In The Night Garden

The first time I saw In the Night Garden I didn't rate it very much, who would as an adult.  But then I listened to the theme music and it got me. I'm ashamed to admit it but I do find it quite relaxing:

In the Night Garden Characters

Makka Pakka

I think he's my favourite, mainly because he has an insane song and the fact he goes around washing the other characters faces!
Here is Makka Pakka's song:
Makka Pakka,
Akka Wakka,
Mikka Makka moo.

Makka Pakka,
Appa yakka,
Ikka akka, ooo.

Hum dum,
Agga pang,
Ing, ang, ooo.

Makka Pakka,
Akka wakka,
Mikka Makka moo.

Iggle Piggle

Here is Iggle Piggles song:
Yes - my name is Igglepiggle,
Igglepiggle, wiggle, niggle, diggle!
Yes - my name is Igglepiggle,
Igglepiggle, niggle, wiggle, woo!

Upsy Daisy

Here is Upsy Daisy's song:
Upsy Daisy here I come,
I'm the only Upsy one!
I'm the only Daisy too,
Ipsy, Upsy, Daisy Doo.

Tombilboos

Here is the Tombliboo's song:
Ombliboo Tombliboo
Knock on the door,
Ombliboo Tombliboo
Sit on the floor,
Ombliboo Tombliboo
Here is my nose,
Ombliboo Tombliboo
That's how it goes!

Pontipines

Here is the Pontipine's song:
The Pontipines are friends of mine,
Although they're only small,
And even when there's ten of them,
They're hardly there at all!
One Pontipine
Two Pontipines
Three Pontipines
Four Pontipines
Five Pontipines
Six Pontipines
Seven Pontipines
Eight Pontipines
Nine Pontipines
Ten Pontipines

IBM Lotus Notes Awful

Lotus Notes release 8.5.x has to be the worst IDE I have ever used!


Let's start with opening Lotus Notes.  It takes forever when you use the 'Standard' version, basic isn't so bad but then you don't get all the new features included and looks like release 8.  It's not like I have a slow laptop I've got 4Gb of Ram and a Intel Core(TM) Duo CPU T9300, that's 2 cores at 2.5Ghz!

As a programmer I used the Designer part of Lotus Notes and this, I'm afraid, is pretty much the same.
Opening the designer can take a long time, opening any design element can also take a long time.
Then there is the applications perspective, that lists all recent databases you've worked on.  If the server is not available and you want to remove that database from the list expect to wait!  I don't know what for, it's not like I'm trying to open it I just want to remove it from the list.

Other parts of designer that are poor

• The type ahead in Lotus Script is flaky, working only when it feels like it.  Then there is the fact that it only works in Script Libraries or Agents.
• Sometimes while you are typing away at your code the cursor jumps one space backwards, so you end up with the first character in front of the cursor position.
• Pasting code in Lotus Script automatically puts the cursor at the end of the line.  Not very useful when you want to type some more after the pasted code, which happens to be in the middle of the existing code!

Release 8.5.x looks great and the type ahead is better than nothing.  However, look at Microsoft and Visual Studio, that is a absolute joy to use.  The intellisense works perfectly every time, if it doesn't then you have made a mistake in your code somewhere.  That's how good it is!

I heard a quote from someone once, "Good software goes to IBM to die".  In my opinion that is very true.  Since IBM took over with Lotus Notes it's gotten worse!  Not to mention companies are dropping it in favour of Mirosoft Exchange.
It's such a shame, because you get so much included in Lotus Notes, it's not just an e-mail program.  Ok it's not as good as a relational database but it is a heck of a lot better than Excel!  You know who you are people out there who are Excel 'whiz kids', Excel was never designed to work that way!!

Autolamps Cobalt II Blue Headlight Bulbs

Driving along one evening with my lights on I noticed that one of my headlights wasn't working.  So I had a look and as you'd expect the bulb had blown!

I searched around in the shed and found an old H7 bulb that I could use.  I plugged it in and all was good!  However, I thought that the lights were a little dull and compared to the other cars on the road, a bit yellow.
"Hmmm", I thought, "it's time to search the internet for some new headlight bulbs!".  So I fired up the laptop and started Googling!  Ebay, Amazon, Halfords (or as I like to call them Halfrauds), all had bulbs but the bright ones that weren't supposed to be yellow, but a nice white colour, were pretty expensive - circa £30 for a pair!

After a bit more searching I suddenly remembered the Auto Express website, who tend to test out things for cars, like bulbs.  So I headed over to their website and looked for a review of headlight bulbs.
After a short search I found that they had a top three of bulbs Auto Express:
1st place: Philips X-tremeVision,
2nd place: Philips VisionPlus,
3rd place: Autolamps Cobalt II.

The first two were pretty pricey, but probably would have been worth the money.  But I thought the Autolamp Cobalt II bulbs looked good and they were pretty reasonably priced to at £12.95 (including 2 side light bulbs as well).

I headed over to the web site that sold the Cobalt II bulbs, www.phoenixautobulbs.co.uk.  I was a little weary of the site at the start because I'd never heard of them before.  After some thought I decided that they must be OK if they are mentioned on the Auto Express website.  So I ordered two pairs of them, you know just in case a bulb blows in the future and the price has gone up.  It cost £25.90 and the P&P was free!  It says on their website that their standard delivery is free and will take a few days to arrive.  So I was very surprised when on Saturday morning the post man delivered a package with my light bulbs in!!

Like a child at Christmas opening their presents, I ripped through the jiffy bag and pulled out the two pairs of bulbs.  Then headed straight out the front door on a mission to change my bulbs!  Never mind it was 12pm and bright day light!  I plugged them in and tested them out... but I couldn't see much difference.  "O no", I thought, what a waste of money.  Perhaps I'll wait and see what they are like in the dark.

After an agonising wait of a few hours I tried them in the dark!  Can't say they looked much different while in the car.  However, when I got out of the car and looked at them, they did look a lot whiter than the old bulbs I had before.  Not such a waste of money then after all!  Yay!!

Now, a couple of days later I'm topping up the water on my wife's car, as she mentioned a light had come on in the car!  While topping up the water I decided to compare my headlights to her's...
What a difference, I thought I was back in France during the 80s when French cars had yellow headlights!

So I'd recommend the Autolamp Cobalt II bulbs, not only were they relatively cheap, they had exceptionally fast delivery and they work a treat.

MobFox Rubbish

I feel I must blog my experience with MobFox after a disappointing experience.

I've got a few apps on the Android market, which is now called Google play, that are free to download and use. In order to receive some money for the time and effort I put in to creating them I have ads displayed within them.

Admob are the people I was using and up until a few days ago all was well. Then I noticed that the eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions) had dropped significantly and thus I wasn't making much money (not that I was making a lot before).

So after searching google, perhaps I should say googling, I found MobFox. Apparently it has good eCPM! I thought great so I signed up. Opening up my development environment I changed the code for one of my apps to use MobFox. It seemed fine and was displaying a test banner. Excellent, so I submitted my site to MobFox to review so that I could get proper ads, not test ones.
24 hours go by and I receive an email to say my submission was rejected. That's odd, I thought, because it was fine on Admob and I filled in all the relevant fields as best I could.
They had a link to FAQ about reasons why my app may have been rejected. But looking through them I couldn't see why. I'd filled in the URL correctly, found the closest Main Channel and it didn't contain any adult material, etc. So I sent MobFox an email asking why it rejected my app, so that I could correct it and get it all up and running.
Another few days pass, no response from MobFox! Now this might not sound too bad but I'm loosing money because my app is displaying Test banners to people rather than live ones. Basically I'm loosing money.

Fantastic! All in all I wish I'd not bothered trying out MobFox. It turned out there was a problem with Admob that caused the low eCPM. So now I've updated the app and put it back to Admob.
The problem I now have is deleting/cancelling my account with MobFox! As you may suspect there is no obvious way of cancelling/deleting my account with them. Search their website with no answers, so I've sent another email... who knows if it will get a response?!

My summary is this. If you want to put ads in your Android apps I'd recomment AdMob.com. It's a google company and it takes no time at all to set up. There are no approval times to wait for you create your account, add the code to your app, add your app to their site and away you go! Simple.

Hope that helps someone out there...

Update 19/11/2012:
After an entire month without hearing anything from MobFox, this morning I got 3 emails. Two to say that my apps have been accepted and I should now receive live ads. The other to say sorry for the long silence and all my apps are activated! I cannot believe that they think leaving it 1 month for a reply is acceptable.
I urge you all out there to be very wary of this company!

Seat Ibiza 1999 - 2002 Key Fob Programming

This programming Guide is for my Seat Ibiza 2000 X-reg but it should work if your key is a:
Siemens 433.92 mhz
5WK4 790/97/98
(These details are on the side of the key fob - which is actually the horseshoe of the key)
Another thing to note is that this key was used on different Seat models including; Alhambra, not to mention other VAG cars like VW. It was also used by Ford in the Galaxy! Best thing to do is search for the details above to find the correct key, then replace the badge.

This is what my key looks like:

Key Programming Steps

• Put the key in the ignition and turn it on so that the ignition is on. Don't start the car!
• Wait for 4-5 seconds and turn the ignition off and take the key out.
• With the key in your hand press and hold the lock button.
• While the lock button is being held down press the unlock button 3 times.
• Now let go of the lock button.
• The car should lock and unlock itself, and the lights on the remote fob should flash a few times.

It can sometimes take a few attempts to work.

Here is a video I made of this:


In my case when I brought the car, second hand, I tried the above technique loads of times but it didn't work. I also tried changing the batteries in the key fob. That also didn't work. The problem, in the end, turned out to be that the fob itself was broken!
The light would flash when I pressed the lock or unlock button and even during the above programming steps, which made me think it was fine.
However, I decided to try a Timpsons near me that could cut keys and program most key fobs. They checked my fob on some kind of signal checker/radio checker and told me it was broken.
I did ask about a replacement but they wanted quite a bit of money, can't remember how much, although they were cheaper than the dealer who wanted £72.60 + VAT just for the fob!
In the end though I decided to go on eBay and found a whole 2nd hand key + fob for less than £20! When it arrived I removed the fob, binned the key, and attached it to my key then followed the steps above... and now it works fine!

Hope this helps someone!

Cars Mechanics and Garages - Farncombe Service Station

I've been driving for 16 years now, yikes, and at least once a year I need to take my car to a garage for, at least, it's MOT.

Most garages I've visited have been mediocre and if they were memorable it was for the wrong reasons.
Like Kwik Fit, I remember taking my car there once to get a new rear tyre as it was pretty bald!  I went in and asked if they could change the rear tyre to which there response was I'll take a look.  So off he went pad in hand to look at all the tyres on the car.  After a few minutes he returns and says, "you need 3 new tyres".  I was a bit taken aback I had only gone in to get the rear one done as the others looked fine.  Apparently the front tyres also needed changing as they had worn on the inside.  Now, knowing these people I thought to myself, I don't believe you.  So with a bit of attitude I said I don't think so, I'll go somewhere else.
So off down the road I went to Merityre.  They took a look and said just the rear needed doing at the moment and that front tyres, although warn, still had a few thousand miles left in them.  So I got them to change the tyre for me.

When it comes to MOT's I've always had my cars fail on at least one thing, almost always a wiper blade or a bulb!
A couple of years ago my car was due it's MOT so rather than stick with the usual garage I thought I'd check out a one I found on http://www.goodgaragescheme.co.uk.  The garage I found was Farncombe Service Station, which was pretty close to where I worked so I thought I'd give it a try.
I'm so glad I did.  My car passed first time without anything needing doing!  First time ever, I think!
Since then I've been back quite a few times.  Each time I go I come out smiling because their customer service is fantastic and they do only the work that is actually needed.
It's not like other places I've been where they don't care about you or their job and are just trying to get you off the phone or fleece you for lot's of money.  Nope they are welcoming, friendly and helpful.  They are old school customer service, polite and courteous.  That's all I want from a company!
All these big name chain shops could learn a thing or two from Farncombe Service Station!
I'm always disappointed and deflated when I go to shops like Halfords, Tesco, Sainsbury, PC World, WHSmith (especially when they ask if I want a bar of chocolate every time I pay at the counter!), Mothercare...

It's no wonder people are taking to online shopping!