An Obituary printed in the London Times - Interesting and sadly, rather true.
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

Knowing when to come in out of the rain,
Why the early bird gets the worm,
Life isn't always fair, and
and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student, but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers:
I Know My Rights,
I Want It Now,
Someone Else Is To Blame, and
I'm A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing

I know I shouldn't, but you've just got to have a laugh at our performance in the 2010 World Cup

I took delivery of my new amateur radio tower today. Absolutely awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QCJAWwdGFk

This is very cool and I'm sure you will enjoy it. Somebody in Canada, or maybe the USA, I'm not entirely sure has set up a live web cam which is pointing at a pair of nesting bald eagles. It is important that you have your sound on as the Eagles often call to each other and you really don't want to miss that. This is just great, enjoy

http://www.tetraplegicliving.com/live-eagle-cam

Check these photos out and make sure you read the captions

Seemingly unaware of the carnivore towering over it, the tiny rodent grabbed at scraps of meat
thrown into the African Leopard's enclosure. But instead of pouncing on the tiny intruder,
the 12-year-old leopard Sheena kept her distance. After a few minutes she tried to nudge the
mouse away with her nose, but the determined little guy kept chewing away until he was full.

The extraordinary scene was captured by photography student Casey Gutteridge at the
Santago Rare Leopard Project in Hertfordshire , England . The 19-year-old, photographing the leopard for a course project, was astounded by the mouse's behaviour. He said had no idea where the mouse came from. He just appeared after the keeper had dropped in the meat for the leopard. Taking no notice of the leopard, the mouse went straight over to the meat and started eating.

Even when the leopard bent down and sniffed him, the mouse just carried on eating like nothing had happened. Even the keeper said he'd never seen anything like it before. 

Project owner Jackie James added: It was so funny to see - Sheena batted the mouse a couple of times to try to get it away from her food. But the determined little thing took no notice and just carried on. 

The mouse continued to eat the leopard's lunch and showed the leopard who was boss. We
can only assume that Casey received a grade of A on his project!

Most broadband suppliers like to show off and tell you what speed they provide. However, in my experience what they say they offer is not always what you get. For instance BT Internet adverts boast 20 MB. I don't know anyone who gets this amount of speed with BT Internet. However I came across a handy little website tool today that tests your broadband and tells you both your upload and download speed. You might want to test it at various times of the day, you'll probably find that your Internet runs fastest when not many people are armed, normally late at night when everyone is asleep. Anyway, check it out, I think it's pretty cool.

http://speedtest.net/index.php

A few months ago I wrote about Mozilla Firefox not working properly in Vista 64-bit. Well, it seems that the latest version of Firefox, 3.6.3 works considerably better than some of the previous versions. In fact since I've been using the latest version of Firefox I haven't experienced any problems whatsoever and Firefox is the browser I use 99% of the time. I've also got Windows 7 on one of my computers, I will replace Vista on my bedroom computer at some stage. I have also not experienced any problems in Windows 7 using Firefox either.

I have been using Vista since last June and have been relatively pleased with it. However a few little niggling problems started cropping up so I bit the bullet and decided now was a good time to upgrade to Windows 7. So off I went to Staples in Torquay and got myself the family pack upgrade which is good for three PCs. I thought the price was reasonable, I think it was around £130.

I would really recommend backing up all your files before attempting any upgrade. I backed up all my files onto an external hard drive just in case things went pear shaped. The upgrade went extremely well and without a hitch. I have now been using Windows 7 for a few days and am absolutely delighted with it. I don't want to tempt fate but all of the little problems I was having with Vista have now disappeared and it is working really well, I couldn't be happier.

To be quite honest there really isn't a lot of difference between Windows 7 and Vista when it comes to the layout and workings, so if you are a seasoned Vista user, Windows 7  shouldn't confuse you too much. Things have been smartened up and it definitely that little more aesthetically pleasing on the eye, I particularly like the on screen keyboard, that is a marked improvement. I do use this on a regular basis when I am in bed so that is one particular function I am very happy with. Windows Mail is absolutely fantastic, really love it, miles better than what was included in Vista. I really do like the facility where you have a library tab in the taskbar, it makes accessing my documents, pictures, videos etc. just a little quicker. You don't have to have it in your taskbar, you can disable it. However when you spend as much time on the computer as I do, anything that makes life easier is an advantage.

I haven't been using Windows 7 for more than a week yet so I've so much more digging around to do, however I wanted to share what I have learned so far with you. Don't let people put you off Windows 7, the people who go around criticizing it are more than likely the same people who haven't used it yet. I don't care what anyone has to say about Windows 7, it is a massive improvement on both XP and Vista. If you like both XP and Vista, you are going to absolutely love Windows 7.  So don't hesitate if you are still a Vista user, get out there and get yourself an upgrade.

Just one thing I must mention before splashing out on an upgrade. Make sure that before purchasing the upgrade, make sure you are actually getting the right installation. For instance, if you're on XP then you can't upgrade to Windows 7, you've got to install a new Windows 7 operating system. If you are not sure what you need to purchase and install a program called Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. This is a free download from Microsoft and it will  take a look at what you already have installed and tell you which upgrade you need to get, or indeed if you need to install a complete Windows 7 operating system. If you have been using Vista for a few years and have been experiencing problems then it may actually be worth your while purchasing the full operating system. Remember that an upgrade is just an upgrade, if you have got some bugs in Vista then you may still experience problems in Windows 7 so sometimes a completely clean installation is the key to getting things back on an even track again, it'll be exactly the same as reformatting your hard drive which an upgrade doesn't do. I didn't bother with installing a completely new operating system because my computer is less than a year old.

I'm happy to say that this is one Microsoft product that I am completely in love with.

This is a direct link to where you can download Windows 7 upgrade advisor

http://windows.microsoft.com/upgradeadvisor

For those of you who are familiar with a cult film called That Summer starring Ray Winstone, you will probably be very interested in obtaining the soundtrack. Unfortunately the film itself was never released on DVD or VHS however the soundtrack was released on tape and vinyl. The soundtrack is long out of print so is no long available commercially. Some time ago I compiled the complete soundtrack using various download programs. I even managed to obtain "New Life" by the Zones. This particular song was never released as a single and was recorded especially for the film. Anyway, I have now made the songs available for download on my website.

I hope you enjoy the songs as much as I have done over the years.

http://www.tetraplegicliving.com/my-music/that-summer-soundtrack/download-soundtrack