RichRock - the man, the music, the pictures, the nonsense. Oh, and Web Development stuff occasionally…
While I wait for the backups to complete, I find myself drifting around on the internet. In my open-source meanderings (on Firefox obviously), I find this. A spiffy collection of cool tech-orientated cartoons, with one of my favourite Dilbert strips at the top.
Plus I want this. As I’ve been doing a lot of MySQL stuff recently, it only seems appropriate.
I’ll admit that I’m a n00b at this. I’ve been starting on the slippery road to being a programmer, having dabbled in a little Javascript and fairly fluent in HTML & CSS. So now I find myself trying to grasp the concept of PHP programming.
Don’t forget - I’m self-taught. I’ve been working on a lot of PHP>Database interactions, and I plan to share those with you, in the interest of Open Source Software. I’ll be writing some tutes on the basics next week, as I’m on holiday, and I’ll be doing a fair bit of writing then.
Until then, enjoy! Oh, and I’ll be posting some more photography too.
Haha!!! In my posting of photo’s on recent posts, I completely neglected to do an obligatory ‘new year‘ post. So here it is.
I have resolved to improve my personal life in one main way, which in the whole ‘cliched new year resolutions’ scheme of things, it to lose some weight and get fit.
So a little of my past, to understand where I’m coming from. I used to do road cycling, many years (10) ago. I would think nothing of eating up 30-40 miles 2-3 times a week, as I was unemployed at the time. I had a resting heart rate of 54bpm. I still had some flab, which would not shift, but I was fit.
I would love to return to something of these glory days of peak fitness, and my current lifestyle is not going to help that. Curse the DVD player, my love for foreign cinema, for making me sit on my behind, as my job now lacks any physical effort also!!!
I have planned to attain a return to fitness using an approved ‘ease in’ plan, which involves combinations of run/walks for eight weeks. I was never much of a runner, and hated the 1500m at school, so I find it amusing that I have started something which I used to hate, and it’s turned to something I enjoy. I guess one of the things being on a mountain bike taught me was that you must push the limits of what your body can do. I watched a trailer of a film, called ‘Spirit Of The Marathon’, which illustrated to me what running is all about. There seems to be an underlying philosophy that pretty much any other sport doesn’t have. It’s just you and the elements. No equipment (save shoes), no gadgets, racquets, wheels, clubs, etc. Just your legs. I’ve linked to the youtube video version below, although you can visit the site: www.marathonmovie.com.
So I’m into running. At the moment, I can last for 7 minutes. Not bad for someone who pretty much hasn’t run since school. I am desperately unfit, and am learning new things about pain, my body, and how I should treat it. Obviously, I’ve had digestive issues which are being investigated, but a diet geared towards running/general fitness if of benefit to me. Also, the nature of running and it’s physiological changes on the body will help, as my metabolism will change accordingly.
My new year resolution is an old, cliched one. But it’s by far the best one. And it’s nothing to do with resolutions, but with determination, willpower and a definite feeling of achieving something, even if other people don’t understand or appreciate it.
The aim of this? To complete a marathon. Had I thought earlier, I would have been getting ready for this year’s marathon in London. However, I believe that my fitness, the levels to which I need to achieve, are too great a stress on me, so I have decided that the London Marathon 2009 is a more realistic probability. It’s a definite goal, and I want to achieve it.
On a completely separate note - it was quite easy to place youtube videos on the site - so you may start to see more of them…
As you can imagine, yes. I am slightly (!) stressed. When I was at my girlfriend’s over the weekend, I found out my blood pressure had gone up, now at 140/100!! To me, that’s alarmingly high. I an anxious, feeling some effects of depression, and agitated a lot. Is it my job? My circumstances? My life? Probably a combination of all three. With the recent events of my girlfriend’s hospital visit, some high-pressure web dev jobs, and home pressures, no wonder things are through the roof.
I haven’t even thought about christmas yet. And I was supposed to be serving at the Christmas Carol Concert at church, but I’m working. I hate working Sundays. I hate working weekends full stop. Occasionally, I somtetimes wish I was back in retail. I know this doesn’t post a rosy picture of being a web developer, and I am sorry for that. But I just have the feeling at the moment that I am sinking fast. I entered this profession not actually being trained, so I was already on the slow starter then. My experience of web design was modding a few templates, let alone developing an e-commerce site using database driven Content Management Systems.
What to do? I’m uploading an incomplete site to use for a training day tomorrow. Do I feel happy about that? No. Do I have enough time to finish it. No, not unless I don’t sleep. But I have enough difficulty with sleep. 3pm this afternoon felt like 11pm at night to me. At the moment I feel like I’m in quicksand. I need to find a way out.
And I’m not sure which way *is* out…
BTW - this is in no way a slur - it’s a comment on my personal state of mind. I am aware that things are tough, and there is the prospect of improvement.
Hi all. As you can tell from the title, it’s a few new things going on. New life, for my girlfriend, as she’ll hopefully be out of hospital in the next couple of days. I’m not going into any specifics, but the op she’s just had will remove a long-term hindrance to her having a fuller life. She says shell be more annoying to me. Also, she reckons I won’t know what to do with her. I do. And I’m not saying here. (To those who thought something rude - wash your mouth out with soapy water.)
New diet indicates that I have to change my dietary habits. I have been having dietary problems for many years, and now I’m in a job where I sit a lot more, it’s harder to be comfortable. It’s not piles. It’s only the start, and I’m told I may probably have to be on this for life, which in some respects is no bad thing. I refer you to my previous posting about God and healing here. This explains something about why I haven’t sought physical healing, but I really felt God had led me to discover a reason for the problems, and to solve those, as that would be more beneficial for my life.
New Year - soon. This new year will culminate all the new things that have happened this year :
And the new year promises more. Who knows, maybe marriage may be on the cards? With whats happened to my girlfriend, we have already had to seriously look at each others commitment in our relationship. This has bought us closer, and hopefully God will bless us further. Theres many other things which could be new next year, but I’m keeping those card close to my chest, and not revealing to you, my readers.
I just took delivery of a spanking new 27″ widescreen monitor at work, so my web development took an excellent turn today. It’s mahoosive, just like working on a screen like on Minority Report. Without the touchscreen. Or the blue tinge.
Anyhoo, I just re-wired my PC, tidied it up a bit. Put the cold cathodes in, it’s now a vibrant blue inside. Why? Because I’m a geek. And a gamer. Halo was great last night, getting cheeky with nice and rice, but some scumbag calling themselves opm002 kept getting me a lot. It got a little frustrating… But it was still fun.
Where next for my PC? Maybe a nice new motherboard with Core 2 Quad capabilities, and maybe a Core 2 Quad processor… Oh and the board must have SLI, so I can get another of my graphics cards. I currently use an MSI Geforce 8600 GTS Overclocked, and it’s pretty good. I bet in SLI mode it would be very good, especially by my standards.
Right, onto looking at some game demos, get the latest goss.