RichRock : Running Free

Some things have gone well - the launch of the new Bromptons Auctioneers site went well. Just needs to be finished… An auction system would be good. That’s a bit of work.

Gaming nights on mondays are doing well too. Got a decent bunch of guys (and gals) joining us for LaN Se7eN, a weekly lan gaming session held at a youth centre. It’s great because it’s mostly team-based, great fun and something a lot of people don’t experience or appreciate. As much as AI can fool you in single-player gaming, playing against a character that is controlled by a free-thinking human makes a lot of difference.

Some things aren’t good. My babe’s still not well. Shame. In some respects, we’ll pull through. It’s things like this that can test a relationship, and make it stronger. These things can make you realise how much you do love someone. I hope there’s a light in this situation somewhere.

Like they said in M*A*S*H - ‘That is all’.

A major project is 50% out of the way. The other 50% is programming. People who know me know that I am not a programmer. Except with HTML, CSS, and a little Javascript. PHP, on the other hand, is new to me.

Hopefully I can relegate the project to at least 50% of my workload too. Then I can work on the next project to get it finished before the end of september.

My advice kids - don’t do drugs. And don’t become a web developer. (Or a games one at that either…)

Also, the forementioned Joomla article will be coming when I have a gap in between projects.

Well. It’s true. Sometimes in the Web Developer’s world, the work will hardly flow. Other times, there’s not enough time. That’s where I’m at at this particular moment in time. Just trying to keep some semblance of a normal life, trying to do things to please my babe, keeping the flat tidy, just getting things done. I know things will get quieter. I’m already looking forwards to the next project, which is graphically different from a lot of the corporate stuff I’ve built recently. Can’t wait!

Got my new Antec 900 PC case a couple of days ago, plus the Zalman fan monitor. Great pieces of kit. For those interested in both - a word of warning. The Antec’s nice 120mm fans are controlled by little switches, and plugged into Molex sockets. You’ll either have to convert or change the fans. I plan on changing the fans. I’ll get the similar blue ones, plus a cool red 120mm for the CPU cooler. It’ll create a great red core with purple/blue transitional lighting out from there.
The case is great. It’s dropped about 4 degrees of both my CPU and overall case temp. Tonight I had to take the cover off to check something (I spent a couple of hours rewiring it with spiral wrap) and felt the cooler air in the PC! Awesome.

Spiritually, things have been difficult of late. Pressures of work have taken their toll. The work I do doesn’t allow much in the way of reflection or free thinking, so I have to dedicate time to the things of God. Which I haven’t much. Plus there’s something else to mention, but it’s not going on here until I’ve mentioned and discussed with my babe first. I’ll get there. I’m on the winning side. Not that I’m bragging. Look it up in the Bible. The devil did it. He loses. Jesus wins.

Finally, I’ll post up some pics in the next few days of my PC, and the restored Parker 25 fountain pen. A pen that’s older than me!

Well, all the best intentions in the world never always get fulfilled… In many respects, being busy at work as a Web Dev has taken it’s toll. All the pressures of life seem to have weighed against me. I will continue the Joomla documentation at some point. I’ve been taking advantage of the system in the latest site build, reducing the chances of the end user borking it and making it so simple it will make people wonder why they paid us in the first place. Also, got the go-ahead on the first e-commerce site! Yay!

My babe’s ill at the mo, so that’s been pretty tough, just learning to deal with all the stuff around caring for someone else, even though you’re not physically there. I feel good in the respect of the information passed between us, but I still have that feeling I could have done more.

I’ve ordered a new PC case, plus a luxury of a fan controller. The case is an Antec 900, and the fan controller is a Zalman MFC-2. Both are awesome bits of kit, and I can’t wait to get them. I did receive some Akasa SATA cables, and also an Akasa cable management kit. That’ll take care of the 3 hard drives I have in my PC.

Now, to fix the recurrent boot issue…