Before I sit down and drink a glass of cider…..I thought I’d better post this video (after an exhausting day of strimming the grass at the front of the house, cutting some of the hedge before the compost bin was full and feeding and watering the Kune Kune piglets, pigs and fowl). The video does show Lottie all grown up (https://andysworld.org.uk/2009/07/01/lottie-kune-kune-piglet/).
Author Archive
What I did on Saturday!
Saturday, July 24th, 2010How to beat the UK TV License and save £145.50 a year!
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010I’ve just received my new UK TV License for another 12 months, at a cost of £145.50 a year. I think everybody knows in the UK, if you use a service like BBC iPlayer to watch pre-recorded shows, what the TV License calls “on-demand”, a UK TV License is not required. What I didn’t know, and I’ve been told this by UK TV Licensing is if you purchase any computer or high tech mobile phone or games console your details (name and address) will also be sent to UK TV Licensing, I only thought it was TV receiving equipment, but on reading my new TV License it states “You’re now covered to do more than just watch TV at home on a TV set. You can also watch and record television programmes as they’re being shown on TV through your computer, games consoles, and digital box, DVD/VHS recorder, even your mobile phone”.
So therefore TV Licensing assumes that every household in the UK should have a TV License.
I’ve made some enquiries about the defintion of “on-demand” which doesn’t require a TV License, it doesn’t require a TV License because it’s pre-preorded content. The content was also not received by you, as you didn’t record it. In the same way, Homeowner A records a program for you as it’s broadcast, they are covered by their TV License to receive this program, they give the program to you on a USB stick, Homeower B doesn’t require a TV license to watch the program.
If you examine the above further, and watch a program, which is recorded elsewhere, not at your home, and transmitted/played-back 50 seconds later – no TV License is required.
I’ve just come off the telephone discussing this with Amie, TV Licensing on 0300 790 6055. The telephone conversation was recorded, she also stated that the Field Agents are also aware of this information.
So how do you save £145.50 a year,
- Firstly you must stop using your TV equipment, e.g. TV and Set-Top-Boxes that receive television through a UHF aerial (e.g. live broadcasts)
- Remove the TV aerial from the TV equipment.
- You do not have to remove the TV equipment from the premises (I’ve also discussed this with TV Licensing – they have to prove you are using it, and I was told, they would take your word that you are not using it!).
- Use BBC iPlayer, Sky Player, ITV Player, 4od, Demand Five to watch pre-recorded “on-demand” content from the Internet, either via computer, laptop or Internet connected TVs.
- Live Content use – TVCatchup – http://www.tvcatchup.com/ from your computer, laptop, iPhone or iPad.
You can turn your iPad into a TV with TVCatchup iPad Service.
World of Mouth! 35% of bloggers post opinions about products or brands ONLINE
Sunday, July 18th, 2010ORANGE Do you like what I am saying?
NEWSFLASH! Evicted from The Orange Shop, 16/17 Coney Street, YORK TODAY!
Sunday, July 18th, 2010
I went into The Orange Shop, 16/17 Coney Street, YORK today at approx 14:00 to make an enquiry about the iPhone 4 32GB Black on an Orange Contract. I was greeted by a Sales Person called Mark.
He was quick to explain to me, that Apple fix the prices of the iPhone 4.0 32GB Black, and Mobile Airtime companies cannot set the price of the phone, he asked if I wanted it on Pay As You Go or Contract, I replied I was interested in a Contract, he told me the cost of the phone was £319, and monthly costs of £35, for 18 months.
I told him the monthly cost was tool high, and I mentioned Tesco Mobile at £20 a month,
and in his next breath Mark said
“if you go with Tesco Mobile you’ll get no signal, because Orange have more transmitters across the country than Tesco Mobile“
Personally, when a Sales Person resorts to this sort of tactic to make a sale, it make me suspicious, I always remember a old friend/work colleague, when I worked in Sales, hundreds of years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, telling me NEVER disrespect the competitor to make a Sale.
When Mark told me this, I gave him my mobile phone, and asked him to tell me what current network it’s on, it happens to be Orange (he didn’t know this before I handed him the phone, he didn’t even bother to ask me). I then reminded Mark, that I’ve probably been with Orange as a Customer, longer than he’s been an Employee, which now is about approx 11-12 years, and I don’t have reception at home with Orange, but I do with O2, Tesco Mobile, Vodafone, T-Mobile and 3! So I don’t think what he’s saying is valid and I don’t like the way he’s slagging off the Competition, at this point he asked me to LEAVE THE SHOP! He then started stating I’m now SLAGGING him off!
I pointed out as I left the Shop, I was surprised they were happy to lose a potential sale, and told him I would make him famous, and Tweet later about this incident! I don’t know why Mark lost his rag with me, and I hadn’t even had my Red Bull for the day!
So Happy Sales Mark……..
Looks like I’ll be joining Tescos Mobile then…..so much for 11 years Customer Loyality! (not that Mark would know, he didn’t ask the question!)
PS Mr Orange/Mr Tescos if your reading this, iPhone 4 32GB Black on Contract in the post would be very nice Free of Charge!
Grasshopper
Saturday, July 10th, 2010There are eleven species of grasshopper native to Britain. They vary in length from 20 to 30mms depending on the species. I cannot recall the last time I saw a British Grasshopper. So I’m pleased to have seen this on on my Chilli plants, and I’ve photographed it for you!
British Grasshopper (click for close-up)
This could be a young Common Field Grasshopper, Chorthippus brunneus?
Genetically Modified Tropical Fish Part II – Now we’ve got fluorescent angelfish and convict cichlids
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010I’ve not posted a fish house blog in ages, and this is an update, Part II if you like, to the blog I posted in April 2007.
Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture unveiled last week that it has successfully bred transgenic Convict cichlids (Amatitlania nigrofasciata) and Angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare) that fluoresce, in collaboration with the Academia Sinica (Taiwan’s national research academy).
Angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare) Copyright © JY Lin Co Ltd
Convict cichlids (Amatitlania nigrofasciata) Copyright © JY Lin Co Ltd
oh dear!
The species will be illegal to sell or import into the UK due to our legislation covering genetically modified organisms., but that’s what was said of the transgenic “Red/Purple” Zebra Danios, that were sold in the UK, because one authority on the matter, thought they were dyed! Only to find later they were breeding true, batches of these fish still exist today in the UK, and are breeding back with true non-transgenic Zebra Danios.
how long will it be before we see fluorescent angelfish or convict cichlids in our tropical fish shops or garden centres?
DVD Decrypter beaten!
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010I’ve been using DVD Decrypter to rip and backup my DVDs to iPods for years, despite no further developement since 2005.
DVD Decrypter Version 3.5.4.0 (final)
An exceptional tiny application that easily removes the Copy Protection System from DVDs, which enables you to transcode the DVD for mobile device playback. I also use Badaboom, Badaboom is a blazingly fast media converter that formats video files for a variety of devices, including iPod, PSP, iPad, and YouTube, by using your system’s graphics processing unit (GPU). If you have an Nvidia chipset!
DVD Decrypter output 1
So I was a little surprised when I couldn’t backup Disney’s new Alice In Wonderland…
It starts to report Read Errors (Retry 1 etc), but this DVD disc is brand new out of the cellphone wrapping, so it cannot be physical errors on the media, but something is odd, because if you look at the number of files and total it’s repoting 58GB on the disc, this should read alarm bells.
DVD Decrypter output 2
if you continue, the Retry errors increase and eventually, you’ll get an error message below
DVD Decrypter error message when trying to backup Disney's Alice in Wonderland
if you ignore this error message, it will continue to extract the data, but you’ll end up with a 58GB DVD! It would appear that Disney have done something with the layout to confuse DVD Decrypter Version 3.5.4.0 (final). Maybe it’s the Fast-Play, I don’t know, but as I’ve always said software can always be broken with software, so time to try another software product…
Enter DVDFab HD Decrypter, another backup tool which is also FREE.
DVDFab HD Decrypter http://www.dvdfab.com/en/hd-decrypter.htm
Ah, this software does the job nicely, shame I still prefer the simplicity of DVD Decrypter, and it’s has a tiny footprint.
So if DVD Decrypter doesn’t work for you try DVDFab HD Decrypter
Demon Changes it’s website, but still keeps tools for nerds!
Monday, June 14th, 2010Ever since Demon was my first true ISP (AC – After CIX) back in the days of MS-DOS, Trumpet Winsock (Microsoft Windows 3.1) and Mosaic, I’ve always used Demon’s web-based Internet Tools, (DNS info, whois etc) since to this very day, so I was a bit confused and started to panic, when they had changed the website, but they’ve still kept the tools available now at this URL (web link for people that don’t know what a URL is!).
http://knowledgebase.demon.net/article/internet-tools.html
Demon's Infamous Internet Tools
If you don’t know what they do, there probably not for you!
NOW is the time
Thursday, June 10th, 2010If there’s one video clip you got to watch this one…
Years to reach 50 million users:-
- RADIO – 38 Years
- TELEVISION – 13 YEARS
- INTERNET – 4 YEARS
- IPOD – 3 YEARS
- FACEBOOK added 100 million users in less than 9 months….
watch the video clip for more frightening or exciting statistics…..!
Catastrophic SAN HP MSA2324i failure
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010Not my SAN, one of my clients had a Catastrophic SAN failure on a Hewlett Packard MSA2324i, the whole VMware vSphere 4.0 Enterprise virtual environment was on it, they been without service for two working days.
A power supply fan failed and within 3 minutes the other power supply failed, causing the MSA to start and then reset due to a thermal fault which then caused THREE disks to fail in the RAID6, vdisk! which then caused the vdisk to fail, and hence all the virtual machines!
I’ve just ended my day, after restoring Service!
Thats IT! and I love it!
Off to my bed now, before the dawn chrous!
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