My time management skills needs to improve before next semester..
4 minute warning
Category Archives: general
Woking …ham
Writing from Wokingham – redDot Liveserver training. Last day today, so we’ll be heading back sometime in the afternoon. Hopefully we’ll be dropping into Burghclere to see the murals by Stanley Spencer at the memorial chapel.
edit: got to Burghclere, well after dark and if it had been open, it was, by then, shut.
We’ve been spoiled here as the accommodation is adjoined to the excellent pub, so the food and drink has been great and in good supply!
I managed to lock myself out of the en-suite. Managed to get it open again (with a bit of jury-rigging involving a pen-refill) but didn’t figure out how it happened in the first place.
Avebury in December
On the way to Wokingham (3 days of app. training), made a slight detour to Avebury. Phil’s first visit, so after a tour of the henge we headed up the West Kennet Avenue in the wind, rain and diminishing light of late afternoon.
At the end, we went over the top of Waden hill for one of the best views of Silbury. This is the first time I’ve seen some water in the moat too, and the Winterbourne was pretty swollen so the bottoms of our waterproofs were pretty ‘brown’ by the time we got back to the car.
Had our evening meal at the Red Lion before getting back on the M4 for Wokingham.
sshoo tired…
It’s just another four days now until this Web Development Technologies group coursework has to be presented, and the source code, report, diagrams and appendices handed in.To the left, on the screen, is what it looks like. To the right, that’s what it feels like!
It’s not looking too bad so far – The Model-View-Controller framework is cutting down development time nicely, and just a few objects referring to books, used books, users, preferences and the like mean it’s doing rather alot but is still decidely lean.
The preference panel is my favourite bit so far, it seems to handle updating the user object, sesison and user Db record very nicely, and neatly updates the global settings with the user’s own.
This is not yet (strictly) live anywhere, but it will be once it’s complete and been presented. In four days time, it’ll never be used again.
In addition to the rest of the group, I have had some personal help with this from the expert.
Midnight blogging
It has taken me just shy of an hour to blog my entry to the History Matters ‘one day in history’ weblog. It’s probably the concern that there’s no delete or edit – it’s fixed, forever.
Submitted it just before midnight and am not sure it was a) all that good, and b) free of typos – I was in such a rush at the end. Now of course I remember loads of things I’d have liked to put in.
Our cats, both curled up here with us, are oblivious to the fact that I’ve just recorded their names to a national record. Many pet owners seem to have done the same – very British all in all.
Now it’s tomorrow (iyswim) and I’m the only one left awake. In Uni today, and we’re doing PHP, basic, really basic PHP. Yawn.
First Fog
Has Autumn finally arrived?
First day of Uni
I’ve spent too long on the wrong side of the office – I’ve seen so many smiling students and shiny classrooms courtesy of marketing that I was a bit shocked to end up in a ropy corner room on the eighth floor. The lifts had tens of people round them, so the stairs were the only option.
It looks like I have many weeks of HTML refresher classes ahead of me, until some coursework in PHP comes up. Though I doubt that will challenge me greatly either. (edit: how wrong was I?)
Still, our collective ability with the code meant it finished early, enabling a short stint in a coffee shop on Dale Street before heading to the Gallery for Nicholas Middleton’s talk.
Today’s highlights
Could not sleep beyond 5am, so am now sat fiddling with a searching app I’ve had simmering for a while, with a cat purring on my knee. This is the way to get on in life (or so the cat tells me).
Of course I’ll feel rubbish by mid-afternoon. This AM I’m at the dentist for the first time in… a long time, then I’m going to pop straight into the City and get an hour so at the John Moores 24th exhibition which we were at the opening of on Saturday last.
Firefox 2
Much hacking
First day back in work after a week or so off, still a little sleep deprived following a spell of babysitting, but recovering. I now have a matter of days to get together a prototype voting application for the Board of Governors elections, before the ballot organiser takes her leave for the month.
The morning presented a fair few small problems to keep me from this task – everything from bad links embedded in our VLE to a colleague concerned with her first name (rather than her display name) appearing on discussion boards.
By half-four I had the makings of the eligible voter upload feature done – bung a CSV file (obtained from finance – so that’s three departments so far involved) to the server and choose the column containing usernames to have the database populated. At this rate it should be done this time tomorrow and I can begin to abstract it into something usable in future ballots (the original plan, before the short deadline came about).
Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get my crash course. in .NET downstairs – I’m aware of how behind we are with this particular technology despite our knowledge of other environments.