Tuesday 26 April 2011

Wheelies Wobble but...


The new tablets - in addition to to the tablets I already take, are very odd beasties.

Pregabalin. Pronounced Pre- gabalin, not Preg -abalin :) - has been been prescribed to try and improve my walking and stop me falling over so much. Or bouncing off of walls or door frames.

It appears that the medics are unsure how much my walking difficulties is due to Stroke, or a side effect of diabetes. I'll go with Stroke myself. But it's worth a shot.

They work by slowing down the grey matter and it's responses.

I've found I've been having some really odd dreams, I feel unusually hyper - I'm off and wobbling, and getting on people's nerves, and annoying them by being "uncharastically" blunt. I'm told.

Do they work? Well, yeah. I feel a bit out of it. I worry about the 'blunt' bit. I ache. I bounce a bit more often = more bruises. But I'm on my feet a bit more. Which is good. I'll see how it goes :)

I see it's also used to help with severe pain and an aid to epilepsy and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) too. I also see it's addictive. That should be interesting.

If I come across a bit strange, feel free to tell me.

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I've been having fun with my new webcam :)

One of the problems with them is that, as supplied, you can only use web cams with one thing at a time. Skype for instance. However, it's amazing what 15 seconds on Google can do.

I came across the free to use program Manycam, which basically splits the video between programs. It also has some very silly effects you can add to the video stream - like making it look you're ablaze, or have a carrot for a nose...

Secondly, I've always been aware there are other uses for them, though I really wanted it for Skype. I came across another free to use program called YawCam, which allowed me to set up a simple web page (the program has a built in one you can use) to stream video from the webcam to the web. It's simple to set up, and has the option of setting up password protection if you want it. It can stream using mpeg, or Java. I chose mpeg because iPhone using relatives

Since I'm still playing with it, the simple page is password protected. All is shows is my hairy mug and my living room at the moment -it's perched on top of one of my monitors. Boring :)

No audio (except on Skype). I'm working on that.

But one of the advantages of the MyCam/YawCam combination is that you can stream to your website any video to replace the webcam image. And you can use Skype at the same time. And their free.

I'm streaming it directly from my own PC, via a free account at No-Ip. Basically that ties my PC to a web address. I'll leave that explanation there.

Another upside. Bear keeps tidying up. :)

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I'm quite enjoying getting into website building again. I'm going to dig out an ancient copy of Dream Weaver and have a really good play. Meanwhile, I'm scraping the memory banks and using windows Notepad. Urk!

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