UFO’s step up the activity in the Lincolnshire skies
According to www.uk-ufo.co.uk we’re getting some unusual activities in our skies over Lincolnshire. Witnesses are reporting glowing orange orbs or balls of light. This isn’t confined just to Lincolnshire though. Reports of this phenomenon are being made of very similar activity all over the UK and further afield. Check out the www.uk-ufo.co.uk website for more info.
Campaign #54 is underway!
S! and congratulation to the axis for winning map #53 of Battleground Europe: World War II Online! Map #54 is now underway so good luck to both sides and may the best side (allies 
) win!
Flashback to November 2004 with Battleground Europe: World War II Online
Beta video for the upcoming North Africa Expansion Pack for BE:WWIIOL. It actually turned in to vapour software but nevertheless gave us die hard fan boys something else to be optimistic about.
Updating Google Chrome
Don’t forget to update your Google Chrome Web Browser. Go to the little spanner icon on the right hand side, click it and select ‘About Google Chrome’ which is towards the bottom of the menu. A new window will pop up showing you information about Google Chrome. This window will also check if your current version is up to date. If your version isn’t up to date just click the update button and Google Chrome will download and install the update for you.
Remember that Google Chrome won’t update itself automatically and you have to go through this process to update.
Gameslurp Game of the Month for May announced!
And the winner is……I’m not telling you. Head over to the official Gameslurp thread to find out what game won!
Are you sure we’re in a global credit crunch?
I’m not convinced. I’m looking to update my work PC so I’ve found a nicely priced online supplier in the name of Eclipse Computers. All of their component prices seemed reasonable but I was looking for more of an incentive to buy from them than just slightly-better-than-average prices. So I compiled a list from their webshop and emailed it to them asking for discount. The following is the conversation as it happened. N is me, EC is Eclipse Computers.
N:
Subject: Urgent price please
Hi there
I’d like to place the attached order with you and wondered what sort of discount or incentive you could provide if I were to place the order with you today. The order currently totals £938.04.
Please reply as soon as possible.
Many thanks
Neil
EC: I am sorry but the prices that are advertised online is the best we can offer as there are already discounted for online sale.
N: Could you offer carriage free of charge?
EC: I will have to check into it, Can You tell me other then carriage what type of discount are you looking for?.
N: Just what discount you can offer. The order will total £938.04 including carriage. Your prices are cheaper than most stores but not by a huge amount. I’m asking if you can give me an attractive discount to make me want to place my order with you rather then Dabs, Overclockers or Chillblast who I have ordered with before and trust.
Cheers
Neil
EC:I have spoken to one of my colleagues and we can offer the order for the parts requested at £782.61 ex VAT £900.00 Inc VAT with £19.95 ex VAT £22.94 Inc VAT P&P.
It’s worth pointing out here that they are offering a total of £15.10 in discount.
N: Thanks for the offer. If you could make it a nice round £900 delivered I shall go online and place the order straight away.
EC: I am sorry but the offer I outlined below is the best I can do.
N: That’s ok, thanks for trying anyway.
Now maybe I’m asking a bit too much to expect any discount on just under £1000 but with so many companies offering carriage free of charge on orders over £100 I find it quite difficult to believe that this companies margins are so tight that an order wouldn’t be worth taking with a 4% (approx) discount for doing FOC carriage. Despite the sales rep not signing their name on any of the emails they were courteous at all times and seemed to be trying to help so I can’t knock them there.
I have now ordered my goods from Overclockers and Custom PC Warehouse for a slightly less cost so in the long run Eclipse Computers have done me a favour 
To me just breaking even must be better than no sale but I’m not here to tell anyone how to run their business. If business is so good in this credit crunch that sales can be turned away then all I can say is ‘very well done’.
Want to use Wordpress with Fasthosts? Don’t bother!
All you have to do is Google any combination of fasthosts/suck/wordpress/404 and you’ll see what I mean.
Asking tech support can be slightly rewarding but only for a new experience of total incompetence. Apparently my htaccess file (put there by my Wordpress install) was ‘wrong’. Not only that but I had to delete it (yes, told to do that by fasthosts tech support) so the fasthosts admin panel could ‘work its magic’ on setting up a custom 404 page. As anyone who has set up Wordpress with permalinks knows this will just stop anything but your home page working. Pure genius.
Well if you hadn’t guessed by now I’m not a fan of Fasthosts especially now I’ve switched to www.hostthemost.co.uk and everything is working out of the box. Hosting made easy.