Brief Notes
Sorry for the lack of posts over the last few days (I really have failed that Blog365 challenge, haven’t I?) but I was working over the weekend and didn’t really spend too much time in front of the screen for most of the last five or six days. Also, I think I’m going through one of those periods where nothing is really flagging up as being worthy of spending the time to write about; I find that I’m not one of those bloggers who can just sit in front of the machine and write - I have to have something that I want to say, or a news story I want to comment on. So this is just going to be another in my series of Brief Notes posts.
1. Ozh has updated his updated Absolute Comments plug-in, which caused me some confusion for a while. In version 2.1, he’s created a separate my_options.php file for holding some of the user settings (they used to be in the main file). Initially, I thought he’d dropped support for threaded comments, but then after checking out his website I realised what he’d done. If you don’t use this plug in already, check it out - it makes replying to comments on your blog so much easier.
2. In related news, WordPress 2.5 continues to be rather underwhelming. It’s not causing any problems for The New Wolfs Howl, but I haven’t really come across any of the new features that were so trumpeted at the launch. But it seems to be stable, which is good.
3. We’re coming towards the end of the football season. Eastbourne Borough have two away games left to play, and it’s tight at the top of the table. Only one point behind leaders Lewes (but they’ve got two games in hand), it is mathematically possible for us to win the league. Of course, we need Lewes to do quite badly in their last four games and I’m not sure that’s going to happen. But if we don’t win, we’ll get a play off position so will still have a promotion chance.
4. I’ve been listening to a lot of internet radio recently - specifically, Virgin Radio Classic Rock. It’s old school rock (with some grunge thrown in every now and again - be warned) and has just played me Radar Love followed by Queen’s You’re My best Friend. If you ever listened to a radio show hosted by Tommy Vance, then you should really check it out.
Music, music, music
As you may have realised from some of my past posts, I’m a bit of a music lover. I’m pretty much into all things musical (there are some things that I just won’t listen to, but it’s quite a short list). I’m also into enjoying music as often as I can throughout the day. Since having the Mac, I’ve been able to listen to music while doing all my Internet type stuff, by using the excellent iTunes. Then, for more superior listening quality - and louder rocking out - I’ve got the sound system in the main living room.
But I don’t have a solution for when I’m out and about. I grew up in the era of the Sony Walkman and I had a mobile cassette player for years. Then portable CD players came out and they were too large. I’ve got a radio on my mobile phone which I use sometimes, but I’m thinking it would be a good idea to invest in an MP3 player of some sort for the summer.
Even though I’m an Apple fan, I’ve not got an iPod because I think they are somewhat overpriced for what they offer but I’ve not really had a chance to shop around and see what else is out there. Audio Mania, which I came across today, would seem to be the answer to my needs. They’ve got a huge range of MP3 and MP4 music and video players - including iPodTouch, Samsung Gem and the Zune - at really good prices. Postage rates are reasonable too.
Of course, the problem I now have is that I’m spoilt for choice so I still can’t decide which one is right for me.
This post is brought to you by audiomania.co.uk.
Spring is in the air
And about time too. Despite the snow last Sunday, we’re starting to see a general warming in the air, sunshine and brightness and longer evenings. You really can start to believe that winter is done and summer is on the way.
With the coming of spring, there’s always a great sense of renewal, of opportunities to come; an awakening and unfurling, coming out of the winter shell and extending your senses towards the newness in the environment around you. Simple things, like being able to open your windows and let the fresh smelling air into the house - blowing away the mustiness of the past winter and giving everything a revitalising smell. Leaving a window open all day while out at work means that you come home to a pleasant, open atmosphere - rather than the closed, stale atmosphere that greeted you on your return during the dark months.
Spirits are raised by spring, too. A feeling that perhaps things aren’t as bad as they looked before, there are things to cherish in the world and what’s to be gained by not embracing the happinesss?
I love spring.
A picture of you
While I was playing about with installing 2.5, I noticed that the comments screen shows a little picture for each person that’s commented (previous versions may have done this, but I never noticed). This little picture - called an avatar - is usually what the person has uploaded to their blog as their profile picture, but can also be a variation called a gravatar. Gravatars (or globally recognised avatars) can follow you from site to site, because they are linked to your email address.
I liked the idea of being able to display peoples gravatars on the blog, next to their comment. This required another plug-in and some hacking around with the comments.php file, but I’m happy to report that comments are now a little more graphical.
It’s a small thing, really, but it keeps me off the streets.
Cashback? Yes please!
WePromiseTo Cashbackis a new service that - in these days of credit crunch, rising prices and falling pound value - is very welcome. What do they do? Well, as the name suggests they give you cashback on a huge range of your online and real world spending. Big name retailers like Amazon and Halfords have signed up to the service, which offers you the chance to get money pack for every pound you spend. Payment can be made direct to your bank account but you can get 2% extra cashback if you take it in Amazon gift vouchers.
Sign up is free and all it will cost you to use the service is a £5 fee that will be deducted from your cashback amount when you’ve earned enough. You can even earn £1 for every friend you recommend (so click this link to go and sign up now!)
This post is sponsored by WePromiseTo.
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