18 blogs from July 01, 2003 to July 30, 2003

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July 30, 2003

Jeremy and I attempted to go on another bike ride today but it was not to be. The plan was to get the train to Southease and then cycle back to Devil's Dyke along the South Downs Way.

We went to the station and bought our tickets, and then discovered that there were no trains running beyond Lewes because of emergency engineering work and so there was a bus replacement service - they didn't tell us this when we were buying our tickets which was somewhat annoying. We consulted the map during the journey and decided on an alternative starting point for our ride, and so arrived in Lewes with a plan.

As we cycled up the high street my bike started to misbehave and my chain jumped off the deraileur. I fixed it, and cycled on about a further 5 metres before it came off again, this time with the deraileur being in a really odd position. It looked like there was a fracture in a piece of metal which attached it to the bike, and after only a gentle movement it snapped into two pieces. Bah! We took a quick look around Lewes for a bike shop, but drew a blank and so ended up getting on the train and returning to Brighton.
Posted by Jane at 1:56 PM

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Pete mentioned a Brighton Bloggers meetup a few days ago, and its starting to look like it might happen. So, I've offered the BrightonBloggers.com space as a home for it where we hope to have details about meetups etc eventually. In the mean time there is just a list of all the Brighton Bloggers that were registered during the Virtual Festival.
Posted by Jane at 8:58 AM

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July 29, 2003

Hey, I won a photographic contest. The Underexposed group I belong to have a monthly contest and this month's theme was "After Dark/Sunset". I haven't won a photography contest since I was about 15, so I'm really pleased, especially as the other entries were all excellent too.
Posted by Jane at 3:15 PM

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Cool Photo
Great Photo!

I've wanted to join a photography group in brighton for some time but the only one I could find has about 10 members and 2 posts a month. I got really excited when you mentiond underexposed, but was dissapointed to find out that it was for Female Photographers only.

:-(
Posted by Andy Budd on 2003-07-31 22:20:33

Last night I attended my first Skillswap event. These are free events where the emphasis is on learning a new skill, and presented by a local expert. It was presented by Matt Zandstra (author of Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours) and was all about PHP, Objects and Patterns. Matt also delved into some of the new features that PHP5 will provide when it's released towards the end of this year.

I must admit that Design Patterns are something that have been on the fringe of my knowledge for a long time, but that I've just never got around to learning more about, so it is good to now have a bit more of an idea. There were a couple of book recommendations mentioned during the night - Design patterns : elements of reusable object-oriented software and A Little Java, a Few Patterns which I may have to take a closer look at.
Posted by Jane at 8:19 AM

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SkillSwap
Hi Jane,

Glad you enjoyed out little session last night. Shame you didn't make it to the pub as it would have been nice to meet up and say hi.

Maybe next time?

Andy
Posted by Andy Budd on 2003-07-31 22:22:49

July 25, 2003

Today's Guardian G2 section was written on the beach here in Brighton, so they could try out the free wireless internet access.
Posted by Richard at 8:55 AM

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July 24, 2003

Yay! I've been offered a job . I've had the paperwork through, and it all looks good. So I'll be starting on the 4th August at Glass's Information Services, and will be spending my days in their Crowborough office.
Posted by Jane at 1:10 PM

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July 22, 2003

It is now a month since we left California, and I've finally got around to finishing the photos.
Posted by Jane at 10:06 PM

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beautiful!!
Wow what stunning photos! I especially love the ones from Sand Harbor.
Posted by olivia on 2003-07-26 19:37:02

Jeremy and Kirsty have a guest staying with them at the moment, a small, cute, furry, four legged friend called Freddie. He's a very enthusiastic cocker spaniel. We met up with them last night to take him for a walk along the beach. Dog walking is fun, but that's easy for me to say because Jeremy was the one picking up the dog output.

Posted by Richard at 5:46 AM

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July 21, 2003

While I was in San Francisco Goul took me to see Finding Nemo (watch the trailers: they can do water now). It's a Pixar and Disney thing, and if you liked Toy Story, you'll like this too. I'm looking forward to going to see it again, but it's not due in the UK until October.
Posted by Richard at 9:51 AM

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July 18, 2003

We've spent a lot of the last couple of days catching up with Jono and Emma who have been on holiday over here from Oz. It's been great to spend some time with them, and also to catch up with the rest of the New Scientist crowd last night.
Posted by Jane at 1:03 PM

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July 16, 2003

Wireless network access on the beach here in Brighton is becoming popular - there are now 2 places where you can get wifi (for free). The first is at Bar de la Mer (operated by Loose Connection) and the second is Riptide (operated by PiertoPier).

PiertoPier have even been mentioned on BBC News.
Posted by Jane at 9:25 AM

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wifi access
good to know. are there any other free spots in brighton youre aware of?
Posted by olivia on 2003-07-21 14:05:34

LooseConnection have set up 4 in total in Brighton, one at the beach, one at Grand Central pub - near the station, one at RikiTiks in the North Laines, and one in the Black Lion at Black Lion Street

There is a map at http://wireless.looseconnection.com/brighton/
Posted by Jane on 2003-07-21 14:09:54

I had an interview last week for which I had to do a pyschometric test. Yesterday I got to see the results of it. And they're pretty accurate - which is scary. Apparently my descriptive words are:
Dependable, persistent, patient, kind, thorough, loyal, supportive, sincere, logical, systematic, steady, deliberate, communicative, friendly, persuasive, asks 'why', 'who' and 'how'.
Posted by Jane at 9:16 AM

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phew! nothing bad. that must have been a relief.

Ive never been asked to do one of those. seems cheeky to ask.
Posted by olivia on 2003-07-21 14:07:27

July 10, 2003

I'm going to try to get a bunch of geek stuff out of my system in one blog...

I've thought that Apple ibooks were more-or-less toys which could just about manage to do a bit of word processing and perhaps surfing. I've just finished renting one for a week, to see if I could possibly do my job with a Mac and hopefully shake off my maclust, and my perceptions have changed. I'd now happly recommend or work with an ibook: I was able to do some software development on the machine and it was about the same as working on my Pentium III 800Mhz Linux laptop.

Oh, I rented from Microrent -- if you're looking to rent hardware, these people are great. They initially sent me a machine with the wrong version of Mac OS on it. In fact, the machine I was renting (cheapest possible) wasn't capable of running the latest and greated OS. So they posted me out the CDs and a nice big chunk of extra memory and talked me through the upgrade. Thanks guys!

You may have guessed by now, but I'm hooked. I'm now the owner of a shiny new powerbook. I've switched.

The other geek thing is that I've written up some notes on my trip to JavaOne 2003, San Francisco.
Posted by Richard at 1:17 PM

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I applied for this project at Freelancers.Net the other day. Last night I got an email from the company asking if I could look at some emergency for them on the Clix site. I did, and sorted it for them, but whilst we were chatting the guy said that they'd had 120 responses to that advert, and that some people were offering to do the work for free just so they could put it onto their portfolio. I guess that's why I hadn't heard anything from them about that work. Time will tell if I get any further work from them on the strength of my emergency-helping-out ability.
Posted by Jane at 10:41 AM

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god...
what hope is there for those of us actually trying to earn a living?
Posted by SpUnKyTh3MoNk3Y on 2003-07-11 08:56:42

hope you didn't design that site - it looks terrible
Posted by anon on 2003-10-03 18:51:37

July 08, 2003

Today Jeremy and I attempted our maddest plan yet, to cycle part of the South Downs Way from Amberley to Brighton. We're both in our notice period having been made redundant last week, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to get out there and pedal. 26 miles later and I'm absolutely exhausted although nothing aches as yet. The photo above was taken at Chanctonbury Ring (probably the highest point on our ride at around 238m).

More Photos
Posted by Jane at 5:38 PM

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sorry
sorry to hear about your job. Hope something comes up soon.
Posted by jacqueline on 2003-07-11 23:18:07

July 07, 2003

I had an interview on Friday, and among other bizarre questions I was asked if I planned to have children, and if so what was the timescale. Now I appreciate that I'm now 31 and that companies would have a concern about the children thing, but I'm not sure it's an appropriate interview question.

Update: I've since discovered that it is legal to ask that as long as they ask the same questions of all other candidates. They're not allowed to make a decision based on the answer though.
Posted by Jane at 9:25 AM

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Sprog-dropping
Hmmm....how can you prove how they made a decision, though, without knowing everything about the successful candidate? I reckon that whatever you answer, if they think you look like a potential sprog-dropper, you're stuffed. My suggestion - say "No, actually I've had my tubes tied, wanna see the scars?" Should work...
Posted by Carin on 2003-07-11 17:16:51

Men vs Women
Hmmm jane, i do wonder if they'd ask the same question of men?
Posted by Vic on 2003-07-16 23:41:44

July 03, 2003

Go to Google, type "Weapons of Mass Destruction" into the search box and press the "I'm feeling lucky" button. It should take you to this mock error page. I particularly like the title of the page "Cannot find Weapons of Mass Destruction".
Posted by Jane at 11:16 AM

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Excellent marketing idea for his books!
Posted by olivia on 2003-07-03 21:12:59

July 01, 2003

Thanks to Joe for pointing out that you can now visit an underwater post office in Vanuatu. Could the first person to visit please send me a postcard.
Posted by Jane at 10:21 AM

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