jon.blogs.com

Jon Hadley - Freelance Web Developer

I am a Bristol, UK, based web developer with over 9 years commercial experience.

I use the latest web standards and languages to produce visually appealing, easy to use, database driven websites.

I have particular expertise in: XHTML, CSS, Plone, Zope, ASP, VBScript, MS SQL, MySQL, Photoshop, SVN, Moblogging & Digital Photography.

See more of my work at my freelance site, www.jon-hadley.com.

Regular blog posts continue below ...

GTA IV - First thoughts

I've only played it for an hour or so, but here are some initial thoughts on the game half the male population must be playing this week:

• The stylised - slightly cartoony - graphics are 'interesting'. I'm surprised more hasn't been made of them prior to launch. I think, they are a clever decision - but I'm still getting used to them.
• Eastern European theme - Good. 'Funny' cousin role - Bad.
• Cell phone interaction is carried off very well, its quickly become second nature to use.
• Many other clever interactive interactions with the world (TV, internet etc) make it all the more pervasive and loveable.
• Facial and body animation is much improved, running someone over makes me wince every time.
• Still can't drive (see last point). I'm hoping the loose handling is just a reflection of the cheap cars at the lower levels.
• Much easier to escape from the police. This seems to have come full circle from the first few games, where this was pretty much the point. A 'good thing' i think.
• Great music - hilarious commentary. The British background to the game really does shine through, despite - or even in some way fed by - the US setting.
• Loving the depths to which the city has been characterised, but I do wonder if I'll miss the open spaces of its predecessor.
• Friends and girlfriends acting as go-betweens and needing 'relationship maintenance' seems interesting - hope it doesn't become an annoyance.
• I haven't had a chance to go on-line yet, but the multiplayer possibilities of the sandbox world genuinely get me excited.
• In-context sex, violence and swearing on an 18 certificate game, is much less jarring than the alternative. I hope the certificate (and XBOX's various parental controls) go some way to quelling any media out cry (we can but hope!).

From the short play I've had, its definitely the most engaging XBOX 360 game I've played. I'm itching for another go.

New Design

It's been 4 years(!) since the last re-design, so I thought it was time for a spring clean of my blog.

Expect things to change as I fiddle with the defaults further :)

Zope, Python & Django vs PHP

Rick Hurst, a fellow Bristolian freelancer, who's path I always seem to be crossing (in a good way!) has an interesting post about platform migration and choice, not least for the reasons behind his decision to choose PHP.

I've recently been tasked with choosing the language and platform for a new start-up. Whilst I've pretty much settled on *nix for hosting (cost and freedom being the biggest pros), I've been toying with the language decision for a while

Like Rick, I have a fair number of old applications in ASP which I support, and for a split second I considered using it for this too! It's familiar and if it ain't broken, why fix it?

However, I'm currently leaning towards Zope3 or DJango, due mainly to my exposure, via Plone, to Zope and Python over the last few years.

But .... the sheer amount of help and skills available, locally and internationally, for PHP and it's similarities to ASP, keep giving me second thoughts.

Ethical ISP - Gap in the market?

With the recent bad publicity for many UK ISP's such as:

• ISP's monitoring users activities without permission, via Phorm
• Virgin Media CEO's recent comments that "This network neutrality thing is a load of bollocks"
• The ongoing debacle that is 'unlimited' connections with a ... err... limit

It seems to be that there is a gap in the market for a decent, ethical ISP.

Someone like the Co-operative Group seems perfectly placed....

Freelance vs. Full Time

The following would make me more inclined to join a company full-time:

1) Freedom. 9-5 sucks and unless you are customer facing, makes little sense. Let me work from home, or come in 11 - 7,  7-3 etc. instead.

2) Growth. Set aside a day to allow your programmers to work on personal (related) projects (a 'la google), or to help building open source products (like Plone).

3) Interest. So many big agencies have great working conditions, but boring, demoralising work. I know it pays the bills, but I don't really want to be working on flash based shampoo sites for the rest of my life. It's not particularly inspiring either.

Plone hosting recommedation

Do not :

1. Use fussy credit card merchant.
2. Take 2 days to reply to emails.
3. When payment finally succeeds, cancel it, because you have no accounts available that day (rather than asking if I mind waiting).

(Well known offending plone host will remain nameless)

Windows SVN Problems

Subversion file control (SVN) is quite often a life-safer. However, on both *nix and Windows platforms it can be a pain to set up. In the hope I save someone else some time, here's some notes from a recent Windows set up I completed:

Honesty is always best.

"In the interest of getting to know our clients right from the start, we have deliberately not automated the account creation process. This means that setup times vary, depending on the current queue and other unavoidable things such as sleep."

Excellent. Compare and contrast this honest approach from TextDrive, to that of Webfusion.