A Bag Of Spiders

Tell you what though, spambots seem to be getting more and more sophisticated.

Going through the millions and millions (1025) comments awaiting moderation I was almost compelled to click on some of the links contained within. Almost, mind.

A recurring theme was an incredible unlucky guy who seemed to have got several dozen viruses, and was now asking for help in dealing with them. The comments were almost plausible, and all different, until you got to the end where there was a link sending you to a canadian pharmacist site promising the best prices for Viagra.

Not being funny mate, but this isn’t exactly a tech support site, and even if it was im hardly likely to start emailing you advice on how to sort your virus problem out based on you posting a comment. No offense like.

Hello once again!

It seems like years since I last updated this thing (Well, months anyway)

I feel a little bit guilty that I haven’t kept things up to date, mostly because I have been so busy with uni and stuff, but also because I am inherantly lazy. But there you go.

I instantly regretted not keeping this blog up to date when I found the number of unapproved comments waiting for me – over a thousand. Guess how many contained links to dodgy sites? Most of em.

So, what have I been up to since my last post? Well, lots of coursework. Coursework, coursework and more coursework really. Ive recently completed an 18 week systems analysis project. Ill spare you the details as it really wasn’t the most interesting of pieces, but it has really consumed my time.

This week I have been working quite a lot on my SQL project. We need to create a database for a pharmaceutical company. I guarantee that it is every bit as interesting as it sounds. But I found this cartoon earlier this week which tickled me: (Original: xkcd.com)

Apologies for the lack of recent posts on this thing. I have been pre-occupied with the move to Nottingham and the starting of University.
Nevertheless, I have now started Uni, and although it has been a slow start over the last couple of weeks, the pace is now starting to quicken. Im sure that before long, the pace will be as fast as I can handle.
Ill post again when I get home as am currently writing this from the union bar, and its quite noisy!!!

I went down to the pub to watch the United – Arsenal match this evening. it was the first time I have watched a live match in a pub this season – it kind of felt like the season was starting for the first time all over again for me. It was good to be back in the pub – last season I hardly missed a game, always watching from the same position at the back of the pub, with a few ever-present United fans. Kind of like my own season ticket…

The pub was full to the brim – as you’d expect for such a high profile tie as this. What was slightly surprising though, was the ration of United fans to Arsenal fans. The Gooners seemed to outnumber us by five to one!

This ratio was never highlighted more than when Arsenal scored the first goal of the game, just before half time. They were perhaps unlucky not to get a penalty moments before the goal was scored, when Fletcher went in to Arshavin rather untidily. Some might say therefore, that justice was done when the same player hammered in a shot from over 20 yards out. A neat shot from the Russian, to be sure, but I think Foster should really have done better than he did and kept the ball out.

In any case, Arsenal were the happier team going into half time. United’s tactics of playing an extra man in midfield and playing Rooney up front as the lone striker did not seem to be troubling Arsenal much.

Arsenal could have wrapped the game up altogether the other side of half time – Van Persie’s shot from 6 yards out looked certain to be going in, but from a great reflex save from Foster, which certainly helped to redeem his earlier mistake.

It was to prove a pivotal moment of the game, for not long after that Rooney was brought down by Alumnia in the box to concede a penalty. It was somewhat unnecessary on Alumnia’s part, for Rooney already seemed to be losing touch of the ball before the tackle. However, this did not change the fact that it was a penalty.

Rooney stepped up to take the penalty, and did not fluff his lines. Why he did not step up against Burnley the other week ill never know.

With United right back in it, it was game on, and they did not have to wait long to go ahead. Ryan Giggs floated a free kick into the box, only for Diaby to get on the end of it and put it past Alumnia into his own net! A wonderful header it was too, any player would have been proud of it – had it been in the right net!

By now of course, the mood in the pub was somewhat dampened compared to what it was, and the same can be said also for the Arsenal technical area. Wenger was understandably not amused. He was about to become even less amused. Not long after the third goal Arshavin limped off in some discomfort after chasing a ball from Van Persie.

In the end, United appeared to be happy to settle for what they had, and seemed to take their foot off the pedal towards the end of the match. It nearly cost them dear.
The ref had added 5 minutes onto the end of the half, and it was in the last of these minutes that the net bulged again – for Arsenal. Cue wild celebrations in the pub.

I was unmoved, however, for I had noticed just before the ball was sent goalbound by Van Persie, that the ref had blown for offside. I seemed to be the only one in the pub that did. It took some 30 seconds for the Gooners dominating the tables in front and to the side of me to realize their mistake. Oh how I laughed.

My laughter – which started as a soft chuckle soon became a bellylaugh – for Arsene “I Didn’t See It” Wenger obviously thought it was a goal, and promptly took out his frustrations on a nearby water bottle. His hissy fit did not go unnoticed with the fourth official, who wasted no time in grassing him up to the ref – who sent him to the stands!

Old Trafford enjoyed that! The image of Wenger standing up in the stands surrounded by piss taking Reds is almost worth the price of a season ticket in itself.

Clashes between United and the Gooners are rarely dull affairs, and this one turned out to be no exception. Although United can be happy they drew first blood in the “big four” clashes, I think its fair to say that they did get the rub of the green. Arsenal will no doubt feel that they should have got something from the match but hey! At the end of the day it’s all about scoring goals. And we scored more than them!

I woke up this morning to some very unwelcome news, the news that Namanja Vidic might be pining for a move to Barcelona.

This news is being reported in a couple of newspapers, but with different angles. The Sun quotes Vidic’s adviser as saying that it is his “dream” to play for Barcelona. Meanwhile, over at the Daily Express these quotes are being denied by the same adviser.

According to the Express Vidic’s adviser, Paolo Fabbri, says that he was in fact misquoted and that his client is happy in Manchester. He does confirm he is intending to come to England to have what he describes as “a routine chat” with United officials shortly.

A “routine chat”, eh? It sounds to me that the adviser is just trying to lay the groundwork for a possible new contract negotiation. I know how these things go. You stir up a bit of a hornets nest, create the impression the player is looking for a move away, in order for the club to offer more favourable terms to persuade the player to stay.

If this is the case, and I hope it is, then the paymasters at Old Trafford should make it a priority that he remains. Vidic is an integral part of the United team, and every time we play without him the defence looks shakier than when he is playing. The partnership of him and Ferdinand has over the past couple of seasons been solid.

I wonder if there might be more to this story than meets the eye. I hear rumours that his wife is not happy in Manchester, and that she would prefer to live in Spain. If these rumours are true, then we have a problem. In this scenario it will only be a matter of time before wifey gets her own way, in my opinion.

I don’t buy the idea that United are not in a position to compete for honours this season following the departure of Ronaldo and Tevez, but if Vidic were to go as well, we would definately have problems.

…a Flash game called Cargo Bridge, made by Limex Games.

The idea of the game is to build bridges using a selection of tools such as connectors and walkways, to allow a number of people to cross safely, and walk back across carrying a number of different items of varying weight.

This game is incredibly addictive, and also hard. I have so far only managed to get to level 18 – and ill be very interested to see if anybody can get past this! I am aware that there are walkthrough videos available on youtube, but I think that missed the point!

Cargo Bridge - The Main Game Screen

The Bridge Design Screen

I have been playing more flash games recently, due to my laptop seemingly overheating whenever I try to play full 3d gamage such as Fallout 3. That is a situation I should really get around to resolving, while my laptop is still within warranty. But with ferociously addictive games such as Cargo Bridge out there, I have not been in any rush to do this. Give it a go!

Play Cargo Bridge (Via Limex Games)

UPDATE 20:42: It has been brought to my attention that this game was not in fact developed by Gambrinous Games, but in fact Limex Games. I have updated the link to point to the original publisher. Many thanks to the guest who brought this to my attention via the comments, I am happy to set the record straight.

Now that the dust has settled on recently released Firefox 3.5, I have finally been able to get all of my addons working again. One of the major (only?) downfalls with Firefox is that quite often after a major update, addons that you have come to rely on or use regularly cease to work properly, or at all. This is only a temporary problem, as most of the popular addons are updated by their developers quite quickly following a new release.

Anyway, I thought i’d share a list of the addons I use regularly, and why. These are in no particular order.

1. StumbleUpon

Have you ever opened Google wanting find something different to look at in your daily surfing, but instead just suffered from “Google block”? StumbleUpon is a toolbar designed to stop that.
Once a free account is created and the toolbar downloaded, you are asked to provide details of which type of websites you like looking at. Once this is completed you are ready to go!

The main buttons on the toolbar are as follows:

The all important “Stumble!” button – Press this button to go to a random page based on your interests, right now. You really do not know where this button will take you!

I Like/I don’t like buttons – This is where you get to influence the types of pages StumbleUpon sends you. If you like the currently displayed page, then click the thumbs up button. This will make StumbleUpon send you more pages similar to this page. If you do not like the current page, click the thumbs down button, and you will see less of these types of pages. These buttons can also be used on websites you have discovered yourself. If you are the first person to find a page, you will be asked to complete a short form detailing what the page is about.

Many sites (including this one!) have buttons at the bottom of articles allowing you to manually add the page to a number of different sites, including StumbleUpon. On this site, hover over the “Share” button at the bottom of each post, and click StumbleUpon to add the article to the database.

The Share! button – This is where StumbleUpon really comes into its own for me. The share button allows you to send the current page to another of your contacts. It works best where both you and the contact both have StumbleUpon accounts – all you have to do is click the persons name, type an optional comment then press enter. That page will then be queued up on that users toolbar, and will be accessed the next time they press their “Stumble!” button.
As well as other users of StumbleUpon, it is also possible to send the page via email, or also to post it on Facebook or Twitter.

There are many other options and settings to play about with to enable the user to control the types of pages they see on StumbleUpon, for example maybe you only want to stumble through certain sites, like Wikipedia or Flickr. Overall, StumbleUpon is a very worthwhile addon to install. Be warned though – it may end up taking up a significant amount of your free time!!!

2. Adblock Plus

Adblock Plus has become one of the first things I install on a new computer. (After Firefox, of course!) Once installed, it automatically blocks a large percentage of adverts contained in websites, making your surfing experience that much quicker.

If Adblock Plus fails to block a particular advert, you can manually add it to the list of blocked ads by right clicking the ad and selecting “Adblock Image”.

Adblock Plus works well, but unfortunately, does not catch adverts written in Flash. Which brings me to my next addon…

3. Flashblock

Flashblock does exactly what it says on the tin. When installed, it stops any animation or application written in flash from automatically loading with the page. You then get the option of loading them by simply clicking the button the app puts in place of the flash app. Using this addon can significantly speed up page loads, giving you the opportunity to only load the flash bits you require.

4. IE Tab

One of the annoying things I find with certain websites, most notably the Windows Update site, is the fact the site will ONLY work in IE. IE Tab gets around this by loading IE into a tab within Firefox. The addon automatically senses when a page needs IE to load, then changes rendering options accordingly. You also have the opportunity to manually switch rendering engines yourself, via a small button on the bottom right of the window.

Now I have installed IE Tab I have NO NEED WHATSOEVER to use IE ever again! And I like that.

5. XMarks (Formerly FoxMarks)

I find XMarks absolutely indispensable. XMarks is a bookmark backup app that works from within your browser. Once you have set up a free account and password, XMarks sits silently in the background, backing up your bookmarks as you create them. If, like me, you have more than one computer in the house, XMarks will keep the bookmarks lists of all of these computers in sync. I also installed it in my profile at college last year, meaning that whatever computer I used, I always had your bookmarks to hand.

6. Web Developer Toolbar

This one won’t be up everyones street, but I include it as it’s very useful to me. Web Developer Toolbar provides many options useful to anyone involved in any level of web development. Within the toolbar are options showing CSS elements contained within the page, allowing you to hover over any element to see what CSS rules are currently applied to it. Cookies can be displayed, disabled or enabled at a mouse click. Images and forms can be displayed and disabled, along with many many other features useful to anyone trying to get a webpage to look just right.

7. Personas for Firefox

Personas for Firefox adds a menu to the bottom left of the Firefox window, allowing you to quickly change the visual skin of your browser with one click. Its kind of like 30 odd Firefox themes in one, but with the added bonus of being able to see what the theme will actually look like before you install it – simply by hovering over the option in the menu.

I use Personas as I find it adds a breath of fresh air to the slightly sterile environment of a clean Firefox install. My current theme is “Groovy Blue” – a nice sky blue theme with a swirly pattern.

So those are the main addons I use. I do use other ones as well, but these are the ones I use all of the time, and would feel lost without them. If you use Firefox regularly, and if you don’t already use them, then give them a go! Let me know if you have found any of these addons particularly useful.

Now this is funny!

The Republik Of Mancunia reports that a poor, misguided Citeh fan has had a tattoo put on his arm to celebrate City winning the Champions League.

Apparently this guy reckons they will win the trophy in 2011, and is so convinced of this that he has had the tattoo commissioned to commemorate the occasion.

It’s almost as bad as that other City fan that had Kaka tattooed onto him, only for Kaka to come to his senses and back out of the deal. What is it with City fans and silly tattoos? Is it something they only put into the water on that side of Manchester?

Honestly, some people.

Bloody typical.

After moaning all summer about the lack of football to watch, I manage to miss Uniteds first match of the new season!

I had this idea in my head that the game started at 4pm for some reason, and so completely missed it! In fact due to one thing and another I did not catch much football at all this weekend.

I did, however, manage to catch the highlights of the United match and also the Scousers “in action” against Spurs.

If I was a Scouser, i’d be very worried about their chances in the new season. Rafa and Lee can argue the toss about the validity of their penalty appeals until they are blue in the face but the fact of the matter is they did not play good enough to warrant getting anything out of the game. It would have been very harsh indeed if they managed to steal a point off a very organised Spurs side. Liverpool seemed to offer very little in midfield, clearly already missing the formidable presence of Alonso.

Benitez did kind of acknowledge that they did not play very well, however he was more bothered about conveying his thoughts about two penalty shouts Liverpool had in the second half. The first, when Assou-Ekotto barged into Voronin to dispossess him in the box was probably a penalty. The second was a handball shout that would have been very harsh if awarded. More of a case of ball-to-hand in my opinion.

The fact of the matter is that every week there are dubious refereeing decisions. Spare a thought for Crystal Palace. They were denied a goal in their match this week at Bristol Rovers. The ball clearly went over the line, before rebounding back out on the pitch.

The referee, who has since been told he will not be officiating this week, said he did not see the ball go over the line, and therefore it was not a goal. The FA, although sympathetic, denied Palaces call to have the game replayed.

Now Neil Warnock, the Palace manager commented after the game, saying that Rovers should have allowed them to score a goal. Palace ended up losing the match 1-0.

Warnock was quoted by the BBC as saying:

“The body language of the Bristol players and the fans should have told the referee it was a goal. If it had been at the other end of the pitch, there would have been a riot.
“Refs make mistakes but morally I felt Bristol should have let us score a goal there.”

So suddenly because the ref made a mistake, Rovers are obliged to throw a goal away to make up for it? Mistakes happen that will impact for every team this season – you can’t change this so you might as well move on and prepare for the next game.

I think that rather than blaming the referee for individual incidents, both Rafa and Warnock should look closer to home for reasons why they failed to pick up any points. For Liverpool their was no command of the midfield, and very little service through to the forward players. Alonso was hugely influentual in this part of the field and often fed the killer passes through to Torres.

Oh well, nevermind.

Meanwhile United got their Premier League account open with a win against Birmingham. Rooney scored his 99th goal for United ten minutes before half time, tapping in the rebound following his header which rebounded against the post.

United were shaky at several times of the game, with Foster being made to make a couple of decent saves throughout the game. This can be partly explained by the absence of Ferdinand and Vidic at the centre of defence. Rio has since been ruled out for a couple of weeks following a thigh injury. Vidic on the other hand is due to return to the United team within the next week.

The main positive that United and Fergie should take from the match is that plenty of chances were created by the men in red. What is less positive is that only one was put away. Owen was responsible for the miss of the game, where he was put clean through with only Joe Hart to beat in the Birmingham goal. Fletcher was also responsible for an awful miss, side footing the ball wide of the post when it would have been easier to score from his position.

United next travel to Burnley on Wednesday, where we will surely give them a harsh taste of what to expect in the Premier League this season.

And so as the Premier League season finally gets underway, fans up and down the country are gearing themselves up for another season. I love this time of year, there is so much enthusiasm and optimism in the air. Until 2:59 on the first Saturday afternoon, everyone is equal – everyone has a chance at lifting the cup, the newly promoted teams entertain ideas of challenging for the league title, everything looks rosy. This new found optimism doesn’t last forever, of course. After a few weeks of football have unfolded most supporters have started to think a bit more realistically!
I say the Premier League season, because the Football League season started last week, the league where “real football lives”, or so certain friends of mine say.
Peterborough United are today playing their first home game in the Championship, entertaining Sheffield Wednesday at London Road having fell to defeat 2 -1, away to Derby last Saturday.

Darragh MacAnthony, the chairman at London Road was a prime example of the above mentioned optimism approaching the first game of the season. He told the BBC prior to last weeks match at Pride Park:

Top ten would be a good season. I think if we’re in the top ten by January we can get promoted because we do so well in the second half of the season.

I think ill wait until January before I start getting that optimistic, Mr. MacAnthony.

Whereas in the Premier League United start their life post Ronaldo, at home to Birmingham on Sunday. A game that will be interesting on several fronts.

How Fergie will compensate on the pitch for the loss of Ronaldo, and also Tevez during the close season remains to be seen. Increased pressure will be put on Rooney, who will hopefully step up to the bar this year and get to the top of his game. This seems all the more possible, given that Rooney is likely to get more games this season in his rightful position.

The signing of Michael Owen might provide a little bit of healthy competition for Berbatov for the other upfront position in the starting eleven. Berbertov certainly had a mixed season last year. Admittedly there were flashes of brilliance last year, he far from set the world on fire. This is a very important season for him, if he is to cement his place in the United team.

The important thing, of course, is that United score plenty of goals. This responsibity should not just fall to Rooney. The entire team should pitch in. If players like Nani, Park, Machaeda, Scholesy and Giggsy chip in with a few goals each, added together with Rooney, Berbatov and Owen’s contributions, then we shouldn’t have any problems.

So do I think United can win it for the fourth time in a row? Of course! An interesting season is in store, for sure.