30 Things: #11 - Describe 10 Pet Peeves You Have

At first I thought this was going to be easy-peasy but now I've had a think about it, I seem to be far more chilled and laid-back than I thought I was! Go me! Of course, that's not to say I don't have any peeves...

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/aug00/k4705-9.htm

1. Lazy spelling and grammar. Some folk genuinely have issues, and for some, English is not a first language - these folk are not the problem... the issue I have is when they ought to know better; books, papers, magazines, adverts, in-store marketing material, road signs, etc. Printers, publishers, and signmakers - hire good proofreaders... please!
2. Text-talk. ORLY? inorite? kthx!
3. Mosquitoes. I love living in tropical climates... and the mosquitoes love me. Telling me I have 'sweet blood' is not adequate compensation for parts of my body looking like a 3D map of the Himalayas.

Can you make a living from your hobby?

I was just chatting to a friend on Facebook about people making a living from their hobbies, and we both agreed that it's unlikely to happen. And we also agreed that it's hard to tell a chum who asks for advice that s/he just doesn't have the talent or the wherewithal, that they should concentrate on finding a 'proper' job, and save the hobby for the weekend. 

I'm a huge, huge advocate of following a dream but I also firmly believe that we should know our limitations. We have to understand and accept that at some point, we have to toe the line, which means knuckling down and being adult enough to say, 

"OK, I don't really like my shop job - it's tedious and the customers are often rude, but you know what? At the weekends, I get to run around the woods with my friends, dressed as a mighty wizard... and my boring job enables me to fund my hobby!"

I think the trouble these days is that we're constantly told in schools, in the Media, and by the do-gooders, that every one of us is extraordinary, and that we're entitled to an extraordinary life. And therein lies the problem: yes we are extraordinary... as a species - but that doesn't mean that as individuals, we necessarily are. It doesn't mean we deserve anything, nor have a right to expect anything. Whatever we want, we have to work hard for, and this is something so many people seem not to understand. A lot of people also don't comprehend that just because their doting partner adored the lopsided sweater they took six months to knit for them, it doesn't necessarily follow that people will come flocking in droves to commission more of their 'unique' creations! (OK, amato mio's sweater wasn't lopsided but it's definitely on the large side, and it did take me about half a year to knit!)

Sure, it would be awesome to be able to make a living doing the things we love to do but from experience, I can tell you that even if you do not end up loathing that thing, it will rule your life; you will have to work very long hours for a pittance; and it will always be an uphill struggle. 

People are constantly telling me I should open a bistro, and then express surprise when I tell them that it would be my idea of hell on earth (well, one of them)! 

"Why?" they ask, "You love cooking, and your food is amazing!" 

It's because I love cooking that my food is so good - if I had to do it for a living, I fear the joy would go out of it, and it would become a chore.... worse, it would become something I felt imprisoned by because I would be reliant upon it. I do the things I love doing because they give me (and sometimes other people!) such immense pleasure - far too many times I have tried to capitalise on them, only to realise what folly it is. I don't want to go down that road again!

A hobby is something which should relax you, help you unwind, forget the cares of the everyday world.... when it becomes the source of stress and worry, what then? Do you get another hobby... and then think, 

"Oh, perhaps I could make a living out of this?"!! 

There is a reason why there are relatively few professional artists, knitters, writers, designers, musicians, athletes, etc. in the world - and they are paid lots of money because they are a rarity. They do what they do because they're driven, obsessed perhaps, and they are only where they are because they work at their craft to the exclusion of almost everything else. None of these people woke up one morning and decided that this is who they wanted to be - they have been these people since they took their first breath, and they have spent all of their lives doing the thing they were born to do. And none of them believe it to be the soft option; working in an office, 9-5, Monday to Friday, is the cushy number... making a successful business enterprise from a hobby is not! 

These people are remarkable at what they do - most of us are not. Fact. The sooner people accept it, and understand that they may well not have a life less ordinary but that they can build upon they life they do have, the happier I believe people will be. And probably more fulfilled too.

Be thankful for the life you have - if you are reading this, you are already far more privileged than most of the world's population. You are remarkable in your own way - rejoice in it but don't try to make more of it than it is. And don't expect the rest of the world to view you as anything more than an ordinary human being... just as we all are. 

Be the change you want to see in the world...

Semi-literate indignant rants about how the system is failing, about how there is no justice, blah blah, and asking people to copy and paste to their Facebook walls is not pro-activism. No one who should care gives a fig for your Facebook rantings.

If you are not happy with things, do something positive, take action.

If all you are prepared to do is rant on Facebook, and believe it is enough, then really, you have no cause for complaint about your 'failing' system.*** By not being pro-active, you are just as much a part of the problem - your inaction is seen as acquiescence... is that what you truly want? If you want things to change, you have to do more than pontificate.

Be the change... don't expect others to do it for you so that you can reap the benefits.

~~~

*** A failing system, incidentally, which ensures you can sleep easy in your bed at night; which ensures you have employee rights; which enables you to live in comparative luxury; which gives your children (and you) the right to be educated; which provides you with good food and clean drinking water, plus shelter and warmth; which gives you medical treatment beyond the ken of most of the world's population; which allows you to have a monthly overdraft of more money than most people earn in a year; which does not put guns in the hands of your children; which allows you to walk the streets without fear of being raped; which allows you to choose from hundreds of channels to watch on your large flatscreen TV; to read whichever books you desire; to say whatever you like, without fear of recrimination. Some crappy system, eh?

Abortion Is Wrong... Really?

So....
Abortion is wrong. No arguments...

1. It doesn't matter if the pregnancy is a result of rape: the onus is on the woman to take adequate precautions to ensure she does not become pregnant if she is raped.
2. If someone is sterilised and becomes pregnant, she should not be having sex.
3. If someone is sterilised, and over the age of bearing healthy children (e.g. if there is a chance they may have something wrong with them), she should not be having sex.
4. A blastocyst is a sentient human being. 
5. Abortion is the same as eugenics.
6. Statistics are meaningless, therefore it is reasonable that in areas of high poverty, high disease, and high crime (including rape, murder, mugging etc.), more babies than can be sustained are brought into this world.
7. There is no such thing as an accident. 
8. If someone posts a pro-life propaganda image on Facebook, and couples it with the comment, "No discussion" - people are not supposed to want to discuss it because Facebook isn't the place for such discussions.
9. If you don't agree that abortion is wrong, you have a rusted, closed mind.
10. Rape-pregnancy is a smokescreen used by the pro-abortion lobby.
11. Logically and scientifically, abortion is wrong.
12. God and Jesus say that abortion is wrong.

Shockingly, the above were all from a female. 

1. Trauma from rape is merely an emotional response, and raped women are therefore in no fit state to make the decision to have an abortion, should they find themselves pregnant.
2. "Ask anyone whether they would have preferred their mother to have terminated them, and see what they say".
3. If you put yourself inside the body of a rape-conceived child you would not want to be killed in a judgement call made by someone else. 
4. Drawing a line as to when a group of cells becomes a sentient human being is wrong, and is "... a bad place to find yourself in".
5. Despite being sterilised almost a quarter of a century ago because I didn't want any more children, and probably being too old to bear healthy kids, I am completely wrong to say that I would have an abortion if I found myself pregnant...
6. "You'd rather enjoy your lifestyle than carry the life you made and therefore it should be killed because you'd be upset - and noone likes being upset so off with their head! Hmmm :/"
7. "Perhaps they [aborted foetuses] feel entirely justified then in killing you if you're in their way?"

The above were all from a male... a stupid, blinkered male, at that.

There really are some nutters in this world.

Needless to say, my Facebook friends list has been reduced further. Not because people don't agree with me but because they are:

• a) incapable of seeing any viewpoint other than their own, therefore it cannot ever be an equal friendship
• b) because they did their best to make me look and feel like a worthless piece of shit because I don't hold the same beliefs as them.

Fortunately, they weren't actually friends - just people I've had dealings with via work.

I make no apologies for believing that not only should a woman be entitled to make decisions about her own  body but also about the rest of her life. And how fucking dare anyone who has had no experience of rape, pregnancy, extreme poverty, or violent crime, and who has only ever known their comfortable middle-class British way of life, presume to dictate to others how they should feel, and what they should do with their bodies?

I do however, apologise for the sweary bits... but that's how strongly I feel about the subject. Idiots.

Real Friends Do Not Encourage You To Jeopardise Your Health

Why is it that when someone overweight says, "I am going on a diet", or "I need to lose some weight", there are always sycophants who say things like, "Oh babe*, you look lovely... you have a beautiful figure - you don't need to lose anything"... even when the person is blatantly overweight or even obese (28lbs + is considered obese)?

Are people:
1. Thick - can't/won't think, so offer up a completely glib remark
2. Lying - afraid of hurting the feelings of others
3. Lying - secretly glad their friend is overweight because they think it makes them look good
4. Lying - an overweight friend justifies their own weight issues, and makes them feel better about themselves
5. All of the above
6. Telling the truth - they genuinely believe that being overweight looks nice

Surely a *real* friend would be supportive? They wouldn't tell someone they look lovely when clearly the person doesn't feel that way?

I don't mean someone wanting to lose 'a few pounds' (although even then, if someone feels they need to lose 7lbs, for example, they should still be supported), I'm talking about people who are obviously overweight. It's really galling to hear some of my friends being told they 'look fine', when what they are asking for is support (because they need it). It is unhealthy to be overweight, why would anyone encourage someone they allegedly care for to be unhealthy?

If someone doesn't feel right, and feels they don't look right, surely their feelings should be respected, and not be met with throwaway comments because 'friends' cannot or will not be honest with each other? Surely a real friend would be concerned for a friend's health and wellbeing, and would tell them the truth?

Real friends don't encourage indulgent beer and cake consumption!



*Could there be a worse expression?

F.I.L.T.H.

Some of the farang men here – yikes! There used to be a saying; FILTH (Failed In London, Try Hongkong)... sad  to say that this seems to be alive and well here in Chiang Mai (and, I suspect, other parts of Thailand too). The attitude of some of the western males here is frankly, archaic in my opinion. 

I am utterly shocked an appalled by the attitude of some of them. It’s bad enough that they refer to their employees as servants, when in fact what these people do is maintain the garden and clean the house, but I find the attitude toward the Thai women actually to be repugnant. 

Freely admitting that they came out here to have multiple girlfriends or sex-partners, they then complain that the Thai women they are with refuse to ‘be a source of pleasure’ for them (their words, not mine) if they are not faithful to them. Do they really think that Thai women are so desperate for a western man that they should be grateful for any crumb thrown to them? That they should be meek, humble little women, serving the man’s every whim, no matter how unreasonable it may be? Or do they genuinely believe they are such a great catch because they have an amount of money and these women don’t, that the women will just accept their unreasonable behaviour in order to feed their families? 

What is this, the dark ages?

And then you have the ones who complain about the bar girls; firstly that they exist, and secondly that some are over 30 (and I’ve heard both of these from the same person). So it’s not OK to be a bar girl, and it’s especially not OK that some are not as young and pretty as certain men would like them to be. It’s as though there is something wrong with a woman who is not  a teenager or in her twenties. I honestly don’t understand why a guy in his sixties would want a 19 year old – either to have sex with or to marry. What do they have in common? Yet you see this all the time here... and usually, the man is walking ahead of the girl. 

What I especially don’t understand is men in their sixties (for example) who are with girls who look like children. Thai women often look far younger than they actually are, and I have on several occasions discovered that someone I took to be around 13 or 14 was in fact in her early twenties. Maybe it’s me but I find something very sordid about a retired man who wants a woman/girl who looks like a child.

Maybe some of these relationships work – I’d hope that not all of the men are horrible individuals, and I’d hope that not all of the girls are on the make (although I’m sure some of them are, and frankly, good luck to them!) but the more I see of this, the more I have to wonder at the mentality of the men who go down this path (sometimes over and over again – I recently heard of a man in his seventies who has just got divorced from his seventh Thai wife). On the odd occasion I have been unfortunate enough to be in the same restaurant as some of these people, overhearing their conversations (all their wives’ fault of course), it seems that most have had failed relationships/marriages in their home countries, yet expect the Thai women to drop at their feet and worship them... without ever addressing any issues which are likely to have contributed to the other break ups (e.g. too much booze, chauvinism, generally being an arse, etc.).

I recently heard one complain that his wife has refused to sleep with him until he mends his philandering ways; he actually said she was being completely unreasonable, and that as a man it was his right to have as many women as he wanted... and that his wife should be grateful he married her! And yet another was soliciting advice from his peers as to the best way to do a bunk on his wife... the consensus was that he wait until she is asleep, sneak out, and head for the nearest border. Unbelievable. Fortunately, our encounters with these kind of people are few and far between; they don’t really come up to where we live and socialise, well not much, and we keep away from those kind of farang haunts in the city.

In addition to seemingly treating their wives and girlfriends like pieces of meat, it’s the complete disregard for feelings of others; it’s how they abuse their host country; it’s the rude jokes they make about the Thais when they think they cannot understand what is being said about them. It’s the constant trying to get one over on the Thais, and it’s how they are all ‘experts’ regarding the finer intricacies of the Thai government. But mostly, it’s that even though they complain endlessly about how horrible it is here (it’s not – it’s lovely and the people are lovely), they are still here. In a way, I actually feel very sad for these people because I don’t believe that anywhere, anyone, or anything could ever make them happy or be satisfied with their lives. Much less be thankful. It must be a very sorry state of affairs to be so utterly without grace and dignity.

In Defence of Pinterest Users

What is the difference between sharing a photo on Facebook and sharing one on Pinterest? Other than that the Pinterest one will usually be linked back to the owner of the work, thus driving traffic to their site (not to mention that re-sharing is generally very good free PR).

I don't understand how some photographers and artists can complain that people are Pinning their work, and then go and share the work of others on their Facebook timeline, without crediting the owners! Is this not hypocrisy?

Since When Have 'Slebs Been More Worthy Than Anyone Else?

Almost one billion people worldwide suffer from hunger-related issues. (146 million of those are children - 10.9 million under the age of five will die this year because they do not have enough to eat.) 98% of these people are in developing countries, with 65% in just seven countries. There are more starving people across the world than there are in all of the USA & Canada, and the EU. Every day 25,000 children die of hunger...that's 15 infant deaths per minute. Hunger is the world's no.1 health risk, and tonight one in seven of the world's population will go to sleep hungry. 

Forgive me therefore, if I do not blog about empty platitudes and sentiment, mourning the demise of someone whom I knew just as well as each and every one of these starving people. I simply cannot find it in my heart to jump on this particular bandwagon... not when 1 billion people's suffering is considered less worthy of mention and consideration than the premature death of someone who knowingly destroyed her life*.

But here's a thought - instead of rushing to buy the inevitable greatest hits album (with 'previously unreleased tracks'), which will no doubt be pimped by iTunes within the next week or so, so that people can prove just how much of a fan they are, how about donating that money to The World Food Programme, Poverty Action, or any other charity which is fighting to save all these people? 

The cost of one iTunes album could probably feed one person in the developing world for over a week!

~~~

*It's not that I don't have any sympathy for Whitney Houston's demise, of course I do - it's an utterly tragic waste of life. However, regardless of whether her death was immediately related to her substance abuse, there is undoubtedly going to be a link. From the minute she was born, she led a privileged life...a life which she chose to destroy. One billion starving people have absolutely no choice. What is truly heartbreaking is that for the majority of the world's population, every moment of life is the most precious gift, yet in our so-called developed western society there are those who choose to throw it away.

Are People Really That Stupid, Or Is It Just Wishful Thinking?

I love MFP, I really do. I've made some wonderful friends there, and I am the first to admit that without their support, and the accountability that MFP gives me, I'm not sure I'd have shed my excess weight. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I wouldn't have started running or doing 30DS, were it not for MFP, and I absolutely would not now be thinking about P90x. I should point out that I am only thinking about it at the moment....but it's a start!

But oh my goodness...some of the people on there (who are not my friends, I hasten to add), are barking so misguided! A couple of weeks ago, someone claimed to have been told by their doctor that when you lose weight it's because the fat comes out of your body... in your urine! She attempted to explain the 'science' behind it, and even said it had happened to her. Then you have all the people who swear that if you inject a pregnancy hormone into yourself (or have it in drop form), you only have to eat 500 calories a day, and you'll be super-healthy and slim! And let's not forget everyone who cannot grasp simple physics - that if you have two things which weigh the same as each other, one cannot be heavier! Oh, and while I am on a roll....

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

Oh, for the love of Whedon....would someone please just give me a job?!

I'm really not someone who is given to whining, and I'm rarely the kind of person who lets things get on top of them but honestly, I'm starting to feel rather fed up and demotivated by this whole job-hunting malarkey.

Please click here for image source  

YOU are what's wrong!

I am so tired of the constant whining by people about how all the ills of their lives are the fault of someone or something else. This morning on MFP, I came across a post by someone, blaming the US celebrity cook, Paula Deen, for making Americans fat and giving the nation diabetes! I should warn you now that there's a very scary Photoshopped image of Ms Deen on the home page!

Not examples of Ms Deen's recipes - just a load of high-fat foods, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute

Curvy Women/Real Women....Oh, Please!

So this year's hotly-debated topic on MFP is shaping up to be 'curvy'. Have we finally moved beyond all the HCG, ToM, muscle/fat weight, and starvation mode arguments, and replaced them with intense debates about curvy and real women? Already I am sick of seeing 'curvy' topics showing up on my home page (and I am sick of seeing it spelled 'curvey')! Who cares? If people want validation for their outward appearance, perhaps they should be looking within - it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, surely?

What saddens me the most is that instead of sticking together and being supportive, women now seem to be taking a stance against each other. And the irony is that despite their claims to the contrary, if they had the bodies of 'not real women', I very much doubt they'd be looking at pictures of overweight women, wishing they looked like them.

Original image credits unknown

Oh please - get a grip!

One of my closest real-life friends posted this as their status update on Facebook today... (pasted here as it was written - bad grammar/punctuation, an' everything!)

"RIP Broken Britain.. You went soft on discipline!.. You went soft on immigration!You went soft on crime.. Parents were told.. 'No you can't smack the kids'....Teachers were prevented from chastising kids in schools.. The police couldn't clip a troublemaker round the ear.. Kids had rights blah blah blah.. Well done Britain..You shall reap what you sow.. We have lost a whole generation. ­Repost if you agree with this."

Note the bit about re-posting if in agreement.

My response was thus...

"Sorry, I cannot agree about smacking children. I don't believe it's ever acceptable to use physical violence against another, especially not a child. Even 'just a smack' can cause trauma, both physical and mental. Why would anyone want to cause harm to someone they love? 

As a former teacher, I can tell you that punishment *is* allowed in schools, just not corporal punishment. 

Beating/slapping/smacking another human being (or animal, for that matter) is *not* the way to make them compliant and obedient....but it's a sure way to make them discontented and feel undervalued and worthless.....and we all know where that leads. 

We should lead by example; therefore, what example are we setting people if we punish them with physical violence? That it's acceptable to be violent when someone does not do as you tell them to do? 

There is no one cause for the current situation, just as there is no one area/body of people to blame. 

We *all* have to shoulder the responsibility of making and breaking society. And let's not forget that it is we who vote in the people who make the laws so many complain about."

The thread got deleted.

Clearly some people are just happy to jump on the bandwagon and mindlessly re-post Daily HateMail-esque drivel but cannot cope when someone posts something intelligent in response. What irks me however, is that if it were face to face, this person would never agree with the original comment....or perhaps they'd just tell me what they thought I want to hear.

Why are some folk such sheeple?

A Rant About Rubbish!

No matter which morning I am out running in the park, I always see the detritus from the previous night's revelling. It's bad enough that there are plastic cider bottles and food wrappers strewn around but the broken glass bottles which seem to have been deliberately smashed on the pathways is a real annoyance...as well as being a danger.

What is wrong with these people? Don't they care that people walk their dogs in the park? Or that children play there? Or that we runners use these paths? I've even seen all this inside the fenced-off toddlers' play area. And if that's not bad enough, in most cases, there is a litter bin less than a metre away from wherever the rubbish has been dumped.

Be kind, then be kind, and be kind again....

I recently came across a post on My Fitness Pal, which was berating people for apparently not eating their vegetables.

Quite apart from it not being any business of the person by whom this rant was penned, it often takes a lot of courage for people to join sites such as MFP, to change their lives for the better, and even more courage to make their diaries open to the public, so I think it's wholly unfair of some people to go through said diaries, uninvited, and then have the temerity to criticise their owners in a public forum.

Hoppity & Huck - BFF, and childhood companions of amato mio and myself!

This hateful thing.....

I loathe this laptop. I really loathe it.

I'm considering taking it back to the shop and either insisting on getting my money back (not a good plan, since I'm rubbish at that kind of thing), or more likely, asking very nicely if there's something which can be done with it.... other than throwing it into the nearest pit of eternal despair.

I may have foiled its spy-like intentions but that doesn't mean it actually works any better, or faster. In fact, this could actually rank as one of the slowest computers I've ever used in my entire life.

It doesn't like multi-tasking, which is a major problem because it means I cannot have more than one program open at a time, and that includes web pages. In addition, the graphics processor, which I was told by the man in the shop was pretty good, is in fact, very not-good. I'd go so far as to say it's rubbish actually. And given that I need to be logged into the MMO I'm working on, I am actually unable to do my job efficiently. I'd say at least a quarter of the time I've spent working today has been spent waiting for this piece of dren to actually work properly.

And the longer it's on, the slower it gets.

It is a stupid design too. Who thought it was a good idea to add a numeric keypad to a laptop keyboard, and move the mouse pad to the left? Said mousepad also has Smartpad (stupid pad) - an enlarge-everything-to-giant-size function - enabled. I cannot begin to tell you just how annoying it is when your left hand digit accidentally rests on the mousepad because it's in the wrong location, sending everything on your screen all over the place because you're trying to interact with the screen with your right hand digit. I went through the system over and over and over again - it took me ages to find it so I could disable it, it was so well-hidden. Grrrr.

And stressful. All I wanted was for my old faithful workhorse HP to work properly, and instead I feel as though all my worst tech nightmares have come true. Well, except the one where the casing is actually manipulated by the Nestene Consciousness and suffocates me....

Give it time though, it could happen.


ETA: February 7th: That's it, I had enough!  Two days ago, I bought a Samsung RV511 (Core i3; W7 Home Premium, which means it will talk to my 360 so I can use it as a Media Centre extender... the W7 Pro edition won't do that; 6GB RAM)... it's very, very shiny...and it works like a dream! Even the island keyboard is great, and the numeric keypad doesn't get in the way. I love this machine! Best of all, it only cost around £400!


I took the infernal Acer back to the shop, and asked the owner if I could have my money back; he was hesitant at first but when I told him that actually I had sorted out the NI program, he capitulated, saying he had tried but hadn't been successful (obviously). 


Anyway, I'm now a happy woman; I have a fantastic laptop, and I can do my job properly at last. Perfetto!

Cue the Evil League of Evil laugh.....

...ha ha....ha ha ha ha haa haa haaaaaa....ha haa...ha ha...

(I'm sure Dr. Horrible would be so proud!)

So I reformatted the new(ish) laptop, and the evil(in-a-very-bad-way)ness was still there. But guess what? With aid of my trusty iPad and teh interwebz [<---yoof speak!], I was able to combat it....or at least put it to sleep in a Jean-Luc Picard v. The Borg kind of way. Oh yes! My tech is now my own again.

Muahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa!

Which is just as well because the only help (and I use that term in its loosest sense) that the people at Net Intelligence were able to give was:

"As this is a Home Access machine, you will need to contact the provider of the machine, as it is they who provide support for any queries you may have. They also hold your account details, so will be able to give you any information related to this."

This completely ignores the part where I'd told them I'd bought a reconditioned machine, and that I'd already contacted Comet (the provider) who told me to contact them (NI)...

"There should be contact information for the provider either on the machine, or on the documentation that came with it."

Oh, and the part where I told them that neither I, nor the shop, nor the previous owner had any of the documentation. I did find a number to call in a document on the machine (referred to in my previous post on this subject).

"Home Access machines were not intended for resale, we are unable to support any that have been purchased second hand."

Aah, so they did actually understand I'd bought it second-hand then....question is, didn't the government foresee that this kind of thing would happen?

Harumpphhh.

~~~

So, how did I do it? Quite easily as it turns out...

1. Download Autoruns

NetIntellingence will actually block some Microsoft Help sites, particularly ones which tell you how to fix issues such as network protocols, but fortunately, by going into the Control Panel, and changing my home page to Google (again!) it allowed me to access the 'net long enough to download this little program.

2. Run Autoruns

For some reason - and I'm guessing NI is responsible for this - it installed itself into My Documents, not Programs, so if you can't find it in the usual place, you know where to look! Anyhow, I digress...

• Unzip the autoruns.zip file, and click on autoruns.exe
• Click options then choose hide Microsoft Entries
• Click File
• Click Refresh

Autoruns will run a diagnostic of your system and then list all the programs and processes which are currently running on it (barring the Microsoft ones you excluded), so it's helpful to not actually have anything extra running at this time.

Does anyone remember how easy it was to use Windows 98? When you could go into the system and tell it which programs to run at Startup? I miss those days when I could speed up my PC like that! Anyway, Autoruns is sort of like that - from the list, you can choose which programs you want to run and which ones to disable....heheh!

3. Scroll down and uncheck anything which has the NI logo. It will appear in several sections.

4. Scroll down further until you get to the section which is labelled:HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\WinSock2\Parameters\Protocol_Catalog9\Catalog_Entries

5. Uncheck entries which look like this (there should be about four of them):

"000000000001""Netintelligence Home Edition LSP""Netintelligence Ltd""c:\windows\system32\nihlsp.dll"

Alternatively, the entries may look like this:

(Clicking on the image will enlarge it)

6. Reboot your computer. You should now have disabled NetIntelligence. Try loading up a webpage which was previously blocked.

NOTE: Instead of being able to uncheck the protocols above, you may get a message telling you; "WinSock Protocol Providers cannot be disabled (only deletion is supported)." In this case, you need to reinstall WinSock2. Don't worry, it's really easy! The following is from the Microsoft website, and applies to Vista and Windows 7. For other OSs, check the website....but do it from a computer which doesn't have NI installed because NI will close down the Microsoft Help pages!

1. Go to Start --> All Programs --> Accessories --> Command Prompt this will bring up a terminal (it looks a bit like a DOS screen!)

2. In the terminal, type: netsh winsock reset (if you type it incorrectly, an error message will come up, so make sure you type it exactly as I've done here)

3. Type: exit

4. Press Enter

5. Re-run Autoruns as before, and again, uncheck anything with the NI logo next to it (you may find one more than before, I did). Again, scroll down to: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\WinSock2\Parameters\Protocol_Catalog9\Catalog_Entries

this time you should either find that the entire section is missing, or there is nothing in it. To double-check, click the tab at the top which is labelled WinSock - there should be no NI entries there at all.

6. Reboot your computer.

7. Load up previously blocked web pages.

In both scenarios, you should now be able to delete the NI folder and shortcuts. You won't have uninstalled it but it will be disabled, so should give you no more trouble.

~~~

I'm not saying that there should not be restrictions on kids using the internet, but if there are to be any, surely they should come from parents, not the government. Really, if parents want their children to do tech things, they have a duty to understand these things themselves, and be proactively involved. They should not rely on a net nanny to do their job... especially not in their own homes!

It seems to me that programs like NetIntelligence and its ilk are designed for tech-phobic/tech-illiterate and/or lazy parents...and that frankly, is wrong. As a parent, it is your job to ensure your child is able to use tech safely, sensibly and responsibly. Far better to take the time to understand how things work, and communicate with your child than sit them in front of a computer screen and expect someone/thing else to babysit them. What a child will learn from this is any or all of the following;

a) their parents can't be bothered

b) their parents are idiots

c) that with a bit of savvy, they can get around any security measures their parents put in place

d) getting one over on their parents and 'the system' is immensely satisfying....so what can they do next?

I freely admit that most of the things I've learned to do/taught myself have been the result of someone or something either telling me I couldn't/wasn't allowed, or them actively trying to prevent me from doing so. I don't consider myself to be particularly contrary but I've always had an inquisitive mind, and I've always wanted to know 'why not?' when told no. I do not believe that children today are any different...in fact, I'm 47 and I'm still no different! I still want to know the reasons why I can't do something, and if I don't agree, then I will do something about it! And guess what? I'm one of the most responsible and conscientious people you'll ever meet!

Teach kids how to be trustworthy, and you'll be rewarded no end; teach them that they are not to be trusted, and you'll open up a whole world of pain.... for them as well as you.

Excuse me while I scream...

Gaaaahhhhhhhhhh!

Last weekend my HP laptop started crashing, so I took it to the repair shop on Monday morning. After running diagnostics, they determined that the HDD was failing, so they installed a new one. It cost me cost £160, and was fixed the same day. Yay. Or so I thought.

Within half an hour of getting it home, it was crashing again, so I took it back the next day. Got it back on Tuesday evening, and it ran ok for a few hours.....and then crashed as soon as I wanted to do anything graphical (in this case, load up Stronghold Kingdoms, which is an MMO I'm working on).

I couldn't get to the shop on Weds as I had several client meetings, so it went back on Thursday morning. I suspected it might be the GPU, which would mean a whole new motherboard, because, as I'm sure you know, on laptops, the graphics processor is integrated into the motherboard.

Sure enough, on Friday when I spoke to the repairman, he told me it was the GPU, which would cost in excess of what the laptop was worth. He said he'd part exchange my HP (which cost me £350 two years ago), so yesterday I went along to the shop to see what he had that close in spec to the HP.

He had an Acer within my price bracket (I've had so much to pay out recently, I can't actually afford a brand new machine at the moment). Apparently the screen had got broken, so rather than pay to have it repaired, the previous owner decided to trade it in. It now has a brand new screen, and everything has been checked and apparently found to be good working order. I paid £200 for it, which seems reasonable.

However, it is actually very slow, especially compared to my HP, and I think it must be because of all the dren that's pre-installed on it. Apparently it was a Home Access (educational) machine (our government had the not-so-bright idea to give every child at school in the UK a laptop because I assume, it was more headline-grabbing than spending the money on improving our failing education system). This means it has a shedload of rubbish pre-installed on it, which I cannot get rid of because I need passwords from the BECTA control centres. Since I don't have any activation keys, I cannot access the control centres, so I cannot uninstall any of this merda on this machine. In addition, BECTA (which was the government body responsible for this initiative) no longer exists, and despite several telephone calls yesterday, I could not get anyone to give me an activation or access key. All I kept getting told was;

"The parents had no right selling the computer - you should not have been able to buy it"

Nobody had the slightest interest in me telling them that it had been broken, and that I bought it reconditioned from a reputable repair shop.

And if it's not enough that I have gazillion gigabytes-worth of school programs on there, there's a frelling net nanny too, so I cannot even access the internet because......oh look, I have no access code to input. I did manage to briefly get around it by going into the control panel and changing the home page but it soon got wind of my deviousness and foiled my plans for looking at the oh-so-sordid knitting world of Ravelry.

I reformatted it in the hope that the edu stuff had been installed later but guess what? Yup, it's all factory-installed stuff. And possibly even worse - the wallpaper is now a photo of some saccharine children and their father, sitting on the grass, staring intently at a notebook. Actually, since the father is actually screwing his face up, I can only conclude that ants have got into the laptop and are running amok on the screen, or his children have both farted.

Just look at the ickness of it all:

I may vomit.

Tomorrow I'm taking it back to the shop and I shall ask that they do a clean install of Windows 7 without all the government nonsense. Possibly from one of their own OS discs. Really, they should have done that in the first place - surely they should have known that the NetIntelligence program would prevent internet access.... especially in view of the fact that the man in the shop told me that loads of parents just immediately sell their kids' laptops, so it is a common enough practice for him to know about the net nanny prog, and all the other spazzatura.

Grrrrr. And actually, while I'm at he should have picked up that the GPU on my HP was failing. When I spoke to him yesterday, I told him that I'd tested out so many different things in order to discover what the issue was, and he admitted I'd done more to check than he had!

So I am not a happy camper: I've had over a week of tech problems which has meant I've not been able to work properly, plus it's cost me £360, which was more than I paid for the HP brand new, and which I could have done without spending, particularly in view of having to pay my tax bill yesterday too. And I'm STILL having to use my old ageing-hamster-powered dinocomputer.

/giga-grump!

Review: The Artist Residence Hotel, Brighton

Last Tuesday Kevin and I headed off to Brighton for the Develop conference. It was Kevin's turn to book the hotel for our overnight stay, and as usual, he opted for the quirky choice; The Artist Residence, on Regency Square.

The girl at reception was welcoming but didn't know we'd paid in full up front; she couldn't find any record of our payment! Fortunately she eventually came across it!

The room, whilst looking fun and funky, was exceptionally small, particularly the bed, which was described as a double but was in fact tiny. In addition, it was very uncomfortable and there was only one thin pillow each. No extra bedding was provided.

It was a very warm night but we couldn't have the window open, due to the noise of drunken revellers outside. That and the fact that the other hotel guests were incredibly noisy; slamming doors, very loud voices etc. and one even vomiting very loudly meant we got less than an hour's sleep. This wouldn't be so bad if we weren't at a conference and in meetings the next day.

Breakfast was rather lacking; a cold croissant (with no preserves or butter), bottle of room-temperature water, a small apple and a Nutrigrain bar (which I'm not sure even counts as food!), left in a bag outside the bedroom door. I have no problem with the casual attitude of breakfast-in-a-bag but in all honesty, I have stayed in far better hotels where I've paid less per night, and had a full English breakfast plus yoghurt, fruit, pastries, cereal and toast!

We would have liked to sit out on the balcony to eat our breakfast; unfortunately, the scaffold planks were very wobbly and didn't seem very safe, and the chairs were covered in bird guano! I don't think they'd ever been cleaned, especially as there was a large pile of droppings to the left of the balcony - clearly below a favoured roosting spot!

The advertised WiFi didn't work. We had to ask for the passkey as it was not volunteered; unfortunately it only connected us to the WLAN, not the internet, so we had to go out to a café in The Lanes in order to check our work emails!

We didn't have much time to watch TV, which was just as well because there was no reception, other than Film4! I would however, have been grateful for it in the small hours when I was being kept awake. Thank goodness for my laptop and BBC iPlayer!

Perhaps most disturbing of all was the lack of smoke alarm in our room. I say lack - there had been a smoke alarm once; however, when we were there, all that remained was the plastic base plate screwed to the ceiling, with a few bare wires dangling from it. I'm pretty sure the hotel was breaking the law by not having a working smoke alarm in the room.

The one really positive element was the shower! Granted the en-suite was quirkily bijou (it was in a cupboard) but the shower itself was wonderful. Very powerful, and the water very soft. A real pleasure to use.... even if the cubicle could have done with being a bit larger! Nice complementary products too (Bee Kind).

To sum up; in principle, I love the quirkiness of The Artist Residence but in practice I found it to be poor value and very uncomfortable. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone wishing to get a good night's sleep, or requiring a decent breakfast.

The table was really sweet - shame all the bird poo prevented us using it!

My laptop bag, which is 18" wide, is there for scale - the bed is tiny!

This cupboard houses the shower cubicle, washbasin and loo! You can actually just see the loo if you look toward the bottom panel of the right-hand door!

And the bile goes on...

Been up to Holdenby today and feel recharged (apart from the aching back). It was much needed as I've now had half a dozen hate mails in response to my blog... all of them friends of my 'chum' who originally sent that piece of bile yesterday.

I've been called stupid, ignorant, a bitch and a c**t. Oh, and a filthy foreigner who deserves far worse than email abuse. This last comment was based purely on my name, which is bizarre because I'm guessing that since my maternal family came over with the Conquest, that makes me pretty much British....OK, half British - my father was Venetian! But that's hardly the point!

My goodness, I don't know - these foreigners, they come over here, boff our women, take our jobs, become productive members of society. Whatever next? Running for Parliament?!

I'm laughing about it now but it's actually been very upsetting. What grieves me the most however, is that my friend who sent the original email has seen this vitriol (because obviously it means so much more if you hit the 'reply all' button, so everyone can see how many words you can remember from the toilet wall), yet she hasn't even had the decency to say anything other than; 


"Oh, I meant to send you the email about giving a pill to a cat". Not even a "Sorry you're having to deal with this crap".

So it's OK to send everyone else the offending email? And it's OK to sit by and watch someone you call a friend, someone who helped you through your deepest, darkest suicidal period (her suicidal period, not mine, I hasten to add! I don't do self-destruction...I play video games instead!)...it's OK to sit by and watch your other 'friends' send such abuse to them?

And you won't even say, "Nicole, I'm sorry for what they are saying to you"... let alone defend me??

I would walk through fire for my friends....but then I know that my friends would do that for me too. Well, all except one, it seems.

To say I am deeply shocked that anyone I considered a friend would even think about sending that email is an understatement. I'm actually not sure how I feel about her any more. I don't actually want to be friends with someone who considers the victimisation of others a viable proposition. And I certainly do not want to be friends with someone who does not even have the decency to either admit they made a mistake, or stand up for something they believe in, even if it might be controversial.

I don't expect my friends to hold the same opinions as me. I don't expect them to agree with everything I say. I do expect them to respect me and my right to speak out against something I believe to be wrong, even if they don't share that belief. Just like I do with them. I also expect honesty from my friends - not looking the other way and pretending nothing is happening.

Perhaps I expect too much.