Category: Random

I decided to create a Firefox search plugin for my website, but I got carried away and replicated all the searches available from my website toolbar. If you are interested you can get them from:

https://oracle-base.com/misc/firefox.php

They’re pretty simple to create, so if you want to make some of your own, follow the Mozilla-Search Plugin Documentation.

Eddie Awad has some search plugins available on his blog. His install page is here:

http://awads.net/firefox/plugins/oradocs.htm

Happy searching…

Cheers

Tim…

I had last week off work, so today I’m playing catch-up. I had big plans for last week, but I spent most of the week on my bed watching daytime shows like Diagnosis Murder and Quincey. It’s like putting your brain in a blender…

Not long until the Christmas holidays 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

On the right-hand side of this page you will see a list of favourite blogs. Well, to say that list is out of date is an understatement. The “real” list is getting a little too long to fit on the toolbar so I’m just going to add a link to a page on my website that lists all of them:

https://oracle-base.com/links/NewsAndBlogs.php

Thank heavens for bloglines!

Cheers

Tim…

Last night I finished rewriting all the administration functions for my website.

I converted the main site from ASP & Access to PHP & mySQL a couple of years ago, but up until this week all the administration code was still in ASP & Access. There was no real need to change it, but it’s done now and it’s much neater. Nobody can see the changes, but I get a warm glow knowing it’s sorted 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

My company (who shall remain nameless) has recently been take over by a massive US company (who shall remain nameless). We have a visit from the European head of IT today so I have to wear a suit.

… brief pause …

He was just in the room. So, I had to put on a suit for 10 seconds.

I’m not customer facing so I get to wear regular clothes, like jeans. Not today. It’s important I’m in a suit for a 10 second sideways glance 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

When I first started working freelance, about 8 years ago, I got a bank loan to buy a car. I paid the loan off ahead of schedule and about 2 years ago closed my account with the bank. Imagine my surprise when I recently received a letter saying they owed me £340. Apparently I paid all the payment protection on the loan in advance and they forgot to refund me when the loan agreement finished early.

I’ve been having a little trouble with the knuckle of my right big toe. I went to the chiropodist and was told I had arthritis in the joint. I’ve got to have some ‘devices’ made to fit into my shoes to manage my foot movement and hopefully slow its progression. It seems all that stomping around barefoot at Karate isn’t the best thing in the world for your feet. What is the cost of this treatment? In total £345.

You’ve gotta laugh 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

I finally got round to updating ORACLE-BASE.com so that it’s XHTML 1.1 and CSS compliant. The site was already “XHTML 1.0 Transitional” and CSS compliant, so it wasn’t a massive job. Most of the work involved updating 4 include files. I’m sure there are a few pages that slipped though the net, but I’ll pick those up over the coming weeks.

Regular users of the site will see that hardly anything has changed, it was just a revision exercise for my own amusement 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

I’m experimenting with Google Reader as a replacement for BlogLines.

So far it doesn’t look too promising. I’ve had a bit of trouble with the subscription management. It occasionally fails, then works fine?? Also, the interface is a bit…. crappy. In this case the label “beta” is definitely appropriate. Some bits of the interface look badly formatted. I thought this was a firefox issue, but it’s the same on IE also.

What I do like it the idea of it presenting a reading list, rather than a list of blogs, some with new posts. In this respect it’s a little more like a news feed, rather than a list of blogs.

I’ll give it a go for a couple of days then make my decision. Google usually hit the mark so I can only assume this is the start of something better.

Cheers

Tim…

I found this funny: Nose Send

Young guys be warned, it’s going to happen, along with grey stubble!

Cheers

Tim…

There seems to be a strange pattern to the article ratings on my website. When I put a new article live it nearly always gets a 5 star rating by the first couple of reviewers, then over time drops to somewhere around the 3 star zone. I wonder if I have a couple of fans who give me 5 stars no matter what, then the realists kick in and it gets pulled down to a more realistic rating. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…