21 April, 2009

Red Fridays - Support Our Troops

After reading a blog post by Behind Blue Eyes today, I wanted to re-post.
Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing Red every Friday. The reason? British men and women who support our troops used to be called the ’silent majority’.

We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for Country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or over-bearing. We get no liberal media coverage on TV, to reflect our message or our opinions. Many English people, like you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of Britain supports our troops.

Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that every Briton who supports our men and women afar will wear something red.

By word of mouth, press, TV — let’s make Great Britain on every Friday a sea of red much like a homecoming football team If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, co-workers, friends, and family, It will not be long before Britain is covered in RED and it will let our troops know the once ’silent’ majority is on their side more than ever, certainly more than the media lets on.

The first thing a soldier says when asked ‘What can we do to make things better for you?’ is…’We need your support and your prayers’… Let’s get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example; and wear something red every Friday.

IF YOU AGREE — THEN SEND THIS ON - IF YOU COULD NOT CARE LESS THEN HIT THE DELETE BUTTON.

IT IS YOUR CHOICE. THEIR BLOOD RUNS RED—- SO WEAR RED! Lest we Forget.

You don't have to. But this country is slowly going south. Its time to stand up, and be counted for what you believe in. Don't be a part of the silent majority. I am not asking you to stand up and shout. Just do something and support our boys.
From an unknown traveller

Last week I was in West London attending a conference.

While I was in the airport, returning home, I heard several people behind me beginning to clap and cheer. I immediately turned around and witnessed one of the greatest acts of patriotism I have ever seen.

Moving through the terminal was a group of soldiers in their uniforms, as they began heading to their gate everyone (well almost everyone) was abruptly to their feet with their hands waving and cheering.

When I saw the soldiers, probably 30-40 of them, being applauded and cheered for, it hit me. I’m not alone. I’m not the only red blooded Briton who still loves this country and supports our troops and their families. Of course I immediately stopped and began clapping for these young unsung heroes who are putting their lives on the line everyday for us so we can go to school, work, and enjoy our home without fear or reprisal.

Just when I thought I could not be more proud of my country or of our service men and women a young girl, not more than 6 or 7 years old, ran up to one of the male soldiers. He knelt down and said ‘hi,’ the little girl then asked him if he would give something to her daddy for her. The young soldier didn’t look any older than maybe 22 years old himself, said he would try and what did she want to give to her daddy. Suddenly the little girl grabbed the neck of this soldier, gave him the biggest hug she could muster and then kissed him on the cheek. The mother of the little girl, who said her daughters name was Courtney, told the young soldier that her husband was a Corporal and had been in Afghanistan for 5 months now.

As the mum was explaining how much her daughter, Courtney, missed her father, the young soldier began to tear up. When this temporarily single mum was done explaining her situation, all of the soldiers huddled together for a brief second. Then one of the other servicemen pulled out a military looking walkie-talkie. They started playing with the device and talking back and forth on it.

After about 10-15 seconds of this, the young soldier walked back over to Courtney, bent down and said this to her, ‘I spoke to your daddy and he told me to give this to you.’ He then hugged this little girl that he had just met and gave her a Kiss on the cheek. He finished by saying ‘Your daddy told me to tell you that he loves you more than anything and he is coming home very soon.’ The mum at this point was crying almost uncontrollably and as the young soldier stood to his feet he saluted Courtney and her mum.

I was standing no more than 6 feet away as this entire event unfolded.

As the soldiers began to leave, heading towards their gate, people resumed their applause. As I stood there applauding and looked around, there were very few dry eyes, including my own. That young soldier in one last act of moment turned around and blew a kiss to Courtney with a tear rolling down his cheek.

We need to remember everyday all of our soldiers and their families and thank God for them and their sacrifices. At the end of the day, it’s good to be an Englishman.

If you a little digging around, you are going to discover the snopes page. I don't care.

Support our troops

03 January, 2009

The Future of Music?

 So here is my take on the future of music.. its probably been spouted out before by someone, but I just wanted to get it out there. 

I own an Xbox 360. I am on my second one now, after the original ones optical drive failed. Oh well.. anyway thats beside the point. I own a few games. I like first person shooters a lot - Call of Duty 4, Far Cry 2, etc etc. I also own two music games.. 

  1. Lips - pretty much a Karaoke game

  2. Guitar Hero - playing Air Guitar to famous tracks.. 


Why do I own these games?? The social aspect.. I can actually get my girlfriend interested in the Xbox if we are playing these games. Also if I have a party, its a great way for some fun to be happening!

Everyone has heard of iTunes. Its the #1 place to get your digital music online. Amazon MP3 is a new service (to the UK) that allows you to download any DRM-free music tracks. Apart from illegally downloading your music, its one of the most popular ways today to get hold of your favourite tracks. Oh, don't forget you can also buy a physical copy!!

Since October 2007, the Official Charts company has allowed these digital downloads to count towards the official number one single. So whats going to be the future?
Let me download the new releases on to my Xbox / Wii / PS3 into Guitar Hero, Rockband or Lips / SingStar and make them count towards the number one single! Simple! 

Also if I am a musician, I want to get my tracks on to these games ASAP. Let me do that! Make it simple.. 

The future of Music.. Its all about being part of it! Let me sing it.. Let me play it.. I don't want to just listen to it anymore..

Losing this big fat belly

I have just spent ten days with my parents and family back home. Do you want to know what every single friend and relative said to me? 
"When you expecting?"

They were'nt talking about children. They were talking about me having a big belly. Now, I have been out the forces now for eight years. I have been to University, and I have been travelling. I now work for the largest IT company in the world as a Technical Consultant. I spend a lot of my time talking on my phone, and sat behind my laptop. On a day to day basis, I generally don't do a lot of exercise. However, I have been saying for the previous three years that I need to Get Fit and Stay Fit

I always thought my Body Fat was over 30%. After all if you take the standard test which is:

  1. Work out your height in metres and multiply the figure by itself

  2. Measure your weight in kilograms

  3. Divide the weight by the height squared (the answer to Q1)


For example, you might be 1.6m (5ft 3in) tall and weigh 65kg (10st 3lb). The calculation would then be: 1.6 x 1.6 = 2.56. BMI would be 65 divided by 2.56 = 25.39.

If I followed this example, I am 1.8m tall, and weigh 100kg. This would currently mean 1.8 x 1.8 = 3.24. 100 / 3.24 = 30.9 . As the BMI Categories are:

  • Normal weight = 18.5-24.9

  • Overweight = 25-29.9

  • Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater


I would be classed as Obese. ME?? OBESE! :(

However, I discovered a different site today. The CholestorolNetwork . Here you enter in your height, weight and sex. You then enter in your waist size and hips size. Finally you enter in your forearm and wrist size. After I entered my results in, it comes back with 24% body fat. "You have 52.7 Pounds of fat and 167.3 Pounds of lean (muscle, bone, body water)"

Anyway, I know I have this belly. I have to do something about it. As such, from today and for the next two months, I am on a diet.

I will not drink any fizzy drinks. Eat any chocolate. Drink any alcohol. I will do exercise every day. 

I will let you know how I have done at the end of February..

01 January, 2009

Happy New Year 2009

 Welcome to 2009.. Its traditional to have some New Year Resolutions set on the 1st day, and keep them... well try anyway!

I have published my New Year Resolutions here before - 2006 and 2007 - but I didn't do it last year! I also had some thirtieth birthday resolutions. They were all the same:

  1. No More Smoking! 

  2. Get Fit & Stay Fit 

  3. Manage my cash 

  4. Keep a life journal - keep it simple. The book How to Make a Journal of your Life is useful here.


In 2007 I added to #3 that I wanted to also manage my life better, with a little Getting Things Done, and added to #4 that I was going to keep a photo journal. 

So what am I doing this year? I reckon I'm going to stick to this list.. These are resolutions, and even though I have been attempting to do this for the past three years I think it will soon all come together!

Also going to start the Photo Journal again, but instead of doing it with Vox or Flickr I will do it over at Daily Mugshot instead. Using my phone, I can take a picture of myself daily and send it on over..

01 December, 2008

gOS Cloud

gOS.cloudJust seen something about gOS Cloud -- Anyone know when this is released? I am still on the lookout for my next laptop, and its going to be a Netbook of some sort. The Asus 1000H seems to be drawing me in right now, but waiting for it to drop below £300.

Adding the tiny linux software gOS Cloud to boot into, when I start my machine seems a very clever way of getting what I need very quickly. I can then boot into Windows when needed. 

Now I know someone is going to say, "just get a linux OS like xandros".. sorry, but I dont have the time to learn a new OS. I know windows inside out now, and certain programs ONLY work on Windows, or Macs - Nokia PC Suite, Outlook, iTunes etc etc. This has very few programs, and if its stable then looks like a winner.

According to the few sites that have this written up - engadget / cnet / laptop mag - it seems that gOS Cloud features a browser with a MacOS like dock with shortcuts to favorite apps. It has tabs for multi-tasking between web and rich client apps, and icons that allow it to:

  1. Open gMail

  2. Open Meebo (web based instant messaging)

  3. Open google Calendar

  4. Open google Reader

  5. Open Google Maps

  6. Open Youtube

  7. Open Blogger

  8. Change wireless settings

  9. switch to Windows

  10. and power off


This does look really interesting, and something I need to read a lot more into. 

Anyway, Good OS.. let me download this, and install it on to my new netbook in the new year please! In fact Google, why don't you just go out and buy this company?? ;)

07 October, 2008

100 Skills every man should have

Over at Popular Mechanics, there is a post on 100 Skills every man should have. Being a 33 year old man, I thought I should check to see where I am. How much do I know?? I have starred ( * ) all mine. 
Brains and charm are fine, but a real guy needs to know how to do real stuff. After months of debate among PM’s expert editors, here’s our lineup of essential skills, broken down in 10 categories for the competent man—plus 20 tools you need to own. Did we leave anything out—or included a skill you don’t think is worthy? Sound off in our chat, then take PM’s interactive DIY quiz to see how you measure up!

Google Chrome .. five weeks on

Five weeks to the day since Google released its browser, Chrome and I thought I would give a quick update. 

I think the best thing you can say is that I am still using it! It wasn't a fly by night browser, try it out for an hour or so and never open it again.. its used for everything I do on my PC thats related to ME!! .. I don't use it for anything work related. For that I use IE7 and occasionally a very clean install on Firefox v3. 

Its still blindingly fast.. I have application shortcuts on the desktop for Gmail, Calendar and Gmail Contacts... I use the incognito feature, when I want to check my other Gmail account... I have used the Tabslock feature, so that whenever I press CapsLock it opens a new tab with my nine most used webpages on. For the record, its my company homepage, Facebook, Gmail, BBC News, Amazon, Google Reader, Wikipedia, My Wikipedia Watchlist, and at the moment it also has National Rail. I also love the search bar.. its called the onebox,a nd you can have custom search set. For instance, everytime i press W > space > SEARCH TERM.. it normally brings up the wikipedia page on it.. Would someone please tell me how I can search Amazon.co.uk the same way?? I have tried loads of ways and none of them work.. All in all though, I love it! 

But what do I miss?? I miss my delicious adding, but have managed to fudge it using a bookmark. Its not the best, but it works and Del.icio.us is 100 times better than Google Bookmarks. but thats about it. I now have a very fast browser, and its only crashed on me once. It opened up again so quick though, that I hardly noticed. 

The trackpad still doesn't scroll up, but I understand Google have fixed it on the nightly betas ... I haven't signed up for those, as I want a pretty stable release. One thing though Google, of you are reading this, please make it easier for me to upgrade to v0.2.149.30 or whatever the most recent one is by a click of a button. I don't know which is the most recent stable release.

Anyway want to know more?? go and view the comic at http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html and download the browser from http://www.google.com/chrome

02 September, 2008

First thoughts on Google Chrome


 Any normal google announcement is normally preceeded by all the tech pundits giving it a bit of this and a bit of that.. this was no exception. 


 This time though, it was only because Google sent out a comic to some leading bloggers yesterday that anybody had any idea it was happening. One of the comments was, "Who Cares? After all Internet Explorer is still used by 70% of all internet users" .. true. Another 20% use Firefox, and the remaining 10% use a mix of Opera, Safari, Netscape and others. 

Day to day I generally use Firefox,  but regularly find my memory being abused to the point that my computer crawls to a halt. Even closing tabs still fails to reduce it enough. So lets run a very quick test.

Currently in Firefox I have 11 tabs open. Its using 213Mb of memory. With Google Chrome I have 10 tabs open, and in Task Manager I see 10 instances of Chrome running - 50mb + 19mb + 5mb + 44mb + 11mb + 23mb + 11mb + 16mb + 27mb + 10mb = 243mb of memory. 

You might think here I have a problem. Less tabs, using more memory. Not the case. I close one of those tabs, and I immediately get that memory back. In Firefox, it stays. In fact if I close all the tabs less one, its still using 158Mb of my precious RAM. As Google says:
Each browser tab operates as a separate process; by isolating tabs, should one tab crash or misbehave, others remain stable and responsive, and users can continue working without having to restart Google Chrome.

Its a lighning fast browser, with a noticeable difference to the speed of opening new pages.

First impressions?? GREAT! Considering I use a lot of different google online applications, it will be one of my most useful broswers... 

Anyway, one complaint.. I can scroll down using my trackpad, but can't scroll back up. Its not that bad, just use my up/down arrows. 

25 August, 2008

Heres to the Crazy ones






My favourite piece of poetry.. I used it for a voiceover on a snowboard movie we made at University once.

It still makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck...
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits.The rebels.
The trouble makers.The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them.
But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.

And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

24 August, 2008

Beijing 2008 - Team GBR finish in fourth!

With the 2008 Beijing Olympics now entering the closing ceremony, I am over the moon to see Team GB finish fourth overall! CONGRATULATIONS!

Its been an amazing Olympic Games, and I have been glued to the t'interwebs, especially the BBC Live Action page, and the coverage from the BBC. Again, I feel my TV license was money well spent with the coverage that has been provided.

So whats been my highlights? Super Saturday and Sunday, and Tremendous Tuesday.. each day four new gold medals for Team GBR. I was gobsmacked with Usain Bolts three world records.. and Michael Phelps! Is he the worlds greatest athlete? He's up there with the best of them! It wasn't just Phelps.. all the swimmers did well. I guess at London 2012, every swimmer will be wearing the latest and greatest Speedo Suit...

The medal table is impressive this year.. China with 51 gold out of there 100 medal count, USA with 110 overall medals.. Russia pipped us to the post with a superb tally of 72. But Britain definitely put the Great back in Great Britain. Fourth in the number of Golds, fourth in the overall table. WOW!

Just before the games started, I was expecting Australia to do soo well. After all they have a pool of 21 million people to choose from and are a sporting nation. (lets not mention the Rugby though!). The UK Sports Minister, Gerry Sutcliffe made a stupid bet that he would wear Australias Green and Gold jersey at a sporting event if they beat us in the medal table! DUH!! I thought, "ARE YOU STUPID??".. fast forward two weeks later, and maybe I should have made a similar bet..

Anyway, for a rundown on all the British Olympic Medal Winners pop over to another BBC page. Lets all sit down and congratulate them in a very British way, with a nice cup of tea! After all it did seem that our Olympians were sitting down for most of our medals :)

Good luck to all the Olympians competing in the Beijing 2008 Para-Olympics!  Great Britain will send a team of 212 athletes to the 2008 Beijing Paralympics and compete in 18 of the 20 sports. In Athens four years ago, GB finished second to China in the medals table with 94 medals, including 35 golds. Team GBR can you do better ??