Minute44 - Dan Schonhaar

Directed by: Ron Howard
Starring: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor

I’ve read all four of Dan Brown’s popular short-chapter cheap-thrills novels (Digital Fortress, The Da Vinci Code, Deception Point and Angels and Demons) and I have to say I’ve enjoyed them all. Long before Ron Howard began work on The Da Vinci Code, however, I’d come to the conclusion that if either of the Robert Langdon novels were to make their way to the big screen it would be Angels and Demons that would make the better film. The intense focused race against time wasn’t as broken by long historical explanations and the subject matter meant there was more scope for impressive special effects and action sequences. But I have been wrong before…

continue reading Review: Angels and Demons (12)

I’ve always been fairly good with money. I very rarely impulse buy and feel a cold sweat come over me if I dip into my agreed overdraft. One area of personal finance where I do fall down, however is organisation. I’m pretty terrible at setting budgets and savings targets and use my debit card to pay for things waaaay more often than I should. So, with a house move imminent, and the bad taste of a card fraud/bank fuck-up still in my mouth, I thought it was about time I got myself into check with the whole thing and began a search for a free personal finance management app.

continue reading Managing my finances with Google Docs

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time you’ll know that my favourite TV series of all time is The X Files. The unique mix of intense action, intrigue and humour made it a classic, the success of which even non-fans can’t deny. What makes this Top Five list different is just how difficult I found it whittling all those hundreds of episodes down to just five greats. I could have easily made this a Top Twenty list and still have had a hard time weeding out the best of the best. But alas, I think I’ve managed to do it so here are my top five X Files episodes in reverse order.You may want to note that none of these are episodes relating to the main X Files conspiracy story arc, they’re all what we nerds call “Monster Of  The Week” episodes.

continue reading My top 5 X-Files Episodes

Righty-oh, here goes. Since my post about building the web for non-techies I’ve come across a reasonably intense and high-profile debate about a new-ish service that has become available for web designers and developers. IE6Update is a small script that detects if the user is browsing with IE6 and prompts them to upgrade. No problem there, right? Well on the face of it there isn’t. Believe you, me, I’d love nothing more than to see IE6 go the way of smallpox. What IE6Update does, however is sneaky and arguably very wrong and underhanded.

continue reading IE6Update: Who watches the watchmen?