Update - Who remembers Hear’N'Aid? Many years ago, at the time of Live Aid, the hair rock fraternity got together to work on and release a rock charity record. The worlds leading bands of the time got together to release “Stars” , which was written and produced by Ronnie James Dio. Thanks to Kenny, we can now all re-live the golden days of bad hair, short vests, large sunglasses worn indoors and screeching guitars and vocals. 100% pure hair rock cheese… enjoy! (FYI - Their efforts raised a million dollars.)

Warning - this video does contain a 5 minute guitar solo.

There, I said it.

So much so that I am writing this listening to Yngwei Ygnwie Y. J. Malmsteen’s Fire and Ice album. When people here where part of my musical tastes lie, It takes a while for the piss taking to subside.

This all stems from spending a huge chunk of my teenage years playing guitar trying my hardest to sound like everyone from Stevie Ray Vauhgan to Steve Vai. I thought I did in fact manage it, apparently the jury is out on that.

Other bands I still listen to (off the top of my head):

• Journey
• Magnum
• Steve Vai
• Joe Satriani
• Dare
• Big Country
• Extreme
• Van Halen
• Kings X

Come on, lets hear from you. Who have I missed?

Update - I have now been included on Cssmania, many thanks!

Just want to say a quick thanks to all that have sent positive feedback on the new site design. It is always good to hear. In addition to this the site has started appearing on various design and css gallery sites such as screenalicious and cssimport.

So again, thanks. :D

A screenshot of this site before the makeover

Update - Discovered this site detailing Latest browser stats

A day doesn’t go by when we aren’t presented with another figure on how many Firefox downloads there were this week.

To track user stats this site uses an application called Mint which is a brilliant PHP/MySQL driven stats package that presents figures in an easy to comprehend way. A feature of Mint is its Pepper plugins, which are add-ons to provide additional functionality not only in reporting but also in capturing live data.

One of the Pepper plugins I installed was User Agents. This captures and displays the browser and browser version as a percentage total. With several months worth of statistical data, Firefox was literally kicking IE’s arse.

As of 17/05/2007
Firefox - 89%
IE - 6%

Does this mean that Firefox has won? Obviously, one site isn’t a true indication of general browser percentages. Being a technical biased site will attract users with similar interests of which a large percentage are Firefox users. Techy people tend to be.

Is it possible to even answer the question? Sites such as W3School has figures which breakdown browser usage on their site. The problem with this is that the site, again, is a technical site appealing to technical people. i.e. people who would be more likely to use an alternative browser. Lets say my interests lie in Cookery, chances are the typical visitor would be a part time PC using home maker. The sort that use what’s in front of them rather than investing time in researching alternatives. When presented with a computer, there instinctive reaction would be to use IE thus resulting in higher IE and lower Firefox percentages.

I personally don’t think that it is possible to arrive at a definitive answer. It would involve a wide selection of sites divulging user statistics over a long period of time which is unlikely to ever happen.

I don’t own a WII or an Xbox 360.
I don’t own an IPod.
I don’t own a Nintendo DS.
I don’t own a PSP.
My mobile phone is now quite old.
My computer still has a 32 bit processor.

When I mention this to people, I get the look which you used to get when you turned up to school after the summer holidays wearing Hi-Tech or Gola trainers when everyone else was wearing Nike.

Why do I have to own them? I don’t have a need for any of them, here are my reasons:

I don’t own a WII or an Xbox 360.
I no longer enjoy playing games.

I don’t own an IPod.
I spend most of my time at my desk, therefore use my PC for managing and playing music.

I don’t own a Nintendo DS.
No need for a portable games machine when I am at my desk and don’t enjoy playing games.

I don’t own a PSP.
Ditto.

My mobile phone is now quite old.
It rings, makes calls. No need to upgrade.

My computer is still a 32 bit processor.
It works, and is fast.

Upon mentioning my reasons for not owning any of the above, the usual response is "you sound like a grumpy old man". Do I? All because I haven’t gone with the current social flow and moved my entire life onto a digital device doesn’t mean I am grumpy. It means that I would rather spend my money elsewhere.

Am I alone in this? Please tell me there are others.

Some pictures of the four of us.