Just watch this, and take on board what is being said.
Awesome – a h/t to Old Holborn for it
Personal Archive
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A Year Of Self-Sufficiency – ta, Meryl Streep
So, last night Jacky and I watched Julie and Julia, a film about a modern-day lady (Julie Powell) attempting to cook all of Julia Child’s recipes in Mastering The Art Of French cooking. No mean feat, as Julie has 524 recipes to complete in 365 days. The film was highly entertaining, with great perfomances from Amy Adams, Meryl Streep and a favourite of mine, Stanley Tucci (a young Artie Buco?).
Anyhoo, Julie Powell blogged her progress – this was back in 2002 when all the cool kids were doing blogs, before everyone jumped on the blogging bandwagon (myself included) in order to write about what they love, as opposed to me who just needs to vent occasionally.
I’m glad to say my wife Jacky falls into the former category and, inspired by the film, has started blog with a year-long timeframe. As she is a keen gardener and wannabe smallholder, Jacky will be blogging about her attempt to become even more self-sufficient (we already grow and use quite a bit), but there’s still some lawn that hasn’t been dug up yet 
The blog can be found at A Year Of Self-Sufficiency, and I’ve dutifully included it in my blog roll. Her first post has been made this evening, stay tuned for more 
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Office-style buttons (accompanying images) with CSS
– January 22, 2011Posted in: ASP.Net, Development, Personal
Image of what the rest of the post is about:
(Excuse the rest of the site / styling, it’s the ASP.Net default one)
Well, I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, it’s another one of my “if I don’t write this down somewhere I’ll forget it” entries, of which I need to write a couple more, but they can wait.
Please note that this is for ASP.Net web development and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), so if you’re expecting some funny clips, film trailers, a sad litany of my latest injuries, or Hungarian donkey porn, you’ll have to wait
As part of a project I’m working on, a requirement was to have buttons with small images next to them, similar to the MS Office buttons, or like the links in IE’s Favorites bar that have the favicon next to them. I seem to recall that you couldn’t (easily) add an image to a button, so I kinda cheated and used an ASP.Net LinkButtons. These are hyperlinks that can also have server-side events. The styling of the button was what I was after, not the plain text, so I set the LinkButton to render as a button, and added the following style declaration (via the LinkButton’s CssClass property).
<asp:LinkButton runat="server" ID="uxPrevL" CausesValidation="false" CssClass="button back" Text="Prev" OnClick="uxPrevB_Click" Visible="false" Width="75px">
As you can see, I’m adding two style classes, button and back. Note that I’m also setting the width of the button, this can also be done via CSS, or with ASP.Net theming.
Here’s another button:
<asp:LinkButton runat="server" ID="uxNextL" CssClass="button next" Text="Next" OnClick="uxNextB_Click">
As you can see, the style classes for this button are button and next. Here’s the style definition for button
.button
{
background-color: #ddd;
background-position: 5% 50%;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
border: 2px outset #ddd;
cursor: pointer;
display: inline-block;
margin: 5px;
padding: 5px 5px 5px 25px;
text-align: center;
text-decoration: none;
}
As you can see, we’re setting a few background properties, a border, a handy (ha ha) cursor to illustrate the button is clickable, making the element display as inline-block, setting margins and border and padding, and some text alignment gubbins.
The important part here is the background-position property. Whatever background we place on the button will be position 5% of the width in from the left and 50% vertically, or, technically speaking, nudged in a bit and slapped in the middle. I was slapped in my middle one, I didn’t like it…
Ok, let’s get those images declared – remember we’ve got two style classes being applied, so here’s the necessary declarations:
.back
{
background-image: url('../Images/back.png');
}
.next
{
background-image: url('../Images/next.png');
}
And that’s basically it – you just declare the (appropriately sized) images you want to appear on the button and through the CSS magic of “applying several styles”, it works – honest
I also changed the color of the button text when the mouse hovers over the button, and gave a faux “pressed in” appearance when they button was clicked via the following:
.button:hover
{
color: #000;
}
.button:active
{
border-style: inset;
}
The button was tested in IE7+ (forget you, IE6!) and FF3+, which were our target browsers, and should be ok on Mac browsers as well.
Let me know what you think, if you like
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Happy New Year, 2011 edition ;-)
– January 2, 2011Posted in: Personal
A Happy New Year to you! I’m currently sat in the cold study, while my wife and son are reading and playing in the slightly-warmer study. I had tapped this post out on my phone, but the upload failed so now I’m forced into the cold study to do it, grrrr!
We had a very enjoyable Christmas spent with my mum, my sister and her daughter (my niece). My aunt and uncle were not able to make it down due to the snow, so it was a bit quieter than usual but still a great Christmas Day. We had planned to go on a walk on Boxing Day but that was slightly ruined by me falling down the stairs and gashing my foot open. We left a bit earlier than intended, but it was a still a very pleasant stay,
We spent the next couple of days at the in-laws, which was also great if not a bit crazy on the second day with more small children added to the mix. Again, a great couple of days.
What has been very nice is the amount of hoiday we’ve had, and we’ve been very lazy during it, which is great. We’re usually quite busy most of the time, so it was great just to stop and put our feet up for a bit, apart from when we had to get the house ship-shape for the in-laws coming around on New Year’s Day for lunch and tea, to repay them for their hospitality over Christmas.
Our New Year’s Eve was quiet; we all stayed up to watch Big Ben’s bongs and the fireworks and passed our time by watching The Sorceror’s Apprentice and Jools Holland’s Hootenanny
As for New Year’s Resolutions, I have only one: get down to 12 stone. Whilst I was on the steroids for Bell’s Palsy, I put on half a stone (in four days!) and in the run-up to Christmas, I’ve put on a bit more, so it’s time for less food and more exercise. I’ve got down to 12 stone before for both Dan gradings, so it’s definitely achievable. I will be using this blog and my Twitter to keep myself motivated.
I also resolve to blog a bit more (although Twitter seems to satisfy that need), and regain some of my flexibility in kickboxing.
Anyway, Happy New Year to you, I hear Black Ops (Christmas present) calling…
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Lead leg jump back kick
– November 6, 2010Posted in: Martial Arts, Personal
Before I became old and crippled, I used to have a fairly mean jump back kick. To be fair, I still have one, it’s just lacking in height. An alternative to the “standard” jump back kick (from left stance, you’d be kicking with your right leg), is the lead leg jump back kick. With this, from right stance, you fake a rear kick with the left leg, take off and kick with the right.
I was doing a couple of these last traning session, and they were going ok, just a little low. Clearly, as seen in the below video (at 3.30), I should stand on a table:
The chap throwing the kick is martial arts legend Benny “The Jet” Urquidez, and the poor chap being booted in the neck is Yuen Biao – or rather his stunt double
Anyway, it’s inspiring
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A follow up to Where Should I Be?
– November 2, 2010Posted in: ASP.Net, Development, Personal
Reading back on my Where Should I Be post, there was a underlying current to that post. The simple answer to the Where Should I Be question was this:
In another company.
It wasn’t about the development choices (I’m still doing ASP.Net development and loving it), or learning a few new things (I’m currently getting to grips with the Telerik ASP.Net AJAX control suite), and working with a great bunch of people. In fact, the development team actually got applauded a last week for a demo; I don’t think that would have happened at the old place.
Anyway, time for bed, but I really must blog some more as there’s lots happening in the world that requires my oh-so-important view on it
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New job = blogging on the bus
– October 1, 2010Posted in: Personal
I started my new job for a larger-than-normal start-up on Monday, and it seems to be going well. I’m working with a very pleasant and like-minded group of people, which is always a plus
The only downside is travelling by bus as it takes so long, but it gives me the opportunity to read, check news and Google reader, and blog, as I’m doing now.
That said, I’ll be taking the train as soon as I can, as it will afford me two brisk walks every day
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Polo Sucker or Cruncher = inane
So, on the bottom of my MSN app, there’s the following ad:
“Are you a Polo (R) Sucker or Cruncher. Take the test to find out!”
Leaving aside the unforgivable exclusion of a question mark (yes, I’m a grammar nazi), I suggest that people who need to take a test to find out if they suck or crunch a Polo shouldn’t be out in public on their own
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Bell’s Palsy sucks ass, day 26
– September 20, 2010Posted in: Personal
Well, I had my final Prednisolone 5mg tablet yesterday, so that’s a milestone of sorts. I was decreasing my does by 5mg a day, and have really been enjoying the lack of feeling sick and I’m feeling less anxious. I’m seeing the doc again tomorrow, and we’ll take it from there.
I’m still feeling a bit shaky and anxious, but I guess that will take a while to wear off, and hopefully there’s no “coming off” (ooh-er) side-effects.
My face has definitely responded to the steroid treatment, but it’s not back to normal yet, something that could take another nine months or so, seeing as the facial nerve re-grows at about one millimetre a day. But at least it re-grows Apparently, the B range of vitamins helps, which I’m already taking.
Stay tuned for more updates
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Quick tips on IE8 tabs and Google Reader
– September 15, 2010Posted in: Computing, Personal, Productivity
Seeing as I’ve had some time off recently and I’m a Bit Of A Geek, I’ve spent most of it in front of the computer
I use Internet Explorer 8 as my browser of choice, although I do also use Firefox as well for the excellent Firebug and Web Developer Toolber plugins, they really help with web development. Anyway, I have a number of sites I visit on a daily basis (Twitter, Facebook, Daily Telegraph, etc.), and I use have them in each tab.
When I start my daily browsing, I’m so lazy that I can’t be bothered to create a new tab and click each link from the Favourites bar, so I’ve found a way to kind of automate it. Instead of setting IE8′s home page to whatever you have set it to, set it to about:tabs. Then, when the browser launches, just click the Reopen Last Browsing Session link on the page. Hey presto, all your tabs get populated as they were when you last closed your browser. Obviously you need some open tabs to start with Incidentally, use Ctrl+Q to access Quick Tabs, a visual representation of which tabs you have open, then pick a tab or hit Esc to close.
As I spend a lot of time in Google Reader (the RSS feed reader), I like to view it full-screen to maximise reading space. This is achieved by hitting two keys on the keyboard: F11 (in IE8) to go full-screen in the browser, and then f in Google Reader just to get the reading pane. These keys toggle, naturally. If you like keyboard shortcuts (who doesn’t?), just hit ? in Google Reader to get a pop-up, overlayed list of all the shortcuts you can use, e.g. s, l, j, k for star, like, next, previous respectively.
Hope this helps
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Bell’s Palsy sucks ass, day 20
– September 14, 2010Posted in: Personal
As previously mentioned, I’m now seeing a bit of improvement. I can just about pronounce my Bs and Ps normally now, and there’s a lot more movement in my face. My mouth is still affected when I try to smile, and I still can’t curl my lip up, so no snarling for me
As I’m reducing my prednisolone steroid dosage, my weight is coming back down as well. I’m looking forward to when I can start exercising again, I’ll be defnitely back on the treadmill trying to get under 12st. Now that I’ve (almost) left my job in Mansfield, I won’t be able to go the excellent Body and Soul gym there, so I guess I’ll be doing bodyweight workouts until I join a gym in Nottingham (if time in my work day allows for a work-out).
And yes, the prednisolone and not doing anything during the day is really affecting my sleep – I was up at 3.30am. Never mind, day of rest today
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Bell’s Palsy sucks ass, day 17
– September 11, 2010Posted in: Personal
Actually, it’s sucking a bit less now. Over the last few days, I’ve been able to move my face muscles a bit. I still can’t blink my left eye, but I can kind of “scrunch” it up. My left cheek can now move about a bit, but my mouth is still pretty much frozen (no winning smile still). That said, I do seem to be speaking a bit better as I can form my Bs and Ps a bit better.
I’m still signed off work as I’m still on the rather unpleasant steroids (lots of ‘roid rage, which isn’t good), but I have been told by my GP to start reducing the dose, so that’s also good news.
Not much else to report, apart from The Dark Knight was fantastic, I should have seen it earlier!
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Bell’s Palsy sucks ass, day 13
– September 7, 2010Posted in: Personal
Well, it sucks because thanks to the steroids, I was awake at 4am with a mind racing (slight hysteria?) and hunger and feeling sick. There’s been no improvement in the droop (of my face, thank you) and my eye was rather bad yesterday.
On the plus side, my son had a good first day at secondary school yesterday, so that helped
I’ll blog more later, got a lot to get off my chest…
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Bell’s Palsy sucks ass, day 10
– September 4, 2010Posted in: Personal
Well, maybe I’m getting used to the Predinsolone steroid (60mg a day, max dose) as I didn’t have any panic / anxiety attacks today, which was nice. I did have a shock when I weighed myself however: I’ve gained 4.5lb since starting the pills on Friday – what what?! How the hell?
According to a nurse friend of mine, weight gain is a side-effect of them, but as previously mentioned, I’m trying to cut down on the food intake. That said, I have a packet of Blockbuster Vanilla Fudge next to me that has oddly become empty :-s
Ah well, best get to bed, freakin’ eye that doesn’t close is killing me… Maybe I should drink the eyedrops and spray the artificial saliva in my eye instead
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Twitter changes
H’ok, I’m now on Twitter, and I’ve added the Tweet button to each invidual blog post – let’s see what that does :-s
Now I’m definitely going to bed
