| Much Needed Update |
[May. 28th, 2009|11:44 am] |
Yay, an update from me. This may be long I haven't updated since the end of January.
I've been getting complaints for not updating.
Well, to tie off things I was talking about in my last blog entry I had a great time on my B-day (that was 31st of Jan) we all played games on my Dad's Wii and had drinks and a meal at a local Indian restaurant, it was great!
After my inter-semester break I started doing my very last module for uni, Client-Server Solutions. It's been a good fun little module, there's only me and a guy named Tom who turn up and we already know so much about the history of computers and have a good understanding that the tutor has been able to go about twice as fast and we've finished a early.
Onto jobs, I'm sure if you've kept track of my facebook or twitter accounts then you will know that I now work for ASDA (A UK super market owned by WalMart,) as a home shopper. It involves walking around the shelves and picking up peoples' on-line shopping. But you have to work fast in order to get the deliveries out on time. It's actually not such a bad job once you get used to it, the pay is better than my previous job and the atmosphere is better.
I submitted my application at the beginning of March and was trying to sort it out through February with the view of getting a job for the Semester to help may my uni fees as I was getting a little low on cash. It didn't quite work out like that though, it took ages for ASDA to get back to me after the interviews and so I didn't have my induction day, or best welcome, until a few weeks ago and then started work, sort of near the end of the semester. Luckily with only having one module, my uni fees were far cheaper than I expected and I had enough money to cover it, despite having no job for about two years.
Surprisingly jobs are like buses, you wait ages and two can come along at once... after I'd submitted my ASDA application I got an email from a tutor about someone seeking a developer for a small project, well I jumped at the chance and hopefully I've not hit my head on anything.
I went for a small interview in the uni's cafe to get the brief on what I needed to do, porting a flash game over to the iPhone. Unfortunately I've not been having much luck here since every time I try to do something Apple have been a pain in the backside, after this I'll probably not want to do any developing on an Apple platform again. Unless it's to get a Java application working.
That's been pretty much it for the last few months, you know how life settles into a routine.
More recently, as in this weekend just gone I went to ConFuzzled, yeah it's a furry convention. Anyway I had a great time!
Me and Smraedis got access only tickets because he told me that he lived around the corner from the venue, it was only later that he told me he in fact lived an hour's walk from it. Not good to be walking through the middle of Salford from Manchester to Eccles at 1am. In fact on the opening night we were attacked by four or five "hoodies," for no reason what so ever. Luckily we managed to get away and had no further problems, though it was a bit scary walking back to his flat after that, walking in silence for an hour with your mind buzzing isn't so fun. I was determined not to let it spoil my time though. :)
We went to a few events, which were loads of fun, I ended up drinking and then singing and dancing a bit in the foyer of the venue nearly every night, I also made some new friends and saw a few people there that I only spoke to on IM. There were also quite a few people there I already knew. I was really worn out after the four day event and can't wait to see what photos, and maybe videos, I will be in. :p
The weather couldn't have been much better either, I got sun burnt it was so sunny and hot, I remember it was like this last year too around this time.
This Saturday I will be out again in Manchester, this time going to the usual meet up, should be good fun again though I may still be worn out. :p
This Friday I have an exam, as you can see I'm revising and not taking time to update a blog. This is a bit of a special exam though, "why is that?" Well because it's the last one of uni and once it's over and done with I will no longer be at uni, on the 10th of July I will be getting presented with my degree and then everyone will have to call me S.I.R Sulley BSc. :p
After I get my degree, well, I'll finish off doing them ports and keep working at ASDA, save up my money for various future events and then start looking for some real work.
So there you are, if you've read this far you've done well and should be up to date with my life. I do try to read what other people get up to if I can, even when I don't comment, I do get busy though.
Thanks for reading,
see ya,
SDF |
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| Kink Quiz |
[Apr. 11th, 2009|09:55 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | quiz | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sleepy | ] |
Well since some of my other friends did this...
BTW, if you don't want to know, don't look.
( sexy stats below. XD ) |
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| Long Awaited Update |
[Jan. 29th, 2009|01:43 pm] |
Hey all!
Wow feels like ages since I've last written a journal and it has been too. :p
Well, the thing which caused it would be university, this semester has been so busy I've had practically no free time what so ever, been nearly at breaking point. I think the main reason for getting so behind with things was my Software Engineering module, there was too much work to be done on it and it took all my time up.
Last week I had my exams, after a little revision I think the Software Engineering went quite well, the other exam I had was Advanced Database Systems, I think that went quite well too. However, I wasn't quite fluent when it came to answering the questions and I had to dig around in my memory a little to find the answers. Usually when I'm on an exam, whether I've revised or not the answers come as I read the question.
So now all I can do is wait for my results.
I had my project demonstration and Viva today, it went sort of OK, better than nothing anyway. :p The bus didn't turn up so I was about half an hour late, luckily the tutors waited for me and the room was still free. :) I had trouble accessing my uni home area last night to upload my work. Luckily the presentation uploaded fine. However, when it came to showing my application off the workspace hadn't been stored. But no worries, I took my laptop and was able to show the program on there. :)
So now I'll have to wait for a result there too.
With that behind I'm now on a little holiday between semesters and I'm not back until the 9th of Feb. Next semester should be much easier, I only have one module so I'll be in for a three hour lecture once every week. I'm hoping to get a part-time job with Duragan to fill up the time and help get some of my finances going again. Also I need the work experience, I've only been in a manufacturing environment with a little work in a shop. So it will be much more useful especially in the current financial climate to get the experience since there are more shops around and the manufacturing industry is dieing in this country and has been since the conservatives messed everything up. XD
It's my B-day on Saturday, having a meal and a little bit of a party with duragan, Carl from over the road and Smraedis. :)
I've managed to pick up on coding SDF:IRC again and I've got it close to the next release now. :) I've still got a few things one of which is quite important to iron out, but there should be a new release in the next few weeks if all goes to plan.
I'd say the best new feature in the client is the capability to add plug-ins for formatting and styling in the consoles and I've written an mIRC formatting plug-in, it's working well though there is a bit of a random bug in it somewhere. The good thing about these plug-ins is that is you don't want mIRC colours and formatting them you just need to remove the plug-in from the plug-in folder, or uncheck it in the installer.
I've made a lot of tweaks to the UI as well, trying to sort out the colours and positioning. Also, I've moved the made part of the GUI framework to a new project called Smraedis, Smraedis will be and is a GUI framework which I can use to create UI without having to worry about stuff in SWT too much.
Onto, Second Life, I've only got one plot of land for rent left now, if anyone's interested, first come first serve. :p
Also working on a new house, new for 2009, it's currently floating above the old one and when I get around to it, it'll replace the old one.
Also since it has been a while since I was around, I did have a very good Christmas and a good new year, though most of it I was doing uni work it was still good. Hope you all had good ones too. ^_^
Oh, almost forgot, I have gotten Project Martha underway, for the peeps who are new to reading this or have forgotten, which is likely, :p Martha is the project name for an artist orientated to-do list, mainly for people who have many requests and commissions to work through. I'm currently developing for Duragan but if anyone has input on it I'm happy to listen since I will be releasing it eventually. I've not got far with it because of uni. However, here is the project page.
Thanks and see ya all,
SDF
PS. I have a facebook and twitter account now. :p
Facebook: Steven SDF Sulley
Twitter: SDF_of_BC |
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| mini update and funky UI video |
[Nov. 21st, 2008|10:51 pm] |
Hey all, thought I'd do a little post, I'm doing alright, really busy with my uni work, but getting behind with it all. :s I'll live and I'm looking forward tomorrow, Manchester main meet tomorrow!
Also, this new computer interface looks really cool, but typing would take a long time and you probably couldn't fit the screens in your house, though it would make a good TV. :p
Their site: http://oblong.com/ |
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| Larger update than the last one |
[Aug. 22nd, 2008|11:38 am] |
Hey all,
I thought it time to make another update, it's been about two weeks since my last one. XD
Quite a bit has happened and not happened at the same time, woo zen. :p
Mum and Dad went away on holiday with my Dad's friend and his wife last week, it would have been good, but my brother is here too and while he's OK really, when he's with his friends he just turns into the most rude, ignorant person ever, and it probably isn't helped by the huge amount of booze they knock back, still we only had one argument so it's a definite improvement. Because the house was going be largely empty and Smraedis was going to be coming around that's when I organised a little get together for all my closest friends; Smraedis was there of course, Carl from over the road came along too and we had a pretty good time. Sadly Duragan couldn't attend as he was ill, he'd have really made the the party a party if he'd have come and it'd lasted longer, but what can you do when you're ill.
No worries there's plenty more time and he should be coming around tomorrow too. :)
Mum and Dad have now gone again, this time to visit my sister in Scotland, I couldn't go this time as my brother is off on holiday with his friends to the island of Cos and I have to stay and look after the cats for the weekend.
I might also get to see Smraedis again on Monday, but we're not sure about that yet, since my brother will be away I have full use of the car without having to worry whether he has to use it.
Zooming ahead to next year, I'm all registered and paid up to go to a convention, it's a few years since I last went to a con, them being Blitzcons. However, this will be the first furcon I've ever been to, I've looked at some videos of last year and it looks awesome, so it should be really great fun, and it's held down the road in Manchester too. :p The con is called ConFuzzled BTW, as I've just noticed I've not said the name yet. XD
Onto projects, during the free time I've had to get a lot of coding in as I feel like I'm getting behind with it all, I've been coding away at my uni project the core of it is all done, I decided not to use Swing for the GUI and have instead converted it all to use SWT like SDF:IRC does. :p
As for SDF:IRC, I've made some progress on this too, I've made it so that rather than just setting a server to use SSL or not, you can now tell the client to use SSL on only select ports by prefixing a '+' onto a port number, this is supported in all areas of the client now, so the port list could be like this +6697,6667,7000 where port 6697 uses SSL encryption and the others are just normal IRC connections. Because of this change the settings need to be updated again, this time there is a difference though. If you remember in the 0.0.2a release I'd made the settings more extensible, well now when you start the next release of the client for the first time it will auto-update the server settings for you.
Another thing I've done, I've created a plug-in for my client which does two things: first, it allows the user to add, remove and list client-side ignores, so you can ignore annoying people; secondly, it also has an anti-flood feature in it so the client should auto-ignore anyone flooding you, the defaults still need a good tweaking though, so if you have a setting that you find best, just say and I'll test it out. :p
SDF:IRC should now crash less, not that it did much before anyway, I've fixed a number crash bugs and a large number of possible crash bugs that never saw the light of day. On top of all that, I've removed a load of debugging and refined the messaging system within the client so that it's much faster and more memory efficient now. I monitored the memory usage over 24 hours and at the lowest it was using 2 megs of heap space, this rose to 6 megs as the 25 or so chat consoles filled up (but what amount of memory do other clients use?)
I've redesigned my web site again, I like this template so I think I shall keep this one for a while, I might remove the curvy images on the right, they didn't really export quite right from my GFX package.
Speaking of websites, time for a little grumble at DA, I'm finding the new site difficult to use, I usually view art from my desktop because the screen feels better on my eyes. The problem is, my wireless card tends to overheat and/or the drivers conk out if I download too much at once, it's never usually that bad, except on DA. Hmm, one of my extensions counts DA as having 106 dependencies. Further more, though I like some of the new things in the message center, give me back my check boxes, I want to be able to select more than one thing as a time. That's enough talking about that, it's not like ranting about it in a journal will make any difference anyway. If get really really annoying I may submit some sort of feature request, maybe. :p
Also after about a year out, I may be going back over to FA again,I've started feeling more comfortable looking around recently, since you know who last year.
As usual, I've managed to create a massive journal, well happy reading it, I'll see ya around then. :p
SDF |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 8th, 2008|02:39 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | quiz | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | groggy | ] |
I suppose I should spread this around, if you make web sites, either as a job or hobby or whatever, do it! :p
Well, back to work... |
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| Quiz thing, stoled from Slav |
[Aug. 2nd, 2008|11:56 pm] |
Well, I guess that's saying something. :p
Strangely enough I'd agree I have them symptoms and the summaries fit me, but I don't think I'm Histrionic or Narcissistic. |
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| Small update | SDF:IRC /server command RFC |
[Jul. 31st, 2008|11:57 am] |
Hey all,
Phew I've been busy and un-busy recently. :p
Well the un-busy part is that last week, me, Mum and Dad all went on holiday last week. :)
We stayed in a very nice in near Holy Island next to the A1 called Lindisfarne Inn. If you're thinking of going on holiday near the East cost of England I recommend it, the staff, food, drink and rooms were all so nice and there's plenty of things to do, providing you have a car.
The weather was great while we were there, though the wind was cold at times we visited a number of castles and ruin and saw all the Puffins on the Farne islands. :)
It was a good time. :)
Anyway, now I'm back, I've updated my IRC client again, some quick fixes to the Windows installer (doesn't create a start menu icon) and a crash fix caused by race condition.
This download is under the 0.0.2a release and can be downloaded from from the usual place.
Some things that I've been asked about is the /server command and also about distribution.
The /server command isn't implemented as at least one person has noticed, I didn't put it in because I myself was happy using the File>Connect or setting up a server in the settings so I can easily connect to one or even auto-connect if I want.
One of the other reasons I didn't put the command in is the format, so if you have any more feedback please say. :)
Another topic that came up was Java detection, if you don't have Java installed you can't start SDF:IRC the exe opens a window or has some error.
I've not found (what I think is a) good way to detect Java. Sun do know about this so they created JNLP and Java Web Start (JWS.) JWS uses JNLP which is an XML file telling JWS about the program. I've tried JWS before but found it to be quite, well, broken for I needed I couldn't get it to download the plug-ins separately and there doesn't seem to be anyway that you can register a program to open URLs. Another thing about it I don't like too much is that you have to sign the code, good for security perhaps, but too expensive for me; so because I haven't signed my code or because I use my own signature or use a CA free certificate, it recommends people not to install it.
Not good IMO.
The good thing is that it detects Java versions and runs my client it the correct version, of the version isn't installed it can download it for you, it's cross-platform, it allows packages to be downloaded separately and updated, so saving update sizes and bandwidth, but does to the things above I choose to not use it.
OK, that's all the SDF:IRC stuff done with for now. :p
Another thing I've completed this week is I've made and set up a little access database so I can easily create invoices and manage my land rents in SL.
So tomorrow, invoices will be generated and I shall be sending them out, not that anyone owes me any money yet, but it's for customer records and my records. :p
I'm pleased with how it all works and it was good practice, getting into VBA again and doing all the fancy things with forms. :p
On Tuesday I went around to Smraedis' flat again, we had a lot of fun and we did some cooking again, this time meatballs spaghetti in a tomato source. :)
Anyway, I'll be off, I'll do some more coding or something; I've not got anything planned for today.
See ya,
SDF |
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| SL Land update and SDF:IRC v0.0.2a pre-release out |
[Jul. 17th, 2008|04:35 pm] |
Hey all,
No this isn't a really long life update, it is to announce two things.
First to get it out the way quickly, I have purchased that land on Second Life for renting out, the reason I'm going over it quickly? It's already full up.
Yeah, I have put three 512 plots on there and I'm keeping land bit of land as "fallow," still if anyone is interested, please ask because the dust hasn't settled yet.
Second of all and this is the big part, SDF:IRC, my IRC chat client has a new pre-release, 0.0.2a.
Download it here, don't know your version? Just start the client the welcome page should detect your version and point you to the D/L page.
The change logs are below or a more detailed one with links is available at http://bugs.sdf.me.uk/changelog_page.php .
Two new features that people should like, my client now supports SSL encrypted connections and the tabs now highlight. As a consequence of the highlighting tabs I have to provide my own SWT libraries and build them myself however I have build ones for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. This is the first time I've done all three.
A note about the Linux package, I've made a small script called start.sh it will try the Java command. However, if you want to use a different version you can point to a different directory by setting the variable at top of the script the Java directory of your choice. Example: JAVA_PATH="/usr/java/latest"
Also if you add it to your KDE menu you need to set the Work Path to the same place as the script.
For the Mac OS X version, it's untested. I don't have a mac at all so I can't test it, but assuming that you still have bash on Mac OS X I've used the same script, opening the Jar should work too.
Also for the Mac, I've attempted to create an *.app package. That is very untested I don't expect it to work, but if you want to poke around in the untested directory and try and give me some tips and fixes, I'm open to them. :p
Change Log:
SDF:IRC - 0.0.2a
================
- 0000175: [GUI] Plug-in buttons do not work (StevenSDF) - resolved.
- 0000153: [Settings] Better handling of default settings (StevenSDF) - resolved.
- 0000152: [Settings] Window maximized state not saved. (StevenSDF) - resolved.
- 0000176: [Settings] Window position and size are not stored (StevenSDF) - resolved.
- 0000170: [Channel] Channel and chan user modes, or modes with and without parameters causes parse problems. (StevenSDF) - resolved.
- 0000166: [GUI] Clean up of wizard API (StevenSDF) - resolved.
- 0000151: [Other] Splash Image to big (StevenSDF) - resolved.
- 0000159: [Other] Support of SSL Connections (StevenSDF) - resolved.
- 0000164: [GUI] Should make the dialog box for joining servers appear in the middle of the screen (StevenSDF) - resolved.
- 0000162: [Channel] Changing name with /nick doesn't update my name in the side bar (StevenSDF) - resolved.
- 0000158: [Protocol] Detect what charsets are being used (StevenSDF) - resolved.
- 0000155: [GUI] Giving focus to a console doesn't stop scrolling (StevenSDF) - resolved.
- 0000154: [GUI] Links in consoles don't give focus back to the text field (StevenSDF) - resolved.
Known Issues:
0000182 Clicking the task links in the welcome tab doesn't work until the page is refreshed in Linux (possibly Mac)
Its seems to be when the client is using Mozilla, Fire Fox or XUL Runner to render the page. However, IE seems to be OK here.
0000181 The perform buffer never gets run if the server does not provide a network name.
Some servers don't use RPL_ISUPPORT, numeric 005, which usually contains something like NETWORK=Name.
Please report any problems/bugs/improvements to me, or even better sign up to my tracker and use that so I can keep track easier. http://bugs.sdf.me.uk/
Thanks,
SDF |
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| Second Life Land Rent |
[Jul. 10th, 2008|11:39 am] |
Hey all,
I just wanted to say again about that SL rent thing, I've worked out the details of it now,
though I've not purchased the land yet so things could be negotiable.
I've decided to charge L$1000 a month for a 512 sq.m. plot of land, this is for 100 prims.
This is less than LL charge and you don't have to pay for the land itself.
If you require more or less land, or you would like to see the location please contact me, either on IM's (details in profile,) here in comments or in world (StevenSDF Fisher.)
If you're a friend then it will be L$600 per month for a 512 sq.m. plot. :)
The reason I need to see if people are interested is because I need money to be put forward so I can purchase the land required, I'm putting in the most money but need more, this will go toward rent and others have already provided some funds.
The target is L$55,000 I have just over L$30,000 ATM.
Thanks,
SDF |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 25th, 2008|06:33 pm] |
Hey all! It's blog time. :p
Not done much coding, been on Second Life and browsing around a lot.
I have an idea for Second Life, or my land on Second Life, I'm interested on anyones input on this and looking for interested peoples.
There is a large amount of land near my land which has been up for sale for a while, I looked at it today and got an idea. I could buy it and rent it out.
I've tried to put some details down in my wiki, I'll cover it here a bit too, but there is more in the wiki.
If I was to buy the land I could split it to allow two people to rent on it, or maybe more, it's up to the interested parties things aren't so set in stone at the moment. It would be available cheap and I'm thinking of providing a discount for friends. If people are willing to pay me ahead of time so I can put the money into attaining the land faster that would be great and what you pay in would mean wouldn't have to pay anything to me for a while in rent. Again, I'm looking for interested people, advise and any other comments you wish to post on the matter, no matter how little. :)
Onto matters of real life now. :)
I got my results back from uni, well, I got my results last week but I haven't done a journal till now. :p
Yes, I got two more A grades for my degree. :D The end of this semester marks the last of all my Level 2 modules and I've been told they go to working out the classification of the degree, it should be good they're nearly all A's. :XD: You can tell which ones I code on, basically if it's A I did a lot of programming, if it's lower then I had to do a lot of written work, if it's in the middle I might have had a presentation along with writing a report.
Still waiting for a notification of a job, my Brother and Dad have both said about looking for a job at an IT shop that's just opened down the road. Hehe, I'm not sure. XD
My uni project is going well, I should probably spend more time on it though, I've finished writing an interpreter for reading and executing boolean expressions that was needed. I had a look at some and didn't like them much, they were either too complex for the user, or did too much and not enough of what I wanted them to do. Also I started writing it when I wasn't able to access the Internet and get hold of one, so I made my own. I'm very pleased with it, it's much faster than I thought it would be too, I have a number of JUnits that I run on it to test each feature and the compile time doesn't doesn't even register on the millisecond timer most of the time. I copied it to Linux because its millisec timer really does update once a millisecond and tested it on there, I got some 1ms times, so my compiler compiles any expression pretty much within a millisecond. :) Also it can be saved easily in the compiled form by using object serialization, though I probably won't use that, but the option is there and works. The entire suit of tests take about 0.026 seconds to run, that's compiling and running about 60 expressions and doing all the testing and setting up and stuff. :)
According to my diary I've only spent about 6 half days working on it too. XD
What about home coding?
Yes I can't escape, I've done some more experimentation this week, last week was project work and SDF:IRC.
I made a web template because I was bored. I'll get a link for you. :p http://www.sdf.me.uk/~steven/stuff/webTemplate/
Tested in FF3, IE 8 and Opera whatever version. XD Looks best on firefox, OK on opera and awful in IE.
I made a little tool I call vllookup, basically it allows you to launch a virtual world and teleport to somewhere in it using an URL. So far it only works with Second Life.
If I were to put vllookup vland.sdf.me.uk in my run box or command prompt it would launch SL and take me to my land. The good thing about it is that it does use the existing DNS system which of course is used all over the Internet and you don't need to make any changes to a DNS server when you add the record.
The downside to it is that I've only made it in Java so when you enter the query you do have to wait a little time for the JVM to start up. I've tried doing it in C but I don't have enough experience to get anything working... yet.
I also had the idea and have been experimenting with an RSS reader, but one that will read it out to you. It's a little too big for me to do though. I've created a simple computer voice from my own, though it can't say much, was only for testing. XD
I did think if it ever did get finished I could allow people to create characters and voices to read the news to them, the idea would be they would say get my voice and SDF for free with the software, but have to pay something for extra characters; so 1/3 goes to me, 1/3 to Duragan for art and 1/3 to the char and voice owner. Meep. :p
This weekend I'll be going over the Smraedis' flat again, for more shark hugs and snuggles. :p It'll be great! ^_^ I miss him even though I saw him like three weeks ago or something.
He went to a con at the weekend too, I didn't go for two or three reasons; it costs money, it's four days long and that's a little too much to explain to parents, it's only an hour away down the road and you have to stay on the premises and of course pay for the room. I didn't realise he was going though or I may have pondered it a little more. :p
Hehe, on Saturday I think it was he went back to his flat and came on line to see how I was doing, I was so happy he did that it gave me a nice feeling inside. :)
Anyway, I think that's all for now.
See ya all,
SDF |
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| Stuff XVII - Meets and Self-repairing Laptop |
[Jun. 5th, 2008|09:47 pm] |
Hey all
Thought I'd do another update and I have to change the intro to these types of journals, it's getting rather repetitive. :p
I went out like my previous journals said I would on Saturday to the furmeet. It was a really great time. :D Much better this time due to the weather which was brilliant all day long, though it did rain a little just as we were leaving for the station. :p I dragged Duragan along with me and of course Smraedis was there too. I was surprised by just how many I knew and how many knew me. There was a large turn out too and the drinks were really flowing some people taking several trays of shots, I heard they cost £60 a tray too. I even got to try one. :XD: I stuck to bitters mainly throughout the day. The only thing that was a little bit of a downer was the waiting around for food as nothing was planned.
When we got back from foodage, we all had a relaxing sit down for a chat and I got a few more beers. :XD: We eventually decided to leave and we went to the arcade for a Smraedis Vs Duragan video game fight. :p Smraedis won, but he's been the best in the North-west for a few years in a row and know loads of games inside out several times round.
All in all, a simply awesome time, can't wait for the next one. :)
Oh, yeah, time for silliness now. :XD: After the meet I thought about getting a dinosaur tail, just for the fun of it and joining in some too. I know what some of you say: some will say "weirdo," or "freak" or the like, some will not care and some will think it's cool. :p But it whatever, I think it'd be rather fun to have one made, just need to get the details sorted and find someone.
After that, and if you're still reading you must have an open mind. :p
Moving onto computers, I was cleaning some of my room and managed to fix my speakers so now both of them work, which is great, so now I can hear things on my desktop in stereo. Also I saw my old laptop, which must have broken about 3 years ago now. I thought, well the battery was shot, the back nearly set on fire, but what would happen if I turned it on after all this time. So I plugged it in and turned it on... the power light came on. However, there wasn't anything on the screen. I took it apart and found a wire loose. So plugged that in and fired it up. Windows was all there, despite just about setting on fire. All the hardware still works and it was fine, just the electrical connection is still dodgy, but if you don't move the laptop it stays connected. :)
After poking around in there and finding it rather wonderful like some preserved treasure lost in time. :XD: I thought I'd try the battery too, so put that in and it's charging, I don't know how much charge it'll hold, but we'll see. :)
Today has been so strange with things working again. :)
Well, that'll be all for now.
See ya all,
SDF |
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| Up of the date |
[May. 21st, 2008|04:33 pm] |
Hey all, thought it was about time for an update.
Yes, I've finished at uni, though, I really finished a week and a bit ago but I had a deadline than ran for an extra week. I also had to go back in to choose my next load of modules.
This semester marks the end of all my level two modules now, which I believe is where the degree classification is decided on. There are quite a lot of A's in there so hopefully I'll get something good. :p Still doing my computing project but I've yet to really delve into it. I'm having a little time to relax after all the work I did in the final days of the last semester.
I went to Duragan's house last Saturday, he introduced me to guitar hero, I'm not really very good, I can't move some of my finger correctly and I'm sure I nearly pulled something in my wrist. XD My bad. I tried playing it with my other hand but I played it in reverse to what was on the screen so that was no good either. I'd prolly get it in the end, it'd take ages to get to grips with it though.
I should now be going to visit Smraedis this Saturday coming, I'll have to check up on what's happen with the car. The car that I've only driven once. XD Or if I'll get a lift over there. He only lives half an hour down the motorway so it's not like it's anything too big. However, it does takes hours by bus.
The Saturday after that (31st) it'll be the Main Manchester Furmeet, I've put my nick down for it and will be going, I don't see why not. I've mentioned going to Mum, but I've not told them that it's definitely on. I know it's always on but they just think it's a bunch of college friends I'm meeting. :p
Though I have been pondering telling them that it'll be a meet of Internet peeps, as soon as I've been to blitz-cons and they know what they are, so all I need to do is compare it to one of them.
The week starting the 2nd of June should be the week I start work again if I get a reply from work. I've not heard anything from them yet. Apparently the factory is busy, which of course means that they'll need people over the Summer as people go on holiday. I also need the money or I'm projected to run out by Christmas where I have uni fees to pay and also have to pay membership fees to Linden Labs for Second Life.
I'll find someway out of it, I already have one way, I've amassed a large amount of L$ which could pay off about half of the fees ATM. I think I should be able to get it up quite a lot more by the time it comes to Christmas. :)
Coding stats: not done too much as I've been busy with uni.
- SDF:IRC, the next release only has one more item on it's road map, it requires a rework of the settings, but once it's done that should be it. The new settings should mean that it's more stable when things go wrong, it's more extensible and can also use more back ends, such as LDAP, HTTP, even SQL if someone were to write code for it. :p ATM, I'm still getting things working on the new branch.
- Other things, I'm creating a small program for Duragan to hopefully provide him a way to better keep track of his Commissions and what art he owes everyone. I've not done too much on that, I got a class diagram and some designs going. Needs to be coded up though.
- Something I know I'll never finish as it's a huge job, but I'm doing it out of interest. I'm coding my own web browser, from scratch! XD It may be a silly to do, but it is interesting. So far of course I haven't done much as browsers are a massive thing to do. I've sort of done the core DOM, StyleSheets DOM and the CSS DOM, oh and the views DOM too. Still working on the HTML DOM. Also have the http://, file:// and res:// handlers correctly running (though they need refactoring.) However, I don't currently have a much in the way of parsing. :p I can't until I've got a DOM in which to output the documents anyway.
- Speaking of parsing I also created a small and untested Second Life protocol reader thingy. :p I also created a tested parser that parses SL's message template.
I guess I've been more productive than I thought. XD
I've just gone and caught up on my emails, that is the ones that've been sorted into my "mail lists" folders, I guess I'll have to catch up with DA properly sometime soon too, I have art dating back to February to look at. :p
Right, that's all I'm going to say.
see ya, SDF |
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| Something Weird |
[May. 7th, 2008|01:30 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | quiz | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  Deadline off the starboard bow | ] |
Because ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) krakendwaggin did it:
| Your LJ Slut Stats! |
| Out of your 35 friends, percentages you have: |
| met |
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20%
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| hugged |
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0% |
| dated |
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0%
|
| kissed |
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0%
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| seen shirtless |
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0%
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| seen naked |
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0%
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| had net sex |
|
17.14%
|
| made out with |
|
0%
|
| had oral sex |
|
0%
|
| fucked |
|
0%
|
| Get your LJ Slut Stats! |
Lol net sex
Not many I've done anything with are actually on LJ. :p
I'm going to go hide now, and do more coursework.
SDF |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 23rd, 2008|11:24 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | quiz | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  indifferent | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Enya - Caribbean Blue | ] |
As a few people have done this:
My Personality | | Neuroticism | | Extraversion | | Openness to Experience | | Agreeableness | | Conscientiousness | |
| You do not experience strong, irresistible cravings and consequently do not find yourself tempted to overindulge, however you experience panic, confusion, and helplessness when under pressure or stress. You tend not to talk much and prefer to let others control the activities of groups. You prefer familiar routines and for things to stay the same. You can tend to feel uncomfortable with change. You do not like to claim that you are better than other people, and generally shy from talking yourself up, however you mostly assume that people are honest and fair, however you are wary and hold back from trusting people completely. You are a reasonably organized person and like to have a certain amount of routine in your life.
| Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report.
The best ugg Boots. |
I'm sure I've done this, or something like this before, so I'll try and dig it up.
So I have, over a year ago: http://sdf-of-bc.livejournal.com/21230.html
Comparing the two, I haven't changed much, extroversion and neuroticism have gone down some.
That quiz commissioned by the conservative party. :p
Apparently I feel very vulnerable, at least that explains why I like to be close to people I like and get lots of hugs off them. XD
"You are generally calm, although some situations can make you feel anxious or tense. You feel enraged when things do not go your way. You are sensitive about being treated fairly and feel resentful and bitter if you think you are being cheated. You tend to lack energy and have difficult initiating activities. You are sensitive about what others think of you. Your concern about rejection and ridicule cause you to feel shy and uncomfortable around others. You are easily embarrassed and often feel ashamed. Your fears that others will criticize or make fun of you are exaggerated and unrealistic, but your awkwardness and discomfort may make these fears a self-fulfilling prophecy. You do not experience strong, irresistible cravings and consequently do not find yourself tempted to overindulge. You experience panic, confusion, and helplessness when under pressure or stress." That's quite accurate. :p |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 11th, 2008|05:20 pm] |
Hey, I'm in a talkative mood today, I've been so noisy in uni this morning and talking to just about anyone. XD The "little" in the title may very quickly role away. :p
Just an update on what I'm doing really, several things, as usual. :)
Yes, I haven't been on line much this week well with pre-releasing SDF:IRC and getting one or two positive responses back from it, it has inspired me to work more and with greater speed too. The greater speed part is very important, without that I'd never be able to do it and my assignment work at the same time.
Thinking about it there is a large difference between working on my assignments and the IRC client, which is more production grade, where as the assignments tend to be little programs that show off things like data structures and algorithms and object orientated design. Yes I have to get them big words in there. :p
So what have I done for SDF:IRC pre-release 0.05a? Well I've done quite a few things that I've been putting on hold for a while.
One is coloured tabs; you may think this would be easy, but if you look at the version I put out last week you should notice only the tree items on the left highlight. The reason for this is that the tabs don't support it, you can set a selected colour and an unselected colour, which is drawn with the entire folder and not in the individual tabs.
So, I downloaded the SWT source code and altered it and spent ages perfecting the colouring of the tabs, it was a bit of a pain as the tabs are all curvy and on top of that the previous or next tab may have to be drawn in the currently drawn tabs space. That last thing sounds complex. XD Well there is something else, some tabs don't get drawn at all when the tabber becomes full, it only shows recently used tabs. So I have to loop through in either direction to get a visible tab and check if it has a colour set on it or not. Anyway the results are neat and well, look for yourselves: 
The only downside to the above tabs is that in order for you get SDF:IRC working on other platforms (if you don't use windows atm, or linux/macs in the future,) then you'd need to get my patch and apply it to the code first, or just let me do all the work. :p
The other thing I've done is abstracted and reimplemented all the networking using the java.nio API, this will hopefully give the networking speed a boost, in case it wasn't fast enough already. :p
I then extended the above networking layer and implemented non-blocking SSL encryption. Woo. Yeah, this was a biggy that some people wanted me to support, well it's experimental, but it is in there. I've tested it and it works on my server. :p Now you can chat and no one with a packet sniffer can sneak in and take a peak, The good thing is, I don't see any slow down in net speed with this either, though I was testing on my local network.
Yep so two big things to look out for in the upcoming SDF:IRC. :p
What else did I do?
Well at the weekend I coded two new applets, because I got bored with my assignments some. I give you: I give you, the crummy airport simulator! Yeah you can't interact with it or anything, but it was good multi-threading practice with thread synchronization on data structures, as my tutor said. :p
The second is better: Button Run! Can you click that button, yes it is possible. XD
I told you the little would go pretty fast. I've been busy this week. :p
See ya!
SDF |
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| SDF:IRC Pre-Release Version for Windows |
[Apr. 2nd, 2008|04:22 pm] |
Hey all
Well, here's an early release of SDF:IRC.
You can download it via an installer or in a zip file.
Please note that this is a test version, a pre-release, not everything is in there and it may not be totally stable.
What is SDF:IRC?
SDF:IRC is an IRC client, it allows you to connect to IRC chat networks and communicate in chat rooms (channels) or in private messages if need be.
What is IRC?
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, this is so because a network of servers are used to relay chat messages to all the users in channels. Where as other chat programs and protocols may focus around a friends list, IRC doesn't, in IRC you find networks and channels that are of interest to you, then join them using /join [channelname]. You can find out more about IRC at #IRChelp it includes guides for people from newbie to advanced users.
Helping with SDF:IRC
Well, hopefully you'll be downloading this to help me out.
The best way to do that is request features and report bugs at the tracker. You'll need to sign up first. Also look around and comment on what other people have reported and requested, duplicating reports slows things down. Reproducing bugs so that less testing is required by me will speed things up.
I'm also a little in need of someone writing the help documentation for SDF:IRC, it's somewhat lacking at the moment. It would help if this person knows how to create and edit pages using DocuWiki Though it's easy enough to learn.
Things to Know
* The settings file will be in the user's home area, on windows this should be something like C:\Documents and Settings\[your Username]\.sdfirc.xml
* You can reset to defaults by deleting the settings file and running SDF:IRC or by the defaults and placing the file in the folder and renaming it.
* You can find the debug log in there too, named as .sdfirc.log
This log will be very useful if SDF:IRC crashes and can be uploaded or copied and pasted into the tracker.
* Double clicking on Blitzed under Other Servers will cause the client to connect to the client's own chat room where you can chat with me and fellow users. Linky.
* Don't forget to alter the settings first, to set up your nickname. Or you'll be called "user#" |
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| Easter: Friends, Family :p and Release SDF:IRC? |
[Mar. 31st, 2008|11:25 am] |
Hey all,
I though it was about time I tell you what I've been up to, I know you're all so interested. XD
Right, yes, early Easter this year; well it's been a good one, the first week I went around to Duragan's, the next week, mrawr shark visited and we made my badge and started his. Then last Wednesday Duragan came around here. :) This weekend it was my Sister's B-day, so we all went up to Scotland and went out for a meal. However, she didn't have a clue that we were coming, you should have seen her face, she was absolutely overwhelmed, completely stupefied. :p It was a good meal, I have a little too much to drink though by the end of the night. XD
What was even more weird was I wouldn't get served to begin with, I didn't take my ID. I'm 22 and you have to be over 18 to drink here. My brother is actually 3 days younger than that and still gets served. Ah well, when he's all wrinkly and old looking, I'll still look great. :p
As well as working on uni projects I got some more time to work on my own projects, namely SDF:IRC, I gave a copy to Duragan to test out and it works! I thought it would, but it's best to test. :p
Shortly after I gave D. a copy, which was only a zip file; I packaged it up properly and made an installer using NSIS. It surprised me at how easy it was, I have an IDE plug-in for Eclipse and it basically did everything for me. Also to help in the launching of the program I've written a small program in VB and a batch file. Basically, you launch everything using the VB program, but if you want a console open, run the batch file.
I've been pondering an early release of SDF:IRC, just to "get it out there," if you know what I mean. :p
ATM I've only got the windows version. However, if you get the zipped version all you need to do is take out the windows SWT libraries and replace them with mac or Linux libs, replace the exe and bat with a shell script that does the same and you can run it just the same.
Currently I'm working on creating some dynamic menus, this means plug-ins will be able to add menus and menu items to the window's menus. ATM they're static and can't be added to. The context menu on the channel consoles is completely dynamic, if you stop the CTCP and User Command plug-ins you should find no menu items will appear on it. Also on the CTCP side of things, I've done a little bit implementing DCC, only DCC CHAT ATM. In true nature of DCC it prolly won't work if you have a firewall or NAT turned on somewhere. It's going to be hell getting the DCC file transfers in. Other things missing are mIRC colours, ANSI colours, CTCP formatting and colours. No logging of chat yet, not all of the plug-in installing, removing and auto starting works yet, it just starts them all. :p
However, with all the missing stuff, I still manage to be able to use it day to day. Oh yeah and it currently only decodes and encodes message in UTF-8 (most support that now,) I'm working on code that will cause it to detect the encodings.
Ah yes I have my work cut out, but I can use it fine. :p |
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| SDF.this.update(); |
[Mar. 12th, 2008|11:16 am] |
Hello, welcome all to an extra long journal from me. XD
I have a lot to write about things have been happening, I should have written this last week, but I've been busy.
Well, the last Tuesday in February saw me embarking on a holiday. Something else also happened then, I'll get to it later. :p
It was my Uncle's 60th and he wanted to go to Ireland for it. All well and good. However, instead of waiting for Easter when things would be open and there would be better weather, and there would be time off from school and uni, no he went and booked it right in the middle of the term. XD
Still it was a good time. The weather was a bit uncertain, some days it was hailing and the hail was flying in parallel with the ground, the wind was cold too, arctic. However, we got to the pub in the end. :D
Yes, pretty much we went to the pub everyday, how good is that? Of course we also had to drink Guinness too, we found a really good pub, as we went around and visited other parts of Ireland, places about the ring of Kerry, we went to other pubs, but the Guinness wasn't as nice as it was in this one pub, if I remember the name, I'll have to give it, and give them some kudos. We also had breakfast there on most mornings, I tried my first black puddings, they're not bad, saying as what's in them. :p The white pudding was very nice too, I'm sure it was called a white pudding. :p
The plane ride was nice though, we flew from the East-midlands Airport as that's where most of my family are, and we met up there and got the flight together. My Sister and her BF (some know him as RossC, if you're in the Blitz community,) flew in from Scotland more directly, it was a good flight and it was nice and sunny, coming back was OK too, it was very cloudy though, you couldn't see much out the window other than fluffy fields of rippling cloud that went off into the horizon.
This trip also highlighted how much my family like to drink, it really did. :p While on holiday every day for a week we had between 2-4 pints of Guinness (ladies had halves,) on top of that where we were staying we had about half a bottle of wine each and after that some of the others had a bottle of Jameson's. XD Hmm, well we were on holiday. :p
The Tuesday night before flying out I went to sleep at my Grandparent's place, they have a large house and me and my Mum and Dad stayed there to sleep, though come one O'clock, we were pretty much all awake, you'll know what it is if you're in the UK. :p ZOMG Earthquake. XD I remember waking up and just hearing the rumbling, I thought it was a jet aircraft going over the house at first, (G&G live next to a flight path,) but then of course things started shaking all the pipes and radiator clanging away and you could here all the pots tingling. For some reason there was a light outside that was flashing on and off. I knew what it was pretty much straight away as I was woken by the smaller tremor we had a few years ago. My Dad jumped out of bed screaming because he was still dreaming, lol. Not sure what my Mum thought, my Grandma thought Granddad had rolled over in bed and Granddad didn't even wake. XD
There wasn't really any damage to anything, everything moved, but, if everything moves relative to each other then, nothing will fall down. :p
There was a Church closed because it's spire cracked, a few chimney pots fell in places, one person got injured by one as it crashed onto their bed, or something.
Back home after the holiday you could tell things had moved, I quickly readjusted a few things in my room. I haven't bothered cleaning my cupboard, all the boxes fell down, and I had them all neatly stacked up too. :s My brother, who stayed in the house, had to fix a kitchen cupboard door as it fell off its hinges. That's really about all, it gave me some excitement for a few days anyway. XD
So after the excitement of all that, now we have really really had weather hitting the UK. Over the weekend the met office basically up the entire UK in a sever weather warning for the next few days. The winds really whipped up the waves and it coincided with the high spring tides too. There was some coastal flooding and some really cool pictures and videos of the waves, it's been reported that the wind did most of the damage though, causing transport routes to be jammed, trees to fall, roofs to fly and so on. :p We got away with it that day. However, I was passing our barometer that hangs in the hall and one part of the afternoon the pressure fell so far it went right don't past stormy and the needle was almost off the bottom of the scale, a record low for that thing to measure.
Tuesday I had to go into uni, I managed to miss most of the bad weather though, it was only drizzling when I went out and the bus was nice and warm. I was in uni quite late, I loose track of time easily. Anyway, it must have been about 4:30pm and suddenly the sky turned black and it went very dark, then winds got up and bloomin' heck, you should have seen the rain sweeping around everywhere, I'm glad I wasn't traveling home in that. At 4:45 the sun came out and it was still throwing it down, this formed probably the brightest, most defined rainbow I think I've ever seen, as Dad said, I should have had a camera. The rain stopped soon after and I managed to get the bus back home, it just started raining again as I was getting in the door. So I was very lucky. :p
Today and last night it was the turn of Northern Ireland, Wales and England as well as southern Scotland, to get the wind, from the weather, me and D. were in the red area, but only just. :p
I get hit by wind more than Duragan. anyway, I live on a hill and there isn't much to stop the wind blowing at the front of the house, maybe a another hill few miles away. I hope your garage is OK, Duragan. Well it was very windy and wet, I was woken up by several bumps in the night, and the roof was creaking like something else. Luckily it's made to bend in the wind, which so it causes all the wood in it to creak, but it still sounds bad. XD It knocked the bin over last night, that falling woke me. Also the green house has moved again, it's a lot more free now, earlier in the year the wind hit it and sheared some bolts off of it, so now it's free to move around some more. Nothing much out of the usual for this year is happening, it's just much harder to stay standing if you go out the house, the motorways down the road are also closed, and some lorries were blown over last night while crossing the viaduct.
Well enough of all that, you can tell I get exited about all this sort of thing. XD
Now onto uni, not much to report there, just doing lots of coursework, will hopefully be handing in my terms of reference soon too so I can get my final year project under way, just waiting on someone to get back to me.
That was quick, here's something more important than the above and that is in the form of a shark. XD Steven asked me to be his BF so I happily said "yes!" :D I might as well announce it. :p We've been together for a bit. However, he didn't ask me till the other day.
Then there is Lynn, BlizzardLynn has become my partner in Second Life, I asked Steven if I could and he trusts me to be careful enough with it, so I'm in SL giving Lynn some support now. :)
I suppose the last thing on my list is I've decided to scrap my sheezy art account, I went off it a while ago when all my artwork suddenly went missing. However, now there is nothing, not even an avatar on my page, so I may pet it up again, but not any time soon. :s
See ya around,
SDF |
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| Busy with Stuff |
[Feb. 16th, 2008|01:28 pm] |
Hey all,
Sorry about post a journal having not read any yet, I've been a busy little dino, I will read them eventually, here's some of the events that I've been up to recently. They seem like buses, you wait ages, then two come at once. :p
Well, on Wednesday I went over to see a shark again at his flat, played video games and saw some videos of the tournaments that he goes to, it was also the first time I've driven there since I had that accident, well it went a lot better this time anyway. :p I was a bit late due to a traffic jam on the motorway, it was moving though so it wasn't so bad. It was easy enough coming back, there was hardly anything on the roads on the way back, then once I got back in Bolton it was just the usual drive. I had a really good day. :) It was mrawr.
On Thursday, it was of course Thursday, I mean Valentine's day and if you're not on SL or didn't know, the Lindens put on this event I'm a volunteer so at about 3pm my time I popped down to the island, it took a while it was so busy, once I arrived I immediately got a kiss off a nice lady. XD Despite me having a dinosaur avatar. :p The rest of the afternoon, evening and night were just as good, I got loads of hugs and quite a few kisses. I also got to hug a few Lindens, quite a few came by. :p At times there were over 80 people on the sim, luckily it was one of the new havok 4 sims and although the sim went very slow with the huge amount of avatars, it never crashed once. It certainly was a popular event. :p I made a few new friends while I was there, got invited to the mental mentors group. :D Also I met Mozy Pera who was a journalist covering the event she has a nice write up. She came over to my land yesterday for a chat with me and Lynn, Lynn ended up showing her loads of avatars and I have only three, so I got through mine quickly. :p
I'm starting to get into the swing of things at uni now, two of the modules are about programming in Java, I pretty much know about it all anyway. :p For my final project I've been talking with a few tutors but I think I've found the one I'd like to do. I've applied to do it and I'm not sure if I should say what it is. As far as I know I should get it, as I've not been told that anyone wants to do it. :p
My other tutor who was on about SDF:IRC last week didn't say anything more on the subject and I won't be handing in any of its code, I had a look at the agreement and whenever I hand anything in it becomes property of uni.
On a little note I've finally done my web site layout, it should now look better in IE 7. :p I also upgraded all the apache and PHP stuff the other day, one thing I haven't done in a while is check the r server uptime.
1:07pm up 236 days 19:07, 1 user, load average: 0.75, 0.91, 0.84
Woo 236 days, that's not bad for a crummy little PC sitting downstairs with no UPS or anything. |
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