Articles and advice on cycling, technology, home efficiency and more - 2008

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These pages are written and managed by John & Julii Swindells, and we take every effort to ensure their accuracy, relevance and engagement. If you don't think this is the case at any point, please contact us and explain where you think that we're going wrong. Otherwise, happy browsing!

Rat Sprites the Dust

Rats 30 Dec 2008

Our most friendly pet rat, Sprite, has died. We don't know how old she was as she was a rescue rat, but she developed a large tumour and went ...

Breaking Away

Cycling 30 Dec 2008

This cycling movie is on my 'might watch' list: Breaking Away. Its listing on IMDB gives a brief plotline of a boy in Indiana, obsessed with ...

Plesk 8.6.0 QMail Alias Issue

Computer Programming 29 Dec 2008

Plesk 8.6.0 QMail Alias Issue! I think that this is a Plesk-specific issue, and have discovered it on a brand new installation of 8.6.0: ...

Recover Photos From a Memory Card

Computing 22 Dec 2008

DataDoctor.org offers a file recovery program to recover lost files from a memory card. It offers a free trial download of its Memory card data ...

Microsoft SyncToy

Computing 19 Dec 2008

V2 published in August, it keeps files and folders in step with each other. Runs on Vista and XP and requires the .Net V2 framework. Here ...

Oil Still A-Tumbling

Heating Oil: A Buyer's Guide 19 Dec 2008

Despite OPEC's best efforts, a supply glut is causing the crude price to keep falling. It is now firmly below $40, and today is actually under ...

Stove Accessories: Cleaner and Thermometer

Solid Fuel Stoves and Central Heating 19 Dec 2008

Looking for a stove thermometer and flue cleaning powder. Couple of sites here: Stove Centre Chimney cleaner (Reduces tar build up, 750g ...

Denon DAB Micro System

DAB Radio 13 Dec 2008

This micro DAB system from Denon has had a good review from What Hi-Fi. It's under £300 too! What Hi-Fi's Denon D-M37DAB Review. Pictures ...

The Worst 5-a-Side Football Team in the World

The Swindells Name 03 Dec 2008

As featured on Radio 4's Danny Robins Music Therapy, Mike Swindells from Manchester is captain of AC Fossa, a 5-a-side team with the dubious ...

It's Colder on the Outside

North Walsham 28 Nov 2008

When there is sleet, it is best to be indoors.

How to Use the Twitter API

Computer Programming 28 Nov 2008

Here is a PHP class to push Twitter updates from your own web app:

Bargain Cameras from Argos

Photography 19 Nov 2008

Argos has been advertising big price reductions on their digital cameras. Here are the ones of interest to us (at least 3x optical zoom, Li ...

Satmap Active 10 GPS with Bike Mount and Half Price Maps

Cycling 18 Nov 2008

This GPS unit with Ordnance Survey mapping is quite expensive (£320 on offer from Wiggle), but with the whole of the country available ...

Fleet Moss 200KM Randonee

Cycling 16 Nov 2008


View Larger Map

Native Hedge Choices

Gardening 16 Nov 2008

A gardening friend has told us about the best place in North Norfolk to get bare root hedge plants from, and that is Felthorpe Forest Nursery ...

Freeflow Irrigation Gift Pack

Gardening 14 Nov 2008

Freeflow Irrigation Gift Pack from Evergreener.com: it connects to a water butt and provides gravity-fed irrigation to up to 16 pots.

Top Gear Test Track Found

Family Car 06 Nov 2008

Here is the 'secret' Bedfordshire track that Top Gear used for performing their truck-driving antics in early November, 2008. It is conveniently ...

1880-1900

The Bacon Family History 30 Oct 2008

Finetta; Netta and Bertha

Roberts DAB Clock Radio

DAB Radio 29 Oct 2008

This is a simple affair, from recognised maker Roberts. It was half-priced from Bennetts, costing £30. The aerial is just a wire, but ...

Yahoo! Answers For Content?

Computing 23 Oct 2008

Here's a suggestion from Internet Marketing Firm PrimaryAffect.com if you're having trouble thinking of material for your blog: Use Yahoo! Answers ...

ING Direct Savings Deal

Finance 16 Oct 2008

ING Direct has agreed to take over the deposits and accounts of almost 200000 UK savers, from two banks: Kaupthing Edge and Heritable Bank. ...

Radiator Insulation

Heating Oil: A Buyer's Guide 08 Oct 2008

Don't heat your walls! Reflective inserts placed behind your radiators can reduce heat being lost directly through the wall, by around 8-15 ...

A Guide To Monitoring Electricity Consumption

Electricity 08 Oct 2008

The Good Energy Shop has an excellent page, called Comparison of energy monitors, that compares four products between £35 and £100 ...

The History of Unix

Computing 03 Oct 2008

Here is a flowchart of the history of Unix, available in full glory at WikiMedia - Unix History. Awesome!

Car Hire

North Walsham 01 Oct 2008

There is a car and van hire firm in North Walsham, called Trevor Charles. They have reasonable prices and a small fleet of clean vehicles ...

Google Search is now Ten: Never Look Back!

Computing 27 Sep 2008

Google was founded ten years ago by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Stanford computer students. They had developed the Backrub search engine ...

An Inconvenient Financial Truth

Finance 22 Sep 2008

Peter Hargreaves, Chief Executive of discount broker firm Hargreaves Lansdown, has his say on who bears responsibility for the recent and sudden ...

Choice of Funds

Ethical Investments 22 Sep 2008

These are available in the UK market: Standard Life Ethical ISAs Legal & General Ethical ISAs Jupiter Ecology Fund CIS Sustainable ...

Hungry, Biting Beasties

Rats 08 Sep 2008

Our new rats have revealed extremely varied personalities. Teggs, the clearly dominant rat, will stash food away and attack any rat who comes ...

Google Insights

Computing 01 Sep 2008

Use this link to see Google Insights for the last seven days which shows you Google's view of the trending topics. You can filter by category ...

Aphid Predators

Gardening 27 Aug 2008

The Daily Telegraph has an article about what to plant, to attract creatures that eat aphids: Let them eat aphids. The good insects: Lacewings ...

There's a Better Way

House and Home 23 Aug 2008

The UK Government's Cabinet Office is managing a site called ShowUsABetterWay.com with the tagline Tell us what you'd build with public information ...

British Cycling Champion Killed in Collision with Van

Time Trialling 08 Aug 2008

The BBC reports that Jason MacIntyre has died after a collision with a van. Aged 34, he had just been given funding to train for the Commonwealth ...

Home Heating Oil Prices on the Slide

Heating Oil: A Buyer's Guide 07 Aug 2008

It's now well into August 2008, and after the heady heights of low 60p/L prices we are now seeing things settle down as the crude price slides ...

More Fibre for Broadband

Internet Access: UK Broadband 01 Aug 2008

Up to 10 million homes will get fibre-optic based broadband in the next few years, if recently announced plans to replace much of the UK's existing ...

Media Centre PC Cases

Computing 30 Jul 2008

Best prices were found at AfterHours.co.uk SilverStone Grandia GD01S-MXR with MCE Remote and LCD Display Silver Case  SST-GD01S-MXR ...

Quiet Media Center PC

Computing 29 Jul 2008

Our current lounge PC is rather noisy and ugly, and is also prone to crashing. High-graphics games will suddenly hang, until allowed to continue ...

CTC Council: East of England

Cyclists Touring Club 16 Jul 2008

Dear Member I am writing to you to urge you to think about becoming a CTC councillor for the East of England. I am sending you my invitation ...

AVG Burning Bandwidth and Wrecking Web Stats

Computing 07 Jul 2008

Grisoft, the makers of AVG, are being accused of wasting users' bandwidth and "destroying Web analytics as we know it". Grisoft's AVG - the anti ...

Bus Fire in North Walsham

North Walsham 05 Jul 2008

Yesterday evening, around 5:30PM, we saw a huge plume of black smoke coming from the direction of town and the air started to smell quite bad ...

Vertical Axis DIY Wind Turbine

Wind Turbines 29 Jun 2008

OneToRemember has a free-to-download set of plans for a vertical axis wind turbine. In only five or six hours you should have a turbine that ...

Robert Swindells: Young Adults Author

The Swindells Name 29 Jun 2008

Read the Biography of Robert Swindells at Channel4Learning.com. He writes books for young people, encouraging them to avoid harming others ...

BBC: Trash To Cash for Rachel Swindells

The Swindells Name 29 Jun 2008

Rachel Swindells appears on the BBC programme Trash to Cash in which members of a household must decide what they are prepared to throw away ...

7-Seater People Carrier MPVs

Family Car 25 Jun 2008

We are looking for a seven or eight seater people carrier to lug us and our stuff on infrequent long-ish journeys. There are six of us in our ...

Five-Seater Family Car: Choices Choices

Family Car 25 Jun 2008

We are looking for a family runabout with features in approximately this order: Reliable Economical Low depreciation It is to be at least ...

Carpet Cleaners: Our Favourite in Norfolk

House and Home 25 Jun 2008

Arena Cleaning Services is the company we use to give our main carpeted areas a thorough deep clean once a year. We say that they're our favourite ...

Investing in Oil

Finance 24 Jun 2008

Where to invest for making the most of the surge in crude oil prices, and to mitigate the extra expense in buying home heating oil? Sectors ...

Mark Love: BMX Stunts

BMX 19 Jun 2008


Not a helmet in sight, but the stunts this guy pulls are pretty amazing. I wonder how many bones he broke to get this good ...

Into the Peanut Butter Jar

Rats 18 Jun 2008

Here's Teggs (the fat piggie rat of our four new adoptees) getting stuck into a peanut butter jar.

Filling the Tank: Hedge Your Bets

Heating Oil: A Buyer's Guide 16 Jun 2008

It looks like things are only going to get more expensive in the future. The early-Summer drop in prices due to falling demand hasn't happened ...

Small Digital Cameras From Hughes Direct

Photography 15 Jun 2008

They have a good selection of cameras but the ones that catch my eye are: Panasonic DMCFS3EBK at £130, 3x optical zoom, 8Mpix ...

Fiat Dublo 7-Seater

Family Car 04 Jun 2008

From my cousin, regarding seven-seater cars: I discovered there is a fiat dublo 7 seater. Based on a small van, so fairly rough and ready I ...

Sentry Lite for Instant Messenger Monitoring

Computing 02 Jun 2008

Sentry Lite is free monitoring software that claims to offer parents and computer administrators the ability to monitor both sides of instant ...

Our Adopted Family

Rats 28 May 2008

To give Monty some company, we have now adopted a family of four sister rats from a rescue shelter in Surrey. They are:- Jasper with thick ...

I Like Turtles

Animals 21 May 2008

This is at the Waterfront Park, downtown Portland. This clip was taken by 8 News. The boy, when asked a straightforward question, gave the ...

DAB Hi-Fi and/or Separates

DAB Radio 19 May 2008

Here we are looking for a DAB/CD hi-fi unit, but don't necessarily need the speakers. So just a DAB tuner and CD player unit would do. Our ...

What do Good Energy Customers Care About?

Electricity 17 May 2008

Good Energy has published results of a questionnaire, in which customers were asked what sort of environmental decisions they make. Here are ...

Good Energy Shop Launches!

Electricity 16 May 2008

From Good Energy: Our new online service is open for trade, and we're celebrating with a very special offer. The Good Energy Shop provides ...

Facebook Needs More Servers

Computing 10 May 2008

From Marketing Pilgrim, Facebook is borrowing $100 million for more servers which should see it clear to getting another 50000 servers. By ...

Horse Enters Cycle Race

Cycling 09 May 2008

Here's a hilarious video of a horse that decided to join in a professional cycle race (the 1997 Criterium International, near Toulouse) around ...

Cycle Speedway: Under-16's Championships

BMX 09 May 2008

// Eaton Park, home of Norwich Cycle Speedway Club, hosts the British Under 16 Team Championships on Saturday 10th ...

Zero Power on Standby?

Electricity 06 May 2008

Electronics Weekly reports on a computer monitor that consumes no power on standby. This could save a lot of electricity when mass-deployed ...

Scrap VAT on Oil: Petition

Heating Oil: A Buyer's Guide 03 May 2008

James Cameron has started a petition, to reduce or scrap the VAT on heating oil. The petition closes on 29 October 2008, and so far has had ...

White Grub in Bacton Woods, Norfolk

Animals 03 May 2008

This is a largish white grub we saw on a rest break whilst cycling through Bacton Woods. It was around an inch and a half long.

XP Dynamic Disks

Computing 26 Apr 2008

I had a problem recently with an IDE hard drive formatted with a single NTFS partition, that used to sit in a Windows 2000 machine. Having installed ...

Another Great Session

Giving Blood 25 Apr 2008

So far, giving blood has been an uneventful and pleasant experience, and this (my 21st donation) was no exception. I took Dan and Tristan with ...

The School Run - Dutch Style

Cycling 18 Apr 2008

Here is a video from Copenhagenize.com which shows a typical school run from a cycle commuter's perspective:

Jerboa

Animals 17 Apr 2008

A researcher at the Zoological Society of London has captured footage of the exceedingly shy and endangered Jerboa, a tiny nocturnal mammal found ...

Inside The Googleplex

Computer Programming 17 Apr 2008

So you think every software house is a dimly lit sweatshop crammed with desks, monitors and stressed workers? Well, not at Google it seems. ...

Know How Much Electricity Your Appliances Use

Electricity 16 Apr 2008

The Kill-a-Watt is available from the REUK.co.uk shop, for £19.99 plus £1.95 UK mainland postage. You plug it into a mains socket ...

Budget Helmets

Cycling 14 Apr 2008

Bell Venture Helmet 250g - ?24.99 Met Formula Helmet - ?24.99 Met Volo Helmet - 275g - ?19.99 Specialized Air Force 3 Helmet - ?24.99 Met ...

Oil Prices Stable But High

Heating Oil: A Buyer's Guide 09 Apr 2008

Domestic Heating Oil in the UK is now comfortably at the 50p/L level, and crude's inability to shift below $110 isn't going to bring it down ...

Sudden Death

Rats 09 Apr 2008

Billy, the calmer and more sociable of our two rats, died suddenly this evening. Daniel brought her in from the lounge, saying that she had ...

Chainsaws - Cutting Edge

Solid Fuel Stoves and Central Heating 05 Apr 2008

Lidl's (a discount supermarket) recently had in a batch of electric chainsaws, £45 each plus £10 for a spare chain. I went halves ...

Earth Hour Google Blackout

Climate Change 29 Mar 2008

Google UK is raising awareness of the initiative by showing an inverted search homepage. They also have a page on Earth Hour which mentions ...

Global Switch-off: Bring it on!

Climate Change 29 Mar 2008

Following on from Australia's successful experiment last year, Earth Hour is going global. On 29 March, between 8PM and 9PM (UK time) ...

Harvest energy using a piezoelectric buzzer

Electricity 28 Mar 2008

From ElectronicsWeekly.com, here is an article on producing electricity from vibrations such as body movement: Thanks to the decreasing size ...

Tracker Funds

Finance 27 Mar 2008

List of Tracker Funds at Tracker101.com. iShares contain the same risk as a unit trust, but are listed as stocks and have intra-day trading ...

Fancy New Belkin ADSL Router

Internet Access: UK Broadband 27 Mar 2008

Dabs is taking pre-orders on the Belkin N1 Vision Modem Router, which features a large display that shows your network's broadband speed, computer ...

How to Fall Off a Bike

Cycling 25 Mar 2008

It was pretty icy this morning. Here's footage from my handlebar-mounted camera, showing how I managed to slip over whilst going pretty slowly ...

David Cameron Still Pedalling Hard

Cycling 21 Mar 2008

From MumsNet - David Cameron live webchat, Friday 14th March: Yes, bike is still in use - I ccycled to work twice this week. I always ...

PlusNet go Max Permium

Internet Access: UK Broadband 18 Mar 2008

What's this latest offering? PlusNet Max Premium gives you a boost on your uplink speed, to the business-standard ADSL rate of up to 832Kb/s ...

Financial BMI from Lloyds - Bank Mass Index

Finance 16 Mar 2008

Lloyds TSB has created a 'financial obesity' index, similar to the body mass index for our health, to determine what our financial health is ...

Leah Jane Swindells found safe and well

The Swindells Name 12 Mar 2008

Southport schoolgirl Leah Jane Swindells has been found safe and well.

Killer Cuffed Reliance Guards

The Swindells Name 12 Mar 2008

Craig Swindells, Reliance security guard in Dumfries, was locked in his van with a colleague after being threatened with a homemade knife by ...

Man faces trial over 1980 attacks

The Swindells Name 12 Mar 2008

Peter Swindells, of Holly Bush, Horningsham, near Warminster, has been accused of indecent assaults going back up to 30 years ago.

NHS Chief Information Officer

The Swindells Name 12 Mar 2008

The Department of Health’s acting chief information officer, Matthew Swindells, will talk about the need for more input from IT professionals ...

Tour de France eyes London return

TDF 2007 07 Mar 2008

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/sport1/hi/other_sports/cycling/7279529.stm
London Mayor Ken Livingstone has been in talks with Tour de ...

EDDs Not Made Available After All?

Electricity 28 Feb 2008

I've just had a response back from my electricity provider regarding free provision of EDDs. Here is what Amy Harrison, Customer Care Advisor ...

Smart Meters and EDDs

Electricity 25 Feb 2008

The Energy Retail Association has published advice on Smart Meters, which are gas and electricity meters that provide instant usage data to the ...

Zenith Windows: The Hard Sell

House and Home 22 Feb 2008

I am writing this to let people know what it's like to be given the hard sell by a uPVC installer. One afternoon I was asked by a badged young ...

WS-1000 Keeps Cutting Out

Wind Turbines 22 Feb 2008

These videos show how our wind turbine starts spinning up really well, then almost instantly stops dead again. It definitely looks like the ...

Video Geotagging

Computer Programming 14 Feb 2008

Is it possible to insert geotags into a video stream? Geotags are a long-standing feature of still images, accessed using the EXIF standard ...

Media Center Randomly Changes Channel

Computing 13 Feb 2008

We had a situation recently where our Windows Media Center (running on Vista x64) would change channel and volume without our doing. Some nights ...

Road Rage at Critical Mass

Road Safety and Motoring 08 Feb 2008

There is a report of a road rage incident during a Critical Mass gathering of cyclists. Apparently a car driver decided to ram a cyclist who ...

Windows Vista SP1 Released

Windows Vista 05 Feb 2008

From windowsvistablog.com "Microsoft has said that Windows Vista SP1 is released to manufacturing and it should become available on Windows ...

Leave it Off!

Climate Change 05 Feb 2008

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/sci/tech/7209817.stm
Britons will be asked to "leave it off" by a campaign showing the link between ...

Electricity Price Hikes: Renewables Too!

Electricity 05 Feb 2008

So there isn't a cartel operating in the UK energy market? Good Energy states on its Prices Page that its domestic electricity prices are rising ...

3GB Memory Limit?

Windows Vista 05 Feb 2008

Aparently 3GB is as much as you can have, with a Microsoft Windows system. There is an interesting acticle on MSDN.com, Why Windows Vista on ...

Auto-dimming of Headlights

Road Safety and Motoring 05 Feb 2008

Electronics Weekly has published a story about automatically switching headlight brightness between low and high beam. It is based on the presumption ...

Social Graph API - Google

Web Programming 04 Feb 2008

http://code.google.com/apis/socialgraph/
This is a service defined and provided by Google. Google stores public information on users ...

Logs Ready To Burn

Solid Fuel Stoves and Central Heating 02 Feb 2008

Here is a new delivery of seasoned logs ready to burn, from North Walsham (01692 403512). £70 for 'almost a tonne'.

Ethical Funds Search

Ethical Investments 01 Feb 2008

Here are some useful links to Google's Finance Search: Ethical Funds Environmental Funds

Google Finance Portal

Finance 01 Feb 2008

Google has released a UK oriented finance site, featuring stock and fund prices, exchange rates, news and blogs. It naturally features a search ...

Record Profits from Exxon Mobil

Heating Oil: A Buyer's Guide 01 Feb 2008

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/business/7222414.stm
Oil giant Exxon Mobil reports $40.6bn net profits in 2007, a record for a US ...

Self-Publishing

Book Publishing 31 Jan 2008

You do not have to build your own print room, or even pay enormous fees for large print runs, to publish your own material. There is a great ...

UK start-up claims GPS can be added to all digital cameras

Photography 29 Jan 2008

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2008/01/24/42993/uk-start-up-claims-gps-can-be-added-to-all-digital-cameras.htm
Swindon-based ...

A 100% Solar Home: Mike Strizki

Solar PV Electricity 27 Jan 2008

This is The Hopewell Project, the first Solar-Hydrogen Residence in North America. 56 solar panels provide excessive amounts of energy to Mike ...

Free Ethical Funds Directory

Ethical Investments 24 Jan 2008

http://www.gaeia.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=172
Global Sustainable Investment specialists EIRIS today launched ...

Google Webmaster Central Stats

Web Programming 24 Jan 2008

Search Query Statistics from the Webmaster Central Team show that they rank in the top five for numerous terms such as sitelinks, google webmaster ...

Olympic BMX track opens in Crewe

BMX 24 Jan 2008

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/sport1/hi/olympics/cycling/7194150.stm
An Olympic standard BMX track has opened at Tipkinder Park in Crewe ...

World's Scariest Model Train Wrecks!

Model Railways 24 Jan 2008

Here's a video of the world's worst model train crashes, including never before seen footage from the German underworld:

Bocking Good Fun

Skating 23 Jan 2008

If you think skating is a good fun way of getting about fast, you should look at Bocking. You basically strap large curved springs to your legs ...

Jupiter Ecology Fund

Finance 20 Jan 2008

My own figures for the performance of the Jupiter Ecology Fund don't quite seem to tally with Jupiter's own figures, shown here. .printing3 ...

Road Rage - BBC1

Road Safety and Motoring 17 Jan 2008

On BBC One tonight, London road rage is in the spotlight. It features 4x4 hating and angry 4x4 drivers, cyclists who won't stop at pedestrian ...

Immersion Heaters: Safety Thermal Cutout

House and Home 10 Jan 2008

To avoid the danger of your cold water tank accidentally filling with hot water due to a faulty immersion heater element, check your hot water ...

Petrol Prices in Your Area

Family Car 09 Jan 2008

Do you want to know where the cheapest fuel prices are in your area? PetrolPrices.com tells you just that, for Unleaded, Diesel, LRO (Lead Replacement ...

Possible Change in Rural Speed Limits?

Road Safety and Motoring 07 Jan 2008

ITV's Alastair Stewart on Police, Camera, Action! reports that the Government is considering reducing the default speeds on rural roads. Instead ...

Another BoilerJuice Weekend

Heating Oil: A Buyer's Guide 07 Jan 2008

This is the email from Boilerjuice: The next BoilerJuice Buying Weekend starts at midday this Friday, 5 May. If you need heating oil, don't ...

Matthew Parris - Cyclist's Friend or Foe?

Cycling 04 Jan 2008

Has Matthew Paris done cyclists some good after all? He wrote a column in the Times about how cyclists should be decapitated as penance for ...

Google Logo Celebrates 2008 and TCP/IP

Computing 01 Jan 2008

It's been twenty five years since TCP/IP was officially adopted as an international protocol, and Google has taken the time to create a rather ...