Megan was complaining today that people couldn't get emails to her, for her domain brodzinska.com I use MyDomain.com as a Name Service - DNS management and email fowarding etc...

MyDomain.com are great I have used them for the best part of 5 years (for sar.cx and other domains), but from time to time, usually 2 times per year they hit problems with email forwarding - that's not bad for a free service.

I'm okay because I run my own mail server for sar.cx, but it would appear that MyDomain.com's email forward is refusing to forard to GMail accounts which is what we use to recieve/store our email.

A few people have noticed this:
http://forum.mydomain.com/viewtopic.php?t=5927

At least I have the facility of changing the DNS settings so that brodzinska.com uses my mail server at home. But this could take a while to come through.

I 'made' it into the company Bulletin in the staff 'Focus On' section where you have to answer things like "If I was an animal I would be?" - here it is....

Megan went along with the Scotish Polish Cultural Association to look at the new Scottish Parliament buildings.

Here's her report in English:

Visit to Scottish Parliament

I approached the new Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood with a feeling of curiosity.

Curiosity raised by the numerous articles written on the 'controversial' building and what on earth could have cost over £480 million without being made of gold!

I was joining an informal tour, organised by our chairperson, Izabella Brodzinska, and waited for our small party to congregate outside the strange bamboo-lined multi-level building. Our guide, Richard Welsh, who works full time as a researcher in the Parliament for one of our MSPs, had kindly agreed to take us around. This was an excellent opportunity to see ' behind the scenes' of normal parliamentary life as well as the 'public' face experience of normal tours.

Our tour moved through the public areas: low, large curved ceilings of concrete, amazing bright spacious halls inspired by boats, the very modern debating chamber and into the more private warren of meeting rooms and offices used by parliamentary workers and MSPs.
Our guide was able to move us round the whole building sharing with us its history, his thoughts and showing us the glossy and perhaps not so glossy aspects.

I think all of us were struck at how deceptively small the parliament appears from the outside, but then this was Enric Miralles' plan.

The Spanish architect who designed the building wanted to give the impression of a building 'rising from the ground'. It is a multi-level affair, a strange mix of natural and man-made; of concrete, glass, metal and timber. No matter what your taste in architecture, you will be struck by the imagination of this design.



I walked away feeling curiously settled; I could understand 'what all the hype was about' and I could see the magnificent level of detail that could have caused those mounting costs.

I think curiosity will lead many people to drive past the building, but if you want to really see the boundaries of imagination pushed, please take those steps inside and I think you will be amazed at what you find.



We had the chance to see where the normal unglamorous day-to-day work took place, in rather small offices much like any other office but again with an Enric Miralles twist.

For us 'tourists' it was a fascinating insight into our Scottish parliament building, to our guide it was another normal day at the office.

Megan Brodzinska-Readman

And here's her report in Polish:

Zwiedzanie Szkockiego Parlamentu
Megan Readman
Tłum. z ang. Maria Musur-Grieve

Z uczuciem nieukrywanej ciekawości zbliżałam się do budynku nowego Szkockiego Parlamentu w Holyrood. Na prawdę ciekawości, bo tyle było kontrowersyjnych opinii podczas jego budowy. Co mogło kosztować 480 milionów, jeżeli budynek nie jest ze złota!

Wyprawę zorganizowała Izabella Brodzińska, przewodnicząca Szkocko-Polskiego Towarzystwa Kulturalnego. Oprowadzał nas "nieoficjalny" przewodnik Richard Welsh, pracownik Szkockiego Parlamentu, znajomy Izabelli. Była to znakomita okazja zobaczenia Parlamentu "za kulisami" jak rownież jego "publiczne" oblicze.

Przechodziliśmy przez tereny publiczne; niskie, ogromne, wysklepione sufity, nadzwyczaj jasne i przestrzenne korytarze przypominające łodzie, bardzo nowoczesna sala posiedzeń i dalej bardziej prywatne, kameralne sale obrad i biura pracowników jak i Członków Szkockiego Parlamentu(MSPs).

Uderzyło nas, jak myląco małym wydaje się budynek Parlamentu patrząc od zewnątrz, ale to był przecież plan Enric'a Miralles.

Hiszpański architekt, który ten budynek zaprojektował chciał, żeby się odnosiło wrażenie, że budynek niejako "wyrasta z ziemi". Jest on wielopoziomowy, dziwna mieszanina surowców naturalnych i surowców stworzonych przez człowieka; beton, szkło, metal i drewno. Nieważne jaka ci się podoba architektura, będziesz pod wrażeniem pomysłowości tego projektu.

The original Polish version is on szkocja.net in thier bulletin here.

Here's a picture I just took of Edinburgh Castle:


It was take from my office window - there aren't many places you get a view like that. It has been used as a fortification for over 2000 (yes 2000) years - www.rampantscotland.com/visit/blvisitedincastle.htm

Camera: 02 XDAIIi in Sepia mode.

I thought we'd seen the last of the SPHPBLOG hackers, but oh no, this guys trying to delete my password file and reinstall my website!

81.241.155.232 - - [24/Oct/2005:17:24:16 +0100] "GET /comment_delete_cgi.php?y=05&m=08&comment=./config/password.txt HTTP/1.1" 302 -
81.241.155.232 - - [24/Oct/2005:17:24:17 +0100] "GET /index.php HTTP/1.1" 200 24728
81.241.155.232 - - [24/Oct/2005:17:24:18 +0100] "POST /install03_cgi.php?blog_language=english HTTP/1.1" 404 297

No joy as I've got .htaccess files and the new version of sphpblog in place.