Printing

I have been looking into getting printing done for some business cards. I looked into the following providers:
- Brainstorm, a west meath outfit.
- McKerns Printing, a local limerick crowd.
- Printing.ie, a tralee based firm.
- Reads, a dublin based company.

I was amazed at the different pricing structures they each had for business card design and printing.

I found the best price was at printing.ie and will let you know the results here.

A brilliant travel video

I was sent this great YouTube video this morning and felt I had to share it! Matt is the guy who has travelled around the world and danced in the most random of places very funny. It was nice to see some of the places myself and Elaine and visited on our travels. Well done to him, great entertainment!

Ebay and my ipod accessories

While I was travelling up Killimanjaro last year I broke my IPOD. I had most of the nice gadgets that went with it. Too my frustration the new IPOD does not accept the the iTRIP and the iTalk so I had to sell them ;o( If you know of anyone wanting some good quality accessories for the first ipod 20GB model then if you could kindly send them here.

Haemochromatosis

I found out several years ago that I had this disorder, the "celtic jaundice" was something I accidentally stumbled over when I was getting a complete blood checkup done. Something I do randomly when I get paranoid! Since my diagnosis in 2001 I have had 23 blood tests, 22 blood lettings and 2 liver biopsies. Phlebotomies as they are also known takes 400ml(approx) of your blood to "dilute" the iron overload effect.
I am amazed that the only treatment for one of the biggest genetic disorders in humankind involves such a pre historic cure. Haemochromatosis is very widespread and most people don't find out until the symptoms are so widespread that it involves pretty drastic measure.

I have travelled around the world and have found that the cheapest form of blood analysis was in Tanzania (€4). The most proficient service and advanced service I received was in Australia in Perth. Excellent service under the Red Cross Group!

If you have this disorder there is loads of information online. The references I found useful are listed below.
As usual wikipedia gives a great overview of the subject here and the Irish Haemochromotosis Association keep the topic very up-to-date and their members subscription newsletter is very interesting too.

One invention I would love to have is the ability to self test my iron levels from the comfort of my own home. Any ideas anyone? Is there such a way?

Update 03 July 2007:
Visited my doctor this morning for a blood checkup and he mentioned that the IBTS(Irish Blood Transfusion Service) has started a pilot program to take people suffering from Haemochromotosis and use their blood for donations. He gave me an interesting newsletter to read which can be found here . This is great news as they are providing this service free of charge! Lets roll it out all over Ireland please.

The software tools I use

I wanted to publish to the tools I am currently using in my everyday work to help others see what is out there on the web as regards to tools and the tasks that they can perform. I also mention which ones are free to help those on a budget. Like myself! :o)

Desktop Tools
-Notepad++ (Free)
-Picasa2 (Free)
-QuickSearcher Freeware (Free)
-Spybot - Search & Destroy (Free)
-Winamp (Free)
-xplorer2 (Free for personal use)
-MediaMonkey (Free)
-Microsoft Office Excel 2003
-Launch Microsoft Office Outlook
-Microsoft Office Visio 2007
-Microsoft Office Word 2003
-Open Office (Free)

Web Tools
-Internet Explorer 6.0
-Internet Information Services
-Launch Internet Explorer Browser
-Macromedia Dreamweaver 8
-Mozilla Firefox (Free)
-Shortcut to gui_tidy (Free)
-SmartFTP Client
-Absolute Color Picker (Free)
-ASP.NET Web Matrix (Free)
-Free Monitor for Google (Free)
-Internet Explorer 3.0

Development Tools
-Microsoft Office Access 2003
-Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

Graphic Tools
-Adobe Illustrator CS2
-GIMP 2 (Free)
-Adobe Bridge

Network Tools
-Remote Desktop Connection
-Steel Inventory (Free)
-TightVNC Viewer (Free)
-Kaboodle (Free)
-NetZup 1.0.1.1 (Free)

Project Tools
-TimeTo™
-Open Workbench (Free)

System Tools
-CCleaner (Free)
-CDBurnerXP Pro 3 (Free)
-DAEMON Tools
-JDiskReport (Free)
-SyncToy (Free)
-Autoruns (Free)

If anyone can suggest other tools then they are welcome to post them and I will include them after I do a little review(of course!).