Disorganised

May 8th, 2009 | General, Life, Ramblings | 3 Comments »

So, I have a week till my portfolio is due in. My portfolio is the body of work which I’ve handed in to various modules throughout this year. After trying to find all of the work I’ve done, I’ve sadly come to realise what a terrible filing system I have.

It’s not as if I haven’t done this before. I did it last year, and as far as I can remember I vouched never to forget this and organise my work . Well, that lasted, didn’t it?

Currently I have about 1 TB worth of storage in various hard drives, of which most is full. Most of that is stored in one particular folder as well. C:\Users\Craig\Desktop\stuff. That particular folder currently houses over 18,000 files and most of my coursework for this year. Best of all, most of this I no longer required, it’s just I can’t be bothered to clean up.

While I do strive for minimalism, when I loose organisation on my drive I also loose it in real life. The clutter is back in my flat, and I have to force myself to throw things out that I haven’t used for ages. Minidisk player? Thrown out. Broken iPod shuffle 1g? Why do I still have this? Various 5Gb ATA Hard Drives? WTF? I’ve been ruthless.

With changes in my life and a lot more stress due to my mum being in hospital, I’ve let the mess pile up. I’ve been on standby to rush off at a moments notice to see my mum ‘just in case’, but unconsciously. I’ve left my bag packed since I came back, I’ve been buying food by the day so if there’s any problems nothing will be wasted. I’ve been keeping my phone on charge instead of letting it die every few days.

I didn’t tell you, but I found out some things after my sister came up from Edinburgh. She heard from my aunt, who happens to be a doctor, that she didn’t expect my mum to get through the coma she was in. She’s been fairly stable since, but last night she started having problems again. I’m always on standby.

I’m thinking a lot about her right now, but I’ve got my studies as well. I’m so disorganised.

On other news, check out my new podcast website, the Kilted Cast. We’re hoping to release our first episode on Monday, but feel free to check us out and leave comments! :)

[Photo Credit - Alphabetical by Marcin Wichary]

my probably pointless attempt at vlogging

May 4th, 2009 | Video | No Comments »

I’ve been working a lot.  Partly on actual work, and the rest of my time is going on current secret project #1–which isn’t so secret. Here’s something to fill the void.

Thoughts On Starting A Podcast

May 3rd, 2009 | General | 2 Comments »

Back from the Dead

April 28th, 2009 | General, Life, Ramblings | 2 Comments »

You would have thought that with all this time I’ve been away I would have travelled far away to Egypt or something.  Well, I did, and no–I didn’t see any mummies.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for little old me.  The holiday in itself was a fun adventure and I had little complaints (well, there was the heat… and the sun… and the… i’ll shut up now).  I’ll get back to that later.

What’s more interesting, of course, is what happened after I returned home from my sunny travels.  I’ve been busy working on a few projects and was happy to find out that vacationeer worked perfectly in my absence.  But when I made my way home my mother was not in a good state.  She has a massive infection in both her legs and when the doctor came round we found she was highly anemic.  We got her into the Royal Infirmary Hospital at little past 9pm on Wednesday for an emergency blood transfusion.  She’s still there, slowly recuperating under the watchful eyes of nurses and various different medical students trying to figure out what’s wrong with her.

While this was going on, my cousin Chloe even managed to make a visit to the hospital!  She wasn’t there on a visiting a patient though–she went straight to the maternity ward.  Labour was induced  and she gave birth to 7lb baby boy called Aidan.  It was a tricky birth, but everyone seems ok in the end.  I’ll need to meet up with my uncle at some point and congratulate him on becoming a grandad!  Oh, and my cousin–it’s freaky to think she’s a mother!

Before travelling back up to Dundee I wasn’t just sitting on my thumbs thinking tech.  I was working on getting my room up to scratch in the house for my return to Edinburgh in a month’s time.  I don’t like the fact that for three months I have to relinquish my favoured independence to live with the parents being told when to eat and when to go to bed.  But, that’s life.

With a little time (how does three days sound?) I managed to modify it from being used as a store-room to being a clean, minimalistic room with plenty of space left clear.  I even modified my cupboard, which was being used unfortunately to store jackets, into a server closet full of all the kit to keep a test server running while I’m down there.

Things are looking up, until I have to pack.

I hope you’re all doing well.  I’ve missed reading blogs and as you may be able to read via this post, I definitely need to work on writing a little more.  My writing skill will come back, won’t it?

p.s. I just put up Corinne’s new blog theme (WIP) and I’d love you to check it out, as well as check out some of her posts.  She’s going through a little downer right now so be nice if you leave a comment.  Hopefully I’ll be able to make her blog more soon, and maybe even make her write about things that are a little bit more upbeat!

Forgot to say…

April 11th, 2009 | General | 1 Comment »

I’m on holday and didn’t have time to write any posts. I’ll be back next tuesday.

Plurk user?

April 8th, 2009 | General | No Comments »

I’ve just released my plurk application vacationeer to the world that allows you to schedule plurks to be sent at a later date/time.

If you’re a plurk user, and like me, you’re going on holiday. You might want to give this a shot. Tell me what you think, i’d appreciate it, but remember that’s it’s in the early stages of development and could do with a LOT more work… I only made this in 24 hours you know!

New Design Concept & Statistics

April 6th, 2009 | General, Lists | 2 Comments »

Before all those feed-reading peeps run to my page looking for a new design, it’s not ready yet. It’s still in the design phase but there’s only one page left… the home page.

For once I haven’t started with that infamous page in the hope that I would spend my time on this design, and I have. But now I’m left thinking… what do I put there?

Here’s a few facts, and I’ll be asking questions on each one!

Approximately 50% of my visitors come to my blog homepage first.

This is important. That means that it has to be good for all those people trying to catch up from recently or see the best as they can. So is it best to keep the traditional full-article approach or give you snippets of all the lastest posts?

42% of my visitors use Internet Explorer (and 11% of you use Internet Explorer 6!)

While the proportion of visitors in IE and Firefox are about the same, what matters most are those still haggling around using IE6. It’s the designer’s hatred of IE6 thanks to it’s mistakes in displaying style that makes it hard for us. Would those 11% of IE6 users mind if I reminded them that Internet Explorer is now at version 8?

32% of people’s screen resolutions are set at 1024×768 px.

Screen resolutions dictate how many pixels fit on your screen, and this means I’m going to have to ensure my design fits well in your browser. No problem.

So, three questions. As the people who visit rather than the creator, how would you like the homepage – more traditional post-by-post, or bitesize? Would those with IE6 mind a little reminder of it’s age? Also, is there anything else you’d want out of the homepage.

p.s. for the next two weeks all of my posts are going to be canned. I thought I’d leave you with something while I’m gone in Egypt. Expect to hear some stories when I get back!

Taste

April 3rd, 2009 | Life | 2 Comments »

You don’t miss something till you haven’t got it.

From Wednesday I’ve had this weird taste in my mouth I couldn’t quite place. Whatever it was, it was making anything I put into my mouth taste nasty. I waited until the day after to try and do something about it, hoping it would just go away, but started on hopefully getting my oral hygiene up a little more *just* in case.

Last night, in my stupidity, I may have spent a little too long with the mouthwash.

This morning came as a surprise as I woke up early, my tongue aching as if I’d burnt it on some hot chocolate. Then I noticed, I couldn’t taste anything. Yes, ladies & gentlemen, I’d successfully managed to chemically burn most of my mouth with mouthwash.

Let it be me that does the stupid things in life so you don’t have to. I’ve checked for solutions online and I’ve taken some paracetamol to help with the pain while gurgling salt water until I can taste it again. It’s odd though, as right now most of my tongue just feels numb.

Hopefully it won’t take too long to heal, I’m supposed to be going down to London, then Egypt in just over a week and I want to be able to taste what I see there!

Sick in the Age of Stupid

April 1st, 2009 | Life | 2 Comments »

It’s not as interesting as you think.  I woke up this morning not feeling well and survived through a presentation, and I’m now back from a film called ‘The Age of Stupid’ – which is kind of like An Inconvient Truth but… good.

If there’s one thing I liked about the entire experience that wasn’t just the film it would be the goodie bags.  Yes, goodie bags. :D

Age of Stupid Goodies

Click to see the full image, but there’s a lot of stuff there!  I may have… ehm… picked up three. :P

I’d write more but this cold is affecting me in ways I’d rather not discuss… like this horrid taste that won’t leave my mouth.

Later.

Alive & Well.

March 30th, 2009 | General, Lists | 4 Comments »

I thought I’d write something before someone thought I had died and try to steal my assets. Alas, I’m alive and still kicking. I’m not even that busy.

We’ve all been demotivated once in a while. It happened to me big-time the past month but it’s good to be back.

I’ve been working, travelling and doing a few other things the post month, and April is even more interesting. I don’t have many classes (actually, none) until September that doesn’t mean that the coursework is over. Oh no, that’s still coming through the bucketload.

Although, I’ve still got time for some personal projects. I’m still thinking, intently, on a new design for this blog. A few ideas have come to mind with one jumping out. As soon as the design has been finalised, I won’t tell you, I’m just going to wait till I’m happy with it and release it. No rushing, I’m working hard on this one.

I’ll go into more detail soon, but I’m glad to be back.


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