Aug 31, 2010
A month ago I handed in my resignation to Diet Chef, and this past month has certainly flown by. Today I start a new job with Maglabs.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Diet Chef and will miss my friends there, and with any luck we’ll keep in touch. I learned a lot about marketing at Diet Chef and it was a very different environment to that which I became accustomed to at Valley Technology; but different in a very positive way.
My time there made me realise that I’m very much a back-office PHP coder. I enjoyed the varied challenges there but my passion lies more with getting something awesome working well rather than making something look beautiful (in no way a criticism of my previous employer, far from it, I just want to be more focused in my work); I’m no designer although I definitely believe any design has to be functional and usable. I want my work playground to involve more complicated coding challenges, maybe mashing cool APIs together now and then.
With a wedding to Jo to save for and who knows what in the future I also have to be realistic and that unfortunately means being financially motivated as well as looking for the right career fit. I’m looking forward to being able to fulfil both these needs with Maglabs. With that I bid my friends and colleagues at Diet Chef farewell and the very best of luck and success in the future, while also hoping for the same for myself in the future.
Jan 19, 2010
Whether it’s because yesterday was Blue Monday, or because tomorrow is my birthday I don’t know, but I feel a little melancholy of late. Not so much in general, but specifically with my hobby and career, web development.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my job; as I have with every job I’ve had. The problem is that with any personal interest that becomes a career, web development has lost it’s shine a little lately. I’m certainly not going to do anything rash like change career I enjoy what I do too much. I just remember a time when I’d have a number of personal projects on the go, but when I get home from work now, the last thing I want to do is code.
I seem to have lost my creative inspiration and enthusiasm for what was my hobby but is now my career. Has anyone else been in a similar position of having the programmers equivalent of writer’s block? Any thoughts or suggestions as to how I can regain my enthusiasm on a postcard please. How do other coders come up with ideas for personal projects to keep them engaged and up to speed with the latest APIs and tools? Hopefully this can all be put down to seasonal blues and I’ll find inspiration soon.
Jan 2, 2010
And so the new year is upon us. Whether it’s twenty-ten or two thousand and ten I don’t know, but in any case it seems obligatory in the blogosphere to reflect on the year gone by and to expound upon the year to come.
A year ago I wrote a similarly themed post in which I set out a number of so called resolutions that I had the best of intentions of keeping. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t manage to keep any of them. I still smoke, although I can honestly say that I smoke less than I did this time last year; I doubt very much that I have lost any weight in fact quite the opposite; my caffeine intake has probably risen and I think I’ve only played the trombone while severely inebriated. If the object of a new years resolution is to endeavour to do the exact opposite, then I have most certainly succeeded in keeping all of last years resolutions.
So moving forward to the year ahead, I will be trying my utmost to fulfil the resolutions of last year whilst in addition trying to be generally less grumpy and trying not to succumb to stressful situations.
And without a doubt. the most exciting event I have to look forward to in the coming year is my being married to my fianceé Jo. All in all I’m hopeful that 2010 will be a great year!
Dec 4, 2009
I realise that supermarkets have to cover their own backs with respect to the sale of alcohol and tobacco. However the supermarket policies and the law informing those policies seem to differ drastically. Retailers aren’t legally allowed to sell alcohol or tobacco to persons under the age of eighteen. Most supermarket policies require that their staff ask for ID of any persons who look under the age of 25.
I haven’t yet been abroad, and I don’t drive. As such I do not posses either of the forms of ID that retailers consider adequate to prove who I am, and my age. I do have a birth certificate, which when produced in conjunction with credit/debit cards might be enough to convince a sympathetic checkout clerk that I am who I say I am, and am indeed aged over 18.
I certainly don’t think I look younger than 18! I have a full beard and a hair line that is receding embarrassingly rapidly. In fact, the majority of checkout clerks who question my age are pimply youths who hardly look old enough to be custodians of the cigarettes and booze I am old and ugly enough to choose to buy for myself.
Since I have been deprived of cigarettes and almost deprived of the beer I have been looking forward to relaxing with all day, I take justified objection to what feels like discrimination. A checkout clerk can refuse to serve me because they decide on a whim that I look younger than 25; seven years older than legally required, and I am unable to prove my age because I neither drive nor have been abroad.
In summary – BLARGH!
Nov 10, 2009
Smoking is bad. I realise that. But like any addiction, no amount of rational discourse will disuade me from enjoying a cigarette. Believe me, I’m very much aware of the arguements against it.
However, smokers are not carriers of some hideous contagion. If I want to smoke while waiting for a bus, I’ll respectful head to the end of the queue away from others. You don’t want to be bothered by my smoke, and I respect that. I do however object to Joe Public ignoring the ample space in front of me and queuing as only the British can, behind me; glaring at me all the while for polluting their personal space. If you don’t like it, don’t hover beside me when there is plenty of room for you to breathe the air that is polluted only by our own industrial and other emissions.
Here endeth the rant. If you can find it in yourself to not voluntarily subject yourself to passive smoking and then vilify me as if I made you do it, I would be most apreciative.
Sep 14, 2009
I’ve been somewhat remiss in updating this site in recent times. This has largely been due to my being incredibly busy. Since saying farewell to Valley Technology, I’ve joined Diet Chef as their web developer and general IT jack-of-all-trades. I’m pleased to say I’m enjoying the varied work, but look forward to finding time for some more personal projects, including further developing “Where are the shops?”.
I also think, due to the ubiquity of various social networks (vis-a-vis Facebook, Twitter et al.) and the iPhone, I tend to blog less, favouring to send updates to a number of social networking sites. This has lead me to conclude that the present incarnation of the site isn’t really working for me. Over the next month or so (depending on how much free time I have), I’ll be reorganising things with a focus on aggregating all the snippets of ‘me’ that are out on the interwebs into a single stream. I’ll still be posting longer posts and articles when I have something substantive to say, but will probably let Facebook, Twiiter, Last.FM, etc tell my story.
Hope you are all well!
Sep 13, 2009
I’m pleased to announce my latest offering to the interwebs. If you’ve recently moved house or are otherwise in an unfamilar area, you may want to know where the nearest shops are; well http://www.wherearetheshops.co.uk can answer that question for you. At the moment, just the big four supermarkets can be located, but I hope to redress that as time goes by. I in no way endorse any store represented on the site, and provide this service “as is”. Any thoughts/suggestions are very much welcome.
May 22, 2009
It is with a heavy heart that I leave Valley Technology today. As is becoming increasingly common at present, Valley Tech have had to reign in expenses, and unfortunately redundancies are a necessary evil in these hard times. I am a hard working and enthusiastic web developer with a broad range of skills – so if anyone is hiring, please do get in touch.
Feb 28, 2009
I’ve just come across goodreads – another social-networking site, with a difference. The site lets you add books you’ve read with arbitrary tags, giving reviews, ratings etc. The site also offers a REST API that returns XML based on request URIs using OAuth for authentication where required. I’m going to add some books to it and have a play with the API.
Oct 12, 2008
At work, I have a Snom 360 IP phone that is hooked up to our internal Asterisk PBX. If I’m listening to music with my headphones in, I’m not always aware that my phone is ringing – some Perl and PHP hacking later, I’ve got a crude (and work-in-progress) solution. [Read more]
