Very short entry…..NEW LAPTOP IS HERE!

……and other good news- my friend got out of hospital today (minus her spleen).

Anyone tried to use the Damm Small Linux distro?

I stuck it on a pendrive today (in fact it was an old 256MB MP3 player) and had a quick go of it.  It’s really handy because it means you can experiment with Linux without actually having to changed anything on the hard drive where your everyday OS is stored.

I had a few problems getting it to boot (had to go into the BIOS and play about there).

Now I’ve got Linux, I’m not really sure what to do with it…..

Right folks, I’ve just upgraded to WordPress 2.3, Dexter.

If you spot anything that’s broken, drop me a line…I saw an error during the upgrade process and I’m not sure why it appeared?

This post is aimed directly at my readers living in the Montrose area of Scotland.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week or two, I’m sure you’ll have heard about Angus Council’s plan to remove the Saltire from the Balhouse and replace it with a special “made-up” Angus Council flag instead. This has caused a public outcry- after all, Angus is labelled as being the “birthplace of Scotland” yet it doesn’t want to fly the flag!

Now I’m not going to sit here suggesting that all residents of Montrose should smear blue and white paint on their faces then proceed to stampede down the High Street yelling “FREEDOM!!!!” at the top of their voices in a Mel-Gibson-Braveheartesque type fashion.

No. Just no.

Sign the online petition instead.

I discovered another band today which strays away from my “normal” taste- Helen Love (not a singular person, a group).

I’m not really sure how best to describe them. They’re clearly influenced by the punk movement of the 1970′s but they also incorporate bubblegum rock. I don’t know….they’re songs are annoyingly catchy and “Debbie Loves Joey” is now stuck in my head (the song title referring to both Blondie and The Ramones).

Definitely worth checking them out- visit the Helen Love myspace site.

Oh and the video for Long Hot Summer is animated in a really cool anime style

Following Kevin’s lead, I’ve decided to claim my blog on Technorati. Release the robots!

View my Technorati Profile

(incase you’re wondering why I’ve posted this, you have to let technorati know you do actually own the blog when you claim it- making a new post shows ownership).

Yeah, I’m not having a macbook. In actual fact, I bought a Dell laptop today. Now for the all important specs list-

• AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL58 (dual core wah hoo)
• Windows Vista® Home Premium – English
• 2GB RAM
• 256MB ATI ® Radeon® Xpress 1150 HyperMemory graphics card
• 160GB SATA Hard Drive
• 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
• Dell™ Wireless 1490 802.11a/b/g Mini-PCI Card (for AMD Processors)
• 6 cell Lithium-Ion Battery
• Carrying Cases No Carry Case
• LCD 15.4″ Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display with TrueLife™

……Yay!!!

Just to let you know, there will be some changes happening to the site very soon (i.e. from now onwards).

To do list-

1) Update the structure of the photography section.  I should only have one menu file and one copyright file which php should pull into the website.  At the moment, I have one in each directory which defeats the purpose- I would have to edit multiple files rather than just one if I wanted to add another link to the menu.

2) Redesign the photography section (sorry, I know I keep moaning about this in my blog).  I’m not happy with the layout right now- seems a bit cumbersome.

3) Fix and add more to the portfolio page.  Minor adjustments need to be made here (right now bullet points aren’t appearing in the correct place).

4) Resurrect the guitar page.  I’m not really sure why I got rid of it but seeing as music is a hobby of mine, it should be on the site.

That’s all for now I think?  I’ve already updated the home page (but not much!).  If you notice any broken links anywhere, (particularly in the photography area) leave a comment or drop me an email.

PS I already know about the broken image in the snow pics area.

Look, I’ve created a whole new blog category: Old Blog Import.

Believe it or not, I actually had a blog a whole year before I got my own website!  All the old imported posts have come from myspace .

Go relive old times

Anybody out there who uses Mozilla Thunderbird email application? I’ve been using it for nearly a year and haven’t had any major issues with it, until now.

Why am I having problems with it: Microsoft. Up until a few days ago, I could use it in conjunction with Hotmail Extension 1.2.9 to access my Hotmail inbox which was really useful because you could check all mail with one application. Unfortunately, this no longer works seeing as Microsoft switched Hotmail for the shiny new Windows Live Hotmail <insert sarcasm here>.

The Thunderbird team are working on it so fingers crossed they’ll come up with something in the next few days.

In the meantime, I came across a thread which had a suggestion of how to fix the problem, although some people said it didn’t work. I’ve yet to test it out for myself.