Edits part 3

The adding of images to the Dirk Maggs website, is I think going well in that I can find the images for the page that I am editing, but I still have not worked out how to correctly scale the images so that they are all one uniform size.

The end result is that the pages that I have done all look well a bit scrappy is a word I could use, I am sure that you could think of other works ect to describe it better but lets not get into that.


So I know that I will have to revisit each page once I have found out how to scale the images but at least now some of the pages look better, in that they don't have large empty boxes on them where the images should be.

I have as I have gone a long made corrections or even added stuff to the pages. I have found so far one page that had no content, which was a bit of a surprise as I am sure that I went through each and every pages at least twice to make sure that I had not missed anything in the transfer from the old site to the new one.

But as I am only human it's something that is bound to happen and so when I found it, it was not to much effort to correct it.

So The Dirk Maggs website is doing well I think, I have changed the theme of the site again, but I don't know if I like it that much it will have to something that I will need to look at in the new year, which as I write this is only some 6 hours away!

Last Day

So the last day of 2009 which means that I will have done more blogs this year than i ever thought I would, not that this blog is about how many time I have bloged a week month year, well you get the idea I hope.

Just want to update the progress on the Dirk Maggs productions website, the good news is that I have started to add pictures to the pages!

The bad new is that I have not found a way to scale the images to the page layout yet, not to sure what is going on with that.

The page navigation issue has still not been solved but I think I now have all the content on the site, apart from the images of course!

I shall just get all the images up on each page that needs them and then worry about getting the layout of the pages right later, as its something I do in my spare time it will take a while to sort out.

Reading Now 3 whatever

Just finished what I think will be the last book I shall read this year. Its call How to make a tornado and its by New Scientist.

A good read but very different in character to the previous books that they published over the last few years.

Not sure why the change in book format, there must be one but I for one don't like the change, as I like it when you got everyday people ask the kind of questions that do occur to you and you have no answer yourself to them.

Uploading

Why is it so difficult to upload images to some programmes

Edits part 2

I have just spent some 4 hours updating the Dirk Maggs website pages, and the end results is that to the casual user there is no difference, but the number of things that I have altered and what's not you would think there should be lots of visible changes.

oh well.

Site updates are not complete there is still lots to do.

Website Nav

I have had a series of website since the very early days of the WWW. I had thought that I had solved for my websites the problem of navigating around the sites even if you come to the site via another page and not the front door.

Since I move the main Dirk Maggs website to a databased one, I have found that I don't like the way it allows me to set up the sites navigation system. This could be me in not understanding how the programme works or it could be that the programme just doesn't offer what I want or what I want is just not possible with a database driven website.

You might shout read the manual, well yes I would if there was one and that it covered what I need to know, may be what I want to do is so straight forward that it appears obvious to one and all, except me

More head scratching is needed I thinks.

The Dirk Maggs website did get edited yesterday so it is a step nearer to be back to where it was before the changeover.

Edits

I have had some time, not a lot of it , it has to be said and have got my finger out and done some work on the Dirk Maggs Website, which has been static for a while as other things in real life have got in the way, such as son braking his ankle very badly and then not having a good time under general anaesthetic.

All of which does tend to steal free time.

So as I was saying I have had some time to look at the Dirk Maggs Website of mine, and as you will know if you have rad this blog, earlier in the year I changed over to a web-host with more storage and all that sort of stuff.

The idea was to have the Dirk Maggs website sat in a database, and that is what I have done or am doing if the truth be told.

Progress is not been good due to all the above and also because the website layout and setting up has had to me a bit of a learning curve.

The end result it that at this time most of the website has been copied across to the new one but and this is a big but some stuff has been broken by the move.

One of the reasons for stuff getting broken is that I have yet to work out a good navigation system for the new site, I also have to work out if I want to have full screens of screens with a menu bar down the side on them.

It turns out that these are not easy to sort out and the help system given for the software that I am using is not to forthcoming on how to sort the problems that I have with the navigation. One of the problems is that I have a lot of pages and that they have very specific ways of being organised which appears not to help with the type of navigation system I need and what the programme can provide.

The other thing that got broken by the move of stuff from the hand created site to the database site is that all my internal links and pictures are broken and do not work.

This means that I will have go through every page and put back the images and also to redo all the links, this will not be a five minute job, but then the site was not built in 5 minutes either.

The number of hits that the Dirk Maggs website gets has dropped off as well.

Nearly Done

So 2009 is nearly all done, lots of things have been done, lots has not. I suppose 2010 will be the same, I suppose that I will not be the only one looking forward and backwards as it seems it's something that a lot of folk do at this time of year.

I do wonder if it does you any good all this reflection, and I supposed it must do otherwise lots of people just would do it the once and then give up.

So I think there are a few things that I want to do next year, I just wonder if I will get them all done.

1. is to finish moving the Dirk Maggs website to its new home
2. is to hand over to James Follett the website that I have being doing for over 5 years to him.
3. is to finish a book which book not a clue but a book all the same, which would be good.
4. is to actually get down and compose some music, as it's something I like to do but for one reason or another have not done for some time now.
5. is to enjoy taking pictures again with the camera.
6. is a bit of a cheat in that I already do this but do want to keep doing it and that is to keep reading.
7. is to listen to music and just enjoy it for what it is and not try and work out how it was done.
8. is to have holidays that you can be relaxed at
9. is to update the family tree, I did a lot of work on it a few years ago and then it all sort of stopped for one reason or another.
10. is to just enjoy what I have got and not what I haven't.

As you can see a large list just how many of these goals I will do will be interesting, as some are easier to do than others but they are all things that I do want to do.

2009

So it's getting very near to the end of 2009 and what a lot of different things have happened over the year, some good some not so but overall apart form some nasty weather not a bad year overall.

I hate to try and even think what 2010 is going to be like, one thing that I think I can be certain about is that it will be nothing like how I can think of it now this minute that's for sure.

I do wonder how many blog entry's I will do next year and I think that the answer is it does not matter, I shall just do them when I want.

Boxing Day

So its Boxing Day here in the UK, which is good as its a day off and also no where else do they have a Boxing Day.

Xmas

is wishing a merry christmas to all

How they used to say it

Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας

Weather

Good news is that a bit of a thaw is going on, I for one am very happy about this.

Good News

Some time today Ty will be home from hospital which is good for him us and I think the hospital, as I am sure there are people with far more serious problems who are in need of his bed

Work

No more work this year ys!

Ty

Ty is still in hospital after breaking his ankle, we hope that he can be home tomorrow, as hospitals and him don't agree with him.

A good phrase would be hospitals are toxic to him.

Snow & Ty

Well the snow started at 12ish here in Hampshire and did not stop. The result is that Caz had been on the M3 for 3 hours and Donna is stuck on the Farnborough road for 1 hour and she is only going a distance of 5 miles.

Ty is still in Hospital and it looks like he will not be let out until Wendsday some time so all in all the weather has a lot to answer for.

Hurt

I am the parent of two children called Tyrone and Charlene, now Ty as we call him is the 1St born and hats had an interesting life in that he has Asapers syndrome ( not to sure how much) any way he is for various reasons without a job, so today what happens to him he breaks his ankle in 3 places, I am told that it is a serious break in that he will need to have surgery.

As a parent this is worrying to me, I know my son is 23 but still I am worried for him, will it go okay, the date and the time of his surgery is not yet known as one of the problems with ankle injury's is the swelling frank goodness that his pain is under control at this time.

I have just heard that they are x-raying him again why?

see I am worrying about all of this!

I feel for him as tonight he was going out to see Avatar the film and have a meal with the friends that he has mad( this is a big event for someone with aspers).

I am told that ankle injury are one of the more painful injury's you can have so the next six to eight weeks are not going to be very nice to Tyrone.

I do hope that he is out of hospital over Xmas

lets hope so.

By the way he broke his ankle slipping on ice.

Global What?

I do wonder as I sit here looking at the weather station gauge sitting at minus 4 C and think what global warming?

Winter Solstice

So the mid winter day will so be with us I am not sure if it is the 21 st or the 22 nd but which ever day it is one thing that is for certain is that the nights will so start to get shorter which means summer is coming!

This is some thing that I can say I am very happy about, as I think one the whole I like summer more, not for the sunshine and the warm days and nights but for all the daylight and the blue skies which is something that I miss in the winter.

I do wonder if at the winter solstice there will be any one at Stone or wood henge at 8 in the morning, which I suppose is far more civilised than the summer solstice which I think sunrise is at 4 am!

Any way I am looking forward to more daylight and blue skies!

212

I have just noticed that this is the 212th blog of this year which is a record. The last time I had done so many posts was back in 2006! so if I keep doing blogs at this rate I might hit 220!

Hill Starts

Well as you may or may not know this week the winter weather has well happened and today we we got up we found that the weather men had been right for once in that the snow that they said we would get did arrive.

Now I happen to leave in a road that has a hill or incline at each end and the local council for reasons that our not known to us do not grit our road so when it snows getting out of our road on to the major road that is always gritted can be and has been very difficult.

In February 2009 when we had 3 feet of snow the result was that we were snowed in. Today we where lucky in that there was only 2 to 3 inches of snow and that we tried to get out of our road before the road had been turned into a sheet of ice.

It goes without saying that coming home from work was not to bad the only bit of the trip that I was not looking forward to was the last 200 meters or so.

Snow

Lots of very cold weather and so it goes without saying there is snow due and if I believe the weather men lots of it, not to sure if it will hit my part of the UK

Bum

How is it that the colder it gets the more visits I have to do to jobs outside!

Why?

Never happens in the summer, strange that....

Stress

Sometimes I hate this time of year due to all the stress in all the stuff people think you have to do or need to do just so stuff happens on the 25th.

I am beginning to think that it is not worth it.

If it does not get done then leave with out what ever it was that did not get done, I am sure life and universe will carry on.

Colder

So its going to get even colder.


Bum

Xmas Lights

So today I had the joy of putting up some outside Xmas lights, now we don't go for loads and loads we go for light colours that the other folk in the street don't have like pinks and purples, while every one else has blue or white.

Fun no cold yes, end result nice.

Cold

Looks like its going to get colder for the next week or so

Hunt the Lights

Playing one of my least fun games called hunt the missing Xmas lights, this time its a set of blue lights seen 11 odd months ago.

Fog

I have after this morning decided that I don't like to drive in thick fog in the dark

Reading Now 2+1

The other book that I have just finished in the last hour or so is by Jon Ronson and its called The men who stare at goats.

I really don't know what to make of this book, one part of me thinks that its all a load of S*** and that nothing in the book is true, then the other part of me for some weird reason hope that it is true, so the book was not for me overall entertaining, as I just don't know what is true and what is made up.

The book reports to be telling you the truth about some very strange physic stuff that the Americans are supposed to be doing, but there are no references or any thing like that to provide evidence that any thing in the book is true.

There is at the time I write this a film in the cinema called the same as the book, but I think the only thing that is the same between the book and the film is the title and as far as I can make out the film is a comedy of sorts.

Reading Now 3+1+1

Just finished, well not just about 2 hours or so ago another book by Charles Stross called Scratch Monkey, which is a book that I had never heard of but I am glad that I found it and read.

As it usual with books by Charles there are lots of good ideas in this book which I must admit at times did make me stop and think.

The old question? was it entertaining, the answer is yes, but I would say that it should not be your first Stross book to read.

200

Yes I have done it this is the 200th blog of 2009, I feel proud that I have so much stuff that I needed to share it with myself and anyone who happens to get lost on the net and find my blog.

Blogs

I see that this is the 199th blog that I have done this year which is almost a record, the record is 205 in one year, which means that I will pass that total before years end.

Updates 2

As I have said before on here I am now in the process of moving the Dirk Maggs productions website from hand coded into a database driven cms.

I did not realise just how many pages there are in the site, as it goes I will end up having to edit every single page on the site as the layouts from the hand coded site and the cms site are different.

I hope that by spring 2010 the job will be done.

Updates

I have continued to convert the old Dirk Maggs producer website to the new database powered one, progress has been slow as there is so much stuff to move.

I have nearly got all the basic productions by years moved across, with only the years 2006 and 2003 to go, which I think is not bad going as each production page has to be moved by hand.

The next task after that is to make each page look right, as some how or other some of the layouts gets broken in the process of being transferred.

After that task which will I think take weeks I have to restore all the pictures to each page, and I have no idea just how long that will take.

But when it is all done it should make it easy to update the Dirk Maggs pages and also to enhance the content.

Reading Now 3+1

I have just finished reading Genesis by Andy McDermott as entertainment goes it's good and it's a non stop ride, the main idea behind the book is a good one which I liked. For some reason or other some of the things that the characters do in the book are sometime not quite believable, but as this is a book that only has one purpose and that is to entertain I can forgive that as Andy does entertain and very well.

If Hollywood ever got hold of this story I would I think hate it as they would not leave the story as it is.