The Life & Grumbles of Steve Forster

Frank Kelly - Christmas Countdown

2009-12-21T18:29:58Z

Whilst on the road listening to the final week of Sir Terry Wogan I heard this Christmas rendition for the first time.

It is a masterpiece - truly wonderful

Managing my gadget life without Windows

2009-11-08T20:10:30Z

Having decided to ditch my expensive and bloated M$ Vista operating system I slowly realised how many of gadgets still need to be managed through Windoze applications. Where possible I have strived to maintain my gadgets using linux

Devices that happily play under linux

HP Photosmart C6380 Printer/Scanner as discussed here
Sony Reader ebook Reader

Devices that I manage inside a virtual machine running XP

iPod
Tom Tom

Sony Reader linux support
Calibre is a one stop solution to all your e-book needs. It is free, open source and cross-platform in design and works well on Linux, OS X and Windows. calibre is meant to be a complete e-library solution and thus includes library management, format conversion, news feeds to ebook conversion, as well as e-book reader sync features and an integrated e-book viewer.

Free Laptop location tracking software

2009-08-26T22:17:05Z

Prey Project have released an updated version of their laptop tracking software that works on Linux, Windows and OSX.

New with version 0.3 is a web hosted control panel that allows you to remotely enable tracking for up to three computers. Once the device is flagged as missing, a screenshot and webcam capture of the culprit will be sent to you at pre-determined intervals.

This is a brilliant service, and I will be following the development of this as new modules will be released to perform actions on your stolen device remotely such as clearing sensitive data or changing the desktop background to say that the device is stolen.

B2B2C Couriers website up and delivering for you

2009-08-10T09:58:59Z

Having recently completed a web site design for my Courier company I thought I should share this with you all.

B2B2C Couriers offer a same day nationwide delivery service of parcels and goods from a base in the Birmingham area.

Please feel free to recommend them to your friends.

Tom Tom 710 RDS-TMC fix

2009-08-05T21:43:13Z

I have been increasingly frustrated with my 710 and its inability to receive traffic information over the TMC lead connected to the dock. Things used to work until I upgraded to the 7.903 version of the application.

The fix was gleaned from the Tom Tom forums RDS-TMC problem posting.

The solution can be distilled into the following steps ...

1. Backup your tomtom before proceeding
2. Edit mctx.dat and replace the line like"TX01......~z" with "22220".
3. Delete the file gnsdata from the gns folder.
4. Reboot your tom tom device and enjoy traffic warnings once again.

Conky with Mint sauce

2009-08-04T14:28:09Z

click to see conky in detail

I discovered conky which gives a text based widget to display items on your desktop.

I am able to monitor disk and process usage, as well as network and weather conditions without looking out of the window.

I have attached my .conkyrc for you perusal
Continue reading "Conky with Mint sauce"

HP Photosmart C6380

2009-07-30T22:04:04Z

After realising that 66% of the machines that are dotted around the house are now running linux and are unable to talk to my Tally 8008 laser printer because it has crippled windoze only support, I did some research and bought a HP Photosmart C6380

HP Photosmart C6380 Wireless A4 Multifunction Printer (Personal Computer)

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Distributor: hp

Model: CD028B

Released: 2008-09-17

Price: £176.16

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1 used from £72.99

Information accurate as of September 4, 2010, 10:33 pm

HP have excellent support for Linux and HP Linux Imaging and Printing is excellent proof of that.

Installation was a breeze, and I was printing from my laptop over the network in a matter of minutes.

The Scanner is also accessible over the network using XSANE - fantastic.

The Book Thief » Markus Zusak » Book Review

2009-07-29T21:51:15Z

A compelling story of an evacuee in Hitler's Germany and how the family cope with the ravages of war and changing attitudes.

The book thief (Book)

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Author: Markus Zusak

Publisher: Black Swan

Published: 2008-01-01

Number of pages: 560

ISBN: 0552773891

Price: £7.99

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39 new from £1.95

58 used from £0.48

Information accurate as of September 4, 2010, 10:33 pm

Without giving away the whole story it charts the life a girl growing up in a society that she does not necessarily agree with but has to conform with for the sake of her elders.

Their lives are affected when they assist a Jewish fugitive, and will never be the same again.

Calling all voters

2009-05-20T17:23:45Z

Now is the time for you to nominate Serendipity PHP Weblog System in the Sourceforge Community awards.

I am using s9y, and would recommend this to everybody, the forums are really helpful for those in need.

Aeros v2.0 ported to s9y

2009-02-08T22:38:12Z

I noticed that Joe Fischler @ thebuckmaker.com has released Aeros v2.0 which now supports true cross-browser rounded corners and transparency.

The non-CSS code ‘opacity’ and ‘border-radius’ has been replaced by transparent background images and rounded image corners. The good news is that this validates as XHTML compliant and works well in IE7, fallback is there for IE6, but because of the lack of .png support IE6 will not have those smooth edges .

I have amended the WP theme Aeros - Astro to have the three column look of Aerodrome that I ported earlier. Transparency issues with text being washed out is a thing of the past, and captures and forms seem to be working much better now.

The header menu has had a makeover, now much sleeker in my opinion.

I have added support for the "s9y avatar plugin", and if you enable the smarty output this will play nicely with the user comments.

I will post the ported files once I have had chance to test the conversion a bit more.

Aerodrome v1.0 Port

2009-01-28T20:51:48Z

This is a quick entry about the WP port of Aerodrome that I did late last year.

When my old blog crashed, this was one of the entries that got lost when I recovered my machine.

The port can be downloaded here --> aerodrome.zip

The theme has configurable backgrounds

When I get the time I will port Astros as this has true rounded corners for all browsers.

New Year - New Blog

2008-12-31T14:23:16Z

Well I have finally taken the plunge, and moved my blog to a proper hosted location.

I was previously running the blog on my NSLU2 266 mhz device which was proving unreliable.
I hope that this new location proves to be faster and more reliable.

Wishing everybody a fruitful and prosperous 2009.

Mark Thomas takes on Coca-Cola

2008-09-19T22:19:57Z

Order Now

Mark Thomas has a new book Belching out the Devil.

Mark's new book is about Coca Cola. As many of you may know Coca Cola bottlers in Colombia face allegations that the plant managers colluded with paramilitaries to bring about the deaths of trade unionists working for the Coke plants.

In 2001 the Colombian union Sinaltrainal brought a court case in the USA against the bottlers and also claimed that the Coca Cola Company bore indirect responsibility. The Colombian bottlers rather than investigate the claims of collusion instead brought legal charges against the trade union in Colombia, claiming the bottlers had been libelled.

What was this libel? What did the union say about the company that defamed them? Well, according to the bottlers the union committed slander by bringing the court case in the US.

All this and more in the new book which is published on 25th September 2008.

More details can be found at www.markthomasinfo.com.

Highslide Version 4.0 - New Gallery feature

2008-09-10T10:33:05Z

There has been a new release of Highlide JS which incorporates a new slideshow mode.

Highslide JS is an open source JavaScript software, offering a Web 2.0 approach to popup windows. It streamlines the use of thumbnail images and HTML popups on web pages.

The library offers these features and advantages:
• No plugins like Flash or Java required.
• Popup blockers are no problem. The content expands within the active browser window.
• Single click. After opening the image or HTML popup, the user can scroll further down or leave the page without closing it.
• Compatibility and safe fallback. If the user has disabled JavaScript or is using an old browser, the browser redirects directly to the image itself or to a fallback HTML page.

I have upgraded my Photo Album to use this new feature - I trust you will like it.

Vauxhall Vectra timing chain woes

2008-09-02T13:05:06Z

Whilst on holiday last week with the family I had occasion to study the hard shoulder of the M5 motorway for over an hour whilst waiting for the AA to recover my vehicle.

I was in my 2002 Vauxhall Vectra 2.2 SRI trundling steadily down the motorway in the third lane when the engine management light came on, and I lost all power. I managed to coast to the verge just short of the J19 exit.

I turned off everything vaguely electrical and restarted the engine, the starter motor was whirring happily,but no compression sounds where coming from the engine . My worst fears were about to be confirmed - yes the timing chain had snapped

I was towed to a garage, and they are now in the process of fitting a reconditioned engine.

Despite the car only doing just short of 60K miles and being regularly serviced it just let go. I am not the only one this has happened to, but that is not much of a consolation.