wee doors banging

If, like me, you like your old computers, you could do an awful lot worse than pay a visit to Andy’s Retro Computers, a site of “vintage computers and other stuff”.

The eponymous Andy describes himself as a “collector of vintage computers”. He shares his home with an impressive collection of these old-time machines, one that’s growing all the time. Some are brands you’ll know well, but others you may not be so familiar with.

We recently spent a Saturday afternoon with the Belfast Taste & Music Fest in Botanic Gardens. This event allows visitors to sample dishes from some of the best Northern Ireland restaurants as well as from visiting chefs from Chicago. Music, cookery demonstrations and an always-present beer tent round off the entertainment.

Chindi is another in Jack McDevitt’s “Academy” series. True to form, it is an adventure romp across the galaxy to investigate a Mysterious Thing(tm), with daring rescues and dangerous situations to get out of along the way.

Schmap is a leading publisher of digital travel guides for 200 destinations throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.Recently, I was pleased to be informed that a random snap I took of Belfast City Hall grounds with my mobile phone had been included in the 8th edition of the Schmap Belfast Guide in the “Belfast City Centre and Laganside Walk” section.

For a period of two or three weeks at the start of July 2009 all my sites, including this one, were unavailable. The physical node that hosts the VPS that hosts the sites was wiped out in a mass hack attack perpetrated against the operators, VAServ. All VPS data on the node was destroyed, which unfortunately included my personal email, web content, source code repositories and so on.