Jif Website Update

The Jif website has now transferred to the new hosts, and you should all be seeing the new server's version via your updated DNS servers. We've lost a couple of comments, which I should be able to restore, and there's a wierd bug with the link graphics. I don't yet understand why this is server specific, but I'll chase it down.

Match fishing

I fished a friendly match today with Tony and his work mates on a couple of small lakes up in Tewkesbury. I blanked for the first four hours, trying everything I could, but started to catch in the last hour as the fish started to feed again and I found a hole on the waggler. A carp and a few bream gave me 4lb 9oz and 3rd place, apparently.

Books

I bought a book for me and a book for my mum. I only went into the bookshop for a coffee.

Asda Hell

I can't believe she dragged me round Asda for over an hour AGAIN. This is 4 weekends out of the last 5 , for God's sake. It always seems to happen under some other pretence, like, "Let's drive all the way to Swindon to go to this really interesting retail park". OK, sounds good. She didn't tell me that included Europe's biggest Asda.

I did get to muck about with Jack though. He was laughing his socks off throwing things on to the floor for me to pick up. Simple things.

Server updates

For those of you that use this page for this sort of thing, www.cardiffjif.com is mid-migration to a new server. The PHP scripts run far faster on the new server, but I'm still squashing some bugs, so there will be some glitches over the next week.

Go Johnny!

This was something Jack picked up from watching me watching the Rugby World Cup. He's an England supporter :-)

Did I mention that we won?

Jacks PC?

Oi! Gerroutofit!

Jack's well again, BTW. And he's now 10 months old. And he's got yet another tooth coming through! Another sleepless night tonight?

My Workspace At Night

This is how my workspace at home looks in the dark. Bit blue, eh?

Hosting Hassle

I've been hunting around for a new host for some or all of my websites. Since starting to work with PHP scripts for the news management on the Cardiff Tri and Cardiff Jif websites, the current host's performance has been very poor. I also want to add user maintainable galleries and polling systems, but their software will not allow it, and they charge a fortune (if you're a club website) for mySQL databases. And don't forget those two websites were both knocked out, mid-week, for a few days a little while ago, and they lost some of my data. So it's time to move somewhere cheaper, more reliable and with more to offer.

The current option is HostOne. They offer a hell of a lot of services for a very reasonable cost, so I asked for a trial before purchasing. So far, their control panel interface, FTP and support services have been excellent. But I can't access my pages within a web browser to test my PHP on their servers. I have received 8 emails from them so far today as they rapidly respond to each of my queries. Very good. Hopefully we can solve the problem before they go home, so I can set up a gallery tonight and have a good playtest. The problem is caused by the fact that I haven't transferred a domain to the test server (impossible to do in a 48 hour test), so we're messing about with fixed IP addresses and it's all a little messy.

Fingers crossed.

Yuck

Poor little Jack kept us up late last night. He's got a tummy bug and was upchucking his bottle feeds. Oh dear. Hopefully it's just a 24 hour thing he's picked up off his mate Antoinne.

I was hoping to catch up on my sleep last night. Oh well. He seems much happier today - I videoed him laughing and playing with his ball this morning, but on playback it looks like I pressed the wrong button. Well, I told you I was knackered!

Wheee!

I've got a perfectly good track bike in the shed, but nah, I still don't fancy it. I'd rather go cllimbing.

Newport Velodrome

We popped into the Newport Velodrome on the way home. It's a superb facility, and I reckon South Wales has done superbly to get possibly the fastest velodrome in the world. This is going to radically change the way cyclists train through the winter.

Parking in London

Parking in London's a bit of a squeeze.

Unreal Tournament 2003

I was kicking ass and taking names playing Unreal Tournament 2003 on a dualie G5 and 23" screen. It was no faster or higher res than at home on my ATI 9800 tho...

G5 Seminar

Learning about the new G5. Still can't warrant buying one though. Damn!

The Apple Expo!

Me and Nick are at the Apple Expo in the Islington Business Design Centre in London. Top!

Apple Expo

Woohoo! Nick just confirmed he's good to go for the Apple Expo tomorrow!

(He'd mashed his leg in a cyclocross race last weekend).

Max Payne II

Oh yeah! Just finished the Max Payne II demo. Its really nice. Graphics are top (run at max res on my ATI 9800 ;) but the voice acting is a bit sh1te and there's a bit too much talk and too little action for a demo.

That's going on my Christmas list.

Jack plus buddy

Here's a pic of Jack and his buddy. Antoinne's walking, Jack's attempting to copy.

I got a couple of pieces of work finished yesterday, so the stress is off. Which was worth the late night. Yawn. A good bouldering session down the wall helped too. Except maybe for Gumby whooping my ass for 5 minutes. Time to have a quick kick around on the Max Payne II demo...

Tired

I am soooo tired. I'm trying to edit papers I've written to submit for publication (which is taking a fair amount of thought), I'm collating data from my current project and trying to keep on top of tissue processing and analysis, I'm reading part of a PhD student's thesis, and I'm keeping my BSc student nice and busy. On top of that I've almost finished putting a prospectus together for a client in my other job. I need to learn how to survive on 4 hours sleep a night. Possible?

My iPod is keeping me happy!

iPod pic

Me and my iPod :)

swimplants.org

Do you need a dentist? Have your teeth fallen out and you need dentures? Sod that, go to swimplants.org and find out all about dental implants and the man that can fit them, Nigel Reynolds at The South West Implant Centre and Downend Dental Surgery.

Yep, this is my latest creation. It went live today. Like it? (I will be adding to it when I receive photos from the client).

I got my iPod!

I just got my iPod! Yey!

Panther Update

For those of you interested, here's an update on how the new Mac OS X operating system is working on my iBook:

My bluetooth problems have been solved (I used to have to reboot with the bluetooth dongle in).
I've put back all my photos (5GB) and MP3s (6GB) and data (11GB) and rechecked the disk - no errors.
Expose, which allows you to see all your open windows at once, is very cool. Multiple desktops would be useful tho.
Finder (the equivalent to explorer on Windows) is much improved. Very good.
Wireless networking works fine. Zero setup required.
Some problems with bluetooth hotsyncing my Palm, but after syncing by USB and then by bluetooth, all seems to work.
All my data has been re-added to my address book and calendar from my PDA, and all works well.
I like the idea of encrypting my data with FileVault, but I've heard of bugs so I'll wait before I start using it. If my iBook gets nicked I can't allow my data to be accessed.
I've not noticed any difference in speed.

In summary, I'm back to "it just works", which is exactly what I need. It solved my bluetooth problem, and I've cleaned out some rubbish, so it was worth doing. An "erase and install" is the best method IMO. I'm not really a Mac power user, because my iBook is a secondary system, so I shouldn't run into the problems others have had. I hope.

Yada yada yada

My iBook died again, apparently because of a bunch of file corruptions. I've erased the disk and done a fresh install of Panther, so let's see how I get on, eh? I'd backed all my files up via firewire (how handy?) to a PC, but it still took a while to set everything up again. Ho hum.

The viruses have gone, and Kim, Jack and I are all well again. Jack's particularly happy at being snot-free, and he's climbing up everything. Following after his mum and dad?

Route to work

The contrasts in my route to work in the morning.

Fixing

Yey! I fixed my iBook. I found it would be easier to go forward than to go backwards, so had another go at installing Panther. It worked fine this time! Something to do with checking and fixing file permissions first maybe?

I've also been fixing a puncture in one of Jack's pushchair wheels. Unlucky!

Panther Injures iBook

Oops. Attempting to upgrade my iBook to the latest version of the Mac OS X operating system has knackered it. It won't boot up!

I don't have the time for this, so I'm going to go back to the old version, if I can. Arse. So much for Apple's "it just works" reputation.

The Crippetts Bonfire

This bonfire has been burning all night, so guess how big it was.

It's like fishing in a Vietnam movie. Bluish smoke drifts across the reeds in the water (think Apocalypse Now).

Tony & The Crippetts' Goat

Me, cold, fishing.

Its nice and quiet and cold here. Just a couple of bream caught today.

Aargh! I've split my trousers reaching down to put a rod rest into the bank!

Bonfire Party

Mum and Dad had the usual fun bonfire party. PyroDad didn't blow anything up this year, but rockets did disappear off over neighbours gardens :) There was loads of good food (BBQ, chilli, Kim's Mum's superb cakes), mulled wine and beer, and people were only allowed to bring larger fireworks. Jack was particularly impressed, and although he jumped out of his skin with many of the really loud bangs, he enjoyed being surprised. He absorbed it all. Good boy!

The photos are mostly for Ele's benefit. We got an email the other day from her and Lee, who are having a top time in Malaysia. I'll reply soon Ele!

A late night

Boys with sparklers and beer

Yaaawn

Aah!

Ooh!

Watching the fireworks

The Bonfire

The 5m flames had died down by this point.

On Dad's Shoulders

We're off to a bonfire party at my Mum and Dad's.

Too many toys?

Have I got too many toys?

I carry around my Palm Tungsten PDA, my phone, my phone's camera, my iBook, a bluetooth dongle so they can all talk to each other, and soon an Apple iPod MP3 player. Blimey. But I don't particularly want convergence of all this hardware into one device. Each has its own, particular usefulness that tends to get lost when combined with something else. E.g. a Palm-based phone/PDA combo would make the phone too large to stick in my pocket on its own, or if I bought a smaller one would lose the screen-size that is just right for reading ebooks and looking at photos.

Maybe I should just get a bigger bag...

Note to self

Set this up:

http://bixworld.com/pop2blog/

Adverts

I had a crap swim today. I'm still getting over this cold I guess, as I was struggling after 200m and got a right headache. Wierd lethargy.

On the way home I started spotting adverts on roundabouts. Not nice, interesting billboards, but poxy, little, rectangular notices, advertising things like conservatories and paving. Dull, dull, dull. Don't we get enough annoying, invasive adverts on TV, the internet, the radio, etc, without Cardiff Council imposing this crap on us?

I pay for advert-free services on the internet, so should I pay council tax and have to put up with council ads on my roundabouts? Hmmm.

Wales Rally GB

The last round of the World Rally Champs was setting up today, in the Civic Centre, right by my workplace. I don't think I'll get to see any stages this year :(

Teddy!

Check out the size of Jack's teddies!

Back to work today. Jack's a bit better, so he should be good to go back to Cheltenham for his first bonfire party and fireworks. I wonder how he'll take all that.

Aatchoo!

We've all got colds, AGAIN. i think Jack had this one first, and has passed it on to me and Kim. Ug. I hope it goes quickly. Jack's not too well at all, poor little fella. So we went for a walk to clear our heads.

Winter Jack

Jack has been dipping into his winter wardrobe.

Jack's Bottle

Jack's feeding himself! I guess he doesn't need us any more then ;)

Buffalo Jack

Jack wore his Buffalo winter suit for the first time today. Cosy. Maybe I should get one.