Wtf? Gecko! » Life

New Year, New Post

admin — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:24:53 +0000

As is traditional at this time of year, and since this is my first blog post of 2009, I would like to lay down a list of 'New Years Resolutions'. And afterall, who am I to be different, so why not a list of my own? Oh, how convinient, here is such a list:

Post at least once a month in this blog (yes god damn it this counts as this months post)

Start a photoblog

Purchase a film camera Already done, I did it whilst I was typing this (an old school Lomo Holga 120N from ebay, £21 delivered))

Record a song on guitar

Make a start on learning 2 new foreign languages (my Audible subscription should help me greatly with this, they have a fantastic selection of language books)

Finish my degree with a 1st

Learn to drive

And if you think you're getting any more content out of this post, you are sadly mistaken, as its 5:30am.

Sunburnt after one day

admin — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:37:59 +0000

Maybe I don't get outside enough...

(click for big)

Apart from that interesting diversion (40km bike ride) nothing else has happened. Oh, flight was bumpy as hell on the way in to Schiphol though

T -1

admin — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:26:25 +0000

I'm off on holiday tomorrow, currently dossing around in lovely Gloucetsershire

Its alright here, if a little quiet. I'm flying out from Bristol airport tomorrow afternoon, heading there in the morning so I can take my time getting through customs (I can see a laptop + camera + lenses + 2 phones being a problem in this day and age).

iPhone Jailbreak!

I jailbroke my iPhone last night, using the new PwnageTool, must say, not really much point anymore apart from the activation (now works with my t-mobile contract). Having not had *any* experience with the 1.1.4 software, I can't comment too much, but it is being really slow loading up my iPod playlist (and it's only half of movies). What does really impress me though from a new user point of view is the quality of the video playback. I watched Alfred Hitchcocks North By Northwest on the train journey back here, it was quite a nice experience, and the battery lasted well (took a fair few hours of Super Monkey Ball that evening to drain it down).

Anyway, I will be posting more pictures as and when I take them throughout the next week and a half.

Microsoft gave me free Ice Cream

admin — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:51:43 +0000

I dont really know why everyone bashes Microsoft so, I mean after all, they gave me a free lunch, and free ice cream! Oh, and all the free stuff in this picture. Well, apart from the book on LINQ and C# 3, but then I did get those at 40% off retail. Which is pretty reasonable when you think about it.

Wait, maybe I need to backtrack and explain exactly WHY I got free ice cream. I went to the MSDN Roadshow, its basically a tour where they give presentations on four key topics to do with MSDN, and generally Microsoft software development. The bill was pretty interesting today, the line up was something like:

ADO.NET
ASP.NET
Silverlight
Team Foundation Server

Lets talk about them in the order of interesting, since I am le tired and I'll probably be bored of typing by the time I get to the end of this paragraph. Silverlight is probably the most interesting by a mile. Not so much the fact that you can embed .NET code straight in to your browser, but the fact that it forces the use of XAML. XAML is great. Its like XML, but for describing the layout of your interface. It compiles in to form code exactly as the same as code inside Visual Studio does, and its easy, simple and clean to code. No more messing about managing instances of Form or Button.

ASP.NET is the next entry down the list, its not really much of an improvement over .NET 2 really, apart from this stupidly lame attempt at creating an MVC. I mean, once you get in to it, I'm sure its great, but I just really can't get in to it.

ADO.NET and TFS don't really deserve any kind of words at all. They are interesting if you love your data modeling (actually its quite neat, but it just doesn't excite me), or if you love unit testing your databases, but its not for me.

Oh, and this post *is* a week old, but being as lazy as I am, I totally forgot to finish or publish it. So there you go.

So its been a while.

admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:43:11 +0000

Here we are, nearly a year since the last update.

Wait, where is the last update?

Well I am not entirely sure where it went, but my Wordpress fell apart, so here we are, fresh install (must say I am rather impressed with the whole Wordpress 2.5 thing, its certainly a setup up from 2.2).

Anyway, moving swiftly onwards...

I've got to say, things have been fucking boring since the last update. However, my interest in taking my camera around and taking copious amounts of photos has somewhat increased (although the corresponding increase in quality of the photos is somewhat debatable).

My latest addition to the set of camera accessories is the much-loved Sigma 10-20mm, which I picked up from Jessops on Monday (OK, so I can get it a lot cheaper online, but after various experiences with online shopping I don't really trust this anymore, but I'll see when we get to the next planned (my first piece of L glass, the 70-200mm f/4, but not until I get paid). For my first HSM motored lense, I must say the focus is much quicker and quieter than my other Sigma glass (the 24-70 f/2.8, not that it is that slow, but it is fucking loud).

So, without further ado, heres a few shots I took down the bay with OJ on Monday.

Thats all for now really.