Blair regrets banning fox hunting.

1st September 2010

Experts from Blair's book mentioned in the news tell us he regrets banning fox hunting and tells how he watered it down as much as he could without giving himself away. To me Tony Blair was the first Tory to become leader of the Labour party. He proceeded to modify the Labour party, making it a second rate copy of the Tory party and calling it New Labour. Banning the hunting animals for sport was about the only thing he did that was worth while. Just about everything else he did including getting thousands killed in Iraq was a mistake. He is now stinking rich, and still meddling in world affairs, while the rest of us pay for the mess he made.

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Cat woman and the wheelie bin.

25th August 2010

We have all probably see the video clip of the woman dropping the cat into the bin, and hopefully most of us reacted with disgust. I just saw her apologies on Sky news. She didn't sound sincere to me. Anyone still proud to be a member of the human Race?

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Assumed guilty until proved innocent.

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XP to Vista to Windows 7.

They call it upgrading!!.

10th July 2010

Anyone moving from XP to Vista must have found it difficult to get used to. Vista was not popular so instead of bringing out service packs for Vista, they modified it and called it 'Windows 7'.

XP had an Email application called 'Outlook Express'. It was easy to use and worked well. Anyone migrating from XP to Vista found that 'Windows Mail' took over from 'Outlook Express', but it was not very different so didn't get too many complaints. When 'Windows 7' was released 'Windows Mail' had vanished and Microsoft announced that an email application was not included and said you could download for free.

'Windows Live Mail'

Anyone moving to this application found a very different programme. The first thing I noticed was it put in a separate set of folders for each email address and it had extra's like calendars etc. on it making it look like a cut down version of the Outlook programme that comes with 'Microsoft Office'. Having tried a few alternative Email applications and finding nothing satisfactory I resigned myself to using this mess called 'Windows live mail', but I wasn't happy with it, so kept searching for alternatives. During one of these searches I came across a comment saying that the 'Windows Mail' programme in Vista was also in Windows 7 but it would not function as one of the DLL's was disabled. If Microsoft wanted to remove it then why disable it, and leave it there wasting disc space?

Then I had a bit of good luck!

In the Windows Mail - Windows 7 Forum I found the answer. They supplied a replacement DLL and a registry entry to make it possible to change it, so I now have 'Windows 7' with an email application that is very like 'Outlook Express'.

Had there been drivers for the 64 bit version of XP, I would have stayed with XP, but there are few drivers for 64bit XP around so had to migrate to 'Windows 7'. Notice I say migrate not upgrade. I don't consider Vista or 'Windows 7' and upgrade. There is a lot of other things I had to find fixes for that vanished with the move. Folders on XP when closed opened in the shape size and position as they were when you closed them. I had shortcuts to certain folders in the quick launch bar on XP. You cannot put shortcuts to folder on 'Windows 7' quick launch area, and folders open  in the place and shape of the last folder that was closed regardless of which folder it was. I found a programme called ShellFolderFix that remembers where folders were, but still have not found a way to open these folders from the quick launch bar. They actually charge money for these OS's!!!!

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2182

29th July 2010

I just read that a giant asteroid called 1999 RQ36 may crash into Earth on September 24 2182. That is just over 172 years away. I would doubt that even a baby born today is likely to be alive when that day comes, so as one who has past the retirement age I won't worry too much about it.

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Forged Money.

28th July 2010


A day or two back the BBC interviewed a coin expert who informed us that there are million of forged pound coins circulating. This surprised me because I would have thought that it would hardly be worth forging one pound coins. It made more sense to forge 20 pound notes.

 Having explained how he could tell a forged coin from a genuine one he said it was against the law to pass a forged coin on, but if you handed it in as a forged coin you would not be compensated.

Now how stupid is that? It says to everyone Don't check the money in your packet for forgeries. Just spend it because to find a forgery is to loose out.

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Goodbye ZoneAlarm.

25th July 2010


Having moved to a 64 bit version of Windows I found the version of ZoneAlarm I had was not compatible, so I had to download a new version of ZoneAlarm. The new version however assumes some applications can have access to the internet without asking. This is what the Windows firewall does which is why I have used ZoneAlarm in the past. This new version has also started producing popups offering a prize. It seemed a shame but this forced me to start looking for an alternative firewall.

I have found an application called 'Windows 7 Firewall Control' by sphinx-soft which seems to be doing the required job.

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Is a puzzlement.

16th July 2010


I just heard on the news that the doctor who had seen the child known as 'baby Peter' has been suspended from practicing medicine for 12 months. This I do not understand. If he was found unfit to practice medicine then he should be struck of or sent for further training, but to suspend him for 12 months after which he will be free to practice medicine again makes no sense to me. After all he is likely to be a worse doctor if he hasn't been doing the job for a year.

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