Peter Fox's web site - master contents list

My OMNILOG blog has a plethora of articles, ideas, tutorials, observations and tools.

If you need a
computery person
look here

About

There's a lot of different stuff on this web site.
The blog is fizzing with interest
These pages have been acumulated over many years

Cognologs
Daily workout for the brain. Open-ended chains of thought... prompt... thought etc. on diverse subjects.

Better BBC radio schedule
Say goodbye to awful design and hello to extra features with this Firefox add-on.

Better Live Departure Boards
At-a-glance train-running information and extra features with this Firefox add-on.

Participate in cutting edge developments

Treems
Remote electronic working breakthrough blueprint
12 Rs and maturities
Defining essential basic education

D/a/y
Obvious when you think about it: The time-line model for representing dates is broken. This is how to fix it.

Link > There are 12Rs not 3 Responsibility, Relationships and Remembering for a start

Link > Blog * Blog * Blog
A daily supply of mischief

Link > Have you signed the keep
music live petition yet?

A blackboard for your web page.(As above)
A cool bit of CSS to give a facsimile of a blackboard.

Cursors
Richer web cursors to download.

One day calendar
Generate images like this to make your event posters stand out.

Are you looking for somebody intelligent, versatile and curious?

I'm always on the lookout for interesting jobs that need to be done well?

Email: web0809 (at) vulpeculox.net

Phone: Braintree 517206

Address: 2 Tees Close, Witham, Essex, England

Cycling
See also the wiki for newbie and wannabe cyclists in the teamwork section below
Cycle training in Witham	Cycle safety quiz	Witham Cycle Campaign
I'm qualified to teach the new National Standard. Cycling isn't dangerous if you KNOW how. Do the 20 second safe cycling check. Find out more about how to get these important skills.	Very few people cycle well enough to be safe. They feel unsafe as a result - But once you know the basic rules and get a little experience there's no problem. This is a test of nine questions for experienced cyclists to check they are not unwittingly putting themselves into danger.	When the authorities have lost the plot, forgotten the cyclist, spend without looking at the basics then somebody has to tell them what's what. Started in April 2000. Look at the future in our review then join to help us make it happen.

Pub cycle rides	Road safety scandal
Enjoy days out visiting the best pubs in East Anglia My favourite destinations are easy to get to and suitable for novices. I've written up some routes to tempt you out. Brent Eleigh - Suffolk. Swilland - Suffolk. Broads Green - Essex. And more.	Bogus safety audits and ignorant engineering The only way to force the Highways Agency to address serious safety issues is by direct action. The action continues until the Chief Executive presents a believable action plan. The HA simply ignore alerts and continuing with their bizarre killing schemes.
A wiki for new and possible cyclists : Now open

Three Morris sides in Maldon

The Greenjackets (Cotswold), Dark horse (Border and Rapper) and Alive and Kicking (North West Clog) have great fun and provide lots of pleasure. It's good to see such a vibrant and healthy activity in this tiny town.

Essex gravity guide

Discover the 21 pubs in Essex serving beer straight from the barrel.
Quality rating
How to find country pubs
Enjoy traditional atmosphere
Other things to do and where to stay.

Compasses mystery

Why should three pubs in Essex all called The Compasses be in a straight line 10 miles long? A 4th pub called The Compasses creates a circle and points to an ancient centre of Templar activity. Other strange coincidences. Geomancy, Masons, Templars and the Peasants revolt (1381) could all be linked.(Or not)

2008 AX and 12Rs

AX - Fast, simple, universal accents
How do you do your French homework? Do you use characters that aren't on your keyboard?

If instant, simple accents and special characters is what you want, wherever you are in Windows then AX is just the very thing you need. And it's free.

More about AX and downloading

12Rs - Not just 3

Reading
wRiting
aRithmetic
Relationships
Reasoning
Remembering
Reviewing
Responsibility
Reflecting
Researching
Reporting
Resolve

I'm sure you have no problem with the importance of the "Three Rs" but a little reflection soon shows there are many more 'Essential Rs' that have been forgotten and left to chance. Simply ask yourself what Rs you'd want somebody who worked for you to possess.

Are any of these non-essential?
Should any of these be left out of basic education?
Go and ask your local basic educator what they teach under these categories and how they assess results. Vague isn't it...
... Now go and have a cry in the corner or light a blue touch paper according to your nature.
- Is it bad? Yes.
- Is it serious? Yes.
- Should something be done? Yes.
- Can something be done? Let's hope so.

I'm working on this project at the moment. Follow this link for a couple of papers on the subject.

Curiosities
I've been known as 'Prof' since the age of 11 - as in Mad professor. Part of the job description is being interested in anything esoteric.
Try it yourself There are some experiments that you can only try out for yourself Who to trust How to persuade Personal resoursefulness I'd never have believed it Ideal for any curious person What is proof anyway? Lammas logic game: Play this easy javascript game now. Then go on to introduce yourself to the important subject of mathematical games as you discover what makes it tick.	Physics ! Exploit gravitational energy How to tap clean and practical infinite energy. EGEE. Thoughts on inertia. A Swiss roll in space. What happens when things start to curl up at the edges? Reflections on reflection What happens when bunches of particles meet a barrier? Thoughts on re-dimensioning dimensions How about using say Momentum - Energy - Acceleration instead of MLT?	Odd and old technology A forgotten gyroscopic monorail: Louis Brennan made a full size version with a single ground-level rail and carriges stabilised by gyroscopes. A forgotten calculator: How a slide rule works. Make your own in a couple of minutes. How a boiler works How a sterling engine works

Kent history
Jean Fox, my mum, is a prolific historical researcher
History of Sevenoaks to 1650 The definitive reference for family and local historians. 1.7 Million words 6000 pages 700 transcripts of wills Searchable index of 19,000 North West Kent wills Available on CD	Index of West Kent wills Early wills from a variety of sources covering West Kent up to 1650. Includes parish and occupation. Online index	History of Seal This book, published by [Phillimore] is a pretty comprehensive study of the economic and social development of a village in Kent. It spans from pre-history with a new look at the origin of the name to eye-witness stories of the 'hurricane' of 1987.

Longer papers
These essays, tutotorials, designs and book cover a variety of topics.

The useful Internet

Improving systems

Information technology

Teaching, coaching, support

Essential and obvious quality

These papers contain a huge amount of thought and many useful ideas discussed in detail.

Archives
I've been putting stuff on the web since 1996. In that era you had to think of people who didn't have a browser that could support tables. Connection speeds were 14.4Kbs, that's roughly one hundredth of today's broadband speed and people paid by the minute for their connection so it was convenient to give them as much information as possible at once then allow them to go off-line. We were inventing the Internet as we went along, in particular how to develop styles of presentation and interaction. There were no Cascading Style Sheets, mime-types or blogs. Many people, though they knew the Web was going to be magic, had no idear how they might be able to use it for their own advantage. Here are some pages which may, or may not be 'of their time'.
Guru of the marshes Some tips on web page design. Note the clever navigation. Also a reminder that some things never change. See here	Magazine I wondered if it was possible to create a magazine besed on reader's contributions. Here is the first and only issue including Curiosities about 16th century wills Dyslexia soup - many varieties An Essex pub comes back from the brink, one step at a time Poem: The lonely fish-wife Question: What is the most efficient way of washing brushes?	Railway scandal How do you 'go public' with a technical issue? What's a good writing format and how do you keep page size down when including lots of pictures? This horrifying disregard for safety that extended through many layers of government incomptence needs to stay on the record as a warning for how awful British 'management' can get. See here
Programming I do a lot of programming during which I develop libraries that other people might find useful. As time goes by their relevance declines but there may be people who fancy using the ideas in a library rather than starting from scratch. See here	Burnham rose I'm a serial inventor. Here is a practical technique for putting worrysome things in the past. Surely this is an ideal use for the Web? - Yet in all these years I've not had a single follow-up to this article. Strange... ...Despite the rise of blogs and wikis I think there may be some distance to go in the way we 'create, refine and promulgate knowledge'.	Waistcoats Hand painted silk waistcoats to custom designs. Still nice to look at but Ahem rather tight to wear nowadays. Have a peep

Original songs
There are lots of resons for writing songs: Pull a leg, capture an interesting moment in time for posterity, pay last respects, merge old and new, give people something to think about or just fun adaptations. Tradition begins today is a collection of my original songs with comments about their origins.