Hi Everyone.

This week I’ve changed things about a bit with regard to the appearance of this blog. Basically I’ve decluttered the theme by removing the distracting artwork at the sides of the screen and replacing it with a slightly-pink-tinted plain background. I also changed the overall background colour from that slightly-over-intensive pinky colour to white. To remove the resultant overall blandness of the site I added a recurring light violet-pastel-coloured oval, which is visible but hardly noticeable, to the centre column.

I redesigned the header; putting the RSS link at the very top of the page, raising the menu-bar up above the logo-banner, and moving the advertising-space from the header into the page-body, further down. This will hopefully improve the “too-much-going on” feel of the blog.

In addition I further decluttered the Welcome page by removing some of the junk that had built up over the last few months, including the derogatory negative comments of Syphilis Syndrone (posting as “Sarah Palin”), which add absolutely nothing whatsoever of value to anything and were just wasting space.

Do you find the new design elements described above easier on the eye and less distracting? I’d be interested to hear your comments on this.

Moving on; and on Monday I came up with some more gumph on Microsoft’s war with the EU over windows: -

EU’s Latest Antitrust-Stab at Microsoft: Furthermore –

Tuesday had me giving you a guide to the minimum spec.s to look for or build into a new computer, with the future in mind: -

What Are the Minimum Specs Required for a Desktop Computer?

For the newbie, and those who need to know as a one off; a step-by-step pictorial guide on how to do the following: -

How to Find and/or Change Your Computer’s Name in XP

I did an article, back in April, about the basics of the extremely common (If you did but know it.) process of changing AC current into DC. Conversely, this week I did an article on the less-common but nevertheless widely-used and equally-useful process of changing DC current to AC: -

How to Change Direct Current into Alternating Current

Lastly, there are still so many self-wired UK 13 Amp plugs in homes across the country, even to this day; many of which are so badly wired by total first-timers that they’re rather dangerous. I transposed my original papers on the subject from my City & Guilds college course in electronics as an article on how to do it properly and safely: -

How to Wire a UK 13 Amp Mains Plug

I hope that you enjoy those articles.

Lastly, as a note for WordPress self-hosted blog users, I’ll remind you that WordPress 2.8.1 is now out and ready for you to use. It resolves a number of issues found in 2.8. For more information on this, click here.

That’s about it for now. I hope you have a generally relaxing and profitable weekend. Look after yourselves.

Shazza.