Just found a mass of images on an old hard drive I thought I'd lost including lots of my digital artwork. This one's called paranoia


image copyright no unauthorised reproduction.

Ringo Starr to become superhero

However he does have to go buy a new cape...

BBC NEWS Entertainment TV and Radio Ringo Starr to become superhero

Ringo birthplace to be bulldozed

It's curtains for Ringo's birthplace...

BBC NEWS England Merseyside Ringo birthplace to be bulldozed

No historical significance, The Beatles - Three musicians and a drummer?

Some people have way too much time on their hands

And too much fluff in their bodily nooks!

The Incredible World of Navel Fluff

Picassa, help for the disorganised photographer

If, like me, you take lots of digital photographs and are, again like me, somewhat indiscriminate when it comes to filing them away then Picassa is for you. Like Google earth this is another free application developed by the boffins at google. When you first install Picassa it scans all the drives attached to your PC (including network files) looking for image files in most of the popular formats. Those paraniod types will be pleased to hear that you can specify exactly which locations picassa is allowd to scan!

Once the full scan has finished Picassa displays thumbnails of all the images it has found in an easy to use interface which includes basic image manipulation tools, organisational tools and provides the ability to post your photos directly to your blog or share them with friends and family.

Whilst it could never be classed as a primary graphics application, Picassa is a godsend when you're looking for that killer image you know is lurking somewhere in one of those random folders you dropped onto your PC nine months ago. I for one couldn't live without it...

It's a virtual world...

My favorite toy of the moment is Google Earth.

How do you fancy being able to see a virtual planet earth floating in
front of you awaiting your command? At the flick of a mouse you spin
the globe around to the general area that interests you, double click
on a country and within seconds you are zoomed in to view high
resolution ariel images of your home town... well at least if you live
in the USA! Here in the UK the story is a little different as most of
the imagery is a bit on the low resolution side, a situation I'm sure
google will improve over time... (guys?)

One thing that you'll probably need is a broadband connection as the images are downloaded as required (otherwise I guess the install would be huge!!)

If I were a geography teacher (which thankfully I'm not) this piece of kit would be number one on my list of must haves. As it is I've lost count of the hours I've spent (wasted) just browsing this little green and blue ball we all live on...

Now I'm a self confessed google fan, the google guys and gals have produced some pretty cool free software over the last year or so picassa, hello and gmail (from where I'm posting this) to name but a few. Now a cynic might say that this is no more than the natural progression of the viral marketing model driven by a need to increase brand awareness. Whilst this may be true who really cares? I'm already well aware of the brand and the google software offerings really do do what they say on the tin. It all works (even the beta stuff most of the time) and it's all free, at least for the time being...

In search of charity

Every now and then I stumble upon something that restores my faith in humanity. One such "something" found its way to my browser last week. The Rectifi search engine www.rectifi.org.uk is the brain child of one Jonny Platt a 22 year old student of Development Studies at Sussex University. Like other search engines Rectify searches for websites based on search terms entered by the user, also like other engines it displays relevant "sponsered" adverts, however unlike other search engines the revenue generated by these paid for adverts is donated to charity. Additionally Recify also offers a price comparison service (much like kelkoo) and access to ebay auctions. Both these services also generate revenue for charity. If there's a better way to generate money for charity without actually having to do anything I'd like to know what it is!