BBC Doctor Who - On Screen Graphics

BBC hit a new low last night with the introduction of a new form of on screen programme advertising to promote it's three main Saturday night programmes.  As you can see from the screenshot below one of these adverts was plastered on screen at a key moment in Doctor Who's climatic speech, totally distracting the audience from the story.

These graphics were part of a new set of channel promo for Total Wipeout, Dr Who and Over the Rainbow, which being programme specific will become redundant once any of these programmes come to an end in the Saturday night schedule.

Last night BBC1 took the format of having a long advert on the programme coming up after the next programme, then advert cartoon of the main three programmes for the Saturday night, then they showed the scheduled programme, then within that programme show on screen graphic of what the next programme coming up is and finally in case you hadn't got the message squeeze the credits and tell the audience what's coming up next.

 For sometime the BBC has squeezed the end credits which makes it very difficult to read any names of the cast and production team, in Dr Who's squeezed BBC used it to advertise some Dr Who books which to me is a commercial advert which shouldn't been appearing on the channel.

Finally Over The Rainbow didn't get the in show graphic ads, only Total Wipeout and Doctor Who had to suffer these distractions. 

 

Canon Powershot - Low Battery Icon Fix

Recently on my Canon A590 IS Powershot I've had a very annoying problem where even though I'm using full charged batteries I was finding that my camera on a regular basis would flash the red low power icon on the display and would turn off.

Today it got so bad that I only got a couple of photos taken while up in the Lakes, back home checking on the net on causes of the symptoms it seems this is a common problem on alot of Canon models related to the battery contact on the case opening not getting enough contact with the batteries.

 My first attempt at fixing my camera was to bend the connector that goes to -'ve battery, this ended up making it worst as it would only turn on and stay on when the camera was upside down.  But it did prove that battery contact was the problem as the red low battery indicator stopped coming back in my tests when it was upside down and I could tap the camera and it would turn off.

To fix my problem I ended up having to pull the -'ve connector right out of it's slot, as shown below so it's in constant contact with the battery.

I showed my fix to my dad who has the same camera, below is how the battery sits in his camera.  From the picture you can see that the battery is 1-2mm higher than it is in my camera, so it looks like although I've apply a working fix to the contact on the case lid, the actual problem has occurred with the +'ve connector at the other end inside the case - it's lost it's spring feedback.

I'm leaving the fix as it is, will be over the top to take the camera apart to fix the source of the problem.

Update Sept 2011 - Thanks everyone for their comments, I really appreciate how useful you found this post, I've recorded a video (below) of how to do the fix.  You'll see the first few attempts didn't resolve the problem and rather that cut them out I thought I'd keep them in so it's clearer what finally needs to be done.

Election - Top Local Candidate for Banner presence

Continuing this light hearted series, this round I look at which of the 4 local candidates for Westmorland and Lonsdale are making the most with their banner, poster etc... activity in the surrounding area by blitzing the area with their party colours.

Criteria for this is based on my daily commuter route through Kendal and out southwards to the motorway and is based on volume

3 - In joint third place is UKIP John Mander and Labour Jonathan Todd who I've yet to see a banner for them on my commuter journey

2 - Second place goes to Conservative Gareth McKeever, his banner count in town is low but he does win the biggest banner sub award for his record sized banner on the scaffolding up against the local old conservative HQ.  As you go out of town his volume count begins to increase but some of the banners get canceled out by using shared sites with the Lib Dems which indicates there are some canny or undecided farmers out there possibly renting out the prime sites to the main parties

1 - Number one spot goes to Liberal Democrat Tim Farron, purely on the volume on banners he has in town plus new large banner boards popping up daily outside of town.  One point of note though, last election my end of town was a wash with Lib Dem banners but this time round I've only spotted one, could this be a sign that there are changed or undecided voters?

Update - Westmorland Gazette cartoonist Colin Shelbourn has also undertaken has own banner survey between Windermere and Kendal which match the above results of the southern picture - details on his blog

Election - Top Local Candidate for online presence

A light hearted look at which of our 4 local candidates for Westmorland and Lonsdale is making the most in the online media world.  The 4 candidates have been rated on their use in the following areas based on intended use, frequency and interactivaty with the local public

Personal Website
Blog
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube

4 - In fourth place is UKIP John Mander for simply not having an online presense (or a least one I can find)

3 - Third place goes to Conservative Gareth McKeever, he had the potental to get up to number 1 with his new look website which links to his blog, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages but it all came crashing down for failing on content. Losing points for having no updates to his site for a last month, having an empty blog and youtube page, gaps in updating twitter (last update 4 days ago), having a naff twitter name.  He gained some points for having a Facebook page and a couple hundred followers but again he doesn't post to the page, so has lost points for lack of public interactivity through these sites.  Also points are lost as all his sites relate to his campaign giving rise that they will be abandoned once the election is over.

Website
Blog
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube


2 - Second place goes to Labour Jonathan Todd, he has a website with regular blog updates, links in to some his YouTube broadcasts. He uses Twitter although he loses some points for using it retweet stories and not so much on what he's upto on his local campaign other than to 
link to his blog post, he gets brownies points for replying to other Twitters questions.  He has two facebook pages (personal / campaign) that he posts to with a thousand followers across the two pages.

Website
Blog
Twitter
Facebook - (personal)
YouTube linked in his blog posts

1 - Number one spot goes to Liberal Democrat Tim Farron, he's lost points on the blogging and youtube side which he doesn't have but is well ahead of the competition in his personal use of Facebook and Twitter which he's been using on a regular basis with what he's upto since the backend of last year and also regularly replies to questions from locals.  On Facebook he's hit the limit of five thousand followers on his personal page and has had to setup a fan page to allow other locals to be in contact with him through this avenue which is a good indication that he'll continue using Facebook / Twitter once the election is over - if he's re-elected ;)

Website
Twitter
Facebook - (fan page)

Birdbox - To Let to pair of Bluetits

Another couple of weeks has passed and we've had no visitors to any of our boxes so looks like our usual bird watch for this year is at a premature end.  Our neighbours box that was empty last year has a couple of bluetits in this year so maybe ours have decided to setup next door.

Bird activity has been quieter this year, we have a couple of bird feeders outside our front window that gets the small birds actively eating from.  We put them on strings to stop the crows getting at them, sometimes they figure out how to pull them up which can be entertaining.

We do have a nest in use in our back hedge right by the house which I'll be keeping an eye on but for the moment all the equipment has been retired for the year and is being reused as my test PC

Birdbox - March Update

A month has passed since my last update, a little tweaking has been done to the setup but as yet we've had no arrivals in any of our two birdboxes.  Looking at how events happened last year (shown below), we are 3 weeks behind the first arrival.

At this point I'm not hopeful that our usual Bluetits will return this season, winter has lasted alot longer this year and we've not had many sunny spring mornings that usually attracts alot of birds out to our feeder.
 
Last Years Movements

12 Mar - Start of regular bird visits to birdbox
23 Mar - Start of nest building
02 Apr - Half way through the nest build
24 Apr - 2 eggs spotted in nest
25 Apr - 4 eggs now spotted in nest
26 Apr - final 5th egg spotted in nest
11 May - 3 chicks spotted
12 May - Extra chick spotted
16 May - 4 chicks still in next growning, 5th egg never hatched
21 May - Only 3 chicks seen in next
All 3 chicks left the nest by end of the month