Hamish Rickerby

Configuring Dhall with Emacs

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I use Dhall with archlinux, and emacs, but don't use use-package. The documentation at https://docs.dhall-lang.org/howtos/Text-Editor-Configuration.html#EMACS assumes you do use this, but I use prelude to simplify a bunch of my emacs setup, and am not interested in another tool that does similar setup work.To get Dhall (and in particular, the lsp server) setup, the following steps worked for me.

Baby's First GEM Program

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Got my first GEM program running. It's a stripped down version of the example VDI drawing program in C-Manship. The complexities here were related to my understanding of the functions used to draw, due to the Pure-C documentation being auf Deutsch. I can read a little german, but not programmer documentation german. The port from Pure-C was fairly straightforward, with only finding the header files for functions (not all are documented), and also which libs to include being slightly time consuming.Code

Getting started with Pure-C on the Atari ST

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Getting started with Pure-C on the Atari STTLDR: I found setting up Pure-C to get started with development took me too long (a hour or so on and off to figure it out), so have documented the key points in the process to get up and running. Install, Configure, Code, and Create a Project File are the key steps.

Advent of Code 2021 - Puzzle 7

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Puzzle 7 - Step 1This puzzle is about calculating the minimum distance to a common integer for a set of integers. OK - the puzzle talks about crab submarines and whales, but that's not that important.

Advent of Code 2021 - Puzzle 6

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Puzzle 6 - Step 1For todays puzzle we're modelling the lifecycle of fish. The short version is that a fish's timer goes from 8->0, and after 0 it regenerates itself as 6, and spawns a new 8, increasing the count of fish by 1. In this world, fish are represented as an integer with the value of the int being their timer. To advance a school of fish, we reduce over each of the fish, and when we see one that's a 0, we regenerate it as a 6 and add an 8.

Advent of Code 2021 - Puzzle 5

Sun, 05 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Puzzle 5 - Step 1Todays puzzle is about mapping a bunch of lines that have start/end coordinates, and checking for intersections. We need to count the number of intersections in the map. We are also to only consider horizontal or vertical lines.

Advent of Code 2021 - Puzzle 4

Sat, 04 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

OCaml - How it's goingI'm feeling much more confident with OCaml now, and becoming familiar with the standard List module. The helper functions I've been developing have had a surprising amount of reuse. Things I've discovered so far:

Advent of Code 2021 - Puzzle 3

Fri, 03 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

PrefaceThe OCaml dev tools are doing my head in. I know this must be 100% my fault, but it's so frustrating not being able to do seemingly simple things with the tooling. My main issues are that I can't get a bit of shared code actually shared, and I'm struggling to find a sensible way to structure the multiple days of puzzles into separate sets of code that don't have ridiculous build setups. Anyway, I took some time out and worked on this for a night. I'm backdating these posts for a while...

Advent of Code 2021 - Puzzle 2

Thu, 02 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Puzzle 2 - Step 1For this puzzle, a sequence of instructions need to be interpreted and change position of a submarine. My solution here was to parse the instructions into a sequence of a custom type that encodes the instructions within the type, and then reduce over that list calculating the position of the submarine. The submarine movements can easily be interpreted via a pattern match.

Advent of Code 2021 - Puzzle 1

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

One of the issues with getting started with a new language in a time-pressured scenario is setting up environment and tooling. Last year I used VSCode and the ReasonML plugin. It installed relatively straight-forwardly (from what I remember), and supported type hints, and autocompletion. This year I decided I'd setup Emacs, given I use it for everything else. Long story short - what an utter shambles. I tried to follow the installation guide for the Real World OCaml book plus the Prelude OCaml support (I use Prelude with Emacs, due to the great Clojure support it has). It was generally a struggle to get the extensions to handle resolving imports of local files, as well as 3rd party libraries imported via opam. I gave up and went back to VSCode. The plugin setup was straightforward, but I still struggle with being able to actually run a program. I use the utop repl(like) interface to evaluate the statements in my program files, but even that wasn't that simple. Needing to deal with merlin and dune config files just to get my files recognised feels like a bunch of unnecessary complexity. I need to resolve this (and I'd still love to get it all working in emacs), but I can limp along with what I've currently got.Puzzle 1 - Step 1

Advent of Code 2021

Tue, 30 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I try to do at least some of the Advent of Code puzzles each year. Usually I get a few days in then other pressures come up and I have to bail, but I use the puzzles as an opportunity to try out programming languages that are new to me, or ones I want to become more familiar with. Last year I attempted to use OCaml. This went OK for a couple of days, but then we moved internationally and were locked in a hotel room for 2 weeks with young kids, so AoC was the first thing to go out the window.This year I'm looking to use OCaml again to solve the puzzles - I didn't give it a fair shake last year. I've had a bit of experience with ML-style languages via Haskell, so I'm hoping the learning curve isn't too steep.

Javascript Object Compaction

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I'm working on a feature in BeeCastle at the moment to ingest call data from Microsoft Teams to augment our interaction records. It requires a flexible approach to updating existing records, as with different types of interactions and calls, we get different data.During this process we get a javascript object that might have null or undefined values and these should not be persisted in the database, so we need a way to strip these out. Idiomatic ES6 usage would mean we need to do something like below.

Porting blog to cryogen

Sun, 26 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Given I'm really digging clojure at the moment, I thought I'd port my blog over from octopress to a clojure based static site generator. I wanted something that supported the same sort of structure, with markdown, and low hassle on getting it running. Cryogen seemed to be the best documented and most modern of the few I could find.The process to port it over was as follows

"Brief update"

Sat, 25 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It's been ages (again).

"Refactoring Legacy Code - Gilded Rose Kata"

Wed, 02 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Often getting legacy code into a state where you're comfortable making changes to it can be challenging. Legacy code can often have varying levels of quality throughout the codebase, as well as different levels of testing applied to it. I've taken over my fair share of old projects that have no tests, or haven't followed SOLID principles, and understanding how the code works and what it does can be a challenge.The Gilded Rose Kata is an exercise in taking a system that calculates "quality" and expiry dates for items in a shop over time. When you start the Kata, you have a single method that calculates the changes in quality and expiry for the items. The business logic implemented is hard to understand, and features nested if statements with conditionals that feel inverted. You also need to add functionality to support a new item type to the shop to complete the Kata.

"Refactoring Hard to Test Code"

Thu, 25 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

As part of the Apprenticeship, I need to create an HTTP server. The purpose of the activity is to create a relatively complex, real-world system with TDD, following SOLID/clean code principles. It's going well so far. There is a FitNesse spec for acceptance tests that the server needs to pass, and I have to create it in Java. I'm getting there.However, I recently found that I was having to jump through some hoops to test my socket connection completion handler, and my mentor suggested this might be a code smell, and that I should look at refactoring the code to make it easier to test. As an aside, I'm using the "new" non-blocking IO socket classes rather than the traditional socket classes, so that multithreading should be simpler as I shouldn't need to manage threadpools.

"Software Apprenticeships"

Sat, 20 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

We have trouble hiring developers. The number of people in Australia with Scala/FP experience is small, and the number of high-quality developers with this experience is even smaller. It also costs us a huge amount of money to hire new staff. Recruiters fees are massive and international candidates attract giant work visa application fees. We typically also only hire Senior Developers with 10+ years commerical experience - people who can lead projects, architect high performing systems, understand not only software developement but all the auxiliary systems as well. Our staff need to be able to be as comfortable with code as they are engaging with clients and stakeholders, presenting at user groups, mentoring, training etc. We need fully rounded software professionals.We can't find them. Or at least, it's becoming harder to find them. We've tried to sort this out on the the demand side - we have open positions with very competitive salaries, in one of the most stunning cities in the world. Our teams work on interesting greenfields projects, with a heavy functional focus. With all this, we're still struggling to find people.

"Interface Segregation"

Thu, 04 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The Interface Segregation principle (part of S.O.L.I.D. is about, very simply, not making subclasses or clients implement interfaces they're not concerned with. Robert Martin calls these 'fat' interfaces. They contain functions or methods that are unrelated to each other, and could be split out into more cohesive interfaces.Forcing clients to implement interfaces they're not concerned with causes unnecessary tight coupling of the client to the interface. If the interface changes, the client needs to reimplement/update itself even if it doesn't use that specific interface function. The result is wasted development effort in maintaining unnecessary code for testing and implementation. This should be avoided.

"Wrapping 3rd Party Code"

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I've been integrating a system I've been developing with a third party service for data synchronisation. We're looking to synchronise tasks out with systems like Pivotal Tracker, Jira, Trello etc, but were unsure which of those systems we would actually use. I'm currently reading Clean Code, and there's a really interesting and relevant chapter on "Boundaries". It covers a similar scenario to what we were facing: Using Third-Party Code.Isolation

"Function Arguments"

Wed, 20 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

In Clean Code it's advocated that the ideal number of arguments for a function is 0. Then, 1, 2, and in very rare cases 3. No functions should take more than 3 arguments.In general, I agree with this. Fewer function arguments = fewer separate parts to understand and should aid with readability (and understanding). There are a couple of complexities though that I'd like to run through here. One is levels of abstraction, and the other is testing.

"A small functional refactoring of Javascript"

Tue, 05 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I'm working on a web based productivity application at the moment, and have been modifying some old code. This code deals with synchronisation of data with external services, and storage of metadata about the synchronisation of that data. The application had quite a bit of duplication in dealing with this metadata; specifically in extracting data from the stored structures. In the interests of having very DRY Javascript, it was time to refactor.The configuration/metadata structures typically look like

"Meteor, Heroku, and bcrypt"

Wed, 29 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Just had a very frustrating day. Was getting a deployment error on Heroku with a Meteor app I'm making.

"Back to Basics - Editors"

Mon, 27 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

My boss bought me a copy of the seminal classic The Pragmatic Programmer. It's full of sensible advice for both beginners and experienced software professionals.I have lots of thoughts about the contents of this book but what I'd like to cover is usage of text editors, and specifically becoming proficient with a editor that's typically universally available. I can think of 3 of these for UNIX systems. vi, emacs, and nano.

"Reading not Reading"

Thu, 23 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I recently finished a book called Apprenticeship Patterns (more on why later) and one of the things it suggested is keeping an online list of books you read, and books you want to read. So here is mine.http://hamishrickerby.com/books/

"Brief update"

Tue, 17 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

It's been ages.

"Why I've taken a full time job"

Sat, 27 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I've relapsed. I swore I'd never do it again, but I have. I've accepted a full time job.I'm not in it for the money

"1000km - February"

Sun, 02 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Progress has been a bit slower this month. Short month, very hot here, and new baby all contributed to slowing progress down. Oh, in other news, we now have a baby! Exciting.190km complete at end of Feb, which leaves me with a 30km buffer. The last graph was a little incorrect too - Numbers only puts dates correctly (in relative terms) on the x-axis if the graph type is a scatterplot. Dumb. The new graph below is correct.

"1000km - January"

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Progress on the 1000km is good so far. 109km run in Jan, and I'm sticking to the 10km distance per run. Weight is also starting to fall, which is great because I'm about 9kg heavier than I should be.Because I'm also a nerd (and if you're reading my blog, you probably are too), here's a graph marking progress. Grey line is what I need to run to get to 1000km this year. Any blue higher than the grey line is kms in the bank for a rainy day.

"Meteor"

Thu, 23 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

A couple of days ago I received an email from meetup.com about meetups that I might be interested in. Usually this is full of crap I don't care about, like mothers groups or salsa dancing, but this most recent mail featured an intriguing group called "Meteor Melbourne - a better way to build apps". So, I looked into it.Meteor is a framework based on node.js that allows you to write responsive, reactive, real-time web applications in javascript on both the client and server side. I've always considered javascript as a toy language - I think this opinion comes from my first interaction with JavaScript waaaaaay back in the late 90's (I think it was somewhere between '96 and '98), when all it was really used for was alert boxes and tic-tac-toe implementations. However, I've recently been doing a lot of work for clients with Parse and their "cloud code" functionality, taking some logic out of mobile apps and running it on the Parse servers - and you use JavaScript to do this. They promoted use of Promises, and I've been doing a lot with RAC in iPhone apps, so this functional style is something I'm familiar with and like. I also have a friend who is helping a mate out on a startup, who is looking at some serious "enterprise" functionality implemented with server-side javascript, so I thought it was maybe time to seriously look at this thing too, and I checked it out.

"2014"

Mon, 20 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I'm not one for new years resolutions, but there are a couple of things I'd like to achieve this year.

"Medical Regulation and Apps"

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I read an article in Venture Beat covering part of a series of hearings US Congress is holding on regulation of health and medical apps on smartphone and tablet devices. My significantly paraphrased version of the article is that the FDA are unsure if and how health apps should be regulated, and that representatives from the "app" industry are pushing for no regulation for consumer facing apps.I have a slightly different take on this. To me, the question is simple (and what is driving health authorities globally to address this issue): can health apps be considered to be medical devices?

"DRYing out Objective-C - Identification"

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I have a large objective-c codebase I've been working on with a client for over a year now. The application started off as a prototype, and transitioned into a demo client, and is currently undergoing modifications for security/penetration testing and commercialization. Initially for the protoype and demo, the objective was to get a working application as quickly as possible - speed of initial development was the key. With the current change in focus to a more productized codebase, and improving maintainability as part of that, I decided I'd actively go hunting for areas in the application that can be tidied up, and particularly, looking for duplicate segments of code and eliminating them where feasible.DRY - or Don't Repeat Yourself - is (according to Wikipedia) a principle is stated as "Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system." ... When the DRY principle is applied successfully, a modification of any single element of a system does not require a change in other logically unrelated elements. Additionally, elements that are logically related all change predictably and uniformly, and are thus kept in sync.

"The Value of Contracting"

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Very unexpectedly, for the past few weeks I've been working with a Digital Agency here in Melbourne on a sports-themed iPhone app for a very large client of theirs (a worldwide media brand). I was called in at the 11th hour to work with two other developers (both experienced iOS and ruby contractors), and I knew within the first hour there that the project was going to be a significant challenge. The project had unrealistically tight timelines and a lack of testing and testing platforms/data sets available.Needless to say, it was an interesting experience. In my previous full time jobs I've never worked as a developer, and with my current company all projects to date have been single developer projects. But I definitely found the whole experience really rewarding. It reminded me of the time I was a manager in a large digital agency myself, only there it was me cracking the whip to get development in on time, rather than having the whip cracked on me. :-) (It also meant I had to get dressed and leave the house to work!)

"99 Problems (but Haskell ain't one)"

Sat, 14 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Back in the late 90's I took COSC 122 at the University of Canterbury. We had to learn functional programming as part of that course - HUGS (it's based on Haskell 98). It never really clicked with me - for some reason my brain would just not understand functional programming.{% img /images/tumblr_leretcb0Sa1qfawn6o1_500.jpg %}

"Updating a UITableView without calling reloadData"

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

For a new app I've been working on for the past few days I wanted to a nice "inline" way of gathering data from the user. Typically, if I've needed to have a user put in more than a single line of text, I would have popped the user to a different screen that has a UITextView as the sole point of focus, get them to type in the data, and then have them navigate back and have the data appear within a tableview.For this new app, I wanted them to be able to enter large amounts of text inline within a cell of a tableview. This also means that the cell would have to dynamically grow and shrink, as the user is entering the data. The UITextView (where the user is entering the data) would need to resize itself based on the users input, as well as the UITableViewCell that contains the text view, and have the UITableView adjust on the fly to the users input.

"Core Data Migrations and Large Data Sets"

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I recently updated Moving Van (you should buy it now!) and published the new version in the app store late last week. It was a substantial update to the application - it had a completely new UI with custom interface controls, as well as a whole stack of features that customers had been asking for - things like room autocompletion, saving images to camera roll, more export options, moving items between boxes etc.As part of this update, I also remodelled the Core Data entities that power the application. The initial model that was used was, let's say, a little naïve in terms of the way that the stored data would impact performance of the application. It stored an image on an item as binary data within the Item entity itself, which in retrospect was a terrible idea because of table view performance. The new version split out the image to a separate entity, which means that when the Item entity loads, the image doesn't get loaded unless explicitly needed because of the faulting behaviour of Core Data and entity relationships.

"UISearchBar's UITextField"

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

For an update that I'm making to Moving Van (you should buy it now!) I need to customise the font that is displayed in a UISearchBar's text field. The search bar does not actually expose it's UITextField property, but because the search bar is a UIView, it's trivial to access the field to allow customisation.

"iBooks Crashing?"

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I'm having a bit of a play with iBooks today, and some 3D model stuff. iBooks has, for me, always crashed when displaying 3D models. I don't have a jailbroken iPad, so it's not a DRM issue (at least not one caused by that). To tell you the truth, I'm not sure what the cause is. But, I do have a fix!

"Housekeeping"

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I currently have around thirteen or so applications developed for iOS that are live in the App Store (and one in development). I have one Mac application (and one in development). I also run an online accounting system, two T-Shirt stores, a postcard printing and shipping business, and a web hosting and technical website build business.That's a lot of stuff for one guy to maintain. Because of the amount of time I have available to dedicate to each, it can be a long time before I get to maintain or market any particular application or service that I've developed. Because of this, the services don't change often, they underperform in the marketplace, and over time the revenues have been decreasing.

"Unit Test Code Coverage with Xcode 4.3.2"

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I upgraded to Xcode 4.3.2 and this seemed to break unit tests on iOS for me.The error that was being reported was: Test rig '/Applications/Xcode.app/.../iPhoneSimulator.platform/.../otest' exited abnormally with code 134 (it may have crashed).

"Continuous Integration and iOS"

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The client project I'm currently working on is quite large. There are over 90 different screens required in the application, and regression testing all of these, with the different data variants and scenarios is not something I'd like to attempt by hand, and is not something I would expect my client to pay for me (or anyone for that matter) to do. Both unit and application tests can be automated, and I figured that this was something that I should do for this project to ensure changes I introduce don't break existing functionality, and any bugs found won't be introduced.To solve this challenge I have introduced a Continuous Integration (CI) server to my workflow. My goals were to have unit and application tests automatically executed when an commit is made to a specific branch in a (local) git repository, and if both of these phases are successful, have the application packaged up, ready for distribution. I also wanted this successful build to be deployed on a daily basis to TestFlight so my client (and any other human testers in the future) could pick it up on their devices. I also wanted code coverage reporting, for both the unit and application tests, so I can see what parts of the application logic and screen flows are actually being tested to give me a level of confidence that the right stuff is getting the attention. The application tests also needed to be executed in a headless manner - I don't have a physically separate machine (or VM) to run the CI server in, so I don't want the simulator popping up and distracting me.

"On hold...temporarily"

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I had some great news last week. A previous client asked me to submit a quote for the full version of a prototype iOS app I had created for him last year. I submitted the proposal, but had assumed he was using it to benchmark other application development companies against. To my surprise, he accepted my proposal, and awarded me the work. It's a substantial piece of work, and technically quite challenging. It also has the potential to be a big innovation on the space it's in, so is exciting from that aspect too.So, I accepted. The issue for me is that this puts my other project on hold for a few months. However, income is good, and this will let me work for longer on my project after I'm done, so it's a positive move.

"User Experience Books"

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

As I alluded to in a previous post, things like User Experience, Human Computer Interaction, and Graphic Design are not my fortes. All my professional software experience until I started iOS development was either in developing (~2 years) or designing/architecting (9+ years) large scale telecommunications software systems (specifically BSS and OSS systems if you're interested). These sorts of systems do not have pretty user interfaces - there is no need to provide them. In fact, the majority of systems I have designed only have human interactions with back-office operators who are Unix system administrators - the main "user" of the system would typically be another system.The users of my new software will be proper "end-users". People who do not use computers for a job. People who are unsure, or even wary about computers for fear of breaking them. People who do not know commands like kill -9 when something isn't working, or even how to drive a CLI.

"Sandboxing"

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Since the last post and this one, we've moved 10500 miles (that's nearly 17,000 kilometres!) and only yesterday got all our utilities sorted out, meaning that I've basically been offline (bar mobile phone for the past 3 weeks). Melbourne is fantastic. I really like it here.Anyway, I've been doing a little bit of work on my application, mostly completion of the requirements, data model, and competitor analysis, as well as reading up a bit on UX and Mac way of doing things (I'll probably cover this in another entry), and most recently have been prototyping some code that I thought would be particularly tricky.

"I'm on a list"

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I attended onedotzero at the British Film Institute. I was invited by alphalabs.cc to their launch event, in conjunction with Microsoft and Nokia.It was pitched as "an experiment that merges technology and the arts" - and this blend (to me at least) is intriguing. Since I discovered "creative coding" I have been fascinated by the experimental applications that fit in this space, so didn't want to miss out on this event. I have no idea how I got an invite... I wonder if it was because I'm a Nokia dev member, or because I have previously been active on the oF forums, or maybe I was just very lucky.

"CASE and Requirements Management"

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I've started the feature & function planning for my application - or really, I've started to identify the requirements for it. I'm starting by evaluating existing applications in the marketplace, considering the functions they support, the data they collect, and how the user navigates through the application. So far, I have about 300 screenshots from various applications, strewn all over the floor of my office, and 4 coloured pens for me to mark up the screenshots. The colours refer to the following areas of requirements or commentary.

"6 < 36"

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Three years eh? I'm planning 6 months.I guess the key difference here is that I'm not planning on having any employees at 6 months. I don't plan on being able to replace the lucrative contracting I've been doing either. In fact, I don't really expect any sales at 6 months.

"Start With the End in Mind"

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The product I'm going to make could be very large. There are loads of features it could support, but one of the first jobs I need to do is decide what it must do for a first release, that delivers value to customers. I've started getting in touch with small business people that I know to understand what they would value in such a product, but there are just so many diverse suggestions, even when I've given them initial scope for what I think the first release could do. I find myself thinking "that's easy, that'll only add a day or two" to certain features, but I'm fairly confident when it comes time to design these things, the duration and complexity will explode.One thing that is common in pharmaceuticals (@mrsrickerby works in that industry, so I have a little understanding of how things work there) is that a "Core Data Sheet" - aka a core product specification - is written before and during development and testing of the product . This document specifies needs and wants which at the end of each phase of development are used as the yardstick to make go/no-go decisions. For example, if you want to show a 5% improvement in some disease state but your phase 2 study doesn't achieve this, you stop development. It is a living document which, as data is collected, the actual product profile is documented which ultimately becomes the package insert (the bit of paper in the box).

"Work Plans"

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

As part of moving to Melbourne, I need to decide what I'm going to do to generate income. Traditionally I would either take a Senior Solutions Architect or Enterprise Architect job in a telco, or look for an equivalent role contracting. I think that's not going to be the case quite yet.After talking to @mrsrickerby at the pub about this (all our big decisions are made at the pub), we collectively decided that I am going to continue to work for myself. Not as a contractor though, but trying to create a sustainable software company, that is more than a 1 man band.

"Big Changes"

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Big changes are taking place. My wife @mrsrickerby and I have decided that we are going to move to Australia. Well, not so much that we are going to move to Australia, more like we are moving. At the start of December 2011. To a city I have never been to before. Melbourne.The rationale behind the move is that we would both like to be closer to our families. We're both from New Zealand, and the UK for us was only ever temporary. We've been here 5 years, and it's time to move on. We've had a good time here. Reading is the place I've spent the 3rd most time in, only being beaten by Auckland (if you count living in a hotel in Sydney for 9 months as living in Auckland), and Christchurch where I spent just over 21 years.

'iPhone & iPad (iOS) Localizations and Regions '

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I have been doing some localizations of an iOS app from English (US) to English (UK). The iPhone development guides from Apple describe how to support multiple languages (such as English, German, Japanese), but fail to describe how to support multiple variants of a single language. By this I mean support support for US English, English, NZ English, AU English. The word I needed to regionalize was Behavior (or Behaviour, depending where you come from).In the Apple Developer Library, it explicitly states that for MacOS applications take both the Language and Regional preferences of the user into account, but only look at the preferred language on iOS - Support for Internationalization. This means that a single variant per language is supported.

Moving Van

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday when I came home Moving Van's sales were up. I was a bit surprised as I hadn't done any specific marketing for the app, and what was really odd is that they were only up for the UK. A little investigation and I discover that Moving Van has been featured as "New and Noteworthy" in the iTunes Store UK.

Ad from Digg

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Seriously, WTF? I assume it's some sort of movie tie-in...

'Calculate age in objective-c '

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

For an iPhone application I'm developing for a client I need to capture the birthdate of a user, and then show their age on a profile screen. I went looking for a function to help with this simple and tedious task, but couldn't find any example code that could be lifted to help me, so I rolled my own. Here is what I made, steal as you see fit.

iPhone Camera Overlays + iphonearkit

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Today I have been hacking away on the iphonearkit source available at github and have incorporated the ARGeoViewController as an overlay over a ImagePickerController with the camera as the source (which was introduced with iPhone OS 3.1). Results below.

Augmented Reality - Hello World

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I've recently discovered augmented reality. After I saw my first "virtual business card" application I was hooked. I've been doing a lot of reading and experimenting with software over the past 2 days, and have got ARToolkit working here. Here are some shots of the obligitory "cube over marker" demo. I would post a video, but my screen capture software and AR software = a really poor frame rate and substandard video :-(

No, I don't agree

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Tough luck - the box is un-uncheckable.I guess it's one way to make sure that people accept your terms & conditions - force them to. One less click.

'Kit Quiz: UK'

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

My 4th iPhone application was approved yesterday by Apple, and it launches in the iTunes store today. It's called Kit Quiz: UK and is a UK team based football (soccer) shirt quiz game. It features over 130 shirts from UK football teams, and will have more added shortly. There are 3 modes of gameplay, from the practise model "Friendly" to a time challenge "Blitz".

Passenger (Ruby on Rails) + PHP on OSX

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I've spent the last hour or so trying various things out to get passenger and PHP to play nicely together on my mac under OS X (Leopard) and apache2.The situation I was finding was that PHP apps would run, but only if you explicitly call the script (ie index.php) rather than just the directory. If you called the directory, passenger would take over and give me a rails routing error.

'123456789'

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Today in the UK the time hit 12:34:56 7/8/9. Not exciting for everyone I guess, but it won't happen again for another 100 years.

Undefined method rewind and rails 2.3.3

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Today I updated a project I'm working on from rails 2.2.something to 2.3.3. Then, I started getting the following wacky error.

USSD Codes on iPhone

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

makeuseof.com have recently posted about 11 cool iPhone keypad codes - these are special codes (known as USSD codes) that send messages via the signalling channel direct to the core of a mobile operators network. These codes are nothing new, they have been around for years and years. They are also not generally universal (there are some standard, but they provide relatively boring functionality). Different networks can enable different functionality on different codes.The codes can do boring things like retrieve your divert status from the network, return your IMEI or perhaps ICCID, but they can also interact with specialised applications driven via USSD Gateways to return useful information and execute transactions. These are applications that are sent specific codes by an operators core network, perform some processing on the data received, and return a response. Things that are non-standard that are enabled by USSD Gateways are services such as USSD-based prepay balance retrieval, USSD-topup, or interactions with NGIN features to alter a network based service.

Yahoo and Microsoft - Micro-hoo, or Bingy!

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The recent deal announced between Microsoft and Yahoo strikes me as odd.I understand that they are looking to create a competitor to Google in both search and advertising, but the "price paid" seems very high - at least on the part of Yahoo.

iTunes Connect now has keywords

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Apple have added an extra attribute to applications on iTunes store - keywords.You can configure your keywords with the "Edit Information" link against the application. SendIt4.me (iTMS) has already been updated :-)

My first iPhone app approved - finally

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Send real postcards to your family and friends with SendIt4.me, now available as an iPhone client. The application is 100% free and each postcard you send will cost $2USD. The postcards can be sent anywhere in the world, and postage time is dependent on your international and local mail services (they are posted from the US, so if you live there you should get it quicker).Download now!

Feedzirra

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Feedzirra is an RSS feed fetching and parsing library that I quite like. For a project I'm working on with a mate we need to be able to parse and receive updates from (potentially) a large number of RSS feeds. Feedzirra seemed the ticket, but didn't have support for itunes style RSS feeds - so I added it.This was basically my first (well, second, but that wasn't public) go with github, and first contribution to an open source project. Paul Dix accepted my code, and I'm oddly excited about it all.

ESTA and Confusion

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I went to look at the ESTA website today as my girlfriend needs to apply for one of these authorisations to be allowed to travel to the US.The website was very intimidating, and confusing.

Dealing with SemanticHacker in Ruby

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I'm having a bit of a play with SemanticHacker at the moment, seeing what their service thinks of some text I'm poking at it. To make this a bit simpler I created a small ruby lib that wraps their API to make my life a little easier. And hopefully it'll make someone elses life easier - enjoy.(It requires hpricot for XML parsing - make sure it's installed)

Installing f2c on a mac

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I have recently had to install f2c on my mac to convert Fortran to C code - for the gory details about this library check http://www.netlib.org/f2c/f2c.pdfAlso, don't ask why I'm installing this - lets just say there is some maths that needs doing, and fortran has the libraries to help with it.

cocos2d-iphone blocking touch events

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The game development is going well so far. From yesterday when I knew NOTHING about game development I've managed to figure out how to use sprites, labels, timed actions, sequenced actions, scenes and layers with cocos2d-iphone.I did hit a strange error though. On the simulator the touch events were working correctly - screens transitioning, sprite/label touches generating events and triggering animation and so on. On the actual device the story was quite different. My menu items were triggering correctly, but no subsequent touch events were doing anything on the phone. When the application exited (home button) all the touch events were then passed through as I could see them all fly up the screen in the console.

error on line 1987

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I am having a bit of a play with the cocos2d game engine for iPhone and encountered a very strange error in the console - I don't believe it's at all related to the game engine itself, so it's just coincidence that I was trying something new out.error while killing target (killing anyway): warning: error on line 1987 of "/SourceCache/gdb/gdb-962/src/gdb/macosx/macosx-nat-inferior.c" in function "macosx_kill_inferior_safe": (os/kern) failure (0x5x)

User Preferences on iPhone

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Getting and setting user preferences on iPhone is pretty darn easy. I was looking for a way to automagically store a users email address between different application sessions, and found the linked tutorial immensely helpful (iphonedevelopertips.com).I needed to store a string (NSString object actually) however, and the tutorial didn't help me with that. The NSUserDefaults object has dedicated methods for storing and retrieving BOOL, float, and NSInteger values. It also has a setObject:forKey: method - which is what I ended up using. The setObject method handles data of types NSData, NSString, NSDate, NSArray or NSDictitionary - making it incredibly useful indeed.

'Last Days: Woolworths'

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Went into Woolies here in Reading a couple of days ago to see what was left on the shelves. They truly are selling everything. People were literally buying the shelves the remaining products were sitting on. I also saw them offering the tills for £150 - considered getting one so I could play shopkeeper, but no.Some pics of the carnage

Zazzle discount vouchers / codes

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I received a package I ordered from Zazzle today and it contained some discount vouchers that I won't be using. Codes below - tell me if they don't work so I can update the post to show they are gone.

Memory Management in Objective-C

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I was having some issues with Memory Management and dealloc'ing objects (and subsequently crashing software) and found the following resources very useful:

Car tries to climb fence in Reading

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is what I saw on my way home from work today.

Dodgy Supermarkets

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Sainsburys have X-rated cereals apparently. I didn't see any actual X-rated material though.

What I like about working at my companys offices

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

On client sites I don't get a desk phone. I like desk phones.In newbury Waitrose has a poor selection of sushi. In Canary Wharf there is an itsu. I like sushi.

LinkedIn iPhone Application

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Old news, but new for me today.LinkedIn have released an iPhone app. I'm a big fan and user of their app, and I think keeping up to date has just become a lot easier with this iPhone app.

Firefox 3.0.3 and 500 Internal Errors with Javascript

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I had a very confusing situation today with a multipart form that was for uploading a picture to a new web service I'm working on.In Safari the form upload worked. Even in Internet Explorer 6 the form upload worked (after I fixed the dodgy MIME-type that IE passes through for JPG images - image/pjpeg for those interested).

Great job title

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Group Manager of Enforcementand it's not what you're thinking...

Underacheiving

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Carling has a campaign here - "probably the best beer in the world". I found tonight they have been beaten in terms of finding marketing phrases that suck.

Is it just a kiwi thing?

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Air New Zealand has recently launched a new campaign. What makes me chuckle, and angry is the folllowing ad:

NZ don't get no respect!

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I've recently transferred some funds internationally. To do this I needed a special account code so that the bank I'm sending money to know which of the accounts they hold should receive it. This number is a conventional looking account number, prefixed with a country code, and a checksum value. There is also a website that checks them - http://www.apacs.org.uk/payments_industry/ibans_5.htmlPutting in a country that they can't check the actual account number for causes their little javascript application to unleash a serious dissing.

People as assets

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I was sitting at a desk last week and overheard a man yelling down a phone to someone else that "People aren't an asset. They don't appear on a balance sheet". I agree with that view - not because of the strict accounting definition of an asset, but because of what I believe people in companies should mean (either consciously or subconsciously) when humans are called assets.Companies refer to humans as assets for 2 reasons. (1) To make employees feel good and (2) because of the value they create for and contribute to the business.

on getting a site into google. Abridged.

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

me: Countees isn't in google yetsomeone else: You have to put it in there?

Amazons MP3 offer

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I got an email yesterday from Amazon.com about the Verve's new album Forth. They were offering me a free, DRM free download of their latest song "Love is Noise". Having not heard anything out of the Verve for a while I was interested, and free is a pretty good price so I went to download.The first thing I was unimpressed with was the Amazon.com downloader they tried to install on my machine. I understand that some people may not understand how to add MP3s to iTunes, but the "skip this step" link to me was not in an intuitive place. So, I accidentally downloaded it, went back to the page, then found the skip link.

iPhone 2.0.2 Software Update

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Apple released this update a day or two ago. I installed it yesterday morning.Unhappy customer.

Dumb Things Company Websites Dont, But Should Do

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Opening hours. I want them on every physical stores, restaurants, and bars website. They do good store locators in the UK, I guess it's because postcodes are everywhere, everyone knows them and they identify a very small area (a street, or part of a street). How come stores, when thinking about the data on their store locator, don't include opening hours. Address and phone are always there, but when I'm going home on the train I want to know if my local stores will still be open when I get there.Oh well, no spending at that particular store tonight.

Radiant CMS Tutorial - Custom Javascript in Admin Pages

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

At the moment I'm working on a fairly complex extension for Radiant CMS. In creating the administrative pages I want to use a javascript library that is not distributed with the core radiant code. This post will describe how to implement your own extension that can use an external javascript library, without playing around with any of the core radiant files to inject the javascript into the administrative layout.It's actually really easy to do. If you haven't created a Radiant extension before I'd recommend following this tutorial on the Radiant wiki.

Google's AJAX Libraries API

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This might be old news (released end of May, I'm soooo behind the times), but Google are supporting hosting for popular javascript libraries, and they are promoting people using their copies of the libraries rather than hosting their own. I only just found this out, and I think it's pretty coolhttp://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlibs/

There is a better way (and it's about time I started showing people)

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Recent blog post from 37 signals - What you expect from clients is what you getIt's interesting - I see exactly the same thing in organisations I've worked for and with (I mainly deal with very large multi-national companies). One organisation in particular has a long history of process, and gates, and hoops, and requirements, and documentation, and review periods, and signoffs. Those things aren't necessarily bad, but this organisation also has a long history of burning money, and not delivering anything.

invisibleSHIELD discount codes

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I ordered an invisibleSHIELD from zagg.com for my iPhone 3G today - and they gave me 2x discount codes for 20% off in their online store. I don't need them, so I'm posting them below. If they don't work (they are one use only) let me know and I'll post a comment saying they're gone.4w5vfh

Lost followers on Twitter

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Twitter seems to be having some issues, well, more issues than normal. I was surprised to not get any updates on Twitterrific on my iphone today, so though I'd check out what was going down on their site. It appears that I've lost all of the people I was following, and all of my followers. A quick check with some of the followers as well, and they've lost all their contacts.Come on Twitter, what's going on?

Wordpress for iphone

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This morning I saw on the iTunes store that Automattic had their wordpress iPhone application released. I promptly downloaded and installed it onto my new phone. I'm writing this entry on it now and it seems pretty good. You can upload photos but I think writing HTML will be a bit of a pain, but for a quick blog post it seems to do the job. I say if you have an iPhone and a wordpress based blog then this is a good application to have, and the price can't be beat.Update: uploading a photo causes my iPhone to crash. I'll try again :-S Hmmm, it worked that time.

Not all software is created equal

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The types of companies I (used to) work for and (now) consult to, love release management. At least their IT people do.For those who are not in the know, check out the following 2 resources for a bit of background

Redesigned Glimmer Design

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I spent the day reworking Glimmer Design. I always intended to - the template I had on there was good, but not quite what I was after. I had a think last week about what I'd like the site to look like, and I made it today.

Wordpress migration - again

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I've updated Wordpress, AND migrated my two blogs together to be one, again.I've also tried to support the existing feeds - so I've got a couple of permanent redirects in the .htaccess files to sort them out. So, if your feeds don't work anymore, your crappy feedreader doesn't support the HTTP specification correctly.

Mnemonic Password Generator - a la Ruby

Sat, 31 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to have a mnenonic password generator for a little application that I'm writing in ruby, and couldn't find one out there. So, I rolled my own. Actually, it's a knock-off of a Python one I found, but that doesn't really matter.Do with this what you will. Hope it's useful to someone.

Podcasts

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I've been struggling to find podcasts that I really dig. Redmonk radio lost me as a listener. I thought their early episodes (up to around 40 or so) were great. A good mix of strategy, business, and IT - in a general sense. I'm quite an enterprise focussed generalist, so that really appealed to me. However, recently they have released the RIA and IT Management podcasts, and they are not for me at all - so I unsubscribed.I went looking last night for some new podcasts in iTunes that might appeal to me. I found a couple, but am still left unimpressed.

Flash!

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I'm doing a bit of Flash work for a mate who is setting up a website to host video. One of the problems I just solved was how to get some text to flow around an image. I was hoping there would be some sort of way to make a textfield of arbitrary shape (with vectors or something) because I really wanted an L shaped textfield, so I could place an image in the upper left corner, but sadly, they are just rectangles. I found this post though, and the solution was so simple.Just convert the textfield to Render text as HTML! Put your normal HTML tags in, and it's all good bro.

No work for 1 week!

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Well, last friday (29th) was my last day at Vodafone Group Services. It feels a bit weird not working there anymore, although I don't even know if it's really hit me. After 8+ years in the same group of companies it's just a bit strange to be out.I've got a new role at a consultancy based in London, starting with some intensive training on the 10th March. Should be very interesting to start working on the other side of the consultant/customer relationship. I'm really looking forward to it - it'll be great to be able to interact with a wider range of companies, industries and perform a much more cross-functional role. It should be great! And finally being able to feel like I'm delivering value to people and organisations again - that will be the most rewarding part of the move (of course, I have been delivering value for the past 8 years, it's just in the last 2 it's been in a very different way - all advice and recommendations, rather than something tangible).

MacBook Air - UK Keyboard

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Arrrrgggg!When I ordered my MacBook Air the only options I had for keyboard were UK English, and French. No US English when ordering from the UK store you see. So, I was trying to hack around with rcov today, and needed to alter some source. I wanted to copy and edit a line of code, preserving the original. To do this, I was just going to hash out the line, and put my altered line below. That's where I encountered my issue.

Open Source is a Meritocracy

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

For those of you unfamiliar with the term... Meritocracy.CotÃ© from Redmonk quoted the title of this entry in episode 14 of Redmonk Radio. Again, it's another quote that was like an "Oh yeah" moment for me. In companies where you produce software (usually) the project timeline or budget is king. In the open source movement, the best ideas take as long to get implemented as needed - there is no overriding time line that says you must ship that feature by this date. Also, in distributed projects there can be healthy debate about the best way to implement things - the ideas and implementations with the best merit win.

Coding vs Configuration - The vendors are missing the point, and the customers

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Large software vendors do (often in the long term) listen and act on what their customers say they want. However, implementations are still missing the point. What customers say they want and what they actually want can be very different things.Historically people (like me) in enterprises have harped on to vendors for years about how we want their large enterprise applications to be more configuration driven rather than coding driven. The actual purpose behind this was about time to market, resource availability with the necessary skill sets required to maintain and alter the application, effort around testing and deployment, and certainty about the validity of the syntax and sensibility of the customisation. Vendors have responded by closing the code base, but offering more complex configuration environments - which is exactly what we have asked for (see next paragraph about how we have asked for the changes). However, what they have provided doesn't meet the actual business goals of the request. For example, I've been recently looking at some Product Configuration software that has a guided Java coding environment for rules definition. This doesn't actually make the implementation simpler. It means that your (previously) relatively unskilled (and that's flame bait if ever I've seen it) configuration staff have to significantly increase their skills to match those of java developers. Its called "configuration" because its done in a "configuration" tool. The configuration tool is as much a config tool as Eclipse is (which has code completion BTW, is equally applicable for the task, probably nicer to use and definitely cheaper). What it's done is moved the effort from the development staff, to the configuration staff. Assuming staff are happy with what they do, developers are unlikely to want to join a "configuration" team, and configurators are unlikely to want to gain development skills. One may also argue that your testing and deployment efforts are more difficult, because the coding that was done by people who know how to code, is now done by people who don't know how to code - this in my mind introduces more risk. You also don't know which parts of the application are affected by this complex configuration activity, and this may drive for more rather than less regression testing.

Ouch! Google’s response to the Microsoft bid for Yahoo.

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

That's some strong language there Dr. Drummond. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/yahoo-and-future-of-internet.html

Requirements of Charles Schwab

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I was listening to a Redmonk Podcast on the train on the way home from work today, and James from Redmonk said something that struck a chord with me. The quote was...

Time for the big upgrade

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Righto, I've been putting it off long enough. Got the GiST has been running on rails 1.1.6 almost since it has been launched, and I'd like to take advantage on some of that RESTful 2.0 goodness. So, I've decided it's time to upgrade it.I've got a couple of issues though. I currently use (shhhh, I'm about to say a dirty word) Engines to handle my user logins and roles... They don't work with much past rails 1.1.6. I also don't have good admin screens on the application, and whenever I need to do maintenance (which is very rare) I need to go and edit the database directly :-(

Intervention multiplies like lies

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Economist published a story called "The end of cheap food".It has a couple of interesting quotes:

Automator - Automation of sending email with attachments

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today I had my first experience creating a VERY simple workflow with Automator.

2 steps to happy tax in the UK

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My Credit Card says "Owie"!

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Look what I just pre-ordered...

Confusing Marketing Messages

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Sun, what are you up to?Install java to experience the power of java? What is that supposed to mean?

Stupid word

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

wtf?

Amsterdam

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

AMC and I went to Amsterdam to celebrate my birthday this year. It's an interesting place. I found the whole experience odd, but enjoyable. It's a strange mix of people there - I guess we were there for the weekend, so perhaps got the weekend crowds. There were lots of stags/hens parties, all stumbling around the red light district, being enticed into BananaBar (or whatever it was called) for some live action, and the coffeehuis situation is a bit odd too. It's quite fun seeing people totally off their chops stumbling around the streets.So, what did we do/see?

Poor Analytics

Fri, 25 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Boots! What are you doing?

New addition to the garden

Fri, 25 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Roll on summer I say. I just need to hook myself up with some propane, and some meat.

Off to Bruges

Fri, 25 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I'm taking AMC away for a weekend in Bruges.

Getting Things Done

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

(from wikipedia)

Betavine

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

(Disclosure: I work for Vodafone Group Services - but I think this is a great idea regardless)Vodafone have launched a new developer community site called Betavine - http://www.vodafonebetavine.net .

Europe in 2007

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I've been reading The Economist's "The World in 2007" today. It looks like their predictions for 2007 in economics, business, politics - sort of a what's going to happen in '07.One thing that I just get this feeling about when I read about the political situation in Europe in terms of predictions (and known events) for '07, is that Europe is due some sort of flood of innovation. I've been seeing and hearing about the Europeans becoming more and more prevalent on the (please excuse the buzzword) Web 2.0 scene, and I just get this sense that something is going to happen this year. I'd like to think that Silicon Valley buzz will die down, in favour of a Silicon Continent buzz.

scRUBYt - Hot, New Ruby Web-Scraping Toolkit Released

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

scRUBYt - Hot, New Ruby Web-Scraping Toolkit Released Peter Cooper over at rubyinside.com has recently blogged about scRUBYt - a new ruby based web scraping toolkit.It looks super-powerful.

Political Allegiance

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I've been struggling for a long time to find a party, or ideology that I agree with politically. I have strong beliefs but I have struggled to find a ideology that they fit within. Today, I discovered it.I reckon I'm a Libertarian.

mojax

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Today, thanks to one of the mailing lists I subscribe to, I learnt about mojax.

Lonely, lonely classes

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I just had my most pleasant experience with Singletons ever. I had a little problem I was trying to solve in ruby, and I contacted a friend of mine who is quite a good developer. He suggested I should be looking at global variables, to static (class) variables, or singletons. I gave globals a go, and they didn't give me the love I expected, so I said "bye bye" to them - probably never to be used again. I next tried Singletons.Ruby defines a Singleton module. This is mixin'd with your code thusly:

Taking the Vietnam out of Iraq

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Taking the Vietnam out of IraqJenna sent me a link to this story on the BBC web site - it's interesting. The parallels between the conflict in Vietnam and Iraq are clear to me. However, an exit strategy for this current conflict needs to be carefully executed. A cut-and-run is not an option. The country will be left open, and crippled. I personally would like the US out of there as soon as possible, not because I have any specific alliance to Iraq, but I just don't think they should be creating and sustaining an unjust and illegal war. I am an advocate of a medium paced exit, with creation of stability within the country, and leaving it in a state so that it has a good chance of sorting itself out with a positive result. I don't fancy the chances of a positive result if they just up and leave.

iTV becomes Apple TV - Engadget

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This is a device I was excited about, but now, meh. iTV becomes Apple TVNo 1080 High Def???

The Apple iPhone - Engadget

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

How about that. The rumours were right. At MacWorld today: The Apple iPhoneIt looks like it will be supporting Wifi, EDGE, camera, GSM, iTunes and has a camera (if you look at the screen shots carefully). It DOESN'T mention any 3G service, so it looks like video calling will be out, and I assume the camera is on the back (which means it'd be not so cool for video - it's good to have picture in picture so you can ensure you're actually in frame).

Sick

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I'm off work sick today. It really hit me yesterday, I was feeling so crappy last night, and today is sort of on par, but I get the sense I'm getting better. Although this does give me the opportunity to catch up on some feeds that I haven't looked at in a bit.I seem to be sneezing a lot, and have runny nose, and a headache, and blocked sinuses. I put getting sick down to my last couple of weeks of drinking a lot, not eating well and not sleeping much. I think being generally run down has taken its toll on my immunity, and now I'm paying the price.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | REM gain rock Hall of Fame place

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The BBC say: BBC NEWS | Entertainment | REM gain rock Hall of Fame place

VerseLogic » Wordpress OpenID Plugin

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I just installed the VerseLogic wordpress OpenID plugin. This means that you guys (if you have an OpenID already) don't have to explicitly register on my site to comment. You can just log in with your OpenID, and an account will be created here for you. No more passwords!You can get a free OpenID at http://myopenid.com/

Wall Calendar

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Now, I don't actually read or subscribe to Martha Stewarts web site, but I found on del.icio.us a link to a Wall Calendar. This is a calendar that you paint on you wall with blackboard paint (mixed with a number of greys), so you can write on it. I want to have a blackboard door or area in my kitchen in my new house, so I can write notes up, but a wall calendar is such an excellent idea.Check it out.

Sneaky old TextDrive

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Well, TextDrive have just confused me! There is an apache_module (I think) that checks for offending strings that are sent to the textdrive servers. I wanted to (in my last post) explain that I used "wget" to get the RSS feed from my blogspot account, but I figured out that they didn't like me using the phrase "wget" in my previous post.Explanation (kind of) is available here. Short answer is that the phrase "wget" (minus the quotes) followed by a space is not allowed. Crazy, huh?

Goodbye Blogger, Hello WordPress!

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Well, I've just spent the last wee while migrating my account from http://rickerbh.blogspot.com to http://blog.hamishrickerby.com So, you'll now be reading this on my fancy new self-hosted WordPress instance.The migration process was relatively simple. TextDrive made it a piece of cake for the installation process, I only had a small issue with the migration of my data across. It was only yesterday that I upgraded my blogger account from the old version, to their new (no longer beta) version, and changed all my templates as well. Because of this, I couldn't use the automatic import facility on WordPress as it doesn't yet support the new blogger. I checked out a couple of articles on the web on how to import between the two, but the BEST thing I found to do (and this is suitable for me because I don't really mind that I lost comments on my blog) was export all the articles as 1 large RSS feed, and them import them back into wordpress. Blogger confused me a little because the default RSS feed didn't support all of my comments, but I found that using the following URL, I could get all the data out that I needed

'Value Migration: How to Think Several Moves Ahead of the Competition'

Sat, 23 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

(reposted from my entry at allconsuming.net)

A story about "Saturday Morning Cartoons' Greatest Hits"

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

What an absolutely fun album.My picks: Liz Phair w/ Material Issue – The Tra La La SongMary Lou Lord w/ Semisonic – Sugar SugarFrente – Let the sun shine inViolent Femmes – Eep Opp Ork Ah-AhDig – Fat AlbertSublime – Hong Kong PhooeyThere were only a couple of tracks I didn’t enjoy, and they were…Butthole Surfers – UnderdogHelmet – GigantorGood stuff.

A story about "Kin-dza-dza"

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

What a strange movie. With my job I have recently been on a cross-cultural training course, the objective of which was to enable you to understand drivers of behaviour in different cultures. What was particularly interesting about this to me was the way that the foreigners learnt the strange new culture, and how the changes stuck with them. And i guess trying to understand (as an observer) what is going thru the foreigners heads. Perhaps it would have been more clear to me if I lived in the USSR (as it was known) in the 1980’s…Anyway, very good movie, Russian language so there’s a bit of reading for non-russian speakers like me, well worth it.Koo!

I got back in touch...

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

...with a friend from New Zealand a couple of days ago. I hadn’t heard from or seen him since October 2006, and it was good to hear from him. I had to do some digging as I had an old email address, but I found a newer one and things are good.ALSO, I’m going to London tonight (assuming I’m feeling better by mid afternoon) to see a couple of old friends. One I saw about 6 or so weeks ago, but one I haven’t seen in nearly 7 years. It’ll be cool to catch up with her again.I really like finding out what people are up to, I think I might have to keep on top of this goal, recontacting people, restablishing friendship – it’s great.

Off to Paris...

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

...this weekend. Another one down soon :-)I also went to Malta with work, which was pretty cool. So, I’m currently at 13%

More trips to add!

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

hehehe. So, since I’ve joined head office here in the UK I’ve had 3 trips away.2x Dusseldorf (becoming old hat)1x Malta – that was a good trip. Got to meet some new people, discuss some good technology, and got to go to a new place. With the addition of this (and my recent trip to Sweden as well) I’ve now seen 13% of Europe. Got to get that up tho!

A story about "Pink Floyd - The Wall"

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I think more bands should be involved with movie production. You get something completely different with them. And I’m not talking about “bands” like The Spice Girls, Mariah, or Britney Spears (cause they’ve all made awful movies).This was well worth the watch.

I just got back...

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

...from my new favourite place on earth. The city is beautiful, the people are beautiful, they dress super well (the place just exudes style), the autumn weather is fantastic. I had a such a good weekend! I will be going back to Sweden again. It’s great.

Just came back from...

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

...Stockholm in Sweden. Great trip.According to this list I’m 11% of my way through Europe. I’ve got lots more planned, but nothing new booked.

A story about "Out of Nothing"

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Good stuff. I hadn’t heard of these guys before Saturday night (they were playing at my work party – my company rocks in that respect). I liked them there, and then got some of their tunes. I’m really quite impressed – how popular are these guys out of the UK?

Boring and predictable

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I didn’t enjoy this at all. I found it quite boring, I felt no suspense, or thrill from it. It wasn’t scary. I’m quite disappointed. There were some very odd shots in the movie, my guess is that they are probably reminiscent of the original. The reason I say that is that some of the shots felt very hitchcock-esque, and I find often old murder/mystery/thrillers have that sort of feeling. I will try to watch the original, see if I enjoy that more.

I Spent What?!

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

When I came to the UK, I lived by myself for about 5 weeks. In between the going out to experience english culture (read: going to the pub) and working (read: not doing much), I decided that I would implement an application from my to-do list of applications that I want to create. I put the application that I was writing on hold (and I'll probably start it up again soonish I think) and I set about writing I Spent What?!WTF?

A story about "Solaris"

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I love the empty feeling that space movies often have. This movie seemed very similar to 2001 in that respect. Good stuff. And, of course I love the clean, minimalist, stark interior design of the future.Good movie, now I want to see the original.

News about Caversham

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I’m moving here! It’s pretty big news.On the 20th of August I’m moving out of Newbury, into my new flatshare with 2 others (who seem VERY nice people) in Caversham, Reading. I’m very excited about it all actually, I get to almost maximise my free company provided accommodation, and then I get to move into a nice, tidy flat, with fun, friendly people.Woohoo!

A story about "Under the Table and Dreaming"

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I just found this entire album weak and soulless. Like they were just playing and singing with nothing behind it. Obviously I’m setting myself up for some flaming here, but this just was not for me.:-(

Grrrrr.

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I had a bad experience with a plumber. In short, he replaced parts of a hot water cylinder that weren’t busted, and left me with no hot water after working at my place for over 4 hours. I’ve been getting statements from them saying it’s overdue, I’ve called them twice, and they’ve said both times they’ll get the manager to call me back, and they haven’t. So, I’m writing a letter, with the help of my editing staff and I’ll get my parents to post it (as I’m no longer in the country).Anyway, if you are in NZ I recommend AGAINST using Mr Plumber

1 week down

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been living in Newbury just over a week now. The place seems alright. The rumors about it that I had heard were much worse than it’s turned out to be. It’s an old market town in the countryside in england, and it’s just as you expect. There are some quite picturesque parts of it, there’s lots of pubs, the bars and nightclubs are quite average, and everyone here seems to work for Vodafone. Food seems expensive, the Thai here is awful, I’m yet to try some fish n’ chips and a curry, but I’ll bet they’re good. I would like to spend more time here, I’ve met some good people, but I need to find a place to live more permanently, and it sadly won’t be Newbury.

Stickers, medals or cards?