Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category

3 years, 9 months, 20 days


22 Nov

Many of you may have noticed that I’ve not blogged again for nearly a month, in that time shuttles have launched, OS’s have been released and the Skype feud has come to a resolution, generally geeky things have occurred that would usually take center place on this blog, however they haven’t and this is why;

I have stopped enjoying blogging, recently it has become a chore which is something I never wanted it to be. I have felt pressured to get a “post a day” out and as a result the experience has become a miserable one. I tried to get back into it by not posting daily and just post regularly but that’s not worked, the fun has just vanished. I left it alone, forgot about the blog and decided to see when it felt right, it didn’t.

So after 3 years 9 months and 20 days I am throwing in the towel, calling time, pulling the plug, closing the blog. I am not stopping blogging totally however, I am starting a photo blog on Jan 1st which will be a photo 365 (http://my365.andrewwardlaw.com), but for me this blogs time has come to an end. Thank you to everyone who has visited, subscribed, read my posts and those who have interacted in some way, you’ve all been great.

This is not me signing off the internet either, I will still be on twitter and friendfeed and my website (which currently is broken haha). I have a number of projects I would like to do so you’ve not seen the last of me. I have enjoyed my time but as someone once said “all good things come to an end”.

I have created 2 books of my posts so far and now have 2 more to compile which are available from http://stores.lulu.com/andrewwardlaw they are chronological copies of all my posts, nothing special but available for all those who may want.

I will also leave this site up, I don’t see any point in taking it down really.

Now I will end with something that I used at the beginning of my blog.

Goodbye
Yadalanh
Vidimo se
Baai baai
Adios
Aloha

Wow, where has the time gone


07 Apr

Well well well, yet again I find myself writing a blog post apologising for a lack of blog posts. Since returning from holiday I seem to have been stuck in 3rd gear and until the last couple of days I have not really managed to engage 5th or even 4th, I have now pretty much got back up to speed. Starting tomorrow I will be blogging again as you would expect and as I have set out at the beginning of the year.

A few things I want to write about over the next few days:

Friendfeed

Twitter and Google

Vista SP2

RFID (this post will be a couple of weeks away as I need to do some research into it)

Those few things are just a sneak peak at what’s to come, I’m certainly looking forward to writing them, as I hope you are about reading them.

A

2.7 up and running – flawless upgrade


11 Dec

Well it appears that upgrading to Wordpress 2.7 was not as painful as I had anticipated it to be. I followed the usual process of upgrading and it just worked. No changes were needed in my modified template, no changes to the CSS, nothing, all my plugins work as well so that’s also a bonus!

I am writing now from the web console which for me is a rarity in itself as I usually used a 3rd party application to do my posting (mainly because I did not like the interface that wordpress supplied that much). Now they have revamped it I am going to give it a good test over the next few weeks to see how well it performs!

I’ll do a full review in a week or so!

A

What a week


11 Nov

Well last week was pretty good eh! 1st we had Lewis Hamilton crowned the youngest ever Formula 1 world champion and he’s a brit no less. He did it in a rather dramatic fashion too, if you didn’t see the race you missed something pretty amazing. Then 2 days later people were able to discuss “President Elect Barack Obama” he won the US election by what turned out to be a big margin over John McCain. I personally was very happy he won not only for the fact that he is the first black president but because I feel his policies really do outline where America needs to go. I think we’ll see some major changes under his administration.

Personally, this week has for me been very hectic, my shop (where I have my day job) is currently closed for refurbishment so I am work all over the local area on cover duty. It’s a big pain in the arse but it has to be done so that is that. Also this week I took delivery of a new lens for my DSLR and a new video camera to replace the one that was stolen last year. The video camera was the newer model of my previous one so all the accessories fit perfectly which is handy.

Currently I am on my way to Manchester for a days work.

I have an ever growing list of items to blog about and a day off tomorrow so expect a few articles including news of an impending shuttle mission

A

the day


15 Oct

well i’m on my way home now, I could not get seesmic working sadly (typically) now i’m on the train it works)

I did however flickr a few pictures. There also was not much in the way of interesting news to report, what was interesting I am under NDA for. All in all it was a good day for me but not so much for you guys.

Oh well back to normal tomorrow, I’m doing my day job till 6 then down to London till Sunday.

Have a good evening

A

My blog is now fully mobile!


16 Jul

Thanks to Andy Moore and his amazing wordpress plugin if you visit my site from your iPhone, Win Mobile or other mobile device you will see a fully functioning and formatted site, designed for the small screened devices.

So far it has worked flawlessly but if you spot a problem please send me a message via the usual routes (comment, email, twitter, facebook msg etc)

Enjoy

A

Twitter Buys Summize For About $15M


15 Jul

In a deal that has been rumored for a while now Twitter has aquired a company that can offer features that it has been lacking since day one.

Summize crawls online reviews and blog discussions to create summarized reviews of music, movies, books and more. A search provides listings for most reviewed and most liked products, recent blog mentions, YouTube videos, and sites linked to by blogs. Summize uses a horizontal heatmap, what they call a “snip,” to display the actual distribution of ratings. This helps distinguish between two products that have equal average ratings, but where one product has only high or low ratings and another product has mostly average ratings. The horizontal bar ranges from red to yellow to green. Products with more positive reviews show more green on the bar, while products with more negative reviews show more red. Lastly, average corresponds to yellow.

Personally I have stopped using twitter in the recent weeks as it has had so much downtime. I still think it’s a fantastic tool and if guided right could be successful for many years to come. Until they fix the downtime issues however, I will not be using it as much as I used too.

A

Woah where does the time go


20 Jun

It seems like only a few days ago I was blogging about my bad back and all the things I wanted to post over the following weekend and all of a sudden right out of nowhere it’s June the 20th and I’ve posted nothing for 20 days! That’s bad, work has been so demanding it seems to have absorbed most of my time and the time it hasn’t sucked away from me, has been spent either sleeping or resting as a result of being tired from all the work!

I am training at the moment to hopefully move into a vacant management role, there is a bit of competition from someone else so I’m having to work pretty hard to make sure I am the one they choose!

Anyway as a result my online life has been put a lil bit on the back burner. Google reader has 381 items for me to sift through, my emails are mostly junk at the moment so that’s fine and as you have probably noticed the blogging got left behind.

Right that’s enough explaining on with the news.

Looks like the Yahoo MSFT deal is totally off, the new 3G iPhone was released (snore). Yahoo partners with Google to allow Google ads on Yahoo search pages. Firefox 3 was officially released (yay). Nasa finds Ice evidence of ice on the surface of Mars! The WiMax Forum certifies it’s first 2.5GHz products. WiMax will be the future, and I want to discuss that much more but it deserves a post all to itself!  

Other than what’s above there has not been much else major that has happened, not that I have noticed on my radar anyway! I did go and see a physio about my back yesterday though, apparently my posture is appalling, my spine bends in the wrong place and I don’t exercise enough! I think most of that I knew already, She’s given me exercises to do so we’ll see if they help.

Right, that’s enough for now!

A

My bad back


31 May

Ok the blogs been quiet, and that’s due to the fact that I have been pretty much rendered useless (more than usual) by my re-occurring back condition. This is the 5th time I have been struck down with it and when it happens it hurts like hell. It’s called Sciatica, and it laid me off my day job for 3 days this time. When it happens sitting at my desk is nearly impossible. The only way to rest it is to lay down and keep pretty still. It sucks but I just have to put up with it.

Anyway enough complaining. I have a HUGE list of things to blog about and I am going to get them done over this weekend.

Stay tuned!

p.s Don’t forget there is a shuttle launch today. All info can be found here

A

Posts will now be tomorrow


24 May

Ok tonight is a total write off, nothing got done. Blame Dave, Ben and Jamie for that.

Post will come tomorrow now.

 

A

The Musings of an Aspiring Geek

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