I always welcome feedback, so feel free to email me
(Friday, 12th April)I now have a domain name (complete with cloaking)! Bought as a present (!) people can now link to my site by going to www.moiraatkinson.co.uk.
I've always held the view that a degree is no proof of intelligence and this has been reinforced recently, as I've found myself at a variety of different locations, doing temp work. I've typed a lot of letters for people who hold fairly exalted positions, and their ignorance of spelling and grammar is appalling! True, being unable to spell commonly used words correctly does not mean you aren't a whizz with the millions of pounds of tax payers' money you've got control over, but what kind of impression does it make in a letter?
I can see I'm going to have to archive the contents of this page again ... it's getting too long. I'm also finding this computer frustratingly slow, compared to my machine at work!
(Monday, 8th April)Well, the Cleveland Survival article is finally written (but don't get too exited!). The thumbnail will be replaced with something more appropriate once I've received the photographs which were taken at the finish. Hope the trailing eggs aren't TOO irritating!
(Saturday, 6th April)Hooray! Finally got trailing Easter eggs on the Cleveland page! They're fairly irritating though ... I just need the random quote script to work now. I might even get my article about the Cleveland Survival written next - you never know.
Twenty past one in the morning .... the random quotes WORK!! Have a look at the book review page and see what happens when you refresh it - the sample of quotes from Harley Hahn's books should randomly change. The same quotes are displayed at the top of this page. Try refreshing the page and see how many different quotes you get.
(Thursday, 4rd April)An update from work .... having no success with the trailing Easter eggs either! How to waste time ... and it all goes to show that putting code on a page that you don't understand is a bad idea.
(Wednesday, 3rd April)I'm experimenting with tables - the only way to get bullet points to appear next to my photo, apparently. The Cleveland article still isn't written and I'm in the process of attaching some Easter eggs to the cursor (not on this page, which would be too irritating!).
Given up on the table for now ..... more trouble than it's worth. I'm not that bothered about bullets!
(Wednesday, 27th March)Looking forward to a much needed Easter weekend away! No time to write the Cleveland article, as I'm busy trying to work out how to retrieve my address book, email folders and favourites list which a reinstall of AOL has lost for ever.
Why do computers give you such peculiar messages at times? I have around 15 Gb free space on the hard drive, yet when I inserted the AOL CD the following appeared:
That wasn't the end of it, and it was a while before AOL would actually install. That was when I made the big mistake of leaving it to Rosie to complete and while it may not have been her fault, somehow the folders and preferences from the previous installation weren't carried across.
That wasn't the end of it, and it was a while before AOL would actually install. That was when I made the big mistake of leaving it to Rosie to complete and while it may not have been her fault, somehow the folders and preferences from the previous installation weren't carried across.
Some time later .... all's well that ends well. AOL tell me it was repairs to their server which caused the problems last night and I have managed to go back to the previous installation, which is now working fine, and more importantly, has all my folders and preferences stored!
(Sunday, 24th March)No, this is not an abandoned website, just one I haven't had time to update for a while! I'll be writing a page about my recent Cleveland Survival, when I have time.
(Monday, 18th March)Quick update. I've used a very early start to the day to try and put some random quotes from Harley's books on the site. If you refresh the page, the quote changes. It's not been entirely successful - if you look at the page thoroughly you'll see them at the bottom. They ought to be up here! Back to the drawing board ...
Still Monday .... missing a tag, apparently. That's why the quotes are at the bottom instead of the top of the page. Mind telling me which tag, Harley? And the code is a mess .... well, that's tidied up anyway.
But where have the quotes gone now???? Used a link to jump to another page? Why didn't I just opt to use Frontpage, or even make Word documents and save them as web pages? I'm sick of this!
(Friday, 15th March)What a busy week - and next week looks like being even worse. From making a few tentative job applications, I'm now rushed off my feet, at present doing three jobs in places as far-flung as Hexham and Morpeth. In fact, I was so pushed for time this week that I nearly threw a week's wages down the drain, when I got stopped for speeding by an unmarked police car on the A69. Not a pleasant experience, even though I was lucky enough to get off with a warning. The moment when this seemingly ordinary looking car behind me suddenly sprouted blue flashing lights, will live with me for a long time!
(Sunday, 10th March)Mother's Day! Four wonderful presents and some daffodils from church. Then I spent the rest of the day trying to delete some user profiles ... or rather trying to find some user profiles so that I could delete them. I hate puzzles I can't solve, particularly computer puzzles. If there are any experts out there on locating user profiles, please email me.
Ashley, you may be pleased to learn I've deleted your birthday greeting! I'm sure you'll have kept a copy ...
If this page continues to throw up error messages, I'm going to ditch the webring I think, since this has only happened since I put that on. I don't really like having code on the site that I don't understand.
(Wednesday, 6th March)I'm a little short of inspiration right now, having just tried to update the site with some random quotes which change each time the page is refreshed. Despite spending a long time editing the quotes with some rather more reasonable ones, nothing at all appears on the page, which is rather disappointing. Oh well, back to the drawing board! I've also learned that it isn't necessary to put closing paragraph tags in every time - however, I'm not going to change what I've already written.
(Wednesday, 27th February)One of the most rewarding things to come out of discovering the internet, in my view, is all the email relationships you end up making, often with people you would otherwise never have met. Sometimes it's with people you have met, but have previously never really got to know. You might be poles apart in real life, but just by sharing an enjoyment of email you can keep up a correspondence which is mutually satisfying. Of course these people are not real friends - a good description is that of acquaintances who are friendly - but nevertheless it can be rewarding and useful. It isn't always like that of course! Email is very limiting, because all you have are words on a screen. It's easy for a light comment, or a casual sentence to be picked up the wrong way or for your words to be misinterpreted in a way that was never intended. Unlike even a phone conversation, you haven't got the tone of voice as a guide. It's also all too easy to send an angry message to someone and then regret it. Email can lead to some bizarre situations. For instance, I have arranged to walk 25 miles in the Cleveland wilderness with a man I've never met. (And put like that, it doesn't sound a wise thing to have done!) Websites can also be a means of communication, but they can sometimes be a bit too revealing. I know I cannot complain if someone to whom I've given this site's address, explores and reads the various things I've written, but it does feel a bit instrusive sometimes, knowing your site's been gone over with a fine tooth comb. There are some edits and articles I feel uncomfortable knowing certain people have read. As this page has grown somewhat, I'm forced to steal an idea from other websites and archive the past edits. To read what I've previously written, look at the first archive
Rubbish! But anyway, to humour the machine, I clicked OK - then got: