Author: harry

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We have objects

Parrot has now got objects, which means the limitations we faced before in building the DBD for Parrot are no longer there.

Parrot not having objects meant we couldn’t get a usable DBD for parrot without real hackery and much jiggery pokery. This happened at just the right time for me because I started a new job and the fourth year of my degree started in February as well which meant I was very busy in February.

Tim, punctual as ever, emailed me as soon as objects and various other bits were confirmed and suggested we start work on it again.

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More on XML Resume

I have managed to get a beta release of the HR-XML Resume builder working at
XML Resume Now all I need to do is move the site to using Template Toolkit and write some helper applications and we are ready for some users to try it out. If anyone reads this I would love some feedback on it.

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XML Resume Builder

The XML Resume Buider is now working. I have been very busy trying to get
XML Resume wiped into shape. Jenny came up with the design and I implimented it. I like the design but the user interface is far perfect at the moment but its getting there. I have also added the HR-XML builder tool to the site. To use it you need to create an HR-XML compliant xml resume. I provide templates for this, all you need to do is fill in the blanks then upload then load them into the tool. The output can be either PDF or postscript.
There is only one stylesheet at the moment but I am dedicatiing some time this week to try and get another one knocked up. Ideally I would like users submitting styles of their own for inclusion in the list. This would make the tool much more useful.

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More on WebGUI

It looks like we are going to be using WebGUI after all. I have several misgivings about it but thankfully it is all written in Perl so if something bugs me that much I can probably do something about it.
I am not looking forward to migrating four sites onto it but hopefully after the first one has been migrated it will be a fairly straight forward process getting the other sites moved.
We also have several hundred CGI’s dotted all over the place that we are not really too keen on re-writing but its the glue. As part of the whole cleanup operation it would probably be prudent to visit them all and give them a good working over but this would be a very time consuming task. The old saying “let sleeping dogs lie” keeps running around my head every time I think about touching those scripts.

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TMA 02 Finished

Its a lovely feeling finishing coursework. I have just finished my second TMA (Tutor Marked Assesment ) of M203 and I can relax for a few days. This is the second part of the introductory material and I was expecting it to be much harder than it was considering I have done very little group theory. I am really looking forward to the Linear Algebra block which is coming next then its onto Analysis. I think it will be this course that either makes or breaks my ambition to have a degree in Mathematics.

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FCUK T Shirts

Their clothes are truly shit. Do not under any circumstances buy their T-Shirts, after a few washes you’ll be lucky if they fit the gnomes in the garden.

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Course Work

What is it with Course work. They tell you that if you don’t hand in tidy work then you’re screwed. I only wish this worked both ways.
So far I have had dealings with a lot of coursework in my time and trying to read the notes left by the tutors is like trying to decipher a doctors prescription. I know they may have a lot to mark but if they want us to hand in tidy work they could at least have the courtesy to do the same.

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Odeon Website

This would be funny if it wans’t so bloody common. For those of you not using the latest and greatest IE browser point yourself at the following link,
http://www.odeon.co.uk/
I refuse to provide a clickable link to this site on grounds of gross incompetence on their part. This has got to be one of the worst large commercial sites I have seen.
Someone took so much offence to the site they have taken the time to provide their own version and it is very good. Alternative Odeon Website
I have absolutely no doubt that the techs that built the Odeon site are more than capable and could build a browsable website.
This then begs the questions:
Who! made the decision to prevent non IE browsers access to it?
and
Are they still working there and if so why?

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Investigating WebGUI

I am currently investigating the WebGUI Content Management System at the moment. We want to cut down on the amount of editing that we need to do because we seem to have a lot of applications in the queue to develop and the editing is taking up too much time. There are various other reasons but I won’t go into those.
The website says that it is hard to install but this is nonsense it was fairly straight forward once I decided to use MySQL. I have only scratched the surface of it at the moment but it looks quite capable, I tried to get it into Postgres but had no success, there were various errors all reported as log files having the wrong permissions but a quick look in the logs showed me it was dodgy SQL.
Being a Postgres advocate/diehard I would have preferred to use it but considering its not a supported platform and we are not trying to run Amazon then MySQL will do the job.
If it turn out to be easy to use I might just use it on my own websites.

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