Parsley

Sow: Indoors from February to March for later planting out. Outdoors from April to May in pots or direct in soil (needs warm soil to germinate). Can make further sowings until August. Germination can take 2 weeks. Always use fresh seed and keep soil moist.

Aspect: Prefers damp soil in partial shade.

Care: Hardy but best to protect foliage against frost for better leaves. Is a biennial plant but often grown as an annual; leaves will be coarser in the second year.

Water: As needed.

Harvest: As needed.

Related plant: Par-cel or celery leaf - looks similar to parsley and is grown in the same way. Pick the leaves as needed for celery flavour (easier to grow than actual celery) but does not produce edible stalks.

Hot Laptop

If your laptop is very hot and the fan is always on the go, you can have problems. When it overheats, not only does your computer slow down to protect itself, but you actually damage the parts inside - over time this can reduce the life of your computer by a year.

Use your laptop on a table instead of your lap as clothing can restrict the fan. And leaving your laptop on for days on end is also a bad idea - it needs a rest.

Glamour, June 2014

Link Checker

If you have a lot of links on your website, it takes forever to manually check that each one is still current.

Xenu Link Checker is a bit of software which will do this for you.  Get this from http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html.

Contact Lenses

Avoid swimming or showering in contact lenses. An amoeba that lives in tap water feeds on bacteria found on lenses and can go on to colonise the cornea of the eye, causing painful infections and even blindness.

Internet Hoaxes

Hoax Slayer: This useful website keeps track of the thousands of hoaxes circulating around the internet at any particular moment. It includes a separate section on those that appear on Facebook. Before falling for a hoax, or passing one on, check this site first.

Urban Myths: There are loads of urban myths out there (e.g. a cursed mummy on the Titanic). To check out whether the story you've been told is true, visit the Snopes website (www.snopes.com); it's a marvellous source for quickly sorting out these stories.

Phil Bradley in CILIP Update (various dates)

Avoid Wasting Food

In the UK we throw away the equivalent of six meals a week, that's £470 a year (2014 figures). So here are some tips on how to cut this figure down.

20% of binned food is fruit and vegetables

• Store in the fridge. Fruit lasts up to two weeks longer in the fridge than in a bowl.
• Apart from bananas and pineapples which deteriorate in the cold - keep them in a cupboard.
• Bag it. If veg comes in a bag, like carrots and peppers, keep it bagged. You'll keep more air away from the product, so it stays fresher for longer (even once you've opened the bag, it's better to keep the remaining veg in there and fold over the top). A shrink-wrapped cucumber lasts around three times longer kept in the plastic.
• Apart from lettuce. Lengthen its lifeby putting it in a bowl of water in the fridge as soon as you get home, then top up every couple of days.

Yes, you can freeze ....

• Milk. Freeze as soon as possible, then thaw in the fridge as needed. You can freeze for up to six weeks. Write on the defrost date to keep an eye on freshness.
• Yoghurt. Freeze before the use-by date and you can eat it frozen or let it defrost in the fridge (in which case eat that day). can be frozen for one or two months.
• Eggs. Break eggs into an air-tight container (don't try to freeze in the shell - they'll explode) and beat a little with a fork. Keep for up to three months. Thaw in the fridge and use within three days.
• Potatoes. Raw potatoes go black if you freeze them, but boil for five minutes (peeled or unpeeled) and they're fine to pop in the freezer. You can cook them from frozen too. Freeze for up to six months.

Know portion maths - these sums equal one-person portions

•  Rice - quarter of a mug of dried rice 
• Peas - three heaped tablespoons
• Spghetti - make an 'O' with your index finger and thumb. Slide your finger to the base of the thumb, then fill the hole with spaghetti.

Don't fall for

• Suoermarket 'three for £3' offers sound good except you are rarely saving. Look at the small print and the items often cost £1 individually. If you are tempted, stick to the 'cupboard items only' rule - multi-buys on things you don't need to store in the fridge.

Glamour magazine, April 2014

Kitchen Bin Cleaning

Banish nasty smells from your kitchen waste bin by sprinking a little bicarbonate of soda into the bottom, or clean witha damp kitchen towel dipped into a little bicarb.

Video Discussion

There are a few options.

Skype (www.skype.com) but you will need to register with the site.

Tinychat (www.tinychat.com) allows you to setup a video conference room quickly and easily without any downloads or ionstallations and its free of charge.

Kondoot (http://kondoot.com) is a video broadcasting resource, also free.

If you already use Google, you can try Google+.

Phil Bradley in CILIP Update (2013?)

Opening Jar Lids

Some jars can be almost impossible to undo, so here are a few tips.

• Tap the base of the jar firmly until you hear the vacuum break, then try again.
• If that doesn't do it, wrap an elastic band around the edge of the lid to help you grip.

The JarKey is a simple gadget looks like a bottle opener; you slide the protruding edge under the lip and pull upwards. This breaks the vacuum seal.

Finding Stolen Laptop

Prey is a free piece of software at http://preyproject.com that you can install on your laptop and then forget about. If your laptop is stolen, you can - when it connects to the net - start it running by inputting a command on another machine.

It can then do some fascinating things, such as taking a photograph of the person who is using it, grab screenshots of active sessions, locate via GPS or wifi hotspots and you can also lock it.

A fascinating tool, but hopefully you'll never need it.

Phil Bradley in CILIP Update

Questions GPs Ask

At the GP surgery you may well get asked the following questions, so it is worthwhile finding out the following:

• When was your last period? Tracking periods is vital, not just for fertility reasons, but because your menstrual cycle can be linked to conditions such as acne, depression and migraines. If you are suuffering from any of these, your GP will ask you to keep a diary to identify if the problem is hormonal. So why not keep a diary now.
• Do you have a family history of ... stroke? heart problems? miscarriage? diabetes? female cancers, like ovarian or breast cancer? If so you could be at greater risk, so your doctor needs to know. Ask your parents for all the facts if you don't know. many allergies (e.g. for peanuts or penicillin) can be inherited, so check that too.
• Are you up to date with your jabs? Knowing what vaccinations and immunisations you have (and haven't) had helps to rule out certain illnesses if you are sick. Your parents will have been given a record of your childhood immunisations, but if it's long gone, request one from your GP surgery.
• How many units of alcohol do you really get through? No fibbing on this one. Alcohol consumption is linked to a number of conditions, such as reflux, low mood and sleep problems, so if your doctor is going to treat them, they need to know the truth.
• What medications are you taking? This is important and pharmacists may ask you as well. It stops GPs prescribing anything that could interactwith a medication and lets them keep an eye on side effects. Herbal remedies and supplements (e.g. St John's wort, black cohosh) count too.
• Have you ever had anything removed? Whether it was your tonsils, spleen, appendix or just a mole, mention it. It doesn't matter if it was a long time ago, or turned out to be benign, it could be relevant. For example, people who have had their spleen removed are more likely to get infections.

 Glamour magazine, April 2014

New Uses - For Old Clothing

We need to recycle and re-use as much as possible, rather than just send stuff to landfill. But sometimes it's difficult to know what to do with some things - like old tights. Here are a couple of ideas.

• Store sheets of wrapping paper in a leg cut from an old pair of tights and it won't unravel (better than an elastic band, as it won't shrivel and snap.
• Use strips of old tights to tie young plants to a stake.
• To locate a lost small item, use a rubber band to fix a sheer stocking to your vacuum's hose, then as you vacuum you can find the item and pick it up without sucking it into the machine - great for finding missing earrings.
• Use a cotton t-shirt rather than a towel to dry your hair, especially in winter. It creates less friction, which helps prevent frizz.
• Unwanted t-shirts can be cut up to use as dusters.
• To remove deodorant marks from clothing, rub another part of the item onto the mark to dust it away.
• An old rubber glove that has been heated up by plunging it into hot water can whisk away errant pet hair in a flash - handy for upholstery.

Various sources: 2014, 2017

Putting Silicone Along Bath Top

Where the bath meets the wall tiles is usually made waterproof with silicone from a tube. If this is done when the bath is empty, the silicone may pull away from bath or tiles when the bath is filled with water - and is therefore heavier. Tip: Fill the bath with water before sealing with silicone.

Fake Emails, Scams and Viruses

Someone phones you to say your computer has been identified as vulnerable and asking you to go to a specific website. Just put the phone down - they want your details. Read more at Microsoft security queries.

You get an email telling you your banking details are incorrect and that you need to go to their website to correct them. Delete the message - they are trying to get your details. Read more at Microsoft security tips.

Something has taken over your internet settings so you automatically get taken to (e.g. a rubbishy shopping-type home page) and all attempts to re-set the default come to nothing next time you log on. The likely cause is that you have downloaded some software that had hi-jack software contained within it. Firstly, see if you can recall what you've downloaded in the recent past. Then go to Google Groups and run a search and see if other people have reported the same thing, and they may have suggestions for getting rid of it. Alternatively, do a search on the name of the page that your browser is now defaulting to  in order to see if anyone has reported the same thing. It's also worth getting a copy of Ad Aware (free) from LavaSoft (www.lavasoftusa.com/) and running that. It should tell you if you've got spyware and so on onstalled and should help yu get rid of it; it's very simple to use and and doesn't require any technical knowhow. Alternatively, try Spybot (www.safernetworking.org/)

Getting emails from FindTheDirt.com? Ignore them. These emails tell you that some of their members were trying to find out information about you. If you visit the site you're told that in order to view the request or the information about you, you need to register. This of course is not free but when you have paid, you find that there is no information about you or that it is very basic, such as your email address.

Phil Bradley in CILIP Update (various dates)