I wouldn’t say I’m getting bored with the granny stripe blanket, but it gives me lots of time to think while working on it and I got to thinking about how many stitches were in it, and its a lot!!!

63,441 to be precise!!!  And that’s before any border (because I haven’t decided what sort of border to put on it yet)

I reckon I’ve completed approximately 19,000 of those stitches to date.

That’s 19,000 down 44,441 to go!!

I love spreadsheets so what else could I do but work out the formula to calculate the number of stitches:

I can be excited about my website again, because it works again.  You may not have noticed at your end, but at my end I have been very, very restricted in use of my own website, behind the scenes and even the front end you’re looking at now.  I have spent about two months tinkering with bits and pieces on my laptop and netbook but nothing worked.  Other sites and functions were fine, but not frou-frou.  Only after about 20 minutes did anything eventually load so trying to write posts and upload pictures over that sort of timescale just wasn’t going to work.

Various friends were consulted and advice given, tried, tested and ruled out.  There was only one thing for it – practical hands on technical support!  And there was only one person for that job - Warren!

After lots of tea, a few cakes (well, it was hard work) and three hours, I present you with a fully working and fully restored frou-frou service.  And to go with it a re-invigorated blogging me!

‘What’s been the problem?’ I hear you ask! (OK you may not be but I’m going to tell you anyway.  Actually, I’m not going to tell you – these are Warren’s words below!)

‘Here’s pretty much a summary of what I did to fix it.  I think the firewall and winsock ones were the most likely to sort it, but here goes from the top:

Go to a Command Prompt (start / run / cmd) and then type:
* netsh winsock reset
* netsh interface ip reset
* netsh routingip  reset
* netsh firewall reset

Once all done, restart the PC and then check the site access.  I also enabled routing and remote access in Services (services.msc) but possibly that wasn’t necessary to do.’

It seems that this may be caused by an Orange mobile broadband dongle install that somehow corrupted the winsock interface or the firewall settings.  When we  then turned the Windows firewall off, as the settings were persisting and stopping certain items from downloading quickly, it seemed to be cured!

The most annoying thing in it all was that the site that it had the most impact on was the one I own and run.  I probably wouldn’t have been so wound up by it if any another site affected!

So now you can look forward to all the posts that I’ve had in draft in various forms awaiting pictures, editing and publishing.  I shall try not to splurge all at once, got a craft fair this weekend to get ready if nothing else. 

Oh, and see those green crochet coasters in the pic above… watch this space!

Until the next time, which I am already looking forward to, ta-ra!

I’ve been having (and think I still am actually having) some very peculiar technical problems which have been preventing me posting much recently as every page is taking ages to load and trying to get images up is virtually impossible.  I think the live pages are fine for most people viewing my site, but behind the scenes it’s been grinding to a halt.

However, I’m persevering and now trying Firefox, which appears to be marginally quicker… so far!!

So what have you missed?

Lots and lots of making.  I’ve been doing lots of new things and some experimenting and looking forward to sharing details.

A craft fair which was very quiet in punter terms but still a great day as I just love the chit chat and meeting folk and hanging out with crafty types.

I’ve also been really inspired recently by a particular project I’ve been involved in which is going to include a whole new website.  This may sound mad given current techie issues but I’ll sort that out or use alterative services as necessary.  I’m not going to spill the beans yet as it needs a lot more work but I’ll give general details soon.

Lots of reading.  Since I’ve not been able to write much online I’ve been reading lots online and have found some great sites and great makes.  Lots of inspiration and ideas!

Here’s a taste of projects to come, now that I’m determined to battle the technical problems.  We’ll have coasters, necklaces, hair bands, flowers, bows, purses, lavender bags and bracelets.  I sure have been a busy bee!!  Oh, and there’s been a little owl twit twahoooooo!

Heeeeeelp! I’m having terrible trouble accessing my own website and admin pages! I can get on at work, Caveman’s house, everywhere else actually. However, on my own laptop and netbook I can’t access frou-frou, even with different internet access services. My netbook is virtually new and has hardly anything on it and I’ve tried to turn off anything that can be turned off. I’ve ruled out several things – it isn’t my ISP (BT), firewall, antivirus software etc.

I run Windows XP and use IE or Chrome. frou-frou is hosted on Freehostia and uses WordPress.

Something I run is clearly getting in the way and preventing me posting or viewing my site!

Anyone had any similar problems? Advice very much appreciated! Also let me know if you’ve had problems viewing or opening pages.

I’m now going to press ‘publish’ and see if this post loads. I’m not expecting miracles so me need to do it elsewhere!!