Sick of these ads? Of course you are… Well what if you could avoid them altogether?

Here’s a simple tip that heps you do just that,- stopping images and pages from a long list of notorious web sites from being displayed on your browser. These particular ones are hosted on the domain “content.yieldmanager.edgesuite.net” and link to a url at “ad.adperium.com” – literally just a couple of sites among many which are purely for shoving advertising and spam down the viewers throat.

One easy way to stop such ads appearing is to use customise your HOSTS file. This is basically like a local version of a DNS server (those servers that translate domain names into numbers so your browser can find web sites). In the HOSTS file, you’d have a list of all the sites you want blocked and have them correspond to 127.0.0.1 (also known as “localhost”) – so that your browser would try to load the images and pages from your own PC instead of the actual web site.

Handily, someone’s already written a customised HOSTS file for you to use and it’s pretty simple to install. First things first though, – better safe than sorry.. back up the file you’ve got.

I gotta admit… I’m a little bit addicted to twitter… although WHAT a useful site it’s turned out to be after all…

Yesterday I headed into town with a short list of things I had to do and buy. Top of the list was getting a new eye test and glasses, getting copies of the key to the office in work cut and printing up business cards. I went in without a plan, not having an idea of where was best to do what… but twittered once there, asking for recommendations on where to go – and my twitter buddies didn’t fail me. I’m only going back into town today (on the next train) because I didn’t get a chance to go to the place that I was recommended to get business cards from (oh, and I realised I need to get new speaker cable and a couple of other little things for my DJ gear).

In the last week or so…

• My car gave up. Just decided that it can’t be arsed going any faster than 30-odd km/h. Luckily, this happened after I’d gotten off the motorway and was only a couple of miles from home. A mechanic friend of mine is having a look at it tomorrow. Personally, I think the clutch is knackered, but I know less about how cars work than I know about how womens’ brains work (i.e.: very little at all)!
• I DJ’d for a 21’st birthday party here in Donabate and, for the first time, used a big screen for music videos and messages to the party goers… was great craic altogether and the punters had a feckin’ brilliant time… one bad thing though was that the pub I was gigging in (and leaving my gear in over-night) was broken into later in the night (a while after closing)… by someone who was there at the party that evening but, luckily for me, nothing of mine was touched.
• I got a bunch of new PS3 games … loving the Simpsons game to bits – hilarious and fun, am stuck on Resistance 2 – killing alien scum in America, and getting stuck-in (online) in Farcry 2 – going to deepest Africa, meeting interesting people, and then killing them … I’m not much of a gamer to be honest – and I haven’t even touched Little Big Planet or Need For Speed: Undercover yet, 2 days after buying them as I’ve also been busy with…
• College assignments - they’re piling up! I just got my ‘Practical Skills’ (Studio Operations) one finished and I’ve to finish my ‘Broadcast Voice’ one (bit of paperwork to do) but just got ‘Media Law’ and ‘Marketing’ assignments today and have a group assignment for ‘Radio Management’ (applying for a broadcasting license from the B.C.I.) to get stuck into A.S.A.P.!
• Speaking of college, I got confirmation from Newstalk that I’ll be with them for work experience at the end of the month, working on the Tom Dunne Show – so I’m very much looking forward to that… should be a good experience working on a busy national station!

I’m pretty certain that’s all my news for now… right now I’m downloading the Windows 7 Beta… and I’m not really sure why… It’s thundering along at around the 300kB/s mark though, which is nice

Microsoft have come up with a follow-up to their first Gates & Seinfeld TV ad.

This time the lads are ‘connecting’ with people (by moving into their house and taking over the daughter’s pink bedroom)…

Microsoft’s advertising boffins decided to employ the services of one Jerry Seinfeld (he who is famous for creating a sit-com that was ‘about nothing’) and their ex-CEO and one of the world’s wealthiest men, Bill Gates. Makes sense I suppose,- could see them forming a credible comedy pairing… until I saw the ad they created…

Now, to be fair, this ad is just supposed to “set up the characters” and not specifically meant to be amusing… but it’s hard to see how it advertises anything that’s anything to do with Microsoft (unless they ARE actually going to make our PC’s tastier and chewier…)

There’s more of these to come so I guess, ultimately, time will tell whether this pairing works or not. For now, though, Apple have nothing to worry about. Their ads which are shorter and cleverer, still reign supreme.