Just been playing trying to get rid of that annoying blue band that appears for you internet explorer 6 users (get firefox). Turns out I accidentaly deleted the float: left line in the css file. Proper browsers rendered it as intended, but as always IE6 had problems.

Just got back from a long weekend in the caravan in the Peak District with my family. We stayed on a site just outside Ashbourne called Callow Top which was very nice. The site had it’s own pub/resaurant, nice toilet facilities and an outdoor swimming pool for the summer.

On Friday we went cycling along the Tissington trail, which starts in Ashbourne and runs for about 13 miles. It’s kind of like the Staffordshire railway walk that passes by Wombourne, not sure if it is an abondoned railway line in the same way or not, but there are some nice views and it is pretty flat most of the way. After about 8 miles, we stopped for lunch at about midday and it started to rain slowly, slowly getting harder. We decided to carry on for a while to see if we could get to the end, but at 1.30 we turned around and went back as it wasn’t slowing down and everything was soaked through. For the last few miles the rain stopped, but there were still loads of puddles on the track so by the time I got back to the caravan, I had mud all up my back, my face was covered, my shoes soaked and my trousers were brown instead of blue. Into the shower I went!

Saturday we walked from the caravan site, about 15 km to Dovedale and back down the Tissington Trail to the site.

We arrived at Dovedale at lunch time and made our way back. Fortunately, the weather managed to hold and stayed rather nice today so it was slightly more enjoyable than yesterday.

Here is a photo of me sitting on a stile in some field somewhere. Click for bigger picture.

I installed MS’s latest ‘browser’ offering this morning, Internet Exploder Explorer 7. On initial looks, it scores quite highly. The interface has been totally overhauled and is now much more user friendly and better looking. The implementation of tabbed browsing is pretty good aswell, bringing it into line with the likes of Firefox 1.5 and Opera. One of the first things I tried in it was looking to see how some of the websites I look after behave. My website was strange, IE now seems to respond properly to the css float: and positon: properties, so a small fix was made there to correct it. All in all, most of the sites I have made displayed relatively well with only a couple of changes required. Hopefully they will still look ok in IE6 aswell.

On the security side of things, I haven’t really noticed anything but the phishing filter but I’ve heard comments of some background things that have been changed to make it more secure than IE6.

So, if you haven’t already, I recommend you update to IE7. Download it here. I believe it is due to come out in automatic updates sometime during November. It’s about a 14 MB download, and install should take less than five minutes. I guarantee you will like it!

Found out what research project I have been assigned this morning: “n-type Superconductors: Synthesis and Characterisation”. That was my second choice, but I couldn’t make up my mind between the first two so I am happy with that. I got a book out the library to give a bit of an insight before I see my project supervisor hopefully next week for some guidance. Hopefully it is something that will remain interesting ’till next April when it is due in.

Just finished the second week of uni! Only another 9 to go until end of semester.

This week I had to decide the title of my third year research project. Everyone had to submit up to six titles, and one would be chosen so everyone in the year was doing something different. My four, in preference order were “Chemistry of Fuel Cells”, “n-type superconductors: synthesis and characterisation”, “Mercury Based Superconductors” and “The Chemistry of Large Scale Hydrogen Production”. I chose those four because they appear to be quite interesting and I think I could find enough material and past research to string together up to 6000 words. Should know some time next week which one I have been assigned to, hopefully it will be my first choice!

Today, 3rd October is the Day Against DRM (Digital Rights Management). What is DRM?

DRM is used to restrict what you and your family can do with the electronic devices and media purchased. It is an attempt by technology and media companies to take away your rights. DRM Means: No fair use. No purchase and resell. No private copies. No sharing. No backup. No swapping. No mix tapes. No privacy. No commons. No control over our computers. No control over our electronic devices.

Did you know that iPod users are restricted from transferring their music to other non-Apple devices because the music downloaded from iTunes is encrypted - locked with DRM? Apple allows you to write an audio CD, but will leave you with very lousy sound quality if you ever want to take your music to a new portable device in a compressed format.

If you want to know more about DRM and what it means for you, read this.

Started back at uni today. Good first day back, 2 hour Business lecture from 9-11, then 3 Chemistry lectures including the year induction. My timetable is pretty good this year, which makes up for last year’s pretty lousy one. I have an average of about 10 hours a week, 9:00 starts on Monday and Tuesday, one hour on Wednesday and 4 Thursday afternoon with Fridays off! Woo. Also, strangely I don’t have any labs this year. They said it’s something to do with making up the credits with Business modules, but I’m not complaining. Have to do a rather long research project though which could be quite a task. Need to choose my topic by next Tuesday.

Here’s looking forward to my final year at uni!