Monday, 31 March 2008

Someecards.com cards crack me up! im addicted....

So Julia Roy at A Digital Girl Blog blogged about Someecards.com and ever since i have been hooked. Sorry Julia don't mean to copy post about someecards but i cant help myself. Like Julia i have been reading and cracking up taking in the inappropriateness of these cards. They rock! and they are awesomely funny!

Saturday, 29 March 2008

Year of the Dragon....

Having just read in my blogger profile that i was born in the year of the dragon i thought i would find out what it meant. So i googled it.

I found a Chinese Culture Site (www.c-c-c.org/chineseculture/zodiac/Dragon.html) and this is what it said.

The Year of the Dragon.

1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000

People born in the Year of the Dragon are healthy, energetic, excitable, short-tempered, and stubborn. They are also honest, sensitive, brave and they inspire confidence and trust. Dragon People are the most eccentric of any in the eastern zodiac. They neither borrow money nor make flowery speeches, but they tend to
be soft-hearted which sometimes gives others the advantage over them.

Now there's a thing eh, if i were to overhear someone reading that aloud i would almost be sure that they were talking about me. Its me to a tee!!

Canada's Next Great Prime Minister

So there i was a couple of days ago sitting recovering from jetlag and there it was exactly as i predicted the first legal download available from a major tv network available using the dreaded Torrent. Canada's Next Great Prime Minister Mininova listed it seeded fairly well. This may not be the kind of program that i would normally watch but because it was a first i thought i should. Quality was ok and all in all its as it should be. CBC should be congratulated on being the first to release programs in this manner.

Here is a Link to some work i posted at a site called groundreport. about this very subject. I just hope that more of these broadcasters take note and start publishing programs in this manner. Include adverts too. We would welcome them if it meant that programs were available in torrents.

Well Done CBC.

A little about me.....

Hello. My name is Darren Foster. I am going to bore you a little now with an introduction as to who i am and what i am about hopefully.

I am 31 and reside in Cornwall in the United Kingdom. I am a Computer Repair Guy/Tech Consultant. My first computer was a ZX48 Spectrum with the little rubber keys and a tape cassette drive you had to plug in and listen to it squeal as it loaded your game. Sadly i don't have it anymore unless my folks have it stuffed in the loft and I've not seen it. Anyway i fell in love with computers then at 14 years old. I used to buy a speccy mag back then and try my hand at programming and creating my own games. That sparked an early interest.

I spent the first three years of working life at a Tandy store. Where i would sell Amiga's and the Amstrad PCW's. They also had that Tandy 1000 in the back room to do the accounts on. In those days we were also selling 386 and 486 processor PC's with next to no memory and 5 1/4" Floppy Disks. How things have moved on :-)

I then spent a good 7 years working on Yachts. Small yachts, Superyacht's and huge ships. I became fascinated with sailing and in my heart today i miss it like crazy. I am still looking for an excuse to get out on the water but as yet haven't found the right boat but she will come along. Maybe my own at some point.

I love to travel and see the world and have been all over Europe, America and Australia recently.

Today i have a small business working from home taking care of my customers computer aches and pains. I started out by helping someone fix their computer and i was unemployed at the time. I had my own PC at the time and was always helping someone with their computer issues. Secretly i have always enjoyed helping people with their computer woes. Anyway this person that i was helping said "I dont know why you dont do this properly and charge people for doing it!" This planted the seed i thought about it for about a month. And decided to go for it. So to start out i simply did what your not supposed to do and that was to spam every business in my town with the hope that someone might respond and respond they did. Out of about 200 emails that i sent out i got about 10 Reply's. I gave those ten customers ten business cards and i still have those customers to date. Giving ten business cards to your customers is vital because if your customer is happy with your service they will pass on your card. The trick is to make sure you have a happy customer every time to ensure a thriving business.

This blog is about me and some of the wonderful things that computers can do for us and the pain they induce when things don't work as we would have wanted them. Anyway i hope i didn't bore you with my introduction.