Archive for January, 2006

Wah? Where’d my week go?

// January 29th, 2006 // No Comments » // Personal

Ah … right … one of them!

This week evaporated in short order. The normal reason for such massive dilations of time is an increase in workload and, sure enough, I had a full comp to do for WednesdayThursdayFriday … sometime Monday morning. I also had a meeting on Friday morning which started late, finished late and generally accounted for the removal of the whole day from the working calendar.

Then there was the not work stuff. Petanque season is in full swing and I have a new (and mercifully improved!) partner this winter. This didn’t prevent us from losing today but it can also be said we gave it our all. Finally, for some unknown reason* I’m back on the Thrift Club committee at the pub. This means Sundays are a little fraught as the club normally (depending largely on how many rogue transactions we have to run down) finishes at 13:15 and Petanque starts at 14:00, often on the other side of the island!

At least we have the rota sorted and my new spreadsheet is now getting the same non-balancing figures as the paper copy so that’s as accurate as it’s going to get. Monday tomorrow and a comp to submit. First off though, a stroll up the road and a well deserved “f#ck Monday” pint or two ;-)
*The main reason is I actually enjoy it

Toad in the Hole

// January 29th, 2006 // No Comments » // Personal


Toad in the Hole

Originally uploaded by Rob Dudley.

As Dave was curious as to the exact make up of toad in the hole and, as by curious coincidence we happened to have it tonight I thought I’d give you a quick visual… Unfortunately, as with many gorgeous food stuffs it looks less great on film. Tasty though!

4 things

// January 25th, 2006 // No Comments » // Personal

The most frustrating thing about MeMe’s is waiting for the damn things to reach you. this one’s been going for weeks now but has only just made it’s way to my little corner of the ’sphere via LemurGirl

Four jobs I’ve had in my life

  • BBC Broadcast Assistant
  • Sales Assistant in a Shoe Shop
  • Web Technologies Consultant
  • Freelance Web Technologies Consultant

Four movies I can watch over and over

  • Big Trouble in Little China
  • Groundhog Day
  • Starwars (any one)
  • Amelie

Four places I have lived

  • Stoke On Trent
  • Welland in Worcestershire
  • Exeter
  • Jersey

Four TV shows I love to watch

  • The West Wing
  • Futurama
  • Poirot (but it has to be David Suchet)
  • Top Gear

Four places I have been on vacation holiday

  • Florence, Italy
  • Monastir, Tunisia
  • Zel-am-Zee, Austria
  • Cornwall, Engerland

Four of my favourite dishes

  • Toad in the Hole
  • Penne Aribiata
  • Sausage and mash
  • Fruits (aceiete?) de Mer … yes … all of them!

Four websites I visit daily

  • Dilbert
  • .Mac
  • Stats and C-Panels across the net
  • Flickr (mine and others)

Four places I would rather be right now

  • Florence
  • Cornwall
  • New Zealand
  • In Bed

Four bloggers I am tagging

Are there four left?

Well that was relatively painless. But strangely fulfilling if you know what I mean…

Losing the Buzz

// January 24th, 2006 // No Comments » // Personal

This post has nothing to do with a missing bumble bee or indeed any relationship whatsoever with the cabbage from the last post.

Instead it comes in the form of an announcement. As the first part of my NewYear-NewRob program I have decided to drastically slash my caffeine intake. Those who know me will be aware that, after air and sleep, coffee makes up the tertiary segment of my holy trinity. I did a quick survey over about a week and realised that I average 10 – 15 mugs of the stuff a day… and that ain’t good.

So I’ve decided to cut it out. I’m now on one cup of full fat a day (first thing in the morning, it’s so much easier than spending about 4 hours walking into things as my body remembers how to operate itself.) and have shelves full of decaff coffee (instant and filter), decaff tea, and various herbal infusions that taste like hot water after 5 minutes of steepage.

It’s going pretty well so far and after 5 days the withdrawal headache has subsided and the body clock seems to be operating without its chemical crutch quite nicely. I can honestly say to anyone who may be considering the same that it is doable and once you hit the 5 day mark you’ll hardly notice the absence. I would caution that on the first day I managed to fall asleep at 4 in the afternoon, wake for dinner at 6 and then sleep again until 08:30 the following morning – a total of 15.5 hours sleep – but that was a one off and now my sleeping pattern has actually improved.

I’d also point you at the Coffee & Caffeine FAQ which has a host of information including some good advice on cutting down / giving up.

Concerning Haggis(s)

// January 24th, 2006 // No Comments » // Personal

Probably Not a Haggis

Lemurgirl has been smokingillegalsubstances giving consideration to the nature of the Haggis, Scotland’s almighty pudding made of the bits no-one else eats. She’s offered a few questions and, being a self professed expert in everything, I have no choice but to answer:

1) What happens once a Haggis reaches the top of the mountain?

Legend professes that, upon reaching the summit of the mountain (a process that can take many years due to the hostile environment, lack of shelter and large numbers of roary blokes in skirts), the haggis balances on it’s longest leg for as long as possible before toppling gently over sideways and plummeting down the mountain. These Hagilanches are nearly always fatal and have been known to destroy log cabins, large areas of forest and four wheel drive vehicles … although it’s just as likely to be the work of the roary blokes in skirts.

2) Can they actually go backwards or has perpetual motion cursed them with ever going forwards?

Whilst there is nothing to stop them reversing their ascent the haggis is unlikely to do so for 3 reasons, Firstly it would mean they actually climbed down the mountain rather than up, secondly a haggis has quite a pointy head and very poor rear vision therefore backing down a mountain is likely to result in finding another haggis with it’s head firmly up your arse, and finally, recent EU regulations require that all reversing haggis now be fitted with an audible alarm (i.e. Beep – Beep – Beep – Caution – This Haggis is Reversing – Beep – etc.) which the poor little critters just find utterly embarrassing.

3) When is open season on hunting Haggis?

The Haggis Hunting season runs from when they hatch (around 30th November) until 25th January. So you have one day left to find one!

4) How exactly (sic) do you hunt Haggis?

The techniques are too many and too varied t describe in their entirety. Suffice to say a good starting point would be heading up to the Highlands of Scotland, putting on a skirt and getting roary (normally through careful and copious application of scotch single malt whiskey).
finally, we have a herd of cows, a flock of sheep but 5) what is the collective noun for Haggis?

As has already been observed the correct term for many haggis when served is “heap”. However, it is a little known fact that haggis (as with geese) have multiple collective nouns based on their state of being at the time of describing. For example, a large number of wild haggis less than halfway up the hill or mountain are described as a Footle of Haggis, halfway up or more they become a Reetlot of Haggis and in the process of falling down the hill they are normally described as a Bunchostupidstinkinachgetootamaway of Haggis.

So there you have it. Hopefully that’s cleared up your questions but typing haggis hunt into Google will result in any number of contradictory answers and erroneous information. I’d remind you that you came here first and, I know where you live >:-|

I got those tube strike blues

// January 24th, 2006 // No Comments » // Personal

Well I haven’t as the lovely island of Jersey doesn’t have a single train let alone an underground. We do have a crappy bus service but that doesn’t warrant the time and attention required to post about it.
But these guys definitely have! They’re very angry about something…
Needs flash and is probably not safe for work

Getting into Flickr

// January 21st, 2006 // No Comments » // Personal

A bit late but better late than never! I’ve finally started using the Flickr account I set up ages ago. The main reason for this sudden burst of photographic activity is that I’m now fully confident with using my new camera (the very cool Sony Cybershot DSC-W17 in limited edition black) and have finally bothered to start sharing my photos rather than just hoarding them.

Feel free to go and browse the weird mish mash of inanity you’ll find there but please bear in mind that if a photo contains people who haven’t given me permission to publish them on the web you’ll need to be added to my friends list before you can see them.

As these include the most comedy (and the most nudey) photos you’ll most likely want to be added – just drop me a mail. Don’t have my email address? Then it’s unlikely I’ll be giving you access anyway so don’t worry about it.

3 days later and I’m nearly OO

// January 20th, 2006 // No Comments » // Personal

I’m in the process of reworking an existing website to add some new, and standardise existing, functionality. When I first threw the site together I used a mess of PHP and XHTML and it seemed to do pretty much what I wanted. This time around I’ve decided to apply Object Oriented methodologies …

… and what a faff that is! I like to think I’m a pretty logical, switched on guy but some of these concepts are so convoluted as to be unworkable. I mean I get the whole Classes and Objects (I think) and I’m making inroads on Data Abstraction but the Business and Page Logic? Value Objects? Speak English!

Anybody got any decent tutorials or high-level overviews of OO development in PHP 4? If so drop them in the comments please.

In the mean time I’ll plod on quietly and I’m sure I’ll get there in the end… just in time for a new version of PHP!


By the way, this is the 4th time I’ve written this post… note to self. When blogging make sure Refresh Every 5 mins is turned off!

Microsoft Acquire Folder Share

// January 19th, 2006 // No Comments » // Personal

FolderShare (for those who don’t know) is a dinky little file synchronisation application to get round the issue of working on the same files from different computers. Because it works over the normal internet it can  be used behind firewalls and pretty much anywhere you can get on-line.

And Microsoft have just bought it! Presumably (and indeed confirmed by the announcement on the FolderShare site) this service will be integrated into the Windows Live technology family. I hope they maintain the free version though as FolderShare was / is a very useful application.

The tools of the job

// January 18th, 2006 // No Comments » // Personal

It’s been ages since I did a geeky post so, for the benefit of those who couldn’t care less, please turn away now!

Still here? Cool! This post was prompted by a question on Molly’s site regarding the computers people use and what they use them for. Since I’ve just set up the office again I thought I’d wade in and share my current set-up (along with my planned expansion)

As you can see from this photo, my work space is pretty cosy at the moment and so one of the biggest contraints I have to deal with is space, or a lack thereof.

My main machine (as most will now by now) is the lovely 15″ Powerbook G4. It’s used for almost everything, from design, though to development, PIM, email, browsing and what little game playing I do these days. To complement this lovely laptop I’ve got it on an iCurve with the required mouse and keyboard. I also have it hooked up to the fantastic 17″ NEC 1760NX which gives me plenty of screen real estate to do most things.

On the laptop’s left is the little development server. A mini-itx system with 1GHZ chip and 1GB ram, this dual boots into Fedora Core 4 and Windows Server 2003 (I primarily work in PHP for my own stuff but have contracted work in Windows Sharepoint Services and other .NET stuff which requires a Windows server) and at the moment has it’s own keyboard and mouse but jacks into the 17″screen.
The other key bits of kit – The new camera. Now travels with me more frequently than my wallet! The speakers. Don’t know where I got them from but these little Sony’s are glorious sound merchants!

Of course no-one is ever 100% happy with their own set-up. For me I need one more box to make things complete. I’d really like another Mini ITX system but a fanless (and therefore noiseless) one that can run all the time and would handle things that need to be always on like Skype, Bit Torrent as well as being a general dumping ground for files, photos, etc. A good printer would also be quite wlecome but I’m rapidly running out of room so unless it’s WiFi enabled and can sit somewhere other than the desk it’s going to have to wait until I move.

The final key will be to work out how best to get the WiFi link in from the sitting room and split it between the two non wireless machines.

So how about you guys? What’s your office / home office set-up like? What does it need to make things complete?