I believe that I am not unfair in my characterisation of high speed rail as a political wet dream. It is simply a high status project like Concorde for political kudos. For me I find the Government more concerned with their political legacy than improving the Nations infrastructure to benefit the many. I feel it is a rather more of a secondary consideration because of the prestige such project bring. If you do not believe me you only need to look at the Olympics. Continue »
Now I have had my Kindle a few days I am starting to browse the Kindle bookstore and download sample version of books ahead of purchasing them. When you download the sample version of the book you can typically read the first chapter of the book and see if you want to purchase the title. It is like flicking through a book when your in a bookshop on the high street. Continue »
So my Kindle has arrived. I am extremely impressed with this new addition to my gadget collection. I was very surprise by the actual size of the unit. It is very compact, light and comfortable to hold. I am very pleased that I did not purchase a first or second generation of the device. I think that the third iteration of the hardware is very ergonomic and simple to use now Amazon has removed many of the pitfalls of the earlier versions. Namely the shape and position of the next and previous buttons for turning pages. Continue »
So I have jumped on to the Amazon Kindle bandwagon. I am extremely excited about the impending arrival of my new reading device. For years I have been joined at the hip with my iPod so I am interested to see if having a device for reading makes me anymore likely to read. Continue »
In December 2010 I purchased a third generation Amazon Kindle. I am extremely impressed with this new addition to my gadget collection. Here you will find all the blog posts I have written about my reader. Continue »
cURL is a computer software project providing a command-line tool for transferring data using various protocols between networked computers. Since the first release of cURL in 1997, the project has produced two products, cURL and libcurl. I am however for the purposes of this post only interested in the command line tool and to show you how you can use cURL to get files from across the Internet. Continue »
I was disappointed to see the damage caused to the Conservative Party head quarters at 30 Millbank London. I feel the damage caused will evaporate any sympathy instead of galvanising support behind their campaign. In reality the anarchy caused by a minority of rogue protesters will simply torpedo the whole movement in the eyes of the public. Continue »
Downton Abbey, an Edwardian period drama on ITV1 concluded yesterday evening with news that Britain was at war with Germany. I enjoyed this programme immensely. In my mind Downton Abbey is the silhouette of sanity on an otherwise utterly disappointing channel riddled with programming which caters to the manufacture of celebrities and enlargement of Simon Cowell's wallet. Continue »
Like me you maybe using an Ubuntu computer running Apache, MySQL and PHP to develop websites. When developing it is important to see error messages to debug your code. On occasion I have installed PHP on to Ubuntu computers and by default errors are not displayed. As this is not a production web server I updated the php.ini file to display errors. In this post I explain how I updated the php.ini to display error messages and aid debugging. Continue »
The Mayor of the Italian town Castellammare di Stabia has become the latest Italian location to crack down on what is deemed to be anti-social behaviour. The anti-social behaviour in question is wearing of miniskirts or other revealing clothing. I really cannot believe Gitmo Nation Pasta. For goodness sake Italy your the land of Berlusconi and Casanova. Continue »