Mid Week Update

At last and despite being early in April, the weather is beginning to cool off just a little.  As it turns out there is an unusually warm pool of water a couple of hundred kilometres off the SE Queensland coast and it is this warm pool of water which is keeping temperatures up in this part of the world, even into April!

Normally we should be getting tops of around 26 and lows of around 16 or so at this time of the year.  Even for the rest of this week we are still expecting tops between 29 and 31 and lows around 20°.

For almost the first time this year, last night we slept under a sheet and without the ceiling fan whirling away.  We even watched telly last evening without the ceiling fan going all night. When it was on it was set to "Low".

Even the locals are saying it has been a long hot summer.

Footy on the weekend was good for Trish and not so good for me!  It was a disappointing loss by my team but there is always next week I suppose.

We had a Community Association Meeting on Monday which kept me on my toes just a little.  Now that is all over it quietens down quite a bit.

I ordered a new battery for my phone around February 13th via eBay.  Batteries can be difficult to move by mail so I wasn't expecting a super fast delivery.  It eventually arrived on Monday, almost 2 months after I paid for it.  The original battery had a few funny quirks so I swapped it for the battery out of Trish's old phone (the same model as I have) and I have had a good couple of month's use from it while waiting for the new replacement.

Now the new replacement has arrived I am busy charging and discharging it so when fully charged and 'trained' I can finally slip it into my phone.

As surprising as this may sound, the PC has been the focus of much of my attention this week.  As you would already have read I have become engrossed in my Android TV Box and all it can do.  It continues to amaze me.

The biggest hassle is sometimes the online streaming stuff can be not so good as far as delivery is concerned.  The picture may stop while the download catches up with the onscreen movie playing.  It isn't our broadband connection any more as the speed is great since the recent upgrade.  As there are heaps of links available you just stop the playback and find another better working link via trial and error and off you go.

It does get frustrating though when three or four consecutive links cause you a problem and you can get frustrated.

Just after Christmas I decided to have a spell from the free download sites I visit and actually paid for a three month download account.  After messing around it finished up costing around $35 for my three month service.  I have just under a week of my subscription to go.

Whilst looking around for a replacement service I have discovered "Real Debrid", an inexpensive download subscription which allows access to around 20+ other different download sites.  It will cost just over $25 for a 6 month subscription and works just as easily as the previous one site subscription I had.  It is made even easier to use with its own plugin for my Firefox Browser.

You visit a download site and the plugin tells you how many links on that page that it can access.  With the click of your mouse the links are converted as if you were a paid up subscriber for that site, and provides alternative links from which you can download with full unrestrained access.

And you can add your Real-Debrid Account to various video streaming addons your Android TV Box.  These unrestricted links can be used to link to the stuff you want to watch and are highlighted as you select a link in Kodi.  That will get rid of any of the buffering issues you may have.had previously.  I am delighted!

Amazing!