Posts

Hi there. There is an easy way to show your social profiles, just simply edit your profile and add your details there.

When anyone either hovers the mouse over your avatar, then your profile box pops up:

Or if someone clicks on your avatar (image) or selects your name, they are taken to your profile which shows your social contact info:

We did have sticky threads with Facebook and Twitter accounts, but they get so large and unwieldy over time, we though this would be a better way of giving people a chance to add their social details.

Plus if you are familiar with Google+ then this acts as an author tag for any threads you create, assuming you link back from your Google+ profile, (about us, contributor to).

Here's the old twitter thread as a comparison.

Hope that helps/makes sense?

It is an emotive subject on both sides of the fence, but not so sure about this point. We live in age of instant news regurgitated continually 24 hours a day, and if the Guardian is to be believed, Crime has dropped 15% with violent crime down 22%.

Sometimes it feels like civilisation is sliding backwards when you see events unfold in the Ukraine, and now tensions rise with neighbouring Moldova.

Externally, and without understanding Ukrainian politics, it seems almost like a replay of Yugoslavia, with a country sliding into civil war, with former neighbours and colleagues now on opposing sides. Lets hope we don't see a repeat of some of the atrocities or decide to act a bit quicker if it does happen.

Russia appears to be fuelling a separatist movement rather than an outright invasion, and with NATO and Russian relations at the most tense in a long time, maybe it's time for the United Nations to step in before the Ukraine does slide into Civil war?

With Syria now in the grips of a long-standing Civil war, violence in Europe, recent deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and Islamic Extremists cropping all over the place, it does make you wonder if this actually is the 21st century. Or maybe the quest for territory, dwindling resources and imposing ideology is too engrained in us as a species. 

It's good to see successive defence reviews now leave the UK with a token Armed Forces capable of doing little more than shouting loudly, while the rest of the world seems to become a more hostile place. Or are we all waiting for the Worlds new superpower to come and sort it all out... China

20 years since the Channel Tunnel opened, doesn't seem possible!

After spiralling construction costs the project has always been dogged with debt, but apparently the owners finally turned a profit in 2012.

Some great Chunnel facts from the Beeb.

My favourite is:

"Two of the 11, mighty boring machines used to dig the thing are still down there, buried. Funnily enough, they don't fit them with a reverse gear, so it was cheaper to put in a 90-degree turn and bury them in the wall, rather than dismantle them and bring them out."

How's that for a time capsule for future generations to ponder over

Sorry, forgot a key word there, eventually... 

But according to Search Engine Land, Google have confirmed they have started the process of starting to move away from relying on links for website rankings. Factors such as the quality of the page, site, content, reputation of the author etc. 

Downside is, it looks like we will be stuck with the backlink frenzy for a few years more

Very fair point, so I'm just a miserable old git 

That said, 3 days of Sun has restored my faith in Bank holidays, and have used our National Trust membership to good affect and worn the kids out 

Hi Barney

Yep, at least for now. There's been a couple of comments ref the PM system:

Feedback from new member

On vBulletin (the old forum software) it was abused at times by new members doing sales pitches, so I decided to leave it out the first release of the new forum and see if it was actually used. I didn't think it was, but it appears it is misses, and as Sandra flagged, if the forum gets busier it will become handy.

So definitely on the wish list for version 2, which can include anything else we've forgotten or tweaks

Our price, a blast from the past! It's a different world now, remember popping into Woolworths and buying a single because the queue was smaller than in Our Price, then taping the top 40 and trying to pause it between the speaking bits. My first record I bought myself was the Nightshift by the commodores.

I suppose you can get lost in nostalgia, but our kids no doubt will has this conversation in years to come reminiscing about the old internet, and learn in history how backward we were spending so much on a round bit of plastic with 1 song on each side, and having to go to a physical shop

Prime real estate in the heart of the city?

Interesting seeing the news this morning, seems. France is the place to buy a gaff. Property prices down 20% and a fraction of what you pay in the UK. Maybe time to brush up on the schoolboy French and relocate!