Recently in zzz - None of the Above Category

I knew I'd been busy, but wow, two months without getting round to posting here. Well, time to correct that....

Wow, busy few weeks - time for a mega posting session. Lets start with all the reading:

If that was a small earthquake, I never want to be in a big one!

For just a few seconds this morning (maybe 4) the building shook in a way buildings shouldn't shake accompanied by a low rumbling sound. It actually felt like the building lent way from me while I sat at my desk but I would guess that's just perspective playing tricks. I did get up and check the back to see something hadn't driven or fallen onto it (tree perhaps?) but all seemed normal so I got back to work wondering if that was an earthquake.

Time to check the news services to find out about it:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk
www.guardian.co.uk

Back row left to right: Irene, Lynda, Michèle, Brigitte, Steve
Front row left to right: Rita, Mark, Jorge

Michèle:bonjour tout le monde!
C'est un moment historique!
C'est la première fois que Michèle utilise un blogue!

Jorge:Se sour je pri une fote de la classe

Mark:J'aime boucoup votre site

Brigitte; je trouve cette classe très sympa.

Rita.Je ne comprends rien encore.

Lyn: C'est la dernière classe et nous allons au pub

Irene bon voyage, a bien tot.....!

Welcome my first guest article writers for my blog.
My French teacher discovered my blog and made me talk about it in our French lesson - in French of course. OK, I didn't need much persuading to talk about myself! The university rooms all have computers with internet connections and projectors. I decided to get them all to write something here themselves - easy when you know how.

It's been a week since I broke my foot and today is the first day I feel I can concentrate enough to get some work done. It seems my broken foot addled my brain slightly. I went back to the hospital this morning so they could have another look. They decided to put the foot in a plaster cast and have told me that in the next few days I should be able to walk short distances on it.
They modern cast is fibreglass rather than plaster of paris. When the roll of fibreglass is made wet it starts an exothermic reaction. The heat drys the fibreglass in minutes so a short push on my foot by Paul the technician and my foot is set in the best angle.
Now I've had both my wrists in plaster and one foot, I guess I can look forward to breaking the other foot one day in the future.

Look at that, 12,345 emails in my gmail in-box. Had to screen shot it, 1-2-3-4-5 has a nice ring to it. 12,345 represents 60% of the near 3GB allowed in a googlemail box and the 5,909 spam messages are only those from the last 30 days. I guess i'll have to start deleting the some old email soon.

Just a thought I'd like some opinions on: Is damn a swear word?

I've been thinking that over time different words develop different meanings to different generations. Words that were offensive many years ago have no meaning today. I remember some TV drama set in the past where the phrase "sweating" was offensive. "You don't sweat" said the posh lady, "people perspire, only horses sweat". I guess the phrase sweat like a horse meant something when a horse was the primary source of transport and mechanisation.

Anyway, is damn still considered a swear word would you think?

...the lovely 3M Snap Band I spoke about here.
Entry is easy, first to comment gets the prize, just like I said:

Remember that comments don't appear immediately, I have to moderate them all to stop all the spam from appearing. If you are having trouble posting a comment, send me an email instead. I'll use the timestamp on the email to log your time of entry (that is, my server timestamp, so don't try changing your computer clock!).
A couple of simple rules. 1) I decide who wins, my decision is final. 2) I get to change the rules whenever I feel like it. 3) I'll be posting the band to you if you live in the UK. If you don't live in the UK then there's no need to enter. 4) You can enter on behalf of someone else if you like (eg If you are in Australia but you want your prize posted to someone in the UK, that's fine).

How much do books weight?
Why would you want to know?

Well, at work (www.rootskitchens.co.uk) we are frequently asked to supply book shelves. Remembering that every book is different, a typical selection of cookery books (at least, the selection I had to hand at the shop) weighed a total of 2.25Kg and occupied 100mm when standing on edge. Therefore, 1 metre of books would weigh 22.5Kg and our shelves and (when rounding) brackets would need to support a minimum of 25Kg/m.

Remember though, that's a minimum because:

• their books may weigh more
• they may stack books on top of books
• their books may be shallower than their shelf and all on the front edge
• suddenly find a new home and be replaced by heavier cast iron sausepans

Shelf brackets (decent ones anyway) will state how much weight they have been tested to safely hold. This is normally given as an evenly placed load around the mid point of the bracket. For example, if a given bracket will support 20Kg and is 300mm long, the 20Kg is taken as acting from the middle - 150mm away from the wall. Therefore if you put all of your 20Kg weight at the far edge, 300mm away from the wall you can expect the bracket to fail.

Also be aware that some brackets give Safe Working Load when used as a pair, whilst others will be based on each individual bracket. Remember your shelf also has a weight and you may need to take this into account.

As a rule of thumb, if a customer says they would like to use a shelf for books I would look to find brackets that would support a minimum of 35Kg/m for a shelf 300mm deep. Therefore a 500mm long shelf would need to be able to hold 17.5Kg, and so on.

The other thing worth thinking about is bookends - some of those can be heavier than the books! Perhaps you can find some that can be permanently fixed to stop books falling off.

Just heard from an old friend called Adam. We met some 15 years ago at Chatham Ski Centre. A group of blind skiiers were looking for guides so I volunteered (and ended up managing the log book of available guides for when someone wanted to go skiing). We've booked a ski session for a few weeks time. Adam is totally blind so my job as a guide is to shout "left" and "Right" at the appropriate time so he stays on the slope and doesn't bump into anyone.

I've been trying to install Fedora from DVD but couldn't get the machine to read the DVD when it booted. I kept thinking it was a BIOS setting I had wrong (I could only choose 'CD' as a boot option). Eventually, I tried a bootable CD and that wouldn't work either. The problem all along was that I had the DVD set as 'cable select' (and it selected itself as slave which may not have helped). When I changed the jumper to 'Master' I could boot from CD's and DVD's. I never found the answer when googling so I post this here in case it helps someone else.

It must be a lucky year for me. I've just one an iPod Shuffle 1Gb courtesy of a Ford survey I completed (we've been looking at cars for Rhonda).

A few months ago I won a £15 Amazon voucher from another survey. Only trouble is I don't know what to buy with it. Any ideas?

The evening of Christmas day. Despite having eaten more today than I normally would in two working days, I've still found room for another turkey sandwich. Sharon called from Australia a short while ago. It's boxing day there now. We were going to call her this morning but got confused with the time zones so decided to leave it. Nicola and James were telling her all they got for Christmas. The corporate machine of "Thomas the Tank Engine" succeded this year as over half of all his presents had Thomas on them in one way or another. From the Thomas DVD, a large thomas train set, a book which folded open to have a large track that a wind up Thomas engine will follow round in circles, a matt where you can 'paint' with water your own train tracks which a Thomas engine will follow, a set of Thomas story books and a Thomas Annual which he was reading in bed when I said goodnight earlier. Corporate Machine? Yes. Happy James? Very much so.
All those branded items got me thinking to how we can improve the Roots brand.
Thinking of work, this week will be a busy week for me. Asside from two fitters packs I need to put together, I have to migrate from one web server to another new web server. What does that mean? Well, this web site, the rootskitchens web site and all the things that I've made the web server do over the last few years have to happen on the new web server. I'd like the switch to be seamless, but I know that it can't be. Downtime should be limited to only a few hours though, if I do it properly. I've got about 3 days (24 hours) of time allocated to set the new server up before I flick the virtual switch. By this time next week I'll know if it worked or not.

When I think of my Granddad, one thing has always sprung to mind. It's a song with the lyrics "you won't get me I'm a part of the union, you won't get me I'm a part of the Union...". (Text really doesn't mean much when you think of songs, so If I ever get round to it I'll see if I can put an extract here too.)

My Granddad was a Union Man. I remember growing up and him talking about political things and I'm sure he must have mentioned the unions several times. I can't remember anything specific that he said about the unions, but I have always associated that song with him. The song "PART OF THE UNION" was released by The Strawbs in 1973 - 3 years before I was born.

Fast forward a couple and a half decades. In 2003 I finally got round to having some guitar lessons. The teacher, Dave Lambert, used to teach my dad many years ago. Dave is an exceptionally good teacher. I also knew he'd had some songs in the charts many years before, including one called "Lay Down". Now, I've never been very good remembering names, so I didn't know that the band that recorded "Lay Down" were "The Strawbs". Dave Lambert was (and is) a Strawb.

For several months I had no idea that I was being taught to play guitar by one of the musicians who recorded the song I associate with my Granddad.

There's a useful windows shortcut key that I'd almost forgotten existed. I was speaking to a friend who uses a Mac and he proudly showed how by pressing one key (or combination) he could hide all of the open programs and display the OS X desktop. There's an equivalent key in Windows XP too, it's a combination of the "Windows Key" + D. Couldn't remember it at the time as it's been so long since I've used it.

There are hundreds of shortcut keys, I bet someone out there has an email service sending 'shortcut key of the day' too. If I find it, I think I'll have to subscribe.

OK, pop quiz: Name the shortcut Keys for the following commands (answers in the Extended Entry):
Show Windows Desktop : (c'mon, I've just told you that one).
Copy :
Paste :
Switch to another application :