I decided to resign from lostheaven.co.uk as a staff member today. I had been a staff member for four years but now I feel it's time for a change.

It's odd leaving something you have been a part of for four years, esp when it's a community. I can't say it's a move that's made me happy but in the long run I believe it's for the best.

I have considered leaving many many times before but was never able to as the site was dependant on my ability to code in PHP however staff member Marco has recently proved to me he is capable of filling this void and so I can finally leave.

I have mixed feelings about this decision, only time will tell if it's right. I plan to move on to new things, I want to work on Logicfury a CMS I have in the making, learn another programming language perhaps Python or C++, brush up on more computer knowledge and perhaps most importantly spend less time on the computer. I have a nine hour work day only to come home and find myself on the computer once again, needless to say my eyes and posture are not thanking me for this so getting more exercise and just doing other things is a must.

Anyway, I wish good luck to the staff members of Lostheaven.co.uk, I know they will do a great job!

No that's not the title of a porn film. I have received my replacement monitor from Amazon.co.uk. It features no dead pixels or sub-pixels

It does have one strange difference from the last, it has a shiny screen unlike most LCD's. I have noticed shiny LCD's have become more popular now. I guess they make the image nicer in some respects but they introduce the possibility for glare so I'm not so sure I like it over the typical matt surface. At least it's dead pixel free though

Well the E-Skateboard came last Wednesday (5 days ago). I couldn't use it on Wednesday as it needed 8 hours of charging before it could be used I did however give it a quick go even though I wasn't supposed to .

Thursday was when I really gave it a good test and I have been playing with it every day since, even let one of my mates loose on it yesterday. He thought it was good too.

I have put off the blog about it for a good reason. Most things have a "novelty period", the amount of time something is fun before it becomes old. Usually this is around a few days and you begin to consider why you bought the item in the first place lol. After 5 days which I think is a fair enough amount of time, this thing is still fun and even useful sometimes (well useful in the sense that it saves you walking lol).

The speed around of this board is just right. It's the normal speed you cruise along at when riding a skateboard (around 8mph). The skateboard is near silent, only when accelerating from a stand still can you hear the motor. The only thing I would like to see on this is more power (of course ) and a variable speed control (currently you step on an on/off switch located at the front of the board).

The E-Skateboard is HUGE, well it's deck isn't much bigger than a normal deck only around a few inches longer but the boards wheels make up for that as they stick out around 7 inches. This thing does look rather good though and you can guarantee that wherever you ride it there will be people staring at you like your about to do something amazing. I don't know what they expect, perhaps they think it'll start to hover for it's next?

Was it worth plus P&P? Yes it was

I hate when large companies overcharge for a product/service. Some of my favourite examples of this are BT (British Telecom) and their extortionate broadband prices and every mobile phone network in the UK.

One of the companies guilty of this is of course Microsoft. I know this is just stating the obvious but what I was surprised to find out is by just how much Microsoft rip Europe by.

In Thailand Microsoft Office costs ¢ã30, that's around  Microsoft Office sells for .99 in the UK. I have no problem with paying for software but I have a big problem with paying a needless .99!

OK I couldn't resist the idea of having a go on one of these E-Skateboards so I have just made my order from one from eBay. Admittedly I have wanted one of these for some time but they used to cost much more than they are worth in my opinion, now that you can get them for £50 off eBay (plus £20 P&P) I was prepared to part with my money.



The board travels at around 8 MPH which is fine by me as I'm not after something fast otherwise I'd travel on my normal skateboard which has not seen the light of day for some years now. The only down side to this board (apart from the fact that stunts are out of the question) is that it's so huge. It must be three foot long, tis a small price to pay for an aid to laziness however

It'll probably arrive this week so expect a full report when it does

You hear of people buying LCD monitors only to find they have a dead pixel. Well beat this, I have 4 dead pixels, 1 dead sub-pixel, around an inch square of damaged pixels and intermittent horizontal lines flashing across the screen.

What did I do to deserve that? Needless to say it's going back the sooner the better.

On the plus side this thing is huge! going from a 17" CRT screen to a 19" LCD screen makes so much difference. In case you don't know CRT's are measured from corner to corner of their case. LCD screen's are measured from corner to corner of their screen so my 17" CRT screen was really around 15".

The display is great, the 16ms response time is fine and the contest and brightness are easily settable to my likings. All in all this a great screen for it's price especially if you take into account that it comes with DVI, something I see as very important There is of course one major draw back. My two Linux penguins and centre satellite can no long sit on top of my monitor .

I can't wait till I get a working one lol