Steve Litchfield

Time for another rant. Now, I can understand the point of greetings cards - originally, at least. Those nearest and dearest who were far away, all could be cheered up with a birthday, Christmas or Get well card etc, posted from afar. But what on earth is the point in spending a fortune on glossy cards to all the people who live with you or that you see each day/week? These people can surely be greeted far better in person... And add in Mother's Day, Father's Day and a dozen more 'specialist' occasions and you have an industry perpetuating itself by feeding on people's fears of being seen to be rude for NOT sending a card on occasion X etc. If you want to greet someone on a special day, go give them a hug and spend some time with them - they'll appreciate it far more than a glittery piece of cardboard...

Maybe it's Adobe's Mac background. Maybe it's because they equip all their programmers and testers with state of the art, lightning fast gear so that they never notice speed problems. Maybe it's that they haven't got a clue. Either way, I just hate all the Adobe software I come across. From Acrobat Reader which takes forever to load up all the modules that you're unlikely ever to use, before you can actually read the 2 paragraph PDF press release you've been sent, to Premiere Elements, the most appallingly incapable and inefficient video editor I've EVER come across, it's just hate, hate, all the way. Just say no.

Ah. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/21/better_darts/ - I've been saying this for years. For average players, it's much better to aim at treble 16 rather than the traditional treble 20. If you hit the treble, there's still 48 on offer and if you miss by an inch or so, you'll still get 7 or 8 or treble 7 or 8. or even, if you're miles out, a lucky treble 11 or treble 19 or even a bull. Far better than streams of 1s and 5s! Plus there's the added benefit that the casual player will get a tired arm quickly and it's easier to have a physically lower, rather than higher, target to aim at. Anyway, it's nice to have someone else agree with me after two decades....

Like most people, I hate queues. Of people, of cars, just generally waiting in line. Now, I recognise that some degree of queueing is inevitable. Waiting for food deliveries in some poorer parts of the world springs to mind. And in a shop you can't have 100 assistants standing around needlessly all day just so that no customer has to wait more than a second to be served. On the roads, you can't have 10 lane motorways everywhere so that noone ever gets caught in a traffic jam. But ultimately, long queues are signs of inefficiency. On the roads, long jams are easily noticed and usually rectified in the end with slightly bigger roads, one way systems, flyovers, and so on. But to go back to my retail example, regular, long, frustrating queues are simply poor planning by the shop owner. To have to wait for 20 minutes just to pay them some of your hard earned money makes no sense whatsoever. That'll be one customer who thinks of your store and decides to go somewhere else to av...

I admit it, I'm only a part time iTunes user. I only really keep it on my PC to keep track of a few podcasts (including my own Smartphones Show video podcast ), but I'm appalled by iTunes' interface. I've lost count of the number of times that I click on something (or try to right click on something) and find that nothing happens - I then try clicking somewhere else, and eventually discover that I needed to double-click, no, not there, over there, on that particular spot, in order to make something happen. And how do I make playback of that video larger? Try everything in sight.... No buttons or icons or menu functions.... eventually work out that I can drag the playback window away from the left column..... I get by with iTunes, but it's a hate-hate relationship and I really must get round to finding a replacement...

Why do so many fast bowlers (I'm talking cricket here, you can switch off if you're not into it!) use such wierd and inefficient bowling actions? Yes, I know many of them are entertaining, but they're wasting energy. Look at Michael Holding, from the 70s and 80s, poetry in motion and superbly efficient, reputed to have bowled the fastest over ever . I don't bowl much these days myself, but I do try and bear in mind Michael's classical action when I do. Other bowling greats with efficient actions, by the way: Dennis Lillee and John Snow.

One of my real passions is motorcaravanning. You know, 'camper vans', motorhomes, etc. Great fun and a great way of living (I lived in a motorcaravan for 3 years !) but it's all but ruined in many parts of the UK because of all the height barriers on public car parks, especially at seaside locations. Look, I know you don't want travellers (or me, for that matter) parking overnight there, so why not have one of those swing barriers, which get opened in the morning and closed again at night? OK, so you've got to pay someone to do this each day but it's only a small job and you do get the trade of all the motorcaravanners using your facilities and shops. Down with height barriers!

I hate to be the guy in the corner moaning, but when we (the UK) won the bid to host the 2012 games, I had reservations on the sheer cost of it all, all for just a bit of kudos and glory. And now the costs have spiralled to THREE times the original amount. These games are going to hurt the country financially - if this amount of money is truly available then surely it would have been far better spent on hospitals, schools and old age pensioners (to name but three worthy recipients)? I like sport as a casual watcher, but 9 billion is a silly amount of money just to be able to say 'we hosted the Olympics'. Bah.

Now, don't get me wrong, this is only one small area of an entire platform war, but in my professional interests I get to check loads of blogs and web sites. Most are fine, with properly styled text and images and all's hunky dory. But every now and then I come across a site (almost always by a Mac user) which astounds me. Take The Creative Life blog - here's a typical entry - love the content and ideas, but because it's all handled by iWeb on the Apple Mac, all the text in entries are implemented as images ! Appallingly inefficient and appallingly implemented. And this sort of monstrosity only exists because of some terrible tech decisions made by Apple. So what if it's 10% easier to make a web page - when thousands of people then dread visiting it? Secretly, part of each of us probably longs to try out a Mac and see what its fans are talking about. But with the applications producing output like this - well, it's very off-putting.

The media seems to be full of stories of Heelys (proun. Heelies) being dangerous, a friend told of hearing a doctor giving the stat that nine children had died when trying to wear them. I essentially provide a wealth of tips on Heelys safety on my Heelys site , but specifically addressing the concern that they're dangerous: Roller skates, skateboards and ice skates are just as dangerous - and ALL should be ridden with appropriate protection for head and knees/elbows. As the wearer gets more confident, there's slightly less need for the above, but it still depends on whetherthe wearer is a demure little girl (like mine!) gently gliding along or some trick-addicted boy! The older the wearer is, the more damage you'll do if you fall over, of course. Kids under 18 seem to be pretty resilient, I wouldn't worry too much

After a long string of electronic 'wants' from my daughter, most of which got refused, I finally gave in when confronted by the Pixel Chix. This series of plug-together electronic Sim-type toys are pretty well designed and the gameplay is open enough to keep R amused for a good while. And, unlike a Tamagotchi, the blessed thing doesn't keep beeping or dying, a MAJOR boon. Anyway, in true Steve style, I did a little web site devoted to Pixel Chix - hopefully Rachel can help me create new content for it... And talking of web sites, my teacher wife has been using my Heelys site to demo to her class as a resource - they're making a leaflet about Heelys as a project - how cool is that?

.... and people wonder why I HATE travel... I was talking to a business professional today, who'd just returned from a 10 day business trip. It turns out that his company arrange everything right down to the last taxi reservation - all he's got to do is bring his passport and credit card and everything else is sorted. Contrast that to travel DIY (self-employed) style, where every last bit of research, every last train ticket, every last plane detail, every currency transaction has all got to be done myself. And worried about myself. The two situations are worlds apart - no wonder I stick to working from home as much as possible!!

Now look, when you smash your elbow with something or back your car into a wall, I can perfectly understand the temptation to exclaim something short and sharp, a choice word or two. But the youth of today seem to have taken the infamous shock F*** word of the 70s and used it instead of most of the adjectives in their limited vocabulary. Initially their intention was to shock, I guess, but it's now used five times in every sentence and it's anybody's guess what it's supposed to mean. It's just sheer laziness, with the speaker unable to express themselves properly. And movies don't really help, with 'stars' made to talk in the same way. English is a wonderfully expressive and diverse language, so come on guys, let's use it to the full....

Now, don't get me wrong. Window cleaners are often very cheerful and very friendly people - certainly our neighbourhood one is. But it's a job that simply doesn't need doing. Like most people, we had our cleaner 'do' the outside of our windows every month or so for years. Then he put his prices up and, on a hunch, we said 'no thanks' and decided to do them ourselves. In fact, we never got round to it and the outsides of our windows haven't been cleaned now for 3 years - yet, looking at our house, the windows don't seem any dirtier than the houses around us. Wind and rain seem to do the job just as well, and for free. 90% of the muck that accumulates on windows is actually on the inside (especially in the kitchen or if you're a smoker) - and that's a job that we all have to for ourselves anyway. Outside window cleaning - another job that just never needs doing?