random thoughts to oil the mind

Month: January 2011

Keats and Chapman Return from the Continent

Our eponymous heroes returned to Blighty after a short sojourn on the continent, during which time Keats had become rather enamoured with practising his high-school German. Unsure what to do with themselves after such an extended period away, they took it upon themselves to visit an old friend of theirs, who had reputedly retreated himself from high society, to take up the role of school headmaster in a quaint village on the south-west coast of Scotland.

On their arrival there, they discovered that his institution at the school had provoked a little wave of anti-English sentiment in the village, with his demands that the pupils talk ‘proper’ English, none of this uneducated Scots drivel. Partly as a result of his estrangement by the village community, their friend had rather taken somewhat to the produce of the local distillery.

One morning during their stay, hoping to catch a glimpse of their pal in his element at the school, Keats and Chapman set off down the road from the inn. On their journey they began to meet an increasingly dense trickle of schoolchildren which, it not even being noon and in the middle of the school day, they found rather odd. The trickle of pupils turned gradually into a stream as they neared the school, and they arrived to find their friend locking up the school door.

“What the devil does he think he’s doing at this time?” exported Chapman.

“It seems pretty obvious to me,” retorted Keats with a slight wave of his hand, “er macht die Schotten dicht.”

Windows on Inactivity

Here’s a little tip for anyone like me still using Windows Vista who’s having trouble with the system logging/locking you out after a certain period of inactivity (usually 5 or 10 minutes). The two most common culprits for this are the screensaver settings or possible power saving options, both accessible from within the Control Panel. However, what isn’t obvious and what drove me mad trying to find, is that even if you have None selected as your screensaver of choice, it appears Windows still sees fit to still log the user out after the allotted period of time. This despite the fact that the On resume, require logon checkbox is greyed out.

After much headscratching and searching through forums, I eventually discovered that you can prevent Windows automatically presenting you with the login screen after a few minutes of inactivity by reenabling the screensaver, providing an extraordinarily large number and unchecking the On resume, require logon checkbox. No more interrupted video viewing!

Keats and Chapman and the Sino-American War

One bright morning in late spring, whilst the nuclear ash was still falling over the majestic cities of the east, Keats and Chapman were sunning themselves out on the terrace with a pot of Earl Grey. The Sino-American War over Central Asia was largely over, and for gentlemen of the west it was a time of relief and contemplation. The Americans had relented to the will of the darkest minds in the forces, and the bombs falling on cities had been like raindrops splashing on a frozen pond. The winter had been a nuclear one.

“You know, I find it hard to believe that they’re ready to start rebuilding their cities so soon after the nukes,” remarked Chapman. “According to the papers, those Pashtuns are about ready to announce a new name for their capital.”

“Indeed, and I’ve got a wager with the landlord as to the name they’ll announce.” Chapman looked on, flummoxed. “Why, what else could they call it?” continued Keats, “New Kabul.”

Changing Your phpBB3 Domain

If like me you’ve decided at some point to move your phpBB install to a new domain or location within a domain, there are a number of little hurdles to jump before you can successfully consider the move complete. Here’s my short one-two-three guide for getting your forum moved over to a new address.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén