Month: December 2004

Revelation

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Let me set the scene (ohh and if you’ve not glanced over my recent post, 4×4, then go there first).

I was walking home last night, having completed the last last-minute shopping, it was cold and raining. I was cold and wet. I got to a busy road and stopped to wait for a gap in the traffic so I could cross. I waited, the wind blew, the rain fell. I cursed, the wind blew harder, the rain got heavier (that’ll teach me to blaspheme).

Finally, just as I’d uttered another curse at all those inconsiderate car drivers, one of them stopped to let me cross. The wind fell, the sun came out and a bird sang. I hurried across the road, waving thanks to the driver.

Of the 4×4.

KABOOM

Reading time: 2 mins

Gordon’s brain is slightly overloaded at present, it asks that you please excuse the following.

I’m shifting through some outstanding work issues, trying to collate a short document for myself so I don’t forget to do anything when I come back in January, I’m trying to remember the name of something that I still need to buy Louise – it’s an art kit but can’t recall the right name, and I’m trying to figure out if I’ve got enough time to nip to the art shop AND go for a curry at lunchtime seeing as I’ll be heading home at 4ish tonight (but hey, I was IN the office early!).

I’m trying NOT to think about the redesign for this site, the HaloScan Wiki, my mate’s site design and, despite it being a passing comment, my brain is already leaps and bounds ahead of me and wondering about redesigning another site for someone else (don’t worry Peter, it’s just the way my brain works).

And then there is the mental Christmas checklist that is constantly running; Do we have enough booze? – last count 20 bottles of wine, one box of Miller (it doesn’t give me a hangover), one box of Guinness (it does but I love it so), 3 bottles of Southern Comfort (ditto), 1 bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream, 1 bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin, plenty of mixers… HIC – Have we bought all the presents? I’ve still to phone Gran and arrange picking her up on Xmas morning, we are seeing friends this evening to exchange pressies, tomorrow we should get away for a half day so it’ll be a pub lunch but is there anything else needing done in the afternoon? WHAT HAVE I FORGOTTEN!!!!!

Heh. Reading back that last paragraph I think it’s fairly obvious what my priority is this year. Eat, drink and be very merry!

I digress. I currently have nine posts sitting in draft state, titled: Fat, Single Malt, Put it off-itis, Evil Empire, 2004 lists, Hic, Fairies, Beep beep and Merry Christmas (ignore this one, I know when I’ll post it). I really should post some of them but which ones? Should we have a Scaryduck style vote?

This post is presented as a lesson in creating something out of nothing. Also known as The Brain Dump.

Memo?

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Did I miss something? Is there a reason that there are only two people in the office, including myself?

I came in early as I need to leave early to get that last present for Louise, but even by 8.30 am there are usually at least three or four people in the office.

Did I sleep too long? Is it Saturday?!

UPDATE: 9am and now three of us.

Ohh there is one advantage to a quiet office, I can actually hear when the kettle is boiled now. Admittedly that’s because we got a new one that whistles when it’s boiled but it is SO very quiet in here. Kinda spooky. Think I’ll put some music on.

UPDATE: As you were. Office now at expected capacity. At 9.15am. Lazy buggers.

IT WORKS!!!

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FINALLY.

Many many MANY thanks to Adrian and Jann for their sage advice and time.

I tried Jann’s advice first – as it was the simplest, namely adding <br style="clear: both;" /> right before the closing DIV tag. Whaddya know, it worked straight away. I’m not sure which I’m more relieved about, the fact it now works in IE AND Firefox (other browsers and versions still to be checked), or that it wasn’t anything I’d coded but a ‘gotcha’ with the Mozilla based browsers. Seemingly it’s “one of those things”, meaning it’s one of those things you learn once and never ever forget!

Now this does mean that my beloved Firefox browser is flawed slightly but it’s still a safer browser than IE – 12.5 million downloads can’t lie! (yes, I know that statistics ALWAYS lie but that’s not my point).

So, without further ado you can ALL have a gander at the 2005 version of this site. Comments welcomed and bear in mind it’s not completely finished yet.

UPDATE: Apologies to Shelagh, I posted this late last night (early this morning) and didn’t spot the code snippet wasn’t showing.

Categorical

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So I’ve upgraded to WordPress 1.2.2. Pretty smooth. I bet you never even noticed. Right?

Anyway, part of my redesign thoughts include making better use of some of the WordPress features. I’m still not overly bothered about using their comment feature, especially as HaloScan will be getting some new features in the New Year. However the category feature intrigues me, mainly because it’s a completely new thing to remember when posting. No categories in Blogger so it was pretty much a case of typing up my usual nonsense and pressing Post.

Ideally what I need is to be prompted to choose a category or two, every time I post. Alas the WordPress Plugins Database doesn’t have anything like that. I wonder how hard it would be to code one? Hmm a little holiday project maybe.

Mind you I’ll be working on a Wiki for HaloScan, as well as a little site redesign so I’d better not promise too much. After all I’ve got three bottles of Southern Comfort to get through. And all that food… crap movies on TV. Oh yes I’ll be busy busy busy.

UPDATE: Ohh and need to get trackbacks working properly – I’m getting emails saying that people have pinged a post but no way to see WHO has!

2005

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Looking ahead (yes already) I’ll be tweaking the design here again. It’s all a bit cluttered so I’ll be removing some bits and bobs I think – or moving them somewhere else.

Anyway, I’ve got a few ideas, mainly centred around adding a few graphical touches (nothing much, I like the fact the site loads quite quickly), and generally making it look a bit cleaner. Yes I know it’s pretty minimal at the moment, but I think I need to define the different parts a bit better. Thinking cap on!

What say you though? Do you use the blogroll? The archives? The search box? If I delete one thing here that would really piss you off, what would it be?

Or, what is missing? (Archives WILL make a return in the redesign, promise!)

UPDATE: Here’s a sneak peek of what may, or may not, be in store for you next year.