I talk a lot about DIY and our house, which we’ve had for 18 months now. We spent all of this past weekend doing some needed repairs and upgrades, because we love our house and want it to be “ours.” Something we’ll address next is replacing our address plaque (sorry for the bad pun).

We’ve been looking at custom address plaques to replace the one we have currently, which is pretty basic and boring. There are loads of options out there to suit all tastes, from bronze address plaques, specialty, personalized address plaques, and much more.

Our plaque right now is just too small (the Chinese food delivery guy can never find us!) so we want something bigger and bolder. We’re partial to black and silver inside our home, so we’ll probably carry that theme to the outside too. Our house number is a single digit, so we can definitely go big, silver and bold so people know where we are, while expressing our personality at the same time. We also like the name of our street, so we may include that below in a smaller font (it’s short, so readability won’t be an issue). This is the first thing people see when they find our house, so it’s important to get it right and make sure it expresses our unique, personal taste.

A feature on ActivYork came to my attention this week, coincidentally at the same time I got a LinkedIn job offer. ActivYork, which already a fabulous source of local information for York, now has a section for jobs in York. Why is this a big deal? Because local recruitment rocks!

I was so thrilled to get a job offer on LinkedIn this week… only to find out that the job is in Stockton on Tees. Really? I’m in North Tyneside! I know England isn’t a huge country, but this is a perfect example of where local recruitment boards are far better than national job sites. And, as I’m sure any job-searching readers in York can attest, it’s hard to find local jobs. Most job sites are dominated by London or Southeast recruitment, with one or two postings for a career that’s vaguely North or might just be Scottish. So having a job board on ActivYork is awesome, because it takes being local to understand what local people want.

At my day job, we have contractors located all over the world (Europe, Seattle, NYC) who are tasked with keeping a large site running smoothly. Even on a stable CMS, we run into dozens of bugs every week, some of which are hard to duplicate in the main office. That’s where software like Proxy Pro 7 could really help us out.

Proxy Pro 7 is a piece of software that gives remote access to other computers. Everything is done through the Internet over 256-bit encryption — the highest in its class — so sensitive data is secure. Troubleshooters can access other systems at any time to collaborate, troubleshoot or move files. I mentioned our locations earlier because this is so key — we have an eight-hour time difference between some of our employees, so the ability to log on and grab an important file while someone is offline is a big deal. This saves days of back-and-forth emailing and waiting, which is typical of businesses that use telecommuters.

The software also works with all the major operating systems: Windows, Mac and Linux, so our Mac-minded main office can still get remote access to our PC-based workers. I’m talking about using it for a company of 20 people, but can you imagine how great this flexibility would be in a school, government or MNC environment? The opportunities are endless.

I first heard about the pulse oximeter when I was younger. You know when you’re watching ER (I’m dating myself — everyone watches Grey’s Anatomy now) and you hear a flurry of medical speech? “Heart rate dropping! BP 140/60, pulse-ox 90…” That last bit is a pulse oximeter reading. But these machines aren’t just for hospitals any more. Pulse oximeters are becoming popular with athletes and small medical practices too, as a quick, pain-free way to find out how oxygenated the blood is.

When you exercise, oxygen is carried to your muscles via the bloodstream. This is why you breathe heavily; more activity from the muscles means more oxygen is required to keep your body moving. This is an essential performance issue, so you can see why a pulse oximeter is a helpful device. Athletes can monitor their blood-oxygen levels in real-time as they train simply by clipping the small device onto their finger. It also shows the heartrate, which is another essential training statistic.

Now that these devices have moved out of the ER and into small, cell-phone-sized devices that cost less than $100, there’s no excuse for athletes not to own one and take care of their bodies as they train.

Next month I’m going up to Scotland for my niece’s christening. (She’s the baby sister to the nephew I’ve mentioned in other posts.) As a proud auntie, I’m looking into gifts that fall outside the realm of traditional silver tchotkies; something that will be fun and also useful for the family.

They live in a smallish house, so I’m thinking about getting some type of childrens storage for their bedroom. Right now, their toys are just EVERYWHERE, and now that there are twice as many, it’s getting a tad out of hand. Ideally I want something neutral that the niece and nephew can share (because sharing is good ) and also portable, in case it ends up downstairs or goes on holiday with them. There are really cute baskets and cases at the link above; it’s just a matter of picking which one. They also have a really neutral storage chest that I’d love to get, maybe for one of their birthdays this summer (since it’s a bigger gift). And of course I’ll fill it with a toy or two, because mums love storage and kids love toys.