Ghost House

A Nice weekend with my brother

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:28:11 +0000

This weekend my 12 year old brother came over to stay. We had a good time. We played on the laptops and shared some movies and overall it was really good. I got to introduce him to the classic comedy series “Bottom” that he seems to really enjoy. I sadly couldn’t take him to our sisters as it was raining and he had this really thin wind jacket that would of just got him soaked, so i am sorry to Suzanne for not bringing him over. Whilst he was here I cooked him some nice food including a lovely home made pizza and although he didn’t eat all of it, i certainly ate all mine. Overall it was a quiet but good weekend.

The Graphics Card Saga

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 10:40:30 +0000

Well i thought i would write about my graphics card saga on my computer. On Saturday i went to move the mouse on my PC to wake it up to check my messages and nothing came up on screen. I thought the PC had simply crashed. So i rebooted the PC and nothing came up on screen. This was a little worrying. I went through the usual diagnostics of removing all onboard cards and stuff and narrowed the problem down to my PCI-E graphics card. This card was fairly new and i bought it on eBay over a year ago. I managed to plug the LCD screen to the onboard graphics card and i was surprised to see that was also damaged. The screen was jumping all over the place and their were tons of lines all over the place. I knew this wasn’t at all good. I looked closely at the motherboard to find there was 1 tiny 6.3v 1000Uf capacitor that had blown. Basically the top of the capacitor was rounded and should be nice and flat. This wasn’t the most ideal of things to find on a computer. I took the motherboard out of the chassis and placed it down. I fetched my soldering equipment and looked through my stock of spare capacitors and found i had an exact match which was great. I set about removing the old capacitor and replacing it with the new one. After about 5 minutes repairing it i hooked it back up and powered it back on and success it was working. I also tried the PCI-E card but alas this wasn’t working still which is pretty annoying. After further inspection i believe the graphics card was made of sub-standard quality as the solder points were oxidised and had turned slight green. This is sure sign of shoddy workmanship when it comes to soldering. There could be many reasons for it from acid from fingers touching the soldering points before they were soldered to substandard working practices.

After checking all the BIOS and making sure things were still working normally, i put the motherboard back into the chassis and powered it all up and success the onboard graphics were once again working – but sadly only to a point. Once windows booted up it decided it wanted to repeatedly reboot itself – i eventually narrows that down to the drivers that were installed. I removed the drivers for the ATI card and also the onboard card because for some reason it doesn’t like its own drivers. The system is now thankfully fully working again but with the windows inbuilt graphics driver – which is not too bad – it still runs at 32bit at 1024×768 without any problems.

The idea of just repairing the motherboard instead of throwing it out and getting a new one is the fact i have no money to do that and i have to basically use what i can to fix problems at this current time. If it does go again though i will have to save about £100 for a new computer as i still need one even though I use my laptop daily.

Well that is my little Graphics card saga

Growl for Windows Live Messenger

Nicholas Weightman — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 18:55:35 +0000

Finding scripts to work with Growl or Snarl is not the easiest thing in the world. I re-wrote a simple script to show most of the variables of msn messenger for use with Growl.

Two ways to install

1: Complete Growl Script Here

2: Or do the following.

Get Growl Notify here: http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/help/growlnotify.aspx and you’ll also need an icon, i took a generic msn icon and just placed it in the windows folder. Using Msn plus just add a new script and paste this code in and it should basically work.

var shell = new ActiveXObject("wscript.shell");
var Growlexe = ‘"’ + MsgPlus.ScriptFilesPath + ‘\\growlnotify.exe"’;
var GrowlIcon = ‘"’ + MsgPlus.ScriptFilesPath + ‘\\icon.png"’;

function OnEvent_ContactSignin(Email){
var cmd = Growlexe + Email + ‘" signed in " /t:"Windows Live Messenger" /i:’+GrowlIcon+”;
shell.Run(cmd);
}

function OnEvent_ContactSignout(Email){
var cmd = Growlexe + Email + ‘" signed out " /t:"Windows Live Messenger" /i:’+GrowlIcon+”;
shell.Run(cmd);
}

function OnEvent_ContactBlocked(Email){
var cmd = Growlexe + Email + ‘" has been blocked " /t:"Windows Live Messenger" /i:’+GrowlIcon+”;
shell.Run(cmd);
}

function OnEvent_ContactUnblocked(Email){
var cmd = Growlexe + Email + ‘" has been unblocked " /t:"Windows Live Messenger" /i:’+GrowlIcon+”;
shell.Run(cmd);
}

function OnEvent_ContactPsmChange(Email){
var cmd = Growlexe + Email + ‘" has changed PSM " /t:"Windows Live Messenger" /i:’+GrowlIcon+”;
shell.Run(cmd);
}

function OnEvent_ContactNameChange(Email){
var cmd = Growlexe + Email + ‘" has changed Nick name " /t:"Windows Live Messenger" /i:’+GrowlIcon+”;
shell.Run(cmd);
}

Stop viruses attacking from within installer files

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:33:35 +0000

Here is a nice little tip for those who like to install software. Recently unscrupulous people have been building windows installers that although look genuine are not – they can contain viruses. A little tip is to get hold of 7zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) and then right click on the installer and then select open under the 7zip folder. You should be able to open the installer file up and see what it inside. Below is a picture for a DivX installer and as you can see there is a file in there called “new.exe” – this is a virus and my virus detector never saw it coming. I just extract the real installer and then check that too – if it looks clean i continue to install the application.

Fig1. Contains a virus.

Fig2. Pulled the real installer out and opened it to check it

After you have installed the application, you can breath a sigh of relief that it wasn’t virused.

HardLink Shell Extension (Vista & Windows 7)

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 09:38:46 +0000

Here is a complicated but great advanced tip for windows. If you are someone who has to regularly re-install your computer and you find you loose important things such as Windows Live Messenger Emoticons (like i do) then this should help keep them in place if you do loose the rest of the system. Hardlink Shell Extension is a graphical add-on to an already well established Windows Function called Symbolic Links. You can essentially move the MSN emoticons cache system to a protected area on the disk, in this case a hidden partition. What i have done on my laptop is created a new hidden partition and then moved the emoticons cache to that and then using hardlink shell extension i have created a symbolic link back to the original location – this allows any updates, changes or added icons to be put in the correct location but that “actual” files are stored elsewhere.

Illustration 1 is the original place for the msn messenger cache files (the purple means its a symbolic link)

Illustration 2 is the new location and yet windows see’s this as transparent and therefore the above picture is what windows uses to store its files.

What does all this mean. Well if you accidently mess windows up – your files are still there upon re-install and just need the paths altered to the new place once again using hardlinks and then all your updated emoticons are all in place and ready to use

Intel Throttling Feature is a PAIN

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 24 May 2010 11:00:50 +0000

One of the most annoying things about dual and quad core computers is the inbuilt throttling. The throttle feature is designed to keep the core cool when it is being overworked – however this feature can be rather annoying as it can kick in during the most inopportune times causing the application you are using to run very very slow. On my laptop the throttling feature kicks in all the time and i am constantly turning the thing off which is just annoying. I have tried to disabling the throttling feature and even resorted to locking certain registry keys to try to stop it from kicking in and no matter what i try it seems to just spring back to life. Now the feature is there for a specific reason and as i said its to help cool the core down, but on my laptop it actually does the opposite and causes it to warm up more because it is actually trying to throttle as well as carry out the commands from the applications i am using – its a truly no win situation. Now i do know that after doing some research my laptop is a little unique when it comes to throttling problems and it is known that the problem causes an annoyance for many users. I have tried applying the latest bios updates in order to combat the problem without any luck. I have tried a few alternative programs to Rightmark CPU clock utility such as throttlestop which is designed to keep it cooler but then i run into unforeseen problems such as crashing. My core in general runs between 38’c to 66’c on average and turning off the throttle part actually does cool it down. I also under volt my laptop to encourage rapid cooling as well. I guess until a newer bios update can be sent out to either disable or cause the throttling to kick in at much higher temperatures then i guess i will have to live with it.

Rightmark CPU Utility

Get Throttle Stop here

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYLIE xoxoxox

Nicholas Weightman — Thu, 13 May 2010 12:18:02 +0000

Office 2010 Beta – Good? You’d think so wouldn’t you.

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 12 May 2010 14:53:52 +0000

Well I’ve quickly tried out Microsoft Office 2010 beta and i found it a massive improvement over previous versions but as with all Microsoft programs there were pro’s and con’s. I really liked how the office programs was installed via the net and only really installed the components that you needed at the time – once installed it was on the system and ready to use. I really like the new interface, its really easy to use and fully functional. They are still using the ribbon style layout like Office 2003 i believe but its been set up a lot better and there are more options for customisation.

The cons though i think are hardly any support for there own mail system within outlook – i use Windows Live Hotmail and you still have to install the Outlook Hotmail connector to use hotmail within outlook and this i feel is a silly mistake. There is actually better connectivity between Windows Live Mail over that of Outlook and its support for Security Certificates for hotmail is literally non-existent whereas WLM does have that support. I like the calendar layout and in the past have only ever really been interested in there outlook program. I was interested in buying this new version if it lived up to expectation but alas i have found it pretty disappointing. The interface although very nice is very slow. I found that synchronising mail with hotmail was very slow and on most occasions never actually picked up any mail and yet mail was in the folders. I would think that there would be better support for offline folders for and storage within the outlook PST file but that also seems to be lacking within this version. I think they went in the right direction with there home user software of Windows Live Mail that does pretty much everything i need and would expect of a mail program, but that also has its drawbacks such as lack for PST support. I think if Outlook was designed with better connectivity to the major mail providers such as there own hotmail, the system would be virtually perfect in design. But it does need to overcome some of the speed flaws and connectivity problems first.

My Brothers Visit

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:00:32 +0000

My brother Jack was insistent that i write a small blog post about his visit down here – so here goes jack lol. We had a good time actually. Jack brought his laptop down and i upgraded his memory from 2GB to 3GB and then we generally just looked around each others laptops. We got a little hungry during the day so we went over the shops for fish and chips but the shop was closed, so instead we got some sweets and crisps and whilst there we witnessed a fight in the shop – now jack understands why i don’t leave the house much lol. Over all we had a great time – we watched a little Mr Bean and just chatted about stuff in general.

Television Debates – Sterilisation

Nicholas Weightman — Sun, 02 May 2010 09:54:14 +0000

I was just watching a TV debate on BBC1 about sterilising drug addicts so they cannot have children in the future – the idea is to stop them from bringing a child into the world and suffer because the parents would take drugs. My personal thoughts about this is that the whole idea is just disgusting. They are suggesting a solution that is so “finite” to a problem. Drug addicts are human beings and deserve the right to still make decisions for themselves. In the future a drug addict might have cleaned up there act and then decide to have a family, but if they bring stupid plans or ideas about sterilising them then that will stop them completely regardless of whether they take drugs or have cleaned up there act. This whole thing just reminds me of things that happened in Nazi Germany in the early to mid 30’s under Adolf Hitler. They are basically suggesting they pay people who are drug addicts to have this operation done. So not only are they offering money to people desperate for money, they are removing there potential future plans for having children. This whole thing to me just seems so wrong.

History repaired

Nicholas Weightman — Sat, 01 May 2010 10:11:50 +0000

Here is a picture from 1939 – it has my Nan in the picture when she was only a baby. Sadly the image had some marks on it which it had collected over there years and sadly made it harder to see. I spent two hours last night repairing the image. The hardest part of the repair was fixing my Nan’s eye. I had to literally remove her eye as it was covered with a white scratch and a red stain. I worked really hard re-constructing her eye bit by bit using my best judgement to get it almost how it originally looked. Sadly my Nan’s eye will never be perfect as there was nothing original in the image to sadly work with. I enjoy fixing images though, it makes me feel good.

A Hung Parliament or someone new in power?

Nicholas Weightman — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 20:33:42 +0000

Well the contest for new prime minister in England is finally hotting up with the original outsider Nick Clegg looking like he might actually come in first which would suit me to the ground. I’ve liked having Labour in power however for so long as they have done lots of good things for this country, but in recent times they seem to have lost there way and they are now making promises to the people that we all know they won’t keep just like last time. The Labour party under Gordon Brown has been low with things like “Gordon” not actually being voted in and the money problems of the past. I don’t want to see however another conservative party in power again as they were very destructive the last time around and from what i can see the only real party that has something new to offer is the Lib Dems. I think i know where my vote will go this time around I just hope however who ever does get into power they do a good job and not run this country into the ground like pre 1997.

I think the thing I’m truly waiting for on May 6th is the comedy show on Channel 4 – it looking good.

Dr Bean i presume?

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:10:51 +0000

I have always been an avid Dr Who fan since i was a youngster and my favourite Dr to date has to be the incarnation of David Tennant. From my earliest memories the Dr was a strong character with lots of great talent for defusing intergalactic problems. But now they have cast Matt Smith as the Dr and i have so far seen 3 episodes with him as the Dr and i have to say i am massively disappointed to the point i might stop watching once and for all. The new Dr is literally Mr Bean with a dickie bowtie. The new production team have literally gone down hill since David Tennant’s day and i have no idea what they are thinking. They have literally made the Dr whom was once a very clever man into a bumbling idiot and have cast his side kick with more intelligence than he ever will have from the look of it. Just this week they had an episode where the Daleks (also re-designed) were back and i have to say they looked more like Mini-Coopers than Daleks. The whole series so far has been very disappointing and i have tried to keep an open mind but so far has turned into a show just for little kids i think. Whilst they were on the Dalek spaceship it kept looking more like an office just without windows with a few dummy control panels put in place. The whole story line though is just becoming very odd – it seems to be “Yay to the Brits” kind of attitude and the technology they are using seems to be things you’d find from the 1960’s and I’m wondering if the whole series is trying to capture a bygone era but failing unsuccessfully. The new Tardis layout is not too bad i suppose but again it seems to be bringing in aspects from the 1960’s with likes of an old type writer for the main console. I think the writers who wrote the Dr who storylines for David Tennant seem to have got things right from the word go and with these new writers must having a retrograde LSD trip or something. I can understand they want to write things with new ideas, but why so much change from things that everyone is so used to – surely these new ideas are going to bring the whole Dr Who franchise down.

Site updates

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:47:44 +0000

I have re-written nweightman.co.uk with a new style for better readability as well as bringing it inline with my main site. I have also added a stats counter to kitkats website. I have also updated the code from the statistics page looking for bots and spiders. Added Eternal Nytedreams to my site which is a competition site and included a spirits page and links.

New Photo Gallery

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 02:19:18 +0000

I have replaced the Photo Gallery with a newer system that is much more flexible for me to use – The outcome though should be just as good for all you viewers. I have also made a few small updates to the site with newer designs of things. I hope you all like

Happy 5th Birthday Lily

Nicholas Weightman — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I would like to wish my wonderful niece Lily a fantastic 5th birthday today. I remember when you was so small littlen and you’ve so grown in a big girl and a very clever girl too. I hope you have a wonderful day today – lots of love from Uncle Nick. xoxoxoxoxox

Facebook Chat

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:26:54 +0000

For anyone who like to chat on facebook there are alternative methods to use the chat facilities. I don’t like using the online chat interface, i find it very slow and it seems to pause as your typing. It can be very frustrating. I have found there are other ways to connect to this interface using Miranda IM – with Miranda IM you can also connect to all your other favourite chat providers such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and many many others. Miranda IM is a free and VERY small program that is highly customizable and you can do pretty much what you like with it. I have my Miranda IM set up to deliver contact updates too – which means whenever someone on facebook posts a new status it automatically pops up on screen. Its a really nice and easy way to chat to people and you don’t need to be on the facebook page to use it.

Miranda IM: http://www.miranda-im.org/

Facebook Plug-in: http://addons.miranda-im.org/details.php?action=viewfile&id=4172

or select Jabber:

Protocol: XMPP or Jabber

Username: Your username

Domain: chat.facebook.com

Jabber ID: @chat.facebook.com

Password:

Enter the following server info, as requested:

Port: 5222

Server: chat.facebook.com

Use SSL/TLS: no

Allow plaintext authentication: no

18th anniversary of my Nan’s passing.

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:23:01 +0000

Today is the 18th anniversary of the passing of my Nan. Ann Weightman was a great woman who died of cancer this time 18 years ago. She was a fantastic woman and i was ever so glad to have known such a loving and caring woman. My Nan might be gone from this earth, but her memory lives on with our family and she will never be forgotten. She dedicated her life to helping others and was a great inspiration to myself from such a young age. To my Nan, You will always live in our hearts. *hugs*

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SITE

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:05:08 +0000

My site has been on this server for 4 years now and i am wishing it a happy birthday and another good 4 years online. Before i moved to this hosting system my site was online with other hosts and they were all freebie ones but it finally found its home on Byethosting this time 4 years ago and has been here ever since. I’d like to thank ByetHost for there fantastic service and I’m raising a glass to another happy 4 years.

For anyone out there looking for a great place to host there website – check out http://byethost.com/ for great hosting deals.

Open Source Aggregators

Nicholas Weightman — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:54:56 +0000

I have in the past mentioned that RSSBandit was a fantastic news aggregator for every day use, the only downside with the software is that it was a little slow and software updates are far and in-between. I have recently found another news aggregator that i think is fantastic and certainly does the job well. Its called RSSowl and its simply fantastic. Its regularly updated and the news receiver is fast. There are lots of plug-ins available and i would say that if anyone out there is looking for a good RSS/news Reader – then perhaps give this a try

http://www.rssowl.org/

Aggregators reduce the time and effort needed to regularly check websites for updates, creating a unique information space or "personal newspaper". Once subscribed to a feed, an aggregator is able to check for new content at user-determined intervals and retrieve the update. The content is sometimes described as being "pulled" to the subscriber, as opposed to "pushed" with email or IM. Unlike recipients of some "pushed" information, the aggregator user can easily unsubscribe from a feed.

Snippet from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregator

Giving up for the first time…..

Nicholas Weightman — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:27:31 +0000

Well, I have decided to give up smoking. I thought it would be a great opportunity to get my lungs back to health and give me a second chance at this so called life. I haven’t actually been smoking for very long, in fact its only been 3 years now – and although its only a short time, i am already feeling the effects of cigarette smoke and i know if i continue i will start having serious problems. I have been smoking up to 30 a day at the peak of smoking and i know that is not a good thing to do.

I have a very good friend who i asked to tell me to stop smoking, i know its a cliché in a way that my family should ask me to stop and i should – but my friend is the only one i know i would listen to and i have decided that her ordering me to stop was the best way to stop.

Its literally been one week since i stopped and its only the last two days that i have been having bad cravings, but i am not giving up – i am determined to be completely cigarette free by this time next month – but its a little hard i do admit.

Rollback RX vs Comodo Time Machine

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:50:05 +0000

I have always been a fan of programs that can restore a PC in the event of a disaster such as corruptions and virus attacks or just software you cannot be bothered to uninstall. There is a major piece of software out there called Rollback RX that does exactly that. Unlike Windows restore, you can choose to restore or exclude certain files from being restored in an emergency. Windows restore has the idea that if you have a problem, it can restore everything including out of date documents and not restore anything new since the restore point was made – this is highly annoying, especially if you have spent hours writing a document and then the computer fails and needs a restore.

Rollback RX and Comodo Time Machine are very different in the approach, it creates a restore point when ever you need it to and the restoring of a computer can take as little as a few seconds. I have set my computer to make a backup which again only takes a second to complete during every boot up – i can also make a backup when i am installing software etc. The good thing is that when i need to restore, i just press restore, choose a point to restore it to and then reboot – once the computer comes back online its at exactly the same point i need it to be and with the technology that is used i can restore all documents etc from before i needed to restore.

This process has many great delights which i am very pleased with and for a long time i was using Rollback RX – but recently found that my favourite company “Comodo” also recently brought out a product that does exactly the same thing but is completely free called “Time Machine”. This product is totally fantastic and i love it to bits, i can literally not worry about my computers health as much as i would have if the program was not around. It literally can prolong the life of a copy of windows and if you are like me and enjoy trying out new software all the time – you’ll know that the computer can get clogged and prone to slow downs and even viruses – but with this program, you can reset your computer after any period of time back to the very first snap shot and the computer will be back to exactly how you like it before messing around with it.

if you are interested in Comodo Time Machine then please check out http://www.comodo.com for more information – trust me – if you use it, you’ll never look back

Laser Alarm Project

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:09:18 +0000

Ever since I saw the Laser Alarm Project on KipKay’s channel I knew it was something i wanted to make. I started by copying the circuit diagram down and then set to work trying to make the thing work. My RadioShack Electronics Learning Lab had all the components necessary to make it work and it was a case of getting technical and putting it together. I am very new to microelectronics and this was the first time i put a circuit together by just looking at it – so as it was my first time, it wasn’t going to be very easy. It took about an hour to work out how the cables all went together on the breadboard and finally i got it to work

Now i have it working on the breadboard the next stage is to put it together on a final IC board. That might be a little more complicated as i have never done it before. But I’m willing to try anything at least once

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1133002/protect_your_home_with_laserbeams/

Christmas Day 2009

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 23:48:39 +0000

My family and I had a wonderful Christmas day. This Christmas was hosted by Anne-Marie and Marlon at there home and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. We all opened presents and ate a wonderful dinner prepared by my sister and brother-in-law. Everyone had a go on the new WII console my sister Suzanne and Steve got for Christmas, but i never did as I’m not much of a game player. Little Riley and Lily i think had the most fun as they were very excited – and although this is Riley’s first Christmas, he was certainly having fun eating lol.

This Christmas I went down the Electronics Set Road and got lots of Electronics stuff to make my own circuit boards. From one of the sets there were tons of Resisters and i have just spend an hour deciphering what they all are with the help of a multi-metre, wall chart and resister information program. It was fun though I got a great Electronics Learning Lab too from RadioShack – which i am very excited about. I know people who use them are probably teens – but i am using it as my stepping stone to circuitry. I have been playing with it and have tested a few circuits on it.

I also got lots of lovely presents from Family which i absolutely love including a sweater, a cross and some aftershave – i love all the gifts i received and my family were all happy with the things i got them too

Tomorrow we’re off to Suzanne’s for Boxing day and I’m looking forward to it.

I really hope everyone had a lovely Christmas day and you all Enjoy the New Year ahead

Windows 7 EFS Problem Solved

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:24:52 +0000

This is a Public retraction to Microsoft after giving there EFS on Windows 7 a 0/10 score and saying it was useless. A few days after writing my blog entry about the EFS system, i was contacted by a gentlemen in American called Mike Grass who works for Microsoft and actually designed the EFS system on the latest Operating System. Mike had been looking around the net for anything to do with the EFS in Windows 7 and happened across my site and saw the problems i had wrote about. Mike contacted me and offered to help. After writing emails back and forth to get an idea of how my system was set up he went about duplicating my system setup to see if he could get the same results.

I was honestly thinking it was just my copy of Windows 7 that was causing problems and that i must have done something during the setup to cause it to not work correctly – but after nearly 2 weeks, Mike has finally duplicated the exact same problems – and has determined that the problem lies within the Anti-virus program i am using called Comodo Anti-virus / Firewall.

Of all the problems i guessed it was, i never suspected that it might have been my Anti-Virus program causing the problems. Mike is now working on a permanent fix for the problem with the EFS system and may contact Comodo regarding the problem. Even if no fix is produced, its nice to know I’m not bonkers but there is a solution out there and it wasn’t really anything to do with the Windows 7 system that was causing it.

I would like to publically thank Mike Grass from Microsoft for all his help and his hard work in his own time for finding a resolution to this problem.

Windows 7 Professional EFS (Encrypted File System) Update

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:33:00 +0000

Yet Another update. The information below is irrelevant as further tests show that some files are able to be decrypted after encryption and some files are still left damaged. I give up – turning EFS off.

I’ve been doing a little more research into EFS on Windows 7 and i have found something curious. Windows 7 has incorporated a new system for its encryption algorithms called ECC (elliptic curve cryptography). Using the policy manager i have disabled ECC on the system and so far i have been able to encrypt and decrypt files without any problems like it should work in the first place. I have only tried it on a temporary basis so far so more tests will need to be performed to ensure that EFS works correctly from now on. ECC is a new system that allows EFS to work to “Suite B” standards, however on a home computer that is of no help to me for just basic encryption/decryption of files. None of the information however has stated that Encryption with ECC turned on should mess up your files, but i guess Windows 7 has not been evaluated enough for complaints to come forward.

More information on EFS can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encrypting_File_System

More information on ECC (elliptic curve cryptography) can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_Curve_Cryptography

There is more information on EFS updates from Windows here:

Changes in EFS

Updated: March 27, 2009

Encrypting File System (EFS) is a core file encryption technology used to store encrypted files on NTFS file system volumes. Encrypted files cannot be used unless the user has access to the keys required to decrypt the information. EFS supports industry-standard encryption algorithms including Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA), elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), smart card–based encryption, and other features. As encryption standards continue to progress and old algorithms become less secure, new encryption algorithms must be incorporated to help users protect their data.

EFS support of ECC

In Windows 7, the architecture of EFS has changed to incorporate ECC. This enables EFS to be compliant with Suite B encryption requirements as defined by the National Security Agency to meet the needs of United States government agencies for protecting classified information. Suite B compliance requires the use of AES, SHA, and ECC cryptographic algorithms for data protection. Suite B does not allow RSA cryptography.

EFS in Windows 7 supports a "mixed-mode" operation of ECC and RSA algorithms. This provides backward compatibility with EFS files that were created by using algorithms supported in previous versions of Windows. This might be useful in organizations that use RSA and also want to use the ECC algorithm to prepare for Suite B compliance.

Use of self-signed certificates

The default setting for EFS public key policies allows EFS to generate self-signed certificates when a certification authority (CA) is not available. Some organizations do not allow self-signed certificates to be used because of concerns about information security risks. If you disable this setting, users must be granted a certificate from a trusted CA before they can use EFS.

If you allow the use of self-signed certificates, you can specify the encryption key length used when encrypting files and folders. By default, EFS uses the 2,048-bit key size for self-signed RSA certificates and the 256-bit key for ECC certificates. The following RSA and ECC keys are available:

1,024-bit RSA

2,048-bit RSA

4,096-bit RSA

8,192-bit RSA

16,384-bit RSA

256-bit ECC

384-bit ECC

531-bit ECC

Group Policy changes for EFS

The steps to enable EFS have not changed as a result of supporting ECC; however, additional administrative options related to ECC have been added. Specifically, Group Policy settings can be used by administrators to deny the creation of EFS files by using algorithms that are not Suite B–compliant. The policy setting for EFS is located in the Local Group Policy Editor under Local Computer Policy\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Public Key Policies\Encrypting File System.

After the EFS policy settings are enabled and configured, you use Group Policy settings to specify how ECC is supported. Under Public Key Policies, open the Encrypting File System properties. Then, on the General tab under Elliptic Curve Cryptography, select the appropriate option: either Allow to enable the use of both ECC algorithms and RSA algorithms, Require to permit only ECC encryption algorithms be used, or Don’t allow to use only RSA encryption.

Windows 7 Professional EFS (Encrypted File System)

Nicholas Weightman — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:44:23 +0000

Yep its yet another blog about Windows 7 but this time I’m moaning about Windows 7 EFS that comes standard with Windows 7 Professional. In Windows XP the EFS (Encrypted File System) was a great system for encrypting your data so it couldn’t be looked at by unauthorised people. In Windows Vista they never added it for home users in Windows Vista Home Starter, Basic or Premium but was available in the Business version upwards. The Windows 7 Professional version of EFS however is perhaps the worst thing i have ever seen in my life. The system Encrypts files perfectly and it un-encrypts files perfectly – however nothing that was encrypted can then be read. Its absurd. The system once you encrypt files only allows you to view the files within that user session, once you reboot the system – the files are useless, scrambled and un-usable. I have tried different keys, i have tried different locations and user rights and nothing seems to work. The files however can still be un-encrypted – but that makes no difference what so ever as the files are completely dead. When i first installed Windows 7 Professional i intentionally encrypted my Personal folder that contained back ups of passwords and they were all useless after i had rebooted, thankfully i had them backed up still and they were restored. Since that time i have tried many different configurations to something that should be a very simple system to use and nothing seems to make a difference. Microsoft have really messed up on the EFS system of Windows 7 Professional and i do wonder if as yet any other users have encountered similar problems. I have created new encryption keys and i have tried different user rights and nothing seems to make a difference. I have to give Windows 7 Professional EFS a lovely score of 0/10

Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 6000

Nicholas Weightman — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:07:33 +0000

I’ve had the Mobile Mouse 6000 now for just under 3 months and although its a really good mouse, it doesn’t do what it says on the tin. The mouse is supposed to have a lifespan of 10 months and so far i have changed the battery about 5 times already – we’re not talking cheap batteries but the high powered ones. Also there is no blue light that sits on the top of the mouse constantly like in all its pictures – the light is either green for full battery, red for low battery or just off. There are some upsides to the mouse, it is mobile and the wireless receiver is very tiny that sits in the side of the laptop and you’d never know its there. If it wasn’t for the battery life lie, it would be a great mouse to use. Sadly because of the battery life i have to give the mouse 4/10.

Windows 7 installed

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:24:29 +0000

I’ve now upgraded to Windows 7 Professional. These are basically my first thoughts about the new Microsoft Operating System. I initially tried installing Windows 7 Professional x64 – but this caused many problems where drivers were concerned and also caused my laptop to slow to a crawl. My performance score using this went down to 3.3 and i was very disappointed. The system seem unresponsive and slow. Finally i decided to turn to Windows 7 Professional x32 and i have now found the opposite of my initial install. The system is very fast and very enjoyable to use. I enjoy having many features that were missing in Vista Home Premium such as EFS.

I’ve now been running Windows 7 for nearly a week and i have found good points and bad points along the way. The bad points from my own perspective are minor but for me i found them annoying. Windows 7 has replaced the Sidebar that was introduced in Windows Vista, the new sidebar application is basically just apps with no solid place to lock them. This is a nice feature for some but for me i preferred having my sidebar visible whilst using the computer. As a fix i decided to import the sidebar from Windows Vista and have it run like it used to. So far i haven’t found any major problems by doing this. The only bugbear is if i wish to install new apps, i have to run the new sidebar, install the apps and then switch back to the old style sidebar. This isn’t a major problems for me.

The other downside i found was the Windows Live software. The new superbar that has replaced the windows task bar constantly shows the application on the bar and not in the old place near the clock, I found this to be particularly frustrating, however as always the web came to my rescue and i found a great fix that sorted that out – Simply setting the compatibility of any of the Windows Live application to Vista will set the icon to hide in the system tray near the clock and not on the main superbar.

There are many things i like about this new Windows 7 though, the ability to have items pinned to the superbar is a great idea as well as easy being able to find the open application. My memory usage on Vista used to be around 800mb at all times, on Windows 7 i have found the memory usage drops to nearly 500mb which is fantastic. Although i am using the 32bit version of Windows and had to sacrifice 1gb of usable memory for a more stable system, i think this was the only downside for me.

On the whole i rate Windows 7 Professional so far 8/10 – its great to work on and has lots of nice features but could have a few things like the sidebar and icons in the system tray fixed by default or at least given as an option for users who are now familiar with that option.

Technical difficulties

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:20:28 +0000

Apologies, my site is experiencing some technical difficulties at the moment – i can’t really explain what has happened in too much detail as i’m completely lost as to what i’ve done. I’ve tried parking the domain nweightman.co.uk as a top level domain and in the mess its now not working at all, i’ve re-set all my DNS settings and hopefully the site will be back to normal soon – in the mean time there is no mail to nweightman.co.uk contacts.

Public Apology to Kylie and Karisha

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:28:30 +0000

A few weeks ago i made a very big mistake and i would like to put that mistake right. There were some problems happening a few weeks ago that caused Kylie with very good reasons to remove me from facebook and msn. I wrote that i didn’t know what was happening in facebook and that i was very upset and many people commented on that. One of the comments was from my sister that has deeply upset Karisha and i would like to put the record right by saying that Kylie is a wonderful person and in all the time I have known her she has been a brilliant friend and has always been there for me like i have been there for her and what my sister said was not nice. I have very much respect for Kylie and her family and i will not let mistakes like this happen again!

Ghostly Delights

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:24:00 +0000

Well its been about time we show some of the ghostly exploits on this site after so long. I have a new Gallery installed on this site for all to view and it has a number of good photo’s of ghosts – some of which are clearly Photoshop made and some that clearly have no explanation. I hope you like what pictures i have to view and I will try to add many new pictures as soon as i can – Gallery. I also have a few ghostly films on this site which i am also trying to regularly update for all to see. They can be found Here. As with all my Paranormal files, you can easily find links to some of the more interesting stuff on my side bar to the right of this page. There are a few interesting stories including those from readers like yourself. I am always interested in readers stories so if you have any personal experiences of the Paranormal, please use the contact me button on the right hand side or just click here and tell me a little more about your experiences. If they are good I shall post a page with all the information you have, pictures are of course more than welcome.

Translation now available

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:23:32 +0000

I’ve added a translation widget to my site so people in other countries can read what my site is about in there own languages. I would like to thank Honeymonster at http://www.honeymonster.net for the great idea. I am using a Google translation API to do the relevant translations. I hope this will bring more readers from around the world. The Translations widget is on the left hand sidebar and I hope you find it useful.

One of the saddest days of my life

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:33:03 +0000

Today the family and friends of Paul Collins laid him to rest. It was a very heart felt and emotional day for everyone. During the service we heard from family members who recounted the life Paul had and it showed him to be a truly amazing young man. One wonderful story that was told during the service was of how Paul who had no money left on a travelling trip, saved what he had to purchase a rickshaw for a family so they could start there business, they even have his picture up at there home, this was a truly typical example of the heart that Paul had. He was a beautiful and wonderful person who although might have come across a little mad talking about aliens and spiritual things, if you truly knew him and understood the things he said, you couldn’t help but love the way he had so much passion about these subjects. I personally shared a lot in common with Paul and the ideas and spiritual beliefs in peace and love to the world are something i also hold close to my heart – and i think that is why he and I would always have so much to chat about and of course hit off our friendship so quickly. Often he would get me to download video clips and audio books from the internet by people who shared his ideas of the world.

Paul was a very clever young man in the way he could tell a story and no matter what it could be about, he could always have you hooked to the outcome and that’s not something any old person can do. His passion for so many different things and his ability to try so many different things has left so many in ore of how wonderful he truly was and it is not just a shame he has now gone, but its a true loss to the world that someone so free spirited, beautiful and so in tune with the world has now left us

I was trying to hold my emotions back today, but alas i couldn’t help but cry at his passing, something i had been doing all week – Paul was a truly inspiration man who had so many friends and lots of family members who will all miss him. This tragedy will remain with me on a personal level for the rest of my life. Paul and i had started putting plans together in past months to visit America together, plans that i will try to live up to as i know he will be with me on such a visit.

My heart truly went out to his parents, sister, cousin and other family members today as well as all of his friends. Today for me was supposed to be a good day as it was my 30th birthday, but sadly more important matters took precedents quite rightly, I just wish Paul could of been here to come around for a few beers, if only things had been different . Although i had been feeling very down and upset by today’s events, talking to his family really helped and i think it helped them too to know he was so loved. Once i got home i cuddled up to my nephew and the little tyke seemed to help make things seem better, even if only for a short time.

It will never be good bye Paul by dear friend, you will always be in our hearts and you will always as i know be with us. The circle of light my friend is as strong in death as it is in life. Rest in peace my friend.

Rest in peace my dear friend Paul

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:21:31 +0000

Today i heard the most horrible news a person could hear and that is the death of a dear friend. Paul Collins was only 30 years old and in his short life had done and experienced things most people could only dream of. I first met Paul back when my sister was on a training course – she befriended him and eventually started dating one of his friends – I liked Paul from the very beginning, he was so open minded and adventurous. In time me and Paul became good friends ourselves and would sit for hours just talking. Paul first introduced me to Cigars which i really enjoyed. We would often just wonder off and talk or sit at the pub. As time went on i started to see Paul as a brother to me and i loved him very much. I remember one instance where we went to Wales with my sister and Steve – we kind of lagged behind near the end of our very long walk, just talking as we did best. That night we slept in the same room – i was half expecting him to snore or watch TV – but he was just as shattered and fell asleep. Since then we had gone to the pub quiet a lot. When he went off for his tour of Australia and Asia, i actually really missed him and we tried to keep in contact on his website and via email. After he got back though things in his life started to turn dark as he became very depressed and eventually placed himself in a hospital – the one thing i remember him saying when he got out was – I should go and stay at the hospital too as it was a laugh. Sadly, over a year on, I’m not laughing – I found out today he had committed suicide whilst there. Its funny that only a week ago he actually broke out from there and was on the run – i half expected him to come around and i know i shouldn’t – but i had a few cans of larger and some cigars ready in case he did. I actually feel terrible because only 4 months ago he was emailing me to go out for a drink, yet i was so flat broke i never went – i feel that if i had gone, perhaps this might not have happened as i think he truly wanted his friends there! :’(

Paul was a loving and adventurous friend and i am going to miss him ever so much i hope you have finally found peace my dear friend. I will keep an eye out for you though, i have a feeling that you might visit some day in the future from heaven and invite me up for a laugh – i might not actually go, but I’ll certainly have a pint of Stella and a cigar waiting for you my friend :’(

Good Bye my dear friend :’( you will be so missed :’( You truly were the best friend anyone could have!

Mankind should be Ashamed!

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:04:21 +0000

As many of you may know, i am a keep historian and enjoy doing research. Today i watched a documentary on Auschwitz and although i have seen it before, today things started to sink in – i am truly ashamed of humans, how they can treat other cultures and religion all in the name of superiority. I was truly upset whilst watching this documentary as to how mankind treats one another and it made me very angry. In this documentary it went into detail about how the Nazi’s discriminated against the Jewish population as well as the Russians and other minorities during World War Two; how they took women and children and marched them to there own deaths, in one instance of the documentary, it was described how a Nazi SS officer took a screaming child and threw her into an oven, burned alive. It was truly sickening to think that only 60 odd years ago man kind was so up themselves to do this horrid thing, and yet this thing is not just a thing of World War Two is it? This kind of thing goes on still in the 21st century and it makes me sick to think that so many innocent people die at the hands of those arseholes who discriminate against them. I really feel for all those who have lost there lives in these genocidal wars past and present and i am truly angry that nothing is done to stop this kind of thing. World War Two shouldn’t of happened, but it did, and mankind should of learned the lessons from that war, should of learned to put prejudice and racial disharmony to rest, but it hasn’t and i am truly ashamed to even call myself a human knowing that we are all monsters inside When will people wake up and think about others instead of themselves or they way people look, when will mankind awaken to the fact that these atrocities are wrong and that it should not happen, not now and not ever.

As for those who deny the Holocaust ever happened, i truly hope they burn in hell! Anyone who can deny persecution on that level or any level is nothing but a Nazi in disguise and should burn with the Third Reich.

Updated the Site Themes

Nicholas Weightman — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:53:02 +0000

I’ve spent a few hours updating the theme of the site with something different. I like the Victorian style of the site now. I spent a little time updating and changing some code on the site – i hope it all works successfully.

Also HAPPY INDEPENDANCE DAY AMERICA!

Dream Holiday – Day 8 – The last day

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:59:00 +0000

Today we travelled home. We took a VERY slight detour into Belgium which we were only there for about 10 to 20 minutes whilst we got some cigarettes. I felt like i was doing some kind of dodgy deal there lol. We then travelled down back into France and down to Dieppe – we actually got back to the boat a little early this time, we had to wait around for over an hour in blazing hot temperatures whilst we waited to board. Finally when we got onto the boat i went and sat on the top deck looking out at the port and once we pulled out of the harbour i went off downstairs. I found a lovely quiet room which i was told later might have been reserved for 1st class passengers, but it didn’t bother me, it was virtually empty, really quiet and i just fell asleep in there. When we finally got to port at New Haven we went in search for a Mc Donald’s for some food as we only had a continental breakfast during the morning which consisted of cuasonts and Coffee lol. After eating we drove back to dads and i crashed out in jacks room tired. Jack remained up i think watching eastenders so when it came to the morning i found him in the living room with his laptop on. I watched the news and waited to come back home. After jack went off to school, i made sure i had everything i needed and we got in the car for yet another car journey lol. Upon arriving home i found mum to be pretty ill – so i went off up Sutton with her to do some shopping and that was pretty much it for the day.

Overall i really enjoyed the holiday and I’d like to actually thank Jack, Dad and Lynn for taking me with them, i really thought it was great.

Dream Holiday – Day 7

Nicholas Weightman — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:50:00 +0000

The longest day. Well, i say that it did kind of just fly by eventually. We got up pretty early and Jack wasn’t so eager to wake up – but after a little persuasion of tipping him out of his mattress he was more up for leaving the tree house lol. We left about 10:30am so we were ahead of schedule. We drove for what seemed like hours – i think i must have fallen asleep at one point though because i remember looking out at the time and thinking wow, we’d been in the car that long. We pasted Dieppe the place we arrived in France and then drove up towards Calais, we pasted the Somme and was heading up towards Dunkerque. We actually arrived pretty early so dad and Lynn went for a cold beer and i just laid on a double bed lol. Typical me. And after a while i went for a nice bath and got ready for the evening. My mouth was actually hurting me a lot today, we had some meat last night that really did my tooth in, so I’ve been trying to eat softer food today. We hadn’t actually eaten since this morning so when dinner came it was nice. I had this lovely chicken kebab thing on a stick with some chips and salad and everyone was looking eagerly wondering if they had ordered the wrong thing for themselves lol – i finished that with some lovely pistachio ice-cream with a lovely bottom layer of coffee ice-cream. That was delicious. After what seemed like thousands of miles travelling instead of just a few hundred miles, we all pretty much crashed early that night. I personally slept quiet well, but everyone else woke up restless – apparently i snore lmao.

Dream Holiday – Day 6

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:51:00 +0000

Today is Friday and its our last day here at the camp. Tomorrow we’re driving up north to a hotel and then into Belgyland on Sunday. Today was a quiet day, we all just rested a bit today, soaking up some of the sun if you could find it lol – we took a walk around the camp taking pictures of some of the other tree houses which were something like 50ft in the air. Overall it was just a peaceful day. Tomorrow morning we have to be up really early to leave the camp, so its an early night i guess.

Dream Holiday – Day 5

Nicholas Weightman — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:36:00 +0000

Today we visited St Malo it was a beautiful place. Its a massive fort made of stone with a large town in the middle of it. I got a few presents whilst there. We got a little lost trying to find the place though but my eagle eyes spotted the fort before we gave up lol. It took a while to walk all around the place as we went around the outer edge of the fort first and then on the way back thru the town. Whilst there i bought a can of cherry cola and it was extortionate in price €1,50 which in English money is £1.27 – i could not believe how bad that was – but sadly i needed to have a drink and that’s all i could find. Whilst walking around all the shops i eventually walked off as me feet were hurting so i went and sat down near the car reading my book whilst waiting for everyone else. It was pretty peaceful if not too hot.

Dream Holiday – Day 4

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:30:00 +0000

Last night we visited the closest large town called “Dol De Bretagne” it was a beautiful town with some really old buildings, and i also found a tabac were i got some tobacco ironically lol. It was a long night last night, my hay fever kept me awake a bit and i now feel really dry this morning, sadly although my face feels dry etc, my nose hasn’t really stopped running We went back off to Dol De Bretagne again today to have a good look around before midday as that’s when the shops shut out there. The town was really beautiful and one particular part actually reminded me of this horror film i saw a while back – i sadly couldn’t say the name of it though. I found a Chemist and got some nasal spray and that seems to have helped a little bit. Dad went and got a fishing rod in the hope to catch some fish in the camp and after that we went down to the local shopping centre – Whilst there i tried on some REALLY nice aftershave and it finally twigged after about 20 minutes that it was actually just some links lol – they don’t call it lynx out there though, its called “axe” – i never bought it though. When we got back to camp, dad went fishing and jack complained at me for reading again, i have now moved a sun lounger onto the deck and its ever so peaceful. Sadly we had a few rumbles of thunder and jack went and sat in the car – personally i just went and laid down in the tree house lol – gave me a little peace. After waking up a few hours later i went and had some food and we just chatted for a while. We then went down and watched some open air singing thing, it was pretty good – there was one little boy who went up on stage and was dancing – he got a massive round of applause – it was so sweet. lol We had a few drinks and then went back to the tree house for the night. I think it might be an early night tonight as tomorrow we’re off to St Malo to have a good look around.

Dream Holiday – Day 3

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:14:00 +0000

Well, I had a good look around the camp this morning. After getting back and having a little breakfast, I sat up on the terrace of the tree house and read me book. It was very cold last night and i could see why we had a need for blankets – but overall it must have been one of the best night sleeps i had ever had. The bed although a little smaller, was very comfortable. I wondered down to the shop too, the prices of things were a little expensive. This place has just about everything you can imagine from other tree houses, tents, bungalows, wooden huts to mobile homes. The whole site is really geared up for families. I had a lovely shower too, it was just right. The weather is really hot today, but sitting up on the decking made it perfect. At one point Jack went off swimming and Dad and Lynn went with him, so it was really nice and peaceful just sitting on the decks. Last night when it got dark it went pitch black but thankfully lighting was supplied by the camp and i also had my torch with me. Sadly I’m getting really low of tobacco and i cannot seem to find anywhere on the camp that sells it. Dad and Lynn went to the bar and bought a few drinks were so over priced. Thankfully we brought a lot of our own drinks. Only thing i need to keep stocking up on is Water. We decided to go have a look around the closest town as well today called “St Leonard”. After getting a little lost finding the place we found there wasn’t actually anything there. We took a detour walking back which kind of took us far off the beaten track – My fault lol. But it was a nice walk. Sadly the fields we walked past have set my hay fever off something chronic and i cannot stop sneezing, its going to be a VERY uncomfortable night because of that. I’m now taking twice the anti-histamines allowed to try and curb the sneezing and running nose.

Dream Holiday – Day 2

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:05:00 +0000

This morning we left for France. It was a very long journey. In the end it took 14 hours to get there. I really enjoyed the boat journey over there, the boat was massive and had lots of car decks. We must have got there a little late ironically as there were no other cars waiting to board. I spent most of the time up on the top of the ship as it was nice a cool, thankfully i had my jacket as it got a little cold on the way. During the journey we actually got a little lost as the wrong place was typed into the GPS system. Thankfully it wasn’t too much of a mistake and after an extra 50 miles we finally arrived. It was still light when we got there. The tree house is Massive. It has two rooms and a massive deck. It looks pretty nice. We have tons of blankets and a few sheets for the bedding, but i think it might be a little too hot to have blankets. There is a nice lake / river next to the tree house and it is raised about 5 or so metres into the air. Finding the toilets initially was a little tricky but we eventually found them. The toilets we initially used were for the staff only. But after a little wondering we found some pretty close to the tree house. After a good nights sleep I’ll have a good look around i think. The camp looks pretty big.

Dream Holiday – Day 1

Nicholas Weightman — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:56:00 +0000

Well, I’m about to leave for my holiday to France. We’re travelling to “Dol De Bretagne” in the west of France and it should take a few hours to arrive. Tonight I’m sleeping at my dads house with jack and then leaving about 8am to catch the boat at New Haven. I’m not too sure how long it will take, but I’m expecting about 12 hours travelling.

Loss of a friend

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:08:36 +0000

I’m afraid I am very upset as i lost someone who i considered a dear friend. We had a falling out over a website that i had written and because the site was not being used anymore i decided to remove the site as it upset me to know it was all written for nothing. Sadly this person has decided to end our friendship and i am very sad about that, although the comments left on his site are a little more upsetting, i will ignore the comments as i guess i deserve them. I wish him all the best in the future and I’m sorry our friendship didn’t workout. I admit when i am in the wrong, and I guess i was in the wrong, but for the right reasons.

Due to personal respect, i have removed all content belonging to him as i am sure they would not be welcomed by him being on my site any longer.

Forum Closed

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:05:24 +0000

Sadly the departure of a friend from the Forum has caused me to close the forum as it was not being used. Also because of the level of spamming from outsiders there is at this time no need to keep the forum online. Perhaps in the future if i have more interest in the forum and perhaps some volunteer moderators, i shall consider putting the forum back online.

Another Waste of Time

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:47:27 +0000

Well, i have closed the Banditos site once and for all – i was informed this evening that the site was never used and the band members could not be bothered to use it – so I’ve backed it up and closed it leaving just the blog in place. I don’t know why i bother sometimes, i put some hard work and new technologies into something for it to just to go to waste again. I should of learned my lesson the last time, but this time my decision is final, no more messing around with the site.

I’ve not really written much for a while as I’ve not been too well in recent weeks, but I’m now getting back to normal and will hopefully start writing to good stuff soon. I’m off to France next week so i shall get a few pictures for everyone to see.

Mums off for a well deserved holiday

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:07:23 +0000

Well, my mum is off on her holidays today, its only for a week, but she’s off to Scotland for some rest and relaxation. Whilst up there she is visiting my granddad too. She’s taking her new lappy too so she can show my granddad tons of pictures, I’m sure she’ll be using it to write her story up though most of the time. She’s going up to Edinburgh and then down to Carlisle to then visit my granddad and then off i think to the highlands after that to see some scenery. I think she really deserves the break, i hope she enjoys it. Sadly she hurt her back this morning which was not good, so i hope that doesn’t put a dampener on things. I’ll be off on my short break in just under 3 weeks time, I’m looking forward to some time away as well.

A Lovely Day

Nicholas Weightman — Sat, 30 May 2009 21:58:12 +0000

I had a lovely day today, I went out with mum up to the shops looking for various things. The sun was lovely and hot and i got a little sun burnt around my neck – the sun burn doesn’t bother me too much but the hay fever does. The morning started off pretty early, i was a bit tired though as i went to bed at 4am. We had Lily staying over for the night so we went and dropped her off and i had a cuddle of my nephew Riley, he was feeling a little ill, but better than he was yesterday when we saw him. I picked him up and he was trying to talk to me as he was laughing, i so love babies, there so cute. After staying for about 20 minutes we made our way into town to look around some electronics shops – and no, none of it was for me, mum wanted to get a few new things. It was generally just a lovely day, we had a bite to eat whilst out at Frankie & Benny’s and it was actually really nice in there – its the first time i had ever been in the place. I really enjoyed the food. We finished up dinner and continued shopping, looked at a few bargains mum was after and finally around 4pm we got home shattered – its been good and me and mum really enjoyed ourselves.

Star Trek – The Next Generation ?

Nicholas Weightman — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:22:27 +0000

Well, I’ve finally seen the new Star Trek Movie and it was really good, it was nice to see the whole of the original crew back, even if played by different people. I really did enjoy the movie, it had lots of action and was a fantastic film overall, however i do have a few bug bears being that i am an avid star trek fan – This new film now makes Star Trek Movies 1 to 5 now irrelevant with the destruction of Vulcan and more than likely as the planet was destroyed in this movie, it could also make all of Star Trek the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager obsolete as a new time frame has taken place based upon this new movie. I think that is the one single thing that makes this film a disappointment as although it lived up to the hype and did live up to expectations, the story line in itself was at major fault and really has destroyed the name of Star Trek as what we know it. The new design for the Star Ship Enterprise wasn’t as bad considering the story line has gone WAY off track in terms of keeping in line with the whole of Star Trek as a whole. I do really like the movie, but at the same time as a fan, i also hate the film – it really has now changed things for the Star Trek world overall and yet, i cannot help but to still like it. :S

I am not entirely sure if the writer of the new film was a super star trek fan as he would have known that playing with storylines in the past would have massive changes on future episodes in keeping it all correct. They would literally have to re-do star trek from the very beginning to make it all work again and i don’t think they’ll be doing that in any hurry.

My final thoughts – well, other than the storyline destroying EVERYTHING, i do think overall it was a good film and i do hope they make another, they should add Star Wars into it to complete the destruction, but that’s my thoughts about it. I enjoyed the special effects and the great battle scenes and conflicts between Kirk and Spock – but they are perhaps the only things that make it a Star Trek film. I know the film was written with the idea of allowing people who have never seen star trek to get into it – but they could of done it with out altering so many things. Even having a bit at the end where they revert history would of been good – in my opinion the film is unfinished in that respect.

My Finished Shed

Nicholas Weightman — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:35:05 +0000

well this is only a short entry, I thought i would show the world the finished shed in all its glory. It took a little while to work the doors out but i finally got them attached and it looks great now. I would like to thank my mum and Steve for helping in the constructions of this shed and although the shed is my mums, i would like to think i put a nice bit of effort and brain power into trying to work the damn thing out. lol

Sheds are as easy as 1,2,49

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:54:32 +0000

Today i started building the shed in the garden, i had already been at it for an hour when my brother-in-law Steve turned up. I honestly thought it would be an easy task, but it turned into a mathematics conundrum with just about every part being more complicated than the last. Eventually Steve and my mum had a go at building it, after i made the base and started with the side panels. I went in side and started chatting to my sister and playing with my nephew Riley – Who by the way is the cutest next to little Marshall Little Riley was laughing his head off today, he still had a bit of a confused look on his face, pretty much the same look i have when looking in the mirror – but he was laughing nethertheless.

Eventually my sister left and I went back to building the shed with mum after nearly 45 minutes of Steve and my mum trying to work it out. I had the very scientific task of trying to work out the roof – 3 panels ohhhhh NO! more like 3 panels from HELL! – it was a pain. I still at this time haven’t completed the shed, after 2 nasty little cuts and a headache and after working on it for nearly 5 hours, I’ve finally given up and well, I’m writing this. Tomorrow i will have a go at trying to work the doors out – which already look fun :S

Now looking at the picture, it looks like a small and dinky shed, but don’t let the size fool you – its just about the most complicated piece of engineering on the planet, that tiny little box, aka the shed construction of doom is truly a force to be reckoned with and you do truly need a masters degree to understand the basics of putting the thing together with its 10,000 screws and bolts.

Well, next month I’m off to France – a treat from my father and to spend some time with my little brother Jack. I shall of course get lots of photo’s and although I’m not taking my laptop, i shall endure to write it all down so i can post my time on here. I will be taking my music and book for personal company

A Great Day!

Nicholas Weightman — Sun, 10 May 2009 18:49:47 +0000

I had a lovely day today with my Family. I woke up and decided to clean out my room a bit, I removed a ton of cables from behind my PC and generally cleaned my room up, even got rid of a radiator which was taking up too much floor space. Then at about 1:30pm my sisters started arriving and we all sat out in the garden eating and drinking – yes even i had a few drinks. I was only drinking black Russians though, which is Vodka, Tia-Maria and cola – they were nice, but now getting a bit of a headache – in fact i don’t think I’ve drunk alcohol since i went to my Nan’s last year. We all say in the Garden all just chatting for hours. It was nice to have everyone at home, its been a long time. Even my mum had a few drinks, which was nice to see lol – All in all it was a lovely day with the sun out and everything went well. My little nephew riley was there too, and he was in his pram when he woke up and he was smiling and laughing at me – i though that was the cutest thing ever – I know its hard work having children, but with seeing things like that, it makes me want one lol.

Firewalls ?

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:09:13 +0000

Firewall, Firewall, Firewall – So which is the best and how do we choose? With the Market place now full of different vendors all offering there own firewall types, how are we as consumers supposed to choose the best one for us? Well you want some basics with firewalls, you want it to block intruders for starters and it would be good if they could protect out confidential information too – So we need something that can do that without slowing our PC’s down – on that note, there are not many on the market that can do that – I personally use Comodo Internet Security, i find this is a fast and well built system that doesn’t have tons of pop up messages. I don’t rely on the inbuilt windows firewall for good reason. I don’t just relay on the Comodo system though, i have also been using Softperfect firewall for some time now – its designed more for people who know what there doing as it can be a little fiddly, but it is also highly secure and a very simple interface. Some of the latest systems out though like Symantec and McAfee are great for first time users and will do a good job, but there only bug bear is they can be a little slow on the PC.

If you would like to try Comodo Internet Security, they have a perpetual free version that is fantastic, you can eventually opt to upgrade if you wish, but there is no time limit on there system.

http://www.comodo.com

http://www.softperfect.com

BBC scary series now a reality?

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:27:20 +0000

This is only a short entry; I’ve been watching the news about this Swine Influenza virus that is currently attacking the planet’s population, this afternoon the threat level was raised to 5 which is basically on the edge of an all out pandemic – with more and more people in the UK now getting sick I’m starting to worry about what the consequences of this virus.

This whole pandemic outbreak keeps reminding me of the TV series called “Survivors” which was shown on TV just recently about such a flu epidemic that basically wiped out the population of the world and left just a handful of survivors to re-populate the earth – i hope the BBC doesn’t have a time machine and they were basically warning us of such a viral outbreak. Creepy.

Terminator – Salvation

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:07:12 +0000

In 1984 a new terror hit the big screen in the form of Terminator, this film was revolutionary for its time. It was about a future in which man kind has been wiped out by a war against man and machine. It starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as the menacing cyborg from the future sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) the mother of the future saviour of man kind John Connor. With the help of Rees (Michael Biehn), a good guy also from the future sent back to protect her, they both successfully avoid the Terminator and finally destroy him in an all out battle in which the terminator is de-clothed of his skin and fight it out until only the victors Rees and Connor survive.

For its time the film had everything that had never been seen before, Time travel, Cyborgs and paradoxes. The story line was basic, but the way in which the film was put together was far from basic. This film was pre CGI and yet still stands out as one of the best films of the 1980′s and perhaps of all time.

In 1991 Arnie was back in the sequel to Terminator in “Judgement Day”. This time Arnie was the good guy sent back in time to protect John Connor (Edward Furlong) from another new menace from the future, the liquefying T-1000 Terminator – not a simple cyborg this time, but a liquid metal robot with what seems like unlimited resources and was virtually unstoppable. The T-1000 could take on virtually any object with equal size and mass and had the ability to take the form of people as well as create simple stabbing knives. This film had everything we were expecting from a sequel and in the end like in the previous film, the victors save the day and finally the future looked like it may have been a nice quiet place without any threat of doomsday as all traces of ‘skynet’ are finally destroyed.

But then when all was quiet in the future, in 2003 a third film was released, Terminator 3 – ‘Rise of the machines’ in which a bad ass liquid metal robot (Kristanna Loken) the T-X from the future was once again sent back in time to target John Connor and the resistance. But unlike the two previous films, John Connor fails, but doesn’t die – as Skynet finally becomes active and destroys the known world in this epic movie. Sadly this film uses a lot of CGI and wasn’t as believable as the two previous films but was certainly a good ending to the Terminator series of films or at least that is what we thought…

Released: 2009

Go to IMDb page

Information © IMDb.com

Terminator Salvation

Christian Bale, Moon Bloodgood, Anton Yelchin, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jane Alexander, Ivan G’Vera,

Now in 2009 a brand new movie staring Christian Bale as John Connor is about to be launched on the big screen, showing the future after the bombs have dropped and the machines have risen – this film looks to be an excellent ending to this great story line.

Sadly at this time I have no more information than that, all I can think is it is about the first cyborgs with human flesh that are created and in this film, they must stop them. This film has lots to live up to from the first two films and I hope it delivers all we have come to expect from this scary horror series.

Suzanne has whiplash

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:41:51 +0000

I am a little worried about my sister Suzanne at the moment, i just heard from my mum that she was involved in a car accident – the accident was only minor as a car went up the back of there car whilst they were stationary. According to a phone call from my sister just after the incident she might have slight whiplash. But since that time we’ve not actually heard anything more from her. Apparently a car rear ended the car behind my sisters and wrecked the middle car – thankfully Suzanne’s car was only scratched but the woman who caused all this was apparently searching on the floor of her car at the time for a juice bottle. My new born nephew was in the car at the time but he is ok and Steve was a little shell shocked from it – I’m keeping my ear to the ground to make sure all is ok.

Site Updates – 24th April.

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:55:15 +0000

Redesigned Guestbook
Redesigned About Me Page
Redesigned Links Page

Redesigned Guestbook

I redesigned my guestbook to bring it up to date. Although it didn’t look bad, i wanted to add some curves areas and make the whole display a little more advanced. Removed all the outer borders and replaced with specific pictured backgrounds, working more on default wordpress theme for display.

Redesigned About Me Page

I used the guestbook as a template but made it wider to display pictures. Runs different colours depending on which site of mine its running from.

Redesigned Links Page

I used the guestbook as a template. Running all data via SQL now. Added new Category of recommended programs sites. Added star rating of my personal favourite sites.

Faces From The Past

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:50:24 +0000

I thought i would trawl around Facebook a little, and I found some surprising names from my past on there, I have added a few people from my Middle School on there in the hope they might contact me back. Its been so long since I saw anyone from back then. As I looked at the names it brought back memories of France and Stouthall – places we visited back then. I know the past in the past, but its still nice going back your routes of life sometimes and learning new things. I made contact with one person i remember well from back then, and she has written back – it was nice.

The Trouble With Tribbles

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:38:26 +0000

Well as many might know, i am an avid fan of Star Trek and yes, come May 8th 2009 the latest Star Trek film is launched in England. I have seen many adverts for this film on the internet over the past year and there of course has been talk about this film for many years. I am now looking forward to actually seeing this movie. The movie about the younger years of Captain Kirk before taking command of the USS Enterprise. But there any many differences from this film and the original Series of Star Trek. I have seen pictures of the latest Enterprise incarnation and it looks very different from the original series and I’m not sure this will actually work for those of us who grew up on the original series of Star Trek. This movie will have a lot to live up to and i do hope it doesn’t end up a disaster because of the slight differences like the series Star Trek “Enterprise”.

Insert from IMBD.com

“From the first scene the Star Trek universe as we knew it has changed forever. Kirk is now an angry wayward young man looking for trouble. He fights with Starfleet cadets in Iowa when a Capt. Pike takes an interest in him, finding out he’s the only ‘genius level repeat offender in the Midwest’. Pike dares Kirk to join Starfleet, goading him with the legacy of his father. A young Spock is tortured over his mixed heritage, the emotions he fights to control and the very different paths he has before him. He must choose between the Vulcan world which will never accept him as anything other than ‘half human’ and Starfleet Academy, worlds away from everything he has ever known. We meet Dr ‘Bones’ McCoy and a young linguist Uhura at the Academy and watch as a headstrong Kirk wreaks havoc on Starfleet’s rules and regulations. Kirk’s antics culminate in his reprogramming the famous Kobayashi Maru test and consequent disciplinary hearing. He comes face to face with the scenario creator, Mr Spock. As this unfolds; a vicious Romulan from the future is hell bent on vengeance upon ‘Ambassador’ Spock and nothing will get in his way. The fleet is called to arms as peril aims at the heart of the Federation and Kirk and Spock are irrevocably pulled together to save the galaxy – for the first time.”

Well I’m looking to see if J.J. Abrams has lived up to the Star Trek name and I will be writing my review as soon as I’ve seen the film. I am kind of looking forward to it, i have to admit.

Lily Loves her new room

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:56:57 +0000

Mum has been working very hard for the past few weeks getting the spare room ready. Little lily moved in to the room last night and she hasn’t wanted to leave the room since. As soon as she came around yesterday she remained in there nearly all afternoon. She went to bed about 9pm and then remained asleep until nearly 9:30 am which is unusual for her, which means she was very content. By the time i got up everyone was in the spare room playing with puzzles. I thought it was really cute. Although the bedroom is only a spare room, its now lilies spare room for when she comes and visits.

Mum has worked very hard re-decorating the bedroom. It was once my little bedroom many years ago, but once my sisters starting getting older and one of them moved out, i moved into the bigger room and then my little sister moved into the small bedroom. I had the room for nearly 16 years and i loved that room very much in its time it went from Victorian looking to modern to finally all flowery. I think what mum has done looks great and very simplistic and as it will only be used every couple of weeks for the occasional weekend, I don’t think it will get destroyed too quickly.

Feeling much better

Nicholas Weightman — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:59:56 +0000

I have just about finished updating the banditos website, it now looks great again (http://banditos.org.uk/wordpress/2009/04/16/wordpress-moved/) and I have spent lots of time making amendments to the old system and styles. I just hope it gets used. I spent only two days updating the system, I installed the latest version of wordpress and updated the database and updated the front page. I couldn’t save the original theme for banditos sadly, so i wrote a nice new one. Its not taken too long overall, just tidying up mainly.

Tonight we have Lily staying here. Mum has worked very hard on getting her spare room up to scratch, and it really does look good. I helped build a bed in there this morning and that was the total of my efforts. I just hope Lily enjoys her new room.

Baby Riley

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:35:00 +0000

My sister posted this video of Riley on the internet and i had to share it because he is so cute.

An old site remembered

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:27:31 +0000

Yesterday I worked closely with Iain to get his old site up and running again http://www.banditos.org.uk I’ve not been on that site for quiet some time. It was good looking at what was originally written. I think if the band use the site this time, i might actually update it a little. It was a good site because i wrote the code to hide all the advertisements that the free host had put on there. I also customised the WordPress system quiet a bit to display pictures of the writers next to there entry. I guess I’ll see how it goes from here on in.

Jack got to meet my two other sisters today, Becky and Sophie – at this time i haven’t yet met them, its a complicated story, but we’re now starting to all get together and build relationships after so long. I hope to meet them both hopefully by the summer. Jack had a wonderful time going off to Bowling and KFC & McDonalds, where food is concerned he is in his element. I’m glad they all had fun and got on well together.

Fixed Screen Resolution Problem

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:39:01 +0000

I’ve added a small script to detect the screen resolution of your screen, when you open my website it should set the pictures on the main screen to the correct sizes. If you do not see changes straight away, just refresh the screen and they should then work. If there are still problems, click the contact me button and tell me the size of screen it was not working on. But remember to refresh the screen before contacting me.

Main site logo picture changes size
The picture of the tests should change size or disappear
The picture of me on the right hand size should change size or disappear.

Riley is so cute.

Nicholas Weightman — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:01:36 +0000

Yesterday I had little Riley (my nephew) come here for most of the day whilst Suzanne and Steve took little Lily to the cinema for her first film, from all accounts she really enjoyed it. So whilst they were at the cinema I got to hold Riley and i loved the smell of him – babies are so great He is now trying to stand and he is just so great – my sister did a fantastic job! I’ve added some pictures of him trying to stand in photo’s of me and photo’s of my mum in the photo album.

Well as you may have gathered i have been busy re-writing my website. This is the 4th incarnation of my site to date. The first version was only on my PC and being run from home, the second version was moved from host to host and the third and final version before this one was only run from this host server and i think it looked pretty good. In total I have spent over a year writing and updating my site. However as with all things to do with web pages, I got pretty bored with it. I hadn’t actually updated the site in some time and decided it needed an overhaul and this is the final result – I hope every does like it. I have re-written the forum, the guestbook added a photo gallery, tidied up some of the original coding to make it compatible with Mozilla Firefox and other browsers and today I finished by adding a little more code to a few places. This site also now has streaming music along the top and i think it brings the site to life a little – although my 3rd incarnation of the site also had music, it had no controls to start and stop the music and once you left the front page the music was gone, its now on all the time and can be turned on and off depending on the users preferences. Well, I hope you now like my new site and I appreciate any feed back from people who visit, just sign my guestbook or add a comment to my blog

Site Updates:

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:11:55 +0000

Post Updated

Added music switch to top of website
Forum is now installed and running

I wanted to add a little more life into this old dead site by adding some music to liven things up a little. The music is a little demonic but the site wasn’t designed for jazz. I have now installed a new forum on this site and it is now up and running. I hope you enjoy using it. [ LINK ] Anyone can join up and post messages. Myself and my friend Reject are the forum moderators. The site is about ghosts and the Paranormal and at this point there is not much content or topics as it is still only in a working beta version of what i want it to be like. I have managed to pull down a few of the original posts from when the forum was last active on this site, however because of the upgrade to PHPBB 3 a lot of the original data has been lost. Please contact me if there are any problems with the forum.

Original Post: I’m also currently installing a new forum – at the moment its only in a testing stage and not much has been added to it as yet. Once i can get the layouts etc correct i will put the forum live. Once the forum goes live i will leave it running for a few months, if it doesn’t really take off then i will just remove it again. The forum is running PHPBB 3 which is the latest version of the famous bulletin board software. This site used to have an implementation of PHPBB in the past using version 2, however the forum started to get abused with spammers so i closed the forum over a year ago in anticipation of version 3 being more secure so this will be a good test. However when i closed the site i must have deleted the previous database with all the previous forum posts and therefore i couldn’t do an upgrade. So if my old friends come back expecting the old forum information, my apologise to them. However I’m sure we will make this forum much better.

RSS Readers / Aggregators

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:31:03 +0000

I’ve been using an RSS reader for some time now. I don’t use the one built into Internet Explorer or Firefox though. The one i have chosen and what i wish to talk about is called “RSS Bandit”. Last night i decided to see what else was out there for free and I found a large selection of different readers, and i had the opportunity to try a few of the best on the internet. First of all let me explain a little about what RSS readers are. And RSS reader allows you to read the updates from sites, this can be news or latest products etc. My own website allows you to pick up RSS feeds so when i post an entry like this one, it will be available via RSS – This is good if you have a large selection of different sites you wish to receive updates from. Therefore you can pick up the latest posts from my site, your local news sites, your friends sites etc and be able to read all the updates in one place instead of searching all over the internet for the individual sites.

Now last night i tried a few different readers as i mentioned above. I found a some very pretty readers and some more advanced readers – but to date, i found none that seem to compare at this point to RSS Bandit. I will admit, RSS Bandit is however not the best reader on the planet, its slow load, it has an annoying fixed left hand sidebar that you cannot move yourself and the categories are mouse tracked – which means you hover your mouse over a category and it moves all the other categories out of place. I find if you was using a laptop touch pad that this feature will become annoying. Ok i hear you ask, what can be so great about this program if there are so many negative aspects of it – well, i do actually like the layout of the program, I find once the program is loaded the RSS feeds are quickly accessible and you can categories RSS feeds with ease. The main thing i like which other RSS Readers don’t seem to have got right is when you select a site within the sub categories you can read the entire set of posts from that site and not have to click on each and individual post – which a few of them do.

Overall i have to actually rate RSS Bandit 7/10 which means some of the more advanced readers in my opinion have a lot to live up to. I’m not however saying the other RSS Readers are bad, no, it does come down to personal choice to how you want to read the news, I did come across a few different Readers that I thought were very nice and quick and would do the job perfectly – but as i am a person set in my ways, i guess I just like how RSS bandit has been for me.

Here is a list of a few of the RSS Readers i evaluated and actually liked:

RSS Bandit My Favourite choice (Requires .net)
Feed Demon A very advanced and nicely laid out RSS Reader
Sharp reader A very popular free RSS reader
Awasu A very nice RSS reader

Feeling a little strange today

Nicholas Weightman — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:06:40 +0000

I’m not sure how i am feeling today, I received a promotional email from an army surplace company and it kind of brought back memories of when i was going threw an episode of my life when i thought Zombies would start walking the earth and i needed to get items for my protection. I know it might sound crazy, but after my breakdown i truly was in a horrid place when i feared for my life and for some reason it was from a Zombie threat. Looking at the site today made me feel the same as i did back then. Its an odd feeling, I kind of have these survival instincts come out that makes me want to protect myself. I think because of a bit of worry is happening in my life at the moment i am just feeling low within myself and i know there is nothing i can do – i guess its the feeling of helplessness that is causing me to think the wrong things at the moment. This Zombie thing isn’t all that is affecting me, I’m not sleeping very well again, i seem to be having nightmares again when i do and its just an endless circle that seems to be getting me down again. I think a few early nights will help, but getting to sleep is just not easy. I think my family think i sleep all the time, but i honestly don’t. I might work on my site or something until about 1am and chat to my dear friends, but after that, i lay in bed and just cannot fall off to sleep – recently I’ve been watching the clocks just go around and around, hour by hour just goes past. If i do manage to get off to sleep, its very restless and i just feel really tired within myself.

Just reading above, it sounds crazy that i wanted to protect my life against Zombies when i was in a state that i could commit suicide at the drop of a hat – i ask you, how messed up is that?

Well I don’t have much else to write about at the moment, how lame is that. i need more subjects to write about i think – it might make my blog more popular. I don’t want to just put negative posts on here, I would like to add some fun stuff too – and hopefully in the coming months i will have lots to write about. I also want to add a new category of “Horror” so that people can easily find things related to the site subject of Ghosts etc.

Music videos updated

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:36:42 +0000

I would like to thank my brother for going threw all the music videos for me and finding all the dead links, they are all now current and at this time there are 24 videos left. Thanks Jack.

My mum is so funny

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:09:51 +0000

Yesterday I went out to the doctors to pick up a prescription and when i got back i found my bedroom had been hovered out. Mum later told me she was standing there waving and sticking her tongue out to my cameras in there – i was thinking “cameras” ? – I only have a single camera on top of my PC and I’m trying to work out what she meant. She then showed me the camera’s she was talking about – it turned out she was waving into my speakers on the wall lol – oh bless her.

Alternative to Blogjet

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:34:58 +0000

Fremen pointed out a new program for blogging from the PC called Blogjet (http://www.thehoneymonster.net/2009/04/testing-blogjet/), after trying this little application out and finding it was not freeware or open source I decided to have a look around, and I have now finally found a little program that does the same job and perhaps better and easier than Blogjet called w.blogger (http://www.wbloggar.com/) the bonus is that the program is open source. The application start up seems to be almost identical to Blogjet and the layout is very simple and easy to use. I am at this time just testing the program out to see if its any good.

I have since been looking around a little more and I have found the ultimate blogging client for the windows platform – its simply called Windows Writer and its part of the Windows Live system. It does everything you could EVER ask for in a client including pulling down previous posts, site themes, and all the stuff you can basically do from the wordpress website but better. I really do like this software, its very simple and has a Microsoft Word style interface for editing and writing blogs. I think from now on this will be my Program of choice for writing blogs locally.

George Orwell’s 1984

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:26:52 +0000

Looks like the world of big brother is upon us as described by my dear friend Honeymonster (http://www.thehoneymonster.net/2009/04/big-brother) – Has the world gone mad or something? The new EU regulations are pretty simple, they can now monitor emails and website viewing and log all the information because of terrorists. Well, how far will this madness go? If a terrorist, even a dumb one at that wanted to send secret messages, they would use encrypted emails and channels that are not monitored by the government, these channels and ways around them monitoring what we write and do are ever so easy to use and set up. Yet, the government of the united kingdom for one, is penalizing all citizens by snooping into there personal live. This was outlined in George Orwell’s famous book "1984" in which the exact same thing happened. Cannot the people of England See they are being brain washed by very clever manipulation and see that the very foundations of our society are being removed on a daily basis. This is another example that the London Elections were for the first Mayor of London – when Ken was against labour and then all of a sudden, once the elections were over, Ken suddenly became a labour candidate again – couldn’t anyone actually see that was manipulated from the VERY beginning? This is all happening and no one has the balls to stand up and say "look, we are not going to be slave to your machine, we will NOT be monitored like criminals" – This government has gone too far with removing our civil liberties.

The Grand Scheme

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:06:37 +0000

I sometimes let people into my mind to see what is going on in there, I thought I would share a little of my madness with the world today. As many will know, I have serious depressive syndrome that causes me to be depressed just about all the time. Whilst having my depression there are some things that seem to make my depression get worse and that’s when I start thinking of the bigger picture. What is the bigger picture?

Well, I want you to try something, the next time you are in an aeroplane and you’re flying over a city, look down and see if you can see people – if you can you are probably flying too low. The simple answer is that people from that height just cannot be seen as individuals, they are perhaps smaller than a single celled organism.

It kind of makes you think a little, earth, a tiny little planet in the a tiny solar system, somewhere on the edge of the milky way and if you pull back even more, we’re just a tiny Galaxy amongst hundreds of millions of other Galaxies. We are therefore insignificant and really don’t mean much to the universe at all. When I think on these terms, I feel that our lives what ever they maybe are really not worth that much.

Last night I woke up about midnight and went to the toilet, went back to bed, but before I got into bed I moved the mouse on my computer to see if anyone was on-line and then laid down in bed again. My eye started to itch a little, so I started rubbing my eye and then as I laid there with my eyes closed, the light that I had seen from my PC started to come back into my eye – it was an image of my eye but it was kind of green and then went white – its a normal reaction, anyone who presses there eye in will see the same. But for a split second, I saw what looked like hundreds of Galaxies just there in that light – it made me think, what if our entire existence is just that the inside of someone’s eye that is being pressed in. The whole of creation, from the dawn of time to the end of time could just be a spit second of someone pressing there eyeball in. What would seem like trillions of years to us, could be the split second of something else.

I know this is probably making no sense or perhaps on some level others might agree, but I do personally feel that our entire existence and humans is not worth that much at all, on these terms, life and death has no meaning. Not sure if its my medication making me talk like this or not – but I know I feel empty inside to some extent. I won’t try and go to the extreme this time and try to kill myself over this, but I know that it does bother me a little not knowing what our lives are really for, because I cannot believe that we were born to get up at 6am to work at 9am to finish at 5:30am and to sleep by 9pm every day of our lives until we die, and what for – a pay check that isn’t even worth that much? – Life seems to pointless in my view.

New Gallery Installed – Update

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:07:12 +0000

I have now set up some different sections in the Photo Gallery, including Magic Eye Pictures and Ghost Pictures. I have set static links to the different sections (family photo album) and (ghostly pictures section) in there respective sections on the right hand side of my front page.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNE-MARIE

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:55:53 +0000

I want to send out a massive Happy Birthday to my baby sister Anne-Marie, she is 21 years old today and already has a top job and her own home – she is a real success and i am so proud of her! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNE-MARIE, have a drink on me!

I also want to wish my Uncle Graham a happy birthday too – Happy Birthday Uncle

I’m so unfit

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 23:36:16 +0000

I was helping to move my sister into her new flat today, I had a look around and the place is really nice, only thing i do not envy is the 3 flights of stairs to get up there every time. I was worn out carrying the first box to the top.By the time we had finished, I was soaking wet from sweating so much and just wanted to lay down. Mind you, nothing a nice bubble bath couldn’t fix. Well at least moving is only a blue moon kind of thing and i won’t be doing that for a while – mind you it has told me to get a little fitter – i am so out of shape.

Once I got home i helped a little in moving my sisters old room out – literally to the bin, so after that i continued on with my website. I installed a new photo gallery and already have put lots of photo’s on there.

Thankfully i can have a lay in this morning (its past midnight already) so i will take full advantage of it and just not wake up.

Well, its late – night night all.

New Gallery installed

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:52:26 +0000

I’ve installed a new picture gallery on my site. The gallery at this time only has family pictures but will eventually have pictures of ghosts. It took a little while to get up and running as its not the easiest of Galleries to manage. New Gallery

computers computers computers

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:28:31 +0000

I’m actually getting tired today. I have two computers in pieces in my room at the moment, I’m taking them apart to create a good working computer – but its taking its time. My sister is moving out tomorrow so i wanted to make her a working computer for her new flat, i wouldn’t mind its just none of it seems to be working how it should. :S The computer is not exactly state of art, was perhaps made early 1990′s but can still run Windows XP at a push.

Tomorrow i am helping her to move house, that should be fun – I’m not the fittest of people on the planet after spending so much time in my room recovering from my depression, it should be fun seeing how much use i will be. So i will probably be up early tomorrow, which means an early night tonight – makes a change from going to bed at 3am like usual.

Well that’s all from me tonight, not sure when I’ll write again.

Awkwardness of WordPress

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:28:47 +0000

I have been trawling through the wordpress database and running a few SQL queries to see if i can optimise the scrolling news at the top of my site. I noticed that no matter what I was posting it was appearing at the top, which was a little awkward when posting perhaps a page – it was therefore not showing what i wanted it to show. So I’ve been running a few SQL queries to only show what i want it to show and finally i think i have it. I have joined two tables in the query and told it to pull out the news category and then show only the posted item – Its not as simple as it sounds, most of an SQL database is just a random block of letters and numbers to the average person and most of it will never make any sense – so i had to work hard on finding the correct tables and data to join. I hope that it now only displays the last "news" item from my site.

My little big sister

Nicholas Weightman — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:56:37 +0000

My little sister is not so little anymore – yep is true, my sister Anne-Marie is turning 21 years old this Friday and she has just got her first flat. I admire my sister for she has strived so hard and worked so hard to get where she is today. I get to visit her flat on Wednesday as I’m helping her to move in, and then on Friday we are having Jelly and Ice cream at her house to celebrate her birthday – Jelly and Ice cream i hear you say, well yes, its a tradition in this house and we all love it – I’m coming up to 30 years old and I too want jelly and Ice cream on my birthday

This week is going to be a long week from what i can tell. I haven’t been sleeping too well recently and i am now just tired so everything i do is now tiring me out even more. Looking after Bonnie (our puppy) can also be very tiresome.

Yesterday all the family came around and we all got talking. I was able to hold little Riley, and I was sniffing his head – I am not a woman, but if i was, i would so want a child – the smell was so beautiful. Sadly children grow up and that nice smell becomes a poohey smell and then the back chatting starts and you start wishing they were in boarding school

This will actually be my first post that is also sent to specific people via email. I know a few of my friends don’t have fast Internet to keep going to my site so i thought i would deliver is direct to there email box. For those who do have slow Internet, a little program i would recommend and i use it frequently is called RSS Bandit – (http://rssbandit.org/) The program is an RSS Aggregator that allows you to download news feeds from many different sites including my own site. If you do download it, then the address to add for my site is http://www.ghost-house.co.uk/wordpress/feed – that way you can always get my blogs on time

One thing that i was going to quickly write about was Computer Encryption and Rollback software – I currently use some software that resets my computer back to a pre-defined time and state if the computer messes up (or in my case install some software and cannot be bothered to uninstall it like normal people) the program basically restores all your settings and turns the computer clock back to before any problems occur – but another thing i am very keen on is Hard Drive Encryption – As i use a portable laptop now, it would be nice to encrypt the drive so that if the computer was stolen, all my software and documents would remain safe – At this time the both types of software are incompatible with each other, you therefore cannot encrypt your hard drive AND have it roll back problems. I think this is a real shame as if the two elements were combined, you would have a very powerful program that could keep data safe but also restore the PC if anything happens. I think developers should look into this area – i know many people who would certainly benefit from such a piece of software.

Well that’s all for now folks, I shall write again very soon

A typical Sunday Afternoon

Nicholas Weightman — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:44:54 +0000

Well its Sunday, and that means doing not much in this house. I have got a few sweets and now just sitting down and enjoying the company of my family. Last night the clocks changed and i felt it this morning – well i say this morning, i woke up at 1:16pm, which would of been 12:16pm if the clocks hadn’t changed. I really needed some sleep as i haven’t slept much in recent times, and when i did sleep all i seemed to get was a ton of nightmares :S

I was finalizing a few things on this site last night including the new welcome picture.. When i wasn’t sorting my site or talking to friends i was helping my Friend Daniel with some new design ideas for his site, his site didn’t really need many changes, but the changes that have been made look pretty good. I just hope he likes his new site look.I was also watching a movie last night that i never expected to see on television just yet and was pleasantly surprised it was on – “Diary of the Dead” – which was a pretty good movie, although i have seen it before, it was nice to refresh my memory of the film.

Well, this afternoon is a very quiet one as i said before, Suzanne may pop around at some point, but i don’t know yet. Now just sitting back and waiting for dinner, which is Curry my fave.

I think i’ve finshed.

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:49:49 +0000

I think i’ve finished updating my site now. I have altered the news along the top to now show the latest posts, i used a few commands to reverse the date function so it reads correctly and stripped out any extra tags so that it all works nicely.

Welcome to my updated site

Nicholas Weightman — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:13:51 +0000

Welcome to my re-launched website I have moved over to Word press as it is more convenient to upload information. I have added a few of my older blog entries on to here and will be continuing all my blogs on here from now on. I hope to bring this site back to life in the next couple of months and start adding more content to do with the paranormal.

Various things to say

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:21:48 +0000

Well, its been a while since i last wrote a blog entry. I can’t really say much has happened since i last wrote and entry really. I was given a new laptop as a gift from my mum, and i haven’t been off it since. I love the thing, its fast, easy to use and just a wonderful peace of kit. As for my personal life, well nothing has really changed.

My brother Jack got a laptop too at Christmas, but its already in the repair shop, i had actually put a bet on that by the time i see them in the summer it wouldn’t be working, i guess it was an easy bet lol. I hope this gives him the idea to show a little more respect.

My middle sister had her baby just two weeks ago, she had a little boy called Riley, he is a little cutie and i love him to bits. When she came around i held him briefly and he squeezed my hand – i felt like i wanted a baby – sadly, i doubt i will ever have children. I’m not too upset about it, but the woman i love cannot have anymore children when we get together, so i guess i will have more time for her

Anne-Marie is moving out at the beginning of next month, she now has a flat up in Sutton, i hope to have a look around once she’s settled in – at the moment she is here boxing up her stuff, and i tell ya, there is a LOT of stuff.

Well, as you can tell there really isn’t much i can say at the moment, i have been a bit down recently, but nothing new there – I just hope by the summer i will be feeling a bit better. I’m thinking of re-writing this website though, i might add some pre-made website software instead of my layout – but i will have to work hard in making it look how i want – it might give me something to do in the next few months.

My Birthday today

Nicholas Weightman — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:25:11 +0000

Well today is my 29th Birthday, I am a little worried because next year I am going to be 30 years old. It feels like life is now rushing me by, but saying that, 29 years is a long time and living that amount of time might sound silly, but its only a drop in the ocean. I got a new MP3 player, two T-shirts and some new shorts as well as a new Waistcoat that looks great on me – I am still awaiting some gifts to arrive from friends and family, but there have been delays with the postal service. I would like to personally thank some people for being so great and have been there for me, I would like to thank Jenny for being a fantastic friend and someone special in my life and I would like to thank Jane and Iain for being my best friends too. Sadly my mum and step dad couldn’t be here today as they are on Holiday, and I really miss them, this is my first birthday without all my family around.

I’m going to be going away next week, I’m going down to the coast to visit my Nan and brother for a week and I hope you have a lovely time. My brother is already planning things to do whilst there which will be nice, I’m hoping it will be nice and sunny so I can do a little walking down on the coast.

Depressed at Assessment

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:36:23 +0000

I’m not currently feeling very good. I’ve been told I have to have a medical assessment to continue getting benefits. I only found out that i have to have this assessment last week and already my nightmares have increased ten fold and i feel to some degree i am loosing my mind. I cannot explain how this is making me feel – i know i am feeling really down. I haven’t been well for a long time, in recent times i have got the tag Agoraphobic because i just cannot leave the house without someone accompanying me. I just don’t know what to do at the moment, the worst part is the nightmares every single night that are driving me stir crazy – I’ve had them every single night for 3 years, but since receiving this letter, they seem to have got more realistic and more brutal I as yet still have 3 more weeks until this assessment, my fear is they do not have any of my medical records and if they declare me fit for work, i am worried that bad stuff might happen. At the moment all I want to do is just run away and forget all of this.

Random Nothingness

Nicholas Weightman — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:41:42 +0000

I don’t really have much to write about at the moment, but i thought I’d at least make an effort to fill some space. I’ve been up and down recently with my depression, I seem to be getting nightmares even worse than usual recently and no idea why. I actually ventured out of the house last week 3 days in a row, which is something I don’t usually do. I’ve had agoraphobia for a while now, and I haven’t actually left the confined of my home for nearly 1 and a half years which is pretty sad. I managed to go into town and buy some new jeans for £4 each and got another few months worth of toiletries. It was ironically very hard for me to feel comfortable out in the streets. I felt so alone and scared and for someone coming up to 29 years old, that’s a little worrying.

To change the subject rapidly, I’ve recently been using an alternative to Microsoft Office and that’s Open Office. Its a fantastic piece of software that is backwardly compatible with MS Office. I am a little let down by not having a good Email Client such as Outlook, but there are plenty of Open Source versions out there. At the moment for email I am using Outlook Express and although is part of the Microsoft Venture, it is doing the job I need it for. Open Office is fantastic and I like how you can literally designed documents in any style you like, and although the MS version did that, you cannot really complain for something that is free and the interface seems less bulky and bloated out. One of the functions I love about it though is that you can make PDF documents within it, that is something that the MS software at this time lacks. And I think moving over to Open Office was an easy thing to do and I’d recommend it to everyone else out there who wants an Office environment that is compatible with MS Office.

It’s coming up to my birthday rapidly now, I will be 29 in July, i cannot say I am enjoying the idea of reaching that age, I am lonely, broke, ugly and quiet frankly its just something that scares me more than anything. I should of had a life, good career and been married with kids by now, but I was always the late bloomer in terms of life.

I’m going to treat myself to a new watch when I get a little money. I’ve seen this great watch that has a Compass, Altimeter and Barometer built in, now I know that sounds a little sad and the cost would be massive, but I’ve seen one for less that £30. I will admit i do currently have a watch that has (had) them functions on, however, I was cleaning it the other day and I thought there was some black gung in the top senor area, and I kind of cleaned that out and after none of the sensors would work :S – so that’s a £130 watch destroyed, but nevertheless, its time for a new watch, and £30 is about as much as I can afford these days.

Well, I know I’ve written nonsense and rubbish on this occasion (like all the other times) but I thought I’d at least write something.

Time Travel

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:00:12 +0000

For many years scientists have been theorising about time travel, going back in time and viewing or changing an event in the past. I have always been interested in this area but could never understand the mathematics behind the theories. I would personally like to localise one theory in the use of Quantum Communications, a way of sending yourself a message in the past from the future. I once watched a TV series about paranormal events and on this one occasion there was a house somewhere in England that was receiving communications from the future on there home PC, back at this time, home PC’s were nothing more than 386′s, but it was intriguing to watch nevertheless. I know in this one instance the TV program had most likely faked it, but what if somewhere at sometime in the future this type of technology becomes possible. A message, could be sent back in time and could completely change what we know as our own future. But this opens so many doors of controversy, including, if this technology was possible, why hasn’t anyone received such messages so far – does this point to the future, no matter how far ahead not being able to create the technology to do this, or perhaps does it answer our own questions about what the future may hold, such as the end of man kind as we know it and technology never advanced to the state that communications of this nature could be created. Other scenarios come into play to, could there be some kind of embargo on the utilization of this technology, could it have been created but kept secret. Another theory is that time as we comprehend it now doesn’t technically exist, and that time is just a passing of a moment, and that there are no past points and technology cannot be created to traverse a point in time that doesn’t exist. There are so many questions, and so many conflicting alternative answers that trying to workout what is and is not possible is out of our control. I know for myself that if it was possible, no matter how good or bad my life may have turned out by the time this possible technology could have possibly been created, i know i would want to change my life, there are so many mistakes i would put right.

Catch Up

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 23:02:21 +0000

well its been a long time since I last updated my blog. So what’s happened since i last made an entry, well, to be honest not a lot. :S My life seems to be so exciting. Some good points though have happened, i purchased a new motherboard for my computer just last week and it is now in and running, its running like a dream, my last motherboard was slow and i think it had some major chipset problems, this new board is on a complete opposite of the scale and is wonderful. All was ok until yesterday when i thought I’d look into enabling drive security and by accident i enabled another function that I shouldn’t have and I ended up destroying my two internal hard drives, that REALLY annoyed me somewhat. This afternoon i ordered a brand new 500GB SATA II hard drive that I think will make it up

Christmas was really good, I got to meet my brother and spend some time with him, he is a fantastic boy and i love him to bits. We were playing on the computers and Xbox. We had a really good laugh. There is a slight age gap, he’s 10 years old and I’m currently 28. which reminds me i have SO got to meet someone before i reach 30. We spent Christmas day at my sisters house and it was lots of fun, she cooked a really nice meal.

I sadly haven’t been on my site for a while, I’m going to try and get back into it over the next few weeks, its just up until now i have had so many computer problems that it wasn’t stable enough to use write my web pages, thankfully not an issue anymore.

I don’t have any major plans at this time. I want to concentrate on getting my new hard drive in and running, and once that is done I’m going to hit the job market again and look for a new job. Recently my depression has been quiet bad and I’ve even got to the point that i fear leaving my house, apparently this is normal. I want to make the effort, but i do get scared. Its so odd saying that since I am 28 years old.

I lost love and I don’t think i want to find it again.

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 23:05:59 +0000

I’m feeling pretty damn upset at the moment. As I mentioned in my blogs before i started my blogs again, i had been seeing a girl on the internet. It turned out that her entire life was just made up and fake. Everything about her was just not real and i feel so used and abused because of her. I even tried to look past everything and continue the relationship, only for her to start going offline for days and finally weeks at a time. I had enough in the end and its now over. I never seem to meet someone who truly wants to know me or love me, i am just a waste of space and no matter how much love and attention i put into a relationship, they always seem to go down hill.

I hate computers

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 23:07:05 +0000

My computer last night decided to play games and stopped working correctly. After rebooting continuously for nearly an hour I decided at 11pm to restore the computer from a backup. It should of been an easy fix, I put in the disk, select the files I want to restore and hit go. Things never go easily for me. After nearly 20hours of trying to fix my computer, i worked out that the IDE controller (what connects a hard drive to the computer) my Memory system (running the system) and Processor over clocking settings (something that makes the computer run faster) were all broken. I’ve spent hours playing with the settings until I found something that run nicely. Eventually I got it to work. I think its about time I got a new Motherboard, sadly I have no money until next month so hopefully this install will last until then. I’m going to get a new motherboard that supports the processor I have, but uses faster more powerful memory and has lots of great features that this computer doesn’t have – and for £30($60) It can’t be any worse than i already have. I might be able to run my computer at the speed it was designed to do, which until now I haven’t had the luxury of.

All is ok at the moment

Nicholas Weightman — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 23:14:58 +0000

I’ve been ok recently. There have been a few things on my mind but everything all in all is ok. I’ve been concentrating on making images in Paint Shop Pro recently and i enjoy trying new things out. My latest picture is on the front of this site, but i don’t know as yet if I’ll keep it on here, I do prefer the original picture.

My mum is off on Holiday as of tomorrow. I get the house thankfully to myself all week. Just a shame I can’t have my girlfriend to spend it with me.

I am really annoyed however with PayPal at the moment. I set my card up on there to pay for things such as my subscription to this websites hosting service. However my card expired today on that system and cancelled my subscription instead of pausing or suspending it. This has annoyed me because it might mean my site could close temporarily whilst I try and sort this mess out. I have NO more money to renew the subscription at this time if that is the case, I won’t have anymore money for a few weeks and I have my Hotmail account to re-subscribe to as well. Jeez, it all happens when I have NO money.

Unsure of my future plans

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:19:24 +0000

At this time I am unsure of my plans for the future. As of yesterday I had started sending my CV out to different companies looking for a Junior Web Designer position. I was hoping to be doing something else at this time, but because of some circumstances I cannot talk about I’m afraid them plans have been put on hold for now. I have NO idea what the future at this time has to bring, and I am to be honest feeling a little lost for various reasons. I have some major worries on my mind to do with something going on in my life, but again I cannot talk about them. All I can do is continue on and take each day as it comes. I just hope things do work themselves out and I can finally be happy for the first time in my life, but again, due to some circumstances that doesn’t look like it will happen. I guess we’ll see.

Long Lost Brother

Nicholas Weightman — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:24:37 +0000

Today I spoke online to my brother Jack. Up until very recently I sadly didn’t know anything about him and I was so pleased to talk to him. Jack is nine years old now and sounds very different from me at that age, I know everyone is different, but he looks so much like me from that age, but as people we are totally different I think. He sounds like a wonderful person and I look forward to getting to know him more. He asked if we could meet and I said most certainly, I would love to meet him. I have missed out on 9 years of his life and although he knows about me and my sister Suzanne, he doesn’t know who we really are. I Building bridges between families who have been separated over time is a hard thing to do, and whilst talking to him I felt very happy but also emotional because I know hardly anything about him and yet he is my blood brother in every sense.

New Site Launched

Nicholas Weightman — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 23:28:44 +0000

I don’t really have much to talk about at this time, life recently has been up and down like a yo yo of late. I launched a new website called nweightman.co.uk and it contains information literally all about me, myself and I that I hope will be of some use in perhaps finding a job. I have had to contend with a few problems over the past two weeks and I am now confident that these problems have now been resolved once and for all and I can move on into a happier future.

I keep seeing the number 13 all over the place and this happened a few years back before I started my last relationship. I have been looking into the significance of the number 13 and I have found some surprising information. Here is an extract from a website about the significance of numbers and today’s mythological world. I wonder if the number 13 is telling me something about my possible future, but at this time I do not know if it signifies a good future or bad and I can only wait to see the outcome. The last time the number 13 became prominent in my life was mid way through working at Greenshaw and it continued until I started my relationship. But I do know for the life of me if it was foretelling the depression as I do not have a reference to go by at this time. All I know is that I have been seeing this number all over the place for the past 3 weeks without letup.

Thirteen
“Thirteen is a higher octave of the number four and is one more than twelve, the ancient number of completion. Thirteen is considered to signify the end of a cycle, as evidenced by the fact that there are thirteen lunar months in the year and thirteen signs in the Celtic and Native American systems of astrology. While thirteen foretells new beginnings, it also signifies that outmoded systems must come to an end to make way for much needed transformations. Thirteen may also be interpreted as 12 + 1 and is regarded by many as the number of the initiate, this is seen in a chromatic musical octave. But thirteen’s real significance cannot really be discussed without reference to sacred geometry, more particularly the Flower of Life, which is from the Temple of Osiris and shows the never ending destruction and creation of life. It is also very significant to the creation pattern and the platonic solids. See also triskaidekaphobia. Thirteen is also a significant astrological number. The sum of thirteen is 91, (1+2+3..), which is each number of days in a season.”

Begining of something special

Nicholas Weightman — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 23:30:59 +0000

Today is my birthday. Over the past few weeks I have had to contend with lots of drama that has caused me to feel unwell and depressed again. As of tonight I shall make an effort to change that and to move on from all the problems I have had and try to make a life for myself once again. My previous blog entries are now gone because they had too many reminders of things that hurt me. I have only one choice and that is to look forward. I am now going to try and do that and put all the feelings and thoughts of the last couple of years out of my head and try to make something of myself once again. We’ll see how it goes, watch this spot.