Random Thoughts

Busking. It’s all about being different.

Drew — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:04:46 +0000

So. You want to try your hand at busking? You need a unique selling point. OK, to go beyond that you need two, dress as a chicken and play a Pianica.

Windows 7 “God Mode”

Drew — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:57:03 +0000

I’m a big fan of Windows 7, it has finally moved me from XP on my work machines. However I still haven’t quite got the locations for the settings stuck in the old memory and find myself hunting for them every now and then. I was going to blog about a piece of software called [...]

Installing Windows 7 on a Netbook Using USB

Drew — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:12:57 +0000

I’ve recently acquired a Netbook (Asus EeePC 1005HA to be precise) and in common with many such devices it came preloaded with XP. Now up until 6 months ago I’d probably have left it at that but having used Windows 7 for those last months I really didn’t want to go back. So I decided [...]

Cool Large Hadron Collider Photos

Drew — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:42:59 +0000

The Boston Globe has a piece on the restart of the Large Hadron Collider that has some fantastic photos including some of the damage done at the original startup. The scale of this thing never ceases to amaze.

The article and the rest of the photos can be found here.

OS X Screen Grab Shortcut Reminder

Drew — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:13:59 +0000

When putting together the earlier post I needed to grab some shots of the process and as always I’d forgotton the OS X screen grab shortcut keys so I thought I’d stick them down here.

Command-Shift-3 will capture the whole screen and save it Command-Shift-4 perhaps more usefully will present crosshairs to allow the capture of a [...]

Setting Up Snow Leopard VPN from PCF File

Drew — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:54:48 +0000

Having recently upgraded to Snow Leopard one of the things that stopped working was my Cisco VPN client for access to my work network. From reading around it seems a reinstall should solve this but rather than go down that route I decided to look to the built in VPN features instead.

The starting point for [...]

Colours Made Easy

Drew — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:09:23 +0000

For the non-arty one of the hardest things to do when putting together websites is to get just the right colours. For the criminally untalented, like me, there are loads of free css templates but when using these there is always the desire to choose different colours that make the site stand out. Even if [...]

Kids + Puddle + Car = Cruel but Funny

Drew — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:00:00 +0000

My cat is trying to kill me apparently.

Drew — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:19:15 +0000

I’ve just taken a quick online test and made a disturbing discovery

I’m not going to sleep tonight! Luckily there are more tests for me to take at Hey Quiz

Tattershall Castle Photos

Drew — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:26:00 +0000

Tattershall Castle

Originally uploaded by drewkeavey

Popped over to Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire today. I’ve put some photos up here.

TED++

Drew — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:41:34 +0000

I’ve posted before about how big a fan I am of the TED conference videos. I have recently stumbled across a similar source of talks, fora.tv.

The breadth and depth of subject matter is very similar to TED, the main difference is that FORA gathers talks from a wide range of different conferences held around the [...]

Beautiful HD Wildlife Videos – For Free

Drew — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:20:39 +0000

I like me some wildlife shows and one of the joys of HD TV has been the gradual move to shooting wildlife documentaries in a format that truly does the subject justice.

Now there is a great free source of videos (and podcasts) that cover a huge variety of subjects. Earth-Touch.com releases videos daily and has [...]

Toothpaste. Sleeping People. Artist. Genius.

Drew — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:14:11 +0000

Toothpaste Art on Passed Out People – Watch more Funny Videos

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Drew — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:42:04 +0000

I have some friends who, given a choice between spending money and creating a life threatening Heath Robinson type device will always go for the latter. However they have nothing on the people featured at thereifixedit.com. A wonderful selection of “projects” from people who clearly have no regard for their lives or the lives of [...]

An End to Coin Tossing

Drew — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:14:19 +0000

Decisions. They can be tricky. There are lots of techniques to help though, tossing a coin, rolling a dice, eeny, meeny, miny, moe (which bizarrely has a Wikipedia entry!). There must be a better way.

Well now there is. Hunch.com is a site that guides you through the decision making process. Whether the decision is life [...]

Interesting Font Comparator

Drew — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:27:28 +0000

I have to confess that I have an irrational hatred of the Arial typeface. I have no explanation for this, I just find it intensely annoying. It could be because for years it was the default in Microsoft Word and so a) it was one that was seen most often and b) it [...]

Pig Masterbation and 9 Other Orgasm Facts

Drew — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:13:45 +0000

Another TED talk. This time by the excellent Mary Roach who discusses 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Orgasms following the release of her book Bonk: The Curious Coupling Of Sex and Science . As always with Roach she has researched the topic with more depth than many actual researchers in the field.

Her previous books [...]

Derbyshire Photos

Drew — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:26:00 +0000

I went for a walk yesterday around the Longshaw Estate, a National Trust run area in North Derbyshire. On the way back home I called into Eyam and had a wander around the surrounding area. Every time I go into the Peak District, well actually anywhere in Derbyshire, I can’t help but think I really [...]

Interesting Video Projects

Drew — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:56:49 +0000

I was catching up on some TED talks* when I came across this one from Yann Arthus-Bertrand, a French photographer/filmaker and environmentalist, which included references to a couple of projects that he has worked on recently.

The 6 Billion Others project is a fascinating view of the peoples of the world. A group of directors were [...]

Hardwick Hall Photos

Drew — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:51:12 +0000

Went over to Hardwick Hall, just off the M1 Jct 29 near Chesterfield. Have a few photos on Flickr.