I'm very reluctant to use 3rd party software - often it can cause more problems than it solves. However Torque looks very useful - it generates SQL and Java from and XML-based schema definition. It uses Velocity templates to control the Java genera… more »

This is a small village on a hill in Kent. There's a nice churche in the centre at the top of the hill with some very old wooden carvings (c 15th century) of local notables on their tombs. The atmosphere within the church is very calm - good for me… more »

We finally settled on a server from Evesham - good customer service as usual, although the machine's fan is pretty noisy. The machine we got had an Intel server mother board with "Serial ATA" boards. This means that older versions of Linux don't su… more »

After waiting more days for feedback from Dell, we've cancelled the system order. We ordered online from Evesham (http://www.evesham.co.uk) once again - got a better system cheaper. They sent an email confirmation, and shortly after someone phoned… more »

We just ordered a system from Dell, and I was reminded of a previous bad experience. Their website is great - you can configure and order your system online. The prices and specs aren't bad either. *However* - once you've submitted your order you g… more »

A charming secluded village on a river estuary in Devon. The river disappears at low tide, so you can walk across to Newton Ferres. The sides of the estuary are steep and the houses cling to them. High above the houses you can see fields with cows!… more »

An amazing place I visited by bike a few weeks back. It's on the south coast of England, and has been reclaimed from the sea over many years. Rather like Holland it's very flat, and full of dykes and dams. It's very peaceful - I kept seeing happ… more »

I'm brushing up my Symbian programming with this book. Symbian is an OS that runs on most "Smartphones" these days. The book is very good, but programming for the OS is pretty hard. I ported my scripting language Simkin (http://www.simkin.co.uk)… more »

By Mario Puzo After the Godfather I wanted to read more by Puzo. It seems that the other films came directly from screenplays rather than books. The publisher subtitled this book "the bestselling sequel to The Godfather". Actually the Godfather… more »

We visited Ightham Mote (try spelling that after a glass of wine!) just south of London yesterday. It's a very atmospheric place with a "Tudor" feel. It has a moat, suits of armour, and very old carved wood all over the walls. more »

I got a free certificate from CACert for my emails. This sounds like a nice idea - you can authenticate your emails as coming from you by "signing" them. What's also nice is that CACert is free! Unfortunately they are not installed as "Trusted"… more »

Went to see this last night. It was a US blockbuster - not as bad as some. Luckily the underlying story is dramatic enough that they didn't have to completely reinvent it. Greek stories certainly seem more interesting than Roman ones! There we… more »

I'd really like to be able to blog from within XEmacs - which is where I most like to work. I just tried downloading and installing the blogger.el script from here http://www.cubane.com/blogger/ I eventually got it in - by copying the .el files to… more »

Nice to have! Although it might chew up the bandwidth.... more »

Maybe I spoke too soon about RSS and spammers... I just visited the new weblog list at http://www.blogsnow.com/new.html and was saddened to see that most of the blogs seem to be porn-related, and probably machine-generated, as several were the same.… more »

Not read it - but perhaps of interest to my friend who regularly travels to India/Tibet? "In the world of fiction reviewing, extraordinary is an over-used word. Yet there really is no other way to describe Chinese author Xinran's second book, Sky Buri… more »

Just been reading some interesting articles on the "Semantic Web" (term originated by Berners Lee). XML seemed an obvious extension of HTML - you could invent your own syntax. RDF seems an obvious extension of this - you can express object relation… more »

He doesn't seem to have his own website :-( http://www.jla.co.uk/ArtistsIndex/Artists/2/12/DonMonty1.asp?Letter= Just heard a program on Radio 4 about him called "Devout Sceptics". http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/devout_sceptics/index.shtml… more »

A programmer and a journalist! A programmer who can spell! more »