Anything about this website, the internet or technology as a whole
Is it just me, or… 1. …am I the only person in the world not to be on Facebook? 2. …is Firefox being a bit rubbish at coping with multiple tabs lately? And in other news: I hardly ever visit YouTube, but this BBC News article points towards an amazing video of a battle between…
Greetings from my bed. Or rather, from me, sitting on my bed. And that’s significant – because it means I am no longer crouched on my flatmate’s bedroom floor, metres from the wireless router. Which in turn means that things are fixed. The meenister came round this evening, and left not long ago, after praying…
I’ve just tried a third wireless card – thanks to Chris’s kind offer. Sadly it wouldn’t even install properly. Or configure, or whatever the term is. On Sunday, various people who know about these sorts of things told me that the solution might lie in things like the channel the wireless broadcasts at, and suggested…
The plot thickens, but the signal remains just as thin. In the previous episode, it was looking like my wireless card was the problem. The other day I asked my flatmate to try out his laptop (which has had no difficulties throughout the flat) in my room – on the opposite side of the flat…
I really don’t know an awful lot about computers and stuff. Yes, I have built my own website, I write a blog, keep a Flickr account, and come out in a mild panic when I don’t know where my laptop, iPod, digital camera and mobile phone are. But I’m not that much of a techie.…
It was great to be back at my old church, Hilton, last night. It was so lovely to see lots of familiar faces and catch up with old friends. Some Hiltonites have been reading my blog, though, because the minister asked the techies to do a “St Silas” and welcome me by name via the…
Over the past while, I’ve been feeling a bit nervous and apprehensive about chucking it all in and going travelling – is the mission really worth it? But then just yesterday I was idly browsing through Flickr. The online photo community, where I store my photos, is an amazing site with so much to explore…
I’ve just stumbled across this very interesting website that tells you if a site is viewable in China or not. The resistance to freedom of speech in China has extended to the internet, and the blocking of websites for Chinese internet users is known as the “great firewall of China” – see this BBC news…
It’s been a week of meeting fellow bloggers, and both occasions have been all thanks to the Shed. I can’t honestly remember how I first stumbled across David Shedden’s blog, but other readers include his friends Jenny and Danny, and we’ve all ended up following each others’ ramblings and musings over time. Jenny is studying…
This weekend I am moving flats. The place I am moving to is in a different part of Glasgow, and has a lovely view over the West End and is closer to work and church. So I am looking forward to settling in and having an extra ten minutes in bed each morning. Because of…
You know you spend too much time on the internet when… Number 2: you feel more proud and excited to discover it’s your website‘s second birthday, than you were at your own previous birthday.
A while back, I noticed that WordPress added the ability to use images as banners in their blogs. So I’ve taken advantage of that and used part of probably my favourite photo – it’s a shot of oil rigs in the Cromarty Firth, taken from the plane from Stornoway to Inverness in October 2004. Looks…
Just a quick plug for Daniel Kalder, whose excellent book Lost Cosmonaut I blogged about a while back. He’s the guest blogger this week on the website of American publisher Powell’s. His posts have been great this week, and include a wonderful exploration of boredom. Interesting reading for me, my life having been dominated of…
As many of you know, I’ve been attempting to write up my mullet-hunting experiences in recent months. Many people have told me it would make a great book, so perhaps if I scribble it all down, one day it might be. The writing process is frustratingly slow, but because I’m off work today and Monday…
My friend Devilstick Peat has just set up a website! I first met Peat in 2003 when he, Kieran and I teamed up for an aid convoy to Albania, under the banner of Kieran’s charity aidconvoy.net. Peat has done a lot of humanitarian aid work all over the world, including in the Middle East and…
After the murder threat yesterday, it seems the bizarre web searches continue. Not content with searching for "simon varwell murder", whoever it is that is trying to scare me is now looking for "where does simon varwell live". I'm not worried though, because I smell a rat. A Justin-shaped cheeky rat. This is the same…
One really interesting feature of WordPress, which hosts my blog, is that it shows you what words or phrases people use if they arrive at your page through a search engine. For example, many people arrive at my site because they googled (or maybe yahooed or whatever, but you get my point) for things like…
I'm a big fan of electronic music outfit Boards of Canada, a Scottish group whose music is unusual and quite downbeat, but gently mesmerising. Their latest album, The Campfire Headphase, is brilliant. The best song on the album, Dayvan Cowboy, is one of the most achingly beautiful pieces of music I've heard in a long…
Hank goes church-hunting in “King of the Hill” – see the video here. It’s very funny, and not a million miles away from some of my experiences. It encapsulates the weird and wonderful things visitors encounter in churches. Thanks to Brian, pastor at Glasgow’s only church to have a colon in its name, for drawing…
Funny how the internet works. You may have seen the appearance on News 24 of IT expert Guy Kewney, commenting on the recent legal case about Apple, who were sued by AppleCorps for trading in music on the "apple" name. I didn't, but I wish I had, because they interviewed the wrong person. Apparently, the…