Philip Nicosia

I noticed today that I am finally number 1 in all 3 of the big search engines, Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Not only that but I also have the number 2 spot as well.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rls=SUNA,SUNA:2006-50,SUNA:en&q=Philip+Nicosia

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?p=philip+nicosia&fr=FP-tab-web-t340&ei=UTF-8&meta=vc%3D

http://search.msn.co.uk/results.aspx?FORM=FREEWS&cp=1252&q=philip+nicosia

It’s the first time I have noticed this as before either Google or Yahoo would relegate me to 2nd or third position.

How long this will last for is anyones guess and could be gone by tomorrow.

One thing I did notice with Google is that if I didn’t write a page for a while and update the site I would drop down the rankings. Within a day or 2 of adding a page I was back up to number 1.

Maybe there is a lesson to be learnt there?

One of the gadgets I got this Christmas was a Nintendo DS Lite with the Brain Training game. I wanted one of these because as I’ve got older my memory and concentration levels seem to have got worse over time and I wanted a fun way to stop the rot.

An example of this is at a recent dinner party with family one of my brothers mentioned that he had been on holiday in Turkey. I told him that we had been their too and he asked where we went. I asked my Girlfriend and she couldn’t remember either but we did agree between us that it was probably a couple of months ago. I told my brother that he was lucky we could remember going there at all but where we went was too much to ask. That’s how bad things got.

Anyway, I plugged it in and went to the quick play to find out my brain age. In this mode it just gives you a rough idea and I was horrified to be told my brain age was in it’s 80’s. Bearing in mind the lowest score and best you could get is 20 I was mortified.

So I duly went through the training programs and did a more accurate test to be told my brain age was 78. An improvement but still a worry.

After about a week I have managed to get that down to 34 but there is still a long way to go. I’ve found that I have got a mental block on my 8 times table so simple questions like 7 x 8 I get wrong quite often. It’s strange because I know the answer to 8 x 7 so I am now learning to reverse the question to answer it faster.

I have a couple of issues with the game. It has trouble recognizing my number 8’s when I write them which causes my scores to go down when in reality I did get the question right and the letter recognition is hopeless in my case so when you have to remember 20 words and write them down afterwards it sometimes takes 6 or 7 attempts for my words to be recognized properly which again keeps my score down.

All in all though it’s quite fun to do and worth the effort. It certainly has helped me so far.

Christmas seems to have crept up really quickly this year. As ever I have been disorganized in sorting out Christmas presents but managed to get them all sorted out today. One advantage to being disorganized is that the shops have got some great offers on things and the savings over the price a couple of weeks ago are considerable.

I saved loads this year. I was extremely lucky though as everything I needed to buy hadn’t sold out and I guess there are loads of things that have and if you didn’t get them weeks ago then you’ve got no chance now.

Anyway, Happy Christmas to everyone or if you are offended by that statement, Happy Holidays!

I just got an email from the Bank of America telling me they have blocked my account.

Your Online Banking is Blocked

Because of unusual number of invalid login attempts on you account, we had to believe that, their might be some security problem on you account. So we have decided to put an extra verification process to ensure your identity and your account security. Please click on Link Below to continue to the verification process and ensure your account security. It is all about your security. Thank you.

Couldn’t have happened at a worse time of year. Hold on, I don’t have an account at the Bank of America!

I can’t believe people fall for these emails. I guess they must do or these scammers wouldn’t send them out.

A lot of the UK has been suffering from Fog for the last few days now causing havoc with travel on the roads and in the air. As usual we are not prepared for anything but admittedly this Fog is unusual in that it’s been around for so long.

Right now this is the view across the lake

And below is what I would normally see

The fog or the cold weather is also affecting the wireless link to the camera. I don’t think it has worked properly for the last couple of the days but it seems to be okay now.

Can Fog affect wireless transmissions?