Welcome To My Domain – PapaFace.COM

I don’t know whether anyone has been following the Writers Guild of America strike over in the US, but it has been going on for around a month now. It hasn’t really affected me over in the UK. In fact, it hasn’t affected me at all. However, it does have an impact on television over in the US. They have been playing repeat after repeat after repeat of talk shows that require writers to come up with topical jokes.

The writers are taking a stand and want money from DVD’s and something called ‘the internet’, which is fair enough. Why should the studios get paid gazillions when the writers only get a small % of the profits? However, a problem with the writers striking is that shows have to shut down. This means that all the people behind the scenes are out of work. The make-up girl, the assistants and even the coffee guy all paying the price, while the writers strike because they want more millions.

A good soul named Conan O’Brian who hosts his own talk show, has took it upon himself to PAY for those people who have not been paid since the strike began. I don’t know whether he is doing it for the brownie points, so he can turn around and say ‘I am paying you dammit, work!’, or whether it is because he feels for the people who work on his show, and has a stupid amount of money to help them.

Just to let readers know that this blog will be updated at least twice a day from now on as I have hired two posters lowboman and Goody.
The reason I have hired them is because I probably won’t be able to write something up every day, so they’ll give you something to read if you’re bored
I’ll try to post something interesting when ever I can though

A few months ago I bought an Xbox 360 because Halo 3 was coming out (yes I like Halo that much… anyway). If I recall correctly it was due for release on the 26th of September 2007. I knew my luck was bad, I just didn’t realise how bad it was. The day before release my 360 broke down.
I phoned Xbox support, who I have to say were very good at handling my issue. They arranged for a courier to come and pick the 360 up, all I had to do was find a box to put it in. That is when my laziness comes in. I put it in the original 360 box even though they tell you not to as you won’t get the box back, but meh.
Anyway it took about a week and 3 days to come back, apparently its graphics engine was broken, so they replaced the entire inside of the 360. Ooooo and they gave me a free month of Xbox Live for the inconvenience so it was all good.

On the 18th of November I bought another 360 for my dad. I got the new HDMI enabled premium 360 this time, which I was quite chuffed with.
Now I am presuming that these new HDMI 360′s were made AFTER they discovered a lot of issues with the 360 (and set 1 billion dollars aside for repairs). I opened the box of the 360, it was nice and white with silver highlights, just like my other 360 so nothing new there.

Plugged it in, ready to go and I get a E68 error argh!
So once again I had to phone Xbox support. They’re sending out a new hard drive this time lol.
It seems that the problems with 360s will never EVER end.

Oh and the broken Hard Drive was made in Taiwan, and the working one (mine) was made in Singapore, so watch out anyone with a hard drive made in Taiwan!

Updated code: http://www.papaface.com/blog/2010/03/07/simple-php-page-protector/
Have you ever wanted to protect a PHP page to prevent people from viewing sensitive information?
Well I haven't but that doesn't stop me showing you how to do it if you ever need to .
The code below is extremely simple indeed. Anyone with a basic PHP understanding will see how simple it is.

All you have to do is paste the code below to the top of your PHP page and change these values:

Here is the code that I wrote, enjoy.

What is interesting about this code is that you don't need to keep logging in everytime you return to the PHP page. It stores your valid login session .

Feel free to post a comment about the simple script, or indeed ways to improve it.

You may test the script here
Username: username
Password: pass

It was announced by the activist group today that the company known as Sony is re-rated as environmentally friendly in there book. Now this is good news for the Large technology corporation as its major competitors and rivals like Microsoft and Nintendo did not get approval by Green space. Now Green space was not entirely happy with Sony Ericsson because they apparently claimed having recycling programs in countries like Thailand and Russia but when further investigated by Green Space it was found that these programs where non existent and some what of a lie from the company. Sony got the award because they have eliminated certain chemicals form their headsets and plan to take out all deadly chemicals in their phones starting in 2008, Microsoft and Nintendo have no such efforts and were ranked as non-environmentally friendly because their continued use of harmful chemicals in their products.

Mobile phones being used to hire and fire employees, surf the internet, watch videos and now you can…get an education.

A University in Japan is giving 1,850 students a chance to get almost 100 courses directly onto their mobile phones, in the form of a Power Point presentation. 71% of the University is owned by a mobile service provider named Softbank (so I suppose it isn’t that much of a surprise) and is currently called the ‘Cyber University’.

The head of the University says that “the technology will allow those with jobs or who have disabilities greater access to education,” He also added, “…our duty as educators is to respond to the needs of people who want to learn, even if the course is interrupted by an SMS.”

It was announced today by the energy company giant Exxon mobile that they have developed a new kind of battery technology for cars in cooperation with a Japanese company known as Tonen Chemicals. The battery’s are a lithium ion battery similar to the ones that are in your ipod, laptop, or cell phone except these lithium ion battery’s would be strong enough to propel a car. There are several companies that are using battery technology in there cars right now but they are not the lithium ion type so they have some major disadvantages. The new battery technology should be pretty cool and will be interesting to see where it goes, it is set to debut at an electric car show in California in the first week of December.

Google.com is one of the most visited websites on the planet. Today they decided to make changes to how they run business, so that they can become carbon neutral by the end of the current year. Therefore, helping the planet they are most visited on…

They have announced a plan to develop sources of renewable energy that will be cheaper than coal, solar panels will be developed and will run their California headquarters and energy efficient computers are in development.

This is great news. We are constantly being told that the planet cannot take anymore of our C02 emitting selves, so a big global company taking action can only be a good thing. However, I wonder if we will ever get anything like this from them?

According to Heather Mills we should all drink rats’ milk to save the planet. We should all do this because it will in turn reduce the carbon emissions that livestock produce.
Today in London she said “Eighty per cent of global warming comes from livestock and deforestation. I’m not telling people to go vegan overnight. But if they stop drinking their cows’ milk lattes, maybe this sort of thing won’t have to happen.”

How mad is this woman? Next time you have a rat infestation don’t kill them, milk them! Oh and then kill them.

How interesting:

Watching the television might not be the most environmentally-friendly activity but Dixons is aiming to make it greener with its new range of wooden TVs.

The Tree-V range of televisions, made by Swedish manufacturer Swedx, are built with natural ash, sapele or beech wood from sustainable forest sources.

They cost £350 including VAT and will be in Currys stores before Christmas and you can reserve them online now on the Dixons site.

“We’re delighted to be the exclusive stockist of the Tree-Vs from Swedx. They are high specification televisions, with the added advantage of being constructed within frames from all-natural, renewable, sustainable, recyclable resources,” said DeVere Forster of Dixons.co.uk.

The LCD screen of the TV is 19in and they’re High Definition ready. They also have built in Freeview tuners so are ready for the digital switchover and HDMI, Component, SCART, PC and AV inputs.

“Owning a Tree-V is a great way of making a small contribution to planet Earth while watching it on the telly at the same time,” Forster said.

PC World, which is part of the Dixons Stores Group, is aiming to have carbon neutral PCs in stock before Christmas. The PCs feature wooden monitors, keyboards and mice, with the central unit made from recyclable materials as far as possible.

…….lol.

Don’t they look stylish…