The Mercedes M-Class or ML320

I've just read a letter which makes me laugh - this bloke bought a ML320 in '98 and it's been riddled with faults - this guy has a great sense of humor!

http://www.nagele.co.uk/ml320/ - Once your on the website, click the link to read his letter!!

Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7) - Beta 2

Short & Sweet Review

Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft - Thank god you released beta 2.

To cut a long story short, Beta 1 was a waste of time - it had more bugs than 'A' reg Lada. (If you don't know what a Lada is, don't worry...).

I'm more happy with Beta 2, I've had a day to play with it and it's got lots of cool features, it's better than Firefox - I don't want to go into too much detail... You can open and close tabs on the fly using lots of different keyboard shortcuts. It's quicker than Beta 1, but probably a little slower than Firefox.

Download it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/ie7betaredirect.mspx

Internet Explorer 7 - Beta 2

It works with Blogger!! I've only just installed it, so I don't want to speak to early, however, it seems to be much slicker.

I'll report back later.

I'm self-employed, so I have to earn a living, right?

Well, you'd think that one day people would stop knocking me down on price... Something that really bugs me is that people what everything for nothing.

I went to see an old client of mine yesterday, and he wants to start a new business; Due to the success of his previous website, he wants me to start a new one for him - There one major difference - His old website had been started in 1996, so it was already in search engines, and it has lots of good incoming links, etc, etc....

If you start a website now, it's much more difficult to get #1 rankings quickly (unless you use PPC). You've got to wait at least 6-12 months before you strart seeing organic results. I've lost alot of business, because I am realistic, I won't tell you that it's possbile to do £1M of sales in the first 6 months, unless I think that it is possible.

Till next time...

The Wandering Scribe...

...If you're for real - all the best to you.

I read that this could be a marketing stunt.......well, WanderingScribe, you certainly sound like that. You have a PayPal account (you need a credit card for this), you have a BTinternet email address - you need a BTinternet account for this, this is going to be charged to your credit card....I've got loads more questions for ya if your out there....keyboard50@gmail.com

Toshiba Laptops....Are they still the best manufacturer?

Lately (For the last 6 months+), we've been getting several Toshiba laptops in, mainly the Equium model. It seems to be riddled with problems, from motherboards, to BIOS updates, sound cards, video card, etc.... .....In one case, we sent the laptop back to Toshiba, and they didn't fix it. So, it went back for a second time, and still, they didn't fix it - The women on the other end of the phone was a typical british 'sour-faced waste-of-time', she was completely useless.

I've just had another Toshiba Equium (1.5 years old), put on my desk - They told me that it keeps on crashing (this is common...) - But the unusal thing was the fan was making loads of noise, and not only that, the machine was HOT. First things first, I need to check the processor temperature - using a handy tool, I tested the processor temperature, it was running at 70 degrees C +. This is bad, these 3Ghz P4's are rated at 38 to 69, and as it's in a laptop, we need to add a few degrees.

Anyway, I proceeded to take the laptop to pieces, to get access to the heatsink and fans, and it didn't seem to bad, there wasn't much dust - UNTIL, I sprayed my pressurised air into the heatsink - THEN, there was so much dust, I had to take it outside - not only that, there was lots fo hair tangled in the fan. If you're having problems with the laptop running too hot, check the heatsink and fan to make sure they're not clogged up.

Backwards Wireless Internet In Portugal.....

....So - I'm on holiday in Portugal - Before coming on holiday, I spent countless hours trying to find a hotel with wireless internet, eventually, I did. However, it only works in the lobby - and to get internet access, you need to go to a PT shop or a Post Office. Basically, you buy a card with a username and password, and you can buy cards for 1 hour (5 euros), 1 day(20 euros) or 1 week (50 euros).

We got here on Friday (yes, bank-holiday Friday), and of-course, in good Portugese style, nothing opens on any type of holiday. So, on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, we couldn't get a wureless access card.

You may ask, well normally you just buy it online - Normally you do!! But not in Portugal - Oh Noo!! You have to goto a shop and buy the physical piece of paper with the username/password.

Nevertheless, I now have access. Till next time.

Lawyers, Lawyers and Lawyers - Don't pick a fight with them...

As you may or may not know, not only do we do a lot of work on the web, but we also maintain company networks, and have IT support contracts with local companies - We have several clients who are Solicitors (Lawyers) firms. One of our clients decided they wanted to move their Web Hosting package to us, as their current providers take over two weeks to do minor changes - So, I get an email from one of the nice ladies, asking me if she would run into any trouble transfering the domain, etc... with their current web hosting firm. I said, so long as they own the design and they aren't tied into a 12 month contract, there should be no problems.

But I was thinking - the beauty about being a solicitors firm, is that no-one in their right mind would pick-a-fight with you, it would be a loss-making battle.

The next item that got me thinking, she mentioned that they recomend that their clients buy all-posible domains, i.e. .biz, .info, .net, .org, .org.uk, .uk.com, etc... - This seems to be the case with a lot of Web firms - We don't recomend buying all the domains, we recomend buying the .com & .co.uk. If the client can't afford to buy all the other domains, we don't push them - If they are a big brand, then I definately recomend buying all-posible domains, but for small local companies, I don't always 'push-it'. The thing is, only recently have people got used to .com and .co.uk, and, if people make mistakes remembering or entering a web address, they are going to make them on .co.uk and .com, not .biz or .info....that's just my opinion.

Sky Broadband - Are you having a laugh?

Well - recently, you can download this Sky software, and then download and watch movies from your computer.

After doing this at home, and noticing my router going nuts, I was thinking - What the hell's going on!?!

Did you know that Sky reserve the right to use your computer as a download source - P2P File Sharing ring a bell? There is a service installed on your computer when you install the Sky software, it's called KService, turn this off (or set it to Disabled), and you'll be back to normal.

I don't believe that a large company like Sky would be penny-pinching bandwidth by using a hidden file-sharing network.....amazing.

DON'T REMOVE IE 7 - Nothing works properly....like a bad virus...

....So, after removing IE 7, and having constant problems, like, IE6 doesn't work properly (Nothing Javascript works properly, all the plugins are f***ed, even if you re-install them), so I remove Firefox, and then being re-installing the whole lot again (IE, and Firefox) and nothing functions properly - when you remove Firefox you have to change the file associations back to IE, but when you do that - and you type a web address in IE, it opens a new browser!!

So - I'm dabbling with the thought of Re-Install from scratch - or fiddle about with the Windows Scripting Engine, etc... and see what happens - I'll decided this weekend.

F1 Austrailia - Fantastic Race!!! :-)

Yes - The F1 in Austrailia was a brilliant race - Shame that the Austrailians are stupid people (Yes, I've never, and I mean never, met a pleasant Ausi - They're all too busy sheep-shagging, probably), otherwise it was excellent race.

PHP Amsterdam - A conference I've been to for the last 3 years

It's not happening this year, says Software Support & Verlag (Yes, it's a terrible name, but so be it!).

It's been busier each year, but obviously they at £650 a head, they can't get enough seats. Saying that, it's quite busy... ...the problem is that for the last 2 years running, the talks have been so similar, it's been semi-pointless. I was debating going this year, dependant on what they were talking about - but it's not on, so there's no debate.

Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7) - And How-To Remove It!

If you've installed IE7 to fiddle and test, you will probably want to uninstall it - as viewing web pages is slower than...