Top 50 Blogs

Simulcast: you NEED to look at the list of the top 50 Blogs ... according to the Times OnlIne:

 

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article1923706.ece

 

DW

How about this little family: a pair of swans and their SIX cygnets: seen yesterday in the centre of Abingdon, on the Thames.

Aw!

DW

When I was a lad ...

James Naughtie said a short time ago on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4:

 

We'll be talking to the commander of a ship that was sunk (in the Falklands War of 1982) who later became First Sea Lord.

 

This little ditty immediately sprang to my mind: 'When I was a lad ...'

 

Now where does that come from?

 

DW

Luton Airport

I just received an entreaty to swap links with another web site: you know one of those sites that reflects much of the content of my own site. So, would I please accept and share a link with LUTON AIRPORT.

 

OK, so I travel a lot but to link my site with an airport seems a bit extreme.

 

Let me say, though, that I HAVE flown into Luton Airport and I met two ladies arriving from Poland a while ago. Maybe that's the connection then?

 

DW

Xmas is over ...

Just driving back from dropping off Master W and realised that I've still
got my Christmas CDs in the car's stereo ... must take them out soon!

DW

Storage

Have you read the Economist this week? No? There's an article entitled 'Taking storage to the next dimension'.

Are you old enough to remember using those 5.25 inch floppy disks, let alone 3.4" floppies? No? Well, CDs were huge when they came in weren't they? NO, then you remember DVDs really.

Well, BluRay has come along with its 25Gb storage capacity. Then the other day I mentioned the terabyte drive I saw in a shop the other day.

Well, that article tells us that some Fortune 1000 companies are storing as much as 680 terabytes of data and information EVERY YEAR. So that's a lot then ... just work out what it means if you can!

Now there is going to be holographic storage: 300 gigabytes on a disk which is 12 times what we can get on a BluRay disk and 60 times more than a DVD. Not big enough for you? Well, the article says that within a few years, those 300 Gb will become 1,600Gb or 1.6Tb.

Holographic disks don't spin, either, their rotate ever so slowly ... read the article to see why! They're not slow to write either, as they will transfer data at the rate of one million bits at a time. That translates to 160 megabits a second.

These are corporate dreams at the moment and since large corporations pay a lot to store their data on magnetic tapes that take up lots of room and so on, please bear in mind that a holographic drive will cost $18,000 and each 300Gb disk will cost $180.

Thought you'd like to know that!

DW

Good for business

It had to happen, I suppose.

 

The accountancy profession has finally decided to get on board the Royalty Express. From the Accounting Education web site comes the following:

 

HRH the Prince of Wales has accepted an invitation to become the first honorary member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW).

The Prince of Wales was nominated in recognition of his commitment to the sustainability agenda and, in particular, his involvement of the accountancy profession through the Accounting for Sustainability project. The honour is also in recognition of the assistance that the Prince of Wales has given to young people and to business generally by the promotion of business start-ups, personal development and community projects through the Prince's Trust and other initiatives.

In making the announcement at the Institute's Annual Lunch, ICAEW President Richard Dyson said: "At our annual dinner in 2005, the Prince of Wales challenged the accountancy profession to play its part in the sustainability agenda. He recognised that we could have a great deal to offer and I believe the ICAEW has risen to that challenge through its work on sustainability and measurement. I'm delighted that he has accepted honorary membership. It is our way of thanking him not just for the leadership he has given on this issue but also for the contribution he has made to business over many years."

The category of honorary membership of the ICAEW was approved in June 2006 at the institute's annual general meeting to recognise those who have made an outstanding contribution to the accountancy profession and/or the finance and business world. Any member can suggest individuals for the accolade. All suggestions received are considered by the institute's nominations committee before a formal proposal is made to Council who make the final decision.

 

It's taken the Institue something like 100 years to think of a way to get a Royal involved so that they can cringe and fawn all over it.

 

 

Duncan Williamson

Viruses etc

Got back and needed to use the desktop for a printing job to find that two bits of software had crashed. No one knew or understood what had happened of course. Nothing like that had happened before.

 

Why was the anti virus software not working? 'Is it?', came the rejoinder.

 

I rebooted and watched what happened and decided I needed to investigate the anti viral thing further as it was still switched off. I updated the anti virus software and it needed almost 30 mega bytes of updating. That's astonishing. I then ran a virus check and it got to 8,142 problems by midnight. I have never seen so many errors and potential virus incidents on one machine after around 30 years of messing around with computers.

 

Of course, you can tell me your own personal nightmare and I'd be happy to share it with the world! Just click on the comment button here!

 

DW

Pret a Manger

How about this for a bit of stupendous selling? Buy an oat and fruit slice at Pret a Manger at the moment and you will find the following on the label:

 

Only Pret's Oat and Fruit Slice is stirred by hand with a four foot long oar. Strange as this may seem, we've found that mechanical mixers turn the ingredients into a horrid pulp. Hand mixing the ingredients adds a lot of work but greatly improves the flavour. It is partly for this reason that the texture and taste of the product is so good.

 

The slice was quite good, I have to admit!

 

DW

the Queen... the film

You might remember a while ago I said that if the Queen Mother, God rest her, had been nominated for BBC Sports Personality of The Year she would have won it. Having watched the film The Queen just now I am convinced I'm right: it was the most utter drivel and yet didn’t Helen Mirren win an Oscar for it?

If I were to make that film I wouldn't have called it the Queen I would have called it something like, Surrounding the Death of Diana: The Woman Who Will Not Die. Harsh possibly but then again more nearer to reality than simply the Queen.

The essence of this film is that Tony Blair is newly elected as prime minister and then Diana dies in a car crash in Paris. Most of the action in the film surrounds that event. Prince Philip is made to be a boor and a clot. Charles wears an expression of astonishment for the whole film. The Queen Mother, God rest her, manages to swill a bit of gin at one stage. We never see the boys. Cherie Blair is an arch republican.

Tony Blair is treated badly by the Queen: she treats him with disdain. I have no idea whether that is really their relationship but that is how it appears anyway.

One crucial point is that the entire Royal family and the entire government spend their entire time watching the television and reading the tabloid press. Bet you didn't know that!

The Queen is portrayed as a very independent woman: drives everywhere by herself, launches off at a minute’s notice and is most definitely in charge of the entire family. I would guess that Philip has more influence within the family than this film gave him credit for.

I think the dialogue was rubbish, I think the overall idea of the film was rubbish and I think some of the characterisations were rubbish. Charles for example, Tony Blair for example and even the Queen for example.

So this is the business plan: just put royalty in it and you are on a winner.

DW

Is It Just Me?

In my office, here at home. there are two the filing cabinets.  In those cabinets you will find all of the utility bills for the house since we moved in in 2001. Yesterday, I needed to send originals of my utility bills to a solicitor... guess what.  Only the ones that I need are not to be found.

Explain that if you can!

DW

So the other day I sang the praises of Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred voice recognition software saying that it was the best thing since sliced bread ... then yesterday I had a catastrophe with it. I took the laptop upstairs to print out a few files (thank you Bill Gates: network printer cannot work any more and I blame the you personally!) And when I came back the software worked really badly, really slowly. Since I was in the middle of a panic to meet a deadline I became rather stressed. Luckily I was alone and no one was here to hear my expletives. I spent an hour and a half trying to find a way to make the software work again. I thought I'd found that the sound card driver had imploded so I uninstalled it; but when I came to reinstall it ... it has gone! So I went to the website to get a replacement driver: downloaded it, installed it... it seemed to work. Then it stopped working again. So I missed a deadline (fortunately not serious and have since met it) and had to go out to meet the fair Maria! After that teaching/learning session I got back home and tried the software. Again. I was desperate, thinking that I might need to return the software, throw something through a window all ... so I slept on it. This morning I started again and took a more rational view of things and by doing so I found the solution. It helps to plug in the headphones the right way round. I should say no more, otherwise it would be embarrassing for me. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred is excellent and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. DW

Speech recognition software

I thought you needed to know about some software called Dragon naturally speaking preferred version 9. At last week's seminars one of my fellow presenters recommended that I try speech recognition software. I did. I went to Amazon.com and found this Dragon naturally speaking preferred version 9, as recommended, for about one third of the price that I found on Dragon's own web site and I am happy.

I am dictating this message using the software and I have to say it is fantastic. Of course, it needs to be tweaked as it needs to learn my accent and style of delivery but I think it's success rate at recognition is probably in the high 90%s. I have used similar software before but it's nowhere near as good as this. I can even speak fairly quickly, ie almost at normal speaking rate and it still catches up with me: there I just did that.

One reason why I bought this software is because of the repetitive strain injury I suffer from. It's not nice and now I can talk and I don't need to type. Let's see how quickly my fingers recover. Suppose the only thing to worry about is to be sitting in an airport or it coffee shop somewhere and apparently talking to myself.

DW

My ear and the quack

A couple of weeks ago, I got another ear infection, so I went to see my doctor, who took a look with his little implement only to confirm that yes I did have an ear infection and after a little chat he prescribed some drops for me.  So I dutifully went to the chemist's and bought the drops. I then administered them once.  Now, from time to time, I read the leaflets inside the medicine packet and that is exactly what I did on this occasion.  To my horror, I read that, in capital letters, anyone with a perforated ear drum should not administer the drops.  I called the surgery and talked to the practice manager.  I asked her to ask the doctor what I should do.  She talked to him and he called me.  I briefly outlined what he had done and he said, I didn't see a perforation.  I said I've had a perforated ear drum, since I was five years of age.  I am fairly sure that he hadn't read the letters he has received from the specialist at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, which explained my problem in medical terms, because he never mentioned them.  And if he had he would realised that my ear condition is rather serious.  Otherwise, I wouldn't be seeing the specialist.

Anyway, I asked him what I should do and he said I should call into the surgery that evening and collect another prescription.  I did that.  I was shocked though, that he didn't suggest that I called into his surgery for him to take another look at my ear for him to understand the mistake he made.  I find that shocking. It is also a shocking that I had to pay for two prescriptions, a total of more than £13 when I should only have paid for one.

DW

Bronzed my ...

So I got back to Blighty early yesterday morning on time and slightly refresshed after an overnight flight. I did manage to get a bulkhead seat with lots of extra leg room and slept a little bit too: maybe half of the seven flying hours.

In the bathrrom (that's the room in our house that has a bath in it!) I looked in the mirror and my bronzed visage melted into being a pale and wan visage. Ah well, bronzed Adonis look for next time then, he?

DW

Hari cut

I did it for the first time in the Gulf.

I have just had my hair cut here in Dubai for the first time ever. A nice job he did of it too. Sets off my, ahem, sun tan very nicely.

Speaking of tans, the hair dresser was a local young gentleman of course and my "tan" paled into insignificance next to his perfect bronze. Oh well, can't have everything and I'm off for my ten minute top up now. Notice, I have fair skin and am being exceptionally responsible over this tan. I am taking my tanning very slowly as I will have been here for three weeks by the time I leave.

DW

Jocks all over

Now I am half Sottish by parentage so I've no real axe to grind but I've noticed that whenever there is an English footy match on the tele there is a good chance that the summariser is a Jock.

Here I am in Dubai watching a Premiership programme and, can you believe it, the second chap in the studio summarising at half time is a Jock!

Just thought I'd say that.

DW

Hyphens

A simulcast!

It's getting to me: all of these hyphens, I mean. I read a lot of books and articles and cases and pamphlets and if I get my hands on an electronic copy of anything, I can spend ages getting rid of these wretched things. I find absolutely no use for hyphens except in the most rare of cases.

The latest, although quite old now, craze is the attempt to kill off the colon. That's : and not the large bowel of course.

I came across this exercise just the other day that was kindly provided by a colleague in good faith:

Insert hyphens in the following sentences, where necessary.

  1     The letter was sent by second class post.
  2     He was a very well mannered young man.
  3     Ninety two people attended the concert.
  4     The students co operated with the teacher.
  5     The Vice Principal is Ms Baker.
  6     The visitors are expected at tea time.
  7     The recreation ground is used by the local football team.
  8     John recreated the picture he saw at the art gallery.
  9     The master bedroom has an en suite bathroom.
10      Forty eight pounds is a lot to pay for a table cloth.

My answer is that NONE OF THEM requires any hyphens whatseover. End of story. Give me an A*.

I may refer to this topic again.

As a matter of interest I had a discussion with an American colleague last night and as I thought of it as we were talking I asked him why an American says to a bar maid or barista, for example, "Can I get a drink ..." His reply was revealing as he said, "I don't. I say 'May I have'". I asked him why do we hear can I get then and he said it's laziness. Well, that was good to hear. I have long said that these bad language habits (Can I get, lack of use of adverbs, poor prepositional sense ...) are confined to uneducated people and this chap is a PhD holder who clearly knows a lot better!!! I then said the other annoyance is when someone says they will "Bring that to your house ..." Erm, you mean you are already at my house? They mean TAKE that to your house of course. Another bete noir explored a little.

DW

 

Don't you just love things like this?

I saw this sign by the roadside near the hotel the other night and just couldn't resist it. It can be interpreted in a couple of ways: the one intended and a slightly impish one. It's the impish one that appeals to me.

DW

Let me join the chorus of decent people calling for whoever it is who is responsible, to return Madeleine McCann to her parents. Let Madeleine be with the ones she loves and needs: let her parents be at peace with all of their children. What you have done is to condemn a mother and a father to a lifetime of paranoia: constantly worrying whether their special little girl is safe and sound. Madeleine's parents can't live without their daughter but they can live without the uncertainty of what you are doing with and to her. Give her back. As Madeleine's mother said: they don't care how you do it, just do it quickly. You can then crawl back to where you came from where you can be happy with God's judgement when it comes. DW