Big Screen Fade In / Fade Out

A while back I saw this website that when I clicked a picture, the whole screen dimmed, and in the middle of the screen, what I clicked was enlarged and bright.

I never had the time to figure out what this was, recently, I stumbled across ThickBox which does just what I'm looking for - It's in DHTML/JavaScript. Take a look:

Thickbox - One box to rule them all.

technorati tags:dhtml, javascript, fade, thickbox

HANNS G 17" TFT Monitor

I was ordering some stock for a client, and I saw a special offer for a 17" TFT monitor. I saw it was £90+VAT. I thought, well, thats not a bad deal, so I added one to my order. I was thinking to myself - How good can a £90 17" TFT monitor be? I found out when it arrived - Not too good. It's okay and does the job fine, if you're just typing letters or reading documents.

BUT, if your in IT, or web-design and need colors to look really good and correct - then this monitor is not for you. The colors are well-out, not even near my CRT monitor. The CRT screen broke, thats also the reason I decided to get the TFT. I'll re-sell this TFT to a client, and buy a Flat-Glass CRT monitor - the picture quality is beautiful on the good 'ol CRT's!

There's a link here, to the monitor that I am referring to:

Misco.co.uk - HANNSG 17 MULTIMEDIA, DVI, 12MS TFT

technorati tags:hannsg, 17, tft, monitor

HP Laptop - My NC8230

In December last year, I need to get a new laptop (as my previous Acer died, as my colleague said, I probably gave it 5-7 years of use in 2 years, after-all this is my job!). I look around, as I wanted to get a powerful machine that was lightweight. The worst thing I did was look at reviews of laptops, because someone will always find a fault of some-kind. The HP NC8230 had its faults, but nothing in comparison with some of the other computers I looked into.

I called my trade supplier, and asked what they thought about the different laptops. They thought that the NC8230 was a good choice - So I thought about it for a few days, then bought one. When it arrived I noticed one immediate problem - The resoultion was so high that I couldn't easily read the screen - "No problem, just lower the resoultion" your thinking.... well, you can do that, but the screen goes a little blurry. Well - I use the machine plugged into an external monitor, mouse and keyboard most of the time - so I'm not too worried.

Recently, what has not made me happy, is that I can no longer get hold of a Docking Station for the laptop. I bought one when I get the laptop, however, I dropped it yesterday, and as a results, it doesn't work anymore! My suppliers tell me that have not got any, and can't get any!! I am waiting for HP to get back to me.

See a review of the laptop here: HP NC8230 Review (pics, specs) - NotebookReview.com Forums

technorati tags:nc8230, hp, laptop, docking, computer

Samsung D500 Mobile Phone - And the SPV C500

I only ask for two things out of my phone:

• Ease of use
• Speed (The meuns/contact book have got to be fast)
  

The SPV is very nice, with it's big color LCD screen and it's fancy features (like the ability to have my Outlook contacts and emails on the phone).

The Samsung has one major advantage, it's fast, very fast! When I'm going through the menus on the SPV it hesitates, and this irritates me, especially when I'm trying to do something fast.

The Samsung is the better phone for me.

technorati tags:samsung, mobile, phone

Wireless Internet Access - Trick; If using more than one computer

I wrote an article a while back, explaining how to get internet access on mulitple computers if your using a hotel provider, that only allows one computer to use the internet - It's here
http://in-london.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_in-london_archive.html

Well - The second way to do it is: Get a network crossover cable (only about £5) and plug it into the network card on your computer, and the other end into the other computer. Set the network card to 'Share' the connection - and voila! Both computer will have internet access, being shared through your computer. It's not the most comprehensive guide, but I'm short on time.

England 2 - Trinidad 0, World Cup 2006

Yes - England, have won their second World Cup match again Trinidad & Tobago.

In my opinion, England played badly, they got the last goal in the last minute - Trinidad stopped them from making any goals for the first 50-60 minutes.

Flock - Web Browser - Give credit, where credit is due!!

One of my oldest friends is an excellent businessman, one thing he taught me is never show anybody that you are happy with what they have done, for him, this seems to of proven good as he is doing very well for himself! For example, if a graphics designer sends you back some graphics, and he says what do you think - you just say 'There OK', or 'It's fine'. Even if you think they are excellent, never tell anybody - Thats his philospohy.

I always thought this was a bit backward - I always believe in giving credit, where credit is due! Flock is an excellent example - I heard Dave Naylor talking about it and decided to download it from www.flock.com . It's excellent - much better than firefox and better than IE7 Beta 2(even though I am a Microsoft supporter!)


Flock is fast, very, very fast. It opens fast, opens websites fast - it does everything seriously fast. This is nice - Flock is slick... In a word "fantastic".

SsangYong Motors - The Kyron

Suffice to say that I only drove it for 20 minutes earlier today, so I can't give you a complete review - but my first impression was 'impressive'...

The Kyron is very comfortable, you have a good ride position and the clutch is nice and soft. The controls are nice and comfortable, the steering is very smooth and easy. It was manual, and the gear-change was *relitavely* smooth, and very easy - no pushing, it's was nice and soft.

Power-wise, it was okay - nothing special, I think the one we had was a 2.7Turbo Diesel (but I'm not sure, I'll have to double check). It had the feel of a good, well-built vehicle, but the engine sounded and felt like the Kia's, i.e. foreign and *ok* but not like the diesel of a Ford or VW.

I'll admit, I was actually quite impressed - I do like to have a feel of the road when I'm driving, and even though the steering/gearchange where completely num - I still *kind-of* enjoyed the drive.

The one main, really, really bad thing, was that the vehicle has no proper cup holders!!! I wouldn't even consider buying a car that didn't have proper cup holders. Where am I going to put my coffee?

I'll write more once I have got a proper feel for the vehicle.

First thoughts: Impressed (except about the cup holder).

GN Netcom - Wireless (Cordless) Headset

I've got a GN Netcom 9120 Wireless Headset - It's fantastic, the one main problem is that you have to leave the phone off the hook while you are speaking, and when you finish your talk, you have put physically put the phone down - This isn't a problem if your sitting at your desk, but it's a pain if you walking around the office, etc... Aparantly, you can get a wireless handset remover (i.e. when you open the headset, it pushed the telephone off the base, i.e. opening the line). The headset isn't cheap, but you are paying for a good quality device - I'd definately recomend one.

Why did I write this?
Well, I'm wondering if anyone has tried one of the wireless handset removers, are they good? Let me know.

Google Spreadsheets

spreadsheets.google.com

I've registered for a test account, but they've not given me access yet.

It seems very interesting, you can read a review here: http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/002213.html

Later...

UPS's - Recently, one of my clients has been having power cuts, more often than I would like...

It's been a while since I've had to buy UPS's - So, I decided to check whats new and whats good.

I found the APC UPS 1000VA to be a good one, I've not ordered it yet, but will do today or
tommorow. IT comes with good software, it'll last 20 minutes on half-load and 6 minutes on full load. It'll also take the network cable, which is good as it would be terrible if a surge came through the NIC and cooked the motherboard.

The UPS will certainly never be on 'full-load', so around 15-20 mins is enough time for the server to safely shut down.

I'll let you know...

Technical Problems & Experts-Exchange.com Starts Charging...

When a major technical issue arrises, and Microsoft haven't documented the problem on their knowledge base, we do a search on Google to find out if anyone else has had a similar problem.

Regularly you'll see a search listing with www.experts-exchange.com. Experts Exchange has been a very good resource in the past, even though it is packed with advertising!! Evidently, the revenues Experts-Exchange has been making from the advertising isn't enough (or they want to make more money).... ....as recently they have introduced a 'View Solution' button, and you have to register and pay them some money... ...it not expensive, but a good way of bringing in some extra cash.

Well, I was thinking to myself - If Experts-Exchange remove content to make it a 'pay-for-answers site' they will lose alot of rankings, as a lot of the valuable content is in the Answers.

Just as I thought, when Google spiders the site they see all the Q&A's, but when we look at the site, we just see the initial question.

Need to prove it? Just do a search for "windows xp hang error event log experts exchange". Click the first item in the Search Results and scroll down to the bottom. See the answer? Probably not. Click the back button, and then when your back on the Google results page, click the 'Cached' button under the first listing. Voila! Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and you will see all the Q&A's.

This brings me to the next topic, Google's Quality Guidelines say "...[don't] present different content to search engines than you display to users...." - Clearly, this is the complete oposite to what Experts-Exchange is doing - HOWEVER, Experts-Exchange content is of extremely high-quality, and what they are doing isn't really that 'sneaky' or 'bad'. What would Google's stance on this be? At the end of the day, Experts-Exchange are displaying different content to the search engines to get better rankings - similar to what BMW did, but they aren't using sneaky spam to achieve the rankings.

Google - Click Fraud - Are they realistic?

One of my clients has recently setup a new web site, he recruited us to sort-out his search marketing.

It was all going well, until the account was maxed-out by mid-morning. This led me to think that a competitor was clicking the ads intentionally. I examined the Web Logs and found a specific IP address that had clicked the Ad at 0230AM, he clicked the Ad about 30 times. Was was even more unusual is that this happened almost every morning at the same time.

We emailed Google with our complaint, however, after spending many days 'investigating' then denied that the clicks had come through the Adwords account. I assumed we may have difficulty with them, but that excuse hadn't come to mind.

I'll keep you updated.... [ I've gotta run to a meeting ]

Language - Search Results

I've deleted one of my posts and it had some of the f*** words in it - It's strange that the search rankings went down after my 'foul-language' post. Anyway, I wasn't in a good frame of mind when I wrote that!

Okay - So, today I saw some advert for this vehicle, the G-Wiz, its a battery car with no engine.

Rubbish......no proper engine - it's a golf cart with a roof.....and indicators.