Craig

See Craigk for the real deal. Comments can be left either here or on the original article

Having spent 2 years living in Brighton in the outside lane of the internet superhighway I always knew moving down to Cornwall and the West Country was going to present some frustrations. I was not disappointed if you catch my point...

In Brighton we had 50Mb/s download from Virgin Media's cable service. In the flat in Plymouth we had 5Mb/s download on a good day and on a bad day it hardly seemed worth turning it on.

Then we moved to Saltash (other side of the river) and received much the same despite moving to BT Business (for substantially better support).

Finally after nearly 3 years of purgatory in the slow lane we have finally been allowed back in the outside lane. All 70Mb/s of it that is. I almost forgot what it was like having an internet connection you don't have to wait for. Multiple streams of high definition video is a start, but then combine that with services like Google maps where the maps don't "load", they're just "there" and you start to remember what you missed. It is worth noting the upload is not where I think it should be and I will be contacting BT about that, but it is still a metric ton faster than anything else I've had.

Even I with my job sometimes forget all the benefits speeds like this could bring when delivered to every household up and down the country. Why the government isn't really pushing this tech as fast as is possible I will never understand. (Oh wait, too busy busting a gut to get HS2 out the door before we don't need it from all the telecommuting).

All I can really say to sum this up is the country could not have these sorts of speeds fast enough.

As an aside it is also worth mentioning that Virgin media do actually provide their 50Mb/s service in both Plymouth and Saltash (unusually), however both the places we lived in were developments newer than virgin buying the network and as far as I can tell despite golden opportunities to put in new cable Virgin seem quite content making their existing network ever faster while failing to expand it. More fool them I say.

See Craigk for the real deal. Comments can be left either here or on the original article

You would have thought these days ordering a few things over the internet and getting them delivered would be simple enough... Well, turns out not quite...

Last Sunday I finally bit the bullet and ordered a good number of new computer components for my much delayed machine rebuild. At the same time I also ordered some harddrives for the NAS. When pricing it all up it turns out I could save (even taking into account shipping) about £90 by ordering from 3 different suppliers. So on Sunday I put the order together.

All the orders were told to deliver to work (which work doesn't like but my manager said it was OK).

Monday morning first item arrived. It was the motherboard from ebuyer. As I opened it up something didn't look right. I studied it a little further and then sat at my machine and looked a couple of things up. I realised I had ordered the one down from the one I wanted. I thought about it for a bit, considered keeping it and in the end after weighing up the pros and cons, decided to return it for a refund an order the one I did want. I booked a TNT pickup which arrived a few hours later and took it away. At lunchtime I put together a new order for the one I did want and added an extra couple of things I had forgotten (including a DVD drive for Demelza's machine).

Tuesday morning the DVD drive arrived (all on its own). The impressive thing about this was it was the item ebuyer said would take the longest and it arrived 2 days before it was meant to.

Tuesday afternoon the two harddrives from scan arrived when they said they should. The other item that was also being delivered was the main order from overclockers. I could see from the tracking information that it should be at work by lunchtime. Then I noticed something on the tracking details. It was being sent to home. Home where no one would be in. I phoned up overclockers who explained they had to send it there because of the way it was being paid for... would have been nice of them to tell me that and not take a delivery address. By this time I could see the order failed to deliver at home.

I then looked at my redelivery options online. I could have it sent to another address, great I thought until realising I could only change it to within the same postcode (so same road). Not as helpful. I wouldn't have had the chance to check this was ok with a neighbour. I then looked up where their collection location was. Turns out it was about 35mins by car out of my way so that wasn't really an option. Then I spotted they had an option to deliver to a safe place so I ticked that and gave detailed instructions that there would be a plastic box behind the side gate with a padlock in it so they could lock it shut when done. I also explained it would be chained to the house (not that I was that worried, nothing ever seems to get pinched round out way, but they said it had to be a safe place).

Tuesday evening myself and Demelza spent about an hour sourcing all the chains, boxes and locks needed to create this secure location for them. As part of the delivery companys system I had to take the card they popped through the door and leave it in the safe place signed so they could pick that up at the same time.

Wednesday morning the right motherboard and assorted extras arrived 9am on the dot at work. The main order that was to be left in the safe place was due in late afternoon. So not much to see there. When I got home after work I discovered that they had indeed found the safe place as I had described. They had also taken the signed card out of the box. What they had not done however was leave the parcel in there. Nope, they left that with our neighbour instead and left a note through our door saying which one. While you would think this was helpful unfortunately said neighbour was then out by the time Demelza got home and didn't come home all last night.

I can see how they were trying to be helpful leaving it with next door instead of outside, however I had provided a secure waterproof location and it wasn't raining. There was no reason not to do as instructed. Because of this last night I could not install the new drives in the NAS and start building the array. A process which I fully expect to take 24hours and is something I cannot speed up. Now thanks to them not doing as instructed I have lost at least 24 hours assuming next door are back today. Taking into account I need to NAS upgraded before I can do backup's of my machine and then I have to run the backups before I can rebuild my machine this may well have ruined my plans for a machine rebuild this weekend. I don't have the time to do it in the week and the weekend after that is my birthday. I have yet to complain however I very certainly am going to.

As an aside I also have to complain to royal mail today because they also left a parcel at home yesterday. This is the new router for the great internet connection upgrade of 2012. Their note through the door said they left it in our "agreed safe place" which it turns out was right in front of our house in view of everyone going by. No Royal Mail, I had not agreed a safe place with you ever, however if I had it would not have been here, it would have been round the back of our house, not in plain sight! So if they think they have an agreed safe place it needs updating.

So all in all I am quite angry about all of this. If all the companies had done as they said they would and done as they were instructed to I would be well on my way to upgrading my machine this weekend. As it stands that may not be possible.

See Craigk for the real deal. Comments can be left either here or on the original article

OK, it's official, the new job is turning me into a new kind of crazy.

Not the good kind of crazy, the kind where you have great ideas that are a bit out there but still work, not even the crazy where people just leave you to it because you seem to make things work... just the plain old please stop me from scratching out my own eyeballs crazy.

I am now entering week 12 of my preliminary 6 weeks of travelling up to Portishead everyday. I always knew the first 6 weeks was going to be right on the edge of what I can deal with in terms of boredom, sleep deprivation and just plain crazy, but this is now pushing it too far.

At week 6 I was meant to have a meeting to discuss trialling working from home. That didn't happen. Nor has it happened when I have harked on about it. At week 12 the office is meant to have moved 1hour and 10mins closer to home for me. Does it stand a chance of moving in 3 days... not a hope. Does it stand a chance of moving in the next 6 weeks... maybe but I doubt it. Has it even been announced to the company that this is what it meant to be happening... nope.

There were two things that were very important to me when I started here, working from home and the office moving a lot closer. Neither has happened and it is affecting me now.

I think this is a good company to work for, I think I can do well here... but if promises this important to me get broken how can I trust them going forward.

See Craigk for the real deal. Comments can be left either here or on the original article

No particular news... nothing really of note has happened... just little things.

Today's achievement (assuming this works) means my blog should now be coming back to Facebook. As is always the case I have tried to link my site together with the on-line services I use, creating a combined set of all my data that I control. When I first started a blog in 2004 it actually started on the Livejournal service. Having used that for a couple of years I decided to buy my own site at which point I wanted to bring the blog to my site (if only so I had some content). I exported my blog and brought it on-line at my own site. I then worked on a way of automatically posting between the two. Then when I started using Facebook I found that I could link notes with a blog. Facebook actually did all the hard work for you then taking an RSS feed and just picking them up as they happened. Late last year they decided they were too cool for that and shut down the feature (in that way that they do). So if I wanted to cross post to both Livejournal and Facebook it was up to me to write something to do it... Today is (again hopefully) the first day of my plan working.

In other news the house seems to be gaining some level of order from the semi chaos. Paperwork is now all in order, the loft has been organised, the garage is basically organised to the untrained eye and the house seems pretty good. Jobs are getting done which is always nice. Still haven't got around to painting our bedroom but maybe that will happen next weekend.

What is most impressive about all this work getting done is that I am still travelling up to near Bristol everyday, leaving the house at 6:45am and getting home 8pm generally. This is leaving me feeling very sleep deprived and very annoyed at the lack of time I have to get things done, so to have achieved anything in this time is nice. Still, roll on an office move which should give me back hours 2+ hours in my day (2 real hours plus maybe another 1 or 2 thanks to getting more sleep) and roll on working from home for a few days giving me the chance to sleep 2 days in every 5... Still, until it all happens it is just a pipe dream.

As an aside, if you have read this far it means you might care about what I say. As I have been updating the tech behind my blog I should also mean I post more often as it will be easier for me to do so... so in theory, watch this space

See Craigk for the real deal. Comments can be left either here or on the original article

OK, I know said I would do better at updating my blog and I know so far I keep failing, but I've been busy dammit! Maybe my blog is actually a really long term retirement project waiting for spare time...

To say the last few months have been a rollercoaster would not do them a shred of justice... Short version I have a new job.

Long version, the company I used to work for and worked for for over 2 and a half years went under. More to the point it was dragged under by a poor business deal which resulted in a lot of work which was never paid for. In the end the outgoings were greater than the incoming and the debts mounted to a point where there was nothing else to do but fold.

Clearly this was a very sad situation not to mention annoying. In fact this process of would the company go under actually lasted about 3 months so there was a 3rd emotion that crept in which was relief. At least we knew what was going on.

The downside was none of us really wanted to leave and we still had clients who liked us. The clear winner was to start a new company and do it right from the start. Easier said than done when you are trying to make money at the same time. This bumped along the bottom for a few months, sometimes making some real progress, but other time settling on the same mediocrity that led to the eventual death of the first company.

Then came the real beginning of the end. Shaun, one of the directors for the old company and also director for the new company got another job. Not because he wanted to but because he needed to. The new company was not brining in enough money to sustain everyone and he had an offer which he took. Originally it was belived that job would be remote and fairly short term so he would still be around to answer questions. As time moved on and he ended up in his new jobs office it became apparent he was not coming back.

As this became apparent I started looking for a new job. Without Shaun in the company my interest in staying was dropping. I was left doing his work and as the lone coder and it wasn't fun anymore. I found a couple of jobs that looked interesting before finally having a conversation with Shaun about his new company.

A week later I had an interview which was actually more of a contract negotiation and they offered me very nice position as a seiner software engineer which I agreed to. Of course it wasn't all plain and simple. The new job was considerably further away than where I was used to travelling. With that in mind part of my discussions the idea of remote working and they also mentioned that in the near future they are considering moving offices closer to me by upto an hour which would make my life much simpler again.

So where does this leave me. It leaves me 5 weeks into a new job, it leaves me 5 weeks into a 6 week period of travelling every day from which point I can start working from home. It leaves me sleep deprived and frustrated at not getting enough things done at home. It also leaves Demelza a little fed up with not seeing me. Most importantly however while a little painful now, I am well on the way to a much more sustainable long term career which pays me correctly for my skills. And of course I'm still working with Shaun which I do still very much enjoy.

See Craigk for the real deal. Comments can be left either here or on the original article

I know it has been a while since I did one of these (2008 to be exact) but I consider this a good time to start them again. Bit late as far as roundups go, but better late than never.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before? Get married, buy a house and lose my job.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? As is the norm for me, I didn't make any. That said, I have drawn a line in the sand this year regarding a pension. We have decided by the end of this year we need to both have them sorted.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Having said no to this question for years I can finally say yes. Elkanah, a friend from school did to a lovely little girl called Lena who we went to see over Christmas.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Again, thankfully not.

5. What countries did you visit? Greece for our honeymoon (we were there between their recent financial issues so it didn't have any effect on our trip thankfully).

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011? Well the last time I answered this question we were not engaged... and I said I would like to spend more time with my girlfriend and spend more time travelling. It has to be said I would still like to spend more time with my now wife and I would still like to do more travelling. We have had a very expensive year (house and wedding not cheap) and I think for now I will just consider this year to be the "recovery year". We are still planning on going out to France with my family for a week or so but that is it.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? I would be a nutter if I didn't say our wedding (June 4^th)

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I think actually buying the house and at the very least doing some more grown up things. I still don't think I've grown up, although I have got older. The house buying required me to understand and enter a world I have never got before with odd legal proceedings etc and generally I think I came out on top. Getting married I don't actually consider to be an achievement. That was just a set of things that we set in motion. The achievement there is the couples who have been together for 30 or 40 years and built a life together. Also starting to show myself as having learnt something from years of woodworking classes and doing DIY with my Dad.

9. What was your biggest failure? I'm not sure... There is no stand out thing if I'm honest. If I had to pick I think perhaps it would be being not prepared enough for the twists and turns the current economy may throw at us.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? As per usual, colds and alike, but nothing interesting.

11. What was the best thing you bought? House... clearly. We also bought a new bed which while not that exciting, is a proper solid wooden piece of furniture which represents the beginning of moving away from tat and onto things that should last a lifetime.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration? Well, I normally become political at this point, so I see no reason to change that. I'm going to say something odd... I'm going to say for once the government deserves some kudos. While no shining light in the darkness and while still doing some pretty stupid things, I feel like there is considerably more common sense coming from Westminster this last year. Maybe in a year of hard times it is hard to say something wrong for them, but that is the general feeling I get. In an equally unusual measure I also want to see that our friend who made huge effort to come all the way down here for our wedding also deserve some recognition.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? I'm going to hark back to my normal the media industries. SOPA and PIPA are stunning examples of an industry that has sat on its arse for a long time, not innovated and now seeks to protect its failing business model through overpowered laws. Long may they fail and they learn the error of their ways. Also, stop trying to peddle 3D content... we are not interested.

14. Where did most of your money go? A sodding house... Also, yes weddings are expensive, but it amazed me how much money gets spent on little thing that all add up that you never see coming.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Wedding, house and honeymoon (see the pattern?).

16. What song will always remind you of 2011? Ellie Goulding - Your Song and Alexi Murdoch - Breathe. I'm special, I can have two... (Also, that is two times in a row I have done this and there have been songs with "breathe" in the title).

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a. Happier or sadder? Happier. This time last year we were just in the middle of our moving out of our flat and into Demelza's parents and all the stress that came with it.

b. Thinner or fatter? I think about the same.

c. Richer or poorer? So much poorer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of? I normally say slept and that is always true. I think I wish I had saved more.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Worrying about things like job etc.

20. How did you spend Christmas? Between two families. Starting in Demelza's parents and ending at mine. We also saw a huge number of friends when back at my parents which was nice.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011? No, I stayed there.

22. How many one-night stands? None. Still not removing this question simply for the numbering.

23. What was your favourite TV program? Still the legend that is Top Gear. That said, love Big Bang Theory and Terra Nova is interesting too.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? Don't think so.

25. What was the best book you read? Don't think I have read anything this year... well, not that most people would consider a book anyway.

26. What did you want and get? Again, married and a house.

27. What did you want and not get? A stable job.

28. What was your favourite film of this year? So many to pick from this year, Probably In Time. Didn't see that many this year.

29. What was your favourite game of this year? Didn't really play many. I did very much enjoy playing Portal 2 with Jonners.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I was 25 and I went out for a meal with Demelza. I did then have my stag do down in Brighton and alike around the same time so that sort of counts.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? All of my projects being done. Not that that is possible given as soon as one is done another takes its place, but would still be nice.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? Same as the year before with less t-shirts and actually a couple more nice shirts. Still a walking North Face advert though.

33. What kept you sane? As always, Demelza. She also still makes me a little less sane, but generally net effect is positive.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy/respect the most? I'm sure there was one from the year, but I just can't remember who it was. That in itself is sad enough.

35. What political issue stirred you the most? I think the whole pension crisis got to me when the whole of the public sector decided it had a right to a not only a better pension than the private sector, but some private sector money to prop it up.

36. Who did you miss? A lot of my friends from the South East as always but I'm fairly used to that and actually they are pretty good at coming to see us now.

37. Who was the best new person you met? I am going to say baby Lena for being the first baby that I managed to stop crying instead of start crying.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011: The best thing about a honeymoon is it gives you a break from smiling at the millions of people at your wedding.

See Craigk for the real deal. Comments can be left either here or on the original article

Our home network has finally made the jump from simply a set of computers going through a home router to the internet into something that better deserves the name "network".

Up until recently our home network was made up of the following.

1. DLink router connecting to the internet
2. TV - Streaming content over DLNA from the computer
3. 1 Windows 7 Computer
4. Printer/scanner

To make matters worse our TV was connected via power line Ethernet (for the uninformed this is the same tech that plug-in baby monitors use. Signals are transmitted via the power lines in the building. The advantage is no need to run cables, but faster than wireless and you don't broadcast out to the world (still not that fast though)).

Over the last month and a bit I have finally been bringing it all up to spec and adding a few more things to it (helped a lot by Demelza's computer finally being fixed).

First I drilled a hole from our lounge into the floor below. I then ran a network cable between the lounge and the study, fitting wall sockets at both ends. I then mounted a gigabit switch to the wall in the study and upgraded our DLink router to a Netgear DG834G which is quite simply still the best router for the home.

My Christmas present this year (which I admit I have had early) is a Synology DS411j which is a network attached storage/webserver/media server/go make a cup of tea/everything server. It is now taking over the files on the network. It holds all the videos, music and pictures and can stream them to any device on demand (including the phones).

I cannot explain well enough how great this box is. Want to watch something from the TV on the box, just browse to it and hit play. Same for music. You can view a slideshow of your photos from there too. If I were to plug in some IP based security cameras into our network I could have it record the video from them and serve it to my phone if I wanted… It is a web server which for a web developer is a major plus (PHP, Apache, MySQL for the interested). Hell, for the really interested, it is just a Linux box, I can SSH as root to it and do what I like, install packages, stop services, mess with config etc.

I don't even know where I am going with this other than to say my computing life is becoming awesome. I have a network running at gigabit, 2 machines connected to it, a TV that takes content, a server that gives it, a printer on the network and even two phones that can browse to files on the network and tell the TV to play them. And the best bit… it all just works with not a bit of Apple technology in sight (well, sometimes I let my Apple laptop come play)!

See Craigk for the real deal. Comments can be left either here or on the original article

In the summer of last year myself and Demelza started house hunting. In the December we had put in an offer and then finally in the February we finally moved into our first home. During this time we learnt a huge amount about how to actually buy a house. I am putting some of what springs to mind here in the hope that it will save others the sharp learning curve I needed just to keep up with the whole process. Questions more than welcome.

Step 1: Get some money

It doesn't really matter how you get a deposit, but one way or another you will need one. Mortgage lenders seem to want between 10% and 20% of the value of the property at the moment. Clearly this means you need to know how much you are going to spend, but a quick check on something like Rightmove won't take long. Words of caution, if your money is coming to you via a Will then all is fine. Same too if you are saving it all yourself, however, if you are being lent or given it by say close family then be careful how much you get. I think the limit is 12k per year that you could have received from someone else before anti money laundering laws kick in. Basically, when filling in your mortgage they will want to know where that money came from. And if it happens to have come from someone else they will want details about that person. The best thing to do if you are being given it is to 'save' it is smaller chunks over a little while so you never tip over the threshold and get lots more questions than you want.

Step 2: Work out what you have to play with

Once you have a deposit you need to work out how far it will go. You could setup a meeting with a mortgage broker at this point, or you could just look up the numbers on the many mortgage calculators that exist on the lenders websites. I think I used the one on Nationwide and the one on Santander. There is nothing wrong with talking to a broker at this point either; there are no obligations, they will be more than happy to talk to you about their options. I also think they are worth going to even if you didn't think you would be using one. They have access to a lot more deals than the set the high street offers. They also make comparison of a lot of options a damn sight simpler. They might also help give you a better understanding of how mortgage work if you are unsure.

Step 3: Go hunting

Now comes the fun part, time to actually look for a house. There isn't much to this really... Find houses, talk to estate agents, look round houses, nod and smile when they make jokes. They don't seem to generally make jokes though, just stand and look solemn and point out the bleeding obvious like "this is the kitchen"... really. I actually think the best way to go about visiting houses is having done your homework on them first. Thanks to the internet getting lots of detail is normally fairly easy, but there will always be something missing. For example, a lot of postings miss out floor plans. Write down the list of things you want to check when you are there, such as layout etc. If you are seeing more than a couple of places in a day then make notes the same day about each one... On one day we saw 4, 2 in the morning and another 2 early afternoon and it was surprising how quickly you forget the details important to you. By the evening of that day it took a bit of thought to drag out the pros and cons.

Most importantly, remember to ask questions and have a good poke around… this can be a little hard if the owner is the one showing you around... just try to be chatty.

Step 4: Show us the money

OK, so you have found the one. It fits all the requirements; you love it, see potential in it, whatever it may be. Assuming at this point there were no clear turns off's like damp or huge cracks in the walls... time to put in an offer. The best tip we heard on this was never start at the asking price. This may seem obvious, but there is a good reason for it. If you were to offer the asking price straight away then the seller is going to think maybe they have undervalued their home if you are so willing to go for the asking price. They may hold out; seeing how high you will go and how badly you want it.

The key to this negation stage is two part, firstly you want them to think they need you and not that you need them. With your first house this one is easy, you have no chain so can move when you want. This is a very powerful bargaining chip. The second key is to lower their expectation.

It is also worth noting that as you get closer to a deal you can put things like appliances, fixtures and fittings on the negotiating table.

Step 5: Things start getting serious

At this point you need to start getting the paperwork to catch-up. That means two things, getting a solicitor involved and getting a mortgage. Generally estate agents and mortgage brokers are happy to make recommendations for solicitors they have worked with.

Applying for the mortgage is the slightly scary bit, but it isn't too hard. Once you have your solicitor on side you begin the long and arduous job of keeping everything moving forward. It is surprising how much work there is to get everyone doing their jobs... At peak I was speaking to the solicitor and or estate agents at least once a day.

It is worth noting that when you have a mortgage the solicitor is acting on not only your behalf, but that of your mortgage provider. If you think about this it makes perfect sense, they are buying a greater stake in the house than you are most of the time. The solicitor will do searches to find out the details the local council hold about the property. They will confirm boundaries, do environmental checks (things like if there is an old tip nearby, or a river or even in the south west checks for Radon). The seller will provide a detailed list of what they will and will not include with the property. Check this sodding carefully, it is important. Once you exchange contracts you can't go back on things. It is up to you to make sure everything is as it should be.

The mortgage company will normally sort out a basic survey if they feel they want one, but you can get a more thorough one done. It is very normal (hell, expected) for you to request more visits to the property during this time. Even if you have nothing to check, I would still recommend this. All this pushing back and forth of letters takes time and it may have been some time since you saw the property. Never hurts to keep in fresh in your mind. We actually got Demelza's parents to come with us to give us a second opinion and sanity check. While it will be expensive to pull out at this point, better to be sure.

Step 6: Exchange

Once all the contracts have been sorted out, the paperwork in place and the dates for everything agreed you are almost ready to exchange. To exchange you need to have fulfilled any requirements your mortgage lender might have (house insurance is the big one), you need to give your deposit over to the solicitors and you need to be sure with what you are buying. Once you exchange you are committed. It is worth noting, if you are transferring over 10k to the solicitors, you will need to pay for a CHAPS transfer (about £25).

Step 7: No man's land

Once you actually exchange you enter a contractual point where you are legally responsible for the house. At this point you sort of own the house. The lenders transfer your mortgage amount to your solicitor who combines it with your deposit. They transfer this over to the seller's solicitor. They update the deeds of the house and hand them over to you. This period between exchange and completion can take between 3 days and about 2 weeks.

Step 8: Completion

Finally, day of completion arrives! You can collect the keys from the estate agents and open your front door for the first time! Now the fun part of moving all the services over...

See Craigk for the real deal. Comments can be left either here or on the original article

Hello, I'm Craig and this is my blog...

Some of the more observant of you may have noticed it isn't the most well tended to in the sphere, but I'm hoping to change that.

Back in the good old days when I had more spare time and life was less interesting I harped on chapter and verse about whatever bugged me at the time, but since becoming less of a child and more of an actual functioning member of society I seem to have transitions away from blogging.

Personally I don't see this as a good thing and I certainly see it as something I want to change. Who knows if I will be successful, but it seems worth a shot.

To that end I feel a little catch-up is in order. Since my last real blog post the following have happened (in order):

1. Proposed to my girlfriend
2. Blew up the engine on our (well, technically her) car
3. Bought a new car (my first)
4. Went on holiday in France (and a little Switzerland)
5. Spent epic amounts of time planning a wedding
6. Went house hunting
7. Had Christmas
8. Bought a house (harder than you would think)
9. Decorated a fair bit of said house
10. Got married (Up to June 2011 so far)
11. Went on our honeymoon to Athens
12. Went to the wedding of our friends Nicola and Michael
13. Lost my job
14. Got a new one

Over the next little while I plan to have a proper catch-up of some of those events, but I thought I would start with the cliff notes.

For anyone actually interested, the other reason I have been so quiet for so long was because I was rebuilding my whole website from scratch, new design, new front-end code and new back-end code. It is the largest overhaul my site has had since I've had one. With everything else going on it took longer to do than planned (clearly). As part of this build I was putting in an admin which allowed me to post to my blog and Livejournal at the same time, categories replicated over, edits happened in both places etc. All of this took a little while, but hopefully this post will prove it works.

A new beginning? We'll see...

Zzzzzz

Yeah yeah, I know, I haven't updated in a while. I haven't died but my free time has.

Short version... I like to keep my website and my blog updated at the same time. I use wordpress on my current site with a plug-in which lets me post at the same time to LJ. Wordpress is pants, caused my site to get hacked... not happy.

As such my solution is to replace wordpress with something of my own creation. Unfortunately that comes hand in hand with re-writing my whole site including gallery, feed reader, bookmarking system... you get the idea.

I was actually pretty close to getting it done but then what little free time I had dried up. In the meantime I was avoiding posting as an incentive to finish it.

I am at this point setting a launch date of July 1st for my new site and the beginning of blogging properly again. No idea if I can meet that, but I want to try. I think there is about 20-25hours work to do before I can put it all live so we will see.

Watch this space.

To give you an idea of what is keeping me so busy for those who don't know, since I last posted I've moved house twice, bought a house and been planning a wedding. House is bought, moved into it, wedding is in 10 days, free time will return soon goddamit!