Fran's Blog

Just a little tip for y’all. If you buy a new printer with no cable, need a charger for your phone, need a USB cable for your phone, need an ethernet cable, it’s best to shop about. A question I get asked a lot is “I went to buy a printer cable the other day at PC World, and it was £13, should it cost that much?”. The straight answer is no. A USB printer cable should be quit cheap. In fact, I recently wanted to buy a new charger for my phone. I went to the Carphone Warehouse and it was £19!

So where should you look? Well, the answer is ebay, it’s quite obvious, but not obvious to all. You can then buy a printer cable for about £3, a charger for about £5, and ethernet cables, they will do made to order for a fraction of the price and more like how much you should be paying for cables. Those prices include delivery and are the top prices really.

If you can wait a day or 2, I’d recommend it this way.

I sometimes have no idea how this happens, but if you want to do something. And I mean REALLY want to do something. Time can almost be made. I just read this little snippet: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1619-theres-always-time-to-launch-your-dream

And it’s true! There is time. Say you are working on a side project away from work. You get home. The last thing you want to do is more work. If you really want to do it, you won’t even think about “oh but I’m tired now” you think “right, home, food, tea on desk while I do this”. Sometimes there are factors. The kids, the family etc. But somehow people can make time unless they are working 22 hours straight, but then they’re just screwed.

Right, pep talk over. I’m off to watch TV. Cup of tea?

I spend a lot of time bored; standing at the bus stop, waiting for erm… olives at a delicatessen. Anyway, I tend to start pondering things in the world which people might never think about/want to think about/think it’s too boring to think about.

Today I am in a pensive mood, a good mood, but pensive. So I decided to share my fairly boring, but could be made interesting in a pub, thoughts.

• Does the world have less, more, or the same water as it had in the beginning? (in any form, including ice).
• If we have hydrogen cars, will it mean it will rain more if everyone has a hyrdrogen car?
• Can you pull your tongue? And if so, how? (as in pulling a muscle, the toungue is meant to be a muscle)

So, there it is, something to bring up in the pub. Scintillating!

Sorry for all the ranting which I do on my blog. I think as I approach 30. I turn from “man” to “grumpy old man” which I seem to be embracing well, roll on 30!

Anyway, today’s topic is about using the wrong term for something. E.g. saying Java instead of JavaScript. These are different terms. Saying this to someone who understands, it is similar to saying “it’s sunny outside” when in fact it’s just cloudy and day time.

Sometimes I get the feeling I am the only one who realises a failed company before it’s set up. In fact, I’m sure everyone else does before the company realises itself.

Take for example the Gizmondo, the handheld gaming device. It had no chance. It was competing against Nintendo’s stronghold in the handheld gaming market, also the PSP and the mobile gaming market. But still, they thought “I know, we’ll set up another handheld devied, with GPS, and a mobile built in”. Lovely idea, but it cost a small fortune. Knock in the fact that they had no deals with the big games developers (or any good ones for that matter). Add to that, the hugely expensive shops on Regent Street etc, and , BAM! 1 year later, it’s nowhere.

So today I was looking at a swear word list for a site I am building at work, I found quite a useful site here:
http://www.badscience.net/?p=228

There is a useful section on how bad people see the swear word. I was not shocked by most, but the racial terms I was surprised actually came underneath the obvious swear words as mild. Although I wouldn’t class these as swear words as such, they are words which, in my mind, should never be used. Ok, the N word is used a lot in music, but I am shocked (especially at the P word), it actually silences me when I hear these words anyway (especially when used at me), so the mild rating was interesting to see other people’s views.

Too orangey for crows? I just found out what Kia Ora means, through Flickr!

It means hello in Mäori! Next fact tomorrow, if I can find one.

Today I decided to check where my rankings were on a few search engines. I tried google, and, as usual, I have been knocked off the top by the author (where was he when I first started out on the internet?). I then decided to go to live.com, I clicked on the feeds button, I wish I hadn’t. Someone really hates the author Francis Gilbert, and also some judge. So thanks guys for making our name sound utter rubbish, you’re flying a flag here, a quite rare flag, at least try to keep people happy. If you can’t do that, then try and keep your rankings down to give the good guys a chance.

Ok, try this, if you’re a techy anyway. Try and type microphone without thinking about it. Every time I type that I start with Micros, then have to delete the s and then type phone. Not good!

Ok, I’m sure there are plenty of sites, blogs, and people in general slating hip hop. I like hip hop, I have done since I was quite young (admittedly I considered good hip hop being MC Hammer at that time, so I can’t lay claim to being a connoisseur).

However, over the last 10 years it has become a bit formulaic. Life is hard, yes, and there are guns, yes. Hip hop is storming the charts with more and more generic beats and lazy samples (I recently heard a new Kanye West song which lifts Daft Punk’s Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Fine, that’s ok, but it’s hardly crate digging, is it cashing in on the recent hit? It used to be about breaking apart songs and making them sound your own).

Anyway, more recently I have been overlooking the genre and opting for the other types of music. Till I decided to try out a British rapper called Ty. I’ve had “Upwards” for a while and quite liked it. I saw him perform at a festival and was hooked. Intelligent, funny, even self-deprecating sometimes. I’d highly recommend listening, then listening again. It grows on you. A sign of a mature artist that.