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CAP Yorkshire Three Peaks

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 22:58:11 +0000

I and another crazy individual had the opportunity to marshall at the top of ingleborough for the Christians Against Poverty (CAP) three peaks challenge. Sometime around 3:30am…

CAP Yorkshire 3 Peaks from Nick Davies on Vimeo.

Banks win Supreme Court case on overdraft charges

admin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:30:37 +0000

“The court has overturned earlier court rulings that allowed the Office of Fair Trading to investigate the fairness of charges for unauthorised overdrafts.

The decision follows more than two years of test case litigation.” from the BBC. I’m sure they have come up with their reasoning for it but to me it smells a little.

It certainly appeared from the outset that consumers rights would be upheld and these were just the hoops the uk legal system had to jump through. But at the end of the day the supreme court upheld the rights of the banks to issue unfair charges to consumers.

I’m not being all conspiracy theory on it all but imagine if out of all the bank accounts in the UK 50% of them had been charged unfairly for going overdrawn? I know for a fact i’m pretty average and have been charged in excess of £300 in charges over the last 6 years. So lets do the maths… 20 million bank accounts x £300 = £6 billion squids as a conservative figure. Who will end up paying that? The banks are already on the edge with a government bailout so will they have the money? No i don’t think so. Is it all a big conspiracy so the government doesn’t have to pay out even more money to out already down banking system? I can’t possibly say but it sure makes you wonder.

AIM Push Notification Service goes live

nick — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:09:16 +0000

My iPhone has just informed me that the push notification enabled version of AIM instant messenger has just been released! Get it now people!

Star Defense Review

nick — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:31:18 +0000

I’ve always been a fan of tower defence games of which there are many on the iPhone App Store. Star Defence was release last week and it’s flippin’ awesome. I’m totally addicted to it. You have a large variety of worlds and 5 weapon types to use. It does crash occasionally when you receive text messages but generally it’s great. Get it now.

Problem with visual editor on Wordpress 2.8

nick — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:24:27 +0000

I have recently spent quite a bit of time in the wordpress codebase trying to solve a problem with the visual editor. The problem is related to the tinymce javascript editor used in the new/edit post. The editor doesn’t send any content on submitting a draft or post. It affects all versions of firefox and safari and only seems to function correctly on Internet Explorer.

I’d rather not go poking around in the tinymce code so for now i’d recommend people use IE if they wish to use the visual editor in 2.8 however my first recommendation is to downgrade your wordpress version until they come up with a fix for the problem. Anything to not use IE!

CAN BE SEENED AND NOT HEARDED

nick — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 08:38:56 +0000

Here is my friend at work sporting my new high vis BUFFLOL.

Technorati Tags: buff, funny, headwear, lol, lolleagues

iPod Touch/iPhone Mac Address

nick — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 08:49:29 +0000

The Touch/iPhone Mac Address is buried away in the menus. Here’s where to find it.

Go into the settings menu
Click on general
Click on about
It’s right down there at the bottom under Wi-Fi Address

Technorati Tags: apple, iphone, ipod, ipod touch, help, touch

iPod Touch review.

nick — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:44:40 +0000

I could resist no longer. I know it’s only 3 weeks before the iPhone comes out and i know i don’t need one but have you seen it! I was in the Apple store London and just couldn’t leave without one. It’s now plugged into my lappie on the train, charging as we speak.

I can see people on the tables around me looking at me/it as i play with it. It’s just flawless. I’ve got a Nokia 770 internet tablet, it doesn’t even come close. Bar bluetooth and the ability to install your own programs, it lacks nothing compared to the 770. You’re lucky if you can open one of the applications on the 770 before next christmas but this thing is just unbelievably responsive and super usable. If the N800 is all Nokia has then i think Apple are pretty safe for a while.

As soon as i turned it on it picked up the GNER wireless network on the train and asked me if i wanted to connect. No crawling though configuration options and “find network” icons. “I need the internet”, “ok then here it is”. Central to the way Apple designs it’s products, the technology should facilitate the user not the other way round. The iPod touch does this perfectly.

I’m also loving the way it zooms on webpages when you double click. It’s not just a indiscriminate zoom to 125%, it’s contextual. It will zoom to the size of the div box full of text or the image you want to see. It’s a beautiful thing to behold. Most of the time we as users notice things we fight against, “Why does it do that”, “come on i have work to do”, “that’s just crazy”, but rarely do with think that something is useful or facilitative. I think this is largely the mark of great design, that a user is unaware of it and can just get on with what they want to do.

I know this is just an iPod and it’s just about playing the music, but it’s clearly so much more.

Technorati Tags: apple, iphone, ipod, ipod touch, itunes, macosx, osx, technology, touch

Apple’s new Leopard Server looses time machine?

nick — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:28:58 +0000

I’ve searched through the new pages related to the release of the forthcoming Leopard server and failed to find mention of time machine. The screenshots still display the time machine icon but it’s something i would have expected to be mentioned on the site. Admittedly time machine maybe isn’t enterprisey enough for a large organisation but as far as the SMB goes, it’s a perfect addition to the life of a Sys Admin or Techy person. Simplifying backups by the addition of an external drive or RAID.

Do we take it that they aren’t going to include it and have just failed to notice the use of the icon in the screenshots or just that they don’t deem it newsworthy enough to mention it on the website?

Technorati Tags: apple, enterprise, leopard, leopard server, macosx, osx, SMB, technology, time machine

Apple announce release date for Leopard and Leopard Server

nick — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:54:23 +0000

Leopard and Leopard Server will be released to the world on the 26th October 2007 Apple announced today. Much of the functionality of the new OS has be publicised since it’s announcement at Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco in August 2006. On that score there’s generally nothing new of note in the new OS. I’m particularly interesting in the Server flavour of Leopard.

The list of new features are available here with Apple largely concentrating on making the Server central to a small companies IT infrastructure with iCal Server and Wiki Server. These are nothing new but it’s a welcome integration into the OS.

Technorati Tags: apple, macosx, osx, leopard, leopard server, technology