Alan Sugar

I bought a copy of 'What you see is what you get' Alan Sugar's autobiography...

This is a fascinating read, especially if you worked as an electronic engineer with televisions, hi-fi and computers...like me!

He talks about shops like 'Lasky's' and other shops on the Edgeware Rd in London. Places that I ordered stuff from in the 1970's. His mate the TV engineer that mended and modified old TV's and sold them on as a business. (sound familiar!) The 'valve pusher' and later the 'panel pusher'...I never got into this routine...fault find down to the component was my way! (Alan would have been proud of me!) Later, the famous Amstrad hi-fi (pretend) stack unit that took over our workshop like faulty daleks! The Amstrad TV...OMG...I hated them...when they went faulty, they took most of the switched mode power supply and line output altogether...I wouldn't touch one of these with a bargepole unless I had to!

Now the Amstrad 464 computer was ahead of it's time, but also had to compete with Sinclair...the Amstrad was quite reliable, I don't remember having to fix one (apart from cleaning the audio heads in the tape player) It had a wonderful proper keyboard and colourful as well! Then came the dedicated office word processor machine, which I didn't understand...tooo complicated, had a dedicated operating system and not flexible at all.

Now this one was good...PC arcitecture, full colour and software. I remember playing with this in the late 80's drawing colour pictures on screen. Twin disc drives and software to go with it...but expensive. I fixed a few of these at the time, mainly hard drives that were not yet reliable!

It's fantastic thinking back at the growth of technology in the 80's with Alan Sugar, Clive Sinclair and a few other guys (aka Acorn)

Alan Sugar - a shrewd business man, not a technical genious, but insiring!

Clive Sinclair - a technical genious, but not a shrewd business man and a bit ahead of his time!

I wonder who would be The Apprentice... Alan or Clive?

What you see is what get!

Rockin' Robin

Snow, snow, snow.... and it's not Christmas yet!

I have a very shy Robin that visits my garden every day, but flies away everytime I try to take a photo. Today I lay in wait and managed to take some photos of this festive beast without it knowing....

It's Christmas time and time to hibernate until Spring!

See how the snowflakes are falling

Falling so gentle and white

Coming from God in his beauty

All through the days and the night.

Atmospheric

This is a photo that I took last Sunday at Leverhulme Park. It was about 3.00pm and all day we had freezing fog, temperature down to -6 degrees. The sun was just going down and the view was spooky!

I sent this photo to The Bolton News and they published it the next day!

The weather is crazy, snow in November and temperatures as low as -15 at night. Last night the temperature rose to +7 and all the snow melted...wow!

Snow in November!

Here is the view from my house this morning...

Could this be? Heavy snow in November?

Temperatures down to - 15 degrees, much of the country covered in snow, schools closed and worse to come. It's not even Christmas yet!

It is snowing outside now...unbelievable!

"Snow is expected to continue falling across large parts of England overnight, causing further disruption.
The Met Office has issued heavy snow warnings for London, the South East, East Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber, the East and North East.
It also warned of widespread ice on roads across the whole of England.
Snow and ice covered much of the country on Tuesday causing travel problems and hundreds of school closures."

Bolton Wanderers!

Now i'm not a football fanatic, but when Bolton Wanderers reach FOURTH in the Premier League with just Man U, Arsenal and Chelsea above it's time to follow!

Today they hammered Newcastle 5 - 1 at Reebok. Johan Elmander the Swedish wonderboy scoring two of the goals.


I can't remember Bolton being so high up and so far into fixtures. At last they seem to have come together and now have a great side...could they win the league? You never know!

Light Emitting Diodes...the future?

Have you noticed how the tungsten bulb is now being replaced by the super energy efficient, high brightness Light Emitting Diodes?

Torches, spotlamps, stick on lights, cars, traffic lights...they are everywhere...sneaking up on us, ready to take over the world!

I had a dilemma today, we are making a robot project with children and learning about circuits. Now simple circuits for children usually consist of a battery, bulb, wire and switch. The children want to make robots with different coloured lights and flashing. Sooo...do we use old fashioned glass bulbs that are just about useless now or bring in the LED technology? Remember, LED's are polarised, so how do you explain the concept of a circuit to young children if the circuit fails because the battery or LED is the wrong way around?

I decided that LED's are the thing....let's get rid if the old tungsen bulb and move into the future!

Lets Experience Digital ... (LED) ... even if it is an analogue device!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode

Sunday Papers!

Here is Jo Thornhill from the Mail on Sunday interviewing me and some children about a new website called 'Savingsquad'. It was quite an experience using digital technology to show off the skills of the children learning about finance and pocket money. The photographer took loads of pictures of myself and the children with the technology that they were using. I've never been in the Sunday papers before so this was really exciting, but also a bit worried that the story and pictures would not come out right...

When the story was printed I was sooo pleased, a nice photo and good reporting to go with it...Thank you Jo!

Here is Kate from D2 Digital that runs the website http://www.savingsquad.co.uk/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1325158/Pupils-add-wealth-knowledge.html