jon.blogs.com

Mashed 08 - Team Bob - Special Mention

My brain is a little less frazzled a week on and various other blog posts have reminded me about the Team Bob news-subtitles-on-dylan-music-video hack, which really did make me (and many others) smile, a lot.

BBC Dylan - News 24 Revisited (Full Version) from James Adam on Vimeo.

Mashed 2008

An excellent mash-up again at Alexandra Palace this past weekend.

Front-end development skills were, perhaps predictably for an event based around rapid prototyping, not in demand again, especially my brand of rather flawed Zope3 servers!

However, the whole event was veritable food for the brain, and fired many sparks in my imagination. I made many new contacts and friendships, and caught up with many others. What's more, the fact that transport, food and 'board' were all free, made it unmissable.

Lots more pictures at Flickr.

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 ...

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....

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:

Odeo, iPodder & iTunes 4.9 Podcasting

I've been using iPodder and Odeo for a while now (ever since i 'got' podcasting). They're both great applications in their own respects. Odeo is a great web based podcast directory. iPodder is a great desktop app and covers virtually all my bases, although it is a bit of a resource hog.

However, with the release of iTunes 4.9 Podcast integration I really can't see any reason to keep either service any longer. Which oddly enough is a bit of a shame, as they are both really nicely written applications.

Can anyone persuade me otherwise?

iPod Interference / Eavesdropping Problems

I've blogged about problems with my iPod before and don't get me wrong, I use it so much you'd have to prize it from my cold dead hands. But my newest problem is really bizarre.

During a train journey to London recently I was slightly perturbed to witness a fellow passenger snort a large line of something or other off of the table in front of him (stressful place London, im told). This would be unsettling enough, if it wasn't for the fact he then rang his friend on his mobile and talked VERY LOUDLY about his plans for that evening.

"No problem", I thought, "I'll just turn my music up and drown him out". Imagine my surprise however, as I increased the volume on my iPod and heard an amplified version, of his side of the phone conversation, in my earphones. Ironic, no?

Initially I put this down to his use of a handsfree kit (very useful when your hands are otherwise occupied with rolled up £10 notes). However, the same thing happened on a bus journey home, whereupon I heard an amplified version of the conversation a man behind me was having with his daughter on his mobile phone.

I seem to remember that all you technically need to receive a radio signal is a large aerial, a tuning crystal and headphones. This goes someway to explaining it, but aren't mobile phone signals digital, or scrambled? How is it tuning into the signal? Why hasn't this happened with my MiniDisc or CD player?

Anyone experienced the same, or have a better explanation of this phenomenon? Is it time to sell my body to medical science and buy myself some of those shiny ER-6 Isolator earphones I've been pining after?

9 out of 10 Kittens prefer Netgear modems

All together now ... awwwwww.... cuuuuute.

iPod Problems - Bad iPod, No!

I, like the rest of mankind, love my iPod and more importantly it's integration with iTunes. There are, however, a few quirks and foibles that threaten to spoil our otherwise blissful relationship:

- If the device has gone to standby, the pause button needs to be pressed twice to restart a song. I appreciate that it need's 'waking up', but no other traditional music player works in this way, so why should the iPod.

- Playlists played with the random setting turned on, always start with the same song. Meaning in my case, that it always gets skipped (Sorry Air)

- £250+ for a portable music player?! I mean it is great , but that really is a lot of money for what it is. (If you are reading this Mr Bank Manager, I got mine second hand for a lot less.)

- The installer program refuses, point blank, on some systems to work. A known problem with no real workaround.

- Groupings from iTunes don't yet carry across to the iPod.

- I scratched the shiny metal backplate after 2 seconds.

- Lastly, the 'Most Played' playlist only serves to illustrate my worrying taste in the occasional cheesy euro-trance choon

Feel free to add your own....

Big Jeff

The latest site I had the pleasure of working on: Big Jeff, The Aussie with no cozzy.

I can tell ya, 2 days of staring at him in that tutu on the contact page, is enough to make you question your sanity.

Wiki's

I keep hearing great things said about Wiki's. (Joi, Matt, etc)

However, while I understand the theory (wikipedia.org in particular is a great demonstration of its use), I had drawn a blank each time I thought about implementing it.

It seems Barry Parr of Media Savvy had much the same problem. He also does a much better job of writing about it, I draw a blank on explaining technical details too ;)

Google Ranking

Hello to everyone who is arriving here via the Google searches:

Half Life 2 Photos, happy birthday photos, blackout US photos and bizzarely Dwarf Tossing Photos

I hope you find what you are looking for. If not this post is just gonna make it a whole lot worse .... muuhahaha

Digi-SLRs & WiFi

Nikon's new class leading Digital SLR, the D2H, has a 802.11b WiFi add on kit.

All I need now is decent public WiFi coverage and I need never visit a developer again.

(Via Keith Jenkins and Interactive Narratives)

Happy Birthday Nintendo

Blimey, the NES is 20 years old today and I've owned every version...... makes me feel even older

Ecademy

I've been meaning to blog this site for ages:

Ecademy's cause is "to build the world's largest Trusted Business Network by connecting people to each other - enabling knowledge, contacts and opportunities to be shared for World Wide Wealth".

These types of sites pop up all the time, but this is the best I've come across in a while.

You can find my profile here. Feel free to add me to your network.