Month: March 2010

bookmark_border5 am

Posted on

It’s still dark and somewhere two birds are singing, beautiful trills and chirrups fill the air.

My head is full of other things though, but then it usually is, and right now it seems to be full of random thoughts about work.

Which is why, I think, I’m awake.

I’m a bit pissed off with my brain to be honest, it knows fine well I’m not feeling well yet did everything it could to urge me from my slumber and, despite my best efforts to stay tucked up under the warm sanctuary of the duvet, an hour after wakening I decide to give up and get up.

I’m sure I’ll be fine. You only need 5 hours sleep, right?

Of course getting up at 5am signals to a certain small black cat that perhaps, maybe, there might be the possibility of, if it’s not too much trouble, and if I remind you by nibbling on your leg every 10 seconds, it might just be time to put some cat food into a bowl.

He’s two hours too early though so tough.

Instead I’ll sit here quietly, listening to the dawn symphony and ponder the beautiful things in life.

Because, frankly, TV at 5am is utterly shit.

bookmark_borderHighs and Lows

Posted on

Saturday morning, a list clutched in my hand as we ventured out early. A few things to buy, a couple of things to do, a productive day stretched ahead.

Saturday afternoon, things have been bought, and one item on the list has been started but not finished.

This is largely due to the rapid onset of a sore throat, possibly brought about whilst trying (and failing) to wash the car using a Karcher pressure washer that we inherited from the my in-laws.

I always know when I’m not well, I tend to be a ‘sleeper’ when I’m ill as I very quickly lose all sense of energy and waves of complete lethargy wash over me. My legs become wobbly and unstable, and so I sleep. And sleep.

Admittedly the Calcutta Cup game didn’t help with said lethargy…

At this point I should probably tell the story of the time I was very ill, knew I was very ill but my Mother sent me to school anyway.

Long story short, I had the chickenpox and a day or so later I was bed-ridden and delirious. It might well have been the most ill I’ve ever been. And my Mother sent me to school. Happy Mother’s Day? Sheesh!!

Looking back, whilst I didn’t realise how ill I was, it was the same type of symptoms that I get today. Doesn’t seem to matter HOW ill I am, it’s the same type of thing, and the same solutions apply. Sleep and cravings for comfort food.

So, after 11 hours sleep last night I managed to crawl out of my death bed and visit my Mum to make sure she knows just how fab she is, and that I really, truly, don’t hold any grudges about that day.

Now, have I ever mentioned how my Mum wouldn’t let me have a denim jacket when I was younger?

bookmark_borderThe Wrong Domain

Posted on

For a few years now I’ve randomly been checking the WHOIS records for the mclean.co.uk domain, and throughout that time it’s sat there, holding nothing but adverts and any attempt by me to contact the owner with a view to purchasing said domain for a “reasonable” fee have fallen on increasingly deaf ears.

Yes, it’s pure vanity/ego at play but I did have plans to offer email addresses to my entire family (and a few cousins too) so it wasn’t entirely unselfish. My Mum and Dad have done a lot of genealogy research which was something else I had toyed with hosting under that domain name.

And now, it’s gone. Bought (for a stupid fee no doubt) by a record company.

I’m a bit pissed off about the whole thing to be honest.

Yes I know the person who originally bought the domain name was entirely within their rights. Yes when you visit this very site you will see that I have adverts here although I’d counter that with the small fact that I provide content as well (even if the quality is rarely all that high), and yes he didn’t have to sell it to me just because I wanted it.

I get all that.

It’s just… well, it’s fucking annoying. Alright?

Never fear though as I have a cunning plan. I’m going to find a domain name that no-one has yet bought, purchase it and change my name! Ha ha! That’ll teach those annoying domain squatters.

Yours,

Gordonisawesome (c/o www.gordonisawesome.co.uk)

bookmark_borderFurther Webhelp hacking

Posted on

I mentioned in my previous post that we run a webhelp build of our content (a.k.a. our Knowledge Centre) on our developer community website, and that it was hosted in an iframe. I thought it worthwhile fleshing out the detail of that as it includes a bit of custom code some others might find useful.

As our content is locked behind a login, we need to be sure that only people who are logged in can access it. This is achieved by a couple of simple checks.

1. When the Knowledge Centre is loaded, a script runs that checks it has been loaded within the correct iFrame within our website. If it’s not, the user is redirected to the login page.

The javascript for this is added to the webhelp.js file (around line 106):

//———– init function ————
Kbase.init = function() {

//OUR redirect
if(window.top.location==window.location) {
window.top.location = ‘URLTOYOURIFRAME’;
}

2. If the Knowledge Centre has been loaded in the correct iFrame (in other words the above javascript is happy), the website checks for a cookie (checking for login) and then either loads the Knowledge Centre, or, again, redirects the user to the login page. The javascript for this is standard cookie checking stuff (google will find you a zillion solutions).

And that’s it. Nothing particularly clever, but a useful way to (lightly) protect the content of our Knowledge Centre.

bookmark_borderI was in London

Posted on

And there I met some people I know, and some I don’t know, and hobnobbed with celebrities (not really), and ate and drank and walked about a lot and even went and stood in a big black box that was very very dark indeed.

The main reason I was in London was to attend a book launch, at the Groucho club. You know, the ones celebrities (and as it turns out, non-celebrities) fall out of a lot. The book in question was Girl with a One Track Mind Exposed which is a most excellent, moving and filthy read. It also marks the second time I’ve been mentioned in a book (in the Acknowledgements no less!) which was something I only found out on Monday night at the launch itself and which I’ll happily confessed I’m hugely touched and honoured by.

The party was fun and after arriving a little later than others (and spoiling their moment) much free drink and merriment was had. Obligatory name dropping follows. I didn’t talk to either Ben Miller (of Armstrong & Miller), David Mitchell (of Mitchell & Webb), Jay Rayner (of Claire Rayner’s womb), or Heather Brooke (of that whole MP expense scandal (as in she worked on it, not was involved in it) at least I think it was her).

There may have been other celebrities/people who have been on TV there but I’m terrible with names. I’m pretty bad at keeping up with people at the best of times, this is something made a lot hard when said people are bloggers, so I hope my surprise at hearing that two bloggers whom I’ve read for many years are, completely unbeknownst to me, happily married was taken as exactly that. I really wasn’t kidding, I didn’t have a clue.

There is a tale involving David Mitchell but I’ll let the perpetrator tell it. I did feel a bit sorry for the parties involved, a bit. And as usual it was good to put names to faces, although I do now wish I’d been wearing a cravat…

Tuesday and I spent the day wandering random parts of London, stopping off for a quick perusal of a large steel box in the Tate Modern. I’m still very much in the learning phase of ‘art’ and perhaps I should’ve taken mike up on his offer of spending sometime wandering the Gorky exhibition. It was via Twitter that he realised we were both there at the same time, but I didn’t want to intrude on his day too much and I was also quite enjoying wandering about on my own .. another time though, I do badly need educated on that whole ‘art’ thing (hmmm, perhaps I should stop ‘quoting’ it like that for starters).

And then to the National Film Theatre bar where I spent a quite hour nursing sore feet and a large gin and tonic, and waited for a very random group of wonderful and most excellent people who I’m still amazed can be arsed to trawl to a somewhat hard to find bar just because I’ve said I’m there. It still baffles me somewhat and I console myself be remembering that they are all there to see everyone, and that I’m more than happy to be the catalyst for such an event, rather than the main attraction (god forbid!).

All in all a good couple of days in London, which was all down to the company I kept. You guys are fantastic.

bookmark_borderChange of Venue

Posted on

Survived last nights party, just, and now I’m ready for more!

Having now had a look at the bar we had arranged to meet in, think it will be better in the National Film Theatre bar (the one round the back not the one facing the water). It’s only 2 mins from the previous suggestion but bit better atmosphere.

Hope to see you there, anytime after 5.