Gid4Life - Articles, Tips & Stuff

I'm Back!

2010-06-30T20:37:00.010+01:00

Yes, it's been a while! It's been a busy year with university and exams but I've now finished and I'm awaiting news on if I have passed the year. I'm pretty confident I've done well enough but there's always that concern at the back of your mind.

So what are you up to now? I hear your ask. Well I'll tell ya ;) Well not much to be honest. The last couple weeks I've been relaxing and enjoying the no-exam stress and catching up with a few friends. I've got a couple more plans this week, then I've got a week's job at a website development company (which I went to for my UCAS work experience 2 years back). I have no idea if I'll be good enough for them but we shall see. Hopefully if I do them proud and I enjoy it I'll be offered more weeks this holiday - yeah baby, bringing home the bacon! :)

Something I would also like to do this holiday is get some singing lessons. As you've seen from past posts, I do love to sing. It just makes me feel good inside and it's a great way to relieve stress. I'd love to be able to improve my voice so I can produce an EP with original songs. I think it'll be a while before that happens but we shall see :)

Speaking of singing, I've posted a few more covers on YouTube recently. I'm pretty pleased with the response I'm getting from there. I never expected the view count to go into the thousands!

Owl City - Fireflies (Cover)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsqL1ZfscUc
Note: this track has been re-recorded with my studio mic but is not yet available on YouTube. This song was recorded with a backing track and autotune (to get a similar effect to Adam Young's vocal - some people are negative against autotune and rightly so in quite a few cases but I use it to get the effect I want. In this case, I used it for a reason stated above.

Owl City - Vanilla Twilight (Cover)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMfqsQ5Dllo
This was my first recording using a higher quality microphone. It's not a studio quality recording but it's good enough for what I'm doing at the moment.

Lady Gaga - Poker Face (Acoustic Cover)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhMTdnbjRdE
Well I'm big Lady Gaga fan so I thought I had to do a cover. Out of all my covers, it's probably the most original style and appears to get the best comments out of all my covers.

Taylor Swift - Breathe (Acoustic Cover)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhs5wTo_Fw
I adore this song by Taylor Swift. I noticed some guy on YouTube covering it and thought it was a nice song to cover so I did. There is no video, just a still of me (without glasses this time). I'm trying a new look and hope to get contacts soon.

Michael Buble - Home (Cover)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edx9OwPc_5U
My first video without glasses and hopefully an improvement. Audio and video a little out of sync (because I sometimes record the vocals separately). It's a nice relaxing song.

Link Facebook Updates to Twitter

2009-11-23T20:26:00.004Z

Social networking sites are becoming very popular nowadays and you may find yourself with several difference accounts; Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter etc... Recently, I have discovered a way of linking your facebook updates to twitter so you don't need to tweet the same things as you did in Facebook. You can probably do a similar thing with MySpace and Bebo.

Step 1:

Login to Facebook and find your Notifications page (or visit: http://www.facebook.com/notifications.php) and on the right hand side, scroll down to the "Your notifications" link at the bottom.

Step 2:

When you click that link, you will see an RSS feed of your notifications - Now this isn't what you want because this will show ALL notifications on twitter but we only want Status updates. In order to fix this, go to the Address bar of your browser and where it says "notifications.php" change to "status.php" but keep the rest of the link the same. Now visit the appended URL and you will see the status updates only.

Step 3:

Copy this link (worth pasting into notepad incase you do any copying and pasting in between the stages) Now visit http://www.twitterfeed.com and register an account with them

Step 4:

Authenticate this website to allow access to your Twitter account and then create a new feed. The feed name can be called anything but try "Facebook Updates" and then paste the RSS URL into URL field. Don't click add yet! Click "Advanced Settings" and set the frequency of the updates (the minimum is 30 mins). Set "Post content" to "title only" and untick the "Post link" option unless you want a link to your facebook update on your twitter.

Step 5:

Click "Add Feed" and you are done - update your Facebook status and soon your Twitter will update (30 mins or however long you set the frequency)

UPDATE:
You may have noticed that your twitter posts contain your name at the start. In order to remove that, you can use a Pipe to filter it out and return a new feed address. Click Here for a pipe I use. All you have to do is paste your facebook status feed URL into the pipe and then you can use the returned address as your feed for twiterfeed.

Introduction to Weather Forecasting

2009-10-07T13:47:00.001+01:00

What is Weather?

In order to explain a bit about weather forecasting, you need to know what "weather" means and we start start with a definition of the word "meteorology".

Meteorology is the study of Earth's atmospheric conditions. "Meteor" comes from the Greek word "Meteoron", which means "high in the sky". The "ology" part of the word means "the study of...". In this context, the study of high in the sky is the atmospheric conditions, which are high up.

Weather is the day-to-day meteorological condition of a certain place at a certain time measured in terms of wind, precipitation, clouds, atmospheric and ground level temperatures.

It is energy that drives our weather. The energy is transferred through the movement of air, which occurs as a result of temperature differences across different areas of our atmosphere. This is known as convection.

The Water Cycle

The basic principle of weather can be explained in terms of the water cycle. The sun heats our planet. The water in our seas and oceans start to rise and form water vapour as they start to heat up. This process is called evaporation. As the water vapour rises further into our atmosphere, it cools and starts to thicken. The water vapour eventually forms clouds and this is condensation. As more and more vapour condenses, the clouds get heavier and eventually cannot hold the water any longer. Water starts to fall from the clouds through our atmosphere in the form of rain, sleet, snow, hail, ice pellets, freezing rain etc (depending on temperatures at various levels of the atmosphere)

Measuring Weather Conditions

In order to forecast our weather, we must be able to measure the current conditions. Meteorology is a science that requires you to learn through past conditions and experiences so it is essential that we are able to take readings.

We need to measure: temperature, pressure, sunshine, rainfall, humidity and wind. We also need to be able to look out our window and see what is going on outside. The clouds can tell us a great deal about what is going on in our atmosphere. Each type of cloud produces different weather conditions (though some share similar characteristics). More detail about this will be covered soon.

How to make a website

2009-08-16T15:22:00.006+01:00

If you have never made a website before, the first question you may ask is "How do I make a website". I am now going to outline the basics and from here you will have a good knowledge of what to do next.

Step 1 - Pick a Topic

There is no point making a website if you don't already know what you want it to display or provide. Before you do anything, you need to firstly chose a topic. Is your website going to be a personal one about your life or is it going to be based on something in particular. If it is the former, then there is little planning needed and you could theoretically skip to step two but it may still be worth reading on.

Most websites are there to provide information to people who seek it. Many of these services have a motive to make money so they may provide a basic free service (or free trial) and a premium service where they charge for more advanced features. If your motive is to make money from the website, you need to plan your expenses and ensure that your idea is legal and feasible. You don't want to put lots of money into a website that may not do well or get shut down for legal reasons.

Step 2 - Choose a Domain / Buy a Domain

You are now ready to choose a domain name for the website. A domain name identifies a host system (a computer) on a network. In simple terms, a domain is the name you type into your web browser's address bar to visit a website. For example, "google.com". The "www" string is not related to the domain name itself - that is related to how the host system is set up.

The cost of a domain is relatively cheap and you usually pay it in yearly instalments (some services do it for a few years at a time). There are many services around with competitive prices.

You must think carefully about the name you will choose for the domain. It should be something that is simply to remember and type. Preferably it should be a short and catchy name. I have set up (with a friend) a charity search website. The name is "Which Charity" and we simply called it "whichcharity.org". The name is short, basic and it is something that you would typically say when you are trying to find a charity to give to. Think carefully before purchasing the domain.

http://www.daily.co.uk/
https://www.lcn.com/

Above are a couple of domain registrars (websites that you can purchase domain names from). You may be able to find even cheaper ones around but these are some that I use.

Step 3 - Choose a Host

Now for the more expensive part. Currently your domain name can do nothing. The domain name will point to the registrar you purchased from. The registrar may provide a few free features such as domain redirection. That is where you can set the domain to redirect to another website when you visit your one. I don't recommend this if you want a professional website.

A host is a computer that is connected to a network. The Internet is made up of billions (or a large number) of computers that are connected to each other in various ways (A huge network). The websites are are simply just files that are stored on a computer and the domain name identifies which computer it is on and loads the correct files to display the website. These computers aren't typical home ones - most of the computers used for websites are powered on permanently in secure locations across the world.

To create your website, you need to rent the use of a computer to store your files. You can do this buy finding a "Hosting Company". These companies provide different features depending on your usage. Rather than using the computer like a home one, you will be provided with an interface accessible from any computer in the world. Below is an example of an interface you could use:

Features included in these control panel interfaces include: file uploader (where you can upload your web pages from your computer), email accounts and web-mail access, online databases and different programming language support. Before you purchase a package, you need to work out what features you need and how much of each feature you need. This will depend on what your website is about. If you need to upload a large number of files, make sure the package has adequate disk space. If you are creating a shopping cart or content management system, make sure you have pHp support (or an alternative language such as ASP) along with an online database (such as a mySQL one). If you are not entirely sure about it, contact someone who may know.

http://www.50webs.com/

There are literally thousands of hosting companies around on the Internet and it is a good idea to browse around for good deals. Above is one that I used to use and actually work for on the support forum. 50Webs are a reasonable host with fairly cheap prices. Check the "Web Hosting" page for details on the features for each package. Be careful not to purchase another domain as you already have one - Some packages provide a free domain which you could use as a spare if you wanted.

Step 3 - Setting up Website

So now you have both a domain and a web host. For now, you can put away your credit card - no more money is required until you decide to promote your website. (assuming you are creating the website yourself, otherwise you will need to pay a programmer to script it for you).

You now need to link your domain name to the host you have now rented from. To do this, you need to login to your domain registrar's control panel and find the "name servers" configuration (sometimes known as DNS - Domain Name Servers). Keep that page open and now go to your web host and find the name server information - they may provide it in an email or in the control panel itself. If not, contact them and note the details down. They will look like the following:

ns1.host.com
ns2.host.com

Put these details in the domain registrar page and save those and within 24-48 hours (usually within just a few hours) your website will be linked. You are now ready to create your web pages on your computer and upload. I cannot help you with this now but a good program to use is Adobe Dreamweaver. If you cannot get a copy of this, you can use programs like Microsoft FrontPage or Publisher (though the code and view will seem less professional generally).

Step 4 - Promoting Your Website

We have now reached the hardest part of making a successful website. You need to be able to get people to visit your website so they can benefit from your services and/or so you can earn some money. This can potentially be the most expensive part of making a website but sometimes it isn't required to spend money. If your domain name is catchy enough, you may find yourself getting a large number of visitors already. Promoting a website is not something I am an expert in and there are whole courses and businesses purely on this.

I can, however, give you a few tips that I have used which do help and require no money to be spent.

Tip 1: Choose a good title tag for your web pages. Title tags look like <title> Website Name </title> (and are within the HTML part of your website). It is useful to have the website name within the title followed by the name of the page. For example, "Which Charity - Find your charity" is used on Which Charity.

Tip 2: You may find it useful to place Meta Tags in your HTML. These tags contain a description and a set of keywords that search engines use. However, some search engines no longer look at these and base their rankings and descriptions on the content on the website. It may be a good idea to still put them in as some search engines still use them. Check: http://www.addme.com/meta.htm to generate tags for your website. Just place them within the <head> </head> tags in the HTML.

Tip 3: Link exchanges are probably your best bet. This involves other websites putting a link to your website on their website and you do the same for them. In that way, both website gain more visitors. It is best to link to sites that are related to your ideas but it doesn't matter too much.

Tip 4: Submitting to web directories can also help. You can place your website link in a website directory within a category that suits your website. The best one is the DMOZ Open Direcotory: http://www.dmoz.org/ .Not all sites are accepted within this directory website (so you just have to be lucky).

This is all I can really tell you. If you want expert advise and services, just search online for cheap promoting services for your website.

Those 4 steps to making a website are the basic principles and you may do things slightly differently so don't worry if you don't follow them in the exact same way I did.

I hope this helps you and check around for more blog posts related to websites.

Quick Update

2009-08-10T15:06:00.002+01:00

It's been a fairly quite week for me - One thing to mention was that I passed my Driving Theory test. I got 48/50 for the questions and 53/75 for the Hazard Perception (so overall not bad).

One night last week the family and I went to a nice Thai restaurant in Finchley - I can't remember the name of it but they had the nicest chicken satay I ever tasted. I highly recommend the restaurant that shall remain nameless till I find out the name of it!

I am off to the cinema tonight with a friend to see The Proposal - It doesn't look that impressive but it is something to do. I really want to see The Taking of Pelham 123 and The Perfect Getaway soon too.

I may or may not be off to Thrope Park on Thursday subject to if a friend of mine is going.

That's it for now - some more articles and tips on their way soon.

It's Cover-Fest!

2009-07-28T15:31:00.004+01:00

I decided to record a few new covers after the Taylor Swift one I posted last month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CitAf1H6QHE
Hey There Delilah (Cover) - This is a cover of the song by "Plain White T's".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMQAMuCmTdI
Chasing Cars (Cover) - This is a cover of the song by "Snow Patrol".

Let me know what you think of them.

UPDATE:
I recently removed one of the covers because I felt it wasn't good enough - there are now two.

Oasis Concert

2009-07-14T14:46:00.006+01:00

On Sunday, I went to the Oasis Concert at Wembley Stadium in London. It was awesome! Oasis were supported by: Reverent and The Makers, The Enemy and Kasabian - despite never really listening to those bands, they were very good (in particular The Enemy and Kasabian).

I arrived there with a friend at 4:30pm - we had standing tickets, whereas my sister and her friends had sitting - ha ha to them, we had a better view! It was not till 10:30pm when I was able to first sit down - that said, I wasn't complaining because there was much excitement to be had at the concert.

It was a decent experience - compacted into the stadium with 50,000 people there (most of which had several cups of beer). Ha ha the beer - by the end of the night I had quite a lot of beer over me despite not actually drinking any myself!

Oasis were great - they played most of their best songs and a few I didn't actual remember (it had been a long time since I last listened to them). I was a little upset that they didn't play "Little By Little" or "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" but they were decent non-the-less.

It was quite exciting queueing to get out at the end! 50,000 crazy drunk fans compacted into the pathway towards Wembley Park station and never have I smelt such concentrated weed (not a nice smell).

Anyway, I took several videos throughout the afternoon and evening. Here they are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0OfUc6SBN4
Short view of the crowd and stadium during Oasis part

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XaVhRyQIXQ
Short clip of Reverend and The Makers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu7Co9p7Xj4
The Enemy - Away From Here (Incomplete recording)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHJnLjCy90c
The Enemy - No Time For Tears

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu-m9qTQ_IY
The Enemy - You're Not Alone (Incomplete recording)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpk-soUzjLs
Kasabian - Cutt Off

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKddkC2eLY8
Oasis - Layla

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHhZgTiAoYs
Oasis - Cigarettes & Alcohol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8WcKZZJsZs
Oasis - Roll With It

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5K7Bn6YciU
Oasis - Songbird

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS5xkWaU4mc
Oasis - Masterplan

More coming soon...

Boost Your Download Speeds

2009-07-05T21:17:00.018+01:00

Are you tired of slow downloads and feel you are getting less for what you are paying for? I have a useful tool for you which may help boost your download speeds.

When you download a file normally, the file is broken up into pieces and is then downloaded one bit at a time. They are rejoined quickly when all parts are downloaded - this is an automatic process so to us it looks as though one file is being downloaded and stored on the computer.

In recent years, some software developers have created what is known as multi part downloading. As with the normal processing of downloading, the file you are downloading is split into many parts. However, the key difference is that each part is downloaded at the same time simultaneously. This means that you will have several connections to the server you are downloading from. This is because each connection allows one bit of data to flow at a time so in order to download many bits at the same time, you need several different connections to the server.

The main benefit from this is that you can bypass bandwidth limitations - typically the server administrator will apply some bandwidth limitations per connection to the server. If the limitations are per connection, this means you can still have many connections to the server - each of which will be limited to some extent. As a result, you should be able to get download speeds several times as fast as normal downloading.

A second benefit is the fact that if a connection to the server fails, only part of the download has failed and only that part needs to be re-downloaded - the download manager is likely to automatically reconnect to the server and download that part for you.

One downside is that some, if not many, servers protect themselves from multi part downloading - obviously as it reduces their bandwidth and potentially slows their servers down. Also, some servers limit the number of connections, if they do support it.

Internet Download Manager (IDM) is my favourite tool for multi part downloading and it can be easily integrated into your browser - I use a Mozilla FireFox plug-in called "FlashGot" to link IDM to my browser, but you can use the inbuilt one if you like.

You are able to choose the number of connections you want to have to the server from within the Options panel of IDM. For fast servers, it's recommended to choose a lower number.

One point to mention is that services like Rapidshare, Megashare and other ticket associated storage hosts do not support multi-part downloading for the free versions. If you have a premium account for these, then you should be able to use IDM fine.

New: Check out my video demonstration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-stUs7uSiCI

You can download a 30 day free trial of IDM from: http://www.internetdownloadmanager.com/download.html

There are many other download managers around that do similar things for free. Check out FlashGet:
http://www.flashget.com/en/download.htm

Which Charity

2009-07-03T20:25:00.008+01:00

Do you ever find yourself flooded with requests to donate money or help out with various charities but struggle to decide which one to go with? Which Charity can help you make the decision.

Which Charity is charity search engine that helps you decide which charity to give to and highlights the different ways you can help a charity - charity work is not all about donating money.

The idea is centred around the slogan: "Don't just give to those who knock on your door, give from your heart". It highlights the idea that you should think about who you are giving to and not make rash decisions. Every person has a perspective on what they feel is a more important cause. There are thousands, if not millions, of charities around and many different causes; health, animal, disasters etc.

Which Charity asks two important questions:

1) Who do you want to give to? - When you visit the website, if you click the "Find a Charity" link, it takes you to a form where you can refine your criteria for a charity search. You should select a group, e.g. Animals and then select a sub group, such as Horses (sub-groups appear after a main group is selected).

2) How do you want to give? - On the same "Find a Charity" page, you can select a number of ways to give - examples include; adopt, sponsor, donate money, volunteer. You can select as many as you want depending on what you yourself want to do for the charity of choice.

After those two main questions are answered on that search page, you will be taken to a page which shows your refined results. You can then scroll thought the list and and decide the charity you want to help out. When you click on the charity name, you are taken to a dedicated page with information about the charity and contact details. It even shows comments others have given.

Our founder, Louise Sopher, created our first promotional video for the website and you can check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD_6uGY1QKU

Check out our news blog for latest updates: http://www.whichcharity.org/news/

Heat and Flu Nightmare!

2009-07-01T21:31:00.007+01:00

What a week I have had! It started with excitement about the possibility of getting to see the first London xFactor auditions from an audience perspective down in East London. Followed by my school leavers prom and an awful flu virus. I will elaborate below:

Monday

The day of the queue - It is morning and I am getting read to meet a friend in London as we attempt to get in to see London's fist xFactor auditions. I am to meet a girl at Bank Station as a midway point in the journey. I head to my local station and and find my way to Bank and I meet the girl there. We head on the DLR to Custom House Station, where the auditions are being held (in the Excel Centre). We get there and find a huge queue of screaming fans and we had to the back of the queue. The organisers came around checking tickets - he gets to us and we realise that the girl's dad only printed the email confirmation and not the exact tickets. We are argue with the guy for a while and he runs off with the email and forgets us after some time. We queue for 3 hours 10 mins, slowly moving forward in the never-ending queue. We finally get to about a 50 person distance to the door and we are told they have filled up. We find out that over 450 people including us didn't get in because the organisers didn't count the seats properly before offering the tickets online.

After some welcome anger and frustration, we go off to the other side of London to Westfield Shopping Centre. We head off for a late lunch at Wagamama at 4:30pm. We head into the main shopping centre after a while as the girl needed to enquire some information at the Apple Store. She gets a call saying she needs to "dog-sit" and has to leave. I decide to stay and have a look around at my first experience of Westfield. To be honest, I found it nothing special - in fact, after walking around an hour, I left ending up buying one single t-shirt. What a day!

Tuesday

The day of the prom - a usual day at home, sitting in front of the TV, listening to music etc. Afternoon comes and I get ready for prom tonight. I decide to wear a shirt, and some cream coloured trousers and a straight jacket. I leave for my local tube station on my way to The Gallery - a nightclub/bar in Hendon. As I get off my lonely carriage at Hendon, I see lots of friends from school getting out a carriage further down in the train. We all head off the club. We all have a nice time and finish at 1:30am. There is a long debate on how to get home, but eventually a plan was derived.

Wednesday

The day of the sleep - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Basically, I sleep most of today and watch TV and the normal stuff. Nothing interesting happens.

Thursday

The day of the early symptoms - this is where my dreaded flu arrives. I start coughing in the morning, starting fairly infrequent but later on in the day, it is very frequent and annoying. A feel a little tired and feel sore throat coming along - probably due to the coughing itself. Apart from that, things remain the same - TV, music and the rest.

Friday

The day of AHHHHH (Part 1) - Oh this is not a good day. I get a Temperature of 39.5c, I'm coughing frequently, sneezing, soar throat, dizzy, exhausted and the dreaded chills vs sweating. Yes, I get the good old goosebumps at the same time as I sweat away - Oh dear, he has the flu. Lying on the sofa all day, complaining of the heat - from inside and the outside temperature. I am in isolation from the rest of the family - and by night I feel awful. I end up sleeping 3 hours and getting up at 5am because I can't stand to stay in bed because I am getting very strange and annoying Financial dreams that make no sense.

Saturday

The day of AHHHHH (Part 2) - The worst of all the days. I collapse on the sofa downstairs in front of the TV watching the continued news of MJ's death - I must have clocked hundreds of hours of the MJ news by now but oh no it continues to dominate the news and my life. I eat practically nothing during the day and sleep on and off and the dreaded chills and sweating continues along with a high temperature. It is 4pm and I check my rainfall radar online as I know storms were likely to develop - I spot some nice colours develop very fast on the radar and shortly after, we are hit by a severe thunderstorm. Thunder and lightning frequently making an appearance and torrential rain and hail. I suddenly get a small boost of energy for a few minutes to get up and record a few videos. I managed to capture one bolt of lightning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQtfRSwuL5E

The storm lasts 4 hours - which was the longest storm I had been in before. I collapse on the sofa and the symptoms are as bad as they can get. An hour later - it is dinner time. I had barely eaten all day so I don't know why my mum brought in a plate of food but I ended up not being able to use my arms to cut anything. I literally had no energy to eat. However, 2 hours later, I managed a bit of toast. I go to sleep later on in the night and manage to sleep better in the night but still get up at 7am.

Sunday

The day of the recovery - I still have a temperature at this point although slightly lower than it had been. I continue to cough and sneeze and I am still exhausted. I continue to lie in front of the TV on the sofa downstairs watching yet more MJ death news. By lunchtime, I start to feel a little better - less shivery. I take my temperature and it is almost normal. I am able to eat a little bit of lunch, but still very little. I have energy to move about a bit but I still must remain in isolation.

Over the next few days, I recover further and as I am typing, I am almost feeling normal. I spoke to a GP and they couldn't confirm over the phone if it was Swine Flu or a different flu but it seems highly likely that it was the H1N1 flu strain. I heard news from people at school of several cases and a story that suggests that some people spread it at our prom after being in-contact with someone a few nights before it. This is all unconfirmed but what is confirmed is that some people did get Swine Flu in my year at school so the likelihood that I caught it from them seems reasonably high.

So that was my week - it was full of a few highs but mainly lows. Whatever flu thing I had, it was one the of the worst things I've had and hope I don't get it any time soon.

Can he sing, Can he sing???

2009-06-19T23:47:00.006+01:00

I'll leave you to be the judge of that! So yes, I have posted a short cover of a song I quite like. Inspired by Stephen Jerzak's cover of White Horse, I thought I would have a quick go myself.

The song is White Horse by Taylor Swift. My cover is a short version of the song - I left out the middle part. The song is in a different key to the original version as the original was possibly too high for me. As with Stephen's cover, I have attempted to adjust the lyrics a bit - for example, instead of singing "I'm not a princess", it goes "You're not a princess" - because, you know - I'm kinda a guy (if you can believe that). If the lyrics don't make sense, oh well.

Let me know what you think, suggesting songs to sing etc. Note I am a beginner for guitar playing - just bought a cheapy a few months back and just learning a bit online. I'd probably use some backing tracks at times if I cannot play a song on the guitar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Nd1ud5pvQ

Getting a new computer?

2009-06-17T18:42:00.005+01:00

Are you planning on buying a new computer or have you recently purchased one? If so, what are you doing with the old one? Taking it to the dump? If this is the case, you may be putting yourself in danger.

Throwing Away Your Hard Drive

Let's take a simple scenario. Your current computer is running very slow - maybe it is full of viruses or the hard drive is simply broken. What do you plan to do with this load of junk? Most will immediately decide to take it to the nearest dump yard and buy a nice fast computer. However, doing so cold lead to privacy danger or even fraud. Even with a broken hard drive, it is still possible to retrieve data from it if someone steals it from a dump yard. The only way to prevent this danger is to destroy the hard drive. Smash it to pieces I say! Separate the pieces into different bags and then let the dustbin men take it. There - your privacy is now significantly reduced.

Monitor, RAM & Graphics Card

Now, what about the other components? The monitor - there is nothing wrong with owning a spare monitor. What if the new one breaks and it's no longer under warranty? At least you could use your old one. If you really don't want it, try selling it to friends/family or on eBay.

Random Access Memory (RAM) can be quite expensive so maybe it is worth holding on to the modules you own. If your computer is very old, say half a decade or older, then the RAM modules are probably not worth keeping or selling. However, if the computer is fairly new (within 5 years), then it could be worth keeping or selling the modules. Older modules can be quite expensive nowadays as they are not used in modern computers, but some people will want to upgrade their old computers. Try selling it on eBay and see how much you can get.

If you are buying a new computer, it is most likely due to the performance it gives and/or the graphics it produces. Therefore, it is unlikely that using your old graphics card would be of much use to you. However, as with the monitor, you could still keep it if the new one breaks outside the warranty period. Alternatively, you could sell it.

Selling Your Computer

Selling your computer as whole? Formatting the hard-drive to remove your data may not be enough. Even after a format, it is possible to retrieve parts of files or even complete files with various software. Darik's Boot And Nuke (DBAN) securely destroys all data on all partitions and writes remaining available space with 0s and 1s to prevent old data being recovered.

I could go on forever with all the different components on your computer with arguments for and against keeping/selling it so it would be best for you to think though the options yourself.

I hope you benefit from these tips, especially the hard drive data privacy. Remember to protect yourself by destroying the hard drive.

We are open for business!

2009-06-17T15:41:00.000+01:00

Hello my fellow bloggies!

I am up and running and ready to rant away with things that I like to talk about. You will find articles on various topics, such as computers, weather, TV, movies and music :)

Not only that, but I will be promoting things that I feel are important - including a charity search organisation that has been set up with a few friends of mine.

So... there we are - that was my little introduction..

Enjoy!