Simulations-4-U

Technorati

2007-04-16T22:40:00.000+01:00

Websites and Search Engine Optimisation.

2006-11-30T12:13:00.000Z

I have been a little reticent with offering of my SEO marketing skills.

I can offer you all Search Engine Optimisation activities as I have excellent experience with and of -
Google Adwords (and Analytics), Keyword Analysis, Overture and also for larger organisations Affiliate marketing and organising activities.

Why not contact me now to discuss how I can help you.

Tel Bob Veitch on UK 07799 406215

As you can see from my website I also offer website design /hosting / free monthly updates.
Discrete event computer simulation services using "Simul8" to Stimulate your business.
Macro preparation for MS Excel.

Forth One - Help a Child Charity Auction 26 Nov 06

2006-11-26T11:50:00.000Z

I am pleased to say that today I am offering a website in support of the Forth One Help a Child Charity Auction.

The winning client will obtain a whole website - including the design, domain name (subject to availability), hosting, standard search engine optimisation factors and free monthly updates.
The website may not include any database functionality and the maximum size is 50MB - but this is negotiable of course.

The only costs could be nominal ones for any travel if outside of 10 miles of Edinburgh City centre.

Home page

MS Excel - Covariance, Correlation and Chi^2 tests

2006-11-18T14:24:00.001Z

I have recently tried to help someone with some data analysis and this became the basis for the following spreadsheet - 1MB - enable macros for it to work fully.

How to use.
Right Click - on the link above to download and "Save as.." the spreadsheet to your computer.
Have your data open in Excel (with labels in the top row and preferably no gaps) and Copy.
Open the above spreadsheet and Paste Special - Values into the opening page at A1.
I strongly recommend that you then - Save As ....
See the Results by following the links (if macros enabled) or by moving to the different sheets as normal.

Here are the Wikipedia definitions and pages for the results generated in this spreadsheet:-
Correlation

Covariance

Chi^2 Test

I hope that you find this spreadsheet useful and I would welcome any comments or suggestions you may have for it.

"Simul8" Software for sale

2006-11-07T11:30:00.000Z

I have a new (unopened) box containing Simul8 Release 9 which you can purchase now for only £200 inclusive of post and packaging (if within the UK).

For more details on how to purchase this as well as high resolution images of the box please see my web page.

This is a fully featured and effective software package allowing you to prepare discrete event computer simulations of your business processes.

"Simul8 provides the simulation platform to plan, model, and analyse your processes"

"Create animated simulations, measure, analyse, improve and control your processes, increase workflow with less resources, develop multiple "What if" scenarios, identify and eliminate constraints, communicate planned changes, integrate with Microsoft Visio for process mapping and 6 sigma programmes"

Bob Veitch, Simulations-4-U.com, UK-07799-406215

Latest Simulation Offer

2006-10-03T19:05:00.000+01:00

Hello,

I have recently posted an advert on the Edinburgh Gumtree within the "other business services" section.

I have also added a new telephone number where you can call me via SkypeIn - at my expense on 0131-208-4086

As usual I am still offering 2 hours of Simulation work for free and thereafter project work start from £200 - all prices on application.
All details at Simulations-4-u.com

Bob Veitch

A new beginning

2006-08-18T23:42:00.000+01:00

Hello,

I have finally set up a blog on my personal website and therefore this blog will now start to be used for what it really should be.
(ie everything to do with websites preparation hostng and updating, discrete event computer simulation using Simul8 and finally Microsoft Excel macro preparation.)

I hope that this becomes a useful resource to you and I look forward to receiving your comments.

Bob

Changes

2006-07-03T11:19:00.000+01:00

Hello,

You may not have noticed some recent changes hence this posting :-

All personal stuff that used to be within this site has now been moved to here.

The old content within this blog will also be moved.

I intend then to restart this blog as a much more focused place for promoting my skills relating to :-
Web Design preparation and hosting,
Discrete event computer Simulation (specifically Simul8) and finally
Microsoft Excel Macros applications

I welcome all comments and hope that you find this website useful.

Bob Veitch

Paragliding, dinner and violin

2006-05-03T17:00:00.001+01:00

Hi,

As usual I havent been keeping this as upto date as I would wish - so here is a rapid summary.

Applied for a job at Edinburgh University - haven`t heard anything yet.

Paragliding
On Thursday -27th April, Friday and Saturday 30th April- at Hillend on all ocassions.

Thursday flight - Forward launch in very light NE conditions - tried to fly the East face - not very well - did get near a hovering hawk though, and then back to the North face before a fairly rapid descent to landing. Maybe 10 minutes. I was mega nervous earlier as stronger conditions prevailed - so I walked down hill a bit prior to take off whilst Faulkner was flying.

Friday - Forward Launch, again NE - very rapid top to bottom.

Saturday - had been talking with Ping then thought it was too windy so got swimming stuff and flying kit into car - drove to the Commie - saw someone flying so drove over. Only to find that I had brought the wrong bag - 2 harnesses rather than the new harness and wing - Doh !. Result returned home swapped and back at the hill about 5:45pm.
Saw Paddy and Lionel (visiting from Spain) who were going for cup of tea at The Steading. I went up hill - no one else present and had an extended TTB - 5 minutes - in light NNE conditions- really nice. Packed up, collected camera and then filmed Lionel and Paddy coming into land a little later.
Here is the whole video - approx 61Mb

Other news - had an excellent Carry out Indian from Abduls (as usual) which I took to Susans.

Monday 1st May I cooked a Venison and wild fruit Haggis for Mum and Dad (Dad had bought it from a superb butchers in Melrose) - this was truly superb - no fat whatsoever flavoursome and served with the usual potatoes, neeps and a red onion "marmalade". Followed by a Rhubarb crumble that Dad had prepared. All in all a lovely evening.

Yesterday - mainly spent trying to learn some Chinese prior to the lesson - I was still embaressingly rubbish but I tried.

Today - Wednesday - actually did some violin practice - the first time for a very long time. Ping even suggested I wasn`t too bad - I dont know what the neighbours think - though there is now evidence of plummeting property prices !!

Bob

CIW - The next stage

2006-04-23T12:47:00.000+01:00

Here are the details of what is within the CIW module that I have just signed up for.

Paragliding, life and website stuff

2006-04-23T11:35:00.000+01:00

Hello,
Apologies for not having posted for some time, my news is:-

Went paragliding at the Moorfoots near Middleton on Thursday 20th April- gave Cliff a lift. My ground handling was apalling - ring rusty with very light conditions.
I was being unduly nervous - anyhow result was eventually just 1 top to bottom with a forward launch and a straight glide. Which I enjoyed once in the air. My first flight since March. What breeze there was was from more Westerly than expected so not directly onto the hill.

I have been spending a fair amount of time recently voluntarily working on the SHPF website - however I still feel it is a bit cluncky, there are some errors and I havent got all the functionality that I am aiming for implemented yet. The problem then will be obtaining content.

Received my CIW Associate certificate - and on Friday I paid for the Site Designer module to continue my studying.

Applied for a job at Edinburgh University - web based and within the Humanities Department.

Finally went swimming yesterday - I havent been going frequently enough recently - so that was good - about 2km at the "Commie"

This afternoon / evening going over to Susan and Allans to cook dinner for the family. Dad has also invited me to join him this afternoon at The Hub where there is a Tesco Scottish food tasting and I am very tempted but I should really do some cv related stuff so at the moment I am doing this !. I shall probably go then.

I look forward to receiving your comments.

Latest web site changes

2006-04-07T00:59:00.000+01:00

Hello,

The latest changes I have made to my website are the addition of :-

China-2005 which consists of about 200 photos that I took in Guangzhou, and on the holiday Island of Hainan - and more specifically Sanya when I visited my friend Ping during The Chinese New year in 2005. This page runs some php and as such may take some time to download fully.
This includes pictures of the park in the Shamian area of Guangzhou, the fireworks on the 1st day of the Lunar New year, Sanya, a temple complex near Sanya and unusually - taken whilst on a visit to Monkey Island - a couple of photos showing a goat walking a tightrope with a monkey on its back !!.

Sycamore-flower - is a short series of photos of just that - taken the other day with nice light and included on the website just because I liked how they look.

I have updated and tidied up a this page as well. As usual all of my other pictures are to be found via links on personal page.

All comments gratefully received.

Bob

CIW Update and other news

2006-04-03T01:58:00.000+01:00

Deepest apologies for not having updated this blog for a while - It is very late now so this will be a brief posting.

CIW - I did final exam on the Friday 27th March - passed with 82% - good drinking session afterwards.

Cinema - went to see 2 films in one week both at the Filmhouse - the first in The French Film Festival -Housewarming - a comedy about home improvement - excellent, funny.
The second was about Burt Munro in "The worlds fastest Indian" which I would also strongly recommend you see.

IT stuff - I have started converting my site to using some php - for example :-
My panoramas from all round the world as well as my personal page (which has been extensively modified and I now think that it is starting to look OK) which contains all the links to directories of photos including paragliding, travel, and miscellaneous
As you can see I have also changed the blog template to be similar to the rest of the site.
I have also been working on the website for The Scottish Hang-gliding and Paragliding Federation - specifically the database - but much more work required here before I show it to anyone!

Other news - I remet an old friend on Sunday night at the cinema - Norman Stewart whom I havent seen since my schooldays - so about 23 years ago. So that was great.

I have started to update my CV to reflect obtaining the CIW certification.

CIW exam update

2006-03-26T13:37:00.000+01:00

Hello,

On Wednesday 22nd I went in again to Net Resources and did yet another mock exam - Exam 1 again - making a total of 6 practices and I got 88% overall.

Thursday was a lecture day - with a fiendishly difficult written exam to start with - just on Internet Busines foundations - for which I only got 27 out of 46 - set by Peter. This was followed by some web forms practice. Ian Torrance joined us for lunch.

Friday was the big day - I went to bed fairly early and got up relatively late and then just read through the exam questions where I had been wrong in the past and then cycled upto the Pitman place in York Place and sat the exam.

Result - 82% - Pass. I am happy with that - although everyone else in the class will probably get a higher score when they sit the exam over the coming few weeks.

My spreedsheet of CIW mock results.

The only slight disappointment was that we dont get a break down of the percentages for each subject, nor do we find out which questions were answered incorrectly.

The followup drinking with Alan, Rob, Stef, Richard and Chris - at the Cask and Barrel in Broughton Street was excellent and then followed by a late night curry fully made up for that though !!

Whatever - I am now an Associate Certified Internet Webmaster. Feel free to congratulate me on my successful completion of a good, useful and interesting course - now all I have to do is update my CV and get a job.

Bob.

Dads Birthday

2006-03-22T19:57:00.000Z

Hello,
Just a short post : -
Yesterday 21st march - The spring solstice - was dads 80th Birthday.
He and I went for a drink at lunchtime with a bite to eat - which was nice. In the evening Susan and I met at Mum and Dads and I cooked dinner, and dad opened his presents - the key one being a week visit to a cottage near Alnwick in May. Couple of bottles of red wine consumed - making for a really lovely day.

Other news heard that Cliff went cross country at the Pentlands - sounds great.

Today I did another CIW mock exam - 88% (test 1 repeated) - so reasonably happy. I also went for my first swim for a while so that was also good.

Bob.

Paragliding at Hillend near Edinburgh Sunday 19th March 06

2006-03-21T00:45:00.000Z

Hi,

Just to inform anyone reading this that I have added a new page of pictures showing mainly myself but also Faulkner flying our paragliders at Hillend late afternoon on Sunday 19th March 06.

Click the title to go directly to the page.

Bob.

Skiing, Archie, CIW, Miscellaneous

2006-03-14T23:11:00.000Z

Hello,
Apologies for not posting here for a whole week so lots to catch up on.

1) CIW - Last Thursday I went into Netresources as usual and did another mock CIW Foundations exam and was well depressed at the outcome. I had completed quite a lot of studying but the results were terrible 67% and lower than the previous time. Since then I have changed my study regime slightly and went in again today and am much happier getting 79% overall.

To see details of my results so far then follow this Excel spreedsheet link
Next Mock Thursday 16th March - also my Birthday I shall be . . . . . old!

2) Archie - My nephew was 1 yesterday - so the Veitch clan gathered at The Cramond Inn for lunch and then returned to my place for birthday cake and more photos. A lovely time and it is amazing how quickly that time has flown by. Some of the photos will be posted hopefully tomorrow.

3) Skiing - Over the weekend I went with Neil Williams to his house in Nethy Bridge - near Aviemore along with his wife Clare, and son Gavin. Richard and Martin came up separately on and were skiing on Friday. We just had a few beers and chat etc in the evening.
Saturday morning Neil, Clare and Gavin went early to the Lecht to hire skies whilst Richard Martin and I had a leisurely morning. I cooked breakfast and then we went skiing at the Lecht - ski resort - link above arriving at about 10am.(After a slightly interesting drive to the resort - traffic stuck in snow for a while. A day of skiing - gosh I ached afterwards (I last went skiing on 6th March 2005 - so March always seems to be the best time of the year for me to go skiing).
Richard not feeling well - so we returned to Nethy Bridge after a pint - showers and get changed and then we went out for dinner at a local hotel where the food wqas excekllent and the portions were gargantuan - I shall post a page and a link hopefully tomorrow as well.
Sunday - spent quite a few hours studying CIW - whilst waiting for the roads to be opened again due to snow went for a walk with Gavin, Clare and Gavin and left about 5pm. Returned to Edinburgh about 8pm with Richard and Martin.

4) Today did mock exam and then lunch with Alan, Mike, and Rob from CIW before popping over tohad 1 pint but spent a few hours doing some Chinese studying. I then cycled along to the University for the Chinese class - as usual I found this very difficult then via chip shop home.

5) Dad has received his new (Samsung) tv and it looks great - however after spending all that money he found on Sunday that although it implies it has all the free digital channels there was no signal present with the indoor aerial so they could not be obtained.
Dad was quite miffed to say the least at this. The result is that on Sunday night (late) I put the digibox (with the same aerial) back into the loop so he has all the channels and we have both been investigating aerials today and dad has spent more money and purchased a new aerial - dont know yet if it works.

6) Had a long chat using Skype with my friend Simon Sheppard last night so that was good as well.
If you need to know anything about ".. Oracle, Windows XP, Linux (BASH) and Apple OS X operating system commands" then his website is the one for you.
If this highly specialised and technical stuff is not to your taste then his links page is also good.

Family and Paragliding

2006-03-07T10:45:00.000Z

Just a short update of what was happening with me recently.

Sunday afternoon after swimming I went over to Mum and Dads and had dinner - showed them my new MP4 and showed a few pictures. We had salmon but it wasnt very good. Then I went over to Susan and Allans - picking up an Abduls on the way.
(Abdul's Indian Takeaway, 22 Comiston Road, Edinburgh Midlothian EH10 5QE,
Tel: 0131-447-5999 - possibly one of the best.)

At Susan and Allans - I managed to help them eat the indian slightly, and we watched the New David Attenburgh Planet Earth programme. Later on I watched a thing on Discovery caled Terrorism week - which was very good as well.
Susan and Allan received their new W reg car on Saturday from Allans parents - it looks great - but with a fairly highish mileage on it.

I stayed overnight and on Monday morning returned home, did a little bit of translation of Tuesdays Chinese lesson and then talked with Ping.

In the afternoon I went to the Moorfoots and had a single top to bottom paragliding flight - my first flight using the new to me Woody Valley Peak harness. Wow the stirrup makes getting comfortable easy and it is so light flew with the open face helmet and no vario etc. I havent yet got the harness adjusted exactly correctly yet. As usual I had missed the best conditions - arriving as everyone was just leaving!! Earlier in the day Cliff had done the whole ridge run and flew for hours - I got a zero wind forward launch and maybe one minute! Oh well.

In the evening Richard called and has persuaded me to go to Neils place on Friday (near Aviemore) evening for the weekend - maybe skiing / flying. I also spent all evening reading "Site developement foundations for the CIW course whilst ripping some cds to my player.

Latest purchase MP4 player

2006-03-05T12:55:00.000Z

On Friday 3rd March, Gary came into Netresources and the CIW course with a really rather neat MP4 player. I decided then that I had to have one.
So that afternoon i purchased one whilst with Alan Yip - I was incredibly impolite then - Sorry Alan.
It cost �50 from Dixons and is a "genus Vizo - 1Gb".

Saturday I spent some time downloading various things. The first music was Pink Floyd - Pulse and the first pictures were of Ping, flowers and me ! I also put a short movie on - my paragliding reserve deployment - but this was in the wrong format so didnt display - hence removed.

On the music front it seems good -I like it but I havent yet got fluent at copying my CDs into MP3 then onto this device. I am using Real-Player but I havent got it right yet. It doesnt seem to idenytify the tracks - anyone help me here?.

Bob.

2006-03-05T12:16:00.000Z

CIW Mock exam test results - 2

On Thursday - 2/3/06 I went upto Netresources and did my second of 5 mock CIW exams.

There were again 85 questions - all multichoice covering the 3 subjects and although I had done quite a lot of studying I got worse which is terrible.

Anyhow :-
Overall 68% - Fail
Internet Business Foundations - 77% - a drop of 10%!
Site Development Foundations - 60% - a drop of 7% but I havent read that book yet
Network Technology Foundations - 68% - constant - however I really expected to improve with the studying I did for this during the week.

The target is to achieve at least 90% consistently for each area in the mocks prior to doing the real exam. Plenty for me to do then.

2006-02-27T21:02:00.000Z

UK Civil Liberties.

I have just watched the Channel 4 programme Dispatches and felt that I should post my immediate thoughts on it.

Identity cards - containing biometric data - likely to help fight terrorism ? - I think not. Opt in to start with - at great personal expense - will it stay like that - also unlikely I think.
How will they benefit us ? - not at all - they will however be pretty useful for the government - increasingly they will know about your personal life and by insiduous creep have greater and greater control of your "freedoms" - Oh how very "1984"
Will crime continue - yes - with or without these cards.

Do I feel threated by Terrorism - no - it does seem however to be the perfect political tool to enable a clamp down on personal liberties whilst not achieving any measurable benefits.

What are the actual chances of me or anyone in the UK being hurt/killed by terrorism ?.
A quick - back of an envelope calculation :-
UK population - say - 60 million,
deaths by terrorism - 50?,
deaths by car - for comparisons sake - about 10 a day I think - say 3000 per annum - 50/3000 *100 = 1.6%. Ok keep with me here - that means that I am 60 times (3000/50) more likely to be killed by a car than by terrorism.
The chances of being killed by a car is then 3000/60 million - ie 0.005% per annum - and the overall risk of being killed by terrorism in a given year within the UK is about 1/60th of 0.005% - or 0.000083%
(or the other way of determining the risk to get the same value is 50/60 million*100)
I suggest therefore that the losses of freedom arising from this political war on terror are significantly outweighing the risks actually present.

DNA database - arrested for some reason - have a swab taken and the DNA kept on file for ever - even if innocent / not charged. It appears that even though the Government indicates that the retention of samples is discretionary by the police they dont remove any.
Worryingly there also appears to be no method of requesting that such a result be expunged from the database - 24,000 children are already in this situation - and this cannot be right. Lord Falconer - indicated that this is OK - because in the future these same results may be a way to find more criminals - "The end justifies the means" - Whatever happened to Innocent until proven guilty?

Useful or interesting links.

Channel 4 - Dispatches

Civil Liberty Group - Liberty
ID cards
Terrorism

One question - has there been any legislation in the last few years within the UK that has actually allowed an increased level of personal liberty and freedom?.

Bob V

2006-02-26T20:03:00.001Z

Paragliding - controlled reserve deployment.

Yesterday I went to The Adventure Centre - Ratho and practiced deploying my paraglider reserve.
A few photos and a couple of videos are available on this link

Bob Veitch.

2006-02-24T16:52:00.000Z

CIW Mock exam test results - 1

Yesterday I went upto Netresources and did my first mock CIW exam - there are 5 available and I shall be doing one a week till the real exam which is on I think the 24th March.

There were 85 questions - all multichoice covering the 3 subjects within the current CIW course:-
Overall 74% - Fail
Internet Business Foundations - 87% - not good enough
Site Development Foundations - 67% - ditto but havent read that book yet
Network Technology Foundations - 68% - not easy but I shall get better with more studying.

The target is to achieve at least 90% consistantly for each area in the mocks prior to doing the real exam.

Bob.

2006-02-23T22:27:00.001Z

Water of Leith walk with family.

On Tuesday 21st Feb 06, I met Mum, Dad, Susan and Archie at The Scotish Gallery of Modern Art - had some nice food and then we all went on a walk along the Water of Leith.
On route I took a few nice photos - of the family, a heron, some flowers, architecture and some scenery and they are all available here.

Bob Veitch

New Paragliding Harness.

2006-02-23T22:12:00.002Z

I have just purchased on Monday 20th Feb 06 a second hand paragliding harness from Cliff Smith.
This harness (a Woody Valley Peak) is of a much more modern design and i significantly lighter than the model I had previously - a Mac Utopia.
The back protection on the peak is provided by an air bag system rather than lots of foam on my old harness.
The main reason I purchased is because of the reduced weight. (I am clearly getting old as after flying at Hillend near Edinburgh last Saturday I was knackered after just 2 walks up the hill from the top of the chair to the top and then short flights down again.)

There does also seem to be a general trend within paragliding circles to reduce weight - always a good thing - so I might as well join this bandwagon as well !!.

There is a parachute repack happening this Saturday 25th Feb 06 at Ratho and I hope to try out this harness reserve combination there.
This will be my first repack for . . . quite some time.and as such I am really looking forward to it. If you paraglide and havent checked out your reserve deployment system this is the time and place to do it.
This repack being arranged by the SHPF.

Bob Veitch.