the newts.net

Party’s over, time for bed, but before I rest my weary head… May I wish you and yours a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Spare a thought for those less fortunate than yourselves, then have a wonderful day with family, friends and loved ones.

Peace and Goodwill to you all.

newts.x.

A Christmassy Knott End Lodge in Windermere - Cumbria.

What with the spirit of the Christmas parties etc, I thought you might like this one. It raised a titter with me:

A man with a bald head and a wooden leg is invited to a fancy dress party. He doesn’t know what to wear to hide his head and his wooden leg so he writes to a fancy dress company to explain his problem. A few days later he receives a parcel with a note:

Dear Sir,
Please find enclosed a Pirate’s outfit. The spotted handkerchief will cover your bald head and with your wooden leg you will be just right as a Pirate. The man thinks this is terrible because they emphasized his disability, so he writes a letter of complaint. A week passes and he receives another parcel.

Dear Sir,
Sorry about the previous parcel. Please find a monk’s habit. The long robe will cover your wooden leg and with your baldhead you will really look the part. The man is extremely furious now because the company has gone from emphasizing his wooden leg to drawing attention to his bald head. So he writes a really rude letter of complaint. A few days later he gets a very small parcel from the company with an accompanying letter:

Dear Sir,
Please find enclosed a tin of Golden Syrup. Pour the tin of Golden Syrup over your bald head, stick your wooden leg up your arse and go as a fcuking toffee apple.

Yes folks, I’m afraid my pc’s having to undergo open heart surgery. It’s reformat time! Things are going well though, she’s purring like a kitten on startup and back on the net. There’s still plenty of software to install and drivers to sort out but full service will resume shortly.

Since I got my iPod nano, appart from the obligatory sorting and adding tons of music to it, I’ve been checking out loads of different podcasts. Through Apple’s iTunes (a free media player which doesn’t require you to own an iPod to use) you can check out hundreds of different podcasts on all sorts of different subject matter. Initially I went to the top 100 podcasts and downloaded twenty or so that I thought I’d be interested in. You can listen to them in your own time and those you like you can subscibe to, and those you don’t you just delete off. Once you’re subscribed to a podcast it automatically downloads to your computer (iTunes) every time a new show is released. And of course if you do have an iPod, once you connect it to your pc, it is automatically updated with any new shows / podcasts that have been released.

As I mentioned, podcasts cover all sorts of material from radio shows like Chris Moyle’s show to commedy shows, audio blogs, science / nature programs, Discovery channel, information, porn, professionally produced and stuff done by people like you and me on their home pc’s. There’s something for everyone. The nice thing about having podcasts on your iPod is that it makes a change from just listening to music. I subscribe to 6 or 7 shows so there’s nearly always something new for me to listen to every day. And if you dont connect your iPod for a few days you may have some catching up to do as there may be 5 or 6 new podcasts on your favourite subjects to listen to. I like to listen to them late at night when I’m chilled out and ready to drift off. The half hour episode of the discovery science podcasts usually sees me off to sleep by the end of it. And the best thing about podcasts and the wealth of information and entertainment they provide is that 99% of them are free.

The main reason for this post though, if you were wondering about the relevancy of the title, is a great little podcast I subscibe to called 2 Minute Photoshop Tricks. For those of you who own a copy of Adobe’s fantastic image editing program Photoshop it’s a great source of ideas and talk throughs. As the title suggests it’s only a short podcast, actually around 5 minutes long, describing how to do time saving little tricks and features using photoshop in just a couple of minutes. There’s a different idea or trick every week that new to intermediate users of photoshop would probably be totally unaware of and would find very helpful. Just listening to the Author Kent Conclin, you can tell he’s on a totally different skill level to the vast majority of photoshop users out there, although he conveys his knowledge and explains the tricks to the lay person in a professional and understandable way.

Kent has set up a blog at 2minutetricks.com where you can read more about each show, download his podcast and mail him with questions / ideas or tips you’d like to hear on his podcast. So if you’ve got a copy of photoshop, and preferably iTunes as well, get yourself subscibed to his show and improve your photoshop skills for free.

I love Christmas lights and could easily see myself slipping into the spirit of mayhem that is this house above. But check this house out. This guy doesn’t just do the lights, he sets them to music as well!

WIZARDS OF WINTER.

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the director, “What is the criteria that defines a patient to be institutionalised?”
“Well…” said the director, “we fill up a bath, and we offer a teaspoon, a teacup, and a bucket to the patient and ask him to empty the bath.”

“Oh, I understand,” said the visitor. “A normal person would choose the bucket as it is larger than the spoon or the teacup.”

“Noooooooo!” answered the director. “A normal person would pull the plug.”

Just before we left for Lanzarote I got me & Rach a one of these little gems for tune-filled sunbathing.
I wish I had one of these at the time as well cos it would have come in really handy, but Oli & Soph have got me one for crimbo so I won’t be without next time we want to have a wee sing song outside everyone’s appartments at 3am.

I really like the way the ipod synchronises with itunes. Subscribing to podcasts and having them download automatically and upload to the nano when it’s plugged in is so cool. I love it. The colour screen and ability to hold and display photo’s is great, and even the photo album syncs with itunes so add a new photo to your photo album and it’s automatically uploaded to your ipod as soon as you plug it in without having to do anything. The most amazing thing about the nano is it’s ability to do all this in relation to it’s size. If it was any thinner you could stick it in an ice cream and call it a wafer. It makes my Sony Ericsson k750i phone look and feel like a brick!

Still, even the k750 is one up from the Kenyan iPod:

Those really nice people at NTL have gone and done it again! It all started when I first went broadband in the early days before every man and his dog were broadening their bands. I was running a lightening fast 500k while everyone else was wallowing in the World Wide Wait of 56 measly k’s. About 8 months after I signed up for the big 500k NTL upgraded me for free to 1Meg. And about a year later they upped that to 1.5Meg, again for nowt. Result. It doesn’t stop there. after several fun filled surfing months at a tremendous 1.5Meg I get a letter from the luvvies at NTL. We’re doubling your connection to 3Meg! Quality, and that’s where I’ve been for the last few months or so, 3 phat megs. So imagine my glee when this morning I get a massive Christmas card from me m8s at the NTL telling me Christmas has come early and they are going to upgrade my 3Meg broadband to 10 - YES TEN - phat phukkin Megs for free!! Not only that I get the NTL Netguard anti virus suite for free and cos I’m such a model customer, they’re chucking in a free subscription to broadband plus - where you can stream music, videos, mtv and download various other goodies for gratis.

So I’m well happy with that. Well done NTL! Mind you, I hope you never have to telephone customer services - cos they’re crap!