http://www.richardlennox.net The Little corner of cyberspace that I like to blog my own! Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:36:13 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en John Williams, legendary film score and soundtrack writer, has been idolised in an a cappella tribute on You Tube. [YouTube]lk5_OSsawz4[/YouTube] See the lyrics here http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/11/05/an-a-cappella-tribute-to-john-williams/ To the tune of Louis Armstrong... [YouTube]nTRzaG_GbVQ[/YouTube] http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/10/27/super-mario-world/ For those C# developers out there, I came across this post: If you ever wanted to play Fur Elise in the console. This uses the internal machine beep so no speakers required!private void FurElise(){ Console.Beep(420, 200); ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/10/23/programming-the-beep/ It's been Google's tenth birthday recently! Check out the timeline it has created to celebrate. http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/09/28/google-is-10/ This is what happens when I go off on holiday for 2 weeks!! I am going to need a week to go through it all with the final total sitting at 1570 after a good trimming of subscriptions before I went! http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/09/16/when-you-go-off-on-holiday/ How very appropriate! [YouTube]1lqxORnQARw[/YouTube] http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/08/31/hug-a-developer/ Funny every time! [YouTube]BcQ7RkyBoBc[/YouTube] http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/08/25/the-website-is-down-sales-guy-vs-web-dude/ Most of these would have been from well before my time. No Microsoft or Apple in sight! Read more in the BoingBoing, BB Gadgets article 101 Classic Computer Ads. http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/08/11/101-classic-computer-ads/ Quite literally, acording to Dvice.com. Read more about the delicious alarm clock. http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/08/07/wake-up-and-smell-the-bacon/ The overheard conversation betwen US presidential candidate, Barack Obama and UK opposition leader David Cameron went like this: Mr. Cameron: Do you have a break at all? Mr. Obama: I have not. I am going to take a week in August. But I agree with you ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/07/29/time-to-think/ So I found this in one of my RSS subscriptions - A short, and relatively humourous presentation on "How to hack a Technical Interview! [YouTube]4KyCPiJPx48[/YouTube]See the original post at Lifehacker and the guys accompanying site - hackingtechnicalinterview.com. http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/07/20/hacking-the-technical-interview/ Not out 5 minutes and someone has done my kind of cracking on the iPhone 3G. Literally cracking it open and taking a look at its innards.See more in the CNet Crave pictures. http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/07/15/breaking-open-the-iphone-3g/ Channel 4 has faithfully recreated the Shining set as part of their adverts for the upcoming Stanley Kubrick season. This accurate depiction even comes with its own look-a-likes for Jack Nicolson and Shelley Duvall. Read the Guardian article for more.[YouTube]4O6WVurC0j0[/YouTube] http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/07/08/see-the-world-through-the-eyes-of-the-master/ I don't wath YouTube videos an awful lot but I do have an account and I have watched videos. Such is the case then that Viacom will be given my viewing stats by order of a U.S. based judge. Read Wired's article - Judge Orders YouTube to Give All User ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/07/03/viacom-to-get-my-you-tube-viewing-stats-by-order-of-a-us-judge/ For me, it is always interesting reading about the culture and working environment at those companies that are perceived by the wider world as a "cool" place to work. In relation to my working life, 2 of the most "cool" are Microsoft and Google. The cultures facinate me to some ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/06/30/google-cool-place-to-work/ [YouTube]Bq-QUkE1DGM[/YouTube] http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/06/25/who-wants-to-live-in-house-like-this/ In The Ultimate Code Kata, Jeff Atwood,reviews an interesting article published in 2005. While particularly aimed at programming and programmers it could very easily apply to many other if not every other profession.How do you get better at doing something? Simply doing is not enough, you have to practice what ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/06/23/practicing-vs-doing/ While unlikely to get one soon, the iPhone 3G is looking very tempting! Due on the 11 July, it will be cheaper than the original and have 3G capabilities. This makes it much more usable that the original. It will also be thinner and open to 3rd party applications, The ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/06/09/3g-iphone-jully-11/ It has been the biggest "rumour" and worst kept "secret" flying around the web for a long long time now - Steve Jobs will officially announce the 2nd Generation IPhone with 3G during tomorrow's Apple WWDC keynote speech. With practically every technology blog having at least one post a day ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/06/08/3g-iphone-yay-or-nay/ CNet is reporting that Disney's Buzz Lightyear will finally make it into Space! The figurine of the Toy Story character will be transported by the Shuttle Discovery on its next missio to the International Space Station. This forms part of an education collaboration between Disney and NASA.Read Cnet article at ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/06/02/buzz-lightyear-to-make-it-into-space/ "Just for fun"See more logo mashups from Mario Amaya. http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/05/29/logo-mashups/ Does anyone not want to take the optional sterring wheel? See more from today's The Daily WTF - Error'd http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/05/28/optional-steering-wheel/ No Way!!! [youtube]Ni_rAamVP2s[/youtube]  http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/05/20/a-gui-interface-in-vb-to-track-an-ip-address/ I have felt for a while it was time for a new look and something different. Gone is the orange, gone is the sidebar and gone is lengthening homepage. I wanted to get away from a sidebar that had widgets for widgets sake. I found this Wordpress theme and have added ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/05/03/a-new-look/ In Part 3 of my mini series on Productivity, here are my top Firefox extensions. Firstly why Firefox?! It is my browser of choice, it is more standards compliant at the moment, offers a great tabbed browsing environments and an extremely good view of most of the web sites out there. ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/03/31/productivity-part-3-firefox-extensions/ It is the end of my second day in my new job, and its been a couple of busy and informative couple of days. Just over eight weeks ago now, I accepted a position at a company called Realise. With a very strong history in web development they are increasing the ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/03/18/moving-on/ For the second installment in my mini series on Productivity and those tools that I use to increase mine, I am going to talk about the merits of a simple launcher program - SlickRun.  You can find it at http://www.bayden.com/SlickRun/. This free floating command utility for Windows launches programs, specific ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/03/03/productivity-part-2-slickrun/ Spending most of my days in front of computer screens I have manged to compile a list of tools (some of which I may have mentioned previously) that assist in my productivity.  Many of these may only shave seconds off a task but if I was to add up all ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2008/02/18/productivity-part-1/ I have just installed the Wordpress plugin from the guys at Re-Captcha as part of my ongoing attempt at blocking spam. For those of you who do not know a CAPTCHA (or Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) are the little images you see on the ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/11/05/re-captcha-anti-spam/ My better half took it upon herself and bought a Nintendo Wii for my birthday.  I have a PS2 that rarely gets used (except for Susan's favourite Disney game of the moment ) but wanted to see whether the Wii's unique gameplay is any good.  Well let me tell you ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/10/15/wii-tastic/ As a Carlisle United fan, I had been trawling the web for a proper fans blog for the football club.  I regularly keep in touch with news and opinions about other clubs in this way.  I couldn't find one so I have gone ahead and developed one.  Please step on ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/09/25/olgas-blues/ Congratulations to my cousin Chris and his partner on the birth of their first child.  Lucy Annabelle, 7lb 9oz. http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/09/24/congratualtions-chris-and-alison/ It is the time of year, for the Edinburgh Fringe festival.  The city is buzzing with tourists and there is far too much to see and far too little time (and money) to see it all. I have been on holiday since finishing up work on Friday evening and Susan's sister ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/08/16/fringe-madness/ Such it is that life gets in the way! http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/08/16/it-has-been-awhile/ Roller Trainers seem to be the big thing with the younger kids today.  They are those trainers with built in wheels. Having just been round the supermarket and almost run into at least three times by kids skating around the aisles, I am thinking they are not only annoying but dangerous, ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/06/26/roller-trainer-gripe/ Today we got a feel for what internet radio could be like in the near future....silence! Listening to internet radio for at least an hour occurs at least 5 days out of 7 for me.  I enjoy an eclectic mix of music, most of it through Pandora or my iTunes catalogue ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/06/26/internet-radio-day-of-silence/ I have been really busy at work recently, too busy to really concentrate on anything else, even during my own time. It is funny, like most things, when I take a step back from things I can often see them much clearer and is during my own time that I ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/06/04/busy-busy/ So Google has enhanced its maps with Street Views.  This is quite cool.  One of the guys from university pointed this image out. Not a good time for the guy to be leaving a strip bar!! http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/06/02/google-street-view/ It is a few months now since I changed the DNS server I use from the standard Virgin Media DNS to the one serviced by OpenDNS.  It is now time for an update. Using Open DNS has been a breeze. I have noticed very little difference in the speed at ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/05/28/virgin-media-dns-vs-open-dns-update/ Is this lazy or clever? Maybe it is the only reason to buy a Segway! http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/05/27/is-this-lazy-or-what/ Nothing more to say other than enjoy! [youtube]qHO8l-Bd1O4[/youtube]  http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/05/22/steve-jobs-vs-bill-gates/ It seems that spammers are yet again spoofing my domain to send out spam emails.  This is really annoying but unpreventable apparently. What happens is that the spammers send out loads of emails having modified the  "FROM" address to appear as if it came from an email on my domain.  They ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/05/17/domain-spoofing/ Quite an ironic title to this post given that it was Windows update that broke my machine! It is confirmed.  For 2 nights and several dozen restarts, my machine has been running smoothly again, all be it with automatic updates disabled. There will probably be a nagging doubt about it few ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/05/16/windows-update/ Another weekend of annoyance and pain. Windows broke my machine again.  Again I hear you say, yes again. This time though with Ubuntu linux set up on my old machine - hooray for those 30 minutes spent installing it - I was able to source the problem to... guess what...Windows. Yes, ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/05/14/windows-broke-my-machine-again/ Andrew wrote a post recently on this same theme. It has got me thinking how quickly time has gone by. It seems only last week it was December and Christmas, never mind January, February, March and April! Look at it now. Today, being first Monday in May, is May day, that's ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/05/07/doesnt-time-fly/ With Susan's parents replacing their ten year old (yes that was 1997!) VW Polo, rather than put it out for scrap, they have generously decided to give it to Susan and I.  Thanks, Hilary and Ron!!  While it is old by way of a car, it is great.  To be honest ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/05/03/four-wheels-and-an-engine/ This one certainly lowers the tone, however I enjoyed it a lot.  And after all what is a blog if not a place to share that which amuses me. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii77HwzYmvo[/youtube] **Readers of the blog feed who cannot see this: You can view this here. Enjoy!  http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/30/funny/ It is election time where I am. Both local council and Scottish Parliament.  This in itself is good news.  Sometimes I feel that it is the only occasion at which I can effectively hold politicians to account. However I have a huge issue with this period.  Today through the letter box ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/26/electioneering-spam/ Just a quick post to share a little Windows app named SlickRun. This saves the right hand moving away from the keyboard.  Enter a "Magic Word" into the little box and run the command associated with it.  I open it by select "Windows + Q" and then hit the first ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/24/slickrun/ As I have been getting away form normal in home entertainment and into a web based entertainment lifestyle.  This is basically ditching the rubbish on the box in the corner of the living room and playing about with what I can find on the Internet.  I have been reading many ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/23/blogs-and-photoblogs/ I have been meaning to write a little about my "Web Entertainment" set up for a while.  In fact since long before my issues with the computer, which set everything back and found me re-installing everything.  Well, not exactly everything, some of what I use for entertainment is completely web ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/19/web-entertainment/ This is just amusing, and not necessarily my personal opinion on the matter.... [youtube]cSNdcG_ZMas[/youtube] http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/17/who-is-the-wekest-link/ This is one from the memory, all the way back in 1999. [youtube]36mhNRyt628[/youtube]  And well done to the fan who obviously had a few too many before the game against Bournemouth and saw the game sideways on! [youtube]cdX3H2te3nM[/youtube]  These are from my new custom channel in the Democracy Internet Video Player (soon to be ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/16/surely-you-all-remember-this/ Living in Edinburgh, there is one thing I especially miss about Carlisle. Spending Saturday afternoons standing on the terraces at Brunton Park, shouting myself hoarse in encouragement and frustration at Carlisle United. Those regular visitors to this blog may have noticed that Carlisle United's homepage has been removed form my ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/12/tales-from-brunton-park-anyone/ This week sees the sale of the Apple IPod reach over 100,000,000.  Yes that is 100 million.  To be honest my IPod is not a statement or fashion accessory, it is a tool I use day in day out.  It helps me relax and concentrate at the same time.  Well, ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/11/100-million-ipods-but-one-big-design-mistake/ I think I have just seen the most impressive and devastating European football performance, in a long long time.  Right from the impressive finish of Michael Carrick's first goal, Manchester United ripped the heart and soul out of Roma.  They were lightningly fast, confident and had the poise of a ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/10/manchester-united-turn-on-the-style/ While there are still relatively few visitors to this site, I am really pleased, yet surprised, at the current unique visitors statistics. This blog constitutes my random musings on a variety of items and that some people are reading and interested in them is very interesting.  It is funny though, ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/09/anyone-want-to-comment/ I have said goodbye to Virgin Media and its DNS service and welcomed Open DNS. DNS [Domain Name System] is used every time you browse the Internet.  You enter the human readable (well understandable anyway!) address of a website into your browser and the DNS, translates the into the IP ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/09/goodbye-virgin-media-dns-hello-open-dns/ Having got my computer back to being good for my entertainment look what I picked up off the YouTube: Top Favourites feed today: [youtube]59ZX5qdIEB0[/youtube]  This guy seems to do a few when I search YouTube for "beatboxing flute" and therefore I will subscribe to his feed ! Great!  http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/09/beatboxing-flute-inspector-gadget/ As none of you will have noticed, there have been a few periods of downtime last night into this morning! This is because I have been upgrading the underlying Wordpress installation to the latest and most secure 2.1.3.  This is a significant upgrade from the 2.0 version although not a ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/09/wordpress-successfully-upgraded/ Well a Happy Easter to all you who cross this blog today! Not too many chocolates today folks! http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/08/happy-easter/ I have spent the last couple of days rebuilding my machine.  Reports of internal organ failure were slightly premature, it was more like a life threatening internal bleed than complete internal organ failure!  My rebuild consisted of 3 components: Format the HDD. Clean reinstall of Windows. RE-install all my applications and data. Luckily I ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/07/system-rebuild/ So this was the submitted project for the Multimedia module of my Computer Science course.  The task was to cram in as much "Multimedia" into something different.  It was a bit of fun in what if I remember correctly was 3rd year! It is now a legend in the CS ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/04/05/the-legend-of-dominoes/ No not me or anyone else I know (thankfully!!), my computer! It seems it may be either the hard drive or the memory.  It is only 2 months and a little bit old, so I am a little annoyed.  Here is where my choice of supplier will com into its own.  ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/03/29/internal-organ-failure/ I am a little annoyed, my new computer has a problem with the svchost process.  This is a particularly important process in Windows and manages the running of DLL files.  The only solution it appears is a Repair installation of Windows.  This is on the go as I type. It ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/03/28/windows-repair/ The latest addition to my Internet entertainment world is Pandora. This is Internet radio with a difference and has got many techies out there excited.  Input an artist or song name into the player, and using the music genome project Pandora will create a radio station just for you based ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/03/27/pandora/ I have never bought into the whole blog roll thing.  For those few of you who read my blog and don't know:  "A blog roll is a collection of links to other blogs." These are often found somewhere on a persons blog, maybe in the sidebar.  I always thought: "Why ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/03/26/blogs/ So I have added this very site to Scottish Blogs this evening.  I don't really advertise the site too much, particularly as i am an infrequent blogger and that I am unsure who would want to read my ramblings.  But I thought why not! I am after all a blogger ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/03/25/scottish-blogs/ So I have a new variety of music on my IPod and although not to all tastes here are a couple I would recommend. Hot off the press (well iTunes!): Kate Walsh - Tim's House.  This is a cool relaxed album which offers a folky, jazzy acoustic sound that is ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/03/21/cool-tunes/ Virgin Media and Sky have had a bit of a spat recently.  Virgin have chosen to drop Sky's basic and free digital channels (including Sky One!) because of the price Sky want to charge them.  Virgin Media are the amalgamation of NTL and Telewest cable services and Virgin Mobile.  As ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/03/21/virgin-media-vs-sky/ With my new found friend in the Democracy internet video program I am finding really interesting stuff in the video podcasts and the RSS feeds from places like you tube. Here is another one I laughed out loud at - although some of you may find it offensive - maybe!  [youtube]2bSKytEsG0s[/youtube] http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/03/15/i-dont-believe-this/ This amused me and if you have ever played or seen the old style first person shooter this will appeal!  Great Golden Eye Recreation - Click Here for more great videos and pictures! http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/03/14/goldeneye-recreation/ It has been a few hectic weeks since Susan and I got back from our holidays. It was a short city break to the capital of Hungary, Budapest.  [To skip the chat click here to go to straight to the photo selection in the gallery!)  For those who ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/02/26/budapest-february-2007/ Early in December my brother's second child was born - a bouncing boy named Joshua.   Last weekend was the first time Susan and I had made it down to London.  With small camera battery life only a half dozen photos were taken!! These can now be seen in the gallery ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/02/18/a-proud-uncle/ This is a question facing the many, many of us over the coming days, weeks and months.  Vista the all new operating system from Microsoft.  Now, normally with any Microsoft product (particularly the OS!) I would wait until at least the first service pack bu there is something about Vista ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/01/30/to-vista-or-not-to-vista/ I have finally got round to upgrading my home/development machine.  Having taken the decision to accept freelance work I understood it was necessary to upgrade both my hardware and software to enable me to do this without other complications.  After all, my "old" machine is at least five and a ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2007/01/19/my-new-machine/ A short post to wish anyone who comes across this a very happy Christmas. I hope everyone gets the chance to relax and enjoy the season.  http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/12/24/merry-christmas/ My domains email Google style....!! I have recently taken advantage of Google Apps' offering of hosted email services for my domain.  While still in beta and there are a few simple features that would vastly improve it from my usage perspective, it is a fabulous free service. I simply registered and ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/12/14/gmail-for-my-domain/ "Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much." Peter Ustinov I really like this quote for various reasons !! http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/12/07/great-quote/ I have made a decision, I know what I want to do in the long term future. I want to work for myself, run a company in a way that is goo practice and my own and ideally be successful at it. In the short term this is unlikely to ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/12/07/going-freelance/ I have taken the time over a few evenings to widgetize my sites theme and then use new widget plugins to recreate my sidebar in a widgetized form!  Wordpress widgets seem to be the in thing right now.  It is basically a simple way of creating a customised sidebar without ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/12/06/widgetizing/ I have finally taken the plunge and downloaded IE7 on my home machine.  Working on a site, with IE6 up until the last release has meant that I have not had the time to do this sort of stuff and missed the beta completely.  I hate the new user interface. My ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/11/18/ie7-breaks-the-mold-and-i-dont-like-it/ It has been a long, hard slog over the last few months at work. I have put in the hours and the effort to produce something that I can happily say I am very proud of. I have been the sole developer for SK Chase since I started over a ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/11/16/wwwskchasecom/ It never sees to amaze me how illogical in nature people are.  Take today for example, I was asked to give my technical reasons for not releasing my software until a certain date.   The person in question was positive that my reasons were valid and in fact was genuinely pleased ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/11/16/the-illogical-nature/ So it has been a over a month since my last post to my personal blog. I keep asking myself: What makes people write to their blogs? I look at myself and I struggle to be motivated to maintain .  I have never kept a diary and perhaps that ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/10/17/what-makes-people-write-to-a-blog/ With the football season a few weeks old I came across this quote - "Football is like life, it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority" - Vince Lombardi.  And some people wonder why it is so popular!! http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/09/07/with-the-start-of-the-football-season-a-thought/ On Saturday night, Susan and Jenny took me along to see Women with Standards at the Gilded Balloon (Teviot).  A group of 4 Australian vocalists and a local jazz trio making the most of some powerful voices belting out not only Jazz standards but other Diva-esque songs.  And boy can ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/08/30/women-with-standards/ The Filthy Six are a Soul Jazz Funk sextet from London.  Having read reasonably good things about them, I decided to go along to the Lot and check them out. An interesting mix of players, as with many fringe music events they were using session players to cover for those ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/08/26/the-filthy-six-at-the-lot/ So, I am looking for something to do this weekend, more specifically I am looking for inspiration for a Fringe show that is so good.  Ideally it would be funny, [I don't enjoy much of the childish humour that can be found on today's TV, so need a comedy fix ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/08/18/festival-recommendations-anyone/ I cannot recommend this Edinburgh Festival show highly enough! Not usually one for this behaviour but I must have guffawed my way through at least half of it! Absolutely hysterical in places!   Bailey puts on a dramatic twist to the genre of Stand-Up comedy. His act of slick jokes, musical interludes ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/08/15/bill-baileys-steampunk/ Following the trip to London I have placed some photos in the gallery. Feel free to enjoy them! http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/08/03/london-pictures/ I am not long back form a long weekend in London.  While it was a good weekend.  The real reason for going was to finally meet my brother's daughter and my niece, Isabel.  Shes is just over 1 year old and a happy little child.  She plays happily and is ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/08/02/my-niece-and-i/ On May 11th 2006 I was lucky enough to have tickets to Alan Shearer's Testimonial game against Celtic at St. James Park.  Check out my gallery, for a few photos I took on the evening with my Mobile Phone of all things! http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/07/27/alan-shearers-testimonial/ In my time trawling through google results for the answer to my questions I have stumbled upon an article in Google Blogoscoped - Why Good Programmers are Lazy and Dumb.  This is really what I do and it caught my attention.  The basics of the article sum up the efforts that ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/07/21/why-good-programmers-are-lazy-and-dumb/ Today I found out about the Amnesty International campaign named Irrepressible. It is a campaign to try and end the censorship enforced by some governments and some large web service providers on certain parts of the World Wide Web.    The Web is the first place where the mass populations can ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/07/20/help-make-the-world-wide-web-irrepressible/ It is the middle of a heatwave and not much is happening.  I must admit while I enjoy warm weather and long evenings, I am not so keen on the extreme heat.  I find that it tires me and leaves me with not much energy, meaning a lot doesn't happen.  Despite ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/07/18/2-years-on-cs-class-reunion/ It looks as if the use of my iPod may just get better.  While good speakers for my iPod are expensive, the FM transmitters widely available may become legal in the UK in the coming year.  It has been one of the most annoying thing is that some people do ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/07/16/ban-on-low-power-fm-transmitters-looks-to-be-lifted/ I have a fairly vast and eclectic mix on my IPod.  It ranges from the coolest jazz sounds of Miles Davis and John Coltrane through Mozart all the way to heavy rock anthems.  This week I have added the Goo Goo Dolls album Let Love In. It isn't a bad album.  ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/07/13/on-my-ipod/ I thought I might take a minute to mention what I was up to at work.  My work is currently 2-fold.  My role in continually updating the SK Chase system, is steadily growing.  Following last month's launch of a fuller and inevitably more complex checkout and payment process, the next ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/07/10/accepting-multiple-currencies-balanced-by-performance-testing/ Last night Italy became World Champions in a game that will not be remembered for the football but for one incident and one incident only! John Motson summed the game up at the start of extra time by saying about Zidane that he was still the best player on the ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/07/10/the-end-of-the-road-for-zidane-and-france/ It is final day in the world cup and France vs Italy isn't exactly an inspiring final.  Both teams play in a similar way.  Sitting back, giving the opposition plenty of the ball and trying to hit them on the break.  It is difficult to see this as being anything ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/07/09/final-day/ The Edinburgh Festival is almost upon us again.  One of the better sides of living in Edinburgh is that once a year, everything by way of entertainment comes to you.  Whether it be opera, jazz, blues or any other sort of music you can think of; theatre; musical theatre; dance ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/07/06/festival-time-again/ Yet again the horror of the penalty shootout comes to help England bow out of yet another major championship.  The England team never really inspired during this tournament but yet again they got through to the final stages only to go out in a blaze of penalties. I didn't  see the ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/07/02/england-bow-outagain/ I have returned from my holiday feeling very good! A week of doing nothing has surprisingly agreed with me! I am not normally one to sit around and do nothing, I like to be engaged in doing something but this last week I enjoyed doing nothing.   The weather in Menorca ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/07/02/back-home/ It is the first day of my holiday for 2006.  A week in a Villa in Menorca with Susan's folks.  I need a rest, a break and a bit of revitalisation so I am really looking forward to it.  With a little bit of luck the weather will be good ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/06/24/holiday-2006/ So I have my wish - a gallery page.  Pretty simple really - I used the Lazy-K-Gallery Plug-in and found it relatively easy to install and configure. It did however, take quite a lot of template and style changes to make it fit, mainly because of conflicting CSS classes.  I managed ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/06/22/my-gallery-page/ I found this little S.E.O. analyser that is free on the web site for a company called Sitening.  It allows me to enter a URL and will return a reasonable analysis of how I am doing to help with my search engine rankings.  I am not really that bothered about ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/06/21/my-seo-rating/ England have finished top of group B following a 2-2 draw with Sweden.  That is the important result from tonight.  England played much better tonight than in the two previous game but still not at the level they are capable of.  The positive is that we topped the group.  There ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/06/20/england-top-group-b/ Over the weekend news broke that Paul Simpson has left United (Carlisle United that is) to joining the "Auld Enemy", Preston North End.  I have always stood on the terraces at Carlisle whenever I can.  I enjoy the battle that is a lower league game.  Preston have long been a ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/06/19/simpson-parts-company-with-united/ This is my first post regarding this years World Cup. I should first point out that while I live in Edinburgh, I am English and and a full on supporter of my national side. Unlike, many fans though I like to think of myself as an honest pundit ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/06/18/world-cup-2006/ I am just back from seeing X-Men III at the local cinema. I had previously watched the first two, so kind of knew who everyone was. It was a reasonable film, I guess. Certainly not the worst I have ever seen. It wasn't deep or intense which ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/06/17/x-men-iii/ Well, that was simple enough! I have successfully moved my WordPress implementation to the root of my site, which in effect makes it live!! Great! I still have things I want to improve and do but this fresh new look makes it a bit more interesting!! I like the simplicity ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/06/17/moving-wordpress-form-dev-to-the-root-of-my-site/ So I am still here working on my site. I haven't really done this in a structured way. I have basically said - what would be nice in my sidebar or as a separate page? Do I want or need this? One thing I mentioned wanting before is a ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/06/17/my-quest-for-a-site-that-i-like-and-works/ So this is going to be my new site. As I write this, I am still working with it in a "dev" (development) folder in my hosting. I have chosen to power it with WordPress for several reasons. Firstly it is free, and that is never a ... http://www.richardlennox.net/2006/06/17/my-new-site/