musings (201) fun Monday (76) friendship (64) K9 (13)

Wednesday 24 May 2017

Love Manchester

Excerpt from
Longfella aka Tony Walsh



Tuesday 16 May 2017

Oops

as a result of world-wide ransom-ware proliferation this weekend...the poor old NHS is in it good and proper.

Typically, although reputable news reports (I.T. mags) noted weaknesses in NHS systems, the government have been at pains to say 'not my problem'.

When large parts of the NHS have continued to use an out-dated unsupported operating system Windows XP, this weekend's problems were an accident waiting to happen.

I've been following events as reported by 'The A Register'.

"Proud website boasts that the "NHS is totally protected with Sophos" became "Sophos understands the security needs of the NHS" after the weekend scrub-up.

El Reg asked Sophos to comment on what seemingly went wrong with its security defences but we're yet to hear back beyond an acknowledgement of our query."

As they might say...

The plot thickens...

Friday 12 May 2017

MCAS quandry

I recently wrote about MCAS aka the physiotherapy 'service'.
Apparently they'vs been having problems with illness and some folk have moved on to jobs elsewhere.

I must admit to a preference for morning appts. Otherwise the appt. seems to ruin the day making it awkward when the appt. is in an afternoon/

There's been another phone-call this time from them to me.
Mon. appt #1 cancelled
Rearranged by them for afternoon.
Rearranged by me for same time, different 'local' venue appt. #2
Today's phone-call to cancel appt. #2
Next appt. #3 back to venue #1 and same 9.10 appt time. Now with a.n.other person and on a Thursday instead of Monday.

Makes one feel that they could not organize the proverbial booze-up in an open brewery.

Time will tell...

Update

This morning's post (Sat.) bought an appt. (first class post)

Theoretically, it is the go-ahead for appt. this Thurs.

Thurs. appt has been and gone. New physio complete with student. So it was all about assessing him and allowing him to practise his physio-patient skills.

He did well, convincing me which routine of movements might be of more use. Much better than just handing out booklets. He won;t be there next time. Yes, am going to co-operate and see Sarah again. Now, to attempt to makes an appt. Wonder how many attempts it might take this time?

Sunday 7 May 2017

May she will stay as in Simon and Garfunkel

Unusual weather seems to have become the norm. North-South airstreams more typical of Winter than of Spring. They continue because of high pressure systems lining up one after another.

This fine but chilly weather has brought on an outbreak of gardening. The grass has had several haircuts already. I say grass as one area is lawn, but the other round the fruit trees could nay would never be a lawn.

Then there's the venerable greenhouse, transported having been disassembled long ago from the garden in N.E. Lancs and reassembled here.

With Spring comes growth and there's the remnants of a privet hedge in a back corner that needed attention. Out came the extension leads and hedge-trimmer. Large garden collection bin filled brim-full and beyond. Not forgetting to give the berberis canadesis shrub a short back and sides.

Next came a visit to the local Garden Centre. We came back with tomato plants, Vermiculite and two new azaleas, a white and a rich purplish one.

Gardening has broken out in force. Wild garlic had invaded part of a flower bed. It was hard work, but it has been cleared.





Friday 5 May 2017

Outrageous fortune

Distance learning is not as easy as it sounds. even when conducted thro' the auspices of a long-time provider.

It pays to 'Remember the human'.

This is especially true of email. It's oh so easy to misinterpret what's been written.

As the warning goes...never write and send when you are in a bad mood or upset. That way you lesson the chance of making a fool of yourself.

Similarly, electronic communication is not a level playing-field. Because computers have been around for such a long time it's easy to be lulled into a false sense of security.

It's also easy to assume that others have similar computing skills.

Unfortunately, having traditional writing skills may be fine but add a computer into the mix and stand back to see what happens.

Documents have the facility of commenting (part of word processing). I've had it happen before and now it has happened again.

What, you might ask?

One tutor was a whizzkid at tutoring but not word processing. His documents always had comments with his wife's name. When it's a regular occurrence, it's irksome but I can cope.

However, when for the last assignment the comments suddenly have the wrong name and seem by the wording to be from someone else...that's more awkward.

Tutor had no idea when I mentioned it.

That's why I duly sent a reply with a png file (portable network graphics) showing some of the problem comments.

Here's hoping she understands...