DougWeb – Doug's home on the Web

PC World, the UK’s largest chain of computer superstores is to stop selling floppy disks once their stock has run out.

Honestly, I didn’t even realise you could still buy them – I haven’t needed or wanted one since about 1999!

Anyway, I suppose it’s the end of an era and all that…

(paraphrased)

This is a security announcement. For security reasons, flash photography is forbidden on the station. If you wish to take photographs, you may do so with flash turned off.

Wonders who/what/why/how brought inspired that announcement

Thursday night, whilst waiting for the trains to restore themselves to semi-normality, I went to the official opening of the Jester Bar (their bar-within-a-bar) at The Cross Kings with a few people from work. To celebrate the occasion (and bring in the customers!), they had free food and free entertainment.

They didn’t just have typical pub entertainment either. They had some very impressive magicians. And a creepy vampire guy, who when he wasn’t on his perch (often upside-down), played stalker. He was quite impressive actually.

Everyone else who went considers it a brilliant night out. I happen to agree with them completely.

Photo highlights

Creepy vampire guy having a rest
Levitating a cigarette
Bloke wondering what the hell kind of pub he just walked into
Creepy vampire guy scaring Bridget for the umpteenth time
Bridget and Tracy demonstrating what they like to do to random guys they meet in bars

I’ve often wanted to one of those people who take pictures of random things that they come across. The problem is that I’ve never had a camera that I’ve been able to accomplish that task with.

March 2004

I bought my first camera (a Nikon Coolpix 4300).

It has always taken fairly decent pictures, but has a couple of really annoying features:

• In ‘auto’ mode, the camera never stops autofocusing. This wouldn’t be so bad, except the autofocus is noisy.
• It’s built like a brick. It’s 52mm (2″) deep – and that’s when switched off and the lens retracted. It’s also quite heavy. It is definately not pocket-sized. By the time I’d have found the camera at the bottom of a bag, I’d have probably missed the opportunity to photograph whatever it was I wanted to in the first place. So unless I was going somewhere I knew I wanted to photograph, my camera stayed at home…

May 2006

I bought my current mobile phone – a Nokia N80.

One of the reasons I chose this phone was the 3-megapixel camera (with flash). However, that plan went down the drain as soon as I started using the camera – it’s shockingly bad. I wasn’t expecting great things from it, but it doesn’t even have an adjustable focus (auto or manual). Combined with a very slow shutter, this means that it’s generally not worth even attempting a photo. Especially when it’s dark (I learnt that lesson the hard way…)

January 2007

I bought a Fujifilm FinePix F31fd.

It’s pocket-sized, it takes high quality pictures and it’s easy to use. I’m impressed.

Comparison

So, having bought a new camera, I wanted to test it out against my existing 2. The results are below (N80, Coolpix 4300, FinePix F31fd). The pictures were all taken at a resolution of 3megapixels (which is the best the N80 can do).

As you can see, the picture from my phone isn’t really worth having. And although the Coolpix 4300′s output is perfectly acceptable, the FinePix F31fd has picked up a lot more fine detail (as well as having colours that are pretty much spot-on). So I’m more than happy with my upgrade.

Now to find something interesting to take a photo of!

Went for my annual checkup yesterday.

As usual, they were running late.

As usual, I was told that my teeth are absolutely fine.

As usual, my ten minute appointment was actually over in 2 minutes.

However, this time I was charged £15.50 (last year it was was £5.84). Whilst not quite Beckham-esque, it’s certainly not a bad rate for the dentist. Especially when the NHS will be giving him some money as well (the average rate for ’1 unit of dental activity’ is £24). That’s £20/minute!

The situation

• Take a large voluntary organisation’s online shop
• Add a 20% discount for members of said organisation – provided that they supply valid membership details
• Add a box to the checkout screen that asks for a membership ID
• Add another box to the checkout screen that asks for the name of the entity possessing the membership if it’s not the person placing the order (because memberships are normally in the name of an employer, and not the employee who happens to placing the order).

The Result?

• Approximately 50% of our customers can cope with this
• 50% can’t.
  • Approx 25% manage it after they see a big red error message that explicitly tells them that if the membership isn’t in their own name, that they really ought to be filling in the box marked ‘membership name’ and not leaving it blank.
  • Approx 15% manage it on their 2nd/3rd/4th and in one case 6th attempt.
  • About 5% manage to fill in the name OK, but the membership ID they supply bears absolutely no resemblance to anything correct
  • About 2-3% make a typo that is quickly corrected
  • The rest just give up after a couple of attempts

Why does this worry me?

Several people in the office have looked at the layout/wording on the checkout page, and concluded that there’s nothing wrong with it. However 50% of people trying to purchase something fail miserably at basic reading comphrension. And these are the people that look after young kids whilst their parents are out at work…

I discovered last night at a birthday party that I love Cherry Lambrini¹

¹Yes I know Lambrini is a girl’s drink, but it was free alcohol…

1 x Windows Vista Ultimate Edition
1 x 500Gb Hard Drive

Total Cost (inc. VAT) £23

To say that I’m happy with that would be something of an understatement. Unfortunately I can’t tell you how to get the same deal, because it’s exclusive to myself – my supplier owed me a big favour.

Last year, I mentioned the 2006 predictions of some bloke named “Professor Bill McGuire” who is a “disasters expert” for the Benfield Hazard Research Centre.

Let’s see how many he got right…

1. Probable collapse of the Gulf Stream. Well that didn’t happen.
2. A definate Flu pandemic. Whoops.
3. Failure of the flood defences in the South East. Nope
4. Rise in sea levels. Yes…but I don’t think anyone’s particular scared by last years rise
5. Major Thames Valley windstorm. OK then…
6. Strategic Earthquake. Earthquakes have a strategy?
7. Climate-perturbing volcanic eruption. Didn’t happen
8. South coast tsunami – think we missed that one
9. Sellafield explosion and fall-out. Nope
10. Terrorist detonation of 1kt nuclear device in London. Fairly sure that one didn’t happen either.

Not a brilliant success rate then…

1. Blog more
2. Move out of my parent’s house

That’s it really. I’m not fat, I don’t smoke and I’m not an alcoholic.

Happy New Year!