Monday, July 30, 2007
Predictably, shortly after sorting out our email problems, our isp threw a serious wobbler, and refused to function at all.This was unfortunate timing, as it came a couple of days before we went on a short break, so till now, no-one has known why my cam and chatroom have been dead, emails haven't been answered, etc.
So anyway... the city of Hull has been generally recognised as the worst place in England.
We decided to find out if the reputation was warranted, and booked a few days in The Quality Royal Hotel, right in the heart of Hull.
These photos might suggest that the place is as bad as people say it is, but there's more...
And then when you begin to explore the surrounding area, there's still more...
Click the images for larger versions.
So, the hotel was absolutely fantastic, and is highly recommended, and as for the reputation of the town... no warranted at all, as far as we could tell.
Labels: holidays, hotels, photos
Steve 9:13 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Email problems solved.The technical help desk of our ISP was absolutely useless, predictably, but I was eventually able to solve the problem by changing the firewall on both computers here.
(I'm sure other users of the Orange ISP will be familar with such tales of useless help desks)
Now I don't for one moment think the firewall itself was at fault, as it has been running on both pcs here, quite faultlessly, for around 2 years now. Meanwhile, the ISP has been performing major "upgrades" to the service at exactly the time we were no longer able to recieve email.
Mmhmm... yeah, sure its our firewalls at fault.
Anyway, I switched over to a more popular brand of firewall, and everything's hunky dory again. Pity I personally hate this firewall, but for the sake of having access to email again... beggars can't be choosers.
Labels: annoyed
Steve 6:35 PM [+] (1) comments
Saturday, July 21, 2007
The internet is behaving oddly today.I'm unable to log into my hotmail, while Andrea is unable to log into her ISP mail account.
In the meantime, some sites that are working fine in Firefox won't load in IE, and vise versa.... but not the same ones on the PC downstairs as on the PC upstairs.
It's all very confusing.
Steve 9:17 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Finally, after several days extremely tedious work, the Benway's Favourites section of the photo gallery is finished.68 photos, some of which are on flickr, and some which have been, but aren't any more. Some which are already in the gallery, all will be... and some which may have been seen in this blog. Some have never been seen before.
Anyways, check it out.
Can I take a half decent photo?
Labels: photos
Steve 3:44 PM [+] (1) comments
Friday, July 13, 2007
Okay, I'm a little gobsmacked, and somewhat puzzled.So I was cheking my email, and got the usual "so and so wishes to add you as a friend on myspace", and I went along to see who it was, and probably approve them.
Took a quick glance... Leah Cahndra... "who's that?" I wondered, so checked out her myspace profile.
Holy Crap!
Two bands who I'm rather into, The Reflecting Skin, and Molotov Elysian, both share a female vocalist.... one Leah Chandra.
WTF?
Why is she adding me? Thats not even my band myspace page.
Very puzzled, and rather chuffed.
Steve 1:08 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Another new section completed in the photo gallery.This time it's Miscellaneous and Pets. Just a few pics that wouldn't fit in any other sections of the gallery.
Next will be "Benway's Favourites". The title says it all really, and it'll feature my fave pics from all the sections of the gallery, including the sections that aren't actually completed or uploaded yet.
I just think since my best pics are the more recent ones, and I've been working on the gallery 'oldest first', that this would be a good way to get some better photos on there.
It'll be around 60 - 70 pics, when it's done, so expect a couple of days wait for this one.
Labels: photos
Steve 4:46 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, July 09, 2007
More work on the photo gallery.Firstly, a new section... Worksop and Clumber Park. These are new, in that they haven't been on my old netfirms gallery, and probably not flickr either. They're actually a couple of years old, and what with poor light and a fairly indifferent camera, they're nothing special.
Other changes to the gallery... Since all the functional links to sections of the gallery were right at the bottom of the page, I've removed all 'non-live' links to sections that haven't been completed yet. So now the only links to be seen are the ones that you can actually click on.
I've also made it so that you can click through from one section/catagory to the next/previous... but also so that you can click right through from the first photo in the gallery, to the last. You no longer have to go back to the main gallery index.
Labels: photos
Steve 2:59 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, July 08, 2007
More additions to the photo gallery.This time its the Zoo Visits and Steam Rally pics.
And just for a change, apart from the few steam rally pics, these photos, and everything that follows, are pretty much unseen.
One or two will have appeared in this blog, or on Flickr, but mostly, this is new material... even if it has been sitting on my pc's hard drive for several years.
Labels: photos
Steve 3:47 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Another website update.I've completed the Devon and Dorset section of my photo gallery.
Few of these photos are new, so anyone familiar with my old gallery on Netfirms (not Flickr) will have seen most of them... though not all.
Work continues on the next section.
Labels: photos
Steve 3:18 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Over the past few weeks, I've had the pleasure of chatting with a young lady from China. I mentioned this a couple of posts back, I think.Now, conversations with her have been somewhat problematic, as I don't speak chinese, and she doesn't speak english.
To get around this, she has been using your fairly typical, and unreliable, online translation tool.
Anyways, I'd been aware that google has the facility to translate chinese to english, and back, but have been unable to make use of it, as my pc would't display the chinese character set.
So tonight, after a little tinkering, I enabled chinese characters on my pc, and next time we chat, we'll see if google translation is any better than her tool.
If nothing else, it should be a giggle for her to see me typing jibberish in her language for a change.
Additional...
So I was testing the google translation tool with my usual method, take a line of english, translate into whatever, and then back to english.
The line I translated to chinese was "Once upon a time there were three bears. Mummy bear, daddy bear, and baby bear."
Now I don't know if the errors are in translating to chinese, or back to english, but the final result is quite an eye opener.
"Had in a long time ago, a total of three parties. Her father bears the responsibility and bear the baby"
I suspect much amusement and confusion will be the order of the day.
Labels: chatrooms
Steve 5:28 AM [+] (0) comments
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