Dave W's Home Page

Who the hell am I and why am I taking up bandwidth with this?

I'm a Java and Web developer for Fidelity Investments. Before that I was a mature student at Sussex University studying Computer Science. And before that I used to be a freelance Garden Designer using a PC based C.A.D. system. This meant that I spent as much time messing about with the computer as I did designing gardens! I used to live in New Eltham in SE London. But these days I live in Brighton.

The site, unlike me, has hardly changed since 1997. I don't have the time to update it anymore. So I'm not very likely to be able to answer any Win32 questions and still less likely to be able to tell you the Latin name of a shrub.
Ask me about running a mountaineering club on the other hand...
I've tried to take up as little bandwidth as possible with this (apart from a few choice gifs!). I try to put things up here that are to some extent unique to avoid clogging up the Internet with yet more duplicate information. Also the links are chosen because they are particularly useful or hard to find.

What do I do with my life?

As of Autumn '98 I have been really into climbing and mountaineering. But when not doing that I really enjoy Karate, walking with my now venerable dog Brock (preferably in Scotland), and even computing (hence my degree and my job - that's right I'm not doing it for the money, it just helps).

Who is Flibble??

Well it's a lot less interesting than you might think! But lots of people do ask so...
When I got my current ISP account I asked for dave@ as an email address. But it was already taken, along with every combination of my initials with dots and underscores that I could think of. I even tried one of my dogs names (Brock) but that had gone. (I decided not to ask about my other dogs name - it would have confused things being called Shelley). So the only thing I could think of that meant anything to me was the name I type in when computer asks me for a name; "Flibble". At the time I thought I'd change it later, but now it's too late! Too many people have bookmarked this page and occasionally contact via email.

As to who Mr Flibble is and why he's so annoyed; it's a Red Dwarf quote (a BBC comedy sci-fi series). It's in an episode where Rimmer's ill with a 'holo-virus'. In his dementia he creates a penguin glove puppet - called 'Mr Flibble'. And no, I'm not a die hard Dwarfer either.

What else have I put on the Web?

Dave's Post Viral Site
A site all about how I recovered (I hope!) from Post Viral Syndrome.

Walking In The Polish Tatra
A page of information about walking in the Polish Tatra mountains.

Woods Gardens
A Page describing how I used to go about designing a garden
(plus a bit about how I got into garden design in the first place).

Documents Menu Deleted
I spent ages hex editing Explorer.exe to get rid of the Documents menu from the Win95 Start button. You can download my copy from here.

Windows95 Hidden Scripter
Never type in your password and id again! (Heavily updated 15/5/97)

Windows95 Registry Hacks
My small collection of registry hacks. (More 95 links at bottom of this page!)

Shrink Your Windows 95 Registry
A way to get rid of what could be a very large (and redundant) chunk of your registry.

COGS Tips
A set of tips on how to use the UNIX sytem at COGS (that's since been used as the basis of the Intro to COGS leaflet for first year students - don't I feel smug).

Now the bits that the search engine probably sent you to my site for: The Links!

Windows95 Links

Lot's of freeware and nag free shareware. A very good site with mirrors all over the world.

Malcolm Reeves TCP/IP Tips
If you are using 95 for your dial up connection go here now! Malcolm has links to the MS dial up networking upgrade that will really improve the speed of your connection!

Keyboard Shortcuts
Particularly useful if the mouse is starting to give you RSI!

Replace Your Hard Drive
How To copy your Win95 HD to a new drive without losing your setup. By Peter den Haan - the guy who brought you the IDE FAQ.

Which version do you have?
A MS knowledge base article on how to determine which version of Windows 95 you are running.

System Updates For Win95
For those of us who don't have OSR2! A list of downloadable bug-fixes and updates to Windows 95 including the Powertoys with it's indispensible Tweak UI!

A very extensive set of tips pages for Windows95

General Computer Links

The Easter Egg Archive
An Easter Egg in programming terms is a hidden feature of an application, usually a list of credits.

F-Prot Antivirus
A very good and still free to the individual Anti-Virus program.

Other Links

UK Railways
A very useful rail travel planner. Give it the start and destination stations and it works out the route and times. Also has news of up-coming maintenance work and other expected delays.

UK Street Maps
Gives you a map of the area your interested in. Each square in the map is a big image that you can right click on and veiw seperatly. (It only covers Greater London in detail at the moment, but will cover all the UK soon).

London Transport
Information on bus and underground trains in London.

The Electronic Telegraph
A fully fledged online newspaper linked to the Daily Telegraph (a nationally distributed UK newspaper).

UK Yellow Pages
The UK Yellow Pages on line.

Fax Via Email
Send your email to a Fax machine almost anywhere in the world!

New Scientist
A very good magazine that I used to subscribe to when I had the the time to read it.

Dilbert the funniest & most boring person in the world!
A bit like 'Garfield' but minus the fur and plus a Ph.D. in Engineering.

Yeah_Right
Just a very nice gif that I grabbed from the "Yeah Right" home page which has since sadly disappeared!

This page'll never get finished at this rate!

So far

people have blundered in to this page whilst actually looking for hard-core pornography! (Actually around 20,000 more people have come through here but the counters got reset - again!).

This page was created in July 1996

It was last updated on the 12th of May 2004

I like the colour of this page! (On most monitors anyway)
But if you don't or you have something you want to say to me then mail me!