Press "Enter" to skip to content

Category: Snippet

Snippet: Microsoft Frontpage 2003

As much as my hatred of Microsoft Frontpage is known, I must admit I’m seriously thinking about MS Frontpage 2003 [Order from Amazon.co.uk] amazoncom:B0000AZJV8 . Why? Well until now the “horrible code” it produced and the very templated look of the sites (I can usually tell within seconds if it’s a Frontpage site) has put me off even considering maybe getting a copy – but an advertisement over at Slashdot which pointed me towards this Flash Demo of FP2003 is seriously making me reconsidering. Clean code, “code snippets” (something that my “editor of preference” – EditPlus doesn’t yet offer), regular expression search and replace, “split screen editing mode”, Accessibility checking, and XML data connectivity…. *drool*.

Only two things are putting me off at the moment: The £153.49 price tag (how much!?!?) and the fact it’s a Microsoft product. Oh well, I’ll just have to do without for now.

Snippet: And whilst on the drunkard ramblings front…

Those Natwest adverts on TV are really getting to me now. Why? Well, the way they advertise “You can contact your local branch” and “You can speak to your own business manager” – erm, aren’t all account details stored in a central computer location which can be accessed via all branches: therefore making it a little bit pointless to make you contact your own “individual” branch? Perhaps back in the days of paper records and “passbooks” (I’ve still got my old “Leicester Building Society” book by the way: the Building society is now known as Alliance and Leicester Bank PLC!) where only one branch had records of your details, but nowadays…

And the “own business manager” – at work, I deal with around 40 SEO clients and even then I occasionally forget which ones I deal with. How is any bank manager going to remember “you” as an individual when they deal with several hundred different accounts every couple of weeks? Unless you pop into the branch every week, they are unlikely to know you from Adam (unless your name does happen to be Adam – in which case substitute Adam for Bob Dole as Bob Dole just likes hearing Bob Dole talk about Bob Dole) – and, like any well run business, they will need to keep notes of the last conversation you had with them, your account number, your needs/assessment, your “value” to the bank etc. And where are they likely to keep these nowadays?

Yep – on computer records which will be stored in a central location and can be accessed by any branch of the bank….

Coincidentally, for the last year or so – there have been plans to convert the old very large Natwest branch in Leicester city (near to St.Martins Square) to a trendy wine bar 😉

Snippet: Ok, now I’m freaked out….

Last night, just before I went to bed, I watched an episode of South Park entitled “The Super Best Friends” where Jesus and Pals (Buddha, Lord Krishna, Seaman and a few others) fights the David Blainetologists – and I thought, “Since David Blaine is currently trying to attract publicity in London, it’ll be quite funny if Channel 4 were to show this episode again.”

So, just before I go to bed tonight, I’m just channel surfing and guess which episode of South Park is showing on Channel 4….

Yep – spooky! Especially since earlier they were also showing David Blaine’s “Vertigo” (when he’s just standing on a pole in Times Square) and that just happens to be on my “watch rotation”* as well.

Snippet: 4Gb in, no Gigs out

I spent last week running my computer 24/7 processing several gigabytes of data and eventually filled up a MySQL database table with 4Gb of data (I’ve still got 1Gb to load in!). So I’ve had to redesign the database scheme, branch out to flat file databases and now I’m trying to get the data out of the MySQL database into the flat files…

Except, it won’t export the data now. Every time I try and extract it out using a very very basic Perl script, it bombs out with “Out of memory (Needed XXXXX bytes)”. Despite the fact I’ve got 0.5Gb RAM and 4Gb of “swap space” currently configured.

I need to get this thing sorted ASAP – I want to be able to upload it this weekend (ready for a launch on the 1st of October) and I want to be able to use my PC again. Whilst it’s “number crunching” and processing and whatnot, my machine slows down to a crawl 🙁

Snippet: Job Vacancy

Oh – if anybody is interested, there’s a job vacancy going around: contact me for more details if you’re interested (just leave a comment with your email address and I’ll forward further details):
“Rough job spec” follows:

Looking for a unique job position within Leicester? (UK)
Do you have experience or want experience with *any* or all of the following

* Search engine optimisation/placement – Our customers are looking to us to get their sites in the top ten in the major search engines such as Google, Altavista, Yahoo etc. Have you got any experience in this field or want to learn the secrets of the trade?

* Customer support – have you had a customer facing role where you interact with new or existing customers over the telephone and email?

* Server administration: We’ve got a number of Linux based webservers running Apache, Cpanel, Ensim, Ensim Pro and a few other software suites – have you had any experience of these from either administration or user end? How about Microsoft FrontPage, FTP or anything like that? We’re not necessarily looking for “l33t” people, but if you can tell a web site address from an email address it’s a start!

It’s a challenging role working in a small, but growing and dedicated team, with a customer base now in its thousands! Can you “work on you own” yet still interact in a team and do you like challenges without too much “set routine”?