Hmmm - the problem with trying to blend blogs and docs.....

The problem with blogs is that they are great for web stuff, e.g. pictures and text, but sometimes embedding things that were designed for other environments gets complicated.

Apart from any error messages about documents not being found (in previous post) the major problem is that the right hand side of the embedded document gets overlayed by the bar at the side. This is not quite what we were aiming for and means that a big chunk of the embedded iframe is not visible.

I may have to revert to something more complicated.....

Testing embedding from google docs

I have been trying to help my mother-in-law with getting a googledocs presentation viewed properly by everyone on the distibution list. In desperation she has resorted to trying to embed the thing in a blog http://gsbdigest.blogspot.com/ . This has developed further complications, some of which are similar but not quite identical to the ones we experience earlier.
In an attempt to find a workable solution that requires minimum interaction from the viewers I am trying to duplicate some of the embedding here.

The blog finally reverts to the original purpose :)

I tested a selection of parameters....
large document, medium document in large iframe
medium document, large document in medium iframe.

As an example I have left them below but I found the following

1. large in medium cut big chunks off.
2. medium in anything sometime lost bits at the bottom of the page.
3. large seems to look okay (at least in preview)
   

I shall see what it looks like once I publish the photos.

large


Medium with large iframe


Medium


Large with medium iframe

Fwd: Royal festival hall

Original
Just a quickie. Just visited the chocstar van. Www.chocstar.co.uk and
now killing time before the Kodo drummers start this evening.

Update
This should have been posted at around 6:30pm today. However due to a wetware malfuntion (I put in the email address from memory and got it wrong) it went nowhere.

The trip was part of the birthday celebrations for my wife ( tiggyhedge.blogspot.com ).
The Kodo drummers were amazing. Their website is www.kodo.or.jp.

The chocstar van is definitely worth tracking down and visiting. When we first arrived at Southbank we knew that the van (aka Jimmy) would be at the slow food market and made a bee-line for it. Mrs_tiggy (aka bio-hazar) had the original (brownie, vanilla ice cream and hot chocolate sauce) sundae and I had the challenger (blondie, chocolate ice cream and butterscotch) . If you want pictures then you will have to wait for my wife to update her blog, she is waiting for the pictures to upload first.

After wandering through the market, trying some samples, having a lamb burger (cooked in front of our eyes) for an evening meal and wandering along the riverbank we headed back via Chocstar again and Bio had a "Make it a Jamaican" to drink.

There are more details but that is enough for now. Check out my wife's blog or wait and see if I get around to adding further updates if you want to know more.

Fixing problems with outlook message stores

I was recently asked to look at a problem with someone's outlook.
Whenever they started it up it was trying to send 2 messages that did not show up in the outbox. It failed due to the security settings between the machine concerned and the email server. All other email seemed to work fine.
Using my usual research tool I found a few possible causes but the favourite seemed to be some read receipts that had got stuck.
I found some very helpful instructions at http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/deletereadreceipt.htm which required a download from microsoft MDBVU32.exe.
This program looks as dangerous as regedit. I was very glad of the instructions on the referring web page which included screen shots. I think the program has been updated since the screenshots were taken though as I had to hunt for the option to open the data store. I was able to work out where I needed to be quite nicely though.
A useful tool to know about.

XAMPP for windows

This entry may be a bit premature. I have only found the web site and not actually used it yet.

Like many people I have web space.
My hosting provider blackfoot.co.uk provide me with mysql databases, php et cetera.
This is good. However my skill and knowledge with PHP and mysql is not so good.
At worst I use other people's code blindly. I know enough to be able to read the documentation and change the variables (most of the time).
One of my thoughts has been to experiment a bit with php et cetera in an environment where it does not matter, i.e. a server that is not actually on the net. My "problem" has been getting round to jumping through the assorted hoops of installing things, especially when most of the machines I can play with are either windows or solaris and not linux. I have briefly looked at SAMP and not got round to doing much with it. I do have apache and perl running fine on assorted solaris boxes from 2.6 upwards (with solaris 10 it is a case of install the OS and they just need configuring but with 2.6 you need to build and/or install the packages).

I have heard about LAMP and WAMP distros and nearly got round to doing the LAMP install of Ubuntu but never quite made it.

Now I have found a website that has been around for years.
I may have mentioned in another post about how quick i am at finding things :).

XAMPP appears to be (not yet installed it myself yet) exactly what I am looking for. A really lazy way of setting things up on a windows (or linux or solaris) machine to play with.

LLOYDIAN OPINIONS: Grating English

Seemingly random web surfing definitely provides moments of enjoyment.

I cannot recall why I was looking for it but I decided to google the pronounciation of lieutenant. I found several contradictory reasons for the varied ways of saying it but I had the bonus of discovering a very entertaining and informative page. The information on it is also accurate.

LLOYDIAN OPINIONS: Grating English

I especially liked the explanation of the subjunctive, which I have been using correctly by instinct rather than as a result of technical knowledge.

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N.T. Wright Page

Back in March I attended a worship central event at Methodist central hall (warning - sound starts as soon as web page loads) as part of the worship team at Hither Green Baptist Church. I am not one of the musicians but one of the "techies", although married to one of the singers who is also an occasional worship leader.
I enjoyed the day and, more importantly, it provided material to help me grow in my faith and the application of my faith.
One of the teaching sessions I attended by accident, the one I had originally intended to go to was full up before I got to it. This was a very good thing.
The session I attended was a talk given by N.T. "Tom" Wright, Bishop of Durham. The talk/lecture is available in mp3 format on the worship central web site (see earlier link) but more of his material is available at N.T. Wright Page

picasa2flickr - flickr upload plugin for picasa - Installation v2

I have been using picasa for a long time now. I really like the way I can organise and manipulate the pictures I take with it (has google trademarked the phrase "I'm feeling lucky"?). However the only storage that is available is somewhat limited.

I have had a yahoo photo account with unlimited storage since before they bought flickr, so I now have a pro flickr account. The inconvenience has always been moving images from one to the other.

I tried the first version of picasa2flickr and it worked very well, provided you were willing to accept an older version of picasa. I was okay with that.

However I have just noticed (yeah - fast brain I have!) that there is a new version out that uses the latest flickr uploader tool. It seems to be working very well, and can even handle multiple upload sets at the same time.

the sourceforge page for the install process is
picasa2flickr - flickr upload plugin for picasa - Installation v2

The church has left the building...

Whilst typing up this weeks church notice sheet I found the page for Pentecost Festival :: 9th – 11th May 2008.

About two thirds of the way down the page I found a line that has a major resonance with what I understand church to be. "The church has left the building..."
The church is the worldwide collection of Christians, some of whom happen to use buildings to worship God. Hopefully more people will be able to get hold of this and move away from the idea that the church is the physical structure that is used.

Owl learning to fly (and beyond)

One of the side effects of my wife being into scrapbooking and crafts is that I have joined ukscrappers just so that I can log in and show off her work to people.
Whilst on there I sometimes dip into the help forum to se if my limited knowledge can be of use.

From a signature in a question I found this blog
Owl learning to fly
and from thence to

FaithScrappers UK
which looks interesting - although I think they may be rather short sighted in thinking that only women would be interested in their retreats.

One of my wife's crafting images

My wife is very good at crafting. However she has tried blogging an entry from flickr but it seems to crop the image on her blog, although the preview is intact.
I am trying to blog the same picture using a different method, the tools built into the flock web browser, to see what happens

Edit: just to clarify - I have to add height="100%" width="100%" to the img tag to get it to display properly

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Over the hedge and across the pond

My wife has succumbed to being "pushed" (not by me) into setting up a blog.

Over the hedge and across the pond

Have fun reading it :)

Teddy Bear Monastery Story - English

I was browsing the internet searching for some images involving teddy bears.

I came across this interesting site...

Teddy Bear Monastery Story - English


Read the story all the way through and enjoy :)

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Are You Ready?

I was reading the blog written by my mother-in-law about the events in the year and found a link to a blog by my father-in-law.
It is a useful source of vital information.

Are You Ready?

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Video background with VLC

We are using Opensong to manage the display of songs et cetera at church.
I have been thinking about how to manage the "distribution" of the up to date list of songs and sets amongst the various people who lead worship, some of them more technical than others.
Whilst looking in the opensong forums for ideas I was distracted by a wishlist item, having a video background to the words.
Here is a link to the forum entry. Video background with VLC
Opensong is very good, works very well and is easy to use. Our current "display management" crew are in their teens or younger and they have mastered it better than the adults.

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Yet another mention of dollar parity in North America

I suspect that I am not the first to comment on this.
Bloomberg has an article today about the Canadian dollar reaching parity with the currency of it's immediate southern neighbour.

Hmmm - I wonder what the comparative rates to each of them are in the UK?

Cleaning the house made easier

I came across a rather tempting device today.
I have been thinking about getting a vax, for cleaning the carpets a little more thoroughly than just suction will, and instead found something that may clean them slightly less thoroughly but will do so without my total attention.

Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner


Sounds like fun.
I did find someones comment that it worked well but needed an extra bit of prgramming to tell it to run and hide when children were around.

Battle chess

I was talking to my in-laws today, it's my Father-in-law's birthday.
Not sure what sparked it off but I was reminded of battle chess.
A little internet searching and I found
http://www.download-game.com/Battle_Chess.htm

Not tried it yet but I am already feeling nostalgic about watching the pieces beat each other up.
Hmm - must curb those violent tendencies,

AV cables - 3 RCA to 4 pole 3.5mm

I have been tasked with trying to get a device working with a television.
The device is an IUBI blue which was bought second hand and did not come with manual or the right cables. The manual is no problem, I found a link from the forums on www.advancedmp3players.com that worked brilliantly.

The cables are another issue. I thought I had found one on ebay but it turned out not to work as I had hoped. The left speaker appeared to be fine, the right speaker sound was coming through the video connector and very, very fuzzy video with insufficient synch signal was coming through on all three. My guess was that the pinouts were slightly wrong and that the video signal was coming through on the shield of all 3 RCA connectors.

I then return to that popular research tool, the internet search engine and do some further digging. I find a few possibilities, including a note on the page for the cable I bought saying it would not work with the ipod. The device is not an ipod so had not considered this relevant at the time. I rethink this... I then find a page about the AV cable for a Zune (never heard of it? neither had I until this search) listing the compatibilites of several devices and the comparitive pinouts. The site is www.anythingbutipod.com, the link is to the "about" page which is an interesting read.

Anyway - it seems there are at least 4 different pinout combinations in use by different product manufacturers. I need to beep test my cable, see which one it ties in with and then see if one of the other variants will work. Alternatively I could try making a conversion gadget to remap the RCA connections. I think it will depend on how much time I end up spending on it.

Model railway info

I was recently asked if I knew anything about a model railway society in Bromley that was holding an exhibition in June, specifically the weekend of the 23rd-24th.

This is what I came up with

Culled from http://www.brmodelling.co.uk/diary/default.asp
23 June 2007 to 24 June 2007
Orpington and District MRS - Bromley Model Railway Show 2007
Crofton Junior School, Towncourt Lane, Petts Wood, Bromley, Kent., BR5 1EL
Saturday: 10.00 am - 5.00 pm
Sunday: 10.00 am - 5.00 pm
Prices: Adult £3.50, OAP £3.00, Child £1.50
Telephone: 0208 402 7093



From http://www.semg.org.uk/model/clubs.html

Orpington & District Model Railway Society	Opening Nights are Wednesdays and Fridays from 20:00 'til 23:00.	John Arkell (Chairman) john.arkell@meadowrd.demon.co.uk
Founded in 1951 the Club has layouts in the following scales/gauges: O, O16.5, EM, OO, HO, and N. One member has two foot gauge in his paddock with a Simplex (working) and a Barclay steam engine (being rebuilt). The Club usually has an open day there each year. There is a permanent Clubhouse, built ny the Club, with layout room and library / tea-room (most important). Southern Interest. The EM layout is Admiralty Exchange Sidings most recently exhibited at the Fairfield Halls autumn 2001. Many of the members actively model Southern or its constituents/sucessors and several of the Society members are active at the Bluebell and KESR. Usually holds an exhibition in late June or early July