Self rewinding hose reels

Slowly but steadily, I am transforming our garden. It is proving to be quite tough as I have to deal with tough grass, lots of pieces of junk buried in the soil and deep roots of the brambles that the landlord cut down a few months earlier.

Right now I am using a watering can to water my plants, which is not very convenient. I thought about buying a water hose but I know of the problems associated with hoses, namely rolling up them up and storage after use. Just imagine the work if they are a 100 ft or more in length.

I was surprised when I read about the NO-CRANK™ range of hose reel. As the name suggest, these hoses are hands-free rewinding garden hoses. Intrigued by it all, I found out that Hydro-Pro™ system is a water piston engine that uses the water pressure to rewind up to 175ft of garden hose. In other words, it is like an engine and powered by water.

The hoses are available in various designs and different price ranges to suit every gardener. I am seriously considering getting one.

UK in Summer time

This Monday I took my daughter to her play school at the usual time and was surprised to find that there were no other parents around. Usually it would be quite hard to find parking but there was no one in front of the school that day.

"Is it a holiday today?" I thought to myself. However, was quite relieved when I found that the gate was open.

Then it suddenly struck me.

In the Winter, the UK uses Coordinated Universal Time (almost equal to Greenwich Mean Time). However, at 1.00 am on 25 March 2007 (Friday), civil time returned to British Summer Time (BST). The whole of UK set their clocks forward by one hour last Friday.

I had forgotten to set my wrist watch and my daughter was late to school by exactly and hour.

Trying to lose weights - Avoid scales

I was going through this health and fitness blog "Building A Healthy Body, One Day At A Time" (yeah I know it's a long title), when I came across this interesting post - "Dump The Scale"

A lot of people trying to lose weight will religiously climb on their scales after every workout or in the morning, to see whether they have lost any weight. According to bodyforlifer26, watching the scales too closely can actually discourage you from tying to lose weight. She says "

Toss the scale. If you can't completly toss it, at least only pull it out once every two weeks or so and don't rely to heavily on what it says."

Actually that kind of makes sense. Do you agree?

I have actually experienced it myself. In Kedah, I had started swimming twice every week and was quite disappointed when I found out that I hadn't lost any weight at all. In the end I just didn't look at the scales at all.

Latest video from Iraq

Saddam is gone but the violence hasn't ended.

Bombs are still going off.

And the country is worse off than before.

Online POS software

POS stands for point of sale. It is the checkout counter in a shop or anywhere else where you pay for your product or service.

There are several POS and inventory management software on the market. I just got to know about the MerchantOS POS and inventory management software. What makes the MerchantOS different is that it is a web based POS system This means that you only need an internet connection to help you record sales and keeping track of inventory. No need to install the software on your computer or other technical stuff.

Anyway, I was just going through the MerchantOS.com website. The design is quite simple, nothing flashy here but gets it's message across. I guess that is quite suitable for a B2B website. The website is quite easy to navigate and very informative.

They have a support forum but I would have also liked a simple FAQ page with a link on the front page.

I have to admit that the home page does look a bit congested. Maybe they should get rid of all the wasted spaces on the sides which would help in a better layout. The web designers can play around with colors and font sizes to give the site a more professional look. Right now it looks like a blog. Some people feel that you should not have a lot of text on the home page, but I beg to disagree. You should have all the important information on the home page and linked to other pages with more information. I found out what I was looking for on the MerchantOS.com website right on their home page.

If you have a business, you can check out their 3 minute demo or log on into their demo account to give it a trial run.

The information that MerchantOS customers have processed around $5 million in sales in 5 months, is quite impressive. Read about this and other news on their blog here.

Kids forced into marriages

Children as young as 10 are being forced into arranged marriages. I guess this is nothing new in several developing countries. However, I was shocked to learn that this is occurring here in the UK and more precisely in Coventry.

The Coventry Times reports that many Asian families (read Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi) are taking their children out of their schools, shipping them abroad and forcing them into arranged marriages.

The report says that the authorities keep quiet for fear of upsetting the Asian communities involved. I agree when the newspaper adds that this is a case of "..political correctness gone mad".

Just proves that even though these people are living in a developed country, their mentality is still way behind.

AT&T to Cingular and back again

When I first heard about it, it was really confusing case of branding. First of all, AT&T became Cingular. Now Cingular is becoming AT&T again. Unless you are someone from the industry, I guess you are scratching your head in utter confusion.

OK, let me start from the beginning. Cingular Wireless was founded in 2001 as a joint venture of SBC Communications (now AT&T) and BellSouth (which AT&T acquired in 2006). Cingular, later purchased AT&T Wireless Services on October 26, 2004, making Cingular the largest wireless provider in the United States.

Cutting short the story and back to the present - a few later after SBC and AT&T merged, plans to to market Cingular's service under the AT&T brand were released in 2005. Finally, as part of the transition from the Cingular brand to AT&T, a new multi-media campaign was launched early in January this year.

I guess the re-branding may be a smart move on the part of AT&T, as the Cingular name as suffered from some bad publicity in the press in recent years. It should be pointed out that AT&T is the top carrier in the United States, based on customer totals. However, it may take some time before consumers accept that Cingular is the new AT&T.

It is expected that the first cell phone under the new AT&T brand will probably by the Apple iPhone, which many consider as a Cingular exclusive model - "the AT&T iPhone".

Some feel that the company should have waited until they had launched the phone to go for the rebranding.

Take a look at this gadget and you will definitely agree when I say that it more than a gadget but is simply a work of art.

You can check out the other Cingular phones available on the Wirefly.com website. Wirefly.com is an authorized dealer of Cingular phones.