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!

Happy Birthday to Me!

It's my birthday and I will cry if I want to.

Here is a list of things that make you feel old. So, how far down can you go?
Please remember that this was jotted down in 2011, so you will need to add more years to it now.

1. Face book is about 7 years old.
2. Pierce Brosnan last acted as James Bond 9 years ago.
3. Windows XP was released 10 years ago, in 2001. And it's been 10 years since 9/11.
4. The "new" millennium is more that a decade old.
5. "The Matrix" came out 12 years ago, Keanu Reeves is 46.
6. Mother Theresa and Lady Diana have been dead for 14 years. The same year the first "Harry Potter" book first came out.
7. Spice Girls début single "Wannabe" cane out in 1996, 15 years ago. The youngest of them is 35.
8. The first season of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. first aired 17 years ago.
9. Jurassic Park (1993) is older that Justin Bieber
10. "Terminator 2" is 20 years old (1991), Edward Furlong who played John Connor is 33.
11. Macaulay Culkin (30) was in "Home Alone", 21 years ago.
12. Sean Connery last played James Bond in 1983 that is 28 years ago. and he is now 80 years old.
13. The first space shuttle flight on 12^th April 1981, now that is just over 30 years ago (Starting to feel old!)
14. Space Invaders Launches Craze for Computer Video Games in 1978.
15. 11 Israel Athletes murdered by Arab Gunman at Munich Olympics on September 6^th 1972.
16. Apollo 11 the first manned mission to the moon 1969, 42 years ago.
17. Assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, 48 years.
18. Munich air disaster on February 6^th 1958 - 21 dead, including 7 Manchester United Players
19. In 1954, rationing finally ends in Great Britain, the first sub 4 minute mile run by Roger Bannister and hydrogen bomb test were conducted on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
20. Queen Elizabeth II crowned queen of England on June 2^nd 1953.

P.S. Do you remember some of the kids now posting on Facebook, in there nappies!

Ok so now you have worked out how old you are think of your next 'mile stone' birthday, 20, 30, 40 etc.

So now take that 'mile stone' birthday and first times it by 2 and then the 'mile stone' birthday by 3, if you are 20 that will give you 40 and 60.

Now ask will I be alive at that birthday.

Age at next milestone	Milestone X 2	Milestone X 3
20	40 - Yes	60 - Should be
30	60 - Should be	90 - Possibly
40	80 - Possibly	120 - Don't think so.
50	100 - Well some people are!
60	120 - Very un-lightly
70	Don't even bother

If you want to know the average age life expectancy have a look at Wikipedia.

Ok, so I am 50 today. I have lived at least half my life. I am having a good life, I hate the phrase "You have had a good life", this suggests that you are at the end. and I don't want it to end.

And more importantly life is what you make it.

When I die the world will end. This is a fact for me.
To everyone else it will just be another mark in time.

And people wonder why I think birthdays are depressing. It is just a way to mark another step closer to the grave.

When it does end and I am in a box .:-

I want to people to come into to see me off with Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor playing in the background, and it MUST be played on an organ, nothing else can get the full range.

When I leave the ‘Always look on the bright side of life’ from the film ‘Life of Brian’ must be played.

Just remember.

Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "holy shit... what a ride! Can I have another go?"

CSS Hacks and why you should not use them

CSS Hacks - I know I got most of this some where else but it is so right

Every one should keep CSS Simple

KISS

Do they? Not so. The complexity monster has reappeared, right in the center of modern Web development. Nowadays it doesn’t manifest itself as an endlessly nested table, but as an endlessly complicated CSS hack.

Our beloved CSS is in danger.

The lure of CSS hacks

Otherwise sensible Web developers wasted enormous amounts of time in finding and improving countless CSS hacks. In my opinion these hacks are a danger to Web development, both from a psychological and from a technical point of view.

Complicated CSS hacks are the modern equivalents of the frames and tables we used in wholesale lots back in the nineties. Their use serves to give the Web author a feeling of mastery, a false sense of security in the face of the countless things that can go wrong in browsers.

As a bonus, complex CSS hacks look great on mailing lists:

Five pixels too many in IE 5.5 Win2000 SP1.1beta? Use Funny Fred’s Hilarious Replaced Right-Bracket Hack!

Such mails are meant to dazzle the newbies and to prove that the author really knows what he’s talking about.

What bothers me most about the mindset of CSS hackers is that they are actively searching for complicated solutions. Seek and ye shall be found, if you want complexity it’ll take you by the throat. It’ll never let go of you, and it won’t help you, either.

The Web is an uncertain place. You’ll never be sure that your Web sites will work in the exact way you want them to work, not even when you apply all modern insights from CSS, accessibility and usability. Instead of seeking false comfort in hacks that seem all the more comfortable because of their complexity, you should accept uncertainty as a basic principle.

Browsers don’t have perfect CSS support; especially for people who’ve just started learning CSS, that can be infuriating. Nonetheless CSS hacks are not the solution. Acceptance of the way the Web currently works is the best way to go because it’ll keep your sites simple.

The dangers of CSS hacks
Besides, CSS hacks are actively dangerous for your Web site. A cursory glance at the underlying "theory" (if one can call it that) will rapidly convince you that the average CSS hacker doesn’t have the faintest idea what he’s doing.

A certain browser has a certain CSS bug. Good to know. This same browser has another bug, usually in its parsing of CSS selectors or comments. This, too, is important information. However, a CSS hacker proceeds to use the second bug to "solve" the first one.

Solving one bug by another is not my idea of keeping Web development simple, but the matter goes beyond bad coding style. These hacks are inherently unsafe.

In an ideal world the next release of the browser would solve both bugs. In an uncaring world the next release of the browser would solve neither. In the uncertain world we live in the next release could solve one bug but not the other!

Therefore you could end up with a hack that applies an extra rule you no longer need, or with a necessary extra rule that isn’t applied any more.

CSS hackers seek out pairs of complicated, transitory browser bugs and confidently assume that new browser versions will never solve exactly one of two paired bugs. Then they deliberately sprinkle these bugs through the Web sites they code.

The worst part is that they seduce innocent newbies into copying their reprehensible habits by falsely promising them mastery over Web browsers.

I find their behavior very unprofessional and irresponsible. It’s not forward-compatible Web development. It’s not backward-compatible, either. It’s completely incompatible Web development, and future users of their sites will pay the price.

Using CSS hacks responsibly

Deep in my heart I do not wish to apply any CSS hack. More often than not, though, when I create a site one browser proudly displays a bug. On encountering such a bug I first wonder whether it is acceptable. Does the 10px width difference really matter?

When the bug isn’t acceptable, I always look for real CSS solutions first, solutions that do not involve hacking my way through browser land.

Hacks against dead browsers are safe, but hacks against the living aren’t. None of them. Ever.

We should not use CSS hacks except for those targeted at dead browsers, and even these with caution and only as a last resort.

CSS hacks lull Web developers into a false sense of security and into pride at the complexity of their solutions, while the underlying theory predicts long-term disaster. Don’t fall for these aberrations.

Keep CSS simple.

Hospital

I know I said my next post would be about hospital but that was a long time ago and I really don't want to talk about it.

Care was good, Food was bad.