A Thank You To Stratco

Since moving into our new house in Epping, I have added quite a bit to the property and still have a lot to do. Most of this work has been done, or will be done done using Stratco materials, since we were so happy with the Stratco veranda we had at the old address.

Stratco have been very kind by upgrading a free BBQ that was part of the deal from a $300.00 unit to one worth $900.00.

Thank you very much Stratco and especially Paul Burrows at the Epping centre for all your help and kindness.


Our new Pagola

For information about the range of building supplies and kits, see http://stratco.com.au/

Photo Watermarks

After reading a post by Downunder Doug on FaceBook about having some of his photos stolen, I decided to investigate what was available for photoshop to batch watermark images.

I found the following link which provides an installable photoshop applet that does exactly what I was looking for -- however, for those interested, it will only work for photoshop CS5 and above.

www.russellbrown.com/scripts.html

I recommend this app. It works beautifully, and it very user friendly.

Here's an example of a watermark added to one of my images:

Bugga

I decided that I've done enough work so I dropped an angle-grinder with a metal cutting blade on my foot. 4 tendons sliced plus a few nerves. I was careful not to cut any artries.

Guess the work will have to wait for a few months. I've got this great big (Heavy) special boot on my foot to weigh me down.

I'd like to take this oportunity to wish you, one and all, a very merry Christmas, and a happy and prosperous new year.

And please take my advice  --  do NOT resort to dropping an angle-grinder on yourself to escape work. It is definitely not recommended.

We've moved house

Created: 15/11/2011

Update: 17/11/2011

Hi all.

Lorna and I have moved into a new house. After 21 years in the old house we decided to sell up and move.

We're just 10 minutes drive from the old location, but closer to shopping, public transport etc. Public transport is important to me since I don't have a car to drive (we are a 1 car family)....

Lots of work to do at the new house. It's about 6 years old and very good condition inside and out, but without any of the nice things that Lorna and I like.

We moved in on the 17th September. Here's a list of the work done or to be done so far:

1. New light fittings, - done
2. Shelves in garage to hold un-needed stuff from old house (have to have a garage sale soon) - done
3. Towel racks, toothbrush holders, shelves and medicine chest in both ensuite and bathroom - done
4. A new toilet-roll holder in the toilet - done
5. New external lights on front porch, back sideway, and outside the garage - done
6. Movement sensors for the above - done
7. Movement sensor to the inside of the garage so the light comes on automatically (needed since the light switch is installed in such a bad place, i.e. behind the door for heaven's sake) - done
8. Lanscaped the front and side gardens - done)
9. New alarm system (still underway)
10. New Stratco Pagola (almost completed)
11. New power point in living area - done
12. New power point in 3rd bedroom - done
13. Relocate TV antenna outlet to other side of wall (antenna outlet was in the kitchen!#$%) - done
14. New wireless internet and accessories to get both desktops connected to same - done
15. Landfill to front nature strip - done
16. Stratco fence to one front yard - to do
17. Rendered brick fence to other front yard. (It's a corner block) - to do
18. Stratco garden shed - to do
19. Replace wooden fence next to garage with Stratco fence - to do
20. Install ducted Airconditioning - done

Here's a photo of the front before and after:

Before Images - (Google street view)

After Images (iPhone4)

I'm going to keep updating this post for my own convenience so that I can keep track of the work that I've done. You might like to check back from time-to-time to see how the work progresses.

Courtesy of Engrish.com

Here's a few funnys from Asia.  There are so many of these from Japan that it makes me think that maybe there are a few translators that are having a laugh at the Japanese's expense.

 Wow - Some dish!

Ummm....

Thought it was about time for me to post again

WOW, have I ever been this quiet before?

It's been a busy year with one thing and another happening. Been in and out of hospital a number of times (3). And changed medications so many times I've lost count. Thankfully, I'm down to just 2 medicines and 2-monthly infusions to keep the problem under control.

Lorna and I finally had time to get away fro a few days - actually once last year and a trip to Lakes Entrance to do some crabbing.

I haven't had alook around at who's still here yet, but if you're still on Blogger (of course you are - else you wouldn't be reading this), I'll be catching up on what's been happening at your end of the world.

Anyway, that's it for now. See Yuz

What a joke Bigpond Bigblog is

I decided that I would duplicate the last post that I just put on this site on my BigBlog. However, I had to change the wording somewhat and here's the joke - BigBlog said that 'Broadband' was a naughty word, so I had to change it to 'Internet'. But BigBlog didn't mind me using the word 'Bloody' (which is commonly used as a swear word by Ozies).

I can't find anything objectionable about the word 'Broadband' - can you?

So in future - like I said before - I'm giving BB a BLOODY BIG MISS. I'm deleting my blog on BB for good so I am not tempted to try again, it's just a waste of time.

Thanks for listening to such a Grumpy bugga (Buggar or Bugga refering to Buggary, which in court is referred to as 'The abominable Crime Of Buggary' refers to a sextual act between to males involing penetration of the anal sphincter, and is also used as a swear work - I must try it out on BB, Oh! shit no! Not again)

Grumpy as usual.

Cable Broadband not What it should be

I've been using cable Interenet now for a number of years and I've found that, though you get great download speeds, the upload speed is limited about 3.4% of the download speed as shown in this picture taken from a test at http://www.speedtest.net/:

In most cases this doesn't make much of an impact, but recently I bought myself a webcam and joined Skype. Now the upload speed is significant because your upload speed limits the quality of both your video and audio.

It appears that my connection upload speed causes dropouts on both the video and especially the audio.

I will be taking up this issue with Bigpond today to findout WHY, with an expensive connection with a superb download speed, I am limited to such a bloody awful upload speed. I'll get back and post again when I find out the answer to this and let you know what transpired.

Bloody Grumpy (as usual)

Finally got a Webcam going.

After lots of fiddling with a reasonable recent version Samsung Mini DV Camera, I was able to get it up and working as a Webcam.

I remebered when I bought the camera abut 3-4 years ago, and reading the book, it said that it could be used as a Webcam via the USB connection. Unfortunately, since then I have changed OS to Vista x64, and I couldn't get a USB driver that would load on my system.

Someone suggested that I try streaming the camera via the IEEE (Firewire interface). Lo and behold, there came the shout EUREKA!!!

Since then I have downloaded the free SKYPE software that lets you do video calls to others.

I sent out invitations to all my contacts, and Wednesday, Doug (http://dgls-57.blogspot.com/) called me and we setup a video call. I've known Doug for several years vis Blogger, Facebook, and originally Bigblog. We have also exchanged emails of that time.

It was great to be able to talk face to face with someone you have only known via the written word. This is the way it should be with the technology now available at such reasonable prices. In fact, it cost me nothing to get up and running, since I already had a camera that I could use. That is probably true for most people if they only knew it.

That first contact via video, brought back that same thrill as the first time someone (Grotty) commented on my first blog. It's given me a new lease on web life so to speak.

As you can see, I'm running off at the mouth just like I used to.

That's enough for now, my Son is calling me on Skype ---

Cheers all.

Windows Live 2009

Join me on Windows Live to chat...

Anyone know what's happening with Grotty?

I've been a bit worried about Grotty. She doesn't respond to any of the messages that I leave on her sites.

I just sent her an email and hope to hear back from her.

It's sad that people drop out of circulation. I know I did for a few years. I missed talking to people, but I was sufferring from depression at the time and couldn't even put two consecutive words together, let alone put a post on any of my sites.

I hope that Grotty comes back - I miss her wit and the conversations that we used to have.

Grotty was the first person that I ever spoke to on BigBlog. She was the one that took the time to welcome me there and introduce me to some of the other people on the Blog at that time. (We need to have more people like Grotty. And especially, we need to have Grotty!)

If she hadn't done that, I would probably not have carried through with my first block, and have dropped out of site without ever talking to the friends that I have met here.

Sometimes Grotty is kinky and strange, and at other times she is completely down-to-earth. She is a rare mixture of fun and love for all the things that she does - besides being a darned better photographer the I am.

Ever tried Muvee products?

I'm currently creating a photo show for a friend who's Son is about to turn 21.

I've done a lot of these over the years, especially for Birthdays, and I'ver tried out many products. I have a preferrence for applications that give you the most control of the final product, because all of the automatic show producers that I've used have left a lot to be desired.

I visited an old friend (one that I hadn't seen for nearly 40 years and found out recently that he lives 5 minutes away from where I live) who has similar hobbies to mine. He introduced me to a product called 'Muvee Autoproducer'. This is another product that is intended to make a compilation of photos and videos into a show with minimal effort from you. However, this product does quite a respectable job on its own [unlike all the others that I've tried] and also allows you to tweak things to suit your own tastes.

I downloaded the trial version, tried it out, and was extremely pleased with the result.

The resulting video is as close as anything I've ever done to what appraoches a professional job. I recommend you giving it a trial run and see for yourself.

Grumpy

The Microsoft IE 8 Fiasco

Hi,

I downloaded and installed the latest (and supposedly greatest) Internet Explorer from Microsoft last week.

Now, I can't say that I've ever experienced the problems with any of the previous versions of IE that I have with version 8, my memory is at times faulty, but I'm pretty sure that it has NEVER completely locked up all the open windows on the screen in such a way that I had a need to access Task Manager to resolve the problem (that is, open Task Manager to close down the offending application - IE-8).

After this had happened a number of times, I decided to revert back to the previous version -IE7. Uh-Uh, can't do.

In the first place, unlike other applications that are to reside on Windows, and which Microsoft demands have a roll-back plan to ensure that users aren't left in a no-win situation, Microsoft themselves - it seems - do not place any priority on customer satisfaction (unless you refer to the extensive - multi page - feedback system that I went through and I think don't believe they even think to access the feedback from).

They have not only - NOT provided an uninstall for IE8, you can't even install IE7 over the top to roll-back. In fact when I tried to roll-back to the previous version that I have been using for 6 months on my new Vista 64-bit system (by the way, the version of IE8 that I installed was tailored for Vista 64-bit) I got a message on the screen that said that this version of IE was not applicable to this version of the operating system (i.e. Windows Vista 64-bit).
I have to ask myself then, how in the hell:

1. How did the PC provider (DELL) install IE7 on Vista 64-bit if it IE7 is not applicable to that system?

2. Why did MS not supply a version of IE7 that WAS applicable to - their own new OS Vista 64-bit. (In fact they supplied both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, and both versions were installed on my system when I received it,, so I guess this begs another question doesn't it).

3. If IE7 WAS (and definitely was) installed on my PC, why can't I roll back to that version??????

4. Since both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of IE7 were installed on my system when it was received, why Oh why can't I just roll back and not be told that IE 7 is not appropriate for this bloody PC??????

If you have an answer to ANY or ALL these questions, you should be in charge of MS because they have NO ANSWERS AT ALL.

I went through a lengthy feedback survey, and got to the final page where it said that MS 'WILL GET BACK TO ME WITH AN ANSWER' and I'll bet their answer is just more bloody questions (some of which I've already answered for sure).

If you have had a similar problem with IE 8, I would appreciate your comments.

Now, you know why I'm called Grumpy - ??

Grumpy - 18/06/09

Facebook | Terrence Dunn

Facebook Terrence Dunn: "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAg9NXgzRmU"

Eddie Estrada and band at Turkish Restaraunt Brunswick

Eddie Estrada and his band at a Turkish Restaraunt in Brunswick. Eddie is a workmate of Lorna's. We went to the restaraunt to watch his band and this is an extract.

I hope you enjoy it.

I finally got my new PC on-line

Hi there. I bought a new PC from Dell and I've had a bit of bother getting on-line due to a combination of Vista 64-bit and the BB modem supplied by Bigpond.

Seems that Vista 64-bit won't let me use the modem's USB connector. I've had to connect to the modem with the Ethernet connector. This gives me a faster Internet connection, but I can't get my other PC on-line since I need to connect to it via the one and only Ethernet point.

The solution will be to buy a router, but I can't afford it, so I'll just have to be happy with what I've got.

Good to be back on-line though regardless.

Diagnosis

One day, Pete complained to his friend, "My elbow really hurts. I guess I should see a doctor."

His friend said, "Don't do that. There's a computer at the drug store that can diagnose anything quicker and cheaper than a doctor. Simply put in a sample of your urine, and the computer will diagnose your problem and tell you what you can do about and it will only costs you $10.00."

Pete figured he had nothing to lose, so he filled a jar with a urine sample and went to the drug store. Finding the computer, he poured in the sample and deposited the $10.00.

The computer started making some noise and various lights started flashing. After a brief pause, out popped a small slip of paper which read:
1. You have tennis elbow.
2. Soak your arm in warm water, avoid heavy labor.
3. It will be better in two weeks.......

That evening while thinking how amazing this new technology was and how it would change medical science forever, he began to wonder if this computer could be fooled.

He decided to give it a try. He mixed together some tap water, a stool sample from his dog, and urine samples from his wife and daughter. To top it off, he masturbated into the concoction.

He went back to the drug store, located the computer, poured in the sample and deposited the $10.00. The machine again made the usual noises, flashed its alights, and printed out the following analysis:

1. Your tap water is too hard.
2. Get a water softener.
3. Your dog has ringworm.
4. Bathe him with anti-fungal shampoo.
5. Your daughter is using cocaine.
6. Put her in a rehabilitation clinic.
7. Your wife is pregnant ....... twin girls. They aren't yours. Get a lawyer.
8. And if you don't stop masturbating, your elbow will never get better.

This is an amazing Optical Illusion

If you continue to focus on the cross in the center of the image you will notice that ...

the circle of violet circles will soon DISAPPEAR completely .. and you will see only a green spot.

Truly amazing - yes?

Friendly Neighbour

Pool Sign