Resolutions 2008
Here are some of my intentions for 2008:
- I will blog more frequently.
- I will devote more time, imagination and energy to playing creatively with Ben.
- I will work harder and smarter to provide for my family.
- I will eat breakfast every morning (ah yes, that old chestnut).
- I will take a lunch break each day, switching off from work for a while and exercising my mind or body.
- I will join The National Trust and not worry about it making me feel middle-aged.
- I will strive to keep on top of the slew of new technologies coming out of Redmond (especially ScottGu’s area), while continuing to deepen my expertise in my core competencies of C#, OO design and SQL Server.
- I will not leave it until December to take a holiday.
- I will keep on top of processing and uploading family photos to Flickr (I’m currently two months behind!)
- I will embark on a non work-related programming project (any suggestions?)
What are yours?
Most-Read Posts 2007
Courtesy of Google Analytics, here are my 10 most-viewed posts of 2007 (i.e. both the publication and views occurred in 2007):
- Spot the Misleading Graph
- Team Foundation Server – Sharing Binaries and Class Libraries Across Multiple Projects
- The Perfect iTunes Playlist?
- Postcode Validation
- Toothy
- Postcode Struct
- Benjamin George Nelson
- What I Listened To Yesterday
- Team Foundation Server – Get Latest on Checkout
- More Exciting VS Orcas Features
Family Tree Update
With the return of the dark wintry nights to this sceptered isle, I’ve been taking the opportunity to flesh out my Family Tree a little more.
And it isn’t just the addition of young Benjamin – since I last uploaded a tree eleven months ago, I’ve increased the number of individuals in my database by 55, to a total of 1114 from 307 family groups.
But more than that, the quality and number of facts for many individuals has increased. This year, I’m trying to methodically work through my ancestors in a bit more detail and fill in some of the tricky gaps that I left last year when everything was new to me and there were plenty of "easy pickings" to be had.
I must say, it’s sometimes quite a depressing affair, this family history research. No long-lost aristocratic lineage with associated fortunes unearthed thus far! One side of my mother’s family were steel workers in Sheffield, while the other were agricultural labourers in Lincolnshire and at one point in time five siblings from the same family died of diphtheria within a fortnight of each other.
My father’s ancestors were coal-miners from Scotland, and invariably died at an early age, including my g.g.g.grandfather John Allan who died on 21st January 1863 at the age of 35 when the roof of the mine he was working in collapsed on him. Then there are all the people who never reached adulthood at all, or never married, or my great-granduncle William Henry Worfolk who died in the Battle of the Somme at the age of 20. Given all these setbacks to my gene pool, it’s quite remarkable that I’m here at all!
All the details are online here. Incidentally, these pages were created automatically using GedHTree, a Windows program which converts GEDCOM files into HTML pages. I have to say, it has a fugly UI (screenshot below) of the sort that tends to make the pages of The Daily WTF, but once you’ve gotten used to it, it does what it says on the tin, and I’m happy to have paid for a registered copy.
Google Chart API
Those clever folk at Google have made available an API for dynamic chart generation.
Pass in a parameterised URL, and the service returns a PNG image of the requested chart. There’s a limit of 50,000 requests per day, but that should be plenty for many applications, and it sure beats learning how to use yet another charting component.
More details on the Google Code blog.
Where There’s Muck…
I didn’t think it was possible, but by the appropriate use of a Yorkshire phrase, my opinion of Joel Spolsky has just risen even higher.
Comments Are Enabled Once Again!
If you’ve tried posting a comment to my blog since late July, your efforts were probably frustrated by a message saying “Anonymous comments are disabled“.
Unfortunately I had been receiving a huge amount of comment spam (several hundred per day), which I simply didn’t have time to sift through following Ben’s birth. Thanks to those of you who took the time to email me your feedback on my musings instead.
Well, I’m delighted to say that I have now migrated my blog across to Telligent‘s new CMS platform, Graffiti, which integrates with the Akismet comment spam interceptor. As a result, comments to my blog are now enabled once again – hurrah!
Ghost
xkcd creator Randall Munroe just blogged about having solved the game Ghost.
I’m stunned. I’ve been playing this game with friends since the ’80s (it was the only thing that kept me sane during 3rd year Art classes) and I never realised that:
- Other people play it too.
- It has a name.
I’m off to read up on the variants…
Christmas Presents 2007
What did you get for Christmas this year? Here’s what was waiting for me underneath the tree:
- Tesco Finest Belgian Chocolates (*)
- Hollyberry Yankee Candle and Shade (*)
- Two Christmas Mugs (*)
- Prefab Sprout – Andromeda Heights
- Seven pairs socks (with Freshtech technology!)
- Gordon Brown – Courage
- Sennheiser CX300 Noise-Blocking Earphones
- John Maeda – The Laws of Simplicity
- U2 – The Joshua Tree (20th Anniversary Remaster)
- Tweezerman Pro Slant Tweezers
- Red Jumper
- Blue Jumper
- Scrabble Desk Calendar
- Mogwai – Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait OST
- Prefab Sprout – Protest Songs
- Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee
- Bill Clinton – My Life
- Vienna Philarmonic & Zubin Mehta – New Year’s Concert 2007
- Whisky-Flavoured Fudge
- Douglas Coupland – The Gum Thief
(*) – indicates a gift shared with the wife.
Thanks to all who gave Santa a helping hand.
Yuletide Rants
High Street Stores – your aisles are the widths they are for good reason. By insisting on narrowing them with mountains of celebrity cookbooks and wrapping paper displays you are preventing parents with pushchairs from getting around your shop (and I can only imagine how frustrated wheelchair users must be). No wonder all your customers are deserting the high street in favour of online shopping.
Car Wash Manufacturers – please can you invest some R&D into units which continue to function through the winter months? This is the time of year when my car gets most dirty, and I have least impetus to wash it by hand, so it’s really annoying that it coincides with the time that all my local car washes are out of action due to being a bit chilly.
Carol “Singers” – knocking on my door and reciting a few lines of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” so appallingly that even Simon Cowell would be lost for words does not fill me with desire to give you my hard-earned cash. At least have the decency to learn the lyrics – you’re supposed to be wishing glad tidings to me and my kin, not my king, you idiots!
Holiday Drivers – while tentatively making your once-a-year trip on the M1 motorway, it would please your fellow road users no end if you would kindly keep left and stop driving down the middle lane at 50mph with your indicator permanently on.
