View from the Potting Shed

The current edition of .net magazine (October 2008, issue 181) has an interesting feature article entitled “Smarter and faster web design”.
Magazine writer Craig Grannell promises “you don’t need to work harder, or for longer hours, to get better results. You just need to work smarter!” A sucker for productivity tips here’s my take on what […]

Now, firstly I’m not a customer of the Bank of Scotland, so I’m not entirely certain why they sent me this piece of junk mail, and secondly I’m no financial expert but I can’t help think that they’ve got something fundamentally wrong in the message they sent me.
It’s not been that long since the Northern […]

Microsoft have just announced Service Pack 3 for Microsoft Office 2003, which has prompted me to make sure that all my Microsoft Office applications are up-to-date.
What is a Service Pack?
A service pack (often abbreviated as SP) is a collection of updates, fixes and enhancements to a software application or operating system — such as Microsoft […]

This is one of my favourite series of videos on YouTube: Mark Erickson’s Infinite Solutions.
The videos are packed full of great tips, from how to recharge batteries using other batteries, how to de-fogg goggles to how to find small dinosaur remains. Good useful, everyday stuff.
Also check out his website: Mark’s Infinite Solutions and the videos […]

These last few weeks I’ve been doing some DIY on the new house and thought that you might appreciate a few tips that I’ve learned.

When drilling through bathroom tiles make sure that the drill isn’t set to the ‘hammer action’ setting.
While preparing to drill through bathroom tiles — say for example in a shower cubicle […]

This week I received something in my e-mail inbox that I’ve not had in a while: a hoax e-mail ‘kindly’ forwarded to me by a friend or family member trying to help me and ensure that my hard drive wouldn’t be destroyed by the latest terrible virus.
Olympic Torch hoax
The hoax e-mail sent was the Olympic […]

Here’s something that a couple of people recently have asked about when they’ve seen my desktop, either on my laptop or on my home PC. Many of you may know about this; this is posted for the benefit of those who don’t.
You may see from the screenshot above that I have an extra toolbar […]