Hard Rock Cafe Barcelona

HRC Barcelona is next door but one to my hotel and since it is the restaurant of all restaurants that I visit wherever I can, I went there for dinner this evening.

Here are just four snaps ... for some reason they have flipped them here. I had previously unflipped them but Gates knows best!

DW

Moving Again!

Montserrat Caballe and Freddie Mercury waxed lyrical over my destination.

Forgive any bad spellings!

DW

Well, Well, Well!

I have reported at various times on the HP Tablet I bought a few years ago and how it was a disaster: five burned out motherboards in a year as well as three or four Bluetooth units having gone kaput ... they replaced it and I am still using that replacement.

The replacement HP is not that good in that I never feel confident enough to use the tablet features that I bought it for. Moreover, the fan whines and whines almost the whole time the computer is switched on. Well, that was until today.

This morning there was yet another power cut here: annoying and frustrating at the same time. Then I noticed after a while that as the HP was running on battery, I couldn't hear the fan whining and whirring away. Zounds! I have been party to all sorts of discussions with all sorts of people all over the web on how to stop the fan making such a racket. I don't think anyone has suggested unplugging the power cord to stop the whining before.

Once the power came back, I recharged the battery and then when the fan started whining again, I pulled out the power cord and, proof of concept, the fan stopped whining.

The thing now is to find out what it is about the power connection that makes the fan a bit shirty!

DW

Plug it in: another top tip!

Before you start ranting and raving at an external hard drive that neither appears in Windows Explorer nor allows you to browse any files in it, do make sure it's been plugged in!

DW

Positive Steps

As I was waiting in the chemist the other day I saw a leaflet entitled Positive Steps for you mental health. I took a copy of it and here are the pain points of their message ... worth working at:

1. be kind to yourself
2. prioritise
3. if possible, look on the bright side
4. maintain a healthy, balanced diet
5. enjoy some physical activity
6. learn a new skill or try a creative hobby
7. set realistic goals
8. try to see the funny side where possible
9. keep your mind busy
10. make a little time for yourself each day
11. learn to relax
12. take one day at a time
13. take time to reflect
14. keep in touch with friends and family
15. talk about things
16. don't be afraid to ask for help
17. remember you are not the only one

I thought that was a good list and worth applying and sticking to.

DW

Taxi Date and Time: top tip

My first top tip for a while.

When ordering a taxi by sms or email, don't forget to tell the taxi driver the date and time you'd like him to come and collect you.

DW

It Pays to Graduate

I will never agree with the British Government's decision to make tertiary education students pay for their degrees and diplomas but it is worth considering the chart in the Daily Chart series in the Economist that shows the effect of potential benefits of graduating at primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education in various OECD countries.

Take a look here:

Many of the comments following the article are also worth a read.

DW

Microsoft Innovations Know no Bounds

You might have seen the new hotmail interface on the web, Outlook. It looks modern and like many innovations, it takes time to appreciate all of its improvements.

I wonder how shrewd this innovation will turn out to be, however? Using Outlook and an iPad, I clicked on New Message and entered a subject and my message. Then I clicked on To: to tell Outlook where I wanted my message to go. I clicked again. And again. In what must be some kind of revolutionary anti spamming invention, no messages can be sent because no address can be entered.

I thought I'd cracked the system by clicking Add CC and BCC ... WRONG! That didn't work either.

Gatesed again!

DW