Matthew Knott

It's only Tuesday, some major things have gone wrong but I still feel like it's been a good week, wierd.

The bad news is that the sale of our house fell through because the buyers mortgage company changed their mind about giving them any money. I feel really sorry for them, but I'm not so bothered. It would've been nice to finally sell and move out but we've still got a roof over our heads and it gives us a bit of time to build up some savings.

On the plus side, we met with some SharePoint consultants today who reaffirmed that what we were doing was spot on, and were interested in selling some of the custom web parts we'd created. This was great news and really boosted our confidence.

One of the things highlighted by some of the conversations today was how hard it is to find quality customer software solutions, and frustrates the hell out of me that there are cowboys out there making tens of thousands and I can't pull my finger out to do something about it.

Hopefully the trend will continue this week, and it'll get even better.

My wife really wanted a Wii Fit, but we don't have a Wii, so last night I went out and picked one up (She already had the Wii fit), and this is how a night of fun and exercise began.

I wanted a Wii when they first came out, pre-ordered well in advance, and was disapointed like so many others when there was no stock to fulfil pre-orders. Ever since then I've shunned the console in favour of a more graphically satisfying experience with my Xbox 360.

Anyway, since my 360 melted I've had a gaming hole that I couldn't fill, so when Lisa suggested getting a Wii with Wii Fit, I was all for it.

After setting it up and having a quick go through the array of Wii sports, I was feeling the much discussed arm ache, and thought, like many over weight idiots do, that this could get me fitter. I'm sure it does help, you're more animated than you are with an Xbox (Unless I'm doing a tricky overtake in Forza 2 and need to lean into it).

Anyway, after playing Wii play for a bit, I moved onto Wii Fit, and I think it was at that point I realised that Wii play is to Wii Fit, what canabis is to heroin, It gets you started and you think your in control and before you know it you're in your underwear dripping in sweat and gyratng your hips. That pants clad, sweaty man was me at 7pm last night, struggling to get one over on my wife in hoola-hooping.

I've always been pessimistic about the fitness benefits of the Wii, but the Wii Fit really is good, to be aching all over the next day is a sure sign that something is happening.

I think many people will misconceive the benefits from the Wii Fit as a suitable offset to their diet of Kebabs and Beer, and it is, in the parrallel universe of perfection, but as with all forms of exercise, diet is critical. Go to Weight Watchers, register and start getting healthier.

Tags: Wii Fit Diet Health Exercise Fitness

It's been hard to find time to get much done this week outside of work, what with rugby and spending time with Michael and Lisa, but the ideas and output are still trickling through.

Digita Solutions

Every time I look at the v3 design for Digita Solutions, I come up against the same brick wall, what do we want to offer. I keep bouncing off the web design question, do we? don't we?

It's very frustrating not having the confidence in yourself to commit to an area of the business, my initial fears were over making it pay, but I think if the quality is there then you make it pay through competitive charging for the product, but not selling yourself short.

I really do believe that once we've finished the products we have in development then we'll have the capital to start looking at different services like web design.

This site

I'm planning something revolving around a photo gallery Silverlight application, and also setting this blog software up to post to multiple blogs simultaneously. With dual posting I can post items of consequence to other sites I maintain such as the digita solutions site. Would be great to do it form a single admin suite.

Life

After I was deeply disappointed with the shortages of Wii's when they first came out, a few years on we've finally bought one. Lisa want's a Wii fit, which frustratingly are in as short supply as the Wii's were. Very frustrating that Nintendo seem to want to create demand for the product even greater by not supplying in sufficient quantities, and then we end up with a situation like this, where hoarders buy up a large volume of the item and sell for £120 plus on eBay. Rediculous profiteering.

I've got dentist Friday, argh, no fillings please.

Work

It's been a slow week, but looks like things will really pick up tomorrow, may be a late night on the cards, I stayed on a little tonight, but the flexi will be useful for a long lunch in town next week I'm sure.

Tags: Rugby Work Blog Site Digita Solutions Lisa Webparts Wii Nintendo Business Plans Dentist Slow Moodle

Motivation comes easily to me. It goes just as easily as well. I can remember projects dating back to the age of 10 or 12 that I've started and given up on very quickly.

Even back then, these were programming projects, writing silly little games on my ZX Spectrum that I'd show off proudly to my mother. I had a book of code for the spectrum that I'd plug away at for a few pages then get bored because you couldn't just run it periodically to see what was going on.

Aside from programming I've started writing about 20 novels, good ideas too, fascinating expansive ideas that people have found interesting when I described the premise. I was excited that they got excited about it, and I was so enthused so I'd plan and plan my story, characters, plot, ending, do hours of scientific research, and I'd start writing like a madman... for about 5 pages then I'd get bored, move on to something else.

Almost naively, I thought that when the baby came, then things would be different, I'd have something to hold my motivation, to anchor me to a project that would generate some significant revenue and allow us to move not just to any house but to somewhere really nice. I mean, people say they want the best for their kids, and I'm no different. I want to be able to give Michael everything, but not necessarily give him everything, I want him to understand the value of money. I want Lisa to be able to stay home all day and not worry about money and be able to relax.

The worst part about all of this is that I have the ideas and the skills to turn those ideas into profitable solutions, and what I still don't have is the motivation within me to complete any of them.

It's funny though, because then I look at my father. All of my life he's been working hard trying all sorts of business ideas. I could list ten off the top of my head. He is a carpenter by trade but has tried everything from running a stationary business to selling postcards with religious verses on them. He seems to be the opposite, he has lots of motivation, but he is a bad businessman. He rushes into ideas too quickly, creates poor or ill-conceived products, and fails. I on the other hand forge well-conceived, heavily researched products, and never do anything with them.

Finally, there's a growing part of me that says you have a beautiful wife, and a gorgeous son, a well paid job and a nice house, but in the end I just can't shake this overwhelming feeling that I'm meant to do more than this, I know I can do better I just can't find the incentive to do something about it, I just come here, tap away at something that helps me straighten out my thoughts, ready for tomorrow when they can get mixed up again.

I think a day will dawn when I get up, and I start typing and I don't stop until I'm finished, and once I've done that, I'll be able to do anything. (Maybe even go on a diet )

Tags: Work Projects Family Motivation Ideas Dreams Emotions Drive Incentive

I'm not really used to having bank holidays off. I've always taken them as days in lieu, after all it usually rains anyway. Working for the local authority now, however, means I no longer have the luxury of a quiet day in work and an extra days holiday.

As bank holiday weather goes, today was pretty attrocious. It was blowing a gale when I went shopping with Michael. The struggle I had to get him into a trolley in the middle of a hurricane only bolstered my respect for single parents (Men and Women alike).

The shopping complete I pretty much had an open day. We took it easy, I cooked food and did some cleaning, nothing special, apart from spending some really nice time with Michael and Lisa.

Work-wise, I managed to amalgamate a couple of tutorials into a multi-language asp.net application. This is good because it sets the stage for the VLE I'm writing (or will be once I work out how to install SQL server on vista!).

I thought that a new job and a new baby together would be a clean break all-round. As it turns out it's about the hardest thing I've ever been through, and on top of it all I've got a cold.

But enough moaning, on to some updates.

Firstly, week two at work is over, and things are getting better! More structure, more idea where things are going, more settled and more vision for the future.

On the back of work, I'm learning asp.net, amongst other things. I always knew it would be a huge leap going from asp 3.0 to .net, and there is that ever-present, inherent fear of the unknown to contend with. Now I have no choice but to learn it, and thankfully it's not as hard as I thought. In fact I'm enjoying it, which definitely helps.

Outside of work it's been a tough week. The amount of work that goes into raising a baby is starting to sink in and take its toll, and I'm only doing a quarter of the work (if that). Lisa has been amazing taking care of him, but it's still draining. You just don't have time for anything, and sometimes knowing that just eats away at you, even if you don't have anything to do anyway. I can only update my blog at crazy times of day. It's a tough lifestyle change but I'm getting used to it. Single parents have more than my admiration, they have my vote for sainthood. 

The run of failing electrical items has progressed today as I ordered a replacement fridge freezer. The old one doesn't keep milk for more than a couple of days, bugger. That's now the Xbox, the Camcorder, The Tumble dryer, and the washing machine that have bitten the dust recently, as if things weren't strained enough.

Another positive is that I found a little motivation, and a little time to start working on a few project ideas. Unfortunately I have little of both and things haven't worked out very well so far, but progress is progress. I want to build something to help me save money, and will probably make it into a web service, all singing all dancing. I'm also working on a VLE of my own, probably open source. Hopefully it will be my first asp.net project release, although I plan a php version also.

Well the room is starting to rock back and forth which means one thing, need sleep.

Tags: Work Baby Lisa Michael Tired Sleep Progress ASP.NET Silverlight SharePoint Open-Source VLE Electrical Moaning

From brain surgery to killing someone with your little finger, it's possible to teach yourself anything if you approach it in a structured manner.

My personal experience comes from what I've done in IT and how I've taught myself to do numerous things from 3D Design to PHP Programming. There is a definite and easy structure to follow.

When to teach yourself

Learning technical subjects in an educational institution occurs as part of a curriculum, nothing more, so the skills you are taught, and hopefully taught well, will no doubt be severely depleted when you actually come to use them. The best time to learn any IT skill is when you need it.

The best learning is born out of necessity, it ensures you're 100% focused on what you're about to learn, and will remember it better because you're putting it straight into practice. 

The right resources

When it's time for you to learn something, and you're going to teach yourself, you need to do some initial homework on the subject. The internet is a great resource for training, but it can be difficult to find consistent material. Personally, I love lynda.com, their training is top notch and the basics are free, which is what you're concerned with at the outset.

Alternatively, find a book that gives a beginners approach to your particular subject. You'll need to ensure you have the fundamentals nailed, this usually only takes a few hours to get through though.

Start learning, make it easy

Once you have a foundational understanding of the subject, you need to define what it is you’re trying to do. Once you know what the task is, you need to break it down into real world actions. For illustrative purposes, let’s imagine we’re creating a web application. Firstly, break the project into its high level sections, which may be:

• User Interface
• Admin Interface

 

Now pick the area you want to focus on first and break that up into its major parts, lets choose administration:

• Add User
• Edit User
• Remove User

Again, pick a section and drill down on it, let’s take the add user path. Because this section has tangible flow, with actions and results, we will look at the actions that occur in the flow:

1. User fills out form
2. Submission goes to the database
3. Confirmation page displayed

 

Doing this is half the battle because now you’re in a situation to start programming. For our example, Page 1 requires the creation of a html form. Page 2 requires a database connection, and Page 3 a simple HTML written confirmation of the action.

Because of our analysis, we now have some research to do, how to insert data into the database from a submitted form using x language, how to redirect to another page once that is done.

Most people start their search for answers at Google. Search for what you need rather than how you think it would be written, so if you need to insert into an sql database using asp, search for “Insert into an sql database using asp”. This will yield the results you need. Failing that you could try either Yahoo! or Google answers, although, if you don’t mind paying a small premium, Experts Exchange is always my destination of choice for fast, accurate responses.

Once you’ve complete one task, move through the entire project in this way and take it one step at a time. The old adage of breaking your problems into smaller pieces to make them easier to manage is applicable to most things in life and is just as relevant to programming.

Tags: Tutorial Learn Teach Programming IT Computing

Anyone who leaves a job after 8 years and thinks they can make a clean break emotionally is either kidding themselves or they have a heart of stone.

I was the former type. I thought that leaving would be hard yes but the new job would be full of adventure and new, exciting challenges. One week on I've come down to earth with, not so much as a bang, more like a ten megaton nuclear detonation.

I've diagnosed myself with job sickness. Symptoms are:

 

• Constant moaning to loved ones about how hard the new job is
• Depression caused by an unfamiliar environment.
• Freaking out because you've gone from the top of your game to the bottom

It's been an up and down week emotionally, Mid-week I started to seriously freak-out, what had I done? I even made enquiries about the chances of going back to IBM, albeit half-hartedly. Since then my emotions have continued to shake about.

I think beyond missing my former colleagues like mad, I've gone from being a respected (Ego detected, warning warning) web developer, to being a new guy, forced into learning .net and sharepoint in a short space of time, and initially not being very good at it.

The only redeaming features I think I managed to exhibit this week was helping one of my new coleagues with some mysql questions, and helping someone else resolve an issue with CDO mail sending under Windows 2003.

I think I'm resolved to do a good job ultimately, and realise that I do need to train, and it will take some time before I get to a decent standard, I just need to think more about what I'm doing, and get some damn sleep :)

Tags: Work Leaving Job New .net mysql Problems Sick Fear Uncertainty Lonliness

Friday, 9th May 2008 was my last day as an IBMer. The day was an end to a 4 year career, and 8 years at Matrix Court.

It's very strange leaving behind friends and faces that I've known for such a long time, but I have to move on for the sake of my sanity.

The work had become stale and repetitive, causing more monotony than any sense of satisfaction.

I'm starting to think of this more as a Job Obituary.

NTL / IBM  June 2000 - 2008

I started as a Technical Support rep for ntl:, assisting customers with their dial-up Internet problems. I was able to lend some help to a team developing the next-generation or support tools after just a month in the business, but it would be over a year until I would do so again. In 2001 I was seconded into a development team as a web developer and there I would stay until I left.

September of 2004 was an exciting time. I was married on the 4th and outsourced to IBM on the 6th. It was an uncertain time, mainly fear of the unknown big blue. My fears turned out to be unfounded and I reveled in the openness of information and the training available. It was a relationship that would be tested numerous times. Despite falling in and out of love with developing for IBM on a number of occasions because of the red tape and the poor quality of projects I was being handed, I managed to flourish, getting involved with cross account best practice sharing, career development and assisting in other IBM outsource projects.

Whenever I could get my teeth into something outside of the Virgin Media contract, it was like Christmas. In VM, people are used to having a fast turn-around on projects, to a high degree of quality, for many outside of the contract though, meeting a team that said "yes, we can help with that" was refreshing. I once heard the term "Tiger Team" described as a team that could operate outside of the usual red tape, and just go in analyze and resolve problems with technology. Well, when outside of the VM contract this is pretty much what I was, I was given a problem, and I solved it quickly using web-based applications. The thing you enjoy most about this is almost being adored, you do one thing quickly and well, and people get this contageous enthusiasm for improving the business. The problem is that eventually, you fix the bulk of problems that can be solved in this manner, and before you know it you're being given 3 month, 6 month projects, which really doesn't interest me. To quote another buzz word, I was into "Hit and fade" tactics. I'm sure if I'd stayed longer I'd have been used more and more in this manner. Indeed I had to turn down a trip to Poland because I was leaving.

The problem was that between these quick fixes was the 3-6 month projects I was being handed in VM, that no-one cared if you went past the due-date on. In the end, I think this is the reason I decided to leave, no one cared what I did day to day. I could have done nothing for two weeks and no one would have noticed. I can't work on something that is given to me if they, or my manager do not care if it gets done or not.  

Ironically I move onto what may be the longest single project I've ever worked on, although it will be on an ongoing basis, but this is different. This time I'm able to direct the environment as I see fit, I'm not stuck in someone elses coding conventions, or templates, and ultimately I will be answerable for any delay in progress, and people will be paying attention to my progress in the new job, which I'm not worried about at all.

So thank you IBM, I will miss you, you are a great employer, and I may regret this for a long time, but I've got to be brave and try to improve my situation, rather than coasting along in a very comfortable job.

Tags: IBM NTL: VirginMedia Leaving Job

I've had two experiences of fantastic customer service in the last week. A rarity in this day and age, especially with my direct experience working with providers of customer service.

Firstly, we've bought various things for the baby, and there are numerous brands to choose from, but a lot of the practical items we've purchased are from the Tommy Tippee range.

This week, a breast pump we had bought twisted and bubbled in the steraliser. We rang the customer service number and they had a replacement out to us the next day free of charge! We only paid £10 for the pump so it was impressive to see this level of service.

Secondly, the Wednesday after Michael was born, our tumble dryer broke down, which was lucky because when I cracked it open to see what was at fault, it was a total fire hazard. I went straight over to tesco and picked up a new Whirlpool Dryer. It's great, huge capacity, efficient, and slightly smaller than the old one so it fits better behind the door. The only downside I've found with the machine is that I'm constantly cutting myself on the ridge around the door.

I dropped whirlpool an email after a particularly bad cut. I thought no more of it, but 20 minutes later I had a phone call from the local service branch wanting to send someone out to look at the dryer. They're coming out Tuesday so not sure what they'll do, maybe a free upgrade, but probably just file down the plastic slightly.

Tags: Whirlpool Tumble Dryer Machine Service Customer Excellent Breast_Pump Tommy_Tippee Tommy Tippee

I can't believe it's been two weeks since Michael was born. It's flown by, and already he's changed so much.

All babies loose weight after birth. Michael went down from 7.4 to 6.8, but 2 weeks on has regained that weight and filled out a lot, getting a small belly. He's also become more alert, holding our gaze and looking towards us when we talk. He can also roll onto his side already which is impressive. In the last few days he's started to learn about kicking. When he's in the bath we put his feet against the end of the bath and he'll push himself to the other end. After initially hating the bath it's now his favourite thing, and will usually scream when he comes out.

Becoming a parent for the first time has been a strange experience. I day dream about him running around playing with his toys but can't quite believe it's going to happen. It's also hard getting used to the fact that you can't just sit down and play on the computer when you want, and it's hard to program holding a baby. I might have better luck with the harness though.

It's really strange having everything you've ever wanted, and probably why I still can't quite believe it.

Tags: Baby Michael Family Parenting Fatherhood

After 9 months of seemingly unending waiting, Michael finally arrived at 07:28, Tuesday 15th April 2008, weighing 7 pounds, 4 ounces.

The Start

Labour began in earnest at 1:45 A.M, with contractions every 20 minutes or so. We rang Lisa's mother and she was there by 3 A.M. The contractions were now every 10 minutes or so apart. We rang the hospital, but because there was no-one from our birth team on duty, the midwife advise us to stay at home.

At 4 A.M Lisa's water broke with a pop, then the contractions were coming every 4-5 minutes. At 4:30 A.M we arrived at the hospital. Lisa was 3 cm dilated, it was just a matter of waiting now. 

The End

As it happened we didn't have to wait long. By 6:30 she was on the gas and air, in a lot of pain. At 7:00 she got onto the bed on all fours, and at 7:28 he came out in what was a pretty easy birth all things considered.

Michael was here, all wrinkly and gorgeous. I let Lisa's mother cut the cord, she was dying to do it :)

There were no problems and everything was perfect. As an indication of how well it went, but 9:30 Lisa was showered, and dressed ready to come home. Michael had his vitamin K injection and took it well, no crying. Any hopes of coming home early were snuffed out because he wasn't very hungry.

The waiting game

We went onto the ward and waited for him to have a feed. This proved more difficult than we thought. When he did have a feed he wasn't sucking very strongly, so the midwives were concerned incase he wasn't eating properly.

When he was feeding we couldn't find a midwife and when we did he'd stop. Eventually, at around 8pm, we finally got him to feed in front of a midwife and were free to come home.

We all slept like a log that night, until Michael woke us up at 2 a.m. Wednesday morning, but he's so gorgeous he can wake me up all he wants.

Tags: Baby Pregnancy Michael Birth Family Happiness Born

I really thought the baby was on his way today, there were lots of signs but things have calmed down a bit now. Still, she's due Wednesday so I don't think I've got long to wait.

Strange as it sounds, it's actually hard to imagine the transition from her being pregnant to holding our baby in a few days.

We watched "The other Bolyn girl" earlier. It was okay, really a film about nothing much. It's not often I come out of a film and don't feel good or bad about it. It was a bit like watching an average episode of an average drama series.

Tomorrow is friday and then, the weekend, Ospreys V Leicester. I'm looking forward to it with intrepidation. I'm terrified at another hammering, but hopeful of the possibility that we could win.

Leicester are the cup final kings and it will not be easy, but they are missing a few players, namely Seru "Pinapple on his head" Rabeni, so there's some hope.

Tags: Rugby Baby Ospreys Leicester Film Movie Pregnancy

Today in work I spent some time with one of the guys from our office, a knowledge manager, who wants to upskill and become a developer.

We program our web based apps in ASP, but he has very little experience programming, really only a little html knowledge, but he is a very intelligent person. A few month ago he mentioned to me that he wanted to upskill, and wanted guidance on a learning path.

Learning Path

This is actually very difficult to guide on because if you want to start developing while learning, as he does, then you need elements from 4 key families:

 

• HTML
• JavaScript
• CSS
• VBScript / ASP

 

The order I recommended he focus on these items was HTML, CSS, JavaScript, ASP. The reasoning being is that once you can design the end product, then you can start to substitute static elements for dynamic elements.

Today, he had a task he wanted to complete, add a "Rate this article" feature to an existing application, and wanted me to help him though it. 

As I thought about how I was going to teach him how to program this feature, which combined all four programming areas, I came to the conclusion that for a first lesson, trying to teach syntax for four different languages was a pointless exercise for the time we had (about half a day), so I decided that I would focus on what I consider the hardest thing to master as a developer, non-linear thinking.

Non-linear Thinking

One of the comments I had during our lesson was that it was quite hard for him to wrap his head around developing in a non-linear fashion. Indeed, you call functions from separate documents, use sub routines, pull data from databases, it's a lot to think about.

As an asp developer, developing a standard asp data-driven solution, if I really think about it, there are probably no more that 10 / 15 different vbscript functions and objects or operators that are actually used. Consequentially vbscript becomes one of the simplest components of the education package, but if you cannot wrap your head around how you're going to achieve your programming objective, then the task becomes huge.

The way we approached the project was not on a computer, but in a meeting room, with a pen and paper. our approach was as follows:

 

1. Define what we want to achieve
   
2. Sketch how we want it to look
3. Define the process the user will go through.
4. Work out how to achieve these steps programatically.

 

For step three, we decided that the user would firstly see greyed out stars, would click the star rating they want to give the article (1-6) which highlights the rating with gold stars. Finally the user would click submit to save the rating, without reloading the page.

For step four we looked at what we'd just detailed in terms of user interaction, and I helped him detail how we would achieve each item. 

Firstly, I drew the containers for each of the 6 stars, and then outlined the syntax that would create that:

<a href="javascript:void(0);" onClick="ratingFunction('1')">

<img src.......>

</a>

Then I explained the need for a javascript function to accept and set the rating, one to submit the form, and a variable to set to show that the rating had been set (Not essential but makes it easier to understand what is happening).

I implemented an AJAX call for him to send the rating to an asp page that inserted into the DB, and we created the table in sql. 

Summary

From a programming perspective, we agreed that this was a fairly ambitious task for the timeframe, and whilst he picked up bits and pieces, the important thing is he started to learn how to think as a developer, and that sometimes, finding the correct syntax is a lot easier if you clearly understand what you are trying to achieve.

 

Tags: Javascript css Plan HTML Demetrie Developer Training Learning ASP VBScript Education Thinking

Well, it's late and has been a long day so I'll keep things brief. Today has been really productive in terms of iPhone development. Not started on the objective-c stuff yet, this is pure web-app territory.

Firstly, I was concentrating on effective navigation for iPhone apps. The outcome was a really funky tab system.

 

It's a good system because it allows you to have six or seven tabs easily selectable even on a portrait view. Also animated the closing action of the tabs to slide shut.

Secondly, I began porting my personal project management software over to an iphone Ajax-based application, for which I used the window.location.hash function to provide structure to the app. A first time implementation for me.

Finally, Demetrie came over and we watched "Hard Boiled", classic John Woo

Tags: Ajax iPhone Demetrie Tabs Hash Hard_Boiled John_Woo

Well, Wednesday, Lisa was sick all day on and off. She's 35 weeks pregnant by the scan date, and as the day went on the sickness became more and more frequent, until it was exactly 20 minutes apart.

After each spell of wretching, she was having contractions, and other pains. She also had a number of pre-labour symptoms. Freezing cold extremities (since becoming pregnant she's always got warm hands and feet), super-heightened sense of smell (I was told to take a shower before getting through the door) and lower back pains.

At 2 am, after having called the hospital once for advise, I phoned them again and was told to take her in. We were seen to immediately, the staff there are top-notch. They put a drip in and gave her an anti-sickness table, which was a relief and helped her get some rest. The stomach tensing had been causing the babies heart rate to drop, but he was doing great so no problem there. They decided to admit her about 4 a.m. and took her down to the ward around 6 a.m. I was home myself by 5:30 and totally exhausted after 24 hours on the go.

I'd already advised my manager in work of the situation and was not going to go in, but didn't want to let down the friend I give a lift to work. So, I thought I'd get my head down for an hour, drop her of, it's only a 30 minute journey and I still felt fine to drive. I set the alarm clock for 6:45 as usual, and woke up, except it was not 11:00 a.m. ooooops, I must have been more tired that I though and switched the alarm off when it went.

Went straight up to get my mother in law form Ammanford, then back down the m4 for visiting time. Once that was over I dropped her back home, and by now had a splitting headache and felt pretty sick myself. Went over to my Mothers house, who also lives in Ammanford and slept till 6, at which point I still had a headache and felt even worse.

There were a few things lisa wanted, including food and a change of clothes and visiting was 7 - 8:30. I went home to get the bits she wanted, feeling awful, and managed to stop myself getting into bed. Couldn't face making sandwiches so went to Tesco, loaded up of snacks for her and Gaviscon for me, and set off again to singleton for the third time today.

Lisa was much better but a bit lonely. Apparently she had a kidney infection which cased the vomiting but she's getting much better now and with any luck will be home tomorrow.

Tags: Hospital Baby Lisa

1st March in Wales is Saint Davids day. Lets all celebrate!

 

Tags: Saint David Gwyl Dewi Sant March

Due to a failure in the heating system in work today, we were all sent home early. In fairness it was bloody freezing.

After a 3 hour power nap, I got up and finally completed the tagging system for the blog.

It works simply though an onBlur function on an input box, splitting the tags into an array and inserting them into the database. Each keyword is passed separately so that I can check if it already exists in the database, in increment the usage accordingly so that I can later create a tag list, sized around popularity.  

It's a start anyway, and it works well, which is all I want. Off on holiday tomorrow, and hoping to be off Wednesday to help Lisa.

Tags: Javascript PHP Cold Work Temperature Tags Blog Split