The Idea Site

New site, new blog, new products!

coralsoft — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:47:19 +0000

The Idea Site is now working in tandem with a new site: www.VidaTechPlus.com. They are keen on providing masses of ideas to help you with your personal development and generally improving your life. Vida is Spanish for life, Tech stands for technology and techniques. Plus means more. Do take a look at some of the suggestions. Whatever’s bugging you, whatever you’ve been meaning to work on but haven’t started with, whatever you’ve been working at but without success, they may well have information on the very thing that sorts you out.

They also have a blog going at www.VidaTechPlus.com/drupal with updates on the latest ideas they’ve added.

Guest book removed from Pork Scratching World

coralsoft — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:05:28 +0000

I’ve had to take down the guest book link from Pork Scratching World. It was just being spammed by loads of entries posting masses of links or pointless ‘great site’ messages from people leaving a link back to their own sites. I don’t remember seeing stuff like this in the past whenever I looked at others’ guestbooks, but I guess that’s just internet marketing in progress.

Computers – Aaarrrggghhh!!

coralsoft — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 22:12:18 +0000

We’ve not been having a good time recently, thanks to computer problems. Basically, I’ve got a main PC and server PC, both with RAID mirrored disks and both of them ended up having problems, so I’ve spent 2 weeks getting things back in order! Firstly, the main PC lost access to its disks when I decided to split them into system and data partitions for easier backups. I couldn’t get the system running again without going back to a very old system image or completely rebuilding. Not a problem in theory, since I’d only just copied over all the data to the server as a backup.

However, in restoring the system on the main PC, by putting the disk into the server, I lost access to the backup disks in the server containing all my data, in particular everything since the old system image I’d used to restore from!! No problem, I’d use the software on The Ultimate Boot CD to recover the system partitions, in the same way I’d tried with the main PC. Did that OK, but it turns out all the backup up data on both mirrors is corrupt!! How’d that happen??!!

So after a week getting both PCs working, I’ve now spent another week using file restore software, doing directory content comparisons and hunting through all my disks looking for replacements for missing that are only available in corrupt form. Brilliant!!

It looks like I’ve recovered most things, but I’m not a happy bunny. ;-(

Pleasant Wine Surprise

coralsoft — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 18:20:24 +0000

I’ve just opened a bottle of red from the cellar and too late noticed the words vin doux naturel on the label. But what a pleasant surprise, it’s really rather good.

It’s the Mas Coronet 2001 from the Banyuls appellation, one I’ve not heard of before and didn’t recognise when I picked it up. I’ve no memory of buying it, but it´s been hanging around for at least 9 months. If I’d realised, it would have made a great try-out on the Father-In-Law before Christmas, since he’s got such a sweet tooth. At 88, he’s given up on drinking anything but sweet wines and the odd glass of bubbly if there’s nothing sweet available.

More Website Changes

coralsoft — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 14:52:36 +0000

I’ve spent some time setting up forum software and a guestbook. Hopefully I should be able to get that hooked up to the main site over the next couple of days. That will encourage some feedback on the site.

Another year – where did it all go?

coralsoft — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 17:23:18 +0000

2005 has just zipped past, it’s been so busy.

Off the top of my head, we did a holiday in Porrua, Asturias on the northern coast of Spain, which included buying a plot of land up there; we completed some building work on the house to turn the garage into a room, bathroom and storage; I got around to applying a load of updates to Pork Scratching World, including more reviews, the UK 2005 Tasting results and Google ads; I did a CELTA course to give myself some TEFL skills; I finally came to the end of my CSFB contract; finally configured my old PC to act as a backup and music server; and I kicked off development on a variety of websites.

The plan for 2006 is to get another contract to keep the money rolling in, continue development of the websites to build up extra income streams and work on property ideas locally and in Asturias. No doubt there will be quite a bit to do with the family, too.

Hello world and hello ideas!

coralsoft — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 14:46:28 +0000

First post time and an opportunity to introduce myself, the blog and learn about WordPress.

I’m a British guy living just outside Madrid, Spain, with my wife and our 5 children. I’ve been working in IT for years, but have a number of other wide-ranging interests as well, so this blog is really a chance for me to spout off about these interests in the hope that someone might find the information entertaining, useful, educational or interesting.

Here’s hoping you enjoy it.