The Pool Room

The Pool Room: where all the good stuff ends up

  • The Good Podcast

    It might sound daggy, but lately I’ve been watching the old BBC series [The Good Life](http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/goodlife/index.shtml) (a friend at work lent me the DVDs). Megan thinks I’m getting old. You’ve got to admit, though, that there’s something about Barbara Good (Felicity Kendal). It never sat right with me that that Tom guy wound up with…

  • Sarah’s Birthday Party 2008

    For Sarah’s fifth birthday, she had a “princesses and pirates” theme.

  • The Chinese Silky Chicks Arrive!

    After a lot of searching, emailing and ringing local breeders looking for silky pullets, I finally found a lady up in Marulan with some chicks for sale. I originally didn’t want to get chicks because of the mucking around with heat lamps etc, but since it was the only way to get some silkies for…

  • How To Speed Up Microsoft Outlook

    Repair your .pst file! Rather than copy the instructions here, refer to [How To Fix Your Broken PST File](http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/microsoft-office/fix-your-broken-outlook-personal-folders-pst-file/). It’s not just for use when Outlook stops working – it’s a useful preventative action you should run occasionally to repair little problems before they become big problems. Anytime Outlook starts running slower than normal, give…

  • How To Disable Yellow Print Confirmation Popups In Windows

    **The Problem:** When I send anything to my networked printer, Windows XP pops up a yellow confirmation bubble telling me the item printed. How can I turn that annoying option off? **The Solution:** In Control Panel, choose Printers and Faxes. Click File, Server Properties, and select the Advanced tab. Near the bottom, uncheck the box…

  • Video: How To Make Compost (Milkwood)

    Another great video series from [Milkwood](http://www.milkwood.net), this one explaining how to make compost without too much effort. Don’t these videos have great music? I also really like the way they use the “Benny Hill effect” of speeding up the video, so you get a good idea of what they’re doing without needing to sit around…

  • How To Stop Internet Explorer Opening Office Documents In The Browser

    By default, Internet Explorer opens Excel and Word files within the browser window. This can be annoying if you want to work with them in the real applications. To get IE to always open these files using the correct application: – click Start >> Control Panel >> Folder Options – click on the File Types…

  • Video: Soil Food Web – And Nature’s Soil

    ##Notes – Manzano Mountains, Central New Mexico, USA – Michael Martin Melendrez, founder of [Soil Secrets](http://soilsecrets.com) – Michael is also well known for his coining the phrase and writing the first paper ever on the Soil Food Web titled ‘Soil Ecology and the Soil Food Web’ in 1974 – sugar maples, drop leaves to provide…

  • Video: Fallen Fruit

    Here’s an interesting video about [picking public fruit](http://kcet.org/explore-ca/web-stories/sustaining/fallen_fruit.php). – Fallen Fruit is a group that maps local fruit trees and encourages sharing through group plantings and “forages” – take people on walking forages to collect public fruit growing in the neighbourhood – fruit growing on public property or hanging over fences onto public property is…

  • Video: Edible Estates

    Watch the video at KCET, [Edible Estates](http://kcet.org/explore-ca/web-stories/sustaining/edible_estates.php). ##Notes – why are people growing lawn? – Fritz Haeg converts homeowners’ front lawns into working vegetable gardens – Descanso Gardens invited Fritz to build a demo garden to show people what he does – one third of the garden is planted as plain lawn – two-thirds is…