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Did You Know? (Part 6 – Technology)

By Technology, The WebNo Comments
did-you-know

Did You Know?

 This is the sixth and final in a series of Did You Know? blog posts. Each blog post gives fascinating facts on a particular topic. In part 1 the topic was science. In part 2 the topic was history. In part 3 the topic was geography. In part 4 the topics were art & music. In part 5 the topic was animals.

Today, I give you ten facts about Technology:

1. The first mobile phone call was made by Martin Cooper in 1973.

2. The first iPhone was released in the UK in 2007. Today there are more than 682m iPhones in the world.

3. Alan Turing is most well-known for being an excellent code-breaker in World War 2. He happened to be gay and was castrated by the UK state for his sexuality. But he also proposed founding theories about how to make computers work and computer science.

4. The World Wide Web (WWW) was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. Today £1.7trillion is spent online in a year, 3m emails are sent every second (mostly SPAM) and there is countless amounts of data on the internet.

5. The X-ray was invented by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in 1895. The idea for the CT (Computed Tomography) scanner was first imagined by Godfrey Hounsfield in 1969. Hounsfield presented his idea to Dr. James Ambrose and they worked together to make his idea a reality. The MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner was developed by a number of people. The X-ray, CT scanner and MRI scanner have all revolutionised medicine, by allowing doctors insight to what it going on in a patient’s body, without the need for invasive surgery.

6. Google deals with 1 billion searches a day.

7. Someone using a computer will blink 7 times a minute, rather than the normal 20 times a minute. This is because they are concentrating more on the screen.

8. Technology of Sci-Fi TV shows and films is now becoming a reality. For example, in Star Trek computers respond to verbal commands and its responses were relatively intelligent. Today we have Siri (Apple), Alexa (Amazon), Contina (Windows) and Android Voice Commands (Google/Android).

9. The operating system Linux is huge across servers, computers, tablets and smartphones. The chances are you use it without even realising. Linux is on every Android device, along with being on most serves (computers that host websites) in the world. Facebook, Google and Pinterest all run on Linux servers.

10. The people at Wired.com were the first to come up with banner advertisements, which are now used on most commercial websites.

Write soon,

Antony

References
Know Your Mobile – The History of Mobile Phones From 1973 To 2008: The Handsets That Made It ALL Happen
BBC News – Apple iPhone debuts in UK stores
{Life} Buzz – 25 Things You Didn’t Know About Technology… Almost No One Knows About #7.
Alan Turing: The Enigma
The Daily Beast – The Castration of Alan Turing, Britain’s Code-Breaking WWII Hero
Computer Hope – When was the first computer invented?
World Wide Web Foundation – History of the Web
Sunday Express – Top ten facts about…the internet
How Stuff Works – Science – Who invented the X-ray?
Eureka – When Hounsfield Met Ambrose, The Invention of Computed Tomography
Thought Co. – Magnetic Resonance Imaging MRI
Did you know? Technology fast facts
Techlila – 32 Computer Facts and Interesting Facts About Technology
The Guardian – Technology – Voice Recognition
WIRED – Linux Took Over The Web. Now, It’s Taking Over The World

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Monday 21 August 2017

Hosting Switch: Transferring my WordPress Blog to 1&1 from Vidahost

By Technology, The WebNo Comments

My blog has been hosted on Vidahost for a number of years. But they recently emailed to inform me a price hike. So I decided to switch to another hosting provider, this blog post is about the process of transferring my WordPress blog from one server to another.

I should add that it wasn’t just the price hike that caused me to make this decision. Customer support is much poorer now than it has been in the past. For example: I got an email stating I was running out of disk space. I opened a ticket to see if I could increase disk space without upgrading package. The Customer Agent basically said no.

Then when I was transferring my files from Vidahost’s (old) server to 1&1’s (new) server (more details below) I noticed huge error logs (2.5GB one of them) and many .core files (100-200MB each). These files had eaten up my disk space (from the usual 2GB of 10GB used). At one time a Vidahost’s Customer Agent would have looked at my files on the server to see why I had run out of space all of a sudden, spotted the problem and resolved it.

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I recently switched hosting provider to 1&1’s.

 I asked my friends on Facebook if they could recommend a good, UK-based Hosting provider. One of my friend’s husband recommended 1&1’s.

I decided to transfer my hosting as 1&1 offered a better price, unlimited bandwidth (which I was always in the red on Vidahost), unlimited disk space and more up-to-date servers (I’d recently had a few problems updating WordPress plugins on Vidahost servers due to PHP version).

But the prospect of moving my WordPress blog from one server to another was daunting. How the hell do I do that? I thought to myself. So I Googled it and found this great Step by Step Guide by WPExplorer.

There were a few hiccups. I successfully exported my WordPress database, but when I went to import it on the new server it timed out. I checked the database on the new server and found it was missing the last few fields. So I googled and found this site Exporting Your Database from Your Previous Host by WPEngine, which explains how to export specific fields. I exported the missing fields and then imported them. First problem solved.

Then I downloaded my files from the old server and uploaded them to the new server using ForkLift by Binarynights without any problems. I changed my wp-config.php and uploaded it. My second problem was an Error Establishing Database Connection. I googled the error and found How to Fix Error Establishing Database Connection by wpbeginner. This site helped me realise what I hadn’t updated in the wp-config.php.

My final step was to change the NameServers for my domain. I did this and my blog and emails went down for about 24 hours while NameSever propagation took place.

Once my blog and emails were back up, my final problem was that my blog wasn’t displaying right. Nothing I did fixed the problem. In the end I opened both the old server and new server’s File Explorers in Google Chrome.

It was then spotted the problem, all folders and files had different file permissions on the new server. So I changed them to match the settings on my current server, which solved the problem. Here is an article that explains more about file permissions: Ask Unbuntu – What is meaning of 755 permissions.

Another website I found extremely helpful in this transfer process was: WordPress Migration Problems and How to Fix Them by Nelio.

So there we have it. Job done.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Sunday 16 July 2017

The Stonehenge Adventure (Part 2) – Glastonbury, The Chalice Well and The City of Wells

By Adventures, Friends & Family, Happiness & Joy, PaganismNo Comments

At the weekend my good friend Simon and I went on an adventure to see Stonehenge and other ancient sites nearby. This is part 2 of my Stonehenge Adventure, part 1 can be read here.

We stayed in this Travelodge hotel. It was super cheap, clean and located close to amenities such as the various restaurants/food places in Solstice Park. Our room had a double bed and a single bed. On the single bed I could feel every spring on my back. I complained to a member of Travelodge staff, who said that all the single beds were the same and gave me a double duvet to put on top of it. The double duvet made little difference.

On the Saturday Simon and I had all you can eat cooked breakfast at the Toby Carvery on Solstice Park before heading off to Glastonbury.

Glastonbury is like a pagan commercial mecca. There are so many shops that fit into the categories of new age, spiritual or pagan. There are at least two charming courtyards with little tiny shops in. Sadly many of the shops are over priced. Some were so significantly over priced that they could be called a ripoff and make a person’s eyes water.

Some photos from Glastonbury:

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Glastonbury town centre monument.
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Entrance sign to one of a few courtyards.
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A crystal shrine in one of the courtyards.

The Goddess and The Green Man shop deserves a special mention. Their products were fantastic with many unique items, the customer service was friendly and tremendous and to top it off their prices were fair and reasonable. It felt like The Goddess and The Green Man was the only truly pagan/witchy shop in Glastonbury.

I bought this stunning Horned God Statue and Spellcraft for Hedge Witches by Rae Beth book from The Goddess and The Green Man:

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A Horned God Statue purchased from The Goddess and The Green Man.

In Glastonbury I also bought a small wand from a street seller for a bargain price of £5.

Since coming home I’ve followed The Goddess and The Green Man on Facebook and saved their website.

Essential Info:

  • Glastonbury is a town with a rich pagan history.
  • Cautiously recommended. Be cautious about rip off prices in some shops.
  • Opening Times: Normal shop opening hours.
  • Parking: Pay and display carparks, £7-8 for a full day of parking.
  • Food, Drink & Toilets: Available in the various cafes and pubs locally.

The Chalice Well is a beautiful garden and well. The atmosphere at the Chalice garden and well is that of zen-like meditation. Here are some photos from the Chalice Well:

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The Chalice Well sign.
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Chalice Well.
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You can drink from the well.
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One of a few ponds within the gardens of the Chalice Well.

Essential Info:

  • The Chalice Well is a beautiful garden and well.
  • Recommended.
  • Opening Times: See Opening Times here.
  • Admission: Adult £4.30 (without gift aid) and £4.75 (with gift aid).
  • Parking: No parking on site. Pay and display carpark a short walk away.
  • Gift shop on site.

The City of Wells was alive with the hustle and bustle of a Saturday outdoor market. Simon and I looked for somewhere to eat, but everywhere was ridiculously priced. Then I spotted a burger stall on the outdoor market. We ordered a burger each. I have never ate a burger that tasted so good. If you’re in Wells and want an tasty treat, go to the outdoor market and order yourself something from the burger stall.

Here are some photos from our time in Wells:

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Gate/Entrance to The Bishop’s Palace.
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Garden at The Bishop’s Palace.
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A watch tower on the wall at The Bishop’s Palace.
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Apparently in Wells they have a swan that can ring a bell. I didn’t see a swan, but I did see this bell.
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Fireplace in the watch tower at The Bishop’s Palace.
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Me in a arrow slit.
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A big dancing event was taking place in Wells.
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Wells Cathedral.

Essential Info:

  • The City of Wells has a Cathedral, Bishop’s Palace and some shops.
  • Recommended.
  • Opening Times: Normal shop opening hours.
  • Admission: Vary depending on attraction/places of interest.
  • Parking: Various pay and display carparks.

In part 3, I’ll be blogging about Stonehenge and Woodhenge.

Write soon,

Antony



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Tuesday 20 June 2017

Count Your Successes (no matter how small)

By Books & Authors, Friends & Family, Happiness & Joy, Inspiration, Life, ThinkingNo Comments

We should all count our successes (no matter how small) and occasionally take time to reflect and contemplate them. So here’s a list of my recent successes:

  • Watched I Love You Phillip Morris, a film about a gay serial con man and prison escapee who finds love in prison. Based on a true story, staring Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor.
  • Installed a printer/scanner/copier on an painfully slow computer running Windows Vista.
  • Found some single-piece deep silver jar lids for some mason jars. The jars will make up part of some Christmas presents, as well as be used for my next batch of candles (more information in the new year).
  • Gift tagged my homemade candles, ready for Christmas.
  • Caught up and reconnected with my family. We gathered, ate (a chicken dinner and wine), talked and laughed lots.
  • Finally caught up with my friend Sye. We all have that one friend that never fails to inspire us. For me, that’s Sye. I talked through a major problem with my idea for my next batch of candles and he solved it like that (*snaps fingers*).
  • Celebrated Samhain in style with my friends Simon & Chrys. Great food, drink, fire, music and company.
  • Come off Facebook for the beginning of the week. I made the decision to come off after seeing two major spoilers about The Walking Dead on my news feed. I’ve been amazed how much time I’ve saved by coming off Facebook and realised how much time I used to spend ‘checking’ Facebook.
  • Come up with titles for a series of blog posts with a Mental Health Focus. I’m thinking of releasing one a week (once they’re all written) on a Monday and calling it #MentalHealthMonday.
  • Shared my post 15 Lies That Depression Would Have You Believe on a number of Facebook pages. This has increased visitor traffic, but not only that, someone commented stating: ‘Thanks for posting that today, I really needed to read/hear that today, really made a lot of sense and was comforting to read (if that makes sense).’ It’s always wonderful when you write something that resonates with someone and helps them.
  • Watched series 1 and 2 of Zoo.
  • Started and finished reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

Here’s a random upbeat cover of The Edge of Glory by Walk off the Earth & Roomie, which makes me feel good:

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Keep counting those successes,

Antony

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I aim for posts on this blog to be informative, educational and entertaining. If you have found this post useful or enjoyable, please consider making a contribution by Paypal:


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Saturday 5 November 2016
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