Blog has now moved !

I have now moved this blog and am hosting it myself.

Please come and visit me at Stuff You Might Like.

Lots more great stuff - well worth a visit !

Contact details

If you need to contact me directly, please email me at jeremy.wilson@bigfoot.com

Another cool thing your mobile can do

Have you locked your keys in the car? Does you car have remote keys?



This may come in handy someday. If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their mobile phone from your cell phone. Hold your mobile phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for your car, you can unlock the doors.

Emergency number for mobiles

I didn't know this - the Emergency Number worldwide for mobile phones is 112 .



If you find yourself out of coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked.

Recycle your mobile phone

If you are thinking of upgrading your mobile phone, take a look here. This is a site where you can recycle your phone and get cash or Argos vouchers for it. Not bad for something that you were probably just going to chuck into a drawer and forget about - and you get to do your bit for the environment as well. It's a no-lose situation !

Clever illusion

Are the squares A B in the picture below the same or different colours ??

If you said that they were different colours, then I'm afraid you were wrong - they are in fact the same colour. If you don't believe me, take a look at this:



Pretty clever, heh ?!?

Line Rider - the next generation !

I posted an entry a while ago about a great little game called Line Rider where you draw lines on the screen and a little figure sledges along the lines - very simple, but very compelling (see original post here). Someone has now taken this to the next stage. Now you still draw the lines, but instead of a little bloke sledging, you control a bike rider who rides the course. You can add stars along the way for them to coolect and do all sorts of other things.



This is a great game that has just got even better. Well worth a try - click here to give it a go.

Get cash back just for shopping

I have just signed up to a cashback shopping site called (very originally) TopCashBack. The idea is that if you do any shopping online, then you go via this site and if you make a purchase you get a certain amount of cash back - either a percentage of what you spend or a fixed amount. This site is simply a gateway to the other sites - you do not pick goods from this site, but merely click through to the retailer sites from here. All very simple.

This seems like a no-brainer to me. I tend to do a lot of shopping online - from books, CD's, etc to electrical goods and even the weekly grocery shop. If I can get cash back on all those purchases, and I don't have to do anything to get it, then that sounds like a pretty good deal to me !

You can sign up (for free of course) and get £2.50 just for signing up by clicking here.

Tips and tricks

I came across this page which has some really useful tips and tricks on it. Nothing earth shattering, but one or two things that might just help out. Take a look.

Handmade mens shoes - 2 pairs for £99 !

I have just come across Samuel Windsor shoes and am very impressed. They are 100% handmade shoes that are selling for £99.95 and when you order a pair, you can choose another pair for free ! They offer a full 30 day money back guarantee and even supply pre-paid return labels, so it is free to return them. This really shows confidence in their product.

I have just ordered a couple of pairs (well one pair as well as my free pair) and am eagerly awaiting them. Take a look at their website by clicking here.

Cheap glasses online

For those reading this in the UK, I have come across a fantasic site to get glasses online at ridiculously low prices. They have been set up to combat the crazy prices that opticians have been charging and seem to
be doing pretty well. To quote from their site: "Back in 2004, the average cost of a pair of glasses bought at big high street chains like Specsavers was £148.85. Now you can get quality glasses, custom made to your precise prescription for just £17.50 complete."

Check out their website here.

7 New Year's resolutions for your PC

Continuing on from the last post about backing up your PC, here is an excellent article from Lifehacker - a great PC-related site. It has the golden rules that everyone should be following to keep their PC in tip-top shape. This may not be everyone's idea of fun, but this will really make such a difference on how your PC performs. Do these 7 steps and your PC will be flying again.

Seriously, I cannot recommend this enough !

Backup your PC - now !

OK, I know that it's not the most exciting thing in the world, but backing up your PC is extremely important. These days, when we all have so many digital photos, so much music and all those important letters and other documents stored on our computers, what would we do if we suddenly lost the whole lot ? Are you willing to lose all those family photos ? Would you be annoyed if your music collection disappeared ? Might you perhaps need those letters that you wrote to the insurance company ?



The fact is that hard drives can, and do, fail and if that happens, you're stuffed ! You should make sure that you back up your computer on a regular basis, so that if the worst happens, you can simply restore all your files from a backup. The simplest, and cheapest, way of doing this is to use one (or more) of the free online backup services available. My favourite is Mozy - it gives you 2Gb worth of storage free and allows you to schedule your backups - you can schedule them for 1.00am so that no-one will be using the computer.



Honestly - if you only do one thing to your computer this year, make a backup of your important files - you might just thank me one day !

Taskbar shuffle

OK, so the nerd in me is surfacing again. I am one of those sad people that gets really annoyed if my taskbar icons (those icons representing open programs that you click on to switch to that program) are in a strange order because that is how you happened to open them up. You would think that Microsoft would give you a way to rearrange these, but they don't ! Step up Taskbar Shuffle - this little app does nothing more than allow you to drag and drop your icons around your takbar - invaluable to someone like me ! Incidentally, for those wanting this at work, you can point the install to any directory (personal network drive, temp directory, wherever) and it doesn't need to install any system files.

Latest TV shows online

Bleenks is a website that has loads of TV shows that you can watch online. We're not talking about 1981 episodes of Dallas - these are all the latest shows - 24, Desperate Housewives, Lost, etc.

Well worth checking out.

Reverse dictionary

A working reverse dictionary is one of the most useful sites out there. We've all had those moments when we know there's a word for some concept, but we don't know what it is. We need something more than a thesaurus, because we don't know an equivalent word. Onelook.com's reverse dictionary helps. You can even enter wildcards, if you know what part of the word looks like.

If you dig a very deep hole...............

In one of the stranger websites I have been to recently, you can answer that question that has always been bothering you - if I dig a very deep hole, where will I end up ? Go here and you can select anywhere on the map (you can zoom in and drag that map around to get to where you want to dig) and it will show you exactly where you would end up. Now isn't that what you have always wanted ?!?

Star Wars in your browser (sort of)

I love this - if you are a fan of Star Wars (which, incidentally, I'm not), you can now see it in your browser window. Go to http://www.asciimation.co.nz/index.php# and you can see a rather different version - in ASCII (that's those pictures made up of letters and numbers - very '80's).

You may not sit through the whole thing, but you have to admit - it's very clever.

Pre-season your game birds

OK, so it's been a while since I last posted, but I'm back and running again !

This is something too good not to post. For anyone out there keen on shooting birds, this is an absolute must. Take a look at Season Shot. This is basically seasoning in a shotgun cartridge, so you effectively season the bird by shooting it. Fantastic - no more removing shot and your bird come pre-seasoned. It doesn't get better than this !

MoneySavingExpert

I spend a large amount of time on the net and have a huge number of bookmarks (anyone who has seen my bookmarks file will vouch for this !), but if I was asked for the most useful site that I know, I would definitely say it was http://www.moneysavingexpert.com. This is only really useful for UK readers (not so much use for US readers), but if you are in the UK, I guarantee that you will save yourself some serious money by visiting the site.

It is split into sections (e.g. Credit Cards, Shopping, Savings & Investments, Travel, Phones & Utilities, etc.) and has lots of articles written by Martyn Lewis (the MoneySavingExpert guru) all designed to save you money. There is also a chat forum which is invaluable - almost as important as the articles. Take a look around the forums and you will find tons of imformation. You can also ask questions from other savers and help out others if you can - it is very interactive.

I have personally saved lots of money by looking at this site and it is the first place I go to before making any kind of financial decision (buying something, subscribing to something, changing electricity/gas/phone provider, etc.).

I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Frustrating !

Really cool little game - very simple, but very infuriating ! Basically, them aim is simply to get to the goal by moving your mouse. However to thwart you in doing this the actions of your mouse have been reversed - up is down and down is up, left is right and right is left. Sounds easy, but can get very challenging.

A new way to sketch

OK, I know that this is rather geeky, but I think this is quite cool. Here is a video of someone (who incidentally looks a little like an Open University lecturer, but he is from MIT, so I suppose that's why) demonstrating a new way of sketching. He draws on a whiteboard and hits a 'run' button and the drawing comes to life. It is only using some very basic concepts, but I would be interested to see this develop. Take a look - unleash the geek inside you !

Browster

If you do any web surfing at all (and let's face it, you wouldn't be reading this if you didn't), then there is one small app that you absolutely must get - it is called Browster.

What it does is pop up a little icon when you hover over a link and if you either move to that icon or click on it (depending on how you set your preferences), then it will open up a hovering window with the site displayed. You can follow links from there and enter and submit data. As soon as you are done with the window you move your mouse away from it and it disappears. No more open up lots of windows (or tabs if you use Firefox).

This really makes surfing so much easier - I've been using this for a while now and cannot live without it - it's that good !

Any budding abstract artists ?

If you've ever thought of yourself as a budding abstract artist, now is the time to step up and show everyone what you are made of. Here's a site that allows you to splodge and spatter away with just your mouse and create that priceless work of art. Who knows - you may just be able to make that million after all !

The next Google ?

Google have been playing around with some new features. Instead of doing this in their 'live' environment, they have created a new environment called SearchMash without any of the logos, etc. It is definitely Google-maintained, though. There are one or two interesting features:

• Drag and drop the results to order them as you like

• When clicking on a green URL link, you are offered the option of opening the listings in the current window or a new window, seeing more pages from the Web site or finding similar page

• Additional results are added to the bottom of the original results page by clicking on a "more web pages" link

All in all, this looks quite interesting. I think we might be seeing some of this functionality in Google sometime soon, hopefully.

Bored ? Try chatting with a random person.

This is a novel concept - the idea of chatting with a complete stranger at random. You can leave whenever you like and never have to reveal anything about yourself. Sometimes a complete stranger might be just who you need to talk to ! Can't guarantee you will find intellectual conversation, but worth a try.

The most fun you can have with your clothes on ?

Not sure about that, but this certainly looks great fun. IWOOT !

Colliding With Death at 37,000 Feet, and Living

This is an incredible story of a reporter on a private jet that was involved in a mid-air collision. The line that sent shivers up my spine was "And then the three words I will never forget. “We’ve been hit”" - not something you are likely to forget in a hurry. Read it here.

Amazing footage of Iraqi sandstorm

Take a look at this video - a sandstorm whipping up in Iraq. It's amazing to watch it come in. Some people just wander around very calmy, whilst others are a little more urgent.

The ultimate 'how to' site

My first suggestion for a site (thanks, Linda !) - VideoJug is a great site with 'how to' videos on just about everything that you could possibly think of. They have categories for food, drink, health, beauty, DIY, House & Garden, pets and leisure. The entries range from 'How to perform the perfect golf swing' to 'How to unblock a toilet' to (my personal favourite) 'How to get out of a car without showing your knickers' ! Surely something for everyone at this site.