Celia ran her half marathon!
And what fantastic encouragement from Oldie readers!
On Saturday I wrote to all other Oldie readers who had emailed Webster in recent years, and asked if they might support my daughter Celia in her attempt to raise money for the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust by running a half marathon in Leeds the next day. I was writing personally, not on behalf of The Oldie.
Celia is on the rightWell, I'm proud to say that she finished it (she's the one crossing the finishing line on the right), and what a wonderful response I had from many of those I had emailed - a huge pile of charming emails and encouraging notes for Celia, and crucially, loads of money donated through her website (www.justgiving.com/celiadt) and by post. At the time of writing the total is over £800 (including Gift Aid tax rebates) for the charity.
It may be more by the time you see this - you can go to www.justgiving.com/celiadt to check.
If you would still like to make a donation, you are very welcome to, of course - either by card at www.justgiving.com/celiadt or if you feel more comfortable paying by cheque then email me and I'll email you the details.
The whole HYMS teamThe other good news is that each of Celia's team from the Hull York Medical School also finished the run in one piece- and here's a picture of them (Celia is on the right at the back) When I spoke to her on Sunday evening after she got back to the University, she was elated, tired and sore, all at once.
But most of all she was overwhelmed by the generosity of Webster's correspondents. It comes as no surprise to me, as I have had the pleasure of your company (through cyberspace) for years, but it is no less heartwarming for that.
Celia has asked me to pass on her thanks to all who contributed and sent messages of support, and to say that she hopes to email all who donated and left email addresses in due course.
PS This has been my first exposure to Charity activities on the Internet, and it has been fascinating; I had no idea it was such big business. I plan to write about it in The Oldie in July, so if you have any experiences relating to online Charity matters, good or bad, I would be very pleased to hear from you. Either email me or post a comment on this site.
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This is one of my favourite bits of Internet nonsense - of no practical use but charming, none the less. Since 2001, Craig Giffen has been collecting pictures that show the time - both digital and analogue clocks - for every minute of the day. So, when you click on The Human Clock you are told the time (just like any other clock) but it might be a picture of a church clock, or a chap in Mexico holding up a sign saying 12.23, or some artfully arranged vegetables. Wait a minute the picture will change. Wait another minute and it'll change again - just like, well, a clock.
If you want, you can submit your own version of some times - a couple of examples are below. How about some Oldie contributions?
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Now we are getting somewhere.
Here is a modern version of an old fable, at Microsoft’s expense:
An unemployed man was offered a job with Microsoft as a cleaner. He was asked for his email address, but had to explain that he had neither a computer nor an email address. He was told that as email is the way Microsoft communicates with its staff, if he didn’t have it he could not have the job.
Stunned, the man left. Not knowing where to turn and having only £10.00 in his pocket, he bought a large box of tomatoes at the market and in less than two hours he had sold all the tomatoes individually at 100% profit. Repeating the process several times that day, he ended up with almost £100.00 profit. It dawned on him that he could quite easily make a living selling tomatoes.
By working hard, he developed his business quickly. After a short time he bought a barrow, then replaced it with a van. By the end of the second year, he owned a fleet of vans and had a staff of a 100 former unemployed people, all selling tomatoes.
One day, his accountant asked for the man’s email address. When the man explained that he didn't have one, the accountant was astonished. "You’ve managed to make all this money without the Internet, email and eCommerce? Just imagine where you would be now if you had been connected to the Internet from the very start!" he said.
“Well," replied the tomato millionaire, "I would be a cleaner at Microsoft."
Every fable must have a moral. This one has three:
PS I don't suppose that Microsoft are really as mean as that to their cleaners.
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Did you know that you can use Google as a calculator to do all sorts of sums and conversions? To use it you simply enter the calculation you'd like done into the search box and press the Enter key. Use an asterisk for multiplication and a forward slash for division.
The calculator can do basic arithmetic (365*84, for example), more complicated maths using sines, cosines and the like, calculate units of measurement and conversions, physical constants and Roman Numerals. For example, try one or two of these in the Google search box:
15 Stones in pounds
25 degrees C in F
70 mph in kph
2007 in roman numerals
It will even do currencies (try $14 in £) with rates taken from Citibank. Amazing.
For detailed instuctions, click here.
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Once upon a time, we all had screen savers – pictures or animations that appeared after ten minutes or so of computer inactivity. The idea of them was that if you had a static picture for a long time, the image would become burned onto the inside of the screen. Phosphor burn, we geeks called it.
Then, the newer screens came out. Not the very modern flat ones, just newer versions of the old ones. Those didn’t need screen savers, because the phosphor burn problem had been fixed, but Microsoft still supplied screen savers, because it seems that we liked watching those pipes getting connected or the letters scrolling across the screen. They were harmless, anyway.
Now, the newest flat-panel monitors are what most of us have, and guess what – the phosphor burn issue is back again (although it’s not phosphor this time). Images don’t get burned onto the screens permanently, but they can linger.
So, one step forward, one step back. With the best new screens, you should use a screen saver.
To switch a your screen saver on, or change it, just right-click on a blank area of the desktop and choose Properties. Then click the Screen Saver tab, and choose the one you like from the drop-down menu.
VERY IMPORTANT – do not be tempted to download tempting looking screen savers from alluring sites. They will ALWAYS be riddled with nasty bits and pieces that will do your system no good at all.
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