Shibbyonline

March Milage

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 20:42:49 +0100

Total cycling commuting miles for March: 349.8

My first event of 2009

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:55:55 +0000

Yesterday I completed my first cycling event of 2009.
Whilst the CCS Reliability Ride is not really a race, it is also a bit more than the Sunday club runs. Before the event I decided I would have fun and ride round with other CCS club members, but half way round that plan changed and it turned into an ‘eyes out’ dash to the finish.

The morning started with driving rain and a temperature just above freezing.
I headed out to the start to find the number of riders down on last year, but given the weather it’s not surprising. Still I signed up for the longer 48 mile route but opted for the slower cut off time of three and a half hours.

The weather did not get any better throughout the day, in fact knowing the route I realised that the last leg home would be directly into the wind.
Around the 20 mile mark we came down Semer hill, which is an 11% descent; not something seen in Suffolk very often. I started the decent on the back of the group but my fixed wheel momentum meant I soon passed the pack and onto the two lead riders; Viv and John.
They however saw this passing as a challenge and increased their pace. I saw this increase in pace and raised them a few rpm. Within two miles we had dropped the rest of the group and were the only three cyclists visible on the wet country roads.

The going was good with the wind behind us, it even felt like the rain had lifted. But we were still heading away from the finish. There is a slow long incline coming out of the village of Hitcham and then the road feels like it climbs all the way to Great Finborough. It was at this point I just put my head down and dug in. At first I was not trying to drop the other two, just find a good rhythm and keep momentum. When I passed into Finborourgh I looked back to see quite a gap and something inside made me push on rather than wait. Despite knowing that I was entering the return leg and a group would stand a better change in the headwind, I pressed on.

When I finally turned into the wind heading back towards Lavenham and then Sudbury I was running on reserve energy levels, I had not bought any food with me as it was going to be a leisurely ride. All I had was a some water and the odd bit of road grit, a bonk was looking inevitable.
At one point my vision was so blurry it was a job to see the road let alone keep a bike upright. Plus the single speed fade was wearing thin; all I wanted to do was change gear and let up a bit.
Pride is a very powerful emotion and it was the only reason I did not let up. I knew my pace had dropped right off, I was waiting to hear Viv’s voice behind me as he passed. But pride kept my legs turning and I soon rolled back into the start/finish hut.
I only had time for a tea and a bit of cake (I need to replenish some energy levels quickly) before Viv arrived. My time was 2hours 57minutes only three minutes ahead of Viv.

Macworld; What Happened?

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:20:33 +0000

I love all Mac related events, it’s a time that new shiney gadgets are unveiled and I work out how I can purchase them.
This years Macworld event started off with the shock of Apple pulling out and the main man Steve not performing another Steve-note.
But nothing compared to the actual event!

Let’s sum it up: iLife, iWork, iTunes DRM free and 17” MacBook Pro.

Honestly I do use iWork so I’m interested in that, not sure if web sharing is as cutting egde as they think. Just don’t build it on iDisk foundations!
But come on, is that it. Where is the updated Mac Mini, cinema screens, iMac revisions, the excitement!
I was really looking forward to a AppleTV related ‘one more thing’ but alas nothing.

Steve was right to spend the time with his family.

Happy New Year

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:28:00 +0000

As the World crashes into 2009 I dust off my keyboard. Nope not really I’m out somewhere enjoying myself but it felt about right to post a little note just to say have a good New Year’s.

Back on my bike

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:26:00 +0100

That’s right after a two year break I’m back on my bike and taking on the UK again. In 2006 I cycled from Lands End to John O’Groats, in 2008 I’m take the south bound road and cycling from John O’Groats to Lands End. This time around I’m hoping to raise money for the Breakthough Breast Cancer charity following on from my own personal encounters with the disease. Please feel free to donate any spare change. I’m joining forces with David and Harry again and hope to finish the journey in seven days. Not as fast as last time but apparently the weather will be against us most of the way; prevailing winds and all that business. Plus I’ve not ridden a bike any distance since… well the last time, so I’m expecting any ground breaking performances. Of course I would not be a the geek that I am if I did not make something of it. To which I present you with the Long Cycle Down web site. Yes I was watching Ewan and Charlie when registering a domain name. Please drop by and offer some support or make a donation.

Brighten Up The Office

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:43:31 +0100

If your lucky you have an office instead of a cubical. If your really lucky you have an office that is well looked after and painted in some subtle tones to inspire a relaxing working environment. If your me you end up in a studio with a bright yellow wall behind you and a bright blue to your right. This does not provide a perfect environment for the Creative Services crack team that is Jim Brown and myself. So in a Friday afternoon moment it was decided that we should spark the place up a bit, but rather than just obtain artwork or posters from the nearest shop we should think about it. What better excuse than to make some South Park avatars of ourselves and post up with something that matched.

Jim Brown

Jim went with the heavy metal scene, no seriously he is that much of an AC-DC and Maiden fan.

Adam Chamberlin

Next it was my turn, I opted to keep it simple the only problem I found was that there was no iPhone accessory only an iPod.

What a busy few months

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:04:00 +0100

Wow looking back at my site the last article I wrote was nearly 4 months ago. Damn the time flies when your on the cross roads of life and life changing decisions mean you have to take a break and access where your going. So if you know me or have followed this blog you will no doubt know that I work as a sales development manager for Oscar Products; a small local packaging wholesaler. Unfortunately thanks to this sudden movement in the “save the environment and don’t use a carrier bag” inspired by the Daily Mail and green movements. Now I’m not going to start the whole debate of should you do this or that with your packaging, but what I will say is that this sort of information damages. The damage this time around was the downturn in business for Oscar Products; so much so that there had to be some serious cost reductions to keep the company afloat. One of those costs was me. So instead of enjoying the beginnings of the summer I spent May trying to reflect on life and contemplating my options given that as of the 1st June I will be made redundant. Obviously the first step was to get my name on the local recruitment agencies and employment services. But my second step was to decide what I wanted to do as I saw this as a second chance. Of course my love for the internet came to the front so I started looking for a job in this industry. Easier said than done when you have no portfolio and nothing much to show for your time, so after a few set backs I sat down with Lucy and we talked about my options, we decided I need to start at the bottom again and work my way up; build a career and a suitcase of projects. In stepped Prolog; a local company but a National leader in logistics and fulfillment. Around Sudbury if you mention Prolog most people think you work on the Tiscali broadband call centre, however there is so much more to the company; one of those is a Creative Services studio that produces printed and new media in the forms of web sites. Turned out they needed a web developer, that also doubled up as a studio assistant with the printed stock. The salary was not right but the opportunities and inspiration was just what I was looking for. June 1st I started as the new web developer at Prolog. Within the first few weeks I was working on a printed magazine and experiencing Quark Express for the first time. A month on I’m producing company documents and helping the studio manager produce a national magazine. I’m now two months into my new job and so far it is looking great. So much so that I’m able to sit back down in the evenings and enjoy my time. Which will hopefully mean I can blow the dust off this site and get writing again.

The Day I Met James Toseland

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:40:00 +0100

James Toseland is the current World Super Bike Champion, and now the best British bet at winning the MotoGP. Think of him as the motorbike version of Lewis Hamilton. Now I will level and say I have not always been up to date with my knowledge of motorcycling, so put me up against a die hard fan of Mr. Toseland and honestly could not answer questions about his beginning’s in trial bike riding. Or how he got signed into the 125cc class and worked his way up to his current Tech3 Yamaha MotoGP deal. But I do follow the sport and I know a good rider when I see one, you can also tell that James has a stand up personality. So when I heard that he was going to be visiting Bowers Motorcycles in Bury St. Edmunds I decided to go along and have a nose. When we first got there the first shock was the crowd. Queues for autographs went three times the length of the store. Second was the fact that after seeing JT Lucy had a bit of a overwhelming feeling. I was slightly put off by the queue so decided to head back into town to grab some food and plan my offensive. Whilst sitting in Burger King I used the internet to find out some details, trying to come up with a useful titbit of information I could use as a question. Then behind us two workers of Bowers appeared. Turned out there was going to be a piano set and then a second round of autographs. I now knew my plan, go back to the shop, when the crowd disperses as James takes a break, pick my spot and wait for the crowds to return. Sure enough JT went off for a break and like Moses the crowds separated and I was able to find a location just feet away from the grand piano they had set up for him. Having waiting for a while people started appearing again, soon I was surrounded yet my view was perfect. James returned and set about a 4 piece musical set, containing songs he had written himself. If being able to ride a motorbike was not enough, the boy can really tickle the ivories! After the applause had finally died the security went about trying to form a ‘reasonable’ queue again. This is where I noticed a complete change in Lucy. She was now all ‘girly’ and going a bit week knee’d. She actually tried sweet talking the security guard into starting the queue behind her. It worked! We were actually second in line and my awesome question was fresh in my head. I was ready to walk up with Lucy and obtain a handshake and a signed poster. Yet when the time arrived it did not quite go as planned. That part of the female brain that makes women go a little bit crazy suddenly took over Lucy. She instantly stepped up to the plate, almost pushing me aside. Realising I was no competition for the 27 year old Superbike rider I opted to take advantage of the situation and took some more photos of Lucy with him. Finally Lucy’s feet touched back on tera firmer and she introduced me, now I got my handshake. I thanked him for the set and taking the time to meet the supporters, wished him all the best in 2008 and let the next in line take their turn. Strange how even though you think your fine, sometimes you just end up being polite and wishing people well. My question was discarded but I got to met a legend, one which will hopefully go onto bigger and better achievements. If not I’m sure he will be in the music scene very soon. Full Photo Set

So WordPress 2.5 Is Out?

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:48:15 +0100

Version 2.4 was skipped and the WordPress development team jumped straight from 2.3 to 2.5, and what a move it was. They have even updated the WordPress site to match.
To be honest this feels more like a full digit upgrade than a point improvement. But this could be down to the visuals more than anything.
The admin panel has had a complete make over, and whilst it is getting some stick and personally I still think Habari still has it trumped (I love that clean grey interface), it is far better than the previous versions of WP.
Included in this new release is a new ‘Media Manager’ which will make finding your included media files a lot easier. Apparently there is also a Media Gallery which I hear can be used as a photo gallery of sorts. So far I’ve not had enough time to really test all the new features and take it for a full test drive but so it looks and feels a lot better than 2.3.
Yep shibbyonline is now running 2.5 so time to update some plugins and fine tune some template tags.

No Longer Lost

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:24:00 +0000

How long has this show been running? I remember I first started watching series 2 a few years ago. In fact the first episode I saw was the beginning of series 2, with Desmond going about his life in the hatch. At the time I had Sky television and so could watch the show, yet I felt ~~lost~~ confused as there were references to the first series I did not get, there were also too many questions needing answers and I lost interest. Then when we moved we had to scarifice Sky; the joys of listed buildings. But Lucy had a friend that lent us weekly installments until he left and we missed out on series 3. But now thanks to the wonders of borrowed dvd’s, iTunes and the odd visit to the ABC website I am fully up to date. From the very first opening of the eye in the pilot, right up to Meeting Kevin Johnson. Deep down I was hoping it would answer some questions I had, like the reference to the Polar Bear, but no, in fact I’m now more confused; why was there a Polar Bear in the jungle. But that it the key to Lost, the story is just so intense that you can’t help but be totally sucked in. It is the reason that on some days I was watching 4 episodes in one sitting. I don’t mind that with each episode now you are left with more thoughts in your head, conspiracy theories left right and centre and the deflated thought that it will be another week until you get some answers.

Great Notification Dreamhost

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 09:48:41 +0000

I woke this morning with the plan on spending some time updating mine and a few other sites I have hosted on my Dreamhost account.
But after firing up Coda it reported it could not connect via ftp. So I decided to try standard http, only to find my (and others) down. Off to the Dreamhost site where I find a support blog with this message. Turns out they are moving the cluster my site is hosted on and t will be down for 12+ hours!
WTF! 12 hours and you could not be bothered to actually let me know, you posted it on a blog that I’m not subscribed too, nor did I know I needed to visit. Now I know that my site is not mission critical, in fact the interwebs might not even notice it missing but what about all those people who run a business on their site. You owe it to them to give them advance warning of downtime of this scale. I mean come on I’m sure you can guess our email address!

Nice one IE

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:29:00 +0000

Over the last few days I having been bringing back my old Vaio laptop from the dead. I purchased the laptop many moons ago, before my adventure into the world of Apple. But once I had found utopia with OSX the little Sony got put away some where and forgotten about. Meanwhile Microsoft have seen sense and 180’d on their views and IE8 will be the first fully functional standards aware MS web browser. The beta landed at the beginning of March and I’ve been keen to try it out. So what better chance to format, install and rebuild the once forgotten machine. So off I went, install XP, service pack, updates, more updates. Now onto web browsers, update to IE7, then find the IE8 beta page. Right install. Whilst I was watching the bar as it checks for web updates I thought to myself will this install over IE7? Or will I have to versions of IE I can play with? It was the first, installed over version 7, so all I have is IE8 beta. Not a problem as also installed on there is Firefox, Opera and Flock (got me some browser love going on). Thinking nothing about it went about my routine. Ahh rumours of Service Pack 3 for XP are running through the vines, lets do an update and see what is about. As most people know, windows updates are just web pages with activeX magic that update your system, but they need to be run from Internet Explorer. But here is the kicker, not from IE8! On firing up the update screen I was greeted with an error screen to say my browser was not supported and that I should be using IE5.5 or higher. Clever that I always though that 8 was higher than 5. Panic set in as I thought I have now upgraded the only web browser that will work with Windows Update to a browser that it not know by Windows Update! But to my saving IE8 has a clever little feature ‘Emulate IE7’ this not only makes pages look like they would in IE7 but also convinces Windows Update that you can update your installation.

Lazy Sunday Afternoons

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 23:01:24 +0000

It feels like ages since I’ve put together one of those more personal posts were I go on about stuff that no one else really understands.
But today has been one of those crazy lazy Sundays that has left me feeling quite content. Which is strange for tomorrow morning Lucy is once again off on business, this time she is only heading over to France and only for a week.
But in light of that we decided to have a day of just chilling out and sorting out.
Strange how I have not completed any of those ‘things’ that I think I should be doing, maybe they are just not that important after all?
I’ve not worried about if I should be doing this or being somewhere, instead I’ve just let go and enjoyed some spare time. Think I need to try this more often as there is more to life than worrying about deadlines and keeping up with the Jones. Plenty of time next week for that…

I Only Wanted The New NIN Album

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:50:00 +0000

Yesterday saw the release of Ghosts I-IV from NIN. Not only was this release not really publicised but it was also following in a similar track of Radio head and their In Rainbows album. Not quite a ‘pay what you feel’ option but some seriously price reduced DRM free chunage. Being quite a closet NIN fan I wanted to download this, but I decided to go with the free 9 track starter pack and if impressed I would payz my wayz and invest further. But due to the popularity of the event my download was bumming out all over the place. I must have tried 30 times and not got further than 700kb of the 82mb download. Frustrated I turned to the only service I knew could help; sure enough Twitter came through. Turns out that Trent had released an official copy of the album and it was on The Pirate Bay. So a torrent file later I’m enjoying the new NIN album. But it got me thinking, I’ve just downloaded music from a p2p service, will the feds be knock my door down tonight? With all the talk in the news of British ISP’s planning on cutting down and banning offenders of sharing music and files via peer sharing, where does this all end? Of course p2p software uses certain ports which is where your ISP is looking, plus your excessively high bandwidth! I opened up those ports and joined the millions of users out there sharing files; legal or otherwise. Yet there was nothing illegal about my actions. I was following a free download, by the artist themselves, to a known torrent tracking website to download music in the most frowned upon manor. How will this all turn out? How will ISP’s know what is legal p2p sharing versus the illegal side?

How Many Fonts...

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:31:38 +0000

Jon Hicks has been ‘fiddling’ with his site; his words not mine.
If you take a visit over there you might notice some good looking heading tags. Or you might not. Why is that?

Jon has decided to target specific fonts in the CSS. Normally when declaring fonts in a tag you would go some thing along the lines of a couple of system fonts and then a font family:
body { font-family: “Arial Black”, “Helvectica Bold”, sans-serif }
But Jon has broken the mold (again) and selected some fonts that are not present on your standard OS installation. Have a look (sorry Jon I’ve just copied your code)
body { font-family: “P22 Underground Pro”, “P22 Johnston Underground”, “P22 Underground”, “Gill Sans”, “Gill Sans MT”, GillSans, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; }
As you can see the first three fonts are definitely not an OS standard.

This in my mind is a brilliant substitute to font replacement hacks and tricks. But how far do you go to catch everyone and every font type. Luckily for me I got to view the site from a machine with P22 Underground installed. But after a quick trip to Font Explorer I de-activated the font and presto; Gill Sans!
Whilst you could get carried away with this and apply different fonts to all manor of tags and elements, what effect will it have on your page loading and the load on the CSS file?

Are You html 5 or xhtml 2.0

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:00:33 +0000

I spent my lunch hour reading through Mike’s brilliantly well written article about the differences between the proposals for both html 5 and xhtml 2.0.

Normally something like this would not have engaged my full attention but recently I have really been trying to touch up on my standards; for reasons that will get explained later.
But reading through this I found myself already seeing the code and putting ideas into place. I’m not going to re-trace the points; your better off reading the original.
Whilst some of the ideas are stunning and a complete piece of ‘why was that that not thought of earlier’ such as nl list’s for navigation. I can not see it being a mass migration to new methods.
Lets be honest even now we can not get all browsers to play friendly and support the elements we have got. Add some more new clever bits in there and I can only see a mess of broken sites; I’m looking at you Internet Explorer!

That said there is definitely some interesting times ahead and they will both have their set purpose on and in the interwebs. The development of these two standards is something to keep an eye on.

Graphic Design Poster Competition

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:30:26 +0000

Veerle started a competition last week with the goal to sum up what you thought graphic design is all about.
I started off enjoying looking through the Flickr pool for the submissions until at the week end whilst sitting with young Oscar I had a quick idea, the result was not really graphic design per say but it was creative.

Then sitting there the other evening I thought more about what I thought graphic design is all about.
Graphic design can take on a lot of elements from typography to colour schemes, but because I do not know my kern from my glyph I had to think deeper.
To which got me to thinking about the graphic in graphic design.
But what does make a good design?
When it suddenly hit, the best designs are the ones that are instantly recognizable, designs that can work across countries and break language barriers without any need for an explanation or description.
To which in my view graphic design is the ability to create something that lasts longer than the initial viewing, a design that can speak without saying and is understood by all viewing it.

Sudbury Joggers

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:01:32 +0000

For the last couple of evenings when I have been out running round Sudbury I have noticed an abundance of other runners and joggers out there.
On one run I actually saw the same person twice! Once within the first 2 minutes and then on the last leg.

You could say that there are still plenty of people out there taking up their New Years resolutions and keeping fit.
Personally I like to think that Apple/Nike have done their thing and promoted more people to get out there and run; they all have iPods (the ‘mug me’ white cables say so) and so they might all be Nike+ users. Hell they might even have seen my ‘round the block’ route and been trying it out.

If you are a runner or jogger from the Sudbury area drop me a line, would be good to see how many there are out there.

Where is the price drop Apple?

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:34:00 +0000

Let’s be honest, since its launch back in March 2007 it has not exactly been as big as can be expected. Yet I have always had a little flame for the media box that is AppleTV and often found myself stopping by the Apple store with my mouse hovering over the ‘Add To Basket’ button. Earlier this month Uncle Steve decided to have another go at the AppleTV market with Take Two. A software update to the AppleTV that would allow better streaming (no PC required) improved online photo’s with the addition of Flickr but also the ability to take advantage of iTunes new movie rental service. All of this with a reduced price ticket. With my current media setup I have all my music stored on my main machine; a G5 up in an office space in the loft. But when I want to chill out with some music I stream it down to my Mac Notebook that can be plugged into the household stereo. But what about those time when I want to listen to some music and still surf from the comfort of my sofa, well I end up with the head phones on and being anti-social. So having an AppleTV that I can stream too whilst keeping my laptop free would be awesome. Yet not awesome enough for me to swallow the £199 price tag; so that mouse kept on moving past the buy it now button. But now they have thrown in Flickr integration and a cheaper price I’m 99% sold. So I make my way back only to find no price reduction. Now I know the dollar is not doing great to the pound but if you compare it, US priced AppleTV: £115 after the promised price reduction. In the UK it is still £199 with no price reduction in sight. Of course us UK residents are quite used to not getting all the services from the off. The movie downloads will not be here until ‘later this year’ which is just before ‘around that time’ if your curious. But this is all down to that DRM bug that makes every one sweat and panic. Yet this is a price reduction, not a service, not something that needs an infrastructure to prepare. So come on, just knock £50 off the price, be done with it and wait for some orders. I for one would purchase it.

Sans iPhone

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:49:24 +0000

You have read that right, I am without iPhone.
My beloved little gadget; the third arm I have learnt to live with; the grail of all Apple products has broken.

It all started with a bike ride. The phone was in my pocket, as I do nearly every day, yet this time when I went to retrieve my phone I noticed it was turned off.
I hit the ‘home’ button to check and sure enough nothing. So I tried the power button, still nothing.
Did I not charge it?
Was it flat?
Not convinced by this I connected it too my G5 to check. For once I was not greeted by the little two-tone connection noise, instead I got more of the same; nothing!

No idea what has happened, the phone was not knocked, dropped or abused in any other way. There are no visible signs of damage or malfunction, just a dead phone. So back to Apple we go.

The only problem I have now is learning to live without it. I can manage a lack of text messages and phone calls but I miss the extra bits the most. Checking my emails on the fly, updating my Twitter status on the move, checking my feeds on the toilet. How will I cope!