I sort of like it...
Sunday 8 February 2009
Another painting "Winter thorn"
I sort of like it...
Wednesday 4 February 2009
25 things that piss me off - The Facebook Anti-Meme
I have been tagged several times in the Facebook "25 random things about me" and last night I succumbed and slapped up 25 VERY random things about me, which involved the knicker elastic of Dutch prostitutes, Nuns in my bed and other strange and wonderful things.
However being a ranter of some regard I am tempted to start my own meme of "25 things I hate" in the vein of "Room 101" here goes....they are in no particular order just as they come into my head.
01. Flowery Curtains - with or without matching cushions.Yes I know that they set the ambience for a room but FECK life is too fecking short for me to care or for that matter for me to notice.
02. Aga's - it is a cooker from the last century! Having one in your kitchen says to the world "I couldn't think of anything better to spend £3,000 on"
04. The new Volkswagen Beetle FECK it is an ugly expensive heap of marketing hyperbole and what is it with the bloody plastic friggin flower in a wee holder on the dashboard? It is the My Little Pony of cars.
05. Door step evangelists, although they can be good to taunt if you are in a good mood. Proof if proof be needed that Psychiatric Care in the Community is NOT working!
06. Philip Pullman - His entire ouevre is best used as toilet paper as least your bum would enjoy it!
07. Queuing in airports - why is it you are always sandwiched between people to whom the idea of preserving your personal space is a total anathema and you can't slap them or security get cross.
08. Bad Shopping Trolley drivers - why is it that I find myself apologising when a ton of chicken breasts, jaffa cakes and cornflakes piloted by an inattentive fellow shopper separate my Achilles tendons whilst I ponder the nature of frozen peas?
09. Any advert that mentions something like "Oxyboxytoxymoxyanol" is good for Hair/Skin/Periods .. are women really that stupid? - In Casa McDonagh the tag line "Cos Im Worth it" is usually followed by "Aye worth a good fecking poke in the eye with a sharp stick"
10. Ant and Dec - In the proverb dictionary under "empty vessels make the most noise" is a picture of these demons from the darkest pits of hell grinning inanely and prancing around in a way that makes grandmothers go weak at the knees and start to think of lacy underwear.
11. Talking of Grandmothers .. Daniel O'Donnel ..... nuff said there i think
12. IKEA - God almighty what a horrible but nicely decorated place. Last time I was there I discovered a squad of Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award candidates who had been tasked with finding the purchase pick up point as part of their 3 day expedition. Poor souls had got lost in the Shaker Kitchens section.
13. Lycra see here for details
14. Very formal variable names what is wrong with Dim AmberArseMagnet as New Doobry ?
15. Being tidy ... sod the conventional thinking that it equates to a tidy mind embrace your mess and call it nice names!
16. Lilly "what-a-talentless-squeaky-toned-mockney-jumped-up-wee-bitch-and-a-complete-waste-of-fecking-time" Allen
17. Which leads me to Coldplay.. lead singer Chris Martin is a Onanist masquerading as a lycrist. He massages his lyrics in the same way a 14 year old boy left alone with a copy of "Tits and Bums Monthly" does only Martin's lyrics have less pleasure and the only kleenex required are for tears of pain and loathing. Their melodies have the same mass-produced "character" as the pictures that hang in a Holiday Inn lobby and all of Coldplay's albums sound like the audio equivilant of syrup of figs , cures your constipation but gives you the shits!
18. People who claim to speak "for me" or "for the people of Northern Ireland" or "all right thinking people" all these phrases are usually followed by something that makes my blood boil and makes me reach for my "pithy" pencil to dash of a sternly worded rebuke.
19. The transition from "disgustingly young" to "merely disgusting" was harder than puberty but had less acne and there were no self help books.
20. When you go to a big gig, the twonk in front of you hoists his girlfriend onto his shoulders and takes it personally when you inform him that you paid 60 quid to see The Foo Fighters and not his floosy's big fat arse. Ditto Umbrellas at outside concerts, it is fecking Ireland ... it rains ... get wet like the rest of us. What sort of person goes to a rock concert with an umbrella? (Ok I would possibly run with a black leather with studs brolly if such a thing exists)
21. Standing at baggage reclaim in clothes that looked cool and happenin' on holiday but totally fails in the non-holiday context.
22. Getting blow back while inflating an air mattress by mouth,ooooo nasty
23. USB rage - you know when your favourite shagging dog, poledancer , coffee warmer suddenly stops working and you fly into an uncontrollable temper.
24. Having sand up the shoughs of your arse. (shough of your arse = your bum crack). When 17 it was an acceptable pain if accompanied by a bit of grope with the girlfriend. In middle age it is just deeply deeply annoying.
25. People who decorate ice cream vans ..... are they DRUNK when they do it or are they totally incapable of drawing Micky Fecking mouse, Picatu or Captian America? It's not hard to find someone with a smidgen more artist talent than a sloth on acid.
Hmmm 25 things didnt take long it is a lot easier to find things that annoy me .. so come on bloggers get ranting and show Facebook the dark underbelly of their meme.
However being a ranter of some regard I am tempted to start my own meme of "25 things I hate" in the vein of "Room 101" here goes....they are in no particular order just as they come into my head.
01. Flowery Curtains - with or without matching cushions.Yes I know that they set the ambience for a room but FECK life is too fecking short for me to care or for that matter for me to notice.
02. Aga's - it is a cooker from the last century! Having one in your kitchen says to the world "I couldn't think of anything better to spend £3,000 on"
04. The new Volkswagen Beetle FECK it is an ugly expensive heap of marketing hyperbole and what is it with the bloody plastic friggin flower in a wee holder on the dashboard? It is the My Little Pony of cars.
05. Door step evangelists, although they can be good to taunt if you are in a good mood. Proof if proof be needed that Psychiatric Care in the Community is NOT working!
06. Philip Pullman - His entire ouevre is best used as toilet paper as least your bum would enjoy it!
07. Queuing in airports - why is it you are always sandwiched between people to whom the idea of preserving your personal space is a total anathema and you can't slap them or security get cross.
08. Bad Shopping Trolley drivers - why is it that I find myself apologising when a ton of chicken breasts, jaffa cakes and cornflakes piloted by an inattentive fellow shopper separate my Achilles tendons whilst I ponder the nature of frozen peas?
09. Any advert that mentions something like "Oxyboxytoxymoxyanol" is good for Hair/Skin/Periods .. are women really that stupid? - In Casa McDonagh the tag line "Cos Im Worth it" is usually followed by "Aye worth a good fecking poke in the eye with a sharp stick"
10. Ant and Dec - In the proverb dictionary under "empty vessels make the most noise" is a picture of these demons from the darkest pits of hell grinning inanely and prancing around in a way that makes grandmothers go weak at the knees and start to think of lacy underwear.
11. Talking of Grandmothers .. Daniel O'Donnel ..... nuff said there i think
12. IKEA - God almighty what a horrible but nicely decorated place. Last time I was there I discovered a squad of Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award candidates who had been tasked with finding the purchase pick up point as part of their 3 day expedition. Poor souls had got lost in the Shaker Kitchens section.
13. Lycra see here for details
14. Very formal variable names what is wrong with Dim AmberArseMagnet as New Doobry ?
15. Being tidy ... sod the conventional thinking that it equates to a tidy mind embrace your mess and call it nice names!
16. Lilly "what-a-talentless-squeaky-toned-mockney-jumped-up-wee-bitch-and-a-complete-waste-of-fecking-time" Allen
17. Which leads me to Coldplay.. lead singer Chris Martin is a Onanist masquerading as a lycrist. He massages his lyrics in the same way a 14 year old boy left alone with a copy of "Tits and Bums Monthly" does only Martin's lyrics have less pleasure and the only kleenex required are for tears of pain and loathing. Their melodies have the same mass-produced "character" as the pictures that hang in a Holiday Inn lobby and all of Coldplay's albums sound like the audio equivilant of syrup of figs , cures your constipation but gives you the shits!
18. People who claim to speak "for me" or "for the people of Northern Ireland" or "all right thinking people" all these phrases are usually followed by something that makes my blood boil and makes me reach for my "pithy" pencil to dash of a sternly worded rebuke.
19. The transition from "disgustingly young" to "merely disgusting" was harder than puberty but had less acne and there were no self help books.
20. When you go to a big gig, the twonk in front of you hoists his girlfriend onto his shoulders and takes it personally when you inform him that you paid 60 quid to see The Foo Fighters and not his floosy's big fat arse. Ditto Umbrellas at outside concerts, it is fecking Ireland ... it rains ... get wet like the rest of us. What sort of person goes to a rock concert with an umbrella? (Ok I would possibly run with a black leather with studs brolly if such a thing exists)
21. Standing at baggage reclaim in clothes that looked cool and happenin' on holiday but totally fails in the non-holiday context.
22. Getting blow back while inflating an air mattress by mouth,ooooo nasty
23. USB rage - you know when your favourite shagging dog, poledancer , coffee warmer suddenly stops working and you fly into an uncontrollable temper.
24. Having sand up the shoughs of your arse. (shough of your arse = your bum crack). When 17 it was an acceptable pain if accompanied by a bit of grope with the girlfriend. In middle age it is just deeply deeply annoying.
25. People who decorate ice cream vans ..... are they DRUNK when they do it or are they totally incapable of drawing Micky Fecking mouse, Picatu or Captian America? It's not hard to find someone with a smidgen more artist talent than a sloth on acid.
Hmmm 25 things didnt take long it is a lot easier to find things that annoy me .. so come on bloggers get ranting and show Facebook the dark underbelly of their meme.
Simple beauty in the helix of a shell on the beach
Pardon my language .. but F**K that is beautiful!
You can have a play with Twimino V0.0.1 if you want
He ho Peeps.
If you will that way inclined you can have a play with Twimino V0.0.1 ... it is no where near done yet, I have perhaps worked on it for 3-4 hours so do NOT expect loveliness!!! It not all there yet and it is likely full of of bugs.. but it works after a fashion. Thomas's version is slightly different I use the Domino SAX parser and he doesnt (it has to be said his is a good deal more professional than mine, but what the hey ...)
The Twitter API is doing something strange with the DM api and it might take a few refreshes of the agent to see you DMs appear...(they are GREEN in the Friends Time line BTW)
You can download it here. (116k ish)
Once I apply some polish and some more features , friends, searchs, automatic SNURL/SNIP and the like, I will bung it up on OpenNtf for now have a play if you feel that way inclined the code is all LS and is not that difficult to follow.
Once you have done the first Harvest the agent will kick in and run every 5 mins, you may have to press F9 to refresh the view, the friend list builds as you get Tweets in.
Click on a tweet to get the option menu, or right click and use the options you find there.
You can also click on your Friend list to get a menu there.
Non-automatic manual refreshes via the big button on you friends time line
No piccies as yet I am afraid
If you will that way inclined you can have a play with Twimino V0.0.1 ... it is no where near done yet, I have perhaps worked on it for 3-4 hours so do NOT expect loveliness!!! It not all there yet and it is likely full of of bugs.. but it works after a fashion. Thomas's version is slightly different I use the Domino SAX parser and he doesnt (it has to be said his is a good deal more professional than mine, but what the hey ...)
The Twitter API is doing something strange with the DM api and it might take a few refreshes of the agent to see you DMs appear...(they are GREEN in the Friends Time line BTW)
You can download it here. (116k ish)
Once I apply some polish and some more features , friends, searchs, automatic SNURL/SNIP and the like, I will bung it up on OpenNtf for now have a play if you feel that way inclined the code is all LS and is not that difficult to follow.
Once you have done the first Harvest the agent will kick in and run every 5 mins, you may have to press F9 to refresh the view, the friend list builds as you get Tweets in.
Click on a tweet to get the option menu, or right click and use the options you find there.
You can also click on your Friend list to get a menu there.
Non-automatic manual refreshes via the big button on you friends time line
No piccies as yet I am afraid
Tuesday 3 February 2009
Twimino Nearly Ready
I got a bit bogged down in another issue so I am not quite there yet. I still need to do a couple of views and enable a click-up menu of options on the friend list for "Tweet At Twit", "DM Twit" etc
However the underlying guts is all there now.. sort of.
This is what it looks like now in Default view
with the OPTIONS bar closed. Your Friend Time line is displayed in the main body part of the screen with unread marks and message threading where possible (some clients don't do replies and as such the thread gets broken)
This is the Option Bar open where you set your profile, sign the DB turn the harvesting agent on and off it can be slid away when not needed.
When you click on a tweet in your friend's timeline instead of the tweet opening you get this menu which allows you to Send a new TWEET
Reply to the TWEET you clicked on
Retweet the TWEET you clicked on
Or Open the first URL in the TWEET text in your browser
This is your send a tweet dialog, it can copy with new Tweets, Replies and Retweets. (Tomorrow it will get DMs)
All these options are also on the RIGHT CLICK menu for the VIEW
The agent runs every 5 mins to harvest the tweets but you can do manual refreshes using the view's "Manual Harvest of Tweets" button
At the minute the Friend List Auto Populates from the Tweets you harvest
I have a background agent that your can run that harvests "All your followers" "All Someone Elses Followers" and will allow you to add and block chums...but that will be for Version 0.0.2
Anyhows Off to bed for me...
However the underlying guts is all there now.. sort of.
This is what it looks like now in Default view
with the OPTIONS bar closed. Your Friend Time line is displayed in the main body part of the screen with unread marks and message threading where possible (some clients don't do replies and as such the thread gets broken)
This is the Option Bar open where you set your profile, sign the DB turn the harvesting agent on and off it can be slid away when not needed.
When you click on a tweet in your friend's timeline instead of the tweet opening you get this menu which allows you to Send a new TWEET
Reply to the TWEET you clicked on
Retweet the TWEET you clicked on
Or Open the first URL in the TWEET text in your browser
This is your send a tweet dialog, it can copy with new Tweets, Replies and Retweets. (Tomorrow it will get DMs)
All these options are also on the RIGHT CLICK menu for the VIEW
The agent runs every 5 mins to harvest the tweets but you can do manual refreshes using the view's "Manual Harvest of Tweets" button
At the minute the Friend List Auto Populates from the Tweets you harvest
I have a background agent that your can run that harvests "All your followers" "All Someone Elses Followers" and will allow you to add and block chums...but that will be for Version 0.0.2
Anyhows Off to bed for me...
Sunday 1 February 2009
Twitter in an NSF (...continued)
Having had a look at Thomas's Twitter NSF last week. Initially I decided that my own wee app would die a death and I cast it aside. However the TV was that crap this weekend that I fiddled away at it and have moved to a point were 2morrow (hopefully) I will be able to give you my version of the same thing cept mine is called Twimino and looks like this.
I don't have avatar pictures in mine (yet) and it still has some idosyncracies to work out but the V0.0.1 very beta beta should be ready for people to tear to shreds tomorrow or Monday
I don't have avatar pictures in mine (yet) and it still has some idosyncracies to work out but the V0.0.1 very beta beta should be ready for people to tear to shreds tomorrow or Monday
Thursday 29 January 2009
Twitter in an NSF (follow up)
Yesterday I posted about my playing with twitter in a NSF, since this fiddling came from a request of "how to read XML from an external URL in LS?" I didn't google or PL twitter and NSF and as a result didn'f find out about a fine little app put together by one of our own Thomas Adrian who hales from Sweden. He has got a really sweet little NSF app has matured to Version 2 and does all that I planned to do. So any of you that are interested take a look at his post here.
Kudos Bro!
A fine wee app! Thanks for sharing it :-)
Kudos Bro!
A fine wee app! Thanks for sharing it :-)
Wednesday 28 January 2009
Twitter in an NSF
Greetings and felicitations peeps and peepettes,
In a fit of pique at not being at LS09 and wishing that I could get a decent Twitter client that had a decent search, sorts and message threading also I was asked a question by a virtual colleague about "how to read an XML data stream in LS?"
So I threw together some LS at an NSF and "DYMTweetlet" was born. I now have a local NSF that sits and merrily polls my twitter stream every 3 mins if my notes client is up. Stores the tweets in a notes doc and then has all the notes-ee goodness of message threading, views, sort, search and the like. It also finds tweets from your chums that are "reply to" people you aren't following and sends them "Can I follow you" request.
It looks like shite at the minute, but it works, all I need is a way of getting the avatar piccies down to add to the PEEP document. Wild Bill & Matt White have pointed me at Java for this which I was investigating this evening, tomorrow I will give it a go and see what happens
In a fit of pique at not being at LS09 and wishing that I could get a decent Twitter client that had a decent search, sorts and message threading also I was asked a question by a virtual colleague about "how to read an XML data stream in LS?"
So I threw together some LS at an NSF and "DYMTweetlet" was born. I now have a local NSF that sits and merrily polls my twitter stream every 3 mins if my notes client is up. Stores the tweets in a notes doc and then has all the notes-ee goodness of message threading, views, sort, search and the like. It also finds tweets from your chums that are "reply to" people you aren't following and sends them "Can I follow you" request.
It looks like shite at the minute, but it works, all I need is a way of getting the avatar piccies down to add to the PEEP document. Wild Bill & Matt White have pointed me at Java for this which I was investigating this evening, tomorrow I will give it a go and see what happens
Friday 23 January 2009
Bill Buchan's secret anchestry revealed
Much was said this past week about Mr Mooney's Scottish parentage in that he is indeed the skinny love child off our own Mr Buchan, this may or may not be true and is not really anything to do with this post ... I was reviewing the LS09 Flickr stream and I came across this picture .. go look at it now ... i will wait ... the similarity struck me like large lump hammer wrapped in enlightenment.. I knew exactly who bill looked like and had at once to put pen to paper...before the mood went off me. To Find out what the Feck I am talking about click the button below
Wednesday 21 January 2009
My First V8.5.0 project - Getting a decent floating layout
It seemed that the only way to do this was with absolute positioning, which I wanted to avoid if at all possible!
Then I came across this article by Shaun Inman and my problem was solved! He describes the solution much better than I can so I advise you to go have a look see if such things make you moist.
He has a really simple CSS and JS resolution to the problem so I copied it down and into a NSF page to see if it would work and it does!! Wonderfully fluid centered [div]s with a header at the top and a footer at the bottom ..(see below) ... Yippee ... Just what I wanted. Now if I can just get it to work in xPages which is being somewhat of a puzzle, but I shall continue on regardless. More tomorrow.
Memories of my Father that made me smile
My father was a great fan of Gerald Hoffnung, and I came across this the today, which made me smile and brought back memories of a life long ago. There is no video and if you haven't heard the bricklayers lament before.. give it a go... you will enjoy it:-)
Tuesday 20 January 2009
V8.5.0 designer - my first play
I have had about 4 hours playing with the v8.5.0 designer client and I could be all serious and professional and say how well it fits the paradigm of a modern designer interface. How the interplay of the various components react together with a synergy that excels even my jaded sensibilities .. on the other hand I could yell ...
YIPPEE!
and run around the room naked waving my arms like a demeneted dervish. Since I am at home and everyone is in bed i think I will [pause for silliness]
Now as you may have noted I am not at LS so I don't have the benefit of listening to thoses that know how it all fits together AND I have only just this weekend downloaded the 8.5.0 code so I have had 2 hours yesterday and perhaps 3 today to play with it.
I of course dived straight into xPages and yes I can see how wonderful it is going to be. However I couldn't get CSS to work the way I wanted it, floats and clear's didn't seem to work and you can't set the left and right margins to "auto" ... as in (margin-left: auto; ) from the properties panel of an object. But this is probably me not doing it right rather than any fault of xPages.
I did manage without the aid of the help, or of my collegaues on the web to get a view working which is "bloody marvellous" and a testament to how easy it is to code! I will have to do a deep dive or two in the comming weeks to get to grips with all the bells and whistles!
On ordinary matters I really do like the fact that when I edit external style sheets I don't now have to remember to refresh the damn things. You just double click, edite them in the IDE, with a very nice properties panel at the bottom (no more typing maargin-botom: for me) enter your CSS, save and refresh your page in the browser. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! Remembering to refresh the CSS file in the NSF was the bane of my life and made many of my colleagues blush when I gave vent to my frustration in that regard!
The new editing layout or as it is called in designer "the perspective" is good, everything is at hand and easy to find for those used to the older designer clients. However I would challenge the "perspective" label. To an artist this means and image that is an approximate representation, on a flat surface, of an image in three dimensions as it is perceived by the eye. The two most characteristic features of perspective are that objects are drawn smaller as distance increases and are foreshortened along the line of sight but I suppose in this context it means the faculty of seeing all the relevant data to do with a project in a meaningful relationship ... ok I DO have my pedant hat on .... but because I have drawn and painted for a lot longer than I have coded it does midly annoy me. ;-)
I digress ... (as usual) ... my first impressions of V8.5.0 designer are very good but I can see a whole new set of tricks that will need to be learned to leverage max value out of it. So LS09 dev session folk we non-attenders really do need your examples and presentations so we too can get up and running ASAP with all these new toys! Pretty Please!
Monday 19 January 2009
Tony Hart RIP
Hey ho :(
Another great has left us to go on life's greatest adventure.
"Vision On" then "Take Hart" launched 10s of thousands of young brits off in search of pencils, crayons, sticky back plastic and paints. He launched Morph produced by Aardman who went on to bring us Wallace and Gromit.
But for me like many others it was the gallery that will stick in the memory. Particularly for me because one of my pictures was actually shown on it, many many many years ago on Vision on ... Tony ... thank you!
Another great has left us to go on life's greatest adventure.
"Vision On" then "Take Hart" launched 10s of thousands of young brits off in search of pencils, crayons, sticky back plastic and paints. He launched Morph produced by Aardman who went on to bring us Wallace and Gromit.
But for me like many others it was the gallery that will stick in the memory. Particularly for me because one of my pictures was actually shown on it, many many many years ago on Vision on ... Tony ... thank you!
Wednesday 14 January 2009
Not Going to LS09? Join the proud non-attendee's who are not jealous at all!
After a tweet here and a tweet there from some of my chums on twitter
it has become clear that we non-attenders are feeling low and jealous as ***k.
So if you aren't going and are feeling down, hold you head high cos there are 1,000's
of us and we WILL be there vicariously on Twitter and sundry other sites.
Lotusphere Non-attendees UNITE!
it has become clear that we non-attenders are feeling low and jealous as ***k.
So if you aren't going and are feeling down, hold you head high cos there are 1,000's
of us and we WILL be there vicariously on Twitter and sundry other sites.
Lotusphere Non-attendees UNITE!
PS Please feel free to steal this image and post it on your site
** Update **
Ben Langhinrichs has kindly added "Missing GONADs" to his LS Session Database
for those that that cannot attend!
Thank you Ben you shall reap your reward in Heaven!
** Update **
The Roll of Honourable Non Attendees
Steve McDonagh -&- Steve Lapthorn
Vitor Pereira -&- Bob Brodsky
Pedro Quaresma -&- David Vasta
David M Taylor -&- Ben Poole
Big Bear Freddie -&- John Turnbow
Vaughan Rivett -&- Tony Palmer
John Turnbow -&- David Killingsworth
Michelle O'Rorke -&- Chuck Dean
Ulrich Krause -&- Christian Tillmanns
Dave Harris -&- SvenM
Chris Harris -&- Chris Coates
Sean Cull -&- Guy Wakely
Grant Norman -&- Philip Storry
Per Henrik Lausten -&- Adam Gartenberg
Ray Bilyk -&- Mats
Alan Dalziel -&- Tim Lorge
Lars Berntrop-Bos -&- Sjaak Ursinus
Ian White -&- Gareth Howell
Marzel Laning -&- George Paglia
Simon Scullion
We will not be there in person but we will be WATCHING you that are!
(And if you don't enjoy yourselves we will come round and do unspeakable things to you with Custard and Herrings!)
** Update **
Ben Langhinrichs has kindly added "Missing GONADs" to his LS Session Database
for those that that cannot attend!
Thank you Ben you shall reap your reward in Heaven!
** Update **
The Roll of Honourable Non Attendees
Steve McDonagh -&- Steve Lapthorn
Vitor Pereira -&- Bob Brodsky
Pedro Quaresma -&- David Vasta
David M Taylor -&- Ben Poole
Big Bear Freddie -&- John Turnbow
Vaughan Rivett -&- Tony Palmer
John Turnbow -&- David Killingsworth
Michelle O'Rorke -&- Chuck Dean
Ulrich Krause -&- Christian Tillmanns
Dave Harris -&- SvenM
Chris Harris -&- Chris Coates
Sean Cull -&- Guy Wakely
Grant Norman -&- Philip Storry
Per Henrik Lausten -&- Adam Gartenberg
Ray Bilyk -&- Mats
Alan Dalziel -&- Tim Lorge
Lars Berntrop-Bos -&- Sjaak Ursinus
Ian White -&- Gareth Howell
Marzel Laning -&- George Paglia
Simon Scullion
We will not be there in person but we will be WATCHING you that are!
(And if you don't enjoy yourselves we will come round and do unspeakable things to you with Custard and Herrings!)
My sepcial "hero" power recognised!!! Yippee!
Came into work today to find at the top of my inbox a message from Angela Petrelli no less! At long last my "hero" superpower has been validated! BAH! What good is being able to fly, see the future or travel in time if you can't peel a satsuma in one long bit with no breaks? Expect to see me in the next series as the "citrus-fruit-peeler-man"
Tuesday 13 January 2009
Does anyone fancy tweaking the Blog template with me?
Ben Poole was having a vent about the lack of movement in the "out of the box" templates over on his blog here. I responded there with an idea that post LS when youse folk are all fired up with enthusiasm that if a couple of us got together we could perhaps put some xpages gloss on the blog template.
It would be a learning experience for us all, we could blog about a collaborative development project, how it works and what we are doing and with a nod to professionalism even document our code... (did is say that out loud)
I am not looking for answers now, but think about it and after the fuss of LS has died down drop me an email.. the addy is on the left and lets see what we can do?
It would be a learning experience for us all, we could blog about a collaborative development project, how it works and what we are doing and with a nod to professionalism even document our code... (did is say that out loud)
I am not looking for answers now, but think about it and after the fuss of LS has died down drop me an email.. the addy is on the left and lets see what we can do?
Do users pay lip service to Collaboration?
It is late at night again.
I have just finished doing some coding for a work project, which is a nice little collaborative app that should make life easier for the end users that will use it. It is not a Web 2.0 "wunderkind" it is just one of those 1,000's of apps we Domino/Noterati developers make live daily. It will trundle away doing what it does quickly and easily and after a brief period of interita fuelled "do we have to?" Users will get used to it and it will fade into the background noise of everyday work.
But will it be really collaborative?
What do I mean by collaborative?
Do end users know collaboration from a hole in the head?
And that is where this post started forming in my mind. I have I suppose a vision of "collaborative" that is viewed through my Black and Yellow tinted evangelist's glasses and I suppose there is nothing wrong with that.
In the wonderful Domi-No-Yes-Maybe world, Engineers are happy to share their expertise with Sales, Marketing will get moist at the idea of having closer links with Production and of course everyone will just LOVE the auditors. Sadly this is not often the case.
There are loads of examples where we in the geek community try our damnedest to light fires of enthusiasm. Marybeth and her team (bless their collective cotton socks!) are excelling in their goal of making the user's experience of the client the best that it can be. Chris Blatnick and his unbounded enthusiasm for the "Cool Interface", joined now by Tom Duff and his Plumber to Painter Damasene conversion to designing both the functional AND cool, to name but a few.
I am not dissing any of the above nor any of my geek readers who daily suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous project creep in an effort to make our end users happy. The target of my vented spleen on this occasion are the fecking end-users! There are days when I could see the whole end-user community impaled on a sharp stick and roasted slowly over a ligthly smouldering heap of now defunct project specifications.
Why if they can see the benefits of collaborating (or so they tell me) do they insist on sticking to the comfy and secure modality of departmental, regional or customer/client demarcation?
It just doesn't make a whole heap of sense ....
~sigh~ well that's now off my chest tomorrow I will put on my smiley face and get back to the job in hand and start re-coding an old app so that less people have access to the data ...
I have just finished doing some coding for a work project, which is a nice little collaborative app that should make life easier for the end users that will use it. It is not a Web 2.0 "wunderkind" it is just one of those 1,000's of apps we Domino/Noterati developers make live daily. It will trundle away doing what it does quickly and easily and after a brief period of interita fuelled "do we have to?" Users will get used to it and it will fade into the background noise of everyday work.
But will it be really collaborative?
What do I mean by collaborative?
Do end users know collaboration from a hole in the head?
And that is where this post started forming in my mind. I have I suppose a vision of "collaborative" that is viewed through my Black and Yellow tinted evangelist's glasses and I suppose there is nothing wrong with that.
In the wonderful Domi-No-Yes-Maybe world, Engineers are happy to share their expertise with Sales, Marketing will get moist at the idea of having closer links with Production and of course everyone will just LOVE the auditors. Sadly this is not often the case.
There are loads of examples where we in the geek community try our damnedest to light fires of enthusiasm. Marybeth and her team (bless their collective cotton socks!) are excelling in their goal of making the user's experience of the client the best that it can be. Chris Blatnick and his unbounded enthusiasm for the "Cool Interface", joined now by Tom Duff and his Plumber to Painter Damasene conversion to designing both the functional AND cool, to name but a few.
I am not dissing any of the above nor any of my geek readers who daily suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous project creep in an effort to make our end users happy. The target of my vented spleen on this occasion are the fecking end-users! There are days when I could see the whole end-user community impaled on a sharp stick and roasted slowly over a ligthly smouldering heap of now defunct project specifications.
Why if they can see the benefits of collaborating (or so they tell me) do they insist on sticking to the comfy and secure modality of departmental, regional or customer/client demarcation?
It just doesn't make a whole heap of sense ....
~sigh~ well that's now off my chest tomorrow I will put on my smiley face and get back to the job in hand and start re-coding an old app so that less people have access to the data ...
Sunday 11 January 2009
Best song of last year.....Phil Campbell "No Love Songs"
Best song of last year.....Phil Campbell "No Love Songs" ... check it out.
The nature of belly button fluff, the credit crunch and the dissonance of LS envy
It's 10 past midnight on a Saturday night, there is a week or so to go until lotusphere. the blogsphere is alive with Version 8.5, the new entry requirements for a visa waiver and all things X-page related. ~sigh~ the lotto once again did not make me financially independent enough to afford the beer bill let alone the air fare to Florida. I suppose it is time for one of those Gallic shrugs and a darkly muttered "c'est la vie" that my French colleagues are so found of.
Anyhow here I sit in the study sipping on a "left-over-from-xmas" Stella Artois feeling sorry for myself and finding new ways to make any combination of 3 colours of paint into yucky-brown. Why is that? Try it yourself, take any three colours from a paint box mix them and you get a sort of greeny-brown sludgey colour that is to fine art what Paul Mooney is to tall people. The magnetic effect of brownness when you mix paint is in that same cubby hole of unexplained shite that is inhabited by belly button fluff. (I believe my USian readers call it "lint"), i digress ... whilst any combination of 3 paint = brown, belly button fluff is ALWAYS greyish blue. WTF? I have a penchant for white or black tee-shirts and my belly button fluff is fecking blue, wearing the colours I do, surely my BBF should either be Zebra striped or like 1960's TV glorious monotone.
Zebra striped belly button fluff would be really cool would it not? It would be the perfect starting point for a conversation with a stranger at a dinner party. Imagine it ... that pregnant pause after saying "I work with messaging and collaboration Software?" when you have been asked "What do you do?" ... I could fill that pause with ".. but I have zebra striped belly button fluff wanna see?" What friendships could be forged on the anvil of such a wonderful statment? But as the fecking stuff is always bluey gray I will never find that out.
I am getting really naffed off with the fecking credit crunch for it has borked any chance of me attending LS09 ... yes I know I should be a bigger man and worry about all those who have lost their jobs and I should be terrified by the fact that we are circling the rim of the capitalist toilet all be it nicely deodourised by the Toilet Duck of media mediocrity in preparation for the final flush. But I am a shallow callous indiviual .. so sue me ;-)
My Stella is nearly done, so it is therefore time for bed ... nite nite for the now :-)
Anyhow here I sit in the study sipping on a "left-over-from-xmas" Stella Artois feeling sorry for myself and finding new ways to make any combination of 3 colours of paint into yucky-brown. Why is that? Try it yourself, take any three colours from a paint box mix them and you get a sort of greeny-brown sludgey colour that is to fine art what Paul Mooney is to tall people. The magnetic effect of brownness when you mix paint is in that same cubby hole of unexplained shite that is inhabited by belly button fluff. (I believe my USian readers call it "lint"), i digress ... whilst any combination of 3 paint = brown, belly button fluff is ALWAYS greyish blue. WTF? I have a penchant for white or black tee-shirts and my belly button fluff is fecking blue, wearing the colours I do, surely my BBF should either be Zebra striped or like 1960's TV glorious monotone.
Zebra striped belly button fluff would be really cool would it not? It would be the perfect starting point for a conversation with a stranger at a dinner party. Imagine it ... that pregnant pause after saying "I work with messaging and collaboration Software?" when you have been asked "What do you do?" ... I could fill that pause with ".. but I have zebra striped belly button fluff wanna see?" What friendships could be forged on the anvil of such a wonderful statment? But as the fecking stuff is always bluey gray I will never find that out.
I am getting really naffed off with the fecking credit crunch for it has borked any chance of me attending LS09 ... yes I know I should be a bigger man and worry about all those who have lost their jobs and I should be terrified by the fact that we are circling the rim of the capitalist toilet all be it nicely deodourised by the Toilet Duck of media mediocrity in preparation for the final flush. But I am a shallow callous indiviual .. so sue me ;-)
My Stella is nearly done, so it is therefore time for bed ... nite nite for the now :-)
Friday 2 January 2009
Installing IIS7/php and MySql in under 20 mins on a Vista Home Premium PC
I don't take my position as a Geek lightly I can tell you!
When asked "Can I run IIS / PHP / MYSQL on my Vista Home Premium PC?" I must admit that after the bout of laughter induced hiccups had subsided I was intrigued. Could you do it? Personally my php/mysql stuff is all done via an old PIII with 512Mb of memory running Ubuntu Server, Apache PHP and MySql works like a treat too. However the person that wanted to do this has only one box and it is a relatively nice core duo 2gb yadda yadda and Vista HP. #involuntary shudder#
Now it does has to be said. I havent used Vista that much and I am reacting more on the inital reports rather than the way it is now but it is hard to get over that "EEEEEEUIUUUUUUU" moment when you see it first.
After a bit of googling I came across this link and followed the clear consice instructions to the letter and bugger me they worked. Two reboots in total and there it was an IIS server PHP and MySql all running. No Errors .....Nothing...... total time 23 minutes i am stunned and my chum is happy. 3 Cheers for that chaps at Maximum PC Guides!
When asked "Can I run IIS / PHP / MYSQL on my Vista Home Premium PC?" I must admit that after the bout of laughter induced hiccups had subsided I was intrigued. Could you do it? Personally my php/mysql stuff is all done via an old PIII with 512Mb of memory running Ubuntu Server, Apache PHP and MySql works like a treat too. However the person that wanted to do this has only one box and it is a relatively nice core duo 2gb yadda yadda and Vista HP. #involuntary shudder#
Now it does has to be said. I havent used Vista that much and I am reacting more on the inital reports rather than the way it is now but it is hard to get over that "EEEEEEUIUUUUUUU" moment when you see it first.
After a bit of googling I came across this link and followed the clear consice instructions to the letter and bugger me they worked. Two reboots in total and there it was an IIS server PHP and MySql all running. No Errors .....Nothing...... total time 23 minutes i am stunned and my chum is happy. 3 Cheers for that chaps at Maximum PC Guides!
3 Cheers for the Northern Ireland MLA's
That is not something you will hear me say very often!
For my foreign readers and MLA is a "Member of the Legislative Assembly". Sort of like an MP in Westminister except their mandate is provided by the voters of Northern Ireland which after 50 odd years of being "run" 100% by the Westminister Parliment having voted for these folk it is nice to see they actually "do" something.
What have they have done to deserve my praise?
Well they have slashed the price of a medical perscription fro 2009 and plan to make them free in 2010. For most folk this isn't a cause for much celebration but I was paying £7.00 per item on a perscription (and i need 4 items every 2 months) it is now £3.00 per item on a perscription!!
YIPEE thats my drugs bill down from £170 to £72 a year. Even better if I get a "PrePay" certificate that reduces it to only £25 for the year .... ~does small jig of delight~ ....
Now if we can just get them to forget about bringing in water charges !
For my foreign readers and MLA is a "Member of the Legislative Assembly". Sort of like an MP in Westminister except their mandate is provided by the voters of Northern Ireland which after 50 odd years of being "run" 100% by the Westminister Parliment having voted for these folk it is nice to see they actually "do" something.
What have they have done to deserve my praise?
Well they have slashed the price of a medical perscription fro 2009 and plan to make them free in 2010. For most folk this isn't a cause for much celebration but I was paying £7.00 per item on a perscription (and i need 4 items every 2 months) it is now £3.00 per item on a perscription!!
YIPEE thats my drugs bill down from £170 to £72 a year. Even better if I get a "PrePay" certificate that reduces it to only £25 for the year .... ~does small jig of delight~ ....
Now if we can just get them to forget about bringing in water charges !
Wednesday 31 December 2008
The Danger of "Out of Office Messages"
Here is the story in full
Here is the Picture
Fair enuff you may say .. it is a road sign in English and Welsh .. however those eagle eyed taffyophones will notice that the welsh bit reads.
"I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated"
Which is good but not as weird as this sign
The welsh bit translates as "bladder inflammation upset"
I would SO love to work at a translation center for these things ... can you imagine the fun I could have!
Here is the Picture
Fair enuff you may say .. it is a road sign in English and Welsh .. however those eagle eyed taffyophones will notice that the welsh bit reads.
"I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated"
Which is good but not as weird as this sign
The welsh bit translates as "bladder inflammation upset"I would SO love to work at a translation center for these things ... can you imagine the fun I could have!
Tuesday 30 December 2008
Drinking Heineken and reading Poetry
There are several things in life that are good both inside and out. A nice cold pint of Heineken is one and a good poem is another. Which is why I am combining both at the moment so here is a slug of heineken fueled ee cummings, two lines , 18 words, no punctuation .... GLORIOUS!
id rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
id rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
A feline post about misheard lyrics and unremitting tangential waffle
This morning I woke bright and early @ 7am mainly because one of the cats Fizz (a big orange very very stupid tomcat) was sitting on my chest and prodding me with a paw, claws out. This is the international cat language for "get up you lazy sod I need to have a pee". In the Feline GTD task list every day is :-
01. Get a human to wake up by the most painful means possible
02. Get said human to open the back door
03. Have pee
04. Go for a wander and see what the feline posse is up to
Having succeed in 01 and 02 the McDonagh cats went about their normal business of investigating everything in the back garden Can I F**K it? Can I eat it? Can it eat me? ~sigh~ the simple pleasures of feline existence.
The weather @ 7am in late December Ireland was officially "dark" and it has to be noted that opening the kitchen door wearing nothing but PJ bottoms and a barely awake bemused expression is not to recommended! Your neighbours may not relish either the view or the screams of pain as the cold causes every square inch of skin to contract to half it's size faster than ... well a very fast thing!
Most worryingly as I poured my Oatie Flakes (with cranberries and Sultanas) into a bowl I had an overpowering urge to sing "I wanna have boobies" whilst wearing a black lace basque. Thankfully this was an after effect of falling asleep in front of the TV and being subjected to 2 hours of subliminal Pussycatdolls on TMF tween 4 and 6am. I must have misheard the lyrics which on later investigation were "I wanna have groupies" which came as a great relief I can tell you!
But then I do seem to have a penchant for mishearding lyrics. It took several listens to the nerdy gnome Michael Snipe exhorting me to "Lets pee in the corner, lets pee on the spotlight" until it was pointed out by the Preforming Rights Society that REM's lead singer was not encouraging free range urination over very hot things. (which children is dangerous and should not be done even for a joke!)
This was much less worrying than the clammy hand of fear that grasped my nether regions when I heard Bryan Adams ditty that trucks along in the following vein.
Got my first real sex dream,
I was 5 at the time.
Played it till my fingers bled.
It was the summer of 69.
~shudder~
I am not alone in this malady, my good friend Robbo was wont to sing along to speccy doyen of C&W John Denver's smash hit Country Roads with the following refrain
"West Virginia, Mount yur Momma"
No amount of correction ever broke him of this habit!
Which brings me back to cats ... why is that fecking musical so fecking popular?
Time for Taggart on the tube! Nite All
01. Get a human to wake up by the most painful means possible
02. Get said human to open the back door
03. Have pee
04. Go for a wander and see what the feline posse is up to
Having succeed in 01 and 02 the McDonagh cats went about their normal business of investigating everything in the back garden Can I F**K it? Can I eat it? Can it eat me? ~sigh~ the simple pleasures of feline existence.
The weather @ 7am in late December Ireland was officially "dark" and it has to be noted that opening the kitchen door wearing nothing but PJ bottoms and a barely awake bemused expression is not to recommended! Your neighbours may not relish either the view or the screams of pain as the cold causes every square inch of skin to contract to half it's size faster than ... well a very fast thing!
Most worryingly as I poured my Oatie Flakes (with cranberries and Sultanas) into a bowl I had an overpowering urge to sing "I wanna have boobies" whilst wearing a black lace basque. Thankfully this was an after effect of falling asleep in front of the TV and being subjected to 2 hours of subliminal Pussycatdolls on TMF tween 4 and 6am. I must have misheard the lyrics which on later investigation were "I wanna have groupies" which came as a great relief I can tell you!
But then I do seem to have a penchant for mishearding lyrics. It took several listens to the nerdy gnome Michael Snipe exhorting me to "Lets pee in the corner, lets pee on the spotlight" until it was pointed out by the Preforming Rights Society that REM's lead singer was not encouraging free range urination over very hot things. (which children is dangerous and should not be done even for a joke!)
This was much less worrying than the clammy hand of fear that grasped my nether regions when I heard Bryan Adams ditty that trucks along in the following vein.
Got my first real sex dream,
I was 5 at the time.
Played it till my fingers bled.
It was the summer of 69.
~shudder~
I am not alone in this malady, my good friend Robbo was wont to sing along to speccy doyen of C&W John Denver's smash hit Country Roads with the following refrain
"West Virginia, Mount yur Momma"
No amount of correction ever broke him of this habit!
Which brings me back to cats ... why is that fecking musical so fecking popular?
Time for Taggart on the tube! Nite All
6 Months with a Cheap(ish) NAS
It is now 5 months since I purchased and powered up my Buffalo Linkstation Live 500GB NAS and to be far it is has been more than man enough for the job.
A really neat option is the "one touch direct copy function" that is a means of taking pictures or movies from your digital camera, camcorder and storage device via USB port directly which is a lot easier than having to turn on a PC if you want to drop your Piccies to a drive quickly.
Stored data can be shared on your network and a built-in DLNA media server can stream it to a PC, a MAC an other DLNA CERTIFIED™ entertainment devices and it works like a dream to any attached device.
Note this is NOT the Wireless version!!
The Web Access feature enables you to access your data and media stored in the LinkStation via the internet by computers (and iPhone's I am reliably informed) via a portal run by Buffallo to which your Buffalo connects (if you confiure it to do so).
It also has a built-in BitTorrent Client, so it can download content without the requirement to keep your PC powered up if you are into such stuff as torrenting that is.
Intelligent Power Saving functions, timer power on/off and auto power on/off with your Windows PC all help towards power saving and eco in mind, don't know if this works with Mac's and I have had a few probs with my thinkpad not being able to wake it up if I fire it up on battery rather than on the mains.
I attach it on my gigabit ethernet and response is very good and I even have a 500GB WD MyBook USB drive attached which it sees and configures as another drive, although the perforamance to this drive does suffer a little, but is it still faster than direct USB connect to one of my PC's
It is not a bad box, does what it says on the tin and does it well with the minimum of fuss which at the end of the day is all you can ask for well worth the £130 I paid for it. I see Amazon have it on offer for £114 at the minute here
A really neat option is the "one touch direct copy function" that is a means of taking pictures or movies from your digital camera, camcorder and storage device via USB port directly which is a lot easier than having to turn on a PC if you want to drop your Piccies to a drive quickly.
Stored data can be shared on your network and a built-in DLNA media server can stream it to a PC, a MAC an other DLNA CERTIFIED™ entertainment devices and it works like a dream to any attached device.
Note this is NOT the Wireless version!!
The Web Access feature enables you to access your data and media stored in the LinkStation via the internet by computers (and iPhone's I am reliably informed) via a portal run by Buffallo to which your Buffalo connects (if you confiure it to do so).
It also has a built-in BitTorrent Client, so it can download content without the requirement to keep your PC powered up if you are into such stuff as torrenting that is.
Intelligent Power Saving functions, timer power on/off and auto power on/off with your Windows PC all help towards power saving and eco in mind, don't know if this works with Mac's and I have had a few probs with my thinkpad not being able to wake it up if I fire it up on battery rather than on the mains.
I attach it on my gigabit ethernet and response is very good and I even have a 500GB WD MyBook USB drive attached which it sees and configures as another drive, although the perforamance to this drive does suffer a little, but is it still faster than direct USB connect to one of my PC's
It is not a bad box, does what it says on the tin and does it well with the minimum of fuss which at the end of the day is all you can ask for well worth the £130 I paid for it. I see Amazon have it on offer for £114 at the minute here
Music I got for Crimble
Mike, my sisters partner, seems to have a inherent ability to direct me to music and musicians I have never heard of or are very very new. Every birthday or Xmas he surprises me with yet more sounds that become firm favourites.
This year I got from him :
Phil Campbell "After the Garden"
Phil is a Scottish singer songwriter and "After the Garden" is his second album. Oddly, or perhaps not, there is town called Phil Campbell in Franklin County, Alabama so don't get confused as the town has not written any music at all as far as I know, neither is he the lead 'tarist with Motiorhead. The single "Cold Engines" can be found here on YouTube. He is quite hard to categorise (although he does look like Hamish Macbeth) he was according to his Bio notes ".. Campbell soaked up the religious ether of this existence and then ignored it as best he could." you wouldn't know it from his singing that's for sure. If you are looking for something to chill to after the party at new year you can't go far wrong with this chap! 9/10
Sea Wolf "Leaves in the River"
Hmmm another defies categorization band, you can go and have a listen here to Winter Windows
I have Genre-ed them as "low-fi" on the iPlod but that doesn't really describe their sound, they are their with Midlake and Cowboy Junkies in the innovative new indie world. It took me two or three listens to get to grips with this LA Based band fronted by Alex Church who I can come across before in the band Irving. They are deserving of your ears :-) 8/10
Perry Keyes "The Last Ghost Train Home"
This Ozzie is prob best described as "folk rock" but not of the finger-in-ear-hey-nonny-noe variety. His are the observations of the minutae of life in the working class suburbs of Sydney.
Take a plonk over to here and have a listen to the "Joe Strummer". He reminds me a bit of Elvis Costello with a hint of Tom Petty or more accurately the Wandering Willburys .. 7/10
Josh Rouse "The best of the Rykodisc years"
Now Josh I have come across before one of the few people I know from Nebraska. He has been around since '92 and has never failed to deliver good tunes to his waiting fans. This collection of stuff from the last 15 years is well worth a listen if you haven't heard of him. Have a listen/watch here to London Bridges 8/10
This year I got from him :
Phil Campbell "After the Garden"
Phil is a Scottish singer songwriter and "After the Garden" is his second album. Oddly, or perhaps not, there is town called Phil Campbell in Franklin County, Alabama so don't get confused as the town has not written any music at all as far as I know, neither is he the lead 'tarist with Motiorhead. The single "Cold Engines" can be found here on YouTube. He is quite hard to categorise (although he does look like Hamish Macbeth) he was according to his Bio notes ".. Campbell soaked up the religious ether of this existence and then ignored it as best he could." you wouldn't know it from his singing that's for sure. If you are looking for something to chill to after the party at new year you can't go far wrong with this chap! 9/10
Sea Wolf "Leaves in the River"
Hmmm another defies categorization band, you can go and have a listen here to Winter Windows
I have Genre-ed them as "low-fi" on the iPlod but that doesn't really describe their sound, they are their with Midlake and Cowboy Junkies in the innovative new indie world. It took me two or three listens to get to grips with this LA Based band fronted by Alex Church who I can come across before in the band Irving. They are deserving of your ears :-) 8/10
Perry Keyes "The Last Ghost Train Home"
This Ozzie is prob best described as "folk rock" but not of the finger-in-ear-hey-nonny-noe variety. His are the observations of the minutae of life in the working class suburbs of Sydney.
Take a plonk over to here and have a listen to the "Joe Strummer". He reminds me a bit of Elvis Costello with a hint of Tom Petty or more accurately the Wandering Willburys .. 7/10
Josh Rouse "The best of the Rykodisc years"
Now Josh I have come across before one of the few people I know from Nebraska. He has been around since '92 and has never failed to deliver good tunes to his waiting fans. This collection of stuff from the last 15 years is well worth a listen if you haven't heard of him. Have a listen/watch here to London Bridges 8/10
Monday 29 December 2008
Nature Draws Trees in the Sand
Winter rain runoff patterns in the sand mirror the shape of branches of pollarded willows.
Well I think so anyway :-)
Turin Trees escape the symmetry
This rather startling picture comes from the photo below and has been grey-scaled, rotated and edge enhanced. I don't know about you but there are "things" trying to escape from the symmetry. Things that want to be seen ...Here is the original taken with a Sony Ericsson W810i Phone camera .. it is a place called "the camus" on the River Bann near Coleraine
Wednesday 24 December 2008
Merry Christmas one an all!
As "eve" slips into "day" with a single tick of the second hand and another day of family and friends is ushered into Ireland with the whisper of clouds moving across the star speckled sky, I am sat here in front of the PC with a coffee clacking a few lines into the blog to all my readers out there.
So have fun on the 25th, find your inner child and let he (or she) rip the paper off the pressies.
Be cool, be happy and be safe!
Merry Christmas All! :-)
So have fun on the 25th, find your inner child and let he (or she) rip the paper off the pressies.
Be cool, be happy and be safe!
Merry Christmas All! :-)
The SI unit for cock
In our GONADly deliberations at the annual bacchanalian debauch Mr Mooney and I discussed the design and production of a device that will bring world peace, end poverty and solve all the problems people have with Vista ... "The Cockometer" (pronounced Cock-om-eater not Cock-O-meter)
However in hindsight we may have been premature because I have contacted NIST and they even came in on Xmas Eve to check for me but there is no SI unit forus to measure Cock on the Cockometer. They did suggest that we could have a derived definition for the "Unit of Cock" which is now officially "The Cock" and they provided this useful table for the Cockometric Spectrum complete with examples for calibration
10 to the 24 is a Yottacock - this is reserved for Scientologist meetings and General Tom Cruise-iness
10 to the 21 is a Zettacock - any group of more than 1 politician
10 to the 18 is a Exacock - Chris Martin
10 to the 15 is a Petacock - Bill Gate's Sweater Purchasing Department
10 to the 12 is a Teracock - a coven of sharepoint developers
10 to the 9 is a Gigacock - Robert Scoble
10 to the 6 is a Megacock - The guy who thought vista was a good idea
10 to the 3 is a Kilocock - A group of cornered Java Developers
10 to the 2 is a Hectocock - People who drive Audi's
10 to the 1 is a Deka Cock - Normal Background level of Cockiness
10 to the -1 is a Decicock - Normal Background of Cockiness
10 to the -2 is a Centicock - 4 Notesians only one of which is an Admin
10 to the -3 is a Millicock - 10 Notesians (5 Devs and 5 Admins)
10 to the -6 is a Microcock- 100 Notesians (All Devs)
10 to the -9 is a Nanocock - Worst Practises Session at LS
10 to the -12 is a Picocock - Any conversation about Bikes or Beer
10 to the -15 is a Femtocock - the average level of cock at the bar in ILUG @ 7pm
10 to the -18 is a Attocock - the average level of cock at the bar in ILUG @ closing time
10 to the -21 is a Zeptocock - One of the Marx Brothers
10 to the -24 is a Yoctocock - The amount of cock on the moon (between manned landings)
OK now we have an agreed spectrum of Cock we can look at what colour the gauges should be...
Hmmmmmmm
However in hindsight we may have been premature because I have contacted NIST and they even came in on Xmas Eve to check for me but there is no SI unit forus to measure Cock on the Cockometer. They did suggest that we could have a derived definition for the "Unit of Cock" which is now officially "The Cock" and they provided this useful table for the Cockometric Spectrum complete with examples for calibration
10 to the 24 is a Yottacock - this is reserved for Scientologist meetings and General Tom Cruise-iness
10 to the 21 is a Zettacock - any group of more than 1 politician
10 to the 18 is a Exacock - Chris Martin
10 to the 15 is a Petacock - Bill Gate's Sweater Purchasing Department
10 to the 12 is a Teracock - a coven of sharepoint developers
10 to the 9 is a Gigacock - Robert Scoble
10 to the 6 is a Megacock - The guy who thought vista was a good idea
10 to the 3 is a Kilocock - A group of cornered Java Developers
10 to the 2 is a Hectocock - People who drive Audi's
10 to the 1 is a Deka Cock - Normal Background level of Cockiness
10 to the -1 is a Decicock - Normal Background of Cockiness
10 to the -2 is a Centicock - 4 Notesians only one of which is an Admin
10 to the -3 is a Millicock - 10 Notesians (5 Devs and 5 Admins)
10 to the -6 is a Microcock- 100 Notesians (All Devs)
10 to the -9 is a Nanocock - Worst Practises Session at LS
10 to the -12 is a Picocock - Any conversation about Bikes or Beer
10 to the -15 is a Femtocock - the average level of cock at the bar in ILUG @ 7pm
10 to the -18 is a Attocock - the average level of cock at the bar in ILUG @ closing time
10 to the -21 is a Zeptocock - One of the Marx Brothers
10 to the -24 is a Yoctocock - The amount of cock on the moon (between manned landings)
OK now we have an agreed spectrum of Cock we can look at what colour the gauges should be...
Hmmmmmmm
Tuesday 23 December 2008
Twitter "buddies" the proper way to mix Twitter and Beer
Gentle reader
Pull up your chairs and partake in the wisdom I am about to offer...
Comfy?
Good, then I will begin ...
Never take a twitter capable device into a bar or party at which strong liquor is about to be consumed UNLESS you have a "Designated Tweeter" with you at all times.
The DT (as they will henceforth be know) will have complete control of all TWITTER capable devices for the evening, and all updates will be routed through them and their (hopefully) better judgment.
This sage and timely advice comes from the bitter wine sack of mine own experiences of yesterday evening with the equally culpable Mr Mooney.
Last nite was a NotesBeer evening resplendent in in GONADly goodness. Held as per tradition demands in The Crown Bar Belfast. A place of long and majesterial history for in it's victorian tiled porcelain toilets such luminaries as John Wayne, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and Shamie "5cocktele" Maginnes have taken a tinkle. We were indeed splashing our boots from the shoulders of giants!
Before I start I have to mention that as I wandered the streets of Belfast, lost in wonder at the size and glitter of the city that it is possible to buy crackers from Ann Summers (an emporium that purveys things that vibrate and clothes with way to many holes and lacy frippery for my tastes) I was led to wonder, all be it briefly and accompanied by much shuddering as to what the aforementioned crackers contained and how best to explain them to the vicar. Perhaps I would have just let him wear the crotchless panties as a hat.
I had great hopes for MrMooney when as an opening libation he went for a G'n'T however this was not to last as he quickly reverted to Coors Light but he had a note from his mummy and was thus excused detention.
The mandatory 1.5 pints an hour was met and surpassed with ease, not withstanding Mr Mooney's lack of stature in the ... err... stature department and many topics of great import and sagely wisdom were discussed.
An example of the deleterious effects of the credit crunch was noted in that we were able to get a seat in one of the snugs accompanied by 3 ladies of the opposite sex no less. These were not GONADs and wisely choose to ignore us as we went about the business of the day.
However , as the evening progressed it was decided that twitter was far to "nice" of late and that in the interest of livening it up a little we would act as agent provocateurs and add some spice to the mix. This resulted in ill advised tweeting about java and a poorly worded riposte to a post by John Head Mr Scoble re Lotusphere.
It has been decided that to avoid such things happening at NotesBeer and GONAD events that there will be a "Designated Tweeter" who will act as it were like a content control filter on all tweets from the more lubricated celebrants. However Points will be still be given for Inventiveness and gratuitous use of the words "Feck" and "Cock" in any 140 character missive.
That is all for now as my hangover has just faded and it is time for a wee Stella Act the Tw*t
PS Apologies were tendered by both participants to their respective family members for the total inability to talk sense or make tea when we arrived home.
Pull up your chairs and partake in the wisdom I am about to offer...
Comfy?
Good, then I will begin ...
Never take a twitter capable device into a bar or party at which strong liquor is about to be consumed UNLESS you have a "Designated Tweeter" with you at all times.
The DT (as they will henceforth be know) will have complete control of all TWITTER capable devices for the evening, and all updates will be routed through them and their (hopefully) better judgment.
This sage and timely advice comes from the bitter wine sack of mine own experiences of yesterday evening with the equally culpable Mr Mooney.
Last nite was a NotesBeer evening resplendent in in GONADly goodness. Held as per tradition demands in The Crown Bar Belfast. A place of long and majesterial history for in it's victorian tiled porcelain toilets such luminaries as John Wayne, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and Shamie "5cocktele" Maginnes have taken a tinkle. We were indeed splashing our boots from the shoulders of giants!
Before I start I have to mention that as I wandered the streets of Belfast, lost in wonder at the size and glitter of the city that it is possible to buy crackers from Ann Summers (an emporium that purveys things that vibrate and clothes with way to many holes and lacy frippery for my tastes) I was led to wonder, all be it briefly and accompanied by much shuddering as to what the aforementioned crackers contained and how best to explain them to the vicar. Perhaps I would have just let him wear the crotchless panties as a hat.
I had great hopes for MrMooney when as an opening libation he went for a G'n'T however this was not to last as he quickly reverted to Coors Light but he had a note from his mummy and was thus excused detention.
The mandatory 1.5 pints an hour was met and surpassed with ease, not withstanding Mr Mooney's lack of stature in the ... err... stature department and many topics of great import and sagely wisdom were discussed.
An example of the deleterious effects of the credit crunch was noted in that we were able to get a seat in one of the snugs accompanied by 3 ladies of the opposite sex no less. These were not GONADs and wisely choose to ignore us as we went about the business of the day.
However , as the evening progressed it was decided that twitter was far to "nice" of late and that in the interest of livening it up a little we would act as agent provocateurs and add some spice to the mix. This resulted in ill advised tweeting about java and a poorly worded riposte to a post by John Head Mr Scoble re Lotusphere.
It has been decided that to avoid such things happening at NotesBeer and GONAD events that there will be a "Designated Tweeter" who will act as it were like a content control filter on all tweets from the more lubricated celebrants. However Points will be still be given for Inventiveness and gratuitous use of the words "Feck" and "Cock" in any 140 character missive.
That is all for now as my hangover has just faded and it is time for a wee Stella Act the Tw*t
PS Apologies were tendered by both participants to their respective family members for the total inability to talk sense or make tea when we arrived home.
Pope and Rabid Free Presbyterian Pastor find common ground!
To none Northern Ireland readers this will probably come as a surprise but the rest of the world it may need some explaining.. The Free Presbyterian Church is (or was) run by Rev. Ian Paisley and twas he that in a protest when the last pope spoke to EU called him an Antichrist so no great love lost there. The odious Rev David McIlveen whom I mentioned in a previous post here and the dried up auld bitch Iris "I know someone that can cure homosexuality" Robinson whom I was less than pleasant about here have a new supporter all be it not directly...Both Iris and David are members of the same coven as the aforemention ayatollal of twonk, the arch bishop of WooWoo "Big Ian".
So the antichrist himself Pope Bendy Dick the whatever has aligned himeself with the Norn Iron Twonk squad ... see here ... Since Iris got in early with "it is up there murder and child molestation" El Papa and the papal possee had to box clever and have joined in with " ....saving humanity from homosexual behaviour is more important than saving rainforests from destruction."
WTF?
Stop your priests fiddling with altar children and stop whisking the ones that do to the other side of the world when they are caught, until then do the world a favour and shut the fuck up unless you have something sensible to say!
So the antichrist himself Pope Bendy Dick the whatever has aligned himeself with the Norn Iron Twonk squad ... see here ... Since Iris got in early with "it is up there murder and child molestation" El Papa and the papal possee had to box clever and have joined in with " ....saving humanity from homosexual behaviour is more important than saving rainforests from destruction."
WTF?
Stop your priests fiddling with altar children and stop whisking the ones that do to the other side of the world when they are caught, until then do the world a favour and shut the fuck up unless you have something sensible to say!
Monday 22 December 2008
The Lotus Notes Client outside the Organisation - an Idea
I was having a bit of a chinwag with several of our Notesian colleagues around the letter published on the HMNL blog by Ian J Free addressed to Steve Mills of the IBM Software group. His open letter presents a case for IBM to transform the Notes.Domino product line into and Open Source, Community Developement Offering.
It is an interesting post that makes some challenging points, some of which I agree with other whilst interesting I cannot see either happening or being sucessful were they to be actioned by IBM but that may just be me being cynical ... but go have a read at the letter and make your own mind up.
However this did set me to thinking. I was asked on Thursday last week by a colleague at work "Is it possible to use Notes Client at home as his mail /PIM client?" when pushed for a reason why he wanted to do that his response was that he was used to using notes for email, tasks,calendar , journals and other out of the box templates at work and he would like to have continuity between work and home (where he used Outlook). Mostly he WAS that impressed with the Notes V8 client (V8.0.2). Needless to say the cost put him off.
Which made me wonder if this idea would fly?
When you get a proper license for Notes at work, why not have a "If-you-want-you-can-use-it-at-home" license as well, this would be a SMTP/POP client with no links into the company Notes domain(s).
With the advent of Symphony which I have installed on quite a few home PCs for friends and relatives as a much much more functional (and free) replacement for M$ Works (which seems to come bundled with every PC at the minute) why not have a SMTP/POP notes client in symphony with contacts,mail,tasks and calendar. It wont need all the bells and whistles of the full client as it is never going to talk to a server, but will allow the home user to build a relationship with Notes that moves beyond the @work sphere of their lives. It is the relationship that users have built with M$ products at home that is part of the interia that has and still slows acceptance of Lotus products in the work place.
I know I could "sell" this concept to lots of users at work and many more from home.
Anyway it was just a thought...
** Update ** I have popped an idea onto IdeaJam if you want to vote on this idea ..
It is an interesting post that makes some challenging points, some of which I agree with other whilst interesting I cannot see either happening or being sucessful were they to be actioned by IBM but that may just be me being cynical ... but go have a read at the letter and make your own mind up.
However this did set me to thinking. I was asked on Thursday last week by a colleague at work "Is it possible to use Notes Client at home as his mail /PIM client?" when pushed for a reason why he wanted to do that his response was that he was used to using notes for email, tasks,calendar , journals and other out of the box templates at work and he would like to have continuity between work and home (where he used Outlook). Mostly he WAS that impressed with the Notes V8 client (V8.0.2). Needless to say the cost put him off.
Which made me wonder if this idea would fly?
When you get a proper license for Notes at work, why not have a "If-you-want-you-can-use-it-at-home" license as well, this would be a SMTP/POP client with no links into the company Notes domain(s).
With the advent of Symphony which I have installed on quite a few home PCs for friends and relatives as a much much more functional (and free) replacement for M$ Works (which seems to come bundled with every PC at the minute) why not have a SMTP/POP notes client in symphony with contacts,mail,tasks and calendar. It wont need all the bells and whistles of the full client as it is never going to talk to a server, but will allow the home user to build a relationship with Notes that moves beyond the @work sphere of their lives. It is the relationship that users have built with M$ products at home that is part of the interia that has and still slows acceptance of Lotus products in the work place.
I know I could "sell" this concept to lots of users at work and many more from home.
Anyway it was just a thought...
** Update ** I have popped an idea onto IdeaJam if you want to vote on this idea ..
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