Revelation TV Moving to Spain via a Spanish Broadcasting Licence

It was announced yesterday that Revelation TV would be moving its broadcasting licence from the UK to Spain. This is presumably because they have been unable to operate within the OFCOM Broadcast Code.

Considering that their prevous breaches of broadcasting standards were around issues like homosexuality and abortion they can now rest happy, knowing that they can say as many nasty things as they like about homosexuals, or show as many aborted foetuses as they like during childrens hour.

Presumably they will still be happy to accept gift aid support from the UK government whilst broadcasting from offshore?

From their official announcement:

All TV stations have to have a license issued by their regulatory authority. Since its inception in 2003 Revelation TV’s license has been with the UK regulator, Ofcom. The staff at Ofcom have been helpful to the Station, but there have been issues of conflict as Revelation has sought to be truthful to its Christian basis.

Revelation TV now has a Spanish license and the new Channel will begin to operate under that licence from the 1st of April. Since the beginning of 2010, Howard has been commuting between London and Spain to make the necessary arrangements for the Station to comply with the requirements of its Spanish license.

Of course "their regulatory authority" is still OFCOM. They are just choosing to sail under a flag of convenience so they don't have to comply with British standards, just like many of the adult orientated channels on Sky. Strange bedfellows indeed.

See this article for further background information on Revelation TV:

http://www.ecalpemos.org/2009/04/genesis-tv-and-revelation-tv.html

A Potted Biography

Born in Edinburgh in 1967 ,the result of a fling between my mother and a much older man, after which she ran away from London on the first train north. A half brother and three half sisters turned up later.

Adopted and brought up in Stirling, with considerable time spent in Fife in the family caravans.

Worked for Dixons for a short time when I left school.

Then to college for an HND in Communication Studies and on to a job working for the RNIB where I did everything from emptying collecting boxes to travelling the country smashing out Basil Brush's teeth with a hammer (after some kid detached them and choked on them).

Then to university to read Divinity (this didn't work as I am now an atheist).

Got married while a student and have three children.

Then back to the voluntary sector and head of fundraising with various charities.

Then got fed up and started a business. Sold that in 2007 via a merger. Fell out with the new owners and sold half my shares in 2009.

Now working at the Eric Liddell Centre in Edinburgh doing fundraising (mainly trusts and foundations) and general marketing. I have a lot less money than I used to, but a lot more personal satisfaction.

When I am not doing that I play the trumpet, penny whistle, listen to music and read books.

Full professional profile here.

I will never read all the books I want to.

Here is a frightening fact.

Being aged 42, if I live to 75 and read one book a week, the maximum number of books I will ever read is 1,716.

In the UK there are over 200,000 books published per year which means I will never read 99.974% of them.

So what are the 1,716 books I should definitely read?

Demo of my Shaw Low D Whistle

A demo recording of my new Shaw Low D whistle. Some people say that the Shaw needs a lot of breath but I think its more the speed of air that it needs so I breath through it like I do with my trumpet - concentrating on the speed of air rather than the quantity. If you have one and are having problems blowing it try keeping your cheeks in and raising the level of your tongue (think pronouncing "sss").

One of the big advantages of the Shaw Low D is the narrow diameter of the tube where the holes are and the close spacing of the holes themselves. A lot easier to play than my home made low D which has conventional hole spacing.

How to connect a computer running Ubuntu Linux to a printer on a Windows network.

Connecting an Ubuntu machine is remarkably easy:

1. On the Ubuntu machine go to System > Administration > Printing.
2. Click on the New button.
3. The system will search for printers, but not find any.
4. A new dialogue box pops up.
5. Click on "Network Printer" and "Windows printer via Samba".
6. In the box next to smb:// click on the browse button.
7. A box pops up showing the network.
8. If it doesn't then you might need to type the network name into the box next to smb://. You can get this information from a machine on the Windows network but the default is often MSHOME.
9. Double click on the name of the network then on the machine that the printer is connected to. You should then see its name.
10. Select this printer and follow the on screen instructions to install the driver. Choose the "from database" option first as the drivers for most printers will be available from there.

The procedure is the same for wired or wireless printers and computers on the network.

This information is correct for Ubuntu 9.10

Ubuntu Display Resolution Stuck on 800x600

This article refers to Ubuntu 9.10.

If you can't see a resolution option of higher than 800x600 this probably means that Ubuntu has not recognised your graphics card when the operating system was installed. The main group of cards that are not detected properly are Nvidia Geforce cards running under AMD systems.

To fix this go to settings and then hardware drivers. Ubuntu should search for appropriate drivers and install them. You will be asked to activate the driver and then reboot. Now when you go into the display settings you will be told that Ubuntu can't control these drivers do you want to use the manufacturers software? You select Yes and it launches the Nvidia driver interface where you can set the resolution to all of the ones that are possible. You should also see your monitors correct name showing (assuming it has been able to detect it correctly via its plug and play identifier).

I can't guarantee this will work for you, but it has worked for me and its a lot easier than many of the solutions I have seen posted in forums. Its probably better to try my method before delving into the operating system at the terminal window.

Tips for finding an available domain name

I can remember how easy it used to be to find a domain name for a web site, but as time has gone on the popular extensions like .com have filled up considerably.

I operated a domain registration service for many years and helped lots of people find suitabled domain names so here is my guide to finding a suitable one:

• Decide whether you want something easy to remember like plumber.com or whether you would be just as happy with joebloggstheplumber.com.
• If you do want a one word or memorable domain you are either going to have to buy it from its current owner or register it in one of the newer, less populated extensions like .me or .im. This can present credibility problems as people tend to trust .com or country specific domains like .co.uk or .ie more if its a commercial site they are visiting. Using a tld from a country other than the one you are physically located in can cause problems with Google not returning you in searches made by users in your own country. This problem has lessened because Google allow you to set the country in their Webmaster Tools (if you have not used Google webmaster tools go there now, its a must have tool and its free).
• Do you need a descriptive domain name at all? Not all memorable domain names bear any relation to the services associated with them. Think Amazon.com or Ebay.co.uk. Neither of these domain names mentions auctions or books. Wih this in mind you could make up an entirely fictitious word that sounds good, or you could do what I did when I inverted the word "someplace" to make ecalpemos.org. Another idea I have used is to add numbers to the end of words. I currently own musician2.com and musician2.co.uk which I am planning to develop into a site for musicians. Its easy to remember and was easy to register at the time so try adding a number onto the end of your chosen word. How about plumber1.co.uk?
  
• You might also want to consider a domain name which incorporates a search term into it like hire-car-in-edinburgh.co.uk. This might help with search engine placement, but it might not be so good for the overall promotion of your business. Google and other search engines reward content quality, relevance and updating frequency so you can do as well in the long run with a domain name that is not laden with keywords.

The next stage is to search for available domains based on your ideas. This can be surprisingly tricky because a lot of domain registration sites have very slow or cumbersome search systems.

Here are some more intelligent search sites that I have used recently:

http://www.dropped.ie (returns .ie and .com suggestions)
http://instantdomainsearch.com/ (searches for availability as you type)
http://www.bustaname.com/ (allows you to put in multiple words and select suffixes to add)

There are a surprising number of good domains out there which have either never been registered or have expired at some point so spend some time analyzing your needs and you should be able to find something that works for you.