Archive for December, 2006

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Thank you mum!

Thursday, December 28th, 2006 I used my "Christmas" money from my mum to get a couple of bits I wanted online, and I received them yesterday! My new Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 is now installed, though it will take me awhile to get used to all the extra features and new layout after using Elements 2.0 for such a long time. I also got my Bedlam Bards "On the Drift" CD. For those that don't know them, the Bedlam Bards are an American Folk group who describe their music thusly:
When people ask what kind of music we play, we often say Celtic, but in fact we play "Renfolk Music," that unique blend of Celtic, English, Scandinavian, and American folk music mixed in with period tunes from the Renaissance and Middle Ages that rubs shoulders with the occasional incognito rock song at most Renaissance festivals. And we have a lot of fun playing it.
The album "On the Drift" is a tribute album to the film "Serenity" and the TV series "Firefly" so may not have an immediate appeal to those not in the know but they are still a group well worth discovering if you like your music to have some passion. Their love of the Serenifly 'verse is apparent in their every note and lyric. For hardcore Browncoats this album is a must!

Stickies v5.2b

Sunday, December 24th, 2006 I thought I would try out the desktop Stickies that I had read about in Computer Active magazine, they seemed like a good idea for a procrastinator like myself, an "always on" reminder of what it is I am supposed to be doing (instead of blogging), an easy way to keep track of any URL's that I might want to refer to instead of adding a bookmark.
Stickies 5.2b -What is Stickies? Stickies is a PC utility I wrote to try to cut down on the number of Post-It® notes I was leaving stuck to my monitor. It is a computerized version of those notes. The design goal behind Stickies is that the program is small and simple. Stickies will not mess with your system files, or write to the registry. Stickies stores all information in a single text-based ini file. Stickies will never support animated dancing figures, or play "Greensleeves". They are instead yellow rectangular windows onto which you can put some text notes. Once created, they will stay on screen until you take them away. Just like a real sticky piece of paper.
Source: Stickies v5.2b They are highly customizable, you can choose the background colour you want to use, set its opacity and font style, even choose Bold or italic if that's your bag. There are also different "Skins" that you can download so that even the top bar can be customized to suit your desktop theme. So far I am impressed, the install was straightforward and I was able to set it up to work in the way I wanted it to with just a couple of clicks. Screen shot: I adjusted the top bar to a fairly deep red to fit in with my wallpaper and I adjusted the opacity so that the stickies don't interfere too much with the overall look when not in use, giving it a bit more of a "Vista" vibe. All in all, I think they are pretty good

Categories

Saturday, December 23rd, 2006 Well I think I have got to the point now that I am able to realize a fundamental mistake that I have already made. I have too many tags and not many of them are really suitable for the subjects that I will be discussing. At least I have realized this early enough on to go back and revise the posts I have made. The first thing I need to do though is to sit back and really think about what I want to achieve with this blog, sort through in my mind what areas I will be covering etc. One of the few I know I will be keeping is the category I will be using for this post: Rookie Mistakes!

This Week . . .

Friday, December 22nd, 2006 Letting you know just how mundane my life is. Also, just to let you know, most of the links will take you to amazon.co.uk if you want to purchase these items, they are affiliate links for my account. Any of the links taking you through to other sites where you can purchase the items are just provided for your convenience, not for my commercial gain.

Blogger Upgraded

Friday, December 22nd, 2006 So they have upgraded Blogger, huh? I haven't been over there very much lately, most of my time has been spent working on this WordPress site and trying to keep up with my life in general. Over the next couple of weeks I will be having a bit of a twiddle with that site, just seeing what the bells and whistles sound like. I will be using the Windows Live Writer to keep that site updated too, hopefully that will encourage me to post a little more! It still doesn't quite seem to come up to the standard of WordPress, but at least they are headed in the right direction now. You can check it out in my Blogroll under Browncoatstevieb.

Windows Live writer

Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 I have been using "BlogDesk" to compose and upload my posts since I started running WordPress on my own site, and though I have found it to be pretty good a lot of people seem to recommend "Windows Live Writer", so I thought I would give it a go for a while. The main improvement I am immediately seeing over BlogDesk is that the writing environment is a little less harsh. The fact that it loads the Theme settings right in to the editor is helpful as you can see more clearly what your finished product will look like. Here's a screen shot for those who have never seen it in action: windows-live-writer.jpg Link to Windows Live Help

Changing Themes

Monday, December 18th, 2006 Eventually I will settle down to a definite theme, sorry if I am confusing anyone who has tried to keep checking back to my blog! The one you see before you at this moment is dark.cash and I think it is one I may stick with, though that may well be determined by the final version of this theme as the current one is only version 0.8. I enjoyed using "Black White and Red": Black White and Red all over This also had the benefit of being a big favourite with the Mrs, who always has a better sense of style and colour than I do, so I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone who is looking for a bit of a change. I also enjoyed using the theme "vistered-little-1.6": vistered_little which is a highly customizable theme that allows you to drop in your own background as well as having some pretty good default wallpaper of its own. Your visitors can choose which view they would like to have for themselves! You can also choose whether to have a left or right hand sidebar, which I think is pretty neat.

Christmas

Monday, December 18th, 2006 As I was making my way through town this morning I noticed this poster in a coffee shop window: Christmas Photo Now this got me thinking, as I thought I recognised the sentiment that the company was putting to the fore, "eat, drink & be merry". I was pretty sure that the next bit of the quote went on to say something along the lines of, "for tomorrow we die", the Greek philosophy propounded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.), which most people would not consider to be very Christmassy at all. But once I got home and did a little research on the ideas behind this way of thinking I began to feel more and more that it was possible this poster might be the most truthful one I was ever likely to see. The philosophy centres around the idea that the pleasure you, the individual, is the sole or chief good in life. As learning, culture, and civilization as well as social and political involvements could give rise to desires that are difficult to satisfy and thus result in disturbing your peace of mind, his followers were discouraged from pursuing such. Knowledge was sought only to rid oneself of religious fears and superstitions, primarily the fear of god(s) and of death. This began to sound more and more like the way people live their lives today. The philosophy was also characterized by the complete absence of any principles, in fact lawbreaking was counselled against simply because of the shame associated with detection and the punishment it might bring. Never break the 11th Commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Get Caught"! Virtue in itself was held to have no value and was beneficial only when it served as a means to gain happiness. In fact, reciprocity was only recommended, not because it was right and noble, but because it paid off. Friendships rested on the same selfish basis, that is, the pleasure resulting to the possessor. The conclusion I was drawn to was that Epicurus and his philosophy still has a strong hold on us today. Regardless of whether or not you celebrate this coming holiday as a Pagan festival (which it is) or as a Christian one (which it isn't) the main thrust has become the commerciality of it, what people as individuals can gain from it, the pleasures that it affords. At one point the Christmas celebrations at least had the good of the poor and needy as its central theme, with those such as Charles Dickens in modern times using it as a means to promote a better social consciousness. Not so much in our secularised times.

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