Blog of a White Hat Chipmunk

University of Ulster 'Blogging for Non-Bloggers' Lecture

2008-07-29T20:26:00.008+01:00

Okay...anyone who has subscribed to this over the years, don't get too excited - I'm only using this for a course...but I might just continue, you never know.

Anywho, for lack of a better subject matter, I decided to finally get my act together and open a flickr account. You can find me here:

theChipmunk's flickr account

Just to give you a sneak preview, here's a couple of the photos I've uploaded so far...

Enjoy at any rate...

A Foray into Londinium

2006-08-27T00:12:00.000+01:00

Wendover Railway Station

Hmm, railways...

The fountain at Trafalgar Square

Nelson's Column, in all it's black and white glory!

Nelson's Column in all it's sepia toned glory!

We decided to attempt London today, via Wendover railway station. The train journey only took less than an hour and then we were straight into Marylebone! From there, we went down into the tube station and got off at Charing Cross. From there, it was about 30 metres to the National Gallery, our destination.

Who said travelling in a city wasn't easy?

The painting in the national gallery were simply stunning. My favourite piece, just because of the scale and sheer realism, has to be 'Whistlejacket' by George Stubbs. It sat there on the wall and basically glowed. The horse depicted looked more realistic than a real horse! I would have taken some nice pictures to show you, but the National Gallery is picky. They want you to buy their photographs. I didn't sneak any pictures because I didn't want my phone and it's precious photos taken and b*gg*red about with.

Didn't get to Tottenham court road, though... :-(

David

A Very Old Computer...and Some Slightly Newer Ones...

2006-07-30T23:19:00.000+01:00

Yes, those are Macs and, yes, I'm going to have to wash my blog out with soap...

The Colossus machine. Big, isn't it?

The fountain at Bletchley Park

A Harrier jump-jet

I had serious fun playing with the BASIC compilers on these old machines!

Bletchley was the order of the day for our outing today. The famous estate that was the site of much code-breaking antics during WW2 is set in some beautiful countryside - with the lake at the heart of the complex and rolling green fields around, it's a pretty stunning place. Add to that, the history of the war-effort and it's a very interesting place!

Of course, the high-point was the Colossus, although the two hour lecture on cryptography and the display of old (1980s) home computers were excellent too. The machine really does live up to it's name, although, for being so old, it's surprisingly powerful - it's touted as being as powerful as a Pentium 2, but I'm not sure how they tested that...

The whole visit was extremely informative, especially the part were I fooled around with the ZX80's BASIC compiler!

David

I would like to say a special thanks to Tony Sale for his excellent tour and generosity.

Science Museum

2006-07-28T21:49:00.000+01:00

A nice building

My version of the Killers album cover!

Erm...it's a picture of a shed...I thought it looked nice!

The building opposite the Science Museum

A spitfire hanging in the Science Museum

It looks like a Sopwith Camel, but I'm no expert, so please correct me...

Charles Babbage's Difference Engine, on display in the computing section

An engine off a Boeing 747. Big, eh?

Pegasus

I had a great day today! We were driven to the Science Museum by the aforementioned chauffeur. It was great quietly cruising through London, cutting through all the hustle and bustle and arriving right at the door of the Museum! Talk about class!

Anyway, the Science Museum was wonderful - the exhibits were so varied and interesting! I especially enjoyed the aircraft displays.

We bought a lot of stuff at the shop. I got, among other stuff, a drag racer. It will, naturally be hacked at the earliest possible opportunity!

David

Soaked

2006-07-27T18:15:00.000+01:00

Where we were staying

Swing! Yay!

We ate here today. It was rather good, actually...

It was absolutely p*ssing down today!

We visited the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum after lunch.

This monstrosity was in the 'most venomous animals exhibit'

Skeleton of an ape

Tiger. Nuff said

Lion. Nuff said

Your favourite Blogger outside the musuem

Today we decided to strike out into Tring. We got dropped off near the town centre and as soon as the car started moving off, the heaven's opened and we were totally soaked. And I mean totally.

After drying off in the toilets of the Rothschild museum, we felt a bit peckish, so we found an Italian. We actually found it just in time, as the heaven's decided that they didn't like us being dry and tried again, missing by mere seconds! At first we weren't sure about the place, but the deluge outside persuaded us to stay.

It turned out to be very nice and the dish that I had was delicious. We headed back up the road to the Rothschild Museum and had a walk round the slightly...worrying exhibits. Standing in front of a massive eight foot polar bear is a bit weird. Especially when you consider that it hasn't blinked for over a hundred years. Oh yeah, and the tiger, dinosaur, crocodile, lynx and ape were all pretty unnerving as well!

David

Off on hols

2006-07-26T16:19:00.000+01:00

Packed and ready to go!

A 737-400...I think...

We set off on our holiday's today! Early start so Uncle Richard could drive us to Belfast International Airport. Then a quick hop over the seas to Luton, where we were met by an air-conditioned Mercedes with a chauffeur! Cool!

It's pretty tiring. Spectacular views at that height, though - the sensation of floating on the clouds never fails to get me in all these years of flying. Beautiful.

David

Now you don't use up your monthly limit when you log on...

2006-07-22T18:25:00.000+01:00

I have made a small modification so that there aren't as many posts on the front page of my blog to kill dial-up users. You know who you are.

;-)

David

Dremel!

2006-07-21T17:55:00.000+01:00

We went into Coleraine with my Uncle Richard today, just to visit the hospital for a quick check-up appointment. Afterwards, we had a look around various places to kill a bit of time, including B&Q.

I did, of course, buy the dremel I've been wanting for a while.... :-D

David

Heart attacks in a coffee shop...not just because of the caffeine

2006-07-20T22:14:00.000+01:00

We went to Ballymena today and, as you can see, I visited the newly opened Starbucks there.

My thoughts:

Waste of money - £3 for a latte - I don't think so.
Didn't taste very good - It was alright, but for the money, I was expecting something that would electrify my taste buds.
The cake was quite nice - So called 'skinny' carrot cake. Rather nice, as I say...although expensive.
Quite nice decor.

It was good, but since the total bill for three small coffees and a piece of cake came within spitting distance of £10, it just doesn't appeal to me. Remember I don't have a job because I'm fourteen, so I don't exactly have money to throw around!

[/rant]

Anyway, in other news, we went to the York tonight and throughly enjoyed it! The fruit pavlova was excellent and the coffees where nicer and less wallet worrying!

:-D

David

Boom, Crash, Bang, Wallop

2006-07-20T07:10:00.000+01:00

There was a lot of thunder this morning - the window shaking type. Couldn't sleep between the hours of 4-5am, mainly because it sounded like George Bush was having a practise session with his arsenal outside.

Oh well, at least it brought the temperature down!

:-D

David

Heatwave

2006-07-19T16:11:00.000+01:00

Arrrghh!

It's far too hot. I think I'm going to melt.

I really don't like the heat and in this fur coat, it's just awful! ;-)

David

Bands

2006-07-14T23:59:00.000+01:00

Here are the pictures I took of the bands marching past:

David

Another packed day

2006-07-14T23:30:00.000+01:00

I woke up this morning to find a slurry tanker parked outside...fortunately the driver was only having his lunch and moved on soon enough.

Look at what's parked outside our house!!!

Dad noticed this error in the Radio Times:

I think it's supposed to be BrainTeaser... ;-)

In the afternoon, we went to Benvardin gardens. Benvardin is a privately owned estate and is known locally for it wonderful gardens. The River Seneril (later the River Bush) flows through it and under a bridge that was built during Victorian times.

The hut near the tennis courts.

Sorry about the chromatic abberation in this shot...

Which one would you like, CMOT?

Taken from the Causeway Hotel car park

Taken from the bridge at Benvardin

Wouldn't want to service that boiler!

Benvardin House

A secluded spot

After that, we moved on to the Causeway Hotel for a meal. I had half a roast duck and it was very nice, although it was somewhat ruined by the parsnips that had been put over it. Having attacked that, we drove round the North Coast, heading for Ballycastle, where we had ice-creams. On the way, we stopped a lot for me to take photos.

Rathlin Island

Mmmm...sunsets...

Erm...can't remember where this was taken!

Dunseverick Castle in all it's glory.

When we arrived back at our house, there was a band parade and the road was closed. I'll cover that in a seperate post to make things easier for me!

David

Party!

2006-07-13T12:30:00.000+01:00

Tonight was the big Kane get-together in the Water Margin - nearly everyone managed to attend, although the original eleven was whittled down to nine. Mind you, it was whittled down to seven when I had to get Dad to take me home for a quick change of clothing after a new waiter spilt an entire drinks order over me... :-(

The Lady Sandel, docked on the River Bann

It's very strange to see Coleraine deserted (pic taken at 21:08)

Coleraine Town Hall

David

The Twelfth!

2006-07-12T23:53:00.000+01:00

This is the only picture I got of the Twelfth parade, mainly because seconds after this pic was taken, they dispersed and walked off...

This is Bob, my Uncle's dog.

Bob again. You can clearly see the remains of two steaks that she has dismembered.

Today was, of course, the Twelfth, so I went down to the annual Kane barbecue at my Uncle's house in Portballintrae. I had a brilliant time, talking to all my cousins, aunts and uncles. The food was good as well - burgers, sausages and steaks, as well as a lovely fruit salad prepared by my cousin Heather.

Excellent!

David

Duck!

2006-07-11T21:22:00.000+01:00

We travelled to Ballymena today to get to Marks and Spencers. On the way we ate a picnic in the People's Park. I took these pictures on the South side of the park.

Ducks are enjoying the view...

They're looking for more bread.

Arty view of tree covered avenue...

Some of the larger residents

Erm...it's a picture of railings stretching off into the distance...

David

Portstewart Photos

2006-07-10T12:39:00.000+01:00

Today I went to the Water Margin and afterwards I didn't really want to go home just yet, so I went on to Portstewart and had a look around.

David

Yanks at it again.

2006-07-09T23:00:00.000+01:00

As if the recent lawsuits aren't enough, the FBI is further challenging your human rights.

Clicky

I mean, seriously, every time some eleven-year-old starts bragging about their latest victory in Counter Strike and mentions C4, M-16s and MP-5s, the comms monitoring at Langley's gonna light up like a Christmas tree.

That said, I do support government monitoring if it saves my bacon next time something's being plotted. Just as long as they don't start using the information in other ways, of course.

David

Indian Cuisine

2006-07-08T17:53:00.000+01:00

We went to an Indian last night. It was quite good, but the service was awful! Also, the high tea menu they advertise in the paper doesn't mention that it only runs Monday to Thursday, which is quite sneaky. The guy told my dad this and he just said, "Okay" and started to walk out when the man said, "But I'm sure we could make an exception..."

The food was good, though - I had a mild chicken curry and I thought it was delicious. I'm not a fan of really spicy food, but it had just the right amount of oomph for me. The starters were also lovely - and they made it to the table pretty fast!

There's something about the decor in that place that I can't quite warm to...I think it's because there's only windows at the front, so the rest of the interior is lit artificially. Still, it is quite nice, with comfy seats, authentic Indian music and candles.

I would go back there for the food, but the service and decor are a bit off-putting.

David

P.S. Their website address is www.indusvalleyltd.com. It seems to be powered by CMS, which is pretty professional. I'm told reliably that they had it done by a design company, although parts of the site (especially the 'table menu' - whatever that is!) are a bit amateurish. Also, their map is completely wrong. I haven't a clue how they did it or even where they got that awful map from, but it's pretty pathetic!

Excellent build quality...just a bit of superglue and it'll be fine.

2006-07-07T16:57:00.000+01:00

You know those products that come with a notice saying "WARNING - Some assembly required!"?

Yeah. Well, my wireless card (a Belkin 802.11g model) should carry that warning - it's been having some problems.

It all started a couple of days ago when I noticed that part of the edge of the card was curling up and was bent so much that it was causing problems inserting it into the PCMCIA port. I tried to push it down again and I partially succeeded - enough for me to continue using it.

However, it got worse, as more of the card bent up for no apparent reason. A pair of pliers arrived on the scene, but to no avail. I now couldn't insert the card, so it was a bit useless. Ergo, we realised that we had nothing to use and superglue was called for.

A quick spot of glue later and the card was back in my computer (don't worry, I checked for any leaks!) and working perfectly again.

Still don't know why it decided to curl...

David

How to knock off a Van Gogh

2006-07-05T22:06:00.000+01:00

My copy of a Van Gogh in its nice black frame+mount

I should've posted this earlier, but I forgot I had taken the picture. :-$

Anyway, I got my Van Gogh copy framed at the framers for a very reasonable price indeed. The man did a brilliant job of framing my...er...masterpiece!

Very pleased.

David

P.S. Read that title again... ;-)

Tour of the North Coast

2006-07-04T16:42:00.000+01:00

Warning! Lots of photos ahead! :P
(and for some, inexplicable reason, a large blank space that I can't seem to fix for love nor money!) (|-(

A small pool guarded from the sea by stern, gray, windswept rocks.	The mouth of a cave at Ballintoy Harbour, surounded by plant growth and a treacherous ditch.
A second, darker cave. I went into this one and it has a passageway curving deep into the cliff face.	The barren landscape formed by volcanic activity.
The birds love the shelter this cave provides and are always nesting in it.	Inside the cave. Spooky...and very, very cold...and wet.
The shoreline around the harbour.	You can clearly see the rock formation known as 'the Giant's Table' at the entrance.
A closer look at the Giant's Table.	A view of Carrick-a-rede rope bridge (just out of view behind the rocks)
The water looked almost Mediterranean.	My dinner! (see below for more details)
A view of the imposing cliffs at Murlock Bay.	Me with binoculars looking out over the bay. Beautiful view.
I took this a couple of minutes after I finished my evening meal	The harbour at Portstewart. You can see the convent on the far right.
Interesting rock formations (taken at the same spot as the harbour shot)	The Skerries, off the coast of Portrush
Taken from the path to the rope bridge.	In my opinion, one of my best shots yet! The sun setting off the coast at Portstewart - taken from the top of a cliff, above an inlet. This shot is dedicated to Mark and his love of my sunset photography.

I had an absolutely brilliant day today. We basically went for a tour of the North West coastline!

I woke up at about 7am in preparation for the trip and I managed to get a bit of internetting done on my lappy before I went. At about 8am, there was some pretty bad thunder and lightening and I though it might start to pour, but it held off for a while.

When we left at about 11am, it was very overcast and it really looked like it was going to rain any second, but thankfully it never did. Although the cloudy skies played silly buggers with some of my shots, causing chromatic abberation everywhere! Our first stop was Ballintoy harbour, which you have to go down a windy road down the cliff to reach. The harbour is very picturesque, providing lots of photos, although it was such a cloudy day that I had to keep adjustingsettings. Still, I think I got some good photos!

I struck out on my own to do a good scout of the place and managed to cover the entire site in about forty minutes, while my Mum and my Uncle sat and chatted (and ate scones). When they finished, me and Uncle Richard went and explored one of the caves, which was extremely cold!

We were back on the road again at about 1:30pm, heading along the coast to Ballycastle. We made a quick detour to the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge, to have a quick skelly. The path to the bridge is a 2KM round trip! Far too long for me to walk,so we borrowed a wheelchair. Thing is, wheelchairs aren't built to cope with dirt paths.

Thankfully a guy from the South was walking along with his three daughters and his wife - he offered to help push and struggled up the hills with me. Seriously, I haven't met such a kind helpful person in a long while and it's good to know that there are some still out there! If you're reading, thanks so much!

A quick bit of photography and we were back on course, arriving in Ballycastle at about 2:15pm. We spent a long time there shopping (getting a card and a present for our friends in England - yes, we're still searching!) before making for our final destination, Murlock Bay, east of Ballycastle.

We arrived at about 4:00pm and for a long time I just stood there gawking at the view! It's honestly that good. You can see the entire bay from where we stopped and the water was shimmering in the sunlight (it had brightened up considerably by this time) and the peace and quiet would take your breath away! I eventually pulled myself out of the contemplation of the scene and removed my camera from its case. I got a lot of pictures of the bay itself and some of me in the shot with binoculars. I sat there for a long time just drinking the beauty in. Simply fantastic.

When we had to move on, we made to get back into the car and found it crawling with little flying insects called cleggs. They bite. Viciously. Clearing the car out was immense fun. I say that with my tounge firmly in my cheek.

Back on the road and heading for home (killing cleggs that had escaped the intial cull) we went the inland route for speed, pulling up outside our house at 5:30pm. After a quick turnaround (we had to pick dad up) we headed back out and made for d'Arcy's in Portrush at the recommendation of my uncle.

d'Arcy's is quite a rustic place, as the building it is in looks to be for the Victorian era, with walls and ceilings succumbing to the passage of time by sagging at weird and wonderful angles. Still, it has a lot of charm and the food was excellent! I had the grilled Irish salmon on a bed of roasted vegetables in olive oil, with two Britvic 55 Apples to drink, as well as a summer berry pudding for afters. Lip-smackingly delicious - the salmon was so tender you could have cut it with a piece ofpaper!

We were reluctant to end the day, so we went for a walk on the path that overlooks the harbour at Portstewart. The sun was setting and the camera was snapping - I managed to get into a really good position (by doing a bit of scrambling) and got some top-notch shots. The one of the sunset framed by the cove is probably my favourite and the fact that a nice couple were standing watching it going down in a perfect position didn't hurt the composure of the picture!

All in all, I think I had a brilliant day today and I'm really pleased with the photos I managed to take. Good times.

David

Trucks and Trolleys

2006-07-03T21:26:00.000+01:00

Woke up this morning to find road works in full swing about 10 metres from our house! The place is a mess, with dust, mud and general dirt everywhere. Haven't got a clue what they're doing, but hopefully it'll be over soon.

From our driveway...

A closer view (as we were going by in the car)

Our next stop was Tescos in Coleraine. Not exactly exciting, but hey! I took the following picture while I was there:

An...er...arty view of the trolleys. ;-)

David

More Portrush Pics

2006-07-01T12:10:00.000+01:00

I went to the Water Margin tonight and had a great time! Afterwards, we decided we weren't ready to go home just quite yet, so we went for a walk along the prom at Portrush (again). Naturally the camera came with me...

A view from the balcony at the WM.

Doggie!

Don't worry, it's probably just a dead body...

Another sunset for Mark... ;-)

Another view of Portrush...it looks rather nice in this photo!

An arty shot of the harbour with a women walking along the strand
Hmm...tinkers are still there. :-@

David

Orthodonty :+(

2006-06-27T22:11:00.000+01:00

Had to go to Orthodonty today... (|-(

The orthodontist tightened my braces really hard and they've been really sore for hours!

:EDIT: The pain actually lasted for over a week :-(

Anyway, after that ordeal, we went and had lunch at Decks restaurant, which does lovely bangers and mash. Then we continued on to the Foyleside (as usual!). We were going to try and get on one of the Foyle cruises (boats that go up and down Lough Foyle), but they weren't doing any more sailings today...

Another view from the top of the Foyleside!

Having done the Foyleside, we went into Ireland and took the ferry from Greencastle to Magilligan, because it was a nice day and we fancied the scenic route! It's actually a nicer looking voyage from Greencastle>Magilligan, as you get to see the beautiful landscape of Ireland when you're leaving (if you're going the other way, by the time you get close enough to appreciate it, you have to be in the car ready to go).

That's one hell of an anchor!

Another extremely large anchor!

A large freighter

When I saw this, I thought, "Oh look! It's a boat coming in!" Then I realised it was the ferry. At which point I had to go very fast to the other end of the harbour and just made it!

Leaving Greencastle behind.

Magilligan (and Northern Ireland) ahoy!

When we arrived back on Northern Irish soil, we headed for the Bishops Road to get some shots over the Magilligan peninsula. The weather was glorious and the light was brilliant. Unfortunately, my camera seems to have corrupted a tonne of shots from that batch, so I can't show you! :@

On the way to the Bishops Road viewing point, we got a bit lost and made a slightly unintentional detour down a nice country road. On the way down it, we discovered the site of St Aidan's Well. Naturally, this chipmunk took a good look, taking lots of photographs while I was there...but the damn camera ate those too...

After that, we went to an Italian restaurant called Zio. It was fairly crap. Even though it has an excellent position on the coast, it was empty. Probably partially due to the fact that the waitresses aren't exactly charm-school graduates.

There are some excellent views from the balcony, but my camera b*gg*red those as well. *sigh*

Oh well - you'll just have to use your imagination!

David

Portstewart

2006-06-26T21:22:00.000+01:00

I was dragged out to Portstewart today. It was just a standard walk/have an ice-cream/visit library/go back home again afair, but I took some (semi) decent photos while I was there, so I decided to post them.

The sea...and the sun....but you didn't need me to tell you that...

Portstewart from under the Convent

Erm...more sea...

You can see Donegal in the distance.

Some of those might make good wallpapers!

David

Caravans, drilling rigs and a landy.

2006-06-25T18:53:00.000+01:00

Today I was dragged out for a walk along the promenade in Portrush. I actually quite enjoyed it, just don't tell anyone I did! As you have probably come to expect from the House of Chipmunk, the camera was going constantly. We're talking upwards of fifty photos! I have selected the best and posted them below:

The Skerries (off the coast of Portrush)
Some beautiful rock formations. (taken from the picnic site on the Bushmills<>Portrush road)

The picnic site had...er...how can I put this so it's even vaguely politically correct? Gypsies is the only thing I can really think of! Anyway, the picnic site had gypsies camping in it and they were scaring all the other people off. Three of them came over and started checking our car. My and Dad were not happy - we chased them off and departed quickly.

Portrush in all its...er...glory...

Across the water...

The Harbour

The Harbour and the opposite coast

The local lifeboat in all its glory.
The small Harbour beyond the bridge. The Ramore Wine Bar and the Harbour bar are just to the left in this picture.

That damn rig again!

I'll be doing research into Seacore and I'll see if I can work out what's going on...

This seems to be a crane that has been bolted on (i.e. not part of the original rig design)

This is especially for CMOT... ;-)

We parked in the West Strand car park and walked along the promenade, going along the seafront. We then ate ice-cream at the harbour and I nearly dropped mine when I realised the smaller (although still massive) drilling rig was sitting there in the harbour right in front of me! I discovered that it's run by a company called Seacore, so I'll have to do a bit of research about them....

David

Chipmunks on your desktop!

2006-06-24T17:22:00.000+01:00

I have created some Chipmunk branded wallpaper!

Here are the links to my photobucket album, where you can download the appropriate size:

Chipmunk Wallpaper (1024 x 768)

Chipmunk Wallpaper (1280 x 1024)

Let me know what you think by posting a comment below.

Thanks for reading!

David

UMPCs

2006-06-21T21:56:00.000+01:00

It's come to my attention that I haven't really written about technology too much on these pages, so I reckon it's time to have some tech articles along with my other ones! Anyway, on with the show...

UMPC stands for Ultra Mobile Personal Computer. The rather colourful and enticing name brings to mind images of computers sewn into coats and suchlike. Surprisingly, the answer isn't too far off - the UMPC is slightly larger than a PDA, but potentially retains the functionality of a full-fat PC. Notice the word 'potentially'.

The UMPC is, to all intents and purposes, a complete and fairly powerful PC. Obviously it's not going to contain an FX-62 and an NVidia 7900GTX, but it's still a good spec for the size. I'll put it like this - the spec is what you would expect in a decent business laptop, which is good and highly commendable.

The problems arrive when you examine the form factor and, on some models, the price. The form factor is small (obviously), usually with a 7" screen at 800 x 600 res. Some (Avertec's AHI UMPC (pictured left)- clicky) have a 1280 x 1024 res display, which is pretty damn good considering the size of the screen (5" in the AHI's case!). The screen takes up most of the surface area on the device, not leaving much, if any, room for a keyboard.

This means a lot of the UMPCs I've seen have sacrificed the keyboard, which I feel is a very bad move - the lack of a keyboard is what killed off the market for PDAs - the device was aimed at business users, who would want it to enter data into address books and compose letters on the move, but without a serious text-based input device, the PDA was slightly useless. Sure you could write on the screen and the handwriting software would turn that into text, but we all know how well that worked!

The UMPCs have plumped for a similar system, using both stylus input and a program called DialKeys (pictured on the Fujitsu P1510D, left) which is displayed like an onscreen keyboard. This looks promising, especially as it can be used when your holding the device by using your thumbs, but it still doesn't beat a full sized QWERTY keyboard.

As you can see, the Avertec AHI and the Sony Vaio UX50 (pictured above, right) are some UMPCs which do, wisely, include a keyboard for those times when you're sitting down and trying to hammer out an entire letter. The quality of the keyboards still isn't great and the positioning of the screen is also not very desirable (think of how laptops do it), but it's definitely better than nothing!

The devices have integrated graphics - as putting a graphics card in that space is a pipe-dream - meaning that serious gaming is out for the minute. However, old classics like Doom and Counter Strike should be able to run at a pinch and with the integrated wireless, deathmatches on the train are looking pretty good! You don't need cutting edge graphics to have fun, especially if it's a multiplayer match, where having friends to battle is part of the excitement, so the UMPCs can all fulfil that role fairly well at the minute, but undoubtedly someone will pack a decent laptop graphics card into it in the future, meaning that true gaming on the go may be possible with these intriguing devices.

What I would really like to see in the UMPC design, is a decent TV Tuner, with a good aerial built into the chassis - this would really boost the appeal of the system, giving it a unique selling point, putting it above PDAs and portable games consoles such as the PSP.

The prospect of a full XP computer in your hands is certainly a lovely thought and the execution of it seems to be going in the right direction, with devices like the AHI looking better and better, but the current crop are just a bit too high in price with a fairly sparse feature set. Better hold off on buying one right away.

David

Why Filters are a VERY bad idea...

2006-06-20T16:10:00.000+01:00

I'm angry. Very angry.

I'm sitting in my local library typing this. Mainly because there isn't a whole lot I can do - even though I'm sitting at a Pentium 4 computer with T1 internet access. The reason?

Filters.

Fascist filters, to be precise. The 'WebMarshal' software installed on this computer won't allow me on to anything! That includes my own forums and sections of my blog. Maybe I'll pick up bad ideas from my own prose? Perhaps the mention of a swear word will be a turning point in my life? Of course, I shouldn't complain - after all, the internet is full of evil men who I would give my address to at the drop of a hat. Not.

I would hack the damn filter, but the fascist time software has just reminded me that I have less than a minute left.

Bugger.

David

Formation Flying...

2006-06-20T12:35:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note to say that three Army helicopters have just thundered overhead. I tried to get a picture, but I was too slow. Mind you, I'm writing this on my PSP, so I couldn't have uploaded them until later anyway.

I wonder is there a security alert or are they just on exercises?

David

Rave on thy Holy Fool!

2006-06-19T19:56:00.000+01:00

Well, we went to Coleraine today, just to do some business and a few errands. One of the things we were doing was trying to find a frame for my painting that I did a while ago - Clicky -but it seems that all the frames are 30cm x 40cm, which fits my painting in width (it's 29cm), but doesn't in height (it's 42cm)...

It maybe looks like we're going to have to shell out for a professional framer...

I called in to the bank today to see if I could set up a PayPal account, because I'm really starting to need one on my forays about the interweb. Looks like I might be able to set one up soon!

Anyway, after the town, we went and ate some sandwiches in a car park overlooking the River Bann - I took these photos while I was there...

A wide-angle image of the River Bann taken with my phone and stitched on my phone

I took four two megapixel pictures with my camera and then stitched them together in a wide-angle image - here's the result: (Dial up users beware clicking on the picture below! It's about 2MB for some reason...but it's worth taking a look at if you can!)

After that, we dropped in to Sainsbury's to get some staple goods. I noticed this a couple of weeks ago, but didn't take a photo. This time I did. Apparently Sainsbury's are now taking pointers from the American supermarkets...

Whoever gets this job is going to feel like a right idiot!

After Sainsbury's, we hightailed it home, listening to In the Garden and Rave on, John Donne (Parts 1 and 2) by Van Morrisson. Excellent. Poetic Genius!

David

Another Country

2006-06-15T23:57:00.000+01:00

I went to Donegal today to see if we could find some half-decent pottery as a gift (we're still looking!) and we decided to via the ferry that departs from Magilligan Point and sails to a place just south of Moville, our intended destination for this trip.

When we got to the ferry port, we felt a bit peckish, so we stopped for lunch at a place called the Point Bar, which is about ten metres away from the entrance to the ferry port! They do rather nice burgers and champ and the prices are very reasonable.

The bridge to get on to the ferry

The ferry itself it quite new and gets up to a rather surprising speed! You just drive on and drive off - simple.

Drive on and off...obviously not when the boat's moving...

Disturbingly, there was no one up there for a lot of the trip *gulp*

They put the lorry in a specific position to balance the ferry...

Let's hope we won't be needed those!

Once we'd made it across the water, we went to Moville pottery to cover the gift aspect of the trip...however, it was...well a bit crap really. They didn't have a massive selection, but we found something anyway and we were on our way again very soon.

The Moville pottery sign...sideways...ahem...forgot to change it...

We were thinking of going down and taking the ferry across Lough Sligo, but we decided against it as we thought it would take too long. Also, the info that I was getting from the internet on my phone about the sailing times was sketchy at best!

Notice that the speeds are in kmph!

Instead we went straight down south to Derry and hit the Foyleside. A blitz of M&S and a couple of magazines later, we were on our way once more, yet again heading for the York restaurant, picking my dad up from home first (he'd just finished work).

A view of the Foyleside

A view from the top of the Foyleside (i.e. Derry)

Those rigs again! (Plus I thought it was a nice photo...)

All in all, I think this was a pretty successful trip and that the ferry is pretty cool!

David

More food and views!

2006-06-14T23:05:00.000+01:00

I went to a friend's house for a meal tonight, along with the rest of my family (Uncle Richard included). It was a sort of thank you for last night (yes, same friends).

It was a very nice meal and the company was great. It's nice to be able to talk to people over a well made dinner and the conversation never really stopped, especially since there were two other people invited, making a grand total of eight round the dinner table! The wine certainly flowed freely - we polished off two whole bottles of the stuff!

The view that their house enjoys is simply brilliant! They have an unobstructed view of the sea (not counting the boat that was parked there for a while - see below!) and the sun setting on the horizon is a view to behold...

The beach is right in front of their property

The sunset is glorious

Not entirely sure where this fella thinks he is going...

Look how tall I am!!!

David

Cows! (and some lovely views)

2006-06-13T18:16:00.000+01:00

Tonight I went to the Water Margin with some friends of the family, as well as my Uncle. We had a brilliant night, and I took enough photos to fill an entire album! Here are some of the best:

What we had to get through to pick my Uncle up! (The white one is a bull - *gulp*)

The Water Margin sign.

The view from where we were sitting...one of the best views from a restaurant I've ever seen!

A nice picture of the sun reflected in the water (taken from the balcony)

Rowers from the boat club, with their support boat, going by (taken from the balcony)

A view of the sunset from outside my Uncle's house

The fastest tractor in the world! :D

A slightly baleful cow...

David

Free Cash, Nuns and Father's Day for Oil Rigs...

2006-06-12T17:52:00.000+01:00

I thought the following picture might amuse some of you...

Anywho, on with business! I went to Portstewart today, taking the costal route from Bushmills, which goes through Portrush. I visited the library and had an Ulster Fry in Morreli's, as well as an ice-cream later on.

You can see the convent clearly in this picture, which was taken from the Town Hall end of the Prom (right after I'd finished my ice-cream! ;-) ).

The above pictures are of the two drilling rigs that have showed up recently on our coast. At least, I think they're drilling rigs, but to be honest, I'm not really sure! From what I hear, they're supposed to be helping with the new sewers that are being layed around these parts, but I can't see why a drilling rig (that drills straight down) would be of much use to sewer laying (which needs to go horizonally)...all very strange...and what's even stranger is that there used to be one rig (now known as the 'baby rig'), but a much bigger rig (now known as the 'father rig', for obvious reasons!) has now shown up!

Strange...

David

How to fill a memory card...

2006-06-11T17:34:00.000+01:00

I went for a walk on today and managed to fill my 32mb memory card! The above pictures are just some of the ones I took. They're all shot in Bushmills, in and around the riverside park area.

Quite nice, I think you'll agree!

David

Some More Random Pictures

2006-06-08T16:31:00.000+01:00

Yet more random pictures! The top one is Tescos (obviously!) which is where I went today...and the bottom ones are pictures of a spider's web caught in the sun on our back gate!

David

Random Pictures

2006-06-07T16:23:00.000+01:00

Some slightly random pictures I took today... the top one is the Bushmills Garden Centre and the bottom one is a lorry at the distillery dropping off stuff for the contruction work...either that or grain.

David

Derry...again

2006-06-05T23:49:00.000+01:00

I went on a junket to Londonderry today, mainly to the Foyleside...we actually went to try and get some pottery for a friend of the family, but when we got to the pottery shop (Ulster Ceramics), we realised they didn't have a great stock. It seemed to have moved into a garden centre (yes, you did read that correctly!) and, though the shop assistants denied it, it looked very much like the place had/was going bust.

On the way there, we stopped to have a rest from the car and while everyone was having a stride around, I took this picture through some trees...not the best picture ever, but quite pleasing none the less!

After that disappointment - they didn't even have a matching set of dinner plates - we continued on to the Foyleside shopping centre. A quick blitz of M&S and we were on the way home. As usual though, I managed to persuade Uncle Richard to take us out for dinner, so we made a slight detour to the York in Portstewart!

I took these pictures from the car park in Portrush...

David

Pictures From the Balcony of the Water Margin

2006-06-02T23:38:00.000+01:00

I took these pictures from the balcony of the Water Margin in Coleraine. They're quite nice, so I thought I'd post them!

The first one is now the backround for my mobile phone!

David

Broken Chairs and Broken Chemical Drums...

2006-05-31T16:54:00.000+01:00

Went into school today to leave my exam papers in and I went to see my friends on the way out. The visit stretched a bit longer than I had planned (about an hour - whoops!), but I hadn't seen them in a really long time, so it was worth it! Matthew showed me the chair he'd broken in a French exam...

We then went on to Strawberry Fayre to have one of their nice toasted sandwiches (Cheese and ham for me!) and that's when I took this photo:

I wouldn't personally prop a heavy trailer up on a container marked "Corrosive", but hey...

(Also, Strawberry Fayre is supposed to be completely organic...explain the chemicals then, please?)

David

Coleraine goes international!

2006-05-30T16:26:00.000+01:00

I was in Coleraine today and I saw this French market in town. It was quite interesting, but there wasn't any technology, so I wasn't really interested! :p

My mum did buy some soaps for a friend's birthday present, though and they were really quite nice. To my surprise, the owners of the stalls didn't have much English at all, so I had to rely on my schoolboy French... *gulp*.

We got the transaction completed without too much difficulty though. :D

Those cool doors...

2006-05-28T13:57:00.000+01:00

I was walking down to the local Spar today to get the paper when I saw all these lovely DeLoreans in the Distillery car park. There was literally tonnes of them!

Deep Fried Shredded Chilli Beef... drool

2006-05-21T16:11:00.000+01:00

I went to the Water Margin tonight - really enjoyed myself!

I had a great time during the day with posting in the annual CustomPC "24hr Thread" - it took my mind off the pain! :D

When we were coming back from the WM, we saw a limo going by...stopped outside a small terraced house in Bushmills:

David

A&E

2006-05-19T20:04:00.000+01:00

I just spent two hours in A&E getting the leg seen to...

Waste of two hours, basically...

They don't think there's any fractures, but they're not sure. Needless to say, I don't have a massive amount of confidence in them.

The hospital was filthy - there was blood on the floor and no one was cleaning up - it was a disgrace!

Ho, hum - at least I got to go to the York for a meal!

David

Falling...

2006-05-18T15:53:00.000+01:00

Well, I fell this morning - not good because I twisted my bad leg...

I'm in a lot of pain at the minute, so goodbye...

:(

David

North West 200

2006-05-12T22:56:00.000+01:00

The amount of motorcycles on the road at the minute is ridiculous! The North West 200 is tomorrow, so every biker in the country (and many from Britain and the South) is traveling to the triangle area and setting up camp in one of the many dedicated sites. I would go so far to say that at certain points in the day, motorcycles made up as much as 50% or more of the traffic!

We went to the York tonight and discovered that (for a fee, undoubtedly) a hot dog van had set up in their main car park, which meant that we had to go to the back one...this resulted in me trying to get down the steep hill on crutches - not easy.

Anyway, once we'd gotten in to the restaurant, we discovered that is was packed with bikers...drinking lots of beer and cider and eating impossibly large steaks. We got seated near the back, but I didn't mind the packed nature of the place, since it meant it had a great atmosphere!

Fingers crossed that no one gets seriously injured tomorrow...

David

Melting at a slower rate

2006-05-11T22:51:00.000+01:00

Well, it isn't as hot today, although it's still very warm. Stayed clear of cars though!

Went to Physio today - came out exhausted as usual - my physiotherapist is never afraid to give me a good workout!

The Ballymoney traffic system really can't cope with the amount of cars it's expect to carry. We discovered the above fact when we tried to go to Tescos to get some groceries, after we had a bacon sarnie in the La Patisserie cafe in said town.

Basically another fairly normal day...

David

Melting

2006-05-10T22:42:00.000+01:00

The weather is HOT today! The temperature was probably creeping up into the high twenties! It was so hot I nearly passed out - I had to sit in a car for nearly an hour and I really did think I was going to be sick.

Anyway, apart from that, not much happened - it was too hot to do anything else!

We did go to a nice cafe called Strawberry Fayre on the Coleraine/Bushmills road. Their toasties are really tasty and we ended up eating two traybakes each...

David

Blonde...James Blonde

2006-05-08T16:48:00.000+01:00

I was watching the James Bond trailer recently and it's looking good, with lots of nice violence and Bond still likes a good woman - despite the fact that there were reports early on that Bond was going 'child friendly' (less violence, no sex).

It seems fairly action packed, but I'm still in two minds about Daniel Cray as Bond - he just doesn't seem to have the right demeanor for the job. A lot of Bond fans share my views about him, which could hurt at the box office...

David

P.S. Sickness seems to have gone - I think I'm nearly back to normal...I hope.

Gonna Pop

2006-05-07T18:40:00.000+01:00

I was going to post yesterday, but I was sick. Very sick.

I vomited over twenty times and I could hardly stand up never mind cut through the crap that XP throws at me when I log on...

I've sort of recovered, but I'm still weak and very tired.

David

Come fly with me, Let's fly, let's fly away!

2006-05-05T22:44:00.000+01:00

I went to Ballymena today and got a massive load of shopping from Marks and Spencer's. It was fairly uneventful - just the usual sort of shopping...

What was slightly more eventful today is that (just this minute) I have booked some flights to England for the whole family.

England, here we come!

David

Boring...and slow

2006-05-03T16:50:00.000+01:00

Well...nothing very interesting is happening at the minute.

The robot control software that I'm writing is coming along well and it should have the speech and vision tests soon now, but other than that there isn't anything happening...except I'm trying to defrag and clean up my laptop HDD...Nightmare! :-(

Ah well, I only have myself to blame for the sluggishness - I have eight other programs open at once!

David

Playing Catch-Up!

2006-04-21T17:37:00.000+01:00

I haven't posted in a long while, due to the fact that I simply haven't had time - on Wednesday I had to go to Londonderry for the orthodontic I attend and yesterday (Thursday) I went to Belfast to get my plaster cast off.

This means that I'm sitting here in a splint, trying not to think about the (hopefully) fused bones inside my leg. For those of you who have never seen a splint before...I might post a pic at some point - I can't be bothered now!

I managed to go to Tesco's today and I found that someone appears to have stolen the back wheel off one of the bicycles that was parked there:

Haven't a clue why, though...

As I mentioned before, I went to Derry on Wednesday - after the hospital appointment, I went to the Foyleside Center for a bit of retail therapy! I got a couple of computer magazines, including this month's Custom PC.

The Foyleside Center car park - it's a long way down (and I wasn't anywhere near the top!)

Another point is that I seem to be acting as a magnet for low flying planes recently - two have flown over my head in the last couple of days - one nearly crash landed on the road in front of us, before gaining height again and the other looked a bit like an RAF weather plane.

The plane that nearly crashed...

...and the plane that didn't (thankfully - it was over our house)

The RAF plane (above) was interesting, because it flew very low and it looked like it had scientific instruments on board. You can find a full size picture here, which I really recommend you have a look at.

My website is up and running with a test version (not all the links work), so if you want to have a look, point your browser at www.chipmunkcentral.tk. I'm thinking of changing the navigator window to something a bit bigger and cooler, but it'll give you an idea of how the finished site is going to look.

I think I also mentioned that I have new forums up and running, but if I didn't, then I'm telling you now! :-)

You can get to them through the website, which I recommend you do, as it'll generate hits for it, but if the website's down or having problems, then this is the address here. Happy posting!

Wow - I think that was my longest post yet!

David

Doctor Who

2006-04-15T19:16:00.000+01:00

Doctor Who's just beginning now on BBC 1!

The intro music is playing...now!

Gotta go...

David

PSNI

2006-04-15T15:33:00.000+01:00

The Police are outside my house right now!

I think they've pulled a guy over. I was looking out the window and this car draws up...they're going...they've gone (phew!)...and a police officer gets out and I thought he was heading for our house!

David

! SYNTAX ERROR ! .... :-(

2006-04-15T10:54:00.000+01:00

I'm working on my website - it's going well and everything's working fine.

Well, everything except a JavaScript function, although I've now got that problem fixed...

...after an hour!

I need a JavaScript function that makes a layer invisible/visible when someone clicks on an image hotspot. After a bit of research, I found a solution. It was quite simple and elegant, so I used it. I wrote it into my code by hand and checked everything, before customising it to suit my needs. I checked everything again, ran it in FireFox and clicked on the link.

Nothing.

I changed bits, swapped things in, swapped things out, rearanged the code, checked capitilisation and general rooted around for an hour trying to solve the problem.

I did more research and trawled the web, trying the page in different browsers, but to no avail.

I was about to admit defeat when I noticed something on line 8 of the script:

I'D SPELT FUNCTION WRONG!!!!!!!!!!

Better go and make up for lost time...

David

Tourists!

2006-04-15T07:41:00.000+01:00

Agggghhh! Tourists!!

Since I live fairly close to the Giant's Causeway, all the tourists can be seen wandering around, commenting authoratively on things they couldn't possibly know. For instance, I was standing near a Yank one year and heard her proclaim loudly:

"There's the Isle of Man - That's were they hold them races!"

Two problems:
a) She was pointing at Rathlin Island to the North
b) The Isle of man was approximately several hundred miles south of were she was.

Another problem I have is caravans - why do people stuff themselves into a tiny, hot metal box and drive past my house several hundred times? A lot of these people are foreign, so it compounds the problems - they tend to drive like pan loaves (idiots) along the narrow country roads, with seemingly no fear of the high stone walls on either side of them.

Anyone coming the other direction on this particular stretch is snookered, because the caravan takes up more of the road than it should, resulting in some quite spectacular maneuvering from the locals!

Unfortunately, this is only the start...

David

New Forum

2006-04-12T22:08:00.000+01:00

Quick note - new forum:

clicky

Go visit!

David

Wheelchair Unfriendly

2006-04-12T18:07:00.000+01:00

I'm a wheelchair user - I can't walk very far at the best of times, but I've just had major surgery, so my left leg has broken bones that have been partially fused. Sounds painful, doesn't it? Well it is, and on top of that, the tendons have been lengthened and the ligaments are torn as well.

All this means that I now depend on my wheelchair and I can't go anywhere without it, as I can put weight through my leg.

I decided to go down the street today to the Old Bushmills Distillery and have my lunch in their restaurant. We got there OK because Dad drove us, but he had to go to my Uncle's, so he left us there - which was alright because we don't live far away.

Anyway, we had a brilliant lunch (Beef and onion sausages and champ!), looked around the gift shop and then went home.

On the way out of OBD (which is very disabled friendly), it started to rain. We took shelter under a walkway and waited it out. When the rain went off, we decided to go down to the Spar and get some groceries.

This was when the trouble started.

The place is a nightmare to negotiate in a wheelchair - high curbs, gutters, muck, fast road, narrow pavements, cars parked across the dips in the pavement meant for prams and wheelchairs and people nearly running you over.

All in a 20 metre stretch!

The disability rights act may have come into force, but most people are still ignoring it - the world just isn't built for wheels...

David

New blog and new link.

2006-04-11T19:35:00.000+01:00

I've got my weather blog up and running!

Clicky

Also, if any of you are interested in robotics, this is a brilliant site:

Clicky

Anywho...got to go. I'm still working on the site, but I've abandoned my current web host.

David

Christmas...in April!?

2006-04-09T13:13:00.000+01:00

Just another quick note regarding Northern Irish weather - I thought you might like to know that after yesterday's beautiful, hot, sunny weather, it is now snowing. Quite heavily.

I'm honestly not joking or making this up - NI weather is just absolutely crazy.

David

Northern Irish Weather

2006-04-09T00:29:00.000+01:00

This is the first in what will probably be a long series of posts about the weather. Just to show you how crazy the Northern Irish weather is, I'd like to tell you about today:

11:30 AM: Massive hail storm, lots of hail and rain. Very high winds and very cold.

5:00 PM: Totally blue sky, sun blazing down and very dry. Light breeze and VERY warm (I was boiled).

Crazy...

David

P.S. Website still in deep trouble... Time to change web hosts and update my list of bad ones: AddYour.net is now on my black list - don't use them...
P.P.S. Still burning the candle at both ends.

Exhausted

2006-04-08T00:54:00.000+01:00

It's the slightly better side of one in the morning and I'm exhausted. The weather was quite nice this morning, but my house is now being battered by gale force winds. My light is off and I'm holding a torch between my teeth to see the keyboard of my laptop properly.

Oh God, I'm exhausted...

David

Bad Things

2006-04-07T11:58:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note to say that my website is completely b*****ed.

Damn

David

Marks and Spencers & the Superstore Wars

2006-04-06T16:04:00.000+01:00

I just heard from one of my rumour monkeys that M&S will be opening in Coleraine soon on the site of the old Iceland. Details are sketchy about whether it's just going to be a food-hall or a more complete store, but the money is on it being purely food.

Lots of people would like to see a better range, with a cafe, clothing, cookware and possibly even toiletries etc... but the store won't be very big and I'm willing to bet it will only use the first floor of the building.

On a less secret note, as everyone probably knows, Tescos are rebuilding their store in Coleraine. This, unlike M&S, is multistorey, with carparks being situated under the store. It looks set to be an interesting development, but since it is being built on the site of the current store, Tescos will be closed for a length of time.

I expect the new store will be open sooner rather than later, as Tescos could stand to lose a lot of customers to other supermarkets during the downtime. Asdas has recently opened and Sainsburys is always nipping at the heels of the supermarket giant. Lidl, meanwhile, has opened their new store in the Riverside Retail Park, replacing their old one on the other side of the river.

The other supermarkets will probably engage in some aggressive price wars to try and pull customers away from Tescos when it shuts temporarily, with Sainsburys and Asda duelling, while Lidl, which has always been a fringe interest, continues its already excellent pricing.

Tesco's customers will probably return to the fold however, but if M&S had any sense, they might hit the town while Tescos is down, possibly pulling their customers away forever.

Of course, nobody can resist visiting a shiny new superstore, so in the long run Tescos will probably gain customers!

Ah well, it doesn't matter to me, since I don't do the shopping! Now, where did I put that cheese and ham sandwich from M&S?...

David

H5N1

2006-04-06T15:49:00.000+01:00

Well, it is H5N1 that killed the now infamous swan in Fife and that would have to be the lethal strain...

Everyone's going mad and 'experts' are predicting millions of deaths, but only about 100 people have died during this 'epidemic'. I would like to make it clear that I'm not making little of their deaths - I'm very sorry that even a single person has died, but all I'm saying is that people should calm down.

Obviously if it mutates and can be transmitted from a human to a human, we're in trouble, because it will race around the population. Take London for instance, it has a population of seven million people (Northern Ireland only has a population of about one and a half million - crazy, isn't it?) and they're all packed close together, so if one person gets infected, it will rapidly spread.

Anyway, enough with the scares - this isn't a tabloid blog, this is a reputable broadsheet blog...

David

Bird Flu is here!

2006-04-05T22:34:00.000+01:00

I've just heard on the news that Bird Flu (H5 Virus) has been found in a swan in Scotland. They're testing the bird to see if it is the lethal H5N1 strain and, if it does, the country could be looking at lots of measures designed to prevent it spreading.

People are probably going to start hoarding food now, so the weekly shop that I have to do in Tescos tomorrow is probably going to be a nightmare - every newspaper will have a sensational title proclaiming the predicted death toll.

Well, just to make clear - you heard it here first - We're all going to die. See you tomorrow.

David

Forum is online!

2006-04-05T15:27:00.000+01:00

The Chipmunk Central Forums have just gone live! I used PhpBB 2 for them, which seems to be an industry standard! It was easy enough to get it up, but now I need visitors to maintain it...

The address is: www.ChipmunkCentral.tk. Follow through the 'enter' page (which is only temporary) and hit 'forums/' on the index page.

It isn't the most elegant solution, but the whole site is still under construction!

Enjoy,
David

Look on the bright side

2006-04-04T10:42:00.000+01:00

It's a lovely sunny morning here in Northern Ireland and, even better, my cold seems to have gone!

Going to continue working on the website and see if I can get a working preview live this week. My robot project is going well (I'm still coding the control program, but there's some movement on the hardware front) and I might even get that finished by the summer holidays!

I'm looking forward to tonight - we're going out to a restaurant for a birthday party (not mine unfortunately!) and, since it's on the coast, I might get some new pictures...

Thinking of maybe starting a blog with weather records, just to show you how damn crazy the climate can be in my part of the world. :-)

David

Sniff

2006-04-03T20:42:00.000+01:00

Ugh, I've got the cold and I'm feeling miserable. Ever since my last post, I've felt the cold coming on and now it's in full swing...time to OD on the Lemsip.

*Sniff*

David

Reworking my website

2006-04-03T14:53:00.000+01:00

I used to run a website called the Chipmunk Connection and used a dot tk domain name, but it was purged by the unfriendly people at my hosting site. It was mainly due to the fact that the website wasn't visited often enough. This occurred because the website never really got updated, since I had to use the internet connection in school and transfer the entire website to the server off my pen drive - if you've ever tried this, you'll know why the site was a bit dated!

Anyway, now that I have an internet connection at home, I am raring to go with a new updated website, which I am working on right now in Dreamweaver. Better get on with it, I suppose...

David

The New Chipmunk Central Website:
Coming Soon...

Dig out your old music!

2006-04-03T13:36:00.000+01:00

I was listening to Franz Ferdinand today (the original album, not the new one) and I realised that I should have been listening to it more. It's brilliant. Obviously that's why I bought it, but I hadn't listened to it in about six months.

After having rediscovered that old album, I decided to look around my music collection and see what other classics I had forgotten about. The search revealed Coldplay's 'Parachutes', Leonard Cohen's 'Best Of', Snow Patrols 'Final Straw' and Whites Stripes's 'Elephant'.

I'm listening to 'Parachutes' as I write this and I feel I need to tell all my readers to go and dig out their old music collections - they might be surprised...

David

Blog of a White Hat Chipmunk

University of Ulster 'Blogging for Non-Bloggers' Lecture

A Foray into Londinium

A Very Old Computer...and Some Slightly Newer Ones...

Science Museum

Soaked

Off on hols

Now you don't use up your monthly limit when you log on...

Dremel!

Heart attacks in a coffee shop...not just because of the caffeine

Boom, Crash, Bang, Wallop

Heatwave

Bands

Another packed day

Party!

The Twelfth!

Duck!

Portstewart Photos

Yanks at it again.

Indian Cuisine

Excellent build quality...just a bit of superglue and it'll be fine.

How to knock off a Van Gogh

Tour of the North Coast

Trucks and Trolleys

More Portrush Pics

Orthodonty :+(

Portstewart

Caravans, drilling rigs and a landy.

Chipmunks on your desktop!

UMPCs

Why Filters are a VERY bad idea...

Formation Flying...

Rave on thy Holy Fool!

Another Country

More food and views!

Cows! (and some lovely views)

Free Cash, Nuns and Father's Day for Oil Rigs...

How to fill a memory card...

Some More Random Pictures

Random Pictures

Derry...again

Pictures From the Balcony of the Water Margin

Broken Chairs and Broken Chemical Drums...

Coleraine goes international!

Those cool doors...

Deep Fried Shredded Chilli Beef... *drool*

A&E

Falling...

North West 200

Melting at a slower rate

Melting

Blonde...James Blonde

Gonna Pop

Come fly with me, Let's fly, let's fly away!

Boring...and slow

Playing Catch-Up!

Doctor Who

PSNI

! SYNTAX ERROR ! .... :-(

Tourists!

New Forum

Wheelchair Unfriendly

New blog and new link.

Christmas...in April!?

Northern Irish Weather

Exhausted

Bad Things

Marks and Spencers & the Superstore Wars

H5N1

Bird Flu is here!

Forum is online!

Look on the bright side

Sniff

Reworking my website

Dig out your old music!

Deep Fried Shredded Chilli Beef... drool