Breast Cancer Awareness (Yet again)

Here we (yet) again, silly posts on Facebook with women putting in things like

‎7 inches - 5 minutes

Shoe size is used again. Can't they be a bit more imaginative.

Inches	their shoe size
Minutes	how long they do their hair

Breast Cancer awareness (again)

It is that time again. :(

Women all over Facebook are posting a fruit as a status. So here is the list.

Blueberry	I’m single
Pineapple	It’s complicated
Raspberry	I’m a touch and go woman
Apple	Engaged
Cherry	In a relationship
Banana	I’m married
Avocado	I’m the “other one”
Strawberry	Can’t find the right one
Lemon	Wish I was single
Grape	Wants to get married.

The final chapter to the bike accident.

It is now 15 months since the accident. I last posted something here about the accident on 7^th July last year, and that was very brief. Before that it was on 23^rd February last year just 12 days after the accident.

So what has happened in the meantime? Some of you will have been keeping up with me on Facebook so will know some of this.

Summery "All sorted (ish)"

• The 'white van man' first pleaded not guilty to "driving without due care and attention", then changed his mind on the morning of the trial to guilty.
• Lots of letters about the damages, loss of earning, etc.
• I saw a doctor (for the insurance claim) who said everything would be back to normal in 18 months, I am not sure if that was 18 months from the accident or from when I saw him. I did not believe him then and I still don't believe him now.
• A settlement was agreed after I had to rewrite the letter to the court from my claim firm.

And with the settlement we splashed out on a new vehicle.

Since we had time to look and we knew what we wanted we had to pay out a bit more (a lot more really) than what we really wanted to spend.

Some of the things we wanted were

• Not too old.
• Low mileage with a service history to match.
• Two Captain seats in the front (not a bench seat for three).
• Three seats in the back so it could act as a 'normal' car.
• Car lined (not ply lined).
• Enough power to pull a caravan easily.
• Enough space to put three cages in for the dogs. And a fourth later on or when needed.
• Not too much of a gas guzzler!

Four wheel drive would have been a nice to have but impossible to find with all the other things we wanted as well.

We also picked the collective brains of our friends in agility to see what they would recommend or stay away from.

You will all know of the expression costing an arm and a leg, well this just cost the leg.

We have ended up a very nice Mercedes Vito Dualiner 115 Sport Comfort Compact in Obsidian Black. With tinted side and rear windows.

There it is kitted out with the cages in the back.

We usually have the middle seat in the back down acting as a table, and we can see into all the cages as well.

It is a nice drive and it is being used as one of our 'every day' cars. Not too thirsty, it is doing about the same MPG as the Renault Laguna Estate that we replaced this with. We have still kept the Nissan X-Trail as well, which has proved handy (more later).

A beautiful story: Faith - dog

This dog was born on just before Christmas in 2002. He was born with 2 legs -
He of course could not walk when he was born. Even his mother did not want him.

His first owner also did not think that he could survive and he was thinking of 'putting him to sleep.'

But then, his owner, Jude Stringfellow, met him and wanted to take care of him.

She became determined to teach and train this little dog to walk by himself.

She named him 'Faith.'

In the beginning, she put Faith on a surfboard to let him feel the movement.
Later she used peanut butter on a spoon as a lure and reward for him for standing up and jumping around.
Even the other dog at home encouraged him to walk.
Amazingly, only after 6 months, like a miracle,
Faith learned to balance on his hind legs and to jump to move forward.

After further training in the snow, he could now walk like a human being.

Faith loves to walk around now.
No matter where he goes, he attracts people to him.
He became famous on the international scene and has appeared on various newspapers and TV shows.

There is now a book entitled 'Faith Walks...A Memoir of a Beautiful Life' published about him. He was even considered to appear in one of the Harry Potter movies.

His owner, Jude Stringfellew, has given up her teaching post and plans to take him around the world to preach that even without a perfect body, one can have a perfect soul'.

In life there are always undesirable things, so in order to feel better you just need to look at life from another direction.

I hope this message will bring fresh new ways of thinking to everyone and that everyone will appreciate and be thankful for each beautiful day.

Faith continued to demonstration of the strength and wonder of life.
He passed ove the rainbow bridge on September 22, 2014
Thre is a Wikipedia article about him.

How safe is your password?

How safe is your password?

Using an nVidia GeForce GT220 graphics card – which can be bought for as just over £50.00 (£30.00 if you can buy in bulk) - with the latest drivers on Windows 7, UKFast's security experts were able to crack a six character password in 12 seconds, a seven character password in less than five minutes, and an eight character password in four hours. Here is a link

OK, so cracking passwords is easy!

So what do you do. This picture shows you two different approaches. Thanks to XKCD for this one.

You can see that the more letters you add the better.

But the other thing that most people fall foul of is having the same password for everything. So if one site get's hacked and you use the same email address and password for everything you could now have lost everything.

Have I been hacked?
No
Could I be hacked?
YES, but I make it very hard.

What do I do?
I use a different email address and password for every website that I have to provide log on information.

How do I do that?

The first part is my email address.

I own a domain and I have a "catch all" email address which means that I can have a different email address for every website that I use, and they all arrive in one inbox.

E.g.
tesco@mydomain.com --> I use this for Tesco
argos@mydomain.com --> This one for Argos
gooutdoors@mydomain.com --> and this one is from a camping suppliers.

That is the first part, this also means that I can catch websites 'selling' me email address to spammers. I have caught a few because of this. To do this you have to own a domain.

The second part is different passwords for different websites.
You would say that this sounds like a pain, and "How do I remember all the different passwords?".
Simple, I don't. This is a task for the computer!

For this I use the following.

Password Safe. This is a small program that allows you to manage your old passwords and to easily and quickly generate, store, organize, retrieve, and use complex new passwords, using password policies that you control. Once stored, your user names and passwords are just a few clicks away.

Now because I want to access my passwords both at home, work, and on my phone, I have installed it as thought it was on a USB drive into my Dropbox folder. This is not complicated as it sounds.

Dropbox allows me to access to all my files just about anywhere and on any device that I want it. Any file I save to Dropbox also instantly saves to my computers, phones, and the Dropbox website.

I have a version of this running on my iPhone so I can get to all my passwords wherever I am.

Next question. How much does it cost?

Password safe on a computer. Nothing, but they do ask for a donation.

Dropbox. Nothing for the basic account, that has 2Gb of space, and that is plenty.

Because I also have them as apps on my I phone, you have to pay for them, but they cost less than £10.00 for both of them. Apps are also available for Android phones as well.

So the conclusion is that I have different very long passwords that I don't need to remember and different email addresses for each site.

What ever you do,

DO NOT  USE THE SAME PASSWORD FOR ALL WEB SITES

Rules for life.

This was origionally sent to me as a chain email. I never send them on, but I thought that they were good so I would pass then on this way.

There's some mighty fine advice in these words.

1. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
2. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.
3. Don't believe all you hear.
4. When you say, 'I love you,' mean it.
5. When you say, 'I'm sorry,' look the person in the eye.
6. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.
7. Believe in love at first sight.
8. Never laugh at anyone's dreams. People who don't have dreams don't have much.
9. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.
10. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.
11. Don't judge people by their relatives.
12. Talk slowly but think quickly.
13. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, 'Why do you want to know?'
14. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
15. Say 'bless you' when you hear someone sneeze.
16. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
17. Remember the three R's: 
1. Respect for self; 
2. Respect for others; and 
3. Responsibility for all your actions.
18. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
19. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
20. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice
21. And most important "Have some time alone."

:)

Breast Cancer Awareness on Facebook

OK so it is that time of year again, for women to put very strange status updates on Facebook.

In the past few years it has been.

What colour bra are you wearing?

Red

'I like it' followed by where do you usually leave your purse?

I like it on the kitchen table!

The size off your feet followed by inches and then an unhappy emoticon.

7 inches :(

Weeks and a craving!

I'm 13 weeks and craving Starburst!

This meme was a bit more complex in its construction than the previous two.
Women in on the joke are instructed to match the month of their birth with a corresponding number of weeks,
and the date of their birth with a type of candy or sweet, to get the "I'm X weeks and craving X!" construction.

So by following that formula, somebody's who says she's "13 weeks and craving Starburst" would have a birthday of Sept. 2.

Here's the full formula, in case you're wondering:

Month	Number of week
January	1 week
February	2 weeks
March	3 weeks
April	4 weeks
May	6 weeks
June	8 weeks
July	10 weeks
August	12 weeks
September	13 weeks
October	14 weeks
November	16 weeks
December	18 weeks

Date

1. Skittles
2. Starburst
3. Kit-Kats
4. M&M's
5. Galaxy
6. Crunchies
7. Dairy Milk
8. Lollipops
9. Peanut Butter Cups
10. Meat Balls
11. Twizzlers
12. Bubble Gum
13. Hershey's Kisses
14. Chocolate Mints
15. Twix
16. Resse's Fastbreak
17. Fudge
18. Cherry Jello
19. Milky Way
20. Pickles
21. Creme Eggs
22. Skittles
23. Gummy Bears
24. Gummy Worms
25. Strawberry Pop Tarts
26. Starburst
27. Mini Eggs
28. Kit-Kat Chunkies
29. Double Chocolate Chip Crunchy Cookies
30. Smarties
31. Chocolate Cake

Now for the next one, again it is for birthdays

The idea is to use you birthdate, month and day only, no year!

Write: "I am going to live in (see city or country for your birthday month below) for (day of your birthday) it would be how many months you are going

Ex. if your birthday was on February 14th, then
" I am going to live in London for 14 months!!!!

Month	Place
January	Mexico
February	London
March	Miami
April	Dominican Republic
May	France
June	St. Petersburg
July	Austria
August	Germany
September	New York
October	Amsterdam
November	Las Vegas
December	Colombia

And remember women.

Don't tell the men!