Got a phone call from a mate last night after 1am.
Harry “Hello!”
Bob, “Hi Harry, where was the 1920 olympics held?”
Harry “I think it was Antwerp”
CLICK.
5 Minutes later
Harry “Hello”
Bob “Hi Harry, Who where the 10 countries recently admitted to the EU”
Harry “You again!”
Harry “Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Hungary and Malta. What do you want to kn…..”
CLICK
It was only then I realised that he was in the middle of a quiz in a pub in Ballykelly NI.
Styles
I need to have a look at the various styles for MT. I like georgia_blue but it is not that easy on my eyes. I will not be writing my own because I have not got the time so It will be a default css for me. I am going to ask J which she prefers and probably run with that.
Installed MT
I decided to take a night off maths and do something else for a change. I have been meaning to install some type of content management tool for a while to save myself some time and tonight was the night. I decided to install Movable Type so hopefully I will be able to keep a more up to date blog.
First impressions are good, its very easy to use and I have managed to make several entries already. I also managed to transfer my old HTML blog over which was a bore but luckily there was not too much of it.
I also have to thank the person/s who runs www.movablesytle.com for making their style sheets freely available and all they ask for in return is the credit.
XSLT and FOP
I was given the job of creating a pdf using FOP and XSLT yesterday and since I had never used either before to any great degree I had resigned myself to several days of googling but I managed to all but finish it today. It was surprisingly easy to get the bulk of the formatting done but due to FOP’s lack of support for widows and orphans the rest will be a bit harder.
I also had a lot of trouble trying to get “analyze-string” to work. I eventualy fudged a regex of my own using “substring” and it seems to do the trick
M203
Maths has started again. I have started M203 and handed in my first peice of coursework today. It looks like an interesting course and I am looking forward to getting stuck into it. It seems to be soaking up an awful lot of my time at the moment.
Valentines Day
I suprised Jenny by taking her to London to a concert at the Barbican Concert Hall. We seen the “Valentines Day Love Classics” and we really enjoyed it.
The Programme
Tchaikovsky Waltz from sleeping beauty.
Bizet Carmen Suite
Grieg Paino Concerto in A minor
INTERVAL
Offenbach Orpheus in the Underworld Overture.
Strauss Blue Danube Waltz
Delius The walk to the Paradise Garden
Verdi Prelude to Act 1 from La traviata
Tchaikovsky Swan Lake Suite
It was really good, my favourite piece was by Bizet.
There where a few smiles when the blue danube was played, this was because I had surprised Jenny on her Brithday two years ago by taking her to Vienna we spent some time on the Danube.
All in all it was a good night.
New Job
Started my new job today. So I think I might be getting very busy very soon. I am now employed as Assistant Webmaster at the Associaltion of Commonwealth Universities.
The sites that I am involved in are as follows:
ACU
Marshall Scholarship
Observatory
CSFP
All being well there might be a few other things to get my teeth into.
YAPC 2004
I have just been asked if I am going to go to YAPC 2004 (Belfast) in September. Considering its my home country I am probably going to go. I can also head home and catch up with the family. God knows who else is going to go and I am not really sure what to expect when I get there but the crack should be good.
Travel Costs
I have just found out that to travel from Luton to London Kings Cross yearly will cost me about £3000. Is it just me or is this an obscene amount of money to travel 45 miles in a crowded train. I know that the UK train service is in a state but wern’t we meant to be trying to encourage the use of public transport. I doubt very much if these prices are going to have people flocking to cram themselves like sardines into a train.
We really need to sort our raliways out. They’re part of the backbone of a good economy and with the state ours is in I am suprised we haven’t got a trapped disc.
Parrot and IMC
We are off up to see my sister in Norfolk in a couple of days time. It should be a good laugh. I have been trying to come up with a good way to bodge objects until we get them in IMCC. The best way I have found to date is name mangling but this is a pain in the ass. I have also considered containers but although easier to impliment it will not look much like objects by the time I’m finished.