Thursday 16 January 2014

16/01: THURSDAY BITS & BOBS

I haven't mentioned our 'tree rats' recently - they aren't visiting the garden quite so much now that we've installed squirrel resistant seed feeders.   I'm so pleased with them.   The price has gone up very slightly this year but still a bargain at £20.99 for 4 (inc P&P).   Our local pet shop sells the same feeders at £8.99 each!

I can recommend these highly  4 x seed feeders

However, do make sure that the lids are firmly clipped down.    The squirrels discovered that they could spring the clip on one of the feeders so David had to make a minor adjustment with the pliers to make the clip much harder to spring.

I might buy some of the protected fatball feeders next although the squirrels only take the fatballs as a last resort.  I'd still need to keep some in the non-protected holders for the larger birds, the woodpeckers and blackbirds etc.

I tried to protect one of the feeders with a home made contraption - two wire hanging basket frames clipped together ... not successful but did keep us amused watching the squirrels' attempts to chew through the wires till they realised they could squeeeeeeeeeeze themselves through the larger holes in the basket:



Where there's a will, there's a way as my grandad used to say:



anyway, I made more progress on the portrait today but am now waiting for feedback from my client before I add too much more detail.   I need to finish the tie and improve the hands but it took me an age today to get the fabric texture finished on the chair

Looks a bit 'grainy' here I'm afraid



A 'fellow Blogger' pointed out recently that the photos uploaded on Blogger are not reproducing well and to prove her point she showed the same photo of her work on Facebook and on Blogger and the Facebook image was vastly superior.    Not sure what the problem is with Blogger and photos just now but it usually takes several attempts to post each picture - I'm using IE and have been told I'd be better off trying Chrome ... such a pain having to swap around though.

and now .... how to waste lots of time playing with Google!

Sorry if you know these tricks but I'd never come across them before.

In the Google search box
type in         do a barrel roll      and watch what happens
type in         zerg rush        and watch what happens
type in         google gravity    and then hit the I feel lucky button and watch what happens (you might have to click on the Google 'doodle' button to the left of the search box first).

I believe there are lots more of these tricks around but I'm sure you won't thank me for pointing them out LOL




10 comments:

  1. I post and edit my blogs on Chrome, much easier, but I don't know how good the pix are as I don't have to worry about it.

    I assume the squirrel got out again, but he looks like he's there for the duration.

    ReplyDelete
  2. its not that much of a pain. back up any bookmarks so you can import them, and thats about it :) chrome does work better then IE.
    john, computer geek says it sounds more like there might be something on your computer causing the problem. a plug in maybe.
    but i'm not seeing any problems on this end.

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  3. Hi Sue,
    I use Mozilla Firefox as a browser, much faster and totally reliable, I haven't used IE for years.
    I have not noticed any difference between pictures I post into fb and blogger, both look identical. I do post direct from my computer though, and don't go via picasa or similar places.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Just been experimenting with Firefox, Chrome and IE.
    Chrome is the only one that allowed me to post pictures immediately, first attempt.

    I've been looking at 'add ons' 'plug-ins' etc and deleted a couple of weird ones but nothing else seems to be amiss

    ReplyDelete
  5. Your portrait is coming right along.

    I use Firefox also and am very leery of almost anything Google any more as they have so many trackers and other stuff that would be considered malware from any other company. I'm wondering if Google has added something to your computer to prevent pics from looking good with any other browser than Chrome? Seems kind of odd that they look ok using it to upload but I'm something of a skeptic and maybe a bit of a conspiracy theorist!

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  6. Saw your title and thought it said Bits and Boobs - but couldn'nt find any boobs! I love the expression on the man's face and the textures. You really are extremely good :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Jan. I wouldn't put anything past these huge IT corporations ... but David and I have had a good luck round all the add ons/plug ins (??!!) and anything else we thought might be affecting photo uploads .. can't find anything amiss but its still happening with Firefox and IE.

    I will use Chrome to upload for the timebeing till it gets sorted.

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  8. Hello Polly
    Thanks :-)
    Talking of Boobs ... whatever happened to Annie Arkwright (her of the scarlet basque)?

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  9. The squirrels always make me smile. I guess they are hungry too and just trying to survive like the rest of us. The portrait is fabulous, Sue! Truly marvelous work and I love the soft wispiness of the ends of his hair.

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  10. Sue, poor Annie Arkwright has been on around the world cruise, you will be hearing about her in a few weeks, some sketches have been done with ideas. Thanks for asking and remembering :)

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