Great progress on my theme

August 24, 2010

I don’t know how many times I have said that my new theme for this blog will be coming soon. To be honest I have had loads of new themes for this blog designed, I just was never happy with them.

Last time I mentioned my new theme I had bought a WordPress template for ThemeForest, since writing that post, I have changed my mind again. This time I have another theme from ThemeForest, I won’t say which one yet, I will say that once I finally but the theme up.

Current blog design

I am still not sure when I will have the theme ready. There is still a few bugs in it that I am trying to figure out. The main bug I am working on at the moment is the footer, it looks fine, but it suddenly becomes huge in height if the visitor searched for something, for example “a”. I have tried so many things to make the footer a set height, but it will not just take to the CSS code I am setting it, there is a lot of CSS files in this theme, so editing something small, does take some time.

The theme is definitely a huge change from this current theme, it is definitely brighter, everything is easier to read, the blog post section is about 200px wider and I expect my blog to load a hell of a lot faster! So once I am happy with the theme, I will have it up, hopefully soon ;)!

My road trip

August 22, 2010

Earlier this week I went on a short trip away with my friend. I like to get away somewhere each year, and since it was coming to the end of the summer I had to do something otherwise I would be back at college and would soon have no time between work and college to get to go away anywhere.

So I decided that I want to see a lot of the famous things / tourist attractions here in Ireland, lots of people from Ireland don’t go and see them and I thought that it’s a shame not too since I do live here!

Here is a breakdown of the two days and what I got up to.

Day 1

On the first day we set out on the long drive to Antrim, on the way we decided to stop at Lough Neagh which is one of the largest lakes in Europe! It was a great point to stop at as it gave us the chance to take a break from driving.

Lough Neagh

Lough Neagh

Lough Neagh

The Lough is absolutely huge, you cannot see the end of it. There is plenty to do round it, you can go out on boat trips if you like, but when I was there the weather wasn’t the best, some rain so there wasn’t a lot of activity on the water. I did see a few people going out on their canoes though.

After spending about a half hour at the Lough we continued on towards Antrim and once we arrived there we went straight to the Giants Causeway.

Giants Causeway

Giants Causeway

Giants Causeway

Giants Causeway

It cost £6 to park the car and go down to the Giants Causeway, there is an optional bus you can take that will save you walking, it cost just £1, but to be honest the walk will do you good, and the view along the way is great.

I opted to walk, even though it was raining heavily! Once I got to the Causeway, I was surprised to see how packed it was, I thought that considering the weather that nobody would go, but I was definitely wrong about that!

In total we spent about an hour and forty-five minutes at the Giants Causeway then left to go onto our hotel. By the time we got to the hotel it was about 6pm. The hotel we stayed in was called the Ramada Portrush Hotel, I have the say the hotel was excellent. The staff were really friendly and it was cheap. For two to stay it was £89 which included breakfast.

The hotel was extremely busy and the restaurant food was excellent. Since the weather was so bad we decided to not bother doing anything for the remainder of day. In regard to broadband which is expected to be as freely available like water, the broadband cost about £10 for 24 hours! Extortionate rate, I was not willing to pay for it so went without it :D.

Day 2

The next day we forced ourselves to get up at 8am! Wanted to get the most out of the second day as there was so much to do. By 9am we were up showered, had out breakfast and checked out of the hotel and on our way to look at the tourist attractions.

First thing we went to was Dunluce Castle, this is just the ruins of the old castle, and it looks great. It wasn’t officially open until 10am, but we weren’t willing to wait so went on and had a look around what we could without having to wait until it opened.

Dunluce Castle

Dunluce Castle

Dunluce Castle

If we had of waited until 10am we could have had a look round inside, but as time was limited we opted to continue onto the next castle.

The next castle we went to is called Dunseverick Castle, this is truly ruins of an old castle, not much to see there, it was a fair distance away and to get to it you would have to go through a muddy trail, so it was not really worth the effort.

Dunseverick Castle

After seeing the castles it was onto the Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge. I was really looking forward to this and there is a fair walk to it from where you pay, a little over 1km I believe but since it was along the coast it was nice scenic walk to it.

The weather on day two was amazing, completely different to the previous dull day! Luckily there was no queue for the rope bridge when we got there, most likely due to how early we got there, and we went straight over it. Here are a few pictures of the area and also me on the rope bridge! As you can see it was a lovely day.

Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge

Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge

Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge

Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge

Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge

Just before 12pm we set on our way to Omagh, County Tyrone to go to the Ulster American Folk Park, I had heard a lot about this from a few people I work with so I thought we might as well go to it on the way home.

It was just £4 into the folk park, for students anyway 😉 otherwise an adult ticket is £6 and it has free parking! The folk park is basically a large museum, with reconstructions of how the old buildings looked, and inside the various cottages, were people telling you the history of the area and how people lived.

You could easily spend hours here, we spent about an hour and  a half walking around and I took plenty of pictures, here are a few below.

Ulster American Folk Park

Ulster American Folk Park

Ulster American Folk Park

Ulster American Folk Park

Ulster American Folk Park

After the folk park we went on home, this was definitely the longest I have driven for since I got my car, a little over a year ago. In total I think we drove about 400 miles around Ulster, and we visited almost all the counties on our way to the different locations!

In Conclusion

This was definitely a great trip, really worth the money. And I can tell you without the sat nav, I wouldn’t have a clue where I was going 😀

You can see the rest of the pictures of the Giants Causeway, Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge and the Ulster American Folk Park that I took, on my flickr account.

holiday booked

August 15, 2010
Giants Causeway 4
Image via Wikipedia

This year I have not gone away anywhere on holiday. Every year I usually go away somewhere, last year it was Edinburgh and the year before that it was Galway. Either way I always get to go away somewhere.

I thought that this year I wouldn’t get to go away anywhere, and since it is coming to the end of the summer, I finally decided to go and do something!

So the plan is to go away on a two day trip. Starting Monday 15th (tomorrow) I will be first going to County Antrim, there me and my friend will be going to the Giants Causeway and then maybe go and see the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, before we go to Antrim though we will probably stop at a few places on the way to get use of the whole day, then Monday night we will be staying in the Ramada Portrush hotel,  which is really close to the Giants Causeway.

The hotel came to £89 for the night which is not bad considering it is for two people and it includes breakfast the next morning.

The next day, we will be checking out of the hotel and head down to County Tyrone, the reason I am going there is to go to the Ulster American Folk Park, this is a museum about Irish emigration to America. I have heard a lot about this lately so I think it will be worth the visit.

I originally planned on going to the folk park first then up to the hotel and then visit the Giants Causeway on Tuesday, but I found out the folk park is closed on Monday’s so I had to change the plans!

I am looking forward to this trip, it should be interesting. Now all I have to do is charge my camera batteries and pack my bag!

So when I come back I will most likely have loads of photographs and videos so I will update this blog with those once I get back home!

Sign into multiple Google accounts at once

August 04, 2010

If you have a lot of Gmail accounts and you are always logging out of one, then logging into another, or if you have multiple browsers open at the same time just so you can check all your email’s at once, then the new feature that Google has finally released will definitely make life much easier.

turn on multiple=

If you log into your Google account page, you will now see a new section called Multiple sign in. By default this setting is turned off. Click on the change button below it, switch the setting to on and then check all the boxes below and hit save.

settings for multiple=

Once you have done this you can then head over to Gmail and log into one of your Google accounts, from there you will now see a drop down arrow beside your email address, if you click the arrow you can choose to sign into another Google account.

list allowing you to switch between google accounts

You can set up as many accounts as you like, and then you can instantly switch between inbox’s by just selecting a different account from the list, simple! So you are always signed into all you accounts.

Whichever account you first log in with is set as your default account, and then any services you try to log into which do not support multiple accounts will just show the settings for the default email address. The only Google products which currently support multiple accounts are: Calendar, Reader, Code, Sites and Gmail.

This is a useful method, but I do not think I will be using it for all my addresses. I usually have all my emails that go to different accounts automatically forward to just one master account, that way I never have to switch between accounts, and I can then reply using the account that the email was sent to. If you prefer this method you can set it up in the “Settings” section of your Gmail account.

If there is just one account you have that receives a lot of spam, I would use this new multiple Google account sign in feature for just that one account. Otherwise I would just forward all emails onto your master account.

The Wire

July 26, 2010
Michael K. Williams
Image via Wikipedia

Simply put, The Wire is one of the best TV shows that I have watched in a long time.

At first when I started to watch the show I thought that it wasn’t for me. But I usually give shows the benefit of the doubt and watch at least three episodes, unless the show is completely diabolical!

Each episode of The Wire runs to approximately 58 minutes, which is a long time for any show. Usually the final episode in each season was an hour and a half. After I watched the first three episodes I knew I was going to enjoy the show.

In total there is 5 seasons, no more were made or are going to be made. Each season focuses on a different aspect of life in Baltimore. Each part, if it is political or if it is to do with drugs, they all influence each other and it makes the show extremely interesting.

The Wire is about drugs in Baltimore, the show is presented from two points of view, the first is that of the drug dealers. It shows how the drug dealers go day to day with importing drugs, selling drugs and how they become extremely rich while the Baltimore slums continue to grow. The other view that the drugs in Baltimore are shown is from the view of Law Enforcement, they show how they are combating against the drug dealers by carrying out arrest after arrest. Also there is huge undercover investigations being carried out by using wire taps to infiltrate the drug operations.

This is a great show and one I think you should definitely have a look at if you have not done so already.

I begun watching The Wire about a month ago and since then I have watched all 5 seasons, I just finished the last of season five’s episodes today and I really wish there was more for me to watch. So now that I am done with this show, I will have to go looking for another show to watch, it will be tough to beat this one!

Here is a trailer below for The Wire, it is a fan made trailer because I couldn’t find an official trailer. This trailer is just for the first season.