Monument

Monument, originally uploaded by Maegluin.

This is one of those image that just jumped out at me, not to sure why but its a great image I think its got something to do with the sky and the very simple subject matter, all in all it just works and thats all that maters

Ill

Been ill all the projects are on hold.

Petts wood walk E3

Petts wood walk E3, originally uploaded by karen cb.

like this image not sure why

Essendy, Near Blairgowrie

Essendy, Near Blairgowrie, originally uploaded by Dadarob.

How I wish that I could paint and see as well as this.

05/04/2008

05/04/2008, originally uploaded by davew1.

Missy at home

N73 Firmware Update

I did something that I did not think you could do to a mobile phone, this shows just how behind the times I am, but I upgraded the firmware in my mobile, a Nokia N73 form version 2 something to version 3 something.

The update was free from Nokia, and the software to do the job with.

How was it? Okay but boy you read all the warnings and well, it nearly put me off doing the upgrade thing all together. But after some 15 minutes or so the task was done.

The Result?

Good, I think a lot of the changes from version 2 to 3 must be stuff under the bonnet but other tings are new or updated, to tell the truth the old software never gave me any trouble and so far the new software also seems to be okay.

The only down side of it all was that my backup of all my contacts was not good and some how did not work and that was only 20 or so minutes after I had done the backup, so what's going there I do not know. It not a big loss as the number of contacts that I keep on my phone is small, this is because I have 2 mobiles my own and the companies, and keeping the numbers and contacts separate has and is to me a good idea.

Would I do the upgrade again?

Yes, but only if there are some big advantages to the upgrade otherwise with all the prep work you have to do its just not worth the time and the effort.

Since the upgrade the Internet has not been safe I have found that there are lots of free N73 themes on the net and I am having great fun downloading them and installing them on the phone.

Website Updates

I have some how found the time to do an update to my main 2 websites. So now they are as uptodate as I can make them with the current information that I have to hand.

The main URL is http://www.dswilliams.co.uk

So I am now off to look at some of my other projects that I have not looked at in ages

AE35

AE35?

Eh?

Well its my podcast that sometimes I do. In fact, so far it runs to only 4 episodes so it has a long way to go until it has found its feet, or style. If I can be bothered I will put the URL in this blog.

As it is other things are calling so bye

Not Much

Not much to say this time as I have other projects that are at such an early stage, eg they are still in my head that there really is nothing to say.

Index oh Index

As I have said before else where in this blog the first draft of the Dirk Maggs book is now done, I was going to start doing the index or indexes when I remember something I had read which said that it is always a good idea to put your first draft away and go and do something else, so that when you look at it again there is some time and distance between you and the draft and you will look at it if a different light and frame of mind.

So I am going to take that advice, which mean I can put off having to do the Index just for a few more weeks, to say that I am relived would be an under statement. So this means I can get on with my other projects, like updating the Dirk Maggs website and stuff like that.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 14

1st draft complete page count is now 329. First go at doing an index ended up with word crashing and loosing all the work I had done on marking up the index, not as bad as it sounds as I had only marked up 4 pages. I was using the mark all feature in word when it crashed.

Not sure if I ran out of memory in the machine I was using or what.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 13

There has been some progress all the drafts of all the chapters has now been done. I have now started to create the master document witll all the chapters in.

This is the second time that I have done this as the first time word inported all the files in the wrong order!

It would appear that in A4 page size the book is 357 pages long with out how many indexes I end up with.

Appendix Index

As the 1st draft of the Dirk Maggs book is now very close to being done, I have had a strange thought that I have so far failed to find an answer to. The question or thought was this can you have an index to an appendix, or is an appendix in a book a mutated form of index?


I think its a good question, the only snag with such a great question is that finding an answer to it is well hard in fact very hard and at this time I have not yet found an answer.

At this stage the book has a chapter for each years work a chapter on other audio work and then 2 very large appendixes, now I do know because I have seen them that you can have loads of appendix in a book I think I once counted something like 10 in one book that I picked up years ago.

The thing is do I need to have an index for each section of the book? e.g one index for the work done in years another index for each appendix and an index for the other audio work?

Or do I go down the route of having an index for subjects e.g one for the radio shows and another for the actors or people in the productions?

I also have to keep in mind that I will have to do another edition of this book in a few years time as the idea is that it forms a written record of the website at the time the book was written.

At this time I do not have any answers to the above questions

Dirk Maggs Book Part 12

Did i say that all the book in draft is done except appendix 2? Well if I did not I have done now. I have yet to collect each chapter into the master document so I do not know just how did this book of the website is going to be.

I think it will have a page count lower than the second edition mainly due to the fact that the page size has been changed so that it can be printed in hardback, and so with luck it might last a bit longer, as the idea is to have a written record of what The Dirk Maggs website looks like I think hardback is the way forward.


I did have the Idea to present a copy of the book to Dirk, but thinking about it, I decided that it might weird him out seeing his life's work in a hardback book before him.

As I have said before the book is going to be a Private printing so it will not be for sale.

Saying that a few weeks ago something did go wrong with how the book is listed at LULU and you could see the book and buy it (the second edition that is) the cost? a cool 1999999.99 pounds so it was not a surprise that no one brought a copy, can't think why that is

Index part 2

Note to me, you still have to find out about single or double indexes for the Dirk Maggs book of the website.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 11

News on the Dirk Maggs book is that the 1st draft of all work in years 1988 to 2009 has been done.

The 1st draft of the 1st appendix has also been done.

The 1st draft of any other audio work has also been done.

At this rate the 1st draft of the book should be done by June 2008

Making publication due October 2008 at the rate this is all going

Linux

Well still playing with different versions or distro's of Linux and not getting any work on the Dirk Maggs book done....

VM Linux

Now playing with VM linux machines, only snag so far is that I can't get at the files on my hard discs.

USB Linux

Just found out that you can install Linux on a USB stick, never knew you could do that and its been fun learning.

Does make you wonder how come Linux on a 2Gb stick installed and working 10 minutes, windows XP hours why?

Cold to me

Just for my record the temp at 06.38 on 04.03.2008 was -0.1

Print Servers

Why can't print servers just work?

Why is it they only play up when you are short of time?

Why?

Leap day & Blogger

So it was leap day and I thought I better do my blog. But blogger had other ideas and would not let me save my blog, only the second time that has happened to me. S I have missed the chance to have a 29 Feb entry in my blog, and I did not have time to report the error so I am just a bit miffed.

The idea was to try and do a blog each day, so Feb is blown out and I know that march will be a blow out as I am of on a course which means not access to the net.

Leap Day

Happy leap day

400

So after I don't know how long this is the 400th entry in my Blog wow, I know some folks do far more some do far less but this is what I do

wast water Heaven

wast water Heaven, originally uploaded by karen cb.

I like this image of the water and the colours

What I am reading

Current books that I am reading all at the same time are,


Weaver Stephen Baxter, this is part 4 of the time tapestry series and is very and as I have said and written else where would make a great radio show, only 40 grand a series of six programmes and I would have Dirk Maggs to adapt and produce and direct them, value for money or what?

Book two then is 6th Target by James Patterson, this is part of the Woman's murder club but for some reason its not right, I am not sure what I mean by that statement but its as if it was ruched in some way, maybe the problem is that James is producing too many books going for quantity and not quality I just don't know. I will hold judgement till when I complete the book.

The last book that I am reading is the very first book in the new cop series by Peter James called Dead Simple, now I found this series and read the latest book first and have worked my way back to this the very first book in the series, and so far its great.

As I have said above in the Stephen Baxter bit this is also a series of books that I think Dirk Maggs would be great on , as he has never done hard crime novels some it would give him a chance to stretch his creative mussels and just see what he can do. I think with Dirk's great timing and choice of good actors each book would be a great 6 part series, not that the BBC does this sort of stuff any more, they seem to have gone down the route of cheap low cost productions with nothing to stretch both the listener and the production crew.

If I had the money I would pay for these shows to be produced even if they never got an airing on national radio at least they would have been produced by one of the best radio directors/producers in the last 20 years.

Earthquake UK

So wakes up to the news that the UK had an earthquake at 1am this morning, 5.3 on some scale or other, not sure what to think other than I am glad that no one was killed. Did I feel the trumors? no but folks in London and Dover did.

Cloudy Lemonade

Had some cloudy lemonade today, for some reason looked at what went into it, one of the ingredants? Orange juice 10%


why?

CVD or Dust

I found out that dust and DVD players are mortal foes. And all I wanted to do was watch Die hard 4.0

Index

Yes I know, I have now done so may blogs on this subject, but I am having trouble finding a good info source which could guide me on which way to go with how many indexes I need. I just supose I will have to keep on looking.

The good news is that I will not need it for a while.

Passwords

Why do we have so many these days, there must be a better way than this

Indexes

Just wondered if you had a book about indexes, would it have an index, would it be an index index?

Fog

I hate fog on the M25

Spell Checker

I really need a spell checker.

Open Office

As a follow up to yesterday and the troubles with converting a file on LULU so that it was in a print format Pdf, good idea no1 was to use another ep programme.

The idea was to load the file in Open office wp and the resave the file, good idea? well that did not happen all the versions I have of Open Office(version 2.0) opened the file no problem and then stopped working when i asked it to resave the file. No in Open Office's defence I have to admit i was using it as a portable app so maybe some thing with that set up is what is causing the problem.

So other news is that I have not done any more drafts work on the Dirk Maggs book it is still stalled.

On the index fron (eg who many and what type) no progress.

Perhaps progress next time I report in this blog.

Plans that go wrong

So I had this great plan, I would convert an exsisting manuscript to 8.5*11 so that it the right size to be printed in hardback.

Step one, the converting was in the end okay as it only took a few hours and it looked good at the end of it all.

Step two, now thats when things started to go off the rails in a real big way. The upload to LULU was okay and that worked. The next step converting the document into a printable PDF did not go right, in fact it failed. Now the big problem is that I don't know why the conversion failed as LULU don't say why the document failed, they just say that it failed, yeh I know so useful.

So I am at a loss what to do...

I think I shall have another look at the Dirk Maggs book the drafts that I have done so far....

I last thjought I did have was to try a differant wp programme to se if that is the problem. I normally use word 2003 nice and old and it mostly works and so should be without any major problems.

Hardback Books and all of that

Do you know that the actual writing of a book at this moment in time to me looks easier than working out correct paper sizes and what template to use when you want to have your book published as a hardback book?

Why?

I hope that with a little bit more work I will have the answers that I have been looking for. So far the answers are not there yet.

As an expirment I updated and resized the manuscripts for one of my eriler books, what I thought would only take at most an hour soon got out of control and before I knew it I had spent some 3 hours on it, but I think the time has been well spent as I now have edtion 5 of the book in a hardback format at a size of 8.5*11 which is the size I want of so I think at this moment in time.

I am going to upload it to LULU and see what I get. I think that it will be a good test as I think the Dirk Maggs book will be of the same sort of size, that is about 500 odd pages, one thing with this test book that did surprise me was that the table of content runs to 30 pages! I know what? when you see the book it's easy to understand, I don't think the Dirk book will have that size of contents page, but you never know.

Now the index or indexes are another matter, and no I have not got any furthur on what to do or how many indexes I might need.

Photos

Just looked back at some of the early posts on this blog, only to see that some of the photos that I had made comments on have gone. It just brings it home to me just how frgile ( is that the word to use?) all these electrons really are, things on the web are or only appear to be here for minutes and then lost forever.


I think it is sad, very sad that like footprints in the snow thing do not stay around for ever.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 10

Things have gone a bit slow on the draft front, mainly as I have been looking at hardback or paperback and also the problem of indexes, the index problem is one that I have yet to fully work out which way to go. If I go for more than one index then the work in doing such a thing is a lot, the rewards of having a good index can not be under estimated that much I am sure of. The only question is how many and what type of indexes do I want or does the book need?

On the hardback front I have decided that hardback is the way to go, the only problem now is what size of hardback?

At this time I do not have an answer to that question yet, if I have too small a book in page size the number of pages will go up and the other problem, which I have not yet looked at is how the content on each page will be effected. With the first problem as far as I can see as the page count goes up so does the cost of the final book.

A wild thought that I did have was, well why not have each years work as a volume in it's own right? but a quick look at this idea has already told me that if I stay in A4 size pages then some of the volumes will be very thin on the otherhand if the page size is smaller than A4 then the page count goes up, so all in all at this time I do not know what to to muli volume or one large volume.

I suppose the answer will only become clear once I have done all the drafts and put the book together in its first draft layout.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 9

Today I had the great idea that my Dirk Maggs book would look good as a hardback book, on the grounds that it might last longer, I know that it will cost more to have printed but I think the extra cost will pay for it's self in that it will be around longer.

The only thing is that I have yet to find any word templates that will allow me to size my work correctly so that it will go from A4 size to what ever size a standard harddback book is.

Ho hum I think is what I said...

Dirk Maggs Book Part 8

As you can see with the last few posts to this blog I have some how found the time to do a bit more of the Dirk Maggs book.

One thing that I have been looking at is how to produce an index in word 2003. From what I have seen so far and read the index does not always work.

The searches that I have done so far say that there are 2 ways of creating the index, one where you mark each word and the other you use something called a cordex?

See I can't even spell it let a lone know how to use it.

More reading is needed me thinks.

I think for my Dirk Maggs book that a very full index will be the way to go.

I have read that you can have more than 1 index, and I am thinking at this time that a names index and a productions index might be good ideas, the only thing is at this time I don't yet know how you do multi indexes in the same document, or even if such a thing is possable in word 2003.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 7

Some progress of sorts in that I have done one of the chapters that is not work done in a year and is not an appendix.

Yes I have done the draft chapter for all other Audio work that Dirk has done, it was a bit of a surprise just how much in the early 2000's he did, he does not appear to have done much since the late 2006's.

So when I get the chance, I will list here each chapter and just how many pages in draft form in A4 pages the chapters take up.

Yes I know that it will all change as each chapter gets edited, but I want to keep a record, just to see if it is true that each rewrite is edit edit edit and that the number of words goes down.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 6

This is how the book looks in draft form at this time, each year will be a chapter in the completed book.

These are the Drafted chapters so far;

1988
1989
1990
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009

As you can still see there is a long way to go, I am not sure if I will get it done by my deadline of xmas 2008.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 5

Update time.

The bad news

Nothing has been done since the last post.

Have been too busy being educated in the delights of safe systems of work for things that go very bang.

There is hope that I shall have some free time soon, and then hopefully there will then be some progrss.

Giving Blood

I gave my 107th pint of blood today, I am told that it will help upto 3 other people and all within the next few weeks or less. The main reason being that I have O neg blood which is always in high demand.

I just don't know how to feel about how many people, I might have helped, but I do hope that this gift I give to them is welcome.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 4

I re looked at all the drafts that I have so far done, and I don't think I have missed anything out, that I don't know of. The next few weeks in real life are going to be busy so I know that I will not have the time to work on the next draft chapter.

The plan is still for the book to be done and printed by Dec 2008, as the book is going to be a private printing, the only way that you will se a copy is if you know me or you are Dirk Maggs.

Maggs Book Part 3

Update time

The news is that there has not been any more work done on the book. This due to real life getting in the way and me not having the time to get my head around the next chapter that has to be done in draft format first.

Maybe in the next few weeks there will be time.

Maggs Book part 2

An update on what has been going on with this years book project. Last time I said that I had done the draft for all work done in 1988.

Progress has not been good as I have been away doing training with IOSH on a course that I have already done before, but as company policy is that every member of staff will do this course even if you have already done it.

So back to the book, and I can say that the draft chapter for all work done in 1989 has also been done and it runs to 15 pages of A4.

I do not yet know just how big this book is going to be, but it looks like it will be large, even without photos.

Maggs Book

As you may or may not know I have a website, that is on a well known radio director called Dirk Maggs. In fact at this time it is the only website on a radio director and has been for the last 5 years!

The website has over time just got bigger, as Dirk creates new shows or I find out about old shows that he has done.

I have decided as the website is a living thing in that it only exsits as loads of electrons that I would produce a book of the website.

This I have done edition one of the the book was done last year, and had some 300 odd pages, edition two was produced late last year with no pictures in it as there are copyright problems and also cos it did not always print correctly.

So this years project is to do edition 3 of the book.

There are no plans to make the book avaiable to the public as I think I break lots of copyright rules, but there is nothing to stop me producing it for myself and maybe give a copy to Dirk.

So progress so far has been that I have found a templete for the book and have taken a copy of all of the website pages that would and do make sense to have in the printed format.

I have managed to layout the book so that each year is a chapter, then within each chapter each production from that year is then listed.

The first draft of the year 1988 has been done and it runs to 10 A4 pages!

Sunset at the Mount

Sunset at the Mount, originally uploaded by Corica.

love the colour and the sky in this image, I do wonder how long you would have to wait to get such a sky.

Glastonbury Sunset

Glastonbury Sunset, originally uploaded by Sheryl La Bouchardiere.

Just love the way in this picture that the light is on the top of the clouds, do not know why, but it is nice

Swindon Village - Harvest Time

Swindon Village - Harvest Time, originally uploaded by Sheryl La Bouchardiere.

so England in the summer nice then rain on the way

Nelson's garden

Nelson's garden, originally uploaded by Jonny2005.

When I saw this image I thought it was a painting, now I look at it I think it would make a great jigsaw.

Stonehaven Beach

Stonehaven Beach, originally uploaded by olcol.

This image just makes me think of a 1980's Dr Who show

Summer

Summer, originally uploaded by Number Six.

This picture is just so summer to me, I love the colours

Siri Steinmo

Siri Steinmo, originally uploaded by Jonny2005.

Just love the eyes in this image, not sure why

Tree

Tree, originally uploaded by Jonny2005.

Nice shape Oak tree

December Sunset

December Sunset, originally uploaded by fenlandsnapper.

What a great image this is, pays to have a camera with you

IJ with view of Central Station, Amsterdam, NL

IJ with view of Central Station, Amsterdam, NL, originally uploaded by TerData.

Not shure why but I like this image

Moonlight

Moonlight, originally uploaded by Eva&Kjartan.

Just a nice moonlight image

No Blog

I see looking at this blog of mine that I have done what lots of other bloggers appear to do and that is not edit or add anything to their blogs for weeks at a time. Not sure why it is but at least I am in good company several million others around the world...

One thing that I still do is add pictures that I want to comment on but I dont want to comment on flicker, not sure why

Florida Skier

Florida Skier, originally uploaded by zensart.

This is just a great image

New Paltz Waterfall

New Paltz Waterfall, originally uploaded by tref0608.

Nice image that I like

Rocat powered

Rocat powered, originally uploaded by PlutostheBubbleman.

Just made me smile

donna2

donna2, originally uploaded by davew1.

First time I cut an image out of the background using photoshop. It also shows Donna's new shoes that she likes

I have to admit that I have removed the picture as it was an experiment in CS3 and was an image of Donna in red high heel shoes that did not quite work.

donna1

donna1, originally uploaded by davew1.

First time I cut an image out of the background using photoshop. It also shows Donna's new shoes that she likes

Over The Lake

Over The Lake, originally uploaded by zensart.

Seeing this I think I like where I live better

Flying along the coast

Flying along the coast, originally uploaded by Cal Bear 94.

Yet another image that I wish I had taken, or even been there to take it.

Winter Fog Breaking 2 B+W

Winter Fog Breaking 2 B+W, originally uploaded by bruiach1.

Just a great photo whish I had taken it

I long to see...

I long to see..., originally uploaded by brilliant girl.

I think I like this image as the colours run from orange to a grey

My 2nd page of favs

My 2nd page of favs, originally uploaded by davew1.

well what else is there to say about this lovey lot other than its great

Test 1

Test 1, originally uploaded by davew1.

really like the way these four images work well together, I don't know why they work but they do

Some of my current fav's

Some of my current fav's, originally uploaded by davew1.

just found the tool again to allow me to show some of my fav's

17/08/2007

17/08/2007, originally uploaded by davew1.

This is the first one of these that I have seen this year not sure what it is called but I think this is the earlist I have seen one

18/08/2007

18/08/2007, originally uploaded by davew1.

Ant not looking very happy at having his picture taken

Shooting Star

Shooting Star, originally uploaded by @nt!x.

Great image wish I had the sky and backdrop like this and also the time to take such a picture.

battersea power station

battersea power station, originally uploaded by Jonny Tiger..

Does not matter how many times I have seen this building it can still get your attetion.

Damba

Damba, originally uploaded by Timur Nasyrov.

What I like this picture, if I had the money to spare I would offer to buy this from the artist.

Orange Juice & Keyboards

Things here took a turn for the bad yesterday dinnertime when Donna (wife) had an accident with a glass of orange juice and found out that the following are true facts keyboards, weather stations wireless routers and cable modems do not like orange juice, they may like other kinds of juice but definitely not orange.

It goes without say that she was just a bit upset in fact very up set. The good news that hairdryers are great I mean there are really great and following the use of such a great invention we soon found ourselves in the good position of having only lost the wireless keyboard.

A trip to PC-world resulted in a nice new wireless keyboard, mouse and a set of headphones all for 39 pounds instead of 89 pounds as PC World were or are having a sale. The new keyboard is better than the old old so is the mouse(But don't tell Donna that)

It goes without saying that all of this took for ever and by the time things had been sorted out it was 10 pm and so now work was done on wiki's or anything else, and that will also be the case for the next week or so as it's time to jump in the car dive for 12 hours to look at what Scottish rain looks like, and weather or not it is any different to English rain, yep you got it its Holiday time.

As I have never been to Scotland I just don't know what to expect, apart from the rain that is, as that's what the weather man, women are saying we shall be getting. We are going to within 20 miles of John O'Grotes so it's a long way form home about 12 hours travel time.

Eye

, originally uploaded by criza.

Just love they way in this picture the eye draws you into the picture.

James Follett Wiki (JFW) part 6

Yes part six just how much longer can I talk about this project, I suppose it depends on just how much I do on it, or I loose interest and finally if I just plain run out of time.

So to up date progress the item count got to 142 yep 142 a massive jump in the item number not, the reason being that one of the page that I was doing took nearly 2 hours to do, I still am not that happy with it, but for a first go its not that bad.

The page in question is part of the help system that I am putting on to the wiki so that later on when I forget what I have or can do with the wiki I do have some where to look. One of the problems with doing a help system is that I don't know it all so doing the help system is a way of learning how to use the wiki.

As I have my hols soon all this wiki stuff and this blogging will stop and going by past experience I might move on to other projects and come back to this much later( so if that happens it will be a good test of the help system)

As it is still early days I was surprised to get one question about the wiki, but when I told the guy just how new the wiki was and that progress was going to be slow he wished me good luck. The other problem with his request is that I still have not yet worked out how to give all registered users read rights and only some users read/write rights if you see what I mean.

James Follett Wiki (JFW) Part 5

Things have been slow mainly due to the fact that I have not had a lot of free time, things like building a chest of drawers for daughter have taken time. The other job which also took more than 2 hours was the erection of a digital Ariel, and all the fun that was, do you know it took longer to work out how to switch the TV into DTT mode than anything else?

I mean how could such an operation be so difficult?, the actual finding the stations and stuff was pain free and all fully automatic.

So apart from the above how has the Wiki moved on?

Well the item count is now 139, not much of an increase but then I have also been working on some of the help pages, mainly for my benefit as I now that I will never remember how to do some of the stuff, so it makes sense to have on the site the info on just how to use the wiki.

James Follett Wiki part 4

Well just a small update this time with the item count as I found some free time and added excatly one radio play of Jim Follett's called Jumbo.

Before adding it the count was 114 it now stands at 122.

I think at this rate the item count will still only top out at 1200 to 1500 only time will tell.

Wikis & Books

Wikis & Books

As you may or may not know I have more than one wiki that I am playing with. One is the new James Follett Wiki (JFW) the other far older wiki is called DMP and has over the years been restarted on more than one occasion, mainly due to errors on my part that resulted in me destroying the database and all the backups! (don't ask)

At one stage the DMP had been about 1000 pages in size at this time its around 600, but then I have not worked on it for some time, in fact it is one of those projects that I only seem to work on when I remember that I have got such a project!

The size that I think DMP will get to is at this time 2000 to 2500 pages as the subject of the DMP is Dirk Maggs the radio director that I have spoken about many times here before. In fact I have also spoken about the DMP here many times normally when all was going well and not so well.

Now DMP is a project that for the reasons I have given above will not be updated on its software or the database that drivers it, as I have lost too much too often.

The DMP is again like the JFA a closed wiki very closed in fact I have at this time no intention of allowing anyone access to it even Dirk Maggs, not because there is anything in it that is libeler's but because I used it to create the main Dirk Maggs site, and also because it is the main data-bank for Dirk Maggs. I have used once so far to write a book on all of Dirk's works form 1988 to 2006 it cam e to a 300 page A4 book!

Yes I can tell you I was surprised at how long it was. I reckon that Dirk will be active in radio for at least another 5 to 7 years before he decides to go and do something else, so at the rate of productions that he does a year I think the book could end up at a 1000 pages! how mad is that.

The book is not for sale as it break every copyright law there is, eg there are photo's that I just don't know who owns the copyright to, there are articles that I do not have permission to use. But and this is the big but as this book is based on the website and the DMP from early 2006 the idea was to have a paper record just in case the website or the DMP vanish, which if my passed experience is anything to go by could happen at any moment. So I have a paper copy and the file that made it is stored else where in more than one location.

I also think that the book would not sell very many copies as it is too specialist, just how many folks want to know which actor started in a radio show that has never been heard since it was first broadcast back in 1989?

James Follett Wiki (JFW) Part 3

Things have gone very slow on the wiki, in fact not one more item has been added since the last blog, the reason being that I have found when looking at other larger blogs that they doing things that I just can not see how with the same software as me they can do.

I did after a lot of looking and searching find that they had added extensions to the wiki, how cool is that I had no idea that you could do such a thing.

So I have spent ages looking at lots of extensions, but so far have yet to download and add one to the JFW. But and this is a dig but when I find the extensions that I think will make the JFW easier either to work on or use I will let you know here.

James Follett Wiki (JFW) Part a 3 now with a part a

Yes, there is a part 3, just found out the reason why I can not upgrade the wiki from version 1.84 to 10.01 and it is something that I do not have any control over, and that is, that my ISP One&One.co.uk do not yet offer PHP 5.0 or MySQL 5.00 as standard.

Now to be fair to them, they allow for the money I pay for me to have just 2 100Meg MySQL databases which can be version 4 or 5. the snag is that I have both in use with the wiki on the version 4, to make matters worse I have other programmes using both the version 4 and 5.

I don't know if a database dump works from version 4 to 5 and knowing my luck the answer is no. ( With the luck that I have had in the past I just do not fancy taking the risk or all the work it would take)

So I am stuck with what I have at this time, maybe I will be lucky and my ISP will fall into line with other providers and give my more databases ( some hosting ISP's are allowing you as many as you want, not too sure how they can do that, but it may be that like most things most users do not use what is provided or they only use part of what is given) and more up to date versions of php and MySQL.

James Follett Wiki (JFW) Part 2

Well things are going well-ish, by that I mean I now have 103 pages on the site and I have only listed 5 of Jim's radio plays. No the problem is that I got the site set up so that it is closed so that you can't read it or edit it, which is good as it stops spam and all that sort of stuff that wiki's sometimes suffer from.

The problem that I have is that how do i allow or set up new users, and how do I set it up so that only some users are allowed to edit pages. You might say RTFM well I have and when my headache went away I soon realised that I just can't get me head around the group permissions etc.

So I have come up with a cunning plan, I will look to see other users of large wiki's have sorted this problem. As the wiki is so new it started on 10.07.2007 it will not matter too much if I don't fix this problem straight away.

As I said else where, I do not think that the wiki will get any bigger than 1200 to 1500 pages, and as Jim's output these days is not as it was I should think that the site will not grow much bigger.

I also think that the number of user's (due to it's specialist nature) will always be low, and no I am not sad about this as it is how things are.

More soon on this wiki.

Smithson Tennant

30th November , 1761 – 22nd February , 1815
Tennant is best known for his discovery of the elements iridium and osmium, which he found in the residues from the solution of platinum ores in 1804. He also contributed to the proof of the identity of diamond and charcoal. The mineral Tennantite is named after him.

Tennant was born in Selby in Yorkshire. He attended Beverley Grammar School (the oldest state school in Britain, founded AD700) and there is a plaque over one of the entrances to the present school commemorating his discovery of the two elements, Osmium and Iridium. He began to study medicine at Edinburgh in 1781, but in a few months moved to Cambridge, where he devoted himself to botany and chemistry. He graduated M.D. at Cambridge in 1790, and about the same time purchased an estate near Cheddar, where he carried out agricultural experiments. He was appointed professor of chemistry at Cambridge in 1813, but lived to deliver only one course of lectures, being killed near Boulogne-sur-Mer by the fall of a bridge over which he was riding.

James Follett Wiki (JFW) 13.07.2007

This page is just a place to leave notes to myself on the development of the James Follett Wiki. The (JFW) wiki has started on 10.07.2007 and at the time of writing this, it has an item count of 76 pages.

Looking at the number of radio plays novels that have yet to be added the final page count looks at this time to be in the 1200 to 1500 page area, I do not think that it will get much bigger than this as James has not been very productive over the last few years and on to of that he has not be very well either.

The wiki has been set up so that novels, television and radio productions or items each have there own section which is then broken down in to further sections. A way to illustrate this is to look at the novel section. The top menu item is novel, then it is broken down into decades then into years which finally leads to the individual novel published in that year.

With television the breakdown will be only by the year that it was broadcast, as there are so few television productions.

With radio, now radio is a special case, mainly because its where James first started his work, but that is not the main reason for the special treatment, the special treatment is because of the large number of plays that he wrote over a few years, and then stopped because the BBC stopped producing so many plays and besides having every play set in Ireland does tend to get well just a bit boring.

So as I was saying the the radio section is broken down by play series then by date in each series. Now because some of Jim's most famous work was in the radio play department the two items that are responsible for this have been treated as separate series even thought one series does follow the other.

In case you have not got your head around what I am talking about its Earthsearch, which as you know came in 2 number 10 part episodes, each episode will get a separate page( well that's the plan at this time that may change, one reason to keep them as separate pages is the large amount of content in the resultant pages)

As we are using a Wiki we do have to take advantage of its linking and the way we can add category's to things, and this is the whole reason for using a Wiki in the first place. One thing that I am keen to do is to link and have categories for all the actors that where in James Follett radio plays, who where they? how many plays did they appear in, who was the most used male and female actors? which year did Jim produce the most radio plays? these and other questions that I have not yet thought up yet could be answered by have the whole of the current James Follett website converted to a wiki.

If the wiki works then I can see a time when I will drop the existing website in favour of it as a wiki. Do not worry it can take pictures and all that sort of stuff and more even audio samples could be a possibility.

Now on to spam, its a sad fact that Wiki's can get very badly spammed, so to prevent that I have at this time made the wiki a closed one so that only requested users can add and remove content. When the wiki is a bit bigger, I intend to open it up so that anyone can read it but only those registered can alter it. It goes without saying that if Jim was so inclined he would be given rights to edit as he sees fit.

As this is a note to myself it will be interesting to see how much of this gets done.

I have not installed the very latest wiki software, which is Medaiwiki 1.10 as I write this, as it will not install on the one&one computers for some reason, the version that I am using is 1.83 so it is old. The other problem that I might have a bit later on is that currently one&one only allow 100 megs per MySQL database, I have no idea at all just how large the database will be.

Lewis

Lewis, originally uploaded by Tidy TTT.

Nice, wounder if this pic is rare in that it is not raining.

Displaced Cattle

Displaced Cattle, originally uploaded by slightlydramatic.

Every where I look these days appears to be in flood

In Clover

In Clover, originally uploaded by Maegluin.

Is this what summer should look like? For some reason to me it does, not to sure why.

After the Launch

After the Launch, originally uploaded by Fraggle Red.

I have never seen an image of a shuttle launch look like this.

Red Explosion

Red Explosion, originally uploaded by Siobhan Curran.

Just love the very bright colours in this image, not so sure about the wasp...

20 Seconds After Liftoff

20 Seconds After Liftoff, originally uploaded by Fraggle Red.

I wounder what it must have sounded like while taking this image, I wish i could have been there athere will be only so many more before they retire the shuttle.

04/06/2007

04/06/2007, originally uploaded by davew1.

fom the old nokia phone just to see if I could upload

04/06/2007

04/06/2007, originally uploaded by davew1.

From an old nokia phone just to see what it looks like

god this dress is short!

god this dress is short!, originally uploaded by jess22swindonia!.

Without the chair and the background this is a nice picture, yes I know the woman is a bloke, but that does not stop this from being a great image.

That dress...again

That dress...again, originally uploaded by jess22swindonia!.

Nice

Banks of the Wear

Banks of the Wear, originally uploaded by jonboy24/7.

Nice image love the clouds in this one