Warbird Experience

If you've only ever flown in airliners, you may not have experienced the excitement, fun, wonder, and spectacle that flying can be in a smaller aircraft. When I was a teenager, in the early 60s, I was a member of 452 Squadron of the Air Training Corps (ATC) in Hornchurch, Essex.

Among the most exciting memories from the ATC (apart from the itchy uniform and drill - which I did enjoy) was during the Summer Camp at RAF Chivenor which, at the time, was flying Hawker Hunters - the aircraft flown by the world famous 111 (triple one) squadron aerobatics team. 

Only the senior ATC officer's son flew in a Hunter but the rest of us took a half hour flight in a De Havilland Chipmunk, which was then, I believe, the RAF's basic trainer. Kitted out with a parachute, we each took our turn. I was expecting to travel at the fastest I had ever travelled but with a top speed of 120 knots, I don't think we ever exceeded about 90mph! But it made me love flying.

For my 60th birthday in 2006 my family bought me a wonderful birthday present - a flight in a T-6 Harvard (a.k.a. Texan) from





based at Rochester Airport, Kent.

Yesterday, for my son's 40th birthday, close family clubbed together for a simlar flight. The team at Wardbird Experiences are all such a friendly bunch, it's like spending a couple of hours with old friends, who just happen to operate a flying school - the flights are introductory flying lessons, and you get to fly the Harvard! 

I think the smile, above, indicates how much fun it is. And he hadn't even got into the 'plane! I'm sure he'll agree, it's nothing like riding in an Airbus - it's real flying.

Chrome is the new black

Even BBC Radio four announced that Google (tm) had launched a new browser, called Chrome, so I thought it must be worth looking at.

Because I build websites, I have several browsers to test with: IE7, Firefox 3, Opera, and Safari. I have always been happy with Internet Explorer, particularly version 7. But several people keep telling me I should use Firefox and, since I installed Firefox 3 a few weeks ago, I have started using it more, and have even set it as my default browser for previewing and testing web pages.

One thing has been bugging me though - I suppose it must just be me but, although I really like working with tabbed browsing, with Firefox 3 I keep inadvertently closing the tab I'm reading. That's very irritating, and I don't think I did that with FF2... And FF3 has a tendency to be left running in the Applications list, so it won't re-launch without resorting to Task Manager and Ending the process.

I don't usually touch any software that is in beta (test) mode because it often causes unexpected(?) problems with other applications or even the operating system. But as I'm a bit of a fan of Google, products I thought I'd have a go with Chrome.

The download was seamless. Installation went as planned - quickly and trouble-free. Then I launched Chrome and wondered where everything was. There was a clue that I'd read somewhere that, when you want them, the tools are easy to find. I am amazed at how that could possibly work. But it does. The screen is very clean and tidy. The tabs are right at the top of the screen. There are no text menus but right-click (which seemed obvious) on an an icon here or there, and everything I've needed so far, is where I felt it should be.

Remember when you first used Google search? I remember thinking, and others saying "it's as though they know what you were thinking about when you started the search." Chrome has that same eerily "just right" feeling, to me.

Two things stand out (apart from the clean screen and the lack of menus and toolbars - nobody expects the Spanish inquisition) is that I have watched in amazement as many people "mis-use" the address bar in Internet Explorer, thinking that data entered there would be used to search for a website.

Well, apparently, for many people that's the intuitive thing to do (in the absence of any Browser Schools). And with Chrome, that's exactly what happens! Put "Fred Bloggs" into the address bar and, if it can't already find that among the websites you've already visited - like FF3 does, it uses your text for a Google search.

And it is noticeably faster than Firefox 3. Going back to IE7 shows it to be very slow by comparison, subjectively. And the screen is smoothly Opera-like. There are some good techie reasons why it's fast, apparently. But all I care about is - it works, I like the look and feel, I like the speed, I really like the 9-most-visited-sites feature showing on your own home page.

If you want to risk the beta, give it a go. If you don't want to risk the beta, keep your eye on the news, the real thing can't be far off. My opinion so far is that instead of thinking, "Yes, is OK," I was immediately really impressed with Chrome. I can see it will be my no.1 browser of choice very soon.

P.S. I created this entry via Chrome. I did have a bit of trouble uploading the image into Blogger, but I found a workaround. And I've signed up to have Google track what's going on, to help development, so we can hope that they're working on it right now!

LinkStar Media for the last time

LinkStar Media have updated their website and have asked the administrators of the Aardvark Business Forum to remove the thread that discussed LinkStar's operations.

LinkStar UK Limited's website has been greatly improved and now explains that they have a new way of link-building to improve their clients' SEO (search engine optimisation).

The website also now shows a registered address and their registered company number. So I am assuming that we can now expect that LinkStar's future emails will also include those details, as required by the Companies Act 2006. Had they done so in the first instance, perhaps the suspicions of website owners may not have been aroused.

So, if you are approached by LinkStar UK Limited, you can now make up your own mind based on a bit of research into websites, addresses, and Companies House. It's always worth spending a couple of quid (and that is all it costs) to find out just that little bit more about the company you're considering dealing with.