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We've been away for the last week and a half, we drove to Germany for a short break and caught up with family and friends. The weather wasn't very welcoming though, we arrived in hard driving rain and had to navigate our way through the D?sseldorf ring road system barely able to see more than a few meters in front of the car.

Fortunately we arrived safely and were able to get ourselves settled into a hotel without too much bother. The city hadn't changed much since we left, contrast that with Spain where there is just so much going on that in six months a lot can change.

While I was in Germany I bought a new Wacom tablet for my laptop which I'm keen to try out with Inkscape, my drawing abilities with a touchpad are OK, but I really want something better and the tablet should make a difference.

We also sold our car, and plan to buy electric bicycles in Spain to use as our main source of transport, well, other than buses and trains for longer trips. I plan to write a bit about how great battery powered bikes are.

The Internet is so huge these days that staying upto date on your favorite things just becomes too difficult, I mean, pick a recent box office hit, or chart topping band and Google them and see how many results come up, then try figure out the latest news or gossip about them.

It isn't easy, and wading through hundreds of pages is just too time consumimng for me. There is a new social network that got my attention, it's called pop bandit and they promise to find the latest info for you, but the site is more like a social network because when you start tracking a topic or vote on topics they automatically introduce you to other members who have the same interests.

I joined up and I've started a new topic about Berlin so I can get the latest about my favorite city, but I'll need to login to my pop bandit account in a couple of days to see if its been approved, but I'm also tracking Madonna and Tyra Banks.

Movie Recommendations though are what I most want to use Pop Bandit for. I don't get to see movie previews on TV here, and often I don't even know a movie has been released, so being able to see recommendations based on my voting will keep my upto date, then I can just buy the DVD online. Cool!

How often do you come across a site with 125x125 banners on them, or maybe you see them on every site because drop Entrecards, and a lot of the time they look really terrible.

I know some people don't have the expertise to produce a good looking banner, but why on earth would yo settle for something that does nothing for you. Let's put aside the quality of the banner and only look at them from a marketing point of view.

125 pixels isn't very big so it's important to make sure you make good use of it to get traffic. If you look at a lot of banners, many don't have any text whatsoever, perhaps just a photo of the author or some icon. How many of these relate to their website at all? Well, who can say? If the image on a 125x125 banner doesn't include either text ora visual representation of your main keyword, it won't be as effective.

These days with Entrecard having a real value I think it's important to maximise the number of clicks you get so even if you can't design a button, at least use a background color or image and put your main keyword on the banner. I guarantee you'll get more traffic because of it.

If you need web hosting for any template you download, or perhaps you're just wanting to change to another provider, make sure you compare more than two or three, perhaps even as many as the top ten or more.

I say this because often what you think you need, and what you end up with can be two different things and in webhosting you often don't know what you need until you've looked around and seen what's on offer. Quite a few webhosts provide free domain names with their plans, while others have lower monthly fees if you pay in advance. Make sure you email them or test their live chat first to make sure they respond in a timely manner.

With that in mind, be sure to read the "Learn more about Web Hosting" articles that give a great roundup of what to expect, such as the web hosting guide.

Science Daily reports that researchers are perfecting a method that allows severely handicapped people to use a computer or move a wheelchair simply by moving their tongue left or right.

They're so happy with the results of their tests that they actually believe it is possible for handicapped people to teach the device many commands based on where in the mouth they position their tongue, perhaps even to the extent of using a different command for each tooth that is touched.

Now I don't know about you but I think this is completely revolutionary and should be given the highest priority to make it happen. The way it works is that the tongue isn't controlled via the Spinal column, it has it's own direct connections to the brain so is very rarely damaged when spinal injury results in severe handicapping.

A small magnet is attached to the tongue, either by tape, a piercing, or even using surgery, and a small array of magnet sensors on the boom of a headset detects the position of the magnet and sends this to a small computer that converts it into a command. Isn't that awesome?

As the harsh heat of summer hits can I just say how grateful I am to have three Air Conditioners around the house. We've got one in the living room and one each in the two bedrooms and believe me they do make a big difference.

Ours are the split system air conditioners with the hot part outside so it's a little bit quieter inside. with temperatures over 30 degrees celsius in the shade you can understand why we love our air conditioner.

John Lennon said it best when he wrote his masterpiece song "Give Peace a Chance" but sadly people are still suffering the effects of war and dictatorships every day around the world.

I saw this on the news this morning about a 16yr old New York Teenager, Trevor Dougherty, who somehow managed to get nearly 6000 people together and create a giant human peace sign on the lawn of his local park.

The story is now doing the YouTube rounds and is turning viral which is really cool, the more people we can get believing peace is the way forward instead of the barrel of a gun the better. The only thing that concerns me is that many of the people most at risk from war are also the people who don't have Internet access so they may never see it.