One for keefybabe and anyone else who is interested

Matrix online beta testers this week

I’ve already signed up, just waiting to see what happens……

Well this morning my body broke. Woke up after a restless night of cats waking me and Rach up, feeling well spaced out. Not in a nice way I might add. So seeing this as a sign that the cold that has been knocking on the door for the a last couple of weeks had finally caught up with me, prompty rang in sick. The rationale being that I really need to recharge the batteries in light of all the meetings I have this week (one per day, phase 2 of web site redevelopment).

Caught up with my kip, then surfed the net and played some Counter-strike. Then Rach got back from Uni and whizzed me off to Crown Point. More prints of the Wedding Photos (which Rach reckons we have 500 photos of!!!) plus I put in some of my negatives from the last 10 years (oh yes tremble mortals, coming to my webspace mucho soon)

To be cont

……renewed and revitalised, and with my sense of humour returned.

How I lost my sense of humour and what I learnt

Pre-written functions and objects are your friends. If someone has gone there and spent a great deal of time and effort doing it before you, tweak modify and mould it to your own purpose.

Especially if drawing up submission guidelines for web pages.

Here endeth the lession.

Furthered my professional development today, by getting some nice chunky web programming books. This was made possible by work who pay out for such things 🙂

Beginning XML from Wrox Press & PHP 5 Unleashed from Sams Publishing.

This is carrying on from the two courses I did last week. Databases on the web, which covered PHP & ASP, and Exploring XML.

Databases on the web covered pretty familiar territory in the afternoon (the PHP half) but the morning was usefully since it covered ASP which I’ve only really cut and pasted before and I need to do for work soon (The Clinical Index for the placements office). It also re fired my interest in web programming in a major way.

Exploring XML was very interesting. I covered XML on my masters course, but only as far as what is it, how to write fully formed XML and validate it against DTDs. None of the useful and fun stuff that this course covered, i.e. how to do searches on XML documents, how to out put XML into nice formatted web pages. When I first looked at XML in 2001 it was very much an emerging technology. Now it has come of age.

PHP5 is the new version of PHP. Looks like the world and his dog are still running PHP4, but I thought it would be nice to beat the pack and get ahead with the new version, which is 80% backwards compatible. I pretty much pushed the language to the limit when I did my masters dissertation, when PHP 5 was merely a features list in Zend’s eye. Now its here, so I’ll be curling up with my book reading up on the new features (proper Object Orientated Programming, native XML functions & its own inbuilt database called SQLite) and then writing the dynamic parts of my home page in PHP5. This makes me feel rather giddy. I like learning things but I ran out of ground with PHP4 quickly. Having a new release of PHP gives me something fun to do.

I previously used LJ as a personal blog in 2000/2001 when I was doing my Masters in Software Development. It allowed me to have a break from my studies for five minutes make sense of my life and have a bit of fun with the internet. Also in those days no one I knew read it or even used LJ. When I restarted using LJ as a personal blog back in November of last year it was as an experiment. After two months I’ve decided that I’m no longer going to use LJ as a personal blog.

Here’s the reasons why

The gaps between entries are becoming longer and longer. This is because life is getting more hectic.

Last Friday went to see my brother George in Sheffield. Had a good time and drunk way too much and stayed up way too late (3:30am). Like you do when you are 25,The night ended with me barking at a 40 year old drama queen, called Michael, who was winding me up something rotten. A twit of the magnitude of Marcus, for those of you who remember that loser. Good to see George, but less beer and more quality brother time next visit.

The rest of the weekend was pretty duhhhh because of Friday’s late night malarkey, but I wrote some HeroQuest, chilled with Rach who like George had her birthday on Sunday.

I’ve recently thrown myself into work, which is nice but a bit sudden, so this is one of the reasons I’ve been quiet on the LJ front. Had a change of pace today and yesterday when I went on a marvellous web programming training course, which has really fired me up to do some coding.

Right must bugger off and catch the train home.

Talk to you later.

Reading this story about Leeds that dr_misrule pointed out on Chav Towns about Leeds made me stop and think.

There are elements of truth in what this person rants on about, for example the crass commercialism of the city centre which parks high class shops like Harvey Nicks alongside the budget pound shops, but overall its as bad as he makes out. I’ve lived all over England, and encountered dick heads wherever I’ve gone. Chav seems to be an anthropological progression from the tribe of Trendy in my yoof, except now people go on about like a broken record.

When me and Rachel move house, it won’t be to Leeds. Leeds was great for me personally up until 2 or 3 years ago, when I got a tremendous buzz out of living in a City. Now as Hanibal Lector says in the silence of the Lambs “What I want is a view. I want a window where I can see a tree, or even water.” I’m not moving because Leeds is going down market or becoming “Chav central”. Its just not for me any more.

So I get into Manchester Piccadilly train station and troll across the platform to the main foyer. Once there I am bombarded by adverts for this filth Michelob Ultra, a beer that sells itself on being low on carbs low on calories. Yuk!

WARNING The Rev Newt gets upon his beer crate for a good rant

My overall exuberance began to get a bit coloured over the last couple of days.

Had a bit of a disaster last Friday, in that I left my wallet on the traiin home!! Doh, so of I rush home to cancel all my cards. Once that was out the way I was relieved but knackered.

The weekend was relaxing but over way too soon.

Yesterday, felt slightly blue. For no apparent reason. Didn’t really feel myself until I had a nice refreshing bath.

This morning out of nowhere I was angry. Partially because I’m getting back into webprogramming, which is immensely frustrating when things don’t work out. However i’ve got the patience to see it through and the sense to bugger off and go and do something else. Quite offen this approach works magically with the problem being solved as soon as I look at it. Calmed myself down by reading Rock Sound in WHSmiths at lunch, and laughing at the sad rock stars who’s shenigans are detailed within its pages.

Rach has finally got her exam and essay out of the way today (in fact she should be at home dozzing away as I type this), so things should be happier at home.