Friday 27 July 2007

Extended Holiday

I am going to be taking a rather long holiday, I have a lot of work on at the moment so I'm going to be taking about a month of, I should be back sometime in September, I make make the occasional post between now and then but nothing really, not everyday anyways!


Free Blog Counter


Tuesday 24 July 2007

Madeleine Parents to be prosecuted?

The papers over the past few days have been full of information about Gerry and Kate McCann, the public has said they will not let these parents get away with neglecting their children by leaving them alone while they went out at night.

The McCann's claim that they are the victims of an Internet smear campaign and an attempt to get them arrested, why shouldn't they be? If any other parent was stupid enough (as it was in no way naivety being naive is not thinking 3 children who were at the time all under 3 will be safe, not just from kidnapping, but from falling out of bed and smashing their head open, from trying to make themselves a drink and maybe knocking glasses out of the cupboard and cutting themselves the list is endless, and I'm not even a parent but I'm not stupid enough to think a child under 3 is safe alone for even 5 minutes nevermind a few hours) stupid enough to do this to their child/children, they should surely be prosecuted or be punished in some way.

There was this story in the Manchester Evening News on 19th http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1011/1011651_home_alone_mum_walks_free.html

Luckily her children came to no harm and yes she went free but she was still taken to court and "was given a community order to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work in the next 12 months. She was also ordered to pay £50 costs." That in my eyes is better than nothing, so why have the McCanns not even been looked into for their neglect? Is it because they're doctors? because they have friends in "high" places? because their daughter went missing after they left her alone?

I would call their imprisonment, or even a fine and community service, justice for Madeleine. Maybe justice will be served.


Free Blog Counter


Lil Bit Of Everything

I was looking through my logfile on blogcounter.com and was seeing what people had Googled to get to my site, I was surprised and happy to see several people actually put my blog name into Google. I didn't think I was that popular, so I decided to put my blog name into Google to see where about on Google my blog appeared! Well I typed in "Lil Bit Of Everything" and I saw an IMDB entry for a errr what I would call an adult movie! So it seems that I have named my Blog after pr0n! It's nice to know that when people are looking for either information on a pr0n movie or the movie itself they might stumble upon my Blog.

I think they might be slightly disappointed if they do!


Free Blog Counter


Monday 23 July 2007

Crazy Roommates

I've been away for a few days wasn't feeling too well and spent most of the time in bed :(

Anyway when I did venture to my laptop I found this website that made me laugh so much I had to see if anybody else had roommates out there as crazy as this guy does..... and then I found this it seems that crazy people are living everywhere, I thank god that I've never had to have a roommate!

Maybe these people should check out this Wikihow


Free Blog Counter


Wednesday 18 July 2007

Madeleine case - New witnesses

Madeleine McCann aged 3 disappeared from her Hotel room in Portugal, where she was left alone while her parents dined in a nearby restaurant on May 3rd. So far police have only one suspect Robert Murat. Friends of the McCanns say they saw him at the search for Madeleine the night she went missing, but Murat claims he was not there until the next day when he went to see if he could help, Murat claims that on the night of 3rd May he was in his mothers house located a short distance from the Hotel.

But now, Portuguese locals have come forward and said they also saw a man meeting Murats description in the vicinity of the McCann hotel room. Police have refused to reveal who the Portuguese witnesses are or how many of them were interviewed.

The police also didn't reveal where on earth these locals have been for the past two and a half months! What was stopping them coming forward before, or what has made them come forward now, and after withholding information for two months can their testimonies be proved??


Free Blog Counter


Benoit Toxicology Reports Say What??

As you probably already know, last month Benoit murdered his wife and son and then committed suicide. Since then the rumours of "Roid-Rage" have been rife. Yesterday the toxicology reports were announced and I have spent the past 2 or 3 hours trying to find out what they actually said.

The majority of websites have a headline saying how Benoit was on steroid when he murdered his family and then about four or five websites said he wasn't on steroids but on a combination of prescription drugs including Hydrocodone a painkiller and Xanax an anti-anxiety drug.

So what is the actual truth? Well it seems that Benoits testosterone level was 10 times what it should be which states he was also injecting testosterone and www.wrestlemag.com eventually cleared it up for me.

"The doctor in charge of World Wrestling Entertainment’s Wellness Policy, Dr. Black, once went on the record as saying that testosterone is an anabolic steroid, going against WWE’s current stance, which is the subject of continued scrutiny after yesterday’s toxicology results in the Chris Benoit tragedy.

In 2005, Dr. Black appeared on 60 Minutes II to discuss a story about NFL players who were taking banned substances. When asked if he considered testosterone to be a steroid, Black was quoted as saying, “Yes. Testosterone is the, ah, original base chemical, or the starting chemical for all the anabolic steroids.“" (http://www.wrestlemag.com/news/index.php?p=6454)

So there we have it, Benoit was taking testosterone an ingredient in steroids and because one doctor has announced he considers testosterone to be a steroid that must mean he's right and therefore no matter what anyone else says the big bad steroids were to blame!


Free Blog Counter


Spend £95 Receive £44,000!

Believe it or not that is what happened to a 16 year old boy who thought he was getting a bargain when he bought a PS2 on E-bay for £95. When his PS2 arrived he opened the box to discover the PS2 minus the games that he was told would come with it but in their place was 65,400 euros (approx £44,000) His parents have passed the money on to police and so far no one has claimed it.

The police have been given until September by Magistrates to hold the money, and then the case will go to court where the family can legally claim the money back under the Police Property Act.

Ebay have commented on the incident "We know that eBay is a great place to pick up a bargain, although in this case, we agree that the contents of the parcel were somewhat unusual and we will assist with any inquiries the police may wish to make."

What a bargain, and how great would it be if nobody claims the money and the boy gets to keep it, I want to know who he bought the PS2 from and if the seller has any more for sale :)


Free Blog Counter


Monday 16 July 2007

Editing SharePoint Themes

As I mentioned a few days ago I've been working on CSS files to edit themes in SharePoint. I haven't seen much documentation on how to do this so after picking up pieces from different places and then figuring out what to do I thought I'd pass my knowledge on.

I have access to SharePoint, SharePoint Designer and IE Developer Toolbar. I find SharePoint Designer better for viewing CSS or HTML files, but another good programme is Notebook++ which is an open source, source code editor for use on Windows. It supports many different languages:

ASP, Ada, ASCII art, Assembly, AutoIt, BAT, C, C#, C++, Caml, CSS, doxygen, FORTRAN, HTML, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, KiXtart, Lisp, Lua, makefile, Matlab, Objective-C, Pascal, Perl, PHP, PostScript, Python, Ruby, Scheme, Unix Shell Script, Smalltalk, SQL, Tcl, TeX, Verilog, VHDL, VB/VBScript, XML

You can download Notebook++ free here

Anyway getting back to the subject editing themes. To edit the theme you need to open the theme file. This is located in /_themes/THEME_NAME/THEME_1011-65001.CSS replacing THEME_NAME and THEME with the name of the theme you wish to edit. Open it from the SharePoint site. Doing that should open the CSS file in your default code editor, unless you have SharePoint Designer then you can locate it that way.

So now I have the CSS file open, I have my Web browser open with the site and theme I want to edit and IE Developer Toolbar. First thing to do is on the IE Developer Toolbar click on "Find" and then on "Select Element By Click" this means that you can click anywhere on the web page and you will not be taken to another page and it will show you the attributes for that part of the page that you have clicked on. So for example, I want to change the page border colour. So I clicked on the page border and in the current style list navigate to the background-color attribute, then right click on this and click "trace style" this brings up a new window, showing me the following

.ms-main {
BORDER-RIGHT: #ffffff 15px solid;
PADDING-RIGHT: 5px;
BORDER-TOP: #ffffff 15px solid;
PADDING-LEFT: 5px;
PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px;
BORDER-LEFT: #ffffff 15px solid;
PADDING-TOP: 5px;
BORDER-BOTTOM: #055baa 15px solid;
BACKGROUND-COLOR: #e3efff

Then a quick CTRL+F in SharePoint Designer and search for .ms-main will take me to the part of the .CSS file I wish to edit (a good idea is to either write in a comment detailing your changes or to create a copy in case you need to go back to the original.)

So I then changed all the #ffffff to blue wrote in a comment to say it was originally white and the I saved the file. After doing this the theme was just how we needed it so I had a look at another theme to see if any others could be edited slightly to become useful. On going back to my edited theme I noticed that everything I had changed had gone back to how it was. I still had SharePoint Designer open so I re saved the file and refreshed the browser, it changed again to the edits that I had made, so I realised that there must be another file that needs editing too in order to keep the theme the same. I discovered this file in the 12 folder on the server. This folder can usually be located in \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12 then navigate to "Template" and "Themes" there you will get a list of all the available themes, navigate to the one that requires editing. In my case my theme is called "Blue" so I opened the "Blue" folder, in this folder you will see 5 .CSS files, these should be called:

  1. COLOR0.CSS

  2. COLOR1.CSS

  3. GRAPH0.CSS

  4. GRAPH1.CSS

  5. THEME.CSS


The THEME.CSS is the flie that needs to be edited in order to save the changes, this file begins with the body tag and looks something like this:

body {
font-family:Arial;
background-color:#FFF
text-align:center;
margin:5px;
}

This is the first line in the THEME.CSS however it is not the first line in 1011-65001.css, you will find this at approximately line 150. So now it is just a simple case of copying everything from body downwards, emptying the THEME.CSS file and pasting what you have copied into it. Once this is saved you can change your theme and go back to it and your changes will still be there. I did not require an IIS RESET to do this but there is a chance your changes won't save without one.

If you have any questions on this subject post me a comment and I'll do what I can to help :)



I have a confession to make - contrary to what I previously said the 1011-65001.css file is only acessible with Frontpage or SharePoint Designer, sorry about the mix up!


Free Blog Counter


Sunday 15 July 2007

Funny 404's - Error Page Not Found

I was playing around on the Internet yesterday when I came across a really funny 404 error, and it made me think what other types of 404's there are. So I have a look round and found quite a few, they made me giggle I hope you enjoy :D

These are a few of my favourites:
Frog
Mario
Button
Photo
Question Mark
Kansas
Lightening
Monkey
Dead End
Oh The Humanity
How To Survive A 404
Psychiatric
404 Translator
Operation Failure
Sonic

And my personal favourite an oldie but I still think its great the Depressed Web Server

I thought some of the best one's were the Sonic one and the Operation Failure one, not just for the humour factor but for the thought, it's much better to get one of these than to get a normal 404 page. I hope you liked :)


Free Blog Counter


Friday 13 July 2007

McCanns Friends Accusations

As many people already know, four people were called in for questioning by the Portuguese police this week. Three of these four were friends of the McCanns who holidayed with them, Fiona Payne, Russell O’Brien and Rachel Oldfield, the fourth was chief suspect Robert Murat.

The McCanns friends have claimed since almost the beginning (in fact it is one of the rare "facts" that hasn't changed) to have seen Robert Murat at the search on the night Madeleine went missing, Murat contrary to their claims says he was in his mothers villa the whole time. The portugeuse law states that when something like this occurs the "witnesses" have to confront the "suspect" A police source said: "It is normal in Portugal for the two sides to be brought together to try and find the truth. This is what happened on Wednesday," Fiona Payne, Russell O’Brien and Rachel Oldfield sat in a room with Robert Murat and said to him "You were there night she vanished" The McCanns friends were only questioned for 2 hours, Murat was questioned for approximately 6-8 hours, and upon leaving the police station announced "I can’t say anything, but yes I am still a suspect"

Gerry McCann wrote about his friends being questioned in his Blog on Wednesday "The Portuguese police interviewed three of our friends again today, to clarify points in their initial statements" But that wasn't his first sentence in the blog.

It started off by saying "This morning got off to a bad start when we were called, even before the twins were awake, by a reputable press agency saying that a body had been found and asking if it was true. It is very disappointing that this person did not check out the source of this rumour before contacting our representatives. Such calls and rumours are distressing even though we know if it does not come through an official source not to place much emphasis on it."

Now if we look further into this paragraph, you can see first he says "we were called" then he says "before contacting our representatives" so which is it? Was he awoken by the press or did the press contact his "representatives" who then contacted him? If the latter why did they not "check out the source of this rumour" ?? Or is this another alleged stunt to get the case back on the front page? If it is, I kinda can't blame him if he has no involvement in it at all of course he wants Madeleines name to be on the front page as much as possible. The Mirror Forums were discussing this entry on wednesday.

Todays blog entry was a little bit better and talks about him thanking the police.

I hope this innocent little girl is found soon and the monster(s) whoever they may be pay dearly!


Free Blog Counter


Thursday 12 July 2007

200 Posts - Overview Part Deux!

As I said in my last overview I monitor my site activity with http://blogcounter.com

I've reached the 200 views mark today so I thought I'd do another review.

The page with the most views is still The Church of Gaming but a close second is the Sol article

The most searched words that links people to my blog are "madeleine update" and "maddy, blogspot" As of yet google has been used 52 times. The other 148 views seem to of come from a combination of Digg and Reddit and a few people have visited from when a post of mine was posted on the Mirror Forums

The most popular OS was still Windows XP with 65.7% (134 people) using it to view my blog, as of yet not one person has viewed my blog using Microsoft Vista, I wonder if this says something? Is Vista not as popular as MS are claiming, but thats for another post ;-) The second most popular OS is no longer Linux, now it is WinNT6.0 with 8.3 %, Linux and Windows 2000 are tied for third place with 5.9 %

The most popular browser is no longer Firefox last time Firefox had 62% this time Firefox only has 44.1 % and Internet Explorer takes the lead with 52 % Netscape was third with 2.5 %

So I wonder how much will change by my next review? I'm not sure whether to review again at 300 because it might come too soon, maybe a third review at 500 would be better.



Free Blog Counter


Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar

I've recently started using the IE Developer Toolbar after discovering it thanks to Shane Perran's SharePoint Blog It is a very useful addon for Internet Explorer especially as in work I can't have Firefox, and as I'm working with a SharePoint site on the server that isn't FF compatible. The toolbar downloadable here is a useful tool for exploring the HTML or CSS on a webpage.

The Microsoft overview:
Overview

The Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar provides several features for exploring and understanding Web pages. These features enable you to:

* Explore and modify the document object model (DOM) of a Web page.
* Locate and select specific elements on a Web page through a variety of techniques.
* Selectively disable Internet Explorer settings.
* View HTML object class names, ID's, and details such as link paths, tab index values, and access keys.
* Outline tables, table cells, images, or selected tags.
* Validate HTML, CSS, WAI, and RSS web feed links.
* Display image dimensions, file sizes, path information, and alternate (ALT) text.
* Immediately resize the browser window to a new resolution.
* Selectively clear the browser cache and saved cookies. Choose from all objects or those associated with a given domain.
* Display a fully featured design ruler to help accurately align and measure objects on your pages.
* Find the style rules used to set specific style values on an element.
* View the formatted and syntax colored source of HTML and CSS.

The Developer Toolbar can be pinned to the Internet Explorer browser window or floated separately.

I am at the moment using it to edit the CSS files for a SharePoint theme, and it is making my job a whole lot easier!



Free Blog Counter


Monday 9 July 2007

Alex Thomson - Should he be punished?

Channel 4 newsman Alex Thomson said the media coverage of Maddie made him sick. He said "I've been sickened by the way the media have allowed themselves to be taken for a full-scale ride by the McCanns." He added that the parents behaviour of leaving the three children und the age of four alone while they ate was, "a contributory factor in the abduction, was largely downplayed or ignored altogether by sycophantic, gullible blanket coverage."

A Channel 4 News spokesman has apparently told the Sun that Thomson has been reprimanded.

How many of you agree with him? Who thinks he was rightfully reprimanded?

Personally I think he's hit the nail on the head and said what a lot of people should of said sooner. The McCanns conduct just isn't right. It's unfair that they are still raising money and it is in no way being used to help look for Madeleine, it is allegedly being used for their accomodation and media coverage, what about private investigators?

What about going out there and actually looking yourself the way hundreds of parents have after their chilidren have gone missing. Take for example missing toddler Ben Needham, his mother didn't get any public funds, she spent every penny of her own money searching for her son, and had to sell his toys to get a boat home as she didn't have enough money for a flight. She was also questioned as a suspect by Greek police for 5 hours. Was this because she was a young (17) unmarried mother, so it didn't seem as important as the child of two middle class doctors?

Also Alex Meschisvili he has been missing since 3rd February, the Greek media have stopped reporting on his dissapearance as nothing new has appeared.

The McCanns say they want to eventually use the fund to help find other missing children, why don't they start by using it to find their own child?


Free Blog Counter


Thursday 5 July 2007

Madeleine and the Mirror Forums

A user on the Mirror forums has publically accused the McCanns. He says he thinks the McCanns murdered Madeleine, and he says he has proof!

Read the thread in full here (This thread has now been pulled)

Yesterday the McCann's held a press conference. You can read the press conference in full here (The press conference was about Madeleine nothing to do with the accusations on the Mirror forums)

To be honest I found the first sentence to be quite shocking

"Every day is incredibly hard without Madeleine, but there have been a number of plusses as well."


Free Blog Counter


Wednesday 4 July 2007

To post or not to post

Maybe I'm giving up to easily, but after having nearly 150 readers so far I still have no reocurring readers, which means I have nobody who likes what I have to say enough that they keep coming back. I'm gettin bored of blogging, it's not as easy at it looks to come up with something to say all the time, and up to now I haven't had a single comment left :-(

Anyway I'm going to stop feeling sorry for myself and post something that at least I find interesting ;-)

Firstly I've just read that despite newspapers and an attorney for World Wrestling Entertainment saying that Benoit may of killed his family because of arguements over care for his mentally and physically disabled son, there is no evidence of a disability. Benoit's family knew nothing about it, and Fayette County District Attorney Scott Ballard refutes these allegations he says that Daniel did not suffer from Dwarf Syndrome or Fragile X Syndrome! An unknown source with access to Daniels medical reports has also said that there was no mention of any mental or physical illness in Daniels medical records.
Which brings the question back to what flipped Benoit over the edge causing him to kill his wife and son, if in fact he did do it.

Madeleine's parents made a press appeal yesterday telling her abductors that it is not too late to return her. Kate was quoted as saying "it is not too late to give her back"
The hoax theory is still on going on the Mirror forums.


Free Blog Counter


Tuesday 3 July 2007

What Does The Future Hold For The Church Of Gaming?

All the religions of the world have now formed a group to battle the Church of Gaming. Will Ethan and his followers be able to overcome all the religions of the world?

Only time will tell!


Free Blog Counter


Channel 4 censors.

The forums on the Channel 4 website are censoring information as best as they can. An article which has appeared in the Sol a few days ago is being banned from several forums. One user posted the article to the Channel 4 forum twice and got banned by moderators, and recieved the following message.

"The site administrators have removed your access rights for the following reason:

We’re sorry but we do not allow users to re-post topics which we have deleted. Please understand that although it may not be clear to you straight away why a topic was deleted it will have a good reason and should NOT be re-posted. If you would like to dispute this suspension please email chat@channel4.com and include any information related to this issue. Your account will then be reviewed."

Why do the media want to hide this story? Decide for yourself I have posted the article in full below.


published in Sol, on June 30, 2007
an article by Felicia Cabrita and Margarida Davim

Madeleine Case

Pact of Silence

Madeleine’s parents and the friends with whom they spent their holidays in PDL are suspects in the inquiry. There are contradictory versions about the night of the kidnapping, and an assumed pact of silence in the group

The beginning of June is flowing in a strange way in the Algarve. A chilly wind and overhead clouds help to fill the auditorium of Lagos, where a solidarity concert is being held for the missing english girl. It’s been a month since Madeleine McCann vanished without a trace.

A few kilometres from Lagos, in the Ocean Club resort at Praia da Luz, the faint illumination further densifies the climate. At the reception, which leads to the Tapas restaurant, there is nobody. Getting inside is easy.

A portuguese waiter, but with a british ‘behaviour’, strikes the first blow on the journalist’s plan: “We only serve dinner to the club’s clients”. “What about a drink?”. He says yes.

It’s 9.30 p.m. If we were to believe the several members of the McCann’s holiday group, and after several mismatching versions, at this time Madeleine was being carried out of her apartment by a dark-haired man, who would be around 35 years old.

From the same table where the group of nine had dinner on that evening, one tries, in vain, to observe the apartment’s front – a ground floor apartment that faces the restaurant. A linoleum screen on the side of Tapas and the corridor of bushes that follows the limits of the apartment’s back yards prevents any vigilance to that level.

The image of Madeleine – big blue, questioning eyes and an innocent smile, fixed on the photographic films – is always present. It doesn’t leave the conversations of whom passes by. One remembers the words that the mother, Kate Healy, is supposed to have said to a friend (and that the husband, Gerry McCann, did not know): “I had a bad premonition about my children, when I found out the Ocean Club had no baby listening service”.

The choice of Algarve as a holiday destination would come to change their lives. Everything was arranged with three other couples, with whom they used to travel. Some of them had recently been to Greece, with their children, and the Mark Warner agency, the same that prepared their trip to the Algarve, had done their itinerary for the islands. According to their reports, the hotel where they stayed had a baby listening service – a service that is assured by four or five members of staff who would control the children while the adults dined, by listening through doors and windows to confirm that everything inside was quiet.

At the Tapas bar, from bartenders to staff from the Kid Club, criticism is whispered: “We have a creche where they left their children for most part of the day, where they could be until 11.30 p.m. without spending another Euro. They could also have used our baby-sitters, who stay with the children in their rooms until 1 p.m. In this case, they would have to pay an extra fee, but these people looked like they could afford it”, an employee comments, concluding that “this was a very strange group, that never stayed with their children”.

The children’s routine

The story of Madeleine looks like a tangled ball of wool. In the last days of April, Kate and Gerry, both 39 and doctors, arrive with their friends in Praia da Luz. The weather is not very good, but the group makes the best of it. The children seem to exist outside of the adults’ world. In the morning, Kate would take Madeleine, almost 4, and the 2-year old twins, to the Kid Club. The other couples in the group did the same. While the little ones entertained themselves with collages and paintings, the group divides itself between tennis and jogging until lunchtime. In the creche, the girl’s picture is taken: “She was shy and had some difficulty in adapting to the group. She always stayed close to the english children she already knew”.

It is at lunchtime that the families socialize a bit. After a short nap, the children go back to the Kid Club, while the parents use the activities that the club offers. They only get to meet again in the late afternoon, when the children’s dinner is served. Before 8 p.m., Madeleine and her siblings, who seem to function like a clock, are already asleep. Half an hour later, the group of friends meets at Tapas. The staff remember that they only leave at midnight: “They were very lively and drank a bit too much. I didn’t even realize they had children, because I never saw them around”.

Mathew Oldfield, one of the elements of the group, is back in England. He reacts with surprise upon the contact of Sol, but he does not avoid the conversation: “We drank. We were on holidays. So what?”.

And thus the days followed one upon another, at the Ocean Club. The holiday week is almost over and the group’s spirit does not change. Nobody had noticed until then, how the children were kept at a distance.

The most reliable way to undrestand what happened on May 3, when Madeleine disappeared, is to analyze the various versions that emerged.

It would have been 10 p.m. when Kate decided to check the children at the apartment. This is the only moment in the story that gathers consensus. Madeleine had vanished from her bedroom and the twins were sleeping like nothing had happened. The mother was back at the restaurant in one leap. She was disoriented.

PJ called two hours later

In seconds, the resort is in turmoil. The group’s four men and the club’s employees check every corner. They seem to be oblivious of the essential: to call the authorities. GNR is the first to arrive at the scene, but the news only reach Policia Judiciaria (PJ) more than two hours later. The first explanations arise. Where were the parents when the child disappeared? Gerry explains that, inspired in the scheme that some of the friends had used on their holidays in Greece, the nine members of the group took turns in checking on the children with some regularity.

This is the beginning of a story that will change in many chapters. Gerry starts by saying that he first left the table to check on the children around 9.05 p.m. When he entered the apartment the children were fine, he just noticed that the door to their bedroom was partially open. He looked at the window, which was closed, just as the shutters, and relaxed.

Ten minutes later, his friend Jane Tanner, who went around the apartments, crossed ways with a dark-haired man who was walking in the opposite direction, carrying a child. She didn’t make any connections either.

A few minutes later, Mathew Oldfield enters the room, sees the McCann children fast asleep, and notices nothing out of the ordinary. It is at 10 p.m. that Maddie’s mother discovers her daughter has disappeared. The window was wide open and the shutters were up.

To GNR, who is in the area with sniffer dogs to search for the child, this is a highly unlikely scenario. One of the military assures: “This is an extremely silent area, where there are practically no passing cars. That shutter was very difficult to lift from the outside, and would have made a lot of noise. It would have been a lot easier to use the door, but there were no signs of a break-in”.

This was just one of the reasons why the group became suspicious in the eyes of the investigators. Russell O’Brien, Jane Tanner’s husband, is already back in England, but he knows he could be summoned back to Portugal for a deposition anytime. Over the phone with Sol, he tries to keep his british phlegm: “It is normal that we are suspects, and the DNA test is a consequence thereof. We were the closest people involved”.

The conversation always comes back to the same issue: the night of the disappearance. The account of that last dinner has disparate versions among the group’s members. Some swear that someone left the table every half hour to check on the kids; other reduce that time to half of it. Some say control is made window by window; others say the adults entered each other’s apartments.

One of the employees that was on duty that evening does not remember a lot of movement: “I only remember a tall, grey-haired man getting up once from the table”. It was Russell, who, two days earlier, also had attended dinner.

An aerobic instructor from the resort entertains the dinner guests at Tapas with a ‘Quiz’. At 9.30 p.m. the game ends, and Gerry invites her to their table, where she stays for half an hour. During that time, as she later confided to friends, nobody left the table, but one of the chairs was vacant. Najova Chekaya refuses to talk to Sol. And Russell, when the questions start to surround him, loses his sympathy: “I have nothing further to tell you. I am not going to dishonor the compromise I assumed with Kate and Gerry. They want to control all infornation that is disclosed”.

Gerry changes his version several times, but he maintains that the door to his children’s room was open. Mat revokes his first statement: when he entered Madeleine’s room, the door was open and there was more light, as if the shutters had been raised. Here starts to develop the theory that there was already someone inside the apartment. Which reinforces Jane Tanner’s version (that she saw a man carrying a child).

Only Jane saw the man carrying a child

But there is a witness whose deposition contradicts this theory. Jeremy Wilkins – a tv producer who had met Maddie’s father during their holidays and used to play tennis with him – was walking his eight months old son at that time. He met Gerry, who went out through the apartment’s back door after having checked on the children, and the two man exchanged a brief conversation. At that time, if one is to believe the first accounts, Jane would have left Tapas in the direction of the apartment’s main entrance, and would have crossed paths with both of them. “It was a very narrow road and I think it would have been almost impossible to walk by without me taking notice”, Jeremy says, pointing out the fact that he saw no man carrying a child, as Jane states.

But Jane continues to guarantee that, at the top of the street, she saw a man with a child in his arms.

Although the area is scarcely lit, and the situation did not make her suspicious at the time, she describes the beige trousers, the dark thick jacket and the black classic-style shoes in a detailed way. Once again, Jeremy disagrees: “If that happened, I would have likely seen it”.

On the next day, the media circus was fully installed. The first reports are on Sky News first thing in the morning, even before portuguese press takes hold of the story. Journalists and locals dispute the information. Robert Murat, the son of an english mother and a portuguese father, with little luck in business, does not waste the opportunity. He moves from failed businessman into the role of a translator for the press and the police. Some british journalists, after sucking him to the bones, start suspecting his availability.

The Murat contradiction

Contrarily to the GNR elements and the Ocean Club’s staff, who participated in the searches on the night before and assure they did not see Murat around, Gerry and some of his friends guarantee that he was there. And thus he becomes an arguido.

Gerry and Kate’s friends, who are interrogated tightly by the PJ over almost a month, refuse to clarify this contradiction, when asked by Sol. “We have a pact. This is our matter only. It is nobody else’s business”, says David Payne, another element with the group. Minutes after we tried to contact Kate, Gerry, in a fury, calls the Sol journalist: “What do you think you are doing? Do you think you’re better than the portuguese police? I’m going to forward your contact to PJ and you will have to explain yourselves”.


-------


PJ says ‘everybody is a suspect’

The director of the Policia Judiciaria in Faro, Guilhermino da Encarnacao, confirmed with Sol that “we do not discard the possibility to have the family and friends as suspects”. This is always done “without neglecting other clues. Everybody who was at the resort at the time are suspects”.


Free Blog Counter


Monday 2 July 2007

Madeleine, The other opinions.

I have been debating most of the day whether or not to write about this. But after spending more time reading it I thought why not? Just because I write about it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with it, so first I'll give the information then my opinions. Firstly is this forum on the Mirror website. This guy has a hoax theory. A very interesting hoax theory.

Mike Hitchen's Blog bluntly gives the facts! I agree with quite a few of his posts.

It does seem that as more time is going on Madeleine is being thought about less and less as a missing person and more and more as a pawn in a parents fame game. Personally I am undecided, the people who have these conspiracy theories put forward very good arguments and they always back up what they are saying with links to news articles nine times out of ten from a reputable source, and to make their argument even stronger, the people who call them "sick" and say they are lying never seem to be able to prove that they are wrong. It just seems to me that these people with these theories are being proved right more and more often, as for Mike Hitchen, he seems to have the opinion that the “Grubs” as he calls them should be prosecuted for negligence. Although I agree that should happen, as it will teach them and anyone else considering to leave their children alone, I do think that any prosecution should be left at least until Madeleine is found, hopefully alive. I don’t agree with the people who are saying they have had punishment enough in Madeleine going missing, I think they should be treated the way every other person who mistreats their children are.

I just feel sorry for the parents of other children missing either presently or in the past, as the way the McCanns are getting attention is through who they know. It pays to know people in high places. It just goes to show it truly isn't what you know it's who you know.


Free Blog Counter


100 Hits, Now For The Overview!

Thanks to blogcounter.com I can see that today I have received my 100th hit! Now for all the information I found interesting. The most popular OS was Windows XP, with 66 people out of the 100 using it, second was a huge surprise to me but it was Linux! It doesn't go into detail of which type of Linux it was but Linux got 9%. Win NT6.0 8% and what shocked me even more Mac OSX only 4%!! Windows 2000 2% and the following were 1% Windows 98, Win NT5.2, Windows ME, and Sun OS.

Now a subject that is often talked about browser wars! Which browser did most people coming to my blog use the one, the only Mozilla!! 62% of people coming here use FireFox, I will take this oppurtunity to say you can download FireFox with Google Toolbar by clicking on the link to the right >>>>
Internet Explorer only 33%, Netscape and Opera 2% and not one person who came here used Safari. From looking at the stats in more detail I can discover that the four people on Mac used, 1-Netscape6.0 3-FireFox1.8! All Linux users who came to my blog used FireFox too! Is Mozilla finally winning the browser war?? I know my site is only one site out there but I still find it interesting that more that half the people who visited are using FireFox!

Now for something else interesting which just clarifies what we already know, but out of the 19 people who were brought here by a Search Engine 18 of them used Google, the other 1 got here by using AOL to search "Benoit phone". The most common keywords were to do with Madeleine sightings and Church of Gaming.

The blog entry with the most hits The Church Of Gaming so maybe I have the audience I wanted, a geek one :D

Also most of the 100 people who viewed my blog have been directed here from either Digg or Reddit, so thanks to those people who saw my information good enough to digg! Now I just want to find out how to add a Diggit button to the bottom of my post, if anyone knows how to do that leave me a comment please :D


Free Blog Counter


Sunday 1 July 2007

Smoking Ban

So today is 1st July, and the smoking ban has officially begun in UK. The ban making it illegal to light up in enclosed public places came into force at 06:00 today.

England is the final part of the UK to introduce a ban, after Wales and Northern Ireland in April and Scotland last March. The Republic of Ireland made the move three years ago.

Anyone caught smoking illegally will be given a fixed penalty notice of £50 - reduced to £30 if paid in 15 days - or fined up to £200 if they are prosecuted and convicted by a court.

It is estimated that 1.5 million people will quit smoking because of the ban. I know it wont lead to me quitting, but what do you think? Will the fact that you can no longer smoke in pubs and restaurants cause you to quit?


Free Blog Counter


Friday 29 June 2007

Madeleine - Update

As sightings continue there is still nothing positive to report about the missing four year old. As of yet over twenty-five separate reports have come in all claiming to of seen Maddy in Malta. In the past few days there has been reports that a girl matching Madeleine's description was seen being taken on board a yacht owned by a wealthy Arabic family. However, The yacht’s name and possibly number would be clearly visible for some distance, but no one has reported seeing these details.

In the past 24 hours two people have been arrested in connection with a scam to receive the 2.6 million pound reward. A police statement has reported the two to be an Italian man and a Portuguese woman. The statement said "Police started to investigate them after learning they tried to contact Madeleine's parents to claim the reward on offer"


Free Blog Counter


Benoit - Another Update - Somebody Knew??

In the last few hours it has been announced that some 14 hours (approx 1am Monday morning) before authorities discovered the bodies of Chris, Nancy and their 7-year-old-son Daniel on Monday, someone altered Benoit's page on Wikipedia to say the wrestler missed a match two days earlier because of his wife's death.

The writer has claimed it was a coincidence and a guess here "I feel incredibly bad for all the attention this got because of the fact that what I said turned out to be the truth. Like I said it was just a major coincidence, and I will never vandalize anything on wikipedia or post wrongful information. I've learned from this experience. I just can't believe what I wrote was actually the case, I've remained stunned and saddened over it"

I personally think that its too much of a coincidence as the IP address has been tracked to a computer in Stamford, CT (the site of WWE headquarters) apparently (I say apparently as only one newspaper has said this)other WWE edits have been linked to the same IP address including confidential information about Chavo Guerrero.

Did someone know about the death before or was it all a huge coincidence, if someone knew that person could of possibly prevented Benoit's suicide, which leads to more conspiracy theories.


Free Blog Counter


Benoit - Update

The WWE Chairman issued a "non-apology" on Tuesday for the three hour show dedicated to the life of Benoit. After finding out the facts they took down all tributes from the website.

After the autopsies this week official say they think Benoit killed his son in a choke hold, they have said there was no bruising around his neck so from a process of ellimination this is what they come up with, seems to me that they want to blame wrestling as much as they can, as I can personally think of other things where (as far as I know) there would be no bruising, for example using a pillow??

WWE have dismissed theories of "Roid Rage" as they thing the murders were too thought out, with them lasting the whole weekend and the bodies having bibles placed next to them the WWE have said that this is an indication steriods were not used.


Free Blog Counter


The Church - Update

It looks like from todays comic that all religions are joining together in an attempt to overthrow Ethan! In other news the Church of Gaming website has been added to and you can now read the "Bible". I hope Ethan manages to ward off these other religions!


Free Blog Counter


Wednesday 27 June 2007

Wrestler Benoit and Family found dead

My responce to the headline "WWE Wrestler Chris Benoit, Wife and Son Found Dead" was one of huge shock!

It's a little known fact to my friends but I am a huge WWE fan, me and my husband went to watch Raw just over a year ago, I mourned at the death of Eddie Guerrero, and yesterday another great was lost.

On Saturday Chris Benoit was due to participate in Smackdown in Texas, but he did now show, he said he could not make the show because of personal reasons. Dissapointed fans were assured by WWE that Benoit would be at Sunday nights "Vengance" a pay-per-view event, but yet again Benoit was a no show. This time when WWE officials got in touch with the star he said that his wife and son had food poisoning and were throwing up, and on Monday after recieving contact through several text messages that stated his home address in Fayetteville, about 20 miles south of Atlanta and recieving one message from Benoit's phone that said: "The dogs are in the enclosed pool area. Garage side door is open," police were alerted. When deputies arrived at Benoit's house at about 2:30 p.m. yesterday, they found the bodies of Benoit, his wife Nancy, and his son Daniel.

The case is currently being investigated as a double murder and suicide case, police have said Benoit killed his wife and son sometime at the weekend and then killed himself yesterday.

The Washington Post has reported "Benoit strangled his wife, suffocated his 7-year-old son and placed a Bible next to their bodies before hanging himself with a weight-machine pulley, authorities said Tuesday. Authorities offered no motive for the killings, which were spread out over the weekend and discovered Monday. No suicide note was found."

However the police are investigating into whether Benoit went into a rage caused by prolonged steroid usage. Investigators found anabolic steroids in the house and want to know whether "The Rabid Wolverine" was unhinged by the bodybuilding drugs, which can cause paranoia, depression and explosive outbursts. Police are looking into this as the cause as Benoit was known for his "wholesome family-man image" a reason several thousand WWE fans are posting their views on websites.

Many people cannot believe that Benoit would do such a thing, and the consipicy theories have already started. Some people think that someone was in his home the whole weekend and made him send the messages before killing him and making it look like suicide, others have said they think its a drug deal gone wrong. Whatever happened only three people know for sure.


Free Blog Counter


The Church Of Gaming

Nine days ago on the 18th June, we first heard about Ethan's "faith" and "gods" of gaming. Two days later on the 20th he created a hat and a symbol of his new Church. On the 22nd he informed Lucas of his intentions, and began to write his "bible"

On the 23rd June 2007 Ethan gave all us geeks out there a religion and made the Church of Gaming official, with an official "Holy Instruction Manual" but what geek church would be complete without its own website?? On 25th June Ethan gave us that too, using the powers of a popular website Ctrl+Alt+Del he gave us the Church of Gaming

Yesterday was the first church meeting. I think it will be interesting to see where they go with this, the fact that they have created the website www.churchofgaming.com to go with the storyline is was I liked best, at the moment as you can see the website is only one page, but I think as the story progresses we may be given more especially if it gets a lot of hits.

So spread the word the geek Church is here!!


Free Blog Counter


Monday 25 June 2007

Still Missing, but not giving up hope!

Madeleine McCann has today been missing for 53 days. Her parents said on Friday that they never thought they would see the 50th day come and go without Maddy being found. Despite this being the hardest thing they have had to go through they are determined not to give up hope and will keep trying to make Maddy's missing case as high profile as possible, and are not willing to return to the UK without Madeleine

They say on their website that fridays balloon launching event was a huge sucess. "The response to our request for events on the 50th day has been overwhelming" said Gerry and Kate. "This global support gives us both strength and fresh determination to carry on our campaign."

At the weekend it was reported Maddy had been spotted eleven different times in Malta. The McCann's have said they are not getting their hopes up, as there would be nothing worse than getting excited about the information only to find out that it all came to nothing. Police are taking every sighting seriously and Maltese police have locked down on all ports and the airport in Malta in the hope that if she is there she will be found.

One of the most significant sightings have came from Ray Roberts, from Anglesey, North Wales, said he saw a girl in Sliema wearing what he said looked to be a black wig. The girl was of white origin and was walking with an Arab-looking man. Ray said he heard the man shout "Get up little girl" as the girl tripped and fell.

When questioned about the incident Ray Roberts said "It was obviously not his first language so it seemed odd that he had to speak to her in English, As a father, their reaction did not seem natural."

He added: "The more I think about what I saw the more convinced I become that it may well have been Maddie. The oddness of it all played out in my mind until I got home then I realised I had to do something."

I hope sincerely that this comes up with something.

A British newspaper "The News Of The World" has started off a reward to bring Maddy home. This reward includes donations from J.K.Rowling, footballer Wayne Rooney and fiancée Coleen McLoughlin, Everton Chairman Bill Kenwright, Sir Richard Branson, Sir Philip Green, West Ham Chairman Eggert Magnussin, Reading's John Madejski, Anne Summer's boss Jacqueline Gold, TV Star Simon Cowell, England Cricket captain Micheal Vaughan, Sir Tom Hunter, Sir Stelios Hari-Ioannou, and Matalan Chief John Hargreaves. The reward has now reached £ 1.5 million. I and I think joined by many others would like to think all these people for reaching into their own pockets to help get Maddy back. I just hope we hear something about her pretty soon.

Robbie Williams has also tried to raise awareness about Maddy and has been seen at the weekend wearing a t-shirt bearing Madeleines face and name.


Banner1


Free Blog Counter


Free Online Books

While looking into Linux systems and what to use, I found this website PSPXWorld It has a lot of useful books on it, from a variety of different subjects, including:

  • Programming

  • Mathematics

  • Computer Science

  • Database

  • Operating Systems


I have found the site really useful for my Linux research :)

And as I'm trying to teach myself some programming languages I hope it will be just as useful for that too!

Speaking of teaching yourself, I have over the past 2 months taught myself HTML the W3 Schools website is really helpful, and although I'm no HTML expert it has been the only website I have needed to use to learn quite a lot :D


Free Blog Counter


Sorry, I relaxed this weekend!!

I know I know, not even a week into the blog and after saying I would try to post everyday I took a weekend off! Well I did put it to some use and got some of my Uni work done :)

As of yet I don't have much interesting to report but I do have two funny websites that I stumbled upon at the weekend.

Passive Aggressive Notes ever felt like you had something to say to a colleague or room mate, these notes say what we all wish we had said!!

Or Left behind at the Fishbowl This blog contains work people have left behind at the printers. This guy adds his comments correcting spelling, grammar and just basically making it make sense! hilarious :)


Free Blog Counter


Wednesday 20 June 2007

Have the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) finally gone crazy??

The Egg Information Service wanted to relauch a fifty year old advert this week, but they were informed by te BACC that they could not do this.

The advert in question has the slogan "Go to work on an Egg" therefore the BACC have said this advert does not promote a varied diet and cannot be aired. A spokesman for BACC said "Dietary considerations have been at the centre of the new rules for advertising and in consideration of this we felt that these adverts did not suggest a varied diet. The concept of eating eggs every day for breakfast goes against what is now the generally accepted advice of a varied diet and we therefore could not approve the ads for broadcast."

The British Egg Information Service spokesperson Amanda Cryer quite rightly pointed out that "many other advertisers clearly promote their products to be eaten every day such as breakfast cereals so we are very surprised that eggs have been singled out in this way."

Am I the only one who finds this completely crazy??


Free Blog Counter


Balloons for Maddy

On Friday 22nd June Maddy McCann has been missing for 50 days. She was taken on 3rd May 2007 from her bed whilst on holiday with her parents in Praia Da Luz, Portugal.

She also missed her 4th birthday on 12th May. On Friday her parents hope to keep her case as high profile as possible so that there is more of a chance of finding her. To do this they aim to release balloons from at least 50 different countries. These balloons will all have a picture of Maddy on.

Madeleine’s father has a blog on http://bringmadeleinehome.com He has said that “We will be launching green and yellow balloons from at least 50 centres worldwide to mark the fact that we are still searching as are other parents of missing children. Countries that are participating so far are Argentina, El Salvador, USA, Canada, Ireland, UK, The Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Kenya, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Any other countries that wish to participate can download information from the website.”

I downloaded the banner (to the right) from the website too, to add it to your blog or website just go to the site, or use this code:

<a href="http://bringmadeleinehome.com">
<img src="http://bringmadeleinehome.com/img/madeleine150x120.gif" width="150" height="120" border="0"/>
</a>

Unfortunatly Maddy could be anywhere, a problem with the Portuguese police meant that the airports and seaports were not aware of Madeleine's dissapearance for 12 hours after it was reported. There have been sightings of Maddy in several different countries, this is why we the public need to make sure that as many people as possible will recognise Maddy's face, she could be anywhere. Keep the search for Maddy high profile, make sure everyone knows this little girl is missing.


Free Blog Counter


Tuesday 19 June 2007

New wifi World record!

A new world record has been set for the largest distance wifi connection!

A Venezuelan researcher Ermanno Pietrosemoli has established a 802.11 signal between two PC's on mountains in the Venezuelan Andes. The distance between the two PC's was about 237 miles which is around 382 kilometers!

The former world record was 310 kilometers or 192 miles, and was between a balloon and a PC on the ground, and I have trouble connecting mine up the stairs!!


Free Blog Counter


Well, A Small Introduction Is Needed I Think

So I suppose I should tell you abit about myself. I'm female (incase the name geekygal didn't give that away) I live in England and I study Information Systems in University. Information Systems basically contains loads of different subjects, in my first two years I've studied a bit of programming, business systems, web design, database design, IT law, amongst others that I cant think of off the top of my head.

This year I'm doing work experience. I've been working mainly with Microsoft products, including SharePoint, InfoPath and Groove.

Next year is my final year in uni! Yeay, and next year I'm going to be studying a bit more business, security, computer forensics (which means the uni finally letting us know that there is life outside of Microsoft, and teaching us on Linux!!) and user interface design.

Outside of Uni and work I like to keep myself updated on whats going on in the news, and in the world of technology too! I am an über geek and do love to read about alkinds of geeky things, but I also like to have fun. Mind you most of my fun is done in a geeky way too, like surfing the net (especially with Stumbleupon ) or computer games, I am a mad Final Fantasy fan! (I've just got FFXI and XII :D ) and playing World of Warcraft, another of my favourite games :D

Anyways thats a little about me now onto the real posts!!


Free Blog Counter


Monday 18 June 2007

My First Post, The Overview

So, this is my first blog post.

Why did I decide to create a blog? Well mainly to see what all the hype is about, and also to see if I actually have enough interesting things going on to write to a blog everyday!

That is my aim to write at least something everyday.

The blog is going to contain a variety of different things, from websites I liked, to how to use a new piece of software I've just tried to something interesting that happened to me.

I am a self confessed geek, so alot of what interests me is geeky and geek related, and well that is what a lot of my posts are going to contain!

Well I look forward to seeing if I can get an audience, I hope I have stuff that interests you :D


Free Blog Counter