radiac.net

I have nearly won. The flash work is nearly done - just need to remove a couple of development marks and add the help system, and I'll be finished. I need to wait for the help text before I can start adding that though, so I'll have some time to catch up on the other work that has been waiting for my attention.

The current plan looks like the rest of this week will be spent creating a new website for a client, and at the weekend I will try to come up with a name for my CMS/framework. 6 years and still no name - this is getting silly. Then I should be able to start work on the framework in earnest next week. Hurrah!

Due to time contraints it looks like I'll be focusing on the UI first, or at least certain elements of it; that way if I run out of time before it's needed (July?) I can always run the new UI on top of my old back-end until the new one is ready, and the majority of users won't notice any change. It'll mean more work in the long run, but I've got to be realistic - I probably can't get the full framework and CMS up and running in three months.

But first, a name. I will start by typing randomly at the keyboard, then I will write a program to generate random human-sounding words. Failing that I will open a dictionary and pick the first word that has an available .com. Yes I am getting a little bit desperate - how can you sell a product that has no name?

Having finished the bulk of the Flash work, I've been working on a website for a client. I'm building it on my old CMS, which is a bit of a pain - I don't remember half of what the code does, and my coding style/ability has developed quite a bit since I last worked on the scripts 5 years ago, so I'm constantly fighting the urge to rewrite large chunks of code. The client doesn't want to wait for my new CMS - fair enough, it could be months away - but I equally don't want to spend weeks making the code on this all-singing all-dancing, because I'm only going to come back and replace it with my new CMS when that's ready. But I'm getting there - the accounts system is now all in place, and there is a news script which looks suspiciously similar to the one on this site... :)

I am currently taking a break from all of that to go through all the files on one of my old servers and copy off whatever I want to keep. I'm going to be reformatting it and installing Ubuntu (or Kubuntu? comments please!) on it later today, and then that'll be my desktop machine for when I'm back in Kent.

Oh yes, I've ordered a new keyboard and mouse. I went to PC World to try out the keyboards and mice there, but they had all the mice in boxes. Cuh. So I figured I might as well just buy one blind off Dabs; I've gone for the Logitech G7. It's wireless and laser. I was tempted by the G5 - how cool is a mouse that you have to put custom weights into! But that's just a bit too geek even for me, and I figured a nice wireless mouse would save me the constant problems I currently have getting caught up on the speakers. The keyboard is a bog-standard microsoft one, but it has the 6 keys above the arrows rotated; instead of 3 wide by 2 deep, it's 2 wide by 3 deep. I have a feeling I'll get very confused and keep hitting the wrong keys, but it's worth a try - I tried the keyboard in PC World, and the keys felt good.

And lastly I went to Sainsburys yesterday, and all I bought was chocolate. Four medium Lindt bunnies, three eggs, and three boxes of mini eggs. Mmm, I love easter. Well, right up until I have to give all the chocolate away.

My new mouse and keyboard arrived yesterday. The mouse - a Logitech G7 - is very nice. Finding the middle button a bit stiff at the moment, but I'm sure I'll cope. It's laser-based, wireless, and has a little desktop battery recharger and spare battery to just swap over when it runs out. The wireless is so good the mouse still works on the other side of the flat, although clearly I can't see the screen through walls, so it may be overkill, but still, it's good to know it's there if I need it. Whatever, it's shiny and has lots of LEDs that flash, what else do you need to know?

The keyboard, however, not so great. I knew the layout was different, but I thought it might just take me a while to get used to it. I thought it was worth it for the key press action, but it really isn't. I have hit the delete key twice when I thought I was pressing end, page down when I thought I was pressing delete, and page up when I thought I was pressing home. Oh, and lets not forget delete when I thought I was pressing the up arrow, that was a good one. Seriously - what were you thinking when you came up with this one, Microsoft? Putting the down arrow where the left arrow should be is not the way to make a keyboard easier to use. Still I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and have a proper go today, but at this point I can see it going straight out onto ebay.

In other news, I see that I'm downloading the IE Active-X-killing update. Joy. Incidentally, it will break the first flash CD I worked on. Told them we should have released it as an executable. Let the fun commence!

Dear Comment Spammer,

Thank you for the comments you left on my diary. It didn't take me that long to set up the CAPTCHA to stop comment spam, and by spamming me 159 times you have reminded me how, if you want something done properly, you really should spend more than the best part of a day on it.

Thank you for showing me that my comment system is fallible, and that I'm falling behind in the fight against spam. While it is true that I have 6 months of work to cram into the next month or I'll start losing contracts and my business will falter, I'm sure I can find the time to go off and upgrade my anti-spam system.

I almost feel sorry for you. I mean, it must have taken you quite a while to come up with an algorithm to beat my CAPTCHA, or at least whoever you paid to implement one. And all to leave comments on my diary. Little old me - I feel so special. And then I go and delete them all with one SQL command? Who do I think I am, eh? They were only up there for 7 minutes; you must be quite upset.

But let's be honest, you should have guessed that I wasn't the best target. There were no spam comments sitting there in the archive, and I'd obviously spent a while writing a custom anti-spam system. I must care about my diary comments. You really should have taken the hint and moved on.

I realise that this might just be karma. Maybe you're just punishing me for something I did in a previous life. Something heinous - I'm guessing paedonecrobestiality while listening to mix tapes that I made by copying from other people's tapes.

I don't really care about your reasons though. I'm fed up with the 12,000 spams I get every morning before I wake up. I'm fed up with the way I keep losing legitimate e-mails in amongst the flood. I'm fed up with the way that no matter what I do, you just can't get the message that you're not welcome. I'm fed up that I have to take time away from my work to implement mail filters and human tests so that I can get the messages that are meant for me. I'm fed up with the way you abuse technology to make money out of other people's hard work, and at their expense. I'm fed up with the way I can't find a way to get you lot to shut the hell up. I've had enough - go find some other poor sap to bug.

Mr Spammer, you can tell your friends that I'm not giving up. This is my diary and my inbox, and you have no right to pollute them with your links to hairy girls and badger orgies. This is war, and I'll take whatever steps I must to protect my e-space. Your e-mails will not get through. Your comments will not survive. You will be deleted.

Stop wasting your time with radiac.net - the kittens are coming. You will find no quarter here.

Lots of love,

Richard

It was my Gran's 100th birthday today! She had her letter from the Queen, and the home put on a very nice party for her. She also had her photo taken for the local paper, and one with me giving an incredibly cheesy grin. Shame. I'll try to get a copy when it comes out, and I'll scan it and stick it up here anyway.

I'm still in Kent after my Gran's 100th birthday last week, and I've had a few days between meetings. That's given me time to start on my new framework, and I've been working on the JavaScript libraries - they're the most important thing for potential users of the system, so as long as I've got the UI finished the rest can follow when there's time.

The first three libraries are done, which leaves four to go. If nothing unplanned and urgent comes along, I should be able to start posting them some time in the first half of May. While I'll obviously be after comments and suggestions, I might also do short tutorials to go with them. There's something for you to look forward to!

Incidentally, I have a copy of the newspaper with the article about my gran, so now all I have to do is find my scanner. I'm sure it's in a box somewhere around here, but the question is, which one?

First, a little history. Many years ago, I had a series of very large mobile phone bills. At the time I was on the legendary Orange Everyday 50 tariff - 50 free minutes every day? Nice. However, I was living in uni accomodation with no landline to use, so I was regularly overrunning the 50 minutes, as well as making cross-provider calls and sending lots of text messages. A change was in order.

I looked around, and settled on upgrading my orange contract to a new one. They were only too happy to do that - ED50 was bleeding them dry, and they moved me on to something where I got a few more bundled minutes, a few texts, and all was good for them and me.

But then I moved out of uni accomodation and had a landline. I wasn't happy, so I had a look around, and O2 looked good. I mean really good. So I gave it a go.

It did not go well. They stole £50, refused to give it back for a year and a half, so I ended up sticking with Orange.

Just over a year ago I was unhappy again, so this time rang up and threatened to move. They went out of their way to help me, and fixed me up with a good deal. The £34/month still wasn't that great, but the bundled texts made it worth sticking with them.

Then, a few months ago, they removed my bundled texts.

I have therefore decided to move to T-Mobile. £15/month for 100 minutes and 140 texts? Yes please. That's a saving of £228/year, before you even take into account the saving I'll be making on the texts.

Only snag is that I have to order today, or the £15/month deal turns into £20/month - still good, but that's an extra £60/year for putting it off. They don't have the phone I wanted in stock (the Nokia 6280) and won't put it on order. But they do have the 6230i, so that'll do - I'm very happy with my 6230, and I don't have a burning desire for the 6280 - the only reason I want a new phone is that this one is worn out. So the money wins it.

Which leads us to where I am now. I rang up sales half an hour ago to ask some questions, and got through within a minute. However, I've been on hold for nearly 10 minutes now that I'm actually trying to buy it. I'm almost tempted to go use the web interface, but after my experience with O2... I think I'll stay on hold.