| Digital - teacher | Education in a technological world

Chip and bin

So, chip and pin is the way forward for credit and debit cards then, and all the stores are busy installing the card readers to allow us all to type in that *safe* 4 digit number that no one else knows (apart from everyone in the till queue behind you who can see you entering the number on the keypad).

PCWorld have a nice policy on using C&P. If your cards chip doesn't work properly they won't enter the card details and let you sign the paper the old fashioned way. Its a no sale today, mate, attitude.

I know this because my new C&P card (less than 2 months old) has so far failed to scan properly in 3 stores now, the latest being PCWorld tonight.

In the end, I resorted to the old fashioned way of paying for my printer inks. I went out of the store, found a cash point, withdrew some money and paid by cash. No rejection at the till second time around!

Technology - a wonderful way to make life easier for us all...

Celebrate

Not switched yet? Do so now!

Microsoft are panicking, and with good reason.

Chickens, duck!

Another bizzare story...

Australian police are investigating how and why homes near Sydney have been bombarded by dead chickens.

Residents in the city of Newcastle believe the birds may have fallen from an aircraft or been fired by pranksters using a slingshot.

Full story here

More strangeness

The great thing about the Internet is that you can find the most bizzare real stories so easily. Tonight, I found yet another;

A bride has chosen her dog to be chief bridesmaid at her wedding

Sonia Wilde, 29, will walk down the aisle in Stockport, Greater Manchester with the Collie cross, Lucy Brown, at her side.

The three-year-old will even be dressed in a pink frilly dress and bonnet for the service at St Matthew's Church...

Full story can be read here

More delivery vehicles

Hot on the heels of the Australian fire engine used to get a pizza, comes this;

A lieutenant has been disciplined after using an Army helicopter to deliver a pizza to his girlfriend.

The incident on 25 January saw the unnamed officer divert from a routine training flight over Stanford, Norfolk, to take the fast food.

Fire engine, helicopter...Whatever is going to be used next to get a pizza?!

Mine's the extra hot one...

Saw this on the web tonight and it made me smile;

...Sydney firemen were reportedly unable to answer a call-out because their fire engine was being used by a firefighter to collect a pizza.

"Apparently [he] decided to take the pumper to a pizza shop... for a bite to eat," an officer wrote in a letter obtained by local media.

The man concerned is then alleged to have met some friends and taken them for a ride in the fire engine.

The incident is said to have taken place at the suburban Maroubra fire station.

I'm guessing it didn't take long to get it back, and was still warm on arrival.

Do yourself a favour

You know, there is a choice out there to browse with.

I've been using Firefox since its launch and found it absolutely brilliant. It's smaller than IE, its a damn site safer than IE, and it has so many extra bits that you could spend a whole year looking, and still not find them all. The tabbed browsing is just divine, and that alone should get you to abandon IE for ever.

What's even better is that there are constantly new 'themes' and extensions being written for it and placed on the official site. I've found one that puts a small media bar at the bottom of my browser window and lets me control the media player of my choice (whether it be the infernal Windose Media Player, iTunes or a host of other programmes). No extra window, no jumping between applications.

In fact while I write this with just a click of the skip button I jump to the next track on a CD and don't even lose my place in this posting.

Marvellous. Now, as I just skip to Mr Bojangles by Robbie Williams I'll hit the 'post' button.

Tumour Diary

I was saddened to read tonight on the BBC website that Ivan Noble has lost his long battle with a brain tumour.

For the past two years he has been writing about his thoughts and feelings in his online diary within the BBC website and I have been reading it with quiet admiration for his bravery.

No matter how bad things looked at the time for him, he was always looking to the future. Something that the rest of us often don't do because we don't realise just how precious it actually is.

I think one if the most powerful comments he made, in his final diary entry, was;

"If two or three people stop smoking as a result of anything I have ever written then the one of them who would have got cancer will live and all my scribblings will have been worthwhile"

My thoughts go to his wife and children.