering I'm apparently sulking and not on there... Turns out my Twitter feed is linked to my Facebook account, so each time I Tweet, Facebook posts it. So if you think I'm on Facebook, I'm really not - the fact it says "Posted from Twitter" or whatever should be the biggest giveaway there!

Other than that, it's been a long week - mainly because (as alluded to before) my medical crap is definitely kicking my arse at the moment. My meds are doing squat, and my body feels like it's slowly spiralling and shutting down... I DID have an appointment with a pain management clinic, but thanks to my brain being - well, my brain - I got confused on dates, times and locations of said-appointment. Needless to say, I went to the wrong place. At the wrong time. On the wrong day. AFTER missing my appointment. So, they discharged me as clearly I was wasting their time. Despite Kellie phoning and explaining the situation.

So that's been nice.

It's not just the physical shit that has been flying into the fan... No no, that'd be easy. And manageable. No, it's also the mental shit. Having to be told and reminded and retold of a date or time or to do something. Reading through stuff but getting absolutely nowhere fast. Failing to follow plots or characters in TV programs. Slurring and getting tongue tied and muddled up trying to form simple sentences... It's all been a bit much for me really. As usual, some days are worse than others - it's all I can do to get up and put on pyjamas some days - but it's definitely been hard for me this year.

I've found my energy levels are a lot worse than they have been too... I have resorted to collapsing in bed if my body thinks it needs to crash. A few weeks ago, I slept from Friday through til Monday, only waking once or twice. This week, I went to bed Friday lunchtime and woke up Saturday evening. I think my body isn't quite so happy with my usual "just push through it" routine, and has taken to punishing me.

My sleep is all screwed up too, and I've resorted to Amytriptyline once again, but not every night. However, on it or off it, my brain keeps funny hours. We might go to bed at ten, and I'll flake out within half an hour... Only to wake at half two, toss and turn for a couple of hours, resort to reading or putting on something quiet to watch... By half five I give up and get up, and then carry on through awake til bedtime the following night. The other side of that suck salad, is the complete opposite. We'll got to bed, and I take a tablet... Only to lay wide awake til three or four, at which point my brain remembers it's been drugged, and puts me to sleep - and there I stay til early afternoon.

So for those wondering, yes I'm still "ill" and no my body isn't improved or better.

Ho hum.

In other news, I finally got a Chromecast, and if you don't have one, I really really highly recommend it. Easy to set up, even easier to use... I'm fairly sure even older people will understand it!

And last but not least, after a rather long break from World of Warcraft, the boys have managed to twist my arm and get me interested again... That, and the cinematic for the next expansion looks stunning, plus the upcoming Warcraft movie looks amazing. World of Warcrack has, slowly but surely, sucked me back in over the last couple of weeks! Dom even bought me the current expansion - though I suspect his ulterior motive was more that he always looked so sad and disappointed when he realised I played Minecraft!

Hopefully, getting back into WoW will help divert my attention away from the pain and general suckiness that is my body. That might sound like a bad thing, but it's not, I promise. I always used to enjoy Warcraft for the escapism aspect, as well as the fact it distracts me from the pain shooting through my body!

In general, life is just plodding on here at Chez English. Poppy keeps us all entertained, busy and on our toes - and she is definitely spoiled by everyone. But then, I think it's her right as youngest, prettiest and most evil (she clearly has evil mind-control powers) to be doted on by brothers, sisters, grandparents, friends, family and random strangers on the bus.

For any of the TL;DR crowd out there... Still not on Facebook, still ill, going back to wow, Poppy is great.

Sodding Tech!

Warning: Geeky Tech Post! For the most part, I am a calm, placid thinker. If I need to fix something, I will go through it step-by-step, working out what is wrong, how it needs to be fixed, and how to do it.

Every now and then, however, I come up across something that I bash my head against over and over until I want to scream and throw something out the window.

My current frustration level is rated at "Ochre" or "Don't pass beneath my windows" all thanks to something that fits in the palm of my hand.

Er, no, naughty...

For my birthday, Kellie got me a Nintendo DSi. For the last few years, I've been playing on a original DS Lite which has seen better days. The brightness was stuck, the top screen was damaged, the hinge kept flopping closed, the buttons were a bit wonky, and it had the battery life of a 90-year old woman trying to run up a flight of stairs.

That is, it would collapse and roll over within moments.

So, for my birthday, I got a nice shiny spanky new DSi. Go me. My first thought was that - unlike the DS which didn't connect to any new-style router - the DSi WOULD connect, and not only give me internet access, but allow me to play games online with others.

Hurrah and Huzz - waaaait a minute...

Yes, the DSi connects to the router. YES, it lets me access the web and stuff. However, the games STILL don't connect to proper routers - the only way you can play online is if you disable all security or just have WEP security - which, to be honest, is like putting a sticky plaster on squirty artery.

I have spent the last few days reading, testing, trying, failing, starting over, trying to work out a way around this. As far as I can see, my options are:

Disable Router Security/Switch to WEP
Having no security would allow anyone to connect to my router and use my internet connection or access my files. Switching to WEP is pretty much the same thing, as WEP Security can be broken in minutes.

Set Up Access Point Isolation
This would mean the router has individual settings for every user on the network, BUT each user would be hidden from the other - stupid really, as we use the network internally all the time.

Get a Nintendo WiFi Dongle
For starters, they don't make them any more, secondly, they are known to be ranked up with Chocolate Tea Pots, and lastly, those that you CAN buy are now A) Old, and B) Second Hand.

Somehow Use a Second Modem/Router as an Access Point
I tried this with my old Netgear router - basically disabling the "Modem" part, connecting it to the existing Modem/router, and use it like a wireless hub/switch. I tried, confused myself several times, gave up.

Create a Virtual Access Point using my Computer Upstairs
It sounds easy - use the computer upstairs - which is connected to the net by wire - to use it's wireless card as an access point and go from there. However, using Windows 7 and Vista's "Create Ad Hoc Network" still didn't allow the DSi to connect to the net.

Now, as far as I can tell, the last two options SHOULD be the easiest. However, the only "help" I've found online for setting up a second router has been so bloody confusing, I had to perform a Factory Reset on it. Three times.

The Ad-Hoc network option in Windows seemed to be a good idea - it was quick and easy to set up, and the DSi even SAW the network, but wouldn't let me connect no matter how many times I did it, changed the settings, begged, pleaded and screamed blue murder... And I tried on both my Windows Vista computer, and my Windows 7 laptop.

I am starting to think that defeat is on the horizon, unless you, dear reader, have read through this, understood what I am trying to do, understood my frustrations, and worked out a way around it. So far, what I have read online has NOT been promising, but there has to be a way to do what I want it to do!

Answers ASAP please, before someone outside is clonked on the noggin by something flying from my window...


Footnote: Before someone says "Switch your router to WEP and just turn on MAC Address Filtering, I am not convinced that is still the safe way to go - but if the techy geeks of you out there think it's safe, I might consider it...

Three Hundred Million Miles Later

I remember many years ago when I were a wee laddy, that going into space was a big deal. Not up there with landing-on-the-moon-big, but still big. People used to watch Shuttle launches, I remember when we flew towards a comet to investigate that (I even remember I had a broken leg at the time!) and I remember where I was when Challenger exploded.

Today, it's almost sad that we send people up into space to spend months living on a space station, and no one bats an eyelid.  People, re-read that sentence. We are sending people into space. To live on a Space Station!

HOW can that not be cool, interesting, amazing and fascinating?!

So this morning, we managed to land on Mars. MARS. A whole 'nother planet. Granted, yes, we've done it a few times before - some amazingly well, some... erm... not-so-well. Today, we landed using a whole mess of technology and ingenuity and know-how, and went from something zipping through space at a thousands of miles an hour, to a complete stop in a few minutes.

And THEN we used a fricking interplanetary crane to plonk the rover on the surface without a scratch.

From several hundred million miles away.

If you don't get what I am saying, you need to watch this video, the Seven Minutes of Terror - and you have to watch it with sound AND in full screen:



I mean, seriously?! How is that not amazing?!

And yet, most of the eyes of the world seem to be on what is essentially a glorified sports day... A man ran really fast. Good for him - he's worked hard for it, he's gotten his body to the peak of physical excellence... But he's running. One hundred meters. Quickly.

Kellie said this morning, "surely the cost of sending this thing into space would have been better spent on medicine or homelessness" and I agree - the cost of sending this thing into space, through space, and onto the surface of another planet was $2.5billion. That's a lot of money.

The Olympics? As of last month, it was at $14.8billion.

BILLION.

For the cost of the Olympics, we could have gone to Mars almost six more times.

Some might ask what the point is... And that's fair enough. For one, if we're going to go to Mars, we need to know what it's like, so there's that. Second, the science that has gone into this thing is properly high-tech, and over the coming years, it will benefit us in whatever ways it is applied by filtering down. Just like Microwaves, Nuclear Power, Medicine - I don't know what will come of it, but it will be something.

If people are willing to scream and cheer human achievement in a physical sense - he ran fast, she swam strongly - then surely the great minds that have just landed on Mars should be screamed and cheered for also?

Personally, I am amazed that such stuff is possible, and can't wait to see what comes back from the little chap trundling around on the surface of Mars.

Technophobia

These last couple of days have not been good from a technological point of view...

Yes, I've been quiet of late - more on another time - but the last couple of days, I've been up to my eyeballs in computer problems.

And like waiting for a bus, nothing for a while, then they all arrive at once.

Yesterday, Kellie and Molly trundled off to Devon for Harrys 2nd birthday. The downside of this was the "leaving at 0430" part, so at half two that morning, I got up and helped sort out the last bits.

Once the girls were gone, I was at a loose end, so decided that Jaysens laptop - which gets very hot - needed cleaning out. So, being that I hate fixing laptops, I was careful, if not very cautious. Step by step by step. One of my nemesisis (!?) presented itself very early on, and that was ribbon cables - not the hard drive sort, but those without a connector on the end.

Never having dismantled many laptops, I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing, and thought space was very tight. But, none the less, I bless out the loose dust, sucked and brushed out the more stubbon fluff, and started putting it back together again.

The ribbon cables took FOREVER to get back in as space was tight (really tight) and there wasn't much give in the cables.

Forty minutes later/much teeth-gnashing later...

With the cables reconnected and Ty screws in place, I replaced the drives, memory and battery, fired it up, and...

Nothing.

A power light came on, the hard drive sounded like it was spinning up, but nothing. It was dead. All I did was clean out some dust! So out came everything again, disconnected the ribbon cables, made sure everything else was still connected, re-re-connected the cables and put it all back together.

Yes, another three quarters of an hour trying to connect them...

And it was still dead. By ten in the morning, I had bricked my sons laptop.

So I had a wander, stepped away, had a coffee, took a break...

Now, I am certain that I didn't touch ANYTHING or catch anything I shouldn't have. There's no way I broke it just by opening it

Well, unless you looked at the bricked laptop sitting on the side.

So I had a look at a few videos of others dismantling the same model... And I saw where I'd gone wrong from the outset. So I watched and watched how to strip it back.

And proceeded to completely strip it. Let me say at this point, this laptop was a BASTARD to take apart... The heatsink filter on the housing - the part that stops dust and hair and fluff - is SO inaccessible, its not even funny. To get to it, you have to completely remove the motherboard.

Two hours. Two hours of taking it part, disconnecting, unscrewing, dusting, blowing, brushing... Then putting it all back together again. Doing it properly, I should add, made putting the ribbon cables back in simple. Once it was fully assembled, the power button did the trick, and up came Windows

Thank feck.

While on a roll, I realise I have to install some software on the boys laptops, and in doing so, have to make sure Windows is up to date.

Again, I have NO idea what I managed to do, bit on Doms laptop, I started getting Blue Screen of Death errors. Which are never ever good.

Safe Mode was throwing them out, normal mode was throwing them... Over and over...

It took me ages to find the problem - an errant driver that was new clashing with another... So o had to uninstall, find the cause, remove the old one, reinstall, find the new one, reinstall... Each un/re install requiring a reboot. No less.

By 1pm, I was tired and pissed off. I had had enough so decided to head upstairs and to carry on tidying up my computer (not my laptop!) which has been out of action for several months, and now was in dire need of updating, patching, removing old software and general maintenance. Nothing stressy, just what I consider to be sodding around on the computer.

It was running a bit slow, but then it was doing a trillion things at.once. This update, that new version, Windows update... Please reboot...

Upon loading, it didn't go to Windows, DSKCHK came up instead... Needing to check the drive integrity and file structure of one of my drives. Which can only mean one thing...

Proper errors.

I panic and look to the drive info and while I am relieves its not the main hard drives, its my media drive... Full of music, videos, software.

Crud.

So it runs its scan and the end result?

No idea, it crashed. Which is usually a way to make a bad sign worse.

So I try again, and it crashes at the same point which makes me think.its a physical error, not a buggered up file.

So I reboot again, skip the check and get some hard drive checking software. It takes an hour, but all the software points to the same thing: the drive is on its way out.

The golden rule of a dying drive? The more you use it, the worse it gets, so avoid using it.

Screw that, I want to save my data. So I go into Safe Mode and start copying everything across to my good drive. Folder after folder with the occasional "file cannot be copied" error, but an hour and a half later, I've saved everything.

I then proceeded to see if the drive was fixable. CHKDSK once more, SeaTools (Windows AND DOS!) a format...

Several hours later: its officially dead. Nothing fixed it, nothing would finalise it, nothing at all would repair it.

Pissed off, I huff downstairs, check.my mobile out the way - and notice the Internet is off. ANOTHER hour spent looking at settings, spent configuring and reconfiguring, spent checking and going over stuff... And ended up with a Factory Reset and re-entering all the settings..

And voila! Internet. Still have NO idea what happened, but still...

I spent last night flopped on the sofa, watching CSI with Dom.

This morning, I plonk my way downstairs, sit at my laptop and fire it up...

Disc Error. Run CHKDSK...

This time, its my main drive. I'm pissed off up to the eyeballs.

This error was at 0730. It's now 1400 and DSKCHK is done, errors repaired, apparently fixed. But I'm going to run some more scans now, just to make sure...

If you read down this far, well done. I'm at my wits end with computers at the moment, so now, CSI is back on.

The final straw? I seem to be missing several of my CSI box sets.

Couldn't make it up really.

Le Whoopsie Daisy

It is fair to say that Gravity is a sick, cruel mistress.

For many years, I have been fighting this mistress, She-That-Makes-Me-Fall-Down-And-Over-Things-Constantly, and it is obvious to most that this is a battle I am not winning.

Not by any stretch of any imagination.

However, sometimes, you have to wonder why Gravity alters things.

Case in point. If you're a D&D player, you will appreciate this. You drop a dice off the table, at low velocity, and it disappears under the table. You'll spend the next ten minutes trying to find it, only to discover it hit a worm-hole, vanished from our dimension and reappeared on the other side of the house.

In a smoking jacket, sipping a G & T.

If you work in an office, similar things happen to that pen that fell off the desk. It falls 3.5ft to the ground, warps at light speed, and ends up under the desk of that woman with the nice legs and short skirt, and the only reason you ended up under her desk was to get your pen back.

No, the sexual harassment people didn't believe me either.

My point is this. Kellie is currently a very unhappy little camper. See, months and months and months ago, we were impressed at the durability of our very very swanky phones. You may remember me drooling over it repeatedly, but, for those unaware, it's this:

Oooh sexy.

Back to the durability. Not long after moving in, Kellie managed to drop this phone down the stairs. Very top, to very bottom. No carpets. The bottom, I should add, is a solid floor too. Crash-Thump-Back-Crash.

It survived without a mark, scratch or problem. We were very impressed.

Last night, however, Gravity proved once more that she is a complete bitch.

Kellies phone managed to slip from the sofa seat. 1.5ft from top to bottom. Eighteen inches.

The screen shattered, from the bottom and stretching up about two thirds of the way to the top.

Kellie, it is safe to say, went through a metamorphosis at this point. Unlike, however, a caterpillar, she did NOT come out the other side a beautiful creature, but a very very very very very pissed of creature of satanic proportions.

She was NOT a happy bun-bun.

Suffice to say, last night was spent with me cowering in the corner trying not to make eye contact. This morning, she got up early and came downstairs like someone had woken her up and told her her bum DID look big in that dress.

The kids left early this morning. Sorry, did I say "left"... I meant "ran"

We trundled into town to visit the few phone repair shops in town which are akin to chocolate teapots and glass hammers... "It's really hard to get that part" or "I don't know" and "You have to buy the glass screen with the LCD screen so it costs loads" were the general replies.

Of course, this worked WONDERS for someones joy.

We came home and I had a poke around online, and found a company that can repair them for much less than the quoted prices, but we had to send them the phone. So, padded postage bags and Special Delivery later, Kellie is phoneless.

Or, rather, she WOULD be phoneless were it not for Molly letting mummy use her phone.

State of the art.... That's one way NOT to describe this phone:

Oooh Swanky!!

 Look at that. No WiFi, No Bluetooth, No GPS, No Camera, No MP3 (but YaY Polyphonic tones!), No Apps... And it has buttons! Honestly, it's amazing people used to adore phones like these!

Still, on the plus side, her proper phone should be back by Thursday or, more likely, Friday... And that means this phone won't need to be charged in the time she is stuck with it - Hurrah Battery Life!!

Now if you will excuse me, I am returning to my bunker before she reads this post and flays the skin from my body with just a single look...

/runs away

A Little More Privacy

It is something that a lot of you will think I harp on about quite a bit... But being as private and secure as you can be online is really a no-brainer.

Aside from all the spyware out there, and all the viruses, and every crafty bugger trying to send you several million quid from Nigeria, there is a "new" problem facing people now.

And I am not talking about Internet Doomsday. Keep your computer safe, you'll be fine.

No, I am talking about all the little bits and bobs that dwell on your computer and inside the web pages you are visiting, tracking you, following you, seeing what you're doing online pretty much everywhere you go. Sometimes they are called trackers, sometimes beacons, other times bugs... But they are everywhere, even the places you honestly don't think you will find them.

Now, without even doing it intentionally, without adding anything into the code, do you know that 0ddness itself (I have now discovered!) has five different sites watching you? Facebook knows you're here (thanks to the friend-connect thing), Google Adsense AND FriendConnect know you are here, Statcounter knows you are here, and Technorati knows you are here.

These are things that, yes, I have added to 0ddness. The social plugin I just assumed was for people to click "Like", AdSense is NOT me, FriendConnect is so other people with Google Accounts can "like" 0ddness directly, StatCounter is my hit counter, and Technorati is a blog catalogue, and I ASSUMED, just a little button.

Five sites, all seeing who you are, where you are, where you've been...

Shockingly, The Pirate Bay (which my ISP wasn't told to block!) has zero on its homepage.

0ddness.co.uk

Sky News

Yahoo Homepage

I heard about a fancy little bit of software, however, and decided to give it a bash, see what's what and how necessary it might be. It's called Ghostery, and can be installed on Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer - though I COULDN'T get it working on the last (shocking). It's free, too, so it's not like you're paying for something you aren't sure about.

Installing it is as difficult as clicking a couple of buttons, and once you've run through the three or four setup screens, you're good to go. I've left the alert window set to ON so I can see just how many people are trying to follow me around, and so far, most sites have four or five - some have lots more mind you!

I've currently got mine set to block everything and everyone because they are all baaaastards mode, but will go through and allow something things... StatCounter, and Google Friend Thingie being the main two, BUT there are well over 800 different "things" that it can block.

Next time you are wondering how it is that the banner ad on the side of a page is strangely specific to the thing you were looking for just this morning, these little tracking things are why.

And now you know.

Sidenote: I should also point out that Firefox has a feature to tell websites not to follow you anyway. I don't know if it works or not, but it can be found under TOOLS>OPTIONS>PRIVACY>Tell Websites I Do Not Want To Be Tracked.

And honestly, if you are still insisting on using Internet Explorer, there's no helping you. Install either Firefox or Chrome, AND make sure you keep everything up to date on your machine. And don't forget the Anti-Virus either!!


PS: If you really ARE worried about INTERNET DOOMSDAY!!! then fret not. The 9th July will be a non-event, much like the other End Of The World scenario that was THE Y2K BUG!!! Read more about it here, and check your computer here.



(Yeeeeah I used the {BLINK} HTML tags! Bring back the 90s baby!)
(I am shocked and saddened that if you are viewing this in Chrome, you cannot see my Olde Skool use of the {BLINK} tags. Firefox works fine though!)
(Aw it doesn't work in IE either... So stuff you, Old Skool BLINK tags. Stuff you)

Malware Warnings...

A quick note: Thanks to The Shortest of The Short, Em, I discovered that 0ddness has been throwing up warnings about Malware infections...

After a bit of digging, a bit of sleuthing, a bit of Googling, it turns out that a Blog Catalogue I've been a member of for years has had lots of "issues" of late, and has been flagged up as a source of Malware, Viruses and other unpleasantness.

In order to err on the side of caution, I have removed the offending button from the site. Everything I've read has confirmed that, at no time have people visiting 0ddness been in danger of infection or anything else. The only reason you've been getting these warnings (if at all) is because your browser or anti-virus software has seen the link on the page, assumed it was dangerous, and blocked or popped-up a warning box.

With the nasty button now rotting in a ditch somewhere, hopefully those of you getting the warnings will no longer see them.

For what it's worth, I do take visitor security seriously, and all images and what-not are hosted somewhere safe. There are no ads, no pop-ups, no sales stuff on here that can be compromised. I don't have any nefarious cookies placed, and everything on here is put on here under my control.

Granted, nothing online is ever 100% safe, including you, but I do my very best to prevent nasties happening to you while reading my inane ramblings.

Thanks again, Em, for pointing me in the direction of the warning. And thanks everyone else for reading :)

You Know You're Cool When...

Me, blogging on a 32" telly via an HDMI cable.

I am so hardcore. Or Cool. Or just a big fat geek.

And yes, World of Warcraft looks effing brilliant on it. For the record, that's my laptop, not an internet-ready TV or anything really showy offy. Laptop, connected via HDMI, using it as my main display.

Rock on.

Books & Reading

My very nature, is that of someone that loves books. I've always been a big reader, and my biggest, nerdy claim to fame, is that I read The Hobbit aged nine, followed by The Lord of the Rings.

Even at a young age, I was a geek. I still have that copy of the Lord of the Rings too - even if it IS falling to bits.

I have always loved books. I spent a lot of my childhood in libraries, I usually had my nose in a book, or, a book was always close to hand.

Once I started using computers, I would read things on the screen, using PgUp/PgDwn buttons instead of turning a page.

It's not the same, reading books digitally on a computer. When I got my first laptop I thought "This will be more like it" but even then, it still wasn't the same. I still had a bloody great bit of tech right in front of me.

When the various e-readers came out, like the Kindle and the Nook, I was intrigued, but none the less, didn't get one. For one, they were a lot of money, and two, I LOVE books. I am sure that at least one of you will understand when I stay, how good it feels to open a brand new book, how the pages feel... And I know at least one of you will also appreciate the smell of a new book.

So I didn't investigate the various readers much further.

Last Xmas, Kellie wanted to get me one. I told her no. I like proper books, it's a lot of money, yada yada yada. I didn't want her spending a big fat lump of money on that when we could have gotten her something pretty.

For Mollys birthday, she mentioned wanting an e-reader, and a few days later, we found one - just a basic one that reads text documents - for £25. With the assistance of a tool that converts the different book formats, we got her a load of books and put them on there for her birthday.

While setting it up, installing it and what-have-you, I was taken by the fact that it was, in fact, pretty clever. The "e-ink" stuff was clever, the battery life on these things is incredible, they're light and aside from a few buttons, it was quite like an actual book.

Minus, you know, the feeling, the texture and the smell.

I gave it to Kellie to fiddle with, and she too was impressed.

That was the beginning of the end, really. We had a think about it, and knew we couldn't afford one, let alone two.

Then it hit us. We had all our Christmas vouchers sitting in the cupboard.

Now, the thing with us is, we don't tend to buy ourselves "stuff" very often. Kellies shoes and bags notwithstanding. We had already decided to use the vouchers on some new saucepans and stuff for the kitchen.

We're like that. We will spend our money and stuff on bills, or things needed in the house. Not that we "need" pans and crockery - there's nothing wrong with what we have, but we thought we'd get new ones.

Until we realised we had enough for a Kindle each.

That was that.  We trundled into town and grabbed two Kindles from Argos, did some shopping, came home and started to play.

I love playing with new tech almost as much as I love a new book ;)

The first thing that struck me was the lightness of it, even compared to Mollys e-reader. The screen is the same size as a normal page, and it's thin too - but thick enough that it's easy to hold. You don't get an aching hand from holding it for long periods - it is just the right shape, size and weight.

Setting it up was pretty easy, linking it to our Amazon accounts and everything, simple. Connecting it to the WiFi wasn't difficult, but it was a bit infuriating. I use MAC Address filtering on our router - that is, only devices I've said can connect, are allowed to connect. You do this by putting the items MAC Address into the router configuration screen so it knows to allow it to pass. However, the Kindle doesn't tell you it's MAC Address during setup. So I had to log into the router, disable the filtering, go through the Kindle setup, go into the router, see which devices were connected, work out which was the Kindle, copy it'd MAC Address, go into the filtering system, add the address to the filter, turn it back on again.

Ideally, the Kindle should show you it's address during setup. Would make life a few minutes easier.

So, once set up and configured, it was time for books, so we went through getting a load. Some we got directly from Amazon, and literally, once you confirm the purchase, it arrived on the Kindle. Simple as that. Others, we had to download to the computer, and put on there ourselves. It's literally as difficult as plugging in a USB cable, and moving files from your computer, to the Kindle itself - which opens up on your screen like any other drive folder.

Simples.

With a program called Calibre, you can convert any books you get that are in the wrong format too. The Kindle only reads a few of the different Ebook formats, but with Calibre (which is a free program, by the way!) you can convert them from whatever format you have, into the correct one for the reader. Again, it's literally as simple as clicking a few buttons and away you go.

You can arrange the books on your Kindle quite easily too. You can bundle them into collections, you can sort them by Author, or by Title, or by Date.

Once you're reading, it is honestly so close to being a page of a book. I was sat in the lounge, sunlight streaming in, and it was crystal clear. It works perfectly well in bright light, or low light. It DOESN'T have a light up screen mind you, so you need a light on to read - you can get cases with built in lights, but they seem stupidly priced. I'll stick a lamp on, thanks. If you think this is a hardship, think again - if you were reading, you would have that lamp on ANYWAY. Yes, it's the 21st Century, and everything has backlit/floodlit screens... But I am sure staring at one for long periods is going to screw your eyes up.

The buttons for turning the page are on the side, and the "Next Page" button is placed pretty much exactly where your thumb would sit when holding it normally. Right handed, or for the freaky of you, Left handed too. There are Next/Previous buttons on both sides of it.

The buttons across the bottom are simple too. Back - which works as a back page button, or mainly, back through menus, Keyboard, which opens the keyboard for typing in titles, searching documents or whatever, Menu, which opens the menu, and Home, which takes you to the first screen of your home page.

With the WiFi on, you can buy books from Amazon directly through your Kindle. You can also access the web. Granted, it's in Grey Scale, but you can do it. You can read blogs on it too via Google Reader.

The other rather nifty function, is sending books to it. You can buy online and have them delivered directly to you. You can plug in the USB and slap them on there. Or, with your Kindle Address - which is just an email address specifically for your Kindle - you can email books to it.

Case in point. I had a book on my computer that I KNEW Kellie would want. However, she was in bed upstairs (reading!). Instead of waiting till morning, I attached the book to an email and sent it to her kindle address. Two minutes later, it was delivered directly to her Kindle.

Doing this also backs it up on the Amazon servers, just in case you lose it somehow.

Once reading, you can fiddle with view settings too, change the font size to quite small, to massive - even those of you with eye problems should be able to see that! You can change the font from serif, to sans serif or condensed. You can alter the line spacing to closer or even closer together (if you want, not sure why you would - it looks weird!) and you can change the rotation of the device if you REALLY want to, and read it portrait or, strangely, upside down.

My only "gripe" if you will, is the position of the power button. It's virtually centred on the base. Exactly where my little finger sits. Many times while reading, I've accidentally caught that button and shut it down. I've password-protected it to prevent the kids sodding around with it, so every time I turn it off, I have to fiddle around with the keyboard and four-way button to type it in.

Only a little niggle I know, but still.

Actually, hold that thought... I wonder if that's why you can rotate the orientation of the page to "Upside Down"

Bear with me...

HA! OK, so that niggle... It is easily overcome by changing the screen rotation to the "Upside Down" position. And strangely, due to the size of the Next/Previous buttons, my thumb is STILL in the right place for the "Next Page" button.

Hopefully, once my case arrives for it, the position of the button won't be such an issue, but we will see...

As for cases, they too seem silly prices. If you want one - and you will, just for peace of mind - look on Ebay. We saw cases in the shop - leather, padded cases - for about £20. On Ebay, they are £7 each.

So, in short, I love my Kindle. It's reignited my love for reading, and it makes me love words all over again. It's not a replacement for books, mind you. I don't see books disappearing any time soon because there is too much to love about them... But I can see they now have some serious competition.

It's a brilliant bit of tech geekery, it's easy to use, the things you want it to do, it does, the menu system is intuitive, and looking at the words on the pages, it really is like looking at text on a page. And because it's not a lit screen, there is no glare to give you a headache.

H@çK€R§

0ddness is, for want of a better description, my little nook of the Internet. It is something that, while I don't always use it, it's MINE, my own little thing for me to do as I please on here.

I occasionally think about doing something to make money with it, or using it as a place to churn out my creative writing ideas, or as a place to properly rant and rave about various things, but in the end, I decide I love my little blog as it is. I'm not hugely worried about visitor numbers (though would like more comments so I know people are ACTUALLY reading!), I don't think it'd ever make money, and I don't think 90% of you would give two figs reading about fantasy-adventure type stuff.

So, this morning, imagine my surprise and I have to admit, horror, when She Of The Posh Persuasion sent me a message telling me my site was showing nothing but a little text, and a picture of a dog...

"Bwa-huh?" may have been the actual sound that fell out of my mouth when I read that message. So, even as I was in the process of putting down my phone, loading Firefox and clicking on my link, She Of The Short Persuasion sent a similar message, but HER messaged used the work "Hacked"

Now, instead of "Bwa-huh?" it was more "shitshitshitshitshit" thinking someone had gotten into my stuff and possibly deleted said-stuff.

I clicked on my link to take me to 0ddness, and imagine the feeling of my heart falling down through my body, bumping into every other organ on the way down to my feet when 0ddness was displaying like so:

Fuuuuu...

While in the process of dropping into my toes, my brain - which, let's be honest, has been dozing of late - woke up and stopped the heart mid-Geronimo. "Duh -" said my Brain "-that's James' dog..." James being of the He Who Kicks Boxes And Burglars Given The Chance.

See, during the Great Gimme Gizmo Rant of 2011 and the subsequent Great Censoring of 2011, James got me to switch from a shitty company over to another that actually defend their customers to voice their opinions without fear of getting smacked bums. Being that he already had an account, we just slapped 0ddness, KelliesWorld, Kellies-Kards and our not-yet-done Wedding Blog over to 1and1.

Now, from what I could gather was that something was changed this morning - according to the WhoIs records. The Posh One thought I had renewed the blog, but it's not due for renewal till next year. However, WhoIs showed that it had been "updated" today.

The only thing I could see different was the Name Servers. Now, I am NOT particularly great with Domains, DNS and such like, but after switching away from Shitty Company, the blog Name Servers remained wedged firmly with the original company, and not 1and1.

Very 0dd.

However, upon checking the morning (and I don't check very often) they were now showing 1and1 name servers. Huzzah.

However, in my huzzah'ing, it would appear that this was the root of the issue. And I had to re-do all the DNS stuff. On James' account. Where he appears to host proper websites. The sort that make money. That have customers.

No pressure then.

So, I went through, did the step-by-step and got it sorted. 1-24 hours to notice a change though. Great. 0ddness would be down for a while.

All day, I've been CTRL+F5'ing the page, refreshing the page from the host as opposed to the cache, and finally, just before 3pm, 0ddness came back to life. I got on Twitter & Facebook, and had the Great Unwashed check for me from their side, and apparently, it's all back and up and happy.

And I am now breathing sighs of relief. Granted, it's only 0ddness & KelliesWorld that has come back on so far, but I'm sure the others will sputter back into functionality sooner rather than later.

Now I've just double checked, and the Wedding Blog and KelliesKards are also back online. Huzzah once more!

I'm glad people noticed, though. I'm glad someone pointed out to me there was a problem with the blog. I know my readership (Ha! Readership...) are quite loyal and will point out when something is broken, but I'm glad it was done quickly.

Just after 1100 this morning, it was working fine. Adullamite was on there, read my Musical Monday, commented, done. 1150, Posh messages me, dog on your site, followed rapidly by Em for the same reason.

As a sidenote and addendum to this post, this happening is actually GOOD news... Why?

Because it now means my Domain Name is firmly OFF of Shitty Company's servers, computers, records and everything else...

So?

It means that all my previous Gimme Gizmo/DRW posts are going BACK on the blog. It means that all your comments, all the people that took the time to message me - they are all going BACK on the blog.

I get regular visits from people searching for information on Gimme Gizmo/DRW, and now the company that tried to censor me is out of the picture, they are going back on there.

Later, though, because it is taking every ounce of energy to write this coherently! hehe

My Current Bane...

bane
Noun: A cause of great distress or annoyance.

Generally, there are few things in life I consider to be actual Banes to me, but they certainly do exist. Brooms, for example. I can't keep one intact for more than two weeks. My current broom is actually more a "broo" as it's missing two-thirds of its handle. Laundry is another - no matter how much I do, no matter how well I manage to catch up with it, it breeds in a dark corner and reappears within moments of me declaring "I'm sodding well done!"

Tonight, I discovered a new bane.

Now, assuming you read here relatively often, you know that most things gadget & geek are my bread and butter. Give me a bit of kit or equipment, and within a relatively short space of time, I've worked out how it works without having to RTFM.

Spawn of Satan

Today, Kellie came home from work with a laminating machine. I assume that's what they are called the world over, but basically, you put a bit of paper into a laminating pocket, put that pocket into a cardboard pocket, poke it in the machine that gets hot, it pops out the other side, and when you open it up, your paper is sealed away nice and safe.

Think Han Solo+Carbonite, except in this scene, Han is played by "Paper" and Carbonite is played by "Clear Plastic"

OK, so we're now clear as mud on the doohickey machine. Good.

Tonight, Kellie had to finish off a handful of Christmas Cards for work, and then laminate a load of menus for the staff Xmas Party. Being that I am, in fact, brilliant, I uttered the phrase that will haunt me forever.

"I'll do the laminating, you do the cards" thinking, like any sane man, that I'd be done in half an hour.

Hooooo boy was I wrong.

First off, I've never laminated before, but I get the concept. Lucky for me, Kellie showed me Step Two of the process, which involves putting the laminating sleeve into the cardboard sleeve before jamming it into the Hot Fiery Machine of Death. THAT would have been interesting to explain to her boss - who also happens to be the father of her best friend.

Digressing once more.

So, Sheet of Paper, insert into Laminating Sleeve, insert into Card, Poke into Hot Fiery Machine of Death.

Sheet of Paper: Yep, got that, it's a bit of paper. Easy peasy.
Laminating Sheet: Oh My GOD! It's got me help help! These things, my friends, are where electricity in all its forms is created. There is SO MUCH static on these that every time I reached for them, my arm hairs reached in unison with my actual arm.
Sheet of Paper INTO Laminating Sheet: OK, let' imagine you have the stickiest substance known to man, and you have to open it up, insert something INSIDE IT, align it, then close it up. BUT while doing this, the open side of the sheet is grabbing a hold of the other sheets on the pile, so you move it sideways - which drags the pile across the sofa, which IN TURN grabs all the fluff and dust on the sofa. So you shout and swear at it, and then move it further and oopsie daisy you've now caught the pile of Sheets of Paper.

Imagine the scene, dear reader. I am sat, on the sofa, trying to put a piece of paper into a folded piece of plastic, with three additional sheets of plastic dragging on one part, and three sheets of paper on another.

The cats, I should add, gave it one sniff and ran for the hills. After all, it probably felt like every fibre of their fur coat was being pulled towards this plastic sheet.

EVENTUALLY, our hero gets the paper INTO the laminating sheet. And closes it. Now to put it into the card, but ho ho, this isn't just bog-standard card. No folks, this stuff has a shiny coating on the inside - that the stupid arsing sodding laminating sheet sticks to!

Another wrestling match ensues, and finally I get the stupid stuff into the stupid card. The machine - with it's maws of doom spouting fire and brimstone - awaits its meal hungrily. So, carefully, I poke it in and wiggle it... And.. Nothing. Wiggly wiggle. Pokey pokey.

Just eat it you stupid bloody machine!

EVENTUALLY, our hero manages to force-feed the machine with it's little sandwich. Om nom n- wait a minute. Have you ever seen an old lady crossing the street. She knows the cars are sat waiting for her, she knows they can't budge, and you just know that she slows down on purpose.

This is the Hot Fiery Machine of Death. I've seen dead slugs move faster. And the noise! Holy crap it's like judgement day really was upon us.

So, to recap. Paper. Plastic. Static. Anger. More Static. More Anger. MORE Static. Card. YET MORE Static. Boiling Rage. Hot Fiery Machine of Death. Slowest Speed Known To Man.

Finally, after hell froze over and then defrosted (thanks entirely to the Hot Fiery Machine of Death and it's heat output!) the cardboard sarnie pops out the back. Peel it open and Oh-My-God-It-BUUUURNS!

One sheet down.
Fifty Nine to go.

Throttled

No, dear reader. Despite the fact there are a lot of you hoping, wishing or praying that I have been strangled, or that you have the opportunity to do so, I'm afraid you'll have to take your darkest desires elsewhere. This annoying git is alive and kicking, so to speak.

This is NOT going to be very interesting to many of you, and despite the fact some of you will carry on reading in a hope I end up throttled, you will be sadly mistaken and let down.

For the technical/geekery minded of you still reading (as, being smart, you know what I meant from the very title of the post) this is more on ISPs throttling your service. For those not sure what I mean yet are still reading, throttling is when - usually during "peak hours" your Internet Service Provider (ISP) cut your internet speeds right down so "everyone has access to the internet fairly" or some such nonsense.

Now, a while back, I posted about how bad our throttling had become. Now, I know some of you living out in the boonies or Oop Norf in places have slow speeds in general, but for us Southerners, living within talking distance of our neighbours, we have - or should have - decent speeds.

We are with Orange, and up until last year, we had no real issue with our Broadband speeds. However, upon upgrading our service with them, it went pear-shaped and plunged rapidly downhill. Usually, our speed is very very good - up to 14/16 Megabytes. We can stream TV and Movies, play games, listen to music - do stuff rapidly. However, half four in the afternoon hits, and that speed drops significantly. Down to 5Mb. By six or seven in the evening, it's less than half that - right through till nearly midnight when it starts creeping back up again.

Early hours of the morning, brilliant. Blistering, full on speeds. Daytimes aren't too bad either, mornings and early afternoons are good. Tea time appears, and Whack! There's the Internet Brick Wall.

I know for a fact it's Orange doing it, because over the last year, we've swapped routers for steadily better ones, thinking maybe it was us. However, after getting some software installed on the computers in the house that allow me to test the internet network speed, it is very obviously external issues causing the slow down.

I am fully aware that they say they have to reduce speeds at peak times, but then, what's the point in selling fast speeds if you're not getting fast speeds.

Being on Orange is a complete pain in the arse. We've only got a little time left on our contract, but after looking at a few different providers, trying to work out who throttle the worst is proving to be quite difficult. We've got a BT Line (well, it's an Orange line now, but whatever..) that our Broadband comes through, but as they all end up in the same place, am I more likely going to end up with the same issue regardless of which phone-based Broadband I chose? If that's the case, then the only other option is to go Cable Broadband, which is Virgin Media, but I don't know if they throttle the shit out of their service too.

I'm really not sure what to do for the best, so any suggestions would be very helpful. We're heavy internet users obviously - I use it during the day when NOT charging around doing stuff, evenings are kids on PS3 or laptops, plus us trying to watch iPlayer or 4OD or similar... Is Virgin Media the best way to go, or stick with Orange, or chose some other Telephone Broadband (YES, I know it's ADSL2 or whatever it's called, but too much jargon annoys me) provider through the phone line...

NB: I notice on the Virgin Media site that, conveniently, the customers that have the BIGGEST & MOST EXPENSIVE bundles are "not liable to traffic management"  So much for NOT having a two-tier internet then...


And for those non-geeky-techy sorts that made it to here, well done, have a gold star.

On Mobile Phones...

I have noticed a lot of snobbery of late in reference, of all things, to mobile phones. Either regarding other peoples choices, the opinions of others, or directed at people that have stated a simple preference.

A couple of weeks back, Ms. Posh decided her phone was on its way out and asked for advice as to what she should get. Actually, none of that is entirely true. A bit before that, we had a conversation (on Twitter I think) about my general dislike of Blackberry (the phone, not the fruit). Again, a personal decision based on my own preferences after having read reviews, fiddled with a couple of models and spoken to others that use them.

After stating that I didn't like them, I actually received flak from die-hard fans telling me how wrong I was, that they are the best thing ever, and other general fan-boy rubbish.  "They're just better coz they ARE!" is not an argument.

The same has happened in the past when I have stated openly that I don't like the iPhones either. Granted, they are pretty, but then, "pretty" isn't my basis for buying something. When one of the Brand Spanking New iPhones came out, I compared it to my six-month-old Dumb Phone (which was a Sony Ericsson W995), and proved using actual facts that the technical specs were pretty much the same thing - except people would kill for one of them, pay STUPID amounts of money for it, and state it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Again, fan-boys screaming at me do nothing but actually put me off a brand.

For years and years, I generally only used Sony Ericsson phones. Not because "OMG They're just the best ever coz they ARE!" but because at the time, their phones had the best specs for what I wanted, did the things I wanted them to do and were generally very very good phones. I never had any issues with any of my SE phones. I've tried Motorola before, and after four different models, I just didn't like how they functioned, how they did the things I wanted to do and so on.

So anyway, back to the point.

Ms. Posh was asking about which phone she should get, I stated "not a BB" and gave a breakdown as to why not. And again, I got flak (I should point out, at no point was it people I consider friends shooting at me, but completely random strangers). Given the choice of ANY phone on the market, I would go with an Android device. Yes, the iPhone may have features the Androids don't, but I just prefer how the Android phones feel. Going from Dumb Phone to Smart Phone IS an intimidating step, especially if you're ditching a buttoned phone for a touch-screen.

Now, before someone starts screaming that I'm Anti-Apple and just hating on the iPhone because I can, I'll point out that no, I'm not. I'm stating I prefer my Desire HD to the iPhone because I personally think it's a better phone. I'm not jumping on the "Bad Apple" bandwagon, nor the "Get Android!" bandwagon for the sake of jumping on. Exactly the same as I couldn't give a rats arse about Team Jacob/Team Edward. Granted, they're both shit, but that's another post for another day*

If you're looking at phones, I can honestly see no reason to get a Blackberry. The screens are smaller - I compared one to my phone the other day, and it was a third of the size - and the person using it was on Facebook... Why have such a small screen? Then you get the people stating they NEED buttons to text. Really? Have you SEEN the buttons on a BB? They slap an entire QWERTY keyboard across the width of the phone which was equally as wide as mine. If you've got fingers like me, you're not pressing one button at a time, you're pressing three or four.

"Oh but it's GREAT for email!" some will say. Really, how can it be better than any other email program on any other phone? I have a Gmail app on my phone - how can your phone be better than that? I can send, receive, add attachments, reply, forward, delete and report spam. What else is there?

Other will extol the virtues of BBM, the "private" messaging service between users. That's great, you can chat to anyone else with BBM. But if you download WhatsApp, I can chat to everyone else that uses it, regardless of their phone make, model or even brand! And wait - it's also "private" And unlike with the Blackberry - which, as you remember, died a death a few weeks back - if the WhatsApp servers go down, I can use a different app, still access the Internet and everything else. What happened with the BB servers died? Oh right, they couldn't do ANYTHING.

The biggest excuse most people use for BB is the fact it's a smart phone, but with buttons. That's great - if only there were Android phones with buttons. Oh wait, there are - they have proper-sized, slide out keyboards.

Honestly, if you're willing to spend a chunk of money on a phone, then surely you would get the best you can for the money you have? I can't see why someone would go out looking for a contract for £25 a month, and opt for a smaller, less powerful, small-buttoned, smaller screen phone, when they can get a bigger (HD, even!) screened, more powerful, faster phone with more functionality, and so many apps you can sit and go through the Market all day long and still only scratch the surface of what's available.

At this juncture, I will point out I am not pro nor con which of the smart phones you "should" get. If you want to get an iPhone, then get an iPhone. If you want to get an Android device, get an Android. Personally I think the iPhone is simply just an over-hyped, over-rated, well over-priced lump of pretty and people have to have them because others have them. The hype surrounding a new iPhone launch just astonishes me, yet all that generally changes is a few bits inside - yet people rush out and buy a new one because "it's new!"

I'm sure that someone will come along and prod and poke at me saying "this is wrong" and "that is wrong" which I don't mind at all.  I'm quite happy for a discussion to spontaneously break out and for people to talk about their phones. What I can't stand is the planks that will scream and shout that their phone is better simply because "it is"

I'd also be quite interested to hear why you chose the phone you have. Did you go on looks, what's inside, what it can do, or *shudder* because everyone else had one? What made you get the phone you have (assuming, of course, you had a choice and a say in it) and if you're due to get a new one soon, how will you chose its replacement?



*Yes, I've tried reading Twilight. Three times. Holy Crap what a boring pile of loo paper. If you want "sexy creatures of the night" then read the Anita Blake stories. Those stories might have angst in them, but not on every bloody page...

Privacy?

In recent years, we can all agree that the one thing people seem to be banging on about on the internet is "Privacy" in it's many forms. Not a week goes by when some group or organisation admits that it's had an oopsie with tens of thousands (if not millions) of it's users data, or someone has snuck in and helped themselves to said-information.

All the social networks - past and present - have been involved in various privacy/hacking/exposed data issues over the years, and people have constantly stomped, shouted and stamped to get tighter controls on privacy, but...

If you're using a Social Network - be it your Facebook, MySpaz, Twitter - or if you own a Smartphone where your data is stored on the Cloud, if you use the internet to buy or sell "things", or if you're on forums or whatever... Surely you should realise that everything you do somewhere, somehow, is tracked?

I had someone message me on Twitter the other day, telling me I should be worried that people can see where I am tweeting from. I had just dropped the kids off at their mums and was twittering away merrily when the message arrived. Yes, I do use location on my tweets, but the bigger questions here is: So? Does it really affect me that people know my tweet three minutes ago came from the High Street?

Same goes for my blog posts - invariably, if I am posting, I am sat on the sofa at my house, and every now and then, Blogger decides to insert my location under the posts. Granted, it doesn't give my address, but it either slaps in my postcode, or it puts "32-58 Long Riding" which is the street I live on, and my band of houses.

If people really wanted to find my address, there are easier ways. First off, people know where I live thanks to the descriptions I give in my posts: Blood Red House of Death across the road, for example. Secondly, I own web domains - including 0ddness.co.uk - so a simple WhoIs enquiry will show you my name, address and phone number.

There are people on Facebook that jump up and down screaming that Facebook put a cookie on their computer so they know what sites they've been on, but you're on THE INTERNET - cookies are A) nothing new, and B) most companies use them. If you have the right software, you can see what cookies you have on your computer, and generally, there will be LOTS on there. ALL shopping sites use them. Marketing sites. Survey sites. MySpace used them - in fact, MySpace was AWFUL for giving peoples personal info away, yet it never ever made the headlines. Google track their users too - searches are logged on their servers, pages they visit, files downloaded - and that is on both your computer AND your android device. Earlier this year, Apple got smacked wrists after a couple of blokes discovered that everywhere you go is mapped by your iPhone and stored online. Blackberry users are quite happy using their BBM system, but most of you don't realise every chat, every file shared - it's all logged and saved on RIMs servers...

My point is this - if you want TRUE privacy, then you shouldn't be on the internet, and you shouldn't own a smartphone. Everything you have ever done, the sites you have been on, the things you have bought, the files you have downloaded - they are all logged somewhere.

How many of you - honestly - have ever read through the License Agreement of any bit of software you've ever installed? Granted, it's always long-winded and tedious, but by clicking accept without reading, you're basically saying allowing that bit of software to do whatever they makers have set it to do. If they put a clause in there stating that they can harvest your contact details daily, and you click accept - the onus is on YOU, not them, to have made up your mind that you do or do not want your data shared.

Then, we have things like Facebook, that often change how they work, how they store or share your data... Now, for several years, everyone has KNOWN that Facebook change their privacy settings at the drop of a hat. Everyone KNOWS that they may or may not use your data for whatever they want... Yet when it hits the news that they've done This, That or The Other, people jump up and down and scream and shout about their privacy being breached. The same goes for some smartphones, or photo storage sites or whatever... Things are changed, or weaknesses are discovered and exploited.

Let's put it another way. There's a Storage Company near you. Everyone you know keeps their Important Things in there, and because everyone else does, you do too. Every few months, the storage company changes how they operate, and the Important Things you have stored are visible to everyone, regardless of you wanting them to see them or not. Also, every few months, you hear about a break-in and lots of people having their Important Things taken. The company respond by saying "This is how it is, end of subject"

You wouldn't keep your things in there, would you? Granted, you would expect things to be safe, but you need to take into account the fact that there are people out there that would quite happily root through your stuff and take/publish things that are private.

A while ago, I found a post detailing how to access ANYONES Facebook page. It was a bit technical, and involved hiding where you were, setting up dummy email accounts and everything else, but the fact is, people would have taken this information and used it to access the Facebook page of anyone it wants. Compromising pictures on FB?

A while back, I made a similar post about Privacy, when it occurred to me how easy it is for someone - with a bit of time and effort - to take little bits of info about you and build a complete profile of someone, with enough data to attempt accessing things like PayPal, your Bank Account or similar sensitive pages.

As bloggers, we often get the random questions (Tagged!) circulating around, with many many mundane questions. But if you were to collate several of these questionnaires, you would see that you are giving away information that function as Security Questions. Mothers Maiden Name, Street You Grew Up On, First School, Best Friends Name, Name of First Pet - these have all popped up as security questions for me over the recent months and years...

My point is, while you might expect privacy on the internet, or on your phone, or through your email, the fact is you leave a trail where ever you go, one that can be picked up by anyone - good or bad - and used for whatever purposes. While you can expect the things you do and say to be hidden, keep in mind that this is the internet, and that even the computer you are using is flawed. Chances are, you're on a PC, and that means there's a good bet you're on Windows. Microsoft release patches every week to fix holes and vulnerabilities on the machine you are using. If someone wants to access your machine, and has the knowledge to do so, they will.

Before you jump up and down about wanting your internet life to be private, just remember:  It's Not.

Bloody Broadband...

In other rant-worthy posting... Orange Broadband were great. Brilliant, even. Never had a problem. NOW however, I have a problem. With them, rather, as they are now shit.

My connection speed is supposed to be 20mb. The "most your line can handle" is 15mb. This last week, if I have reached FIVE I've been lucky, but this evening...

THAT, ladies and geeks, is three and a half.  Reasoning?  Oooh yes, because of internet traffic in the area, they are allowed to throttle our connection. Which the user agreement states I allow because it ensures a fair distribution of all services to all users.

Which is why, in six months time, I am going to tell them exactly where to poke their internet connection. We can't do anything online - it's even taking ages to blog - and streaming through iPlayer or similar is just impossible. WoW? Nope, too slow to do anything so that's out the window too.

Screw you Orange, you've finished my day of brilliantly.

Incoming...

The news the last few days has been some-what dominated by the fact a lump of metal the size of a double-decker bus has been hurtling straight down to our little blue/green rock. Granted, a lot of that would burn up, but oops, some of the half-ton bits would land with a bit of a thump.

NASA gave out various statistics, like the chance of hitting YOU specifically was 1 in 21 trillion, but the odds on hitting ANY person was 1 in 3 thousand and something, but then, as most of the planet is Ocean, it was more likely to land there, and so on and so on.

I can't say I was worried.  Interested, certainly - I thought it would be interesting to see what happened had it landed somewhere with people scattering around like ants. I subscribed to the UARS Re-Entry Twitter feed which had some interesting information, though most of it comprised of numbers that meant sweet FA very little to me.  For instance:

Sat 24 Sep 2011 4:35UT orbit 87.07 mins 123.6 x 128.4km Position 41.3N,24.5W alt=137.7km Unlit [0.08d] ~Reentry-0.6h

Erm, very nice.

What I did find odd was once they "lost" it, it seemed a bit, well... Keystone Cops? Headless Chickens?  After the "Zero Hour" arrived, they knew roughly where it was when it hit the atmosphere. They then said it could be above Canada. Or Africa. Or the Pacific.

Now, to me, that is pretty UNspecific. I mean, Africa and the Pacific are two bloody huge areas of the planet. Canada, too, isn't exactly lacking in the Huge Sodding Land Mass department either.

So the bits that are coming in are half-ton lumps of metal. Not designed, I would imagine, to be invisible to radar. Not designed, I would imagine, to vanish when tracking was needed, and I would also suggest, not designed to land on your head.

With the net of satellites, radar, lidar, and any other *dars out there, was it just me that wondered how they could lose it on re-entry? Am I missing something? Surely something that BIG would be trackable? If there are all these defensive nets around the globe, say for anti-missile defence - then how did no one notice where the Bloody Great Bits of Satellite ended up?

They are now saying they think they landed off the west coast of the USA. Spread, probably, over an 800km strip of ocean. They seemed more impressed that as there were no reports of splattered people/destroyed towns. And fair enough - I think that would have been an interestingly massive legal bill.

Is it just me here? How could they not track huge great satellite-gut-bombs, yet claim they can target, pinpoint, intercept and destroy missiles from hostile countries?

But don't worry - I CANNOT find the source for love nor, money, but somewhere this morning I read that a bigger, tougher satellite is coming down to earth and will hit sometime between October and November. Bigger bits, heavier bits... Oooh it's exciting!

Crime of the Future

From a 1981 perspective, at least... Good to know how good computers are at keeping us safe.  And if you think it's not that old an article....

IT'S THIRTY YEARS OLD!

You will have to Clicky to Embiggen

0ddness Uptime

As a warning to everyone that reads 0ddness, I have finally pulled my finger out and started the process of telling Namesco to stuff their "service" and to relocate my business elsewhere.

After being told that I do NOT have any form of Freedom of Speech on their servers, I have been poking around trying to find another decent company that have, what I like to call, Customer Service and not a great big "F**K YOU!" sign when a speed bump appears.

Many thanks to James (who is actually blogging again! DUN DUN DAAAAA!) who has a massive account with 1and1.co.uk who has kindly allowed me to tack all our Domains over to his account.  This morning, I started the Transfer of Domain on all our URLs; 0ddness.co.uk, kelliecastleman.co.uk, danenglish.co.uk, plus another one I'm not putting out there yet.

This means that it is POSSIBLE 0ddness.co.uk will be inaccessible for a while.  IF this should happen - and it is quite likely - then the blog is STILL around, just no longer directing where it should be.  If that is the case, then use:

http://0ddness.blogspot.com

which is the actual home of the blog. The same is true for the very very dusty and *subtle hint* in need of updating blog of Kellies.  If you can't get on there, then use:

http://kelliesworld-welcome.blogspot.com

Hopefully, the downtime of the domain names will be minimal, but if it changes at 2am one night, then I'm not going to be able to do much about it till I emerge from the pit and realise "Oh, it's not working"

I'll also stick a message on the 0ddness Facebook Page with the backup URL, but if you do see it down, feel free to chuck me a message just to say it's not working.

I am considering hosting 0ddness/Kellies World myself too, but am not totally sure how I would go about it. I love the Blogger software - I always have done - and even when I've wandered off to try pastures new, I always end up BACK with Blogger.  Currently, the Blogger hosting is perfect, and aside from the occasional hiccup here and there, I've never had any need to complain.  With the blog contents being hosted in the United States, my Freedom of Expression is protected thanks to their Whatever-Number-Amendment laws which means even if Certain Companies don't like what I have to say about them, then that's just their tough luck.  I'm not inciting hatred nor violence against anyone, and my own personal views - and the views of people commenting on the posts - are just that: Personal Views.

And all protected by Freedom of Expression.

Once the hosting-switch is completed, all the Gimme Gizmo & DRW posts, as well as all the respective comments on each post by other annoyed people, all the content will be fully restored.

I Kan Fix It, or "Voices In My Head"

Actually Our Cat

Those of you on my Twitter stream will have notice today that I have been a little... Put Out... With a laptop repair.  To say that it's been a complete and utter bastard would be putting it mildly.

It all started out with a "bit of an infection" which is the polite way of saying "42,000 items of Malware, 120 viruses"  After Avast, MalwareBytes and Ccleaner looked at me and shook their heads, the only other solution was a reinstall.

So, at 1in went the disc, and away it went.

Vista, I should add.

And NOT my machine I should doubly add.

Within half an hour (I kid ye not) the install process had Blue Screened of Deathed on me.  Which is never a good sign.  It generally means that all is not well in the Land of Computer Gubbins.  So, I started again, and aside from the sloooowness of it, it slowly did it's thing.

LONG story short, it took two hours to install.  Bare in mind I had lots of other things I wanted to do today, but slowly but surely, I could see them slipping beyond my grasp.

Once it installed, it refused, point-blank, to connect to the internet wirelessly.  Full on childish sulk.  It could see the network, but didn't know what the network was, nor did it believe me when I tried to usher it through the door to the internet itself.  I ushered, nudged, suggested, pushed, body-checked, threw and threatened it with a pointy stick.

But to Internet-Land, it did not want to go.

So, running wires and crap around, I connect it to the network via a cable.  "Ooooh" it said as it found the internet - and then proceeded to sulk that it needed Windows Update to be run.  It took another 90 minutes to decide that, yes, it would very much like 109 updates.

I allowed it, and let it start downloading them and installing them.  Thinking it's connected to a fast network, it shouldn't take too long.  And Microsoft, who are so well known for their accurate guesstimations of passing time, happily told me "Time to complete, 54 minutes"

Not too shabby.  So I started pottering around on the computer, sorting graphics settings and everything else, then pottered around on my phone, shouted a bit on Twitter, looked at the screen... Two hours twenty minutes remaining.

OK, Microsoft still have no clue regarding the passage of time.

32 minutes
3 days
82 minutes
1 day, 12 hours

And so on and so forth.

So I pissed off and did dinner.  I remember when I used to enjoy reinstalling or rebuilding systems, but now it's just gotten to the stage where everything I seem to touch implodes on me.

Dinner cooked, still not done.  Dinner eaten, still not done.  So I went out and did the paper round.  Got in - only JUST done, and half eight at night.  It restarted, and then decided it wanted to do a Windows Update.

And still refused to touch the internet through the wireless network.  The other Vista machine in the house is quite happy using it's wireless, completely believes me when I tell it there is internet, so I know it's not a Vista-vs-The-Router issue.

And then, the kittens woke up.  Or, more specifically, Galadriel woke up.

Cat names are a whole new blog post, so just go with it for now.

I'm sat on the floor, fiddling with my phone, screaming on Twitter, drinking a Pepsi, when she wanders across me to the knackered machine, and my brain decides to tell me she's talking to me.

Yes folks, I've cracked, the computer pushed me over the edge.

G: Stop playing on your phone, the computer is still broken.
Me: Yes, I know it's broken, it's updating.
G: How about I stand on the keyboard - oh, it made a funny noise.
Me: That's because you just cancelled the Update it was doing, move.
G: Alright Alright - heeeey put me down - why don't you call a professional?
Me: I AM a professional.
G: You're talking to a cat.
Me: I'm obviously very tired, now please, go play with Kellie.
G: She doesn't need my help on her game. Oh, what's it doing now?
Me: It's rebooting and searching for more updates.
G: I'll sit back on the keys, that was nice and warm.
Me: No, you can go sit over there
G: Heeeey put me down!
Me: Go play with Gimli, he's bored.
G: He's an idiot, you need my help more than - ooooh a MOTH!

I think I need help.

And FYI, it's 11pm, the kittens are now wrestling, and Service Pack 1 is currently "thinking"

Plot Thickens...

So, URL Providing Company called me again today... Thanked me (!!) for removing my posts about That Company, but requested I also now remove all the comments.  So, despite originally being told that my personal views are wrong, the 80 or so people across all the posts must ALSO be wrong too about That Company.

On the bright side, she DID tell me that I can say exactly what I want to say, just not on their servers.  My "freedom of expression" counts, as long as I say it somewhere else...

Clearly the word "FREEDOM" doesn't quite mean what I thought it meant.  Feel like I've been dumped in a box with the likes of the KKK and that Mental Church in America.  Maybe I should find out who hosts them...  Or even get a host in the USA where I know they won't tell me "You can't say that, it's not nice"

All the posts and comments are all saved and backed up, ready for people that want to see it.