Category Archives: Randomness

Anything and Everything from the annoying to amusing

09/17/11

Windows 8 – Developer Preview

So for the last few years I’ve been sold to the world of Apple…not because of the hype but because it works. Despite what others say the operating system (once you adapt) is far easier to use and far more logical than Windows and especially for the web-design, music creation, video editing, extreme multi-tasking and variety of things I do on my laptop my Mac beats Windows every time…add into the mix that I restart maybe once every 2 weeks and have never re-installed my operating system compared to a daily restart from Windows and at least a re-install every year or so I have to say I like my Mac a lot.

That said because of the amount of Windows users I know it’s inevitable that I will at some point be sat on the latest version of Windows as I fix something for someone. I left Windows at XP and so it’s took me a while to get used to Vista and in turn 7 when I’ve had to use them mostly because things have had their names changed for the hell of it (seriously Microsoft…why re-name everything in control panal?).

So when Microsoft announced the release of a developer preview of Windows 8 I thought I’d download it and install it as a virtual machine on my Mac and I’m really not impressed.

When Apple released OS X Lion in July they talked about it taking the features that worked from their mobile devices and bring them to Mac and generally features like opening a programme where you left it, Mission Control and the optional ‘Launchpad‘ are very nice and good features to move from mobile to computer.

However Microsoft’s attempt is a bit of a fail!

The installation for Windows 8 is quick and easy and that’s always nice however it all goes downhill from there. When you first login you are greeted with the screen pictured at the top of this blog. On one hand it looks modern and clean but on the other it looks like someone’s simply played around with squares and text boxes in publisher!

Then you come to the desktop (pictured right) which looks pretty much the same as Windows 7 (ignore the black bar at the top it’s from my virtual machine programme and not Windows 8). The only real change is the shape of the start bar which has lots it’s circular shape and dimensions added in Vista and gone back to being square and flat…which is a shame cos the circular bit was probably the nicest change that came in with Vista!

The only other change is to the Windows which look more like the style of Microsoft Office which is nice because it keeps things consistant.

However here is the real reason I think Windows 8 is the worst operating system I’ve ever used…

Windows is known for being the most widely used operating system. Minus a few name changes you can go between versions of Windows no problem. Even after not using a Windows OS for 3 years I can stil go on the latest version and understand how to use it…but not so with Windows 8.

The new programs are difficult to exit (I have no idea how to close the control panal or twitter apps I’ve opened) and I had to google how to shut down! 

The shut down process in Windows 8 requires hovering in the big screen start menu until a start thing appears and clicking through 2 menus to find the word ‘Shut Down’….why? Why not just put a ‘Shut Down’ button in the start menu? If I have to google how to shut down a computer when I’ve used them my whole like how is this going to be accessible to someone who isn’t?

Windows 8 is awful. Whilst I know this is a developer preview and therefore not complete or maybe even how it’s going to look I think it’s difficult to use, non-user-friendly and the contrast in styles between the new start menu and the desktop is inconsistant.

I’m keeping my Mac…or Windows XP!

(I fully appreciate that Mr Jones will disagree with this entire post!!!)

01/7/11

2011: Web, Music & Writing

So it’s almost a week since we began 2011 and so far it’s been a pretty good year! For me 2010 was great…beyond the obvious highlight of getting married I was also finally able to put out an album which personally was a huge thing…I don’t really care if people have listened to it but I’m proud that I’ve done it! Alongside that on a work aspect 2010 was great…lots of exciting things happening and all seem to be going well.

So…what does 2011 hold!

Youth Work Resource

My first real aim of 2011 was to give my other website (youthworkresource.com) a much needed overhall and content update. I last did some work to it early in 2010 and just haven’t had the motivation to update it but I committed chunks of last week to it and most of today and finally have loads of new stuff on there including sessions, games and video plus I have the new template working (oh and a twitter account too) – You can visit Youth Work Resource here.

I’m also going to try and make it more of an ongoing project…so I’m going to actually update the blog and add resources on a regular basis!

Music

Just after Christmas I managed to accidentally buy a stage piano which I’m trying to improve with…my piano skills aren’t bad but I’m by no means a Benny Fingers, so in 2011 I’m hoping for a lot of time with hammers and strings (all be they digital!).

On top of that my 1 and only new years resolution is to play at least 1 gig, which might not sound much but for me it’s huge…considering 5 years ago I wouldn’t go near a microphone and the amount of takes vocals on ‘Escape This Town’ took it should be a good but challenging challenge!

Writing

Finally and perhaps more on a musical note I have a new project going on called ’13 months’…the concept is simple…for this year (last December counts) I will write at least 1 song a month with the aim to recording them in January 2012 onwards…it’s an interesting challenge but I love the concept and the idea of capturing a year in music is awesome!

So that’s me and 2011 lined up….let’s begin 2011 week 2!

08/13/10

Update

Hey all,

I’ve updated my template from the one I designed to plug my album…think of it as a sign of things to come in the next few weeks…I’m planning to write a few new posts and get back into blogging again properly.

Until then…Mark

04/22/10

Male Nudity (Gym #2)

I’ve just returned from the gym and there’s one thing that never fails to baffle me about it…the changing rooms!

I’m not a stranger to changing rooms with showers…even changing rooms with communal showers, after all they were present in the school changing rooms back in the day but no one ever used them!

My problem with them is two-fold…

Firstly I’m ten minutes drive from the gym, I have a nice warm shower at home and I’d much rather use my own shower….if I wanted to shower with other men I’d join a rugby team! Don’t get me wrong I’m not scared of male nudity…I’m not in the least bit homophobic and I’m perfectly comfortable in my own sexuality but I’d never willingly choose to see naked men. Give me the choice between naked man and no naked man and I’d be sure to pick the latter.

Secondly if you need to shower in the gym then that’s perfectly fine and if I had to enter the world of naked men in order to clean myself here would be the process I’d go through.

Carefully remove clothes…placing a towel around certain places to cover my modesty (or inadequacy before some funny commenter makes the joke!)…next I would wander into the showers and  turn on the water, carefully checking the temperature. My next move would be to remove towel ensuring it is hooked up in a place both close yet not under the shower! This would be followed by a quick shower before having a quick dry and once again covering modesty and wandering out. I’d then do that thing where you put the essentials on under your towel and so on and so forth revealing as little of myself to the public as possible!

However what many males from many different walks of life seem to do includes letting the inner nudist in them out…there’s no covering up…no walking out the shower with a towel just letting it all hang out in a way only Adam did before he realised he was naked!

So in summary… I don’t understand the need to wander around naked…I could justify a shower but if you have to get naked in the changing rooms be naked for as little as possible! Maybe you’re reading this and thinking I’m a little homophobic…I’m not…just don’t like to see naked men!

(this post is dedicated to Lucy)

04/20/10

Gym

I’ve never been particularly enthusiastic about sports. When I was a child I used to play rounders with a local church group, I spent a month or so with cricket lessons before realising I wasn’t manly enough for a wooden ball to come hurtling at me and of course at primary school I spent a fair amount of time doing the usual primary school sports such as activities involving an egg and a spoon.

Although the above reads like I was a vaguely active child with sport I was never passionate about it. I’ve never (and probably never will) follow a football team and generally to me sport is just sport.

However it wasn’t until I was at high school that a real dislike for sport came about. We had this sports teacher who in reflection was probably just bummed that after whatever he’d spent his life doing he’d wound up teaching kids PE and so decided that the only worthwhile sport to teach boys was to alternate between rugby and football with the occasional indoor ‘beep’ test.

To top it all off I don’t believe he was ever any good at any of the sports…he was slightly over weight and hilariously was took out and injured by the student teacher during my last year and spent a term limping about before realising that limping gave him sympathy and so continued to limp throughout the remaining term…however in his senile state he often forgot which leg he’d injured and so the limping foot varied.

Anyway aside from my rant about my PE teacher it was through this teacher that I gained a passionate dislike for sport and avoided it at all costs…and with the odd exception of a youth group cricket match or table tennis game I continue this inactivity to this day.

So back in January when I considered joining a gym and back on Day 21 of lent finally joined and took the induction session it was with no surprise that a Facebook update about heading to the gym prompted ‘you? the gym?’ and ‘I never thought I’d read the words ‘Mark’ and ‘gym’ in the same sentence’ as responses from shocked friends.

However I have to say that I am really enjoying being a member of the gym…the different machines are good fun and I find it a really good way to escape for an hour with some music at the same time as pushing my body. I’ve found that the treadmill is my favourite of all machines and often find myself returning for an extra 5/10 minutes of running before leaving.

I guess the point of this blog really is to communicate my new found love of the gym, express my general dislike for all things sporty thanks to a senile, over-weight PE teacher (you know who you are!) and mention that I have a new place to escape to when I need to take time out during the day!

04/11/10

London

So in the last week in my blogging break I’ve been to Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Sheffield, South Cave and London…lots of wedding planning done, lots of potential blogs thought of but I’ve resisted the temptation to blog…until now!

I have a love/hate relationship with London…I got quite used to the business of our capital city during my 3 years studying with Oasis with the more-regular-than-I’d-have-liked trips to London…catching a 7:15am train, rushing past the slow moving crowds at Kings Cross Station and shoving my way onto a tube train which could only be described as a business-man mosh-pit.

Whilst I didn’t amazingly enjoy those early mornings, long days and the general business of London I do look back on that time with some fondness…largely the sarcastic comments we’d make during lectures to each other…10 youth workers in 1 place is not a good combination as we seem to put on the persona of the young people we work with!

However despite my dislike for busy places London is a great place to visit occasionally…it’s crawling with interesting stuff to do and places to do and on Friday myself and Jo went down to London to ride the eye and go on the boat cruises (the Christmas present I got for Jo after she talked about wanting to visit London properly).

The London Eye was the view from the office block where I had lectures and so actually riding it was an interesting experience, we had a beautifully clear day and so could see for miles and miles from the top and the experience of being inside this pod looking down upon London was great…although a glass floor may have been the icing on the cake.

Surprisingly though the river boat was my favourite bit of the day….we took the boat from the London Eye to Greenwich and the commentator on the boat was fantastic…he was informative but at the same time interesting mixing his facts with pub guides, sarcastic comments and a generally dry sense of humour.

The other part of London we spent some time in was Camden Market…we visited Camden back in January and the market there is fantastic but continues my love/hate relationship with London. The hundreds of stalls are great to browse through, the smells of the Chinese, African, Mexican and numerous other foods are fantastic and make you hungry and some great little shops hidden within the madness.

The problem with Camden is that all the sellers are very pushy which tends to put me off having a proper browse because you feel under pressure and whilst for many people I suspect this sells plenty for me it just puts me off and I wander away!

The best bit of Camden was this independent music shop on the main street full of records and CD’s…I walked away with Blood Sugar Sex Magik (Chili Peppers) and Welcome the night (the Ataris) for £1 each…bargain!

To conclude this post here’s some photos….

03/27/10

Day 39: Mflow

A friend on twitter posted about a new programme called ‘mflow’ the other day wondering if it would be the next Spotify. I have since requested an invite to mflow and had a chance to preview it and whilst the reviews talk about it being a cross between Spotify and Twitter I seriously don’t think it’s the next big thing!

The interface is very similar to Spotify but with the addition an an ‘inbox’ where your friends can recommend music to you as can mflow. Songs recommended to you in this inbox can be previewed in full…but that’s where the good stops!

The majority of previews on mflow are 30 second snippits which I can already do on iTunes if I want to listen to part of the song and so perhaps the only extra function that mflow offers is the ability to recommend music to friends however if I want to do this I can already text them, mention it to them in person, tweet them or facebook them so whilst it’s nice of mflow to combine the two for me I’d much rather listen to songs in full on Spotify, get music recommendations from friends by Facebook or Twitter and not clog up my computer with another application.

Mflow? no no

03/25/10

Day 37: Facebook Fun!

I’ve just returned from the gender day I mentioned yesterday and will blog on it properly tomorrow however today ‘The Sun’ has an article with some fun things from Facebook so I thought I’d share on and link you to the others…they’re vaguely amusing, although my favourite Facebook group is still ‘I hate it when you’re out with MC Hammer and he won’t let you touch anything’ (I didn’t join it!)

Article Link (if you can call it an article)

and my favourite…

03/22/10

Day 34: Charity Shops!

On Friday I headed into Beverley to get a few bits…Beverley is about the same distance from me as Hull and much more relaxing to wander around and smaller. Whilst there I past a small bookshop called ‘Jacobs Well’ which is a charity bookshop with a small Christian bookshop attached to it.

Whilst the Christian section was a bit naff the rest of the shop was amazing…containing hundreds of books with a nice ‘booky’ aroma about the place I spent quite some time browsing and was especially impressed with the CD’s which seemed to consist of all the singles I owned as a child and their shelf upon shelf of Christian books.

I left the shop having spent £5 on a CD single of ‘You only get what you give’ (New Radicals), a beasty New Bible Commentary Revised and individual commentaries on Revelation (part 1), Revelation (part 2), a commentary on the letters to Timothy, Titus and Philemon, a commentary on the letters to James and Peter and a commentary on the letters to John and Jude…plus a book containing 44 John Wesley sermons….absolute bargain shop!

03/20/10

Day 32: Got No Soul

Since starting lent I have not purchased a single thing from a supermarket however I have been in ASDA on one occasion!

Today I needed to go to the Apple Store in Meadowhall and had some time to kill at the same time. This is all well and good but Meadowhall is one of my least favourite places…it’s big, there’s no logical order and you can barely move.

The thing I’ve noticed about both Meadowhall and Supermarkets in comparison to using the butchers, farm shop etc is that there’s a distinct lack of soul. When I go into a supermarket to shop everything’s very plain and impersonal. There’s not really a sense of product expertise and I tend to find myself wanting to get out as soon as I possibly can…I run out of energy and patience very quickly in a supermarket.

Comparing this to using the local shops the experience is very different…I’ve seen the same staff in the butchers, farm shop, bakers etc…they all know about their products and it’s a fairly relaxing buying process.

I’d elaborate on this more but having got home at 3 last night and having been rudely awaken by the builders (not the dustmen) at 8 my eyes are literally closing…so I conclude supermarkets and huge shopping centres with duplicate shops have no soul.

(except you Apple store…you’re lovely!)

03/19/10

Day 31: Christian Agony Aunts

I’m personally not remotely a fan of the Christian sub-culture whereby we have a ‘Christian’ alternative for everything for example want some shoes? We have Jesus sandals…Like rock music? There’s a Christian band who sound just like your favourite band (just not as well produced and only very vaguely sound like them!) and want a magazine? Try Christianity magazine for all the juicy Christian gossip…erm…news

Every so often I get handed magazine cuttings from Christian magazines and I have to say whilst they are given with the best intentions they do make me laugh! Recently I was given a page from Christianity Magazine titled ‘Sex and singles’ from their ‘Dear Maggie’ agony aunt section.

Now it’s not that I disagree with the answers given but the problem with a Christian Agony Aunt in a widely read Christian magazine is you can’t be realistic…your answers have to match up to the most conservative Christian doctrine imaginable and so here are the three questions given in this article and a summarised version of the answers.

Question 1: I am now in my 30s and a virgin. Even though I believe that being a virgin has been the right thing. I dread the day one of my secular friends of acquaintances brings up the sex topic in relation to me. How can I deal with this?

Answer 1: (Summary) – don’t worry about it!

Question 2: Is it ok to kiss random guys in clubs to let some sexual tension out? Is this ok for a Christian?

Answer 2: (Summary) – No

Question 3: In your experience, how much does the physical influence the relationship side of a relationship?

Answer 3: The answer didn’t draw in any of Aunt Maggie’s ‘experience’

Whilst these questions in a secular context such as The Sun’s Dear Deirdre would have been answered in a secular way and very unhelpful to the writers I can’t help but feel that those who wrote in knew the answer before they asked it…there’s not really any advice…just the answer you’d expect.

A bit of reality might be helpful!