Those that are close to me know that I have  been suffering quite a lot in recent months with one thing or another.  I will not go into details but it left me feeling like I had nothing.  I think I now have a more positive outlook.

I am feeling pretty good about things in general really.  No more bad stuff has happened to me or anyone I know   My head is clear and I am focussed on my life again.  I am not looking back anymore,  it is time to look forward.

Anyway the point is,  expect to see more posts,me about on IRC and the forums.  Anyone save me a cookie?

I do not recall where but I came to hear that more development had been on Unity and I believed it would be worth seeing how the development is progressing (especially given it will be installed by default in the next Ubuntu Netbook Remix).  I am happy to report that that Nautilus is now functional!  Well done to all the developers who have been working so hard on the project, it is really appreciated.

(click here for full size)

Although not finished I have found Unity to be a little sluggish.  That could be related to my Acers technical specifications (Only 512mb ram for example).  I am intending to install an additional 1GB of RAM in the future.  This upgrade could make all the difference in these lags that I am experiencing.  Regardless,  I am very impressed and look forward to using Unity more in the future

The game certainly brought back memories, the special edition for the xbox360 is superb!  The controls are far easier to work with, as well as improved graphics.  The character dialog is now also fully audible.  Don’t worry though you can still play in “classic” mode if you want without the improvements.  The game has had a nice overhaul and is highly polished. It has not been rushed and has a high degree of quality.  Very impressed and would recommend to any Monkey Island fan.  In case you were wondering,  my stats show I completed the game in a little under 5 hours.

Both are flawed and not up to a good standard. Just thought I would share. Please do not judge too harshly. I wouldn’t even call them drafts.

Click on the thumbnails to see larger versions.

Rosie helped the kids stay alive
She gave them the drugs
So they didn’t die
She cleaned up their mess
As they wept and they moaned
She got paid so little
She rented her home

An angel face, with the strength of a tower
Worked every day, every minute every hour
When she wasn’t on the ward
She was travelling on the train
Through the wind and the sun
And the snow and the rain

Works all day, no time to eat
Running back and forth to help children see
We piss up a wall all the poison we take
She barely gets out, not to dine or to drink

I tip my hat to the angels on the ward
You’re in my heart with love forever more
I thank you now for saving my girl
And bringing her back to her own little world

Oh Rosie – we thank you again
Oh Rosie – I thank you again

Work has been extremely busy.  I have been working on moving most of our eMags and eBooks into cloud storage.  This may seem quiet trivial but it is rather complicated, in that existing links must still work.  The code inside all the books had to be changed to allow for the fact that all files for the eBook must be inside a single container (unless you want to complicate things by using pseudo directories).

To do all this I had to write a script that did the following:

• interact with our database to get book locations on the server
• gathered files from existing structure  and convert to another
• edit code within said files to allow for new structure
• upload new directory (effectively the container) onto the cloud
• update database records to give details of where the book is now on the cloud server

This was achieved with the use of PHP,  PHP executing a couple shell commands and PERL.  I must say working with PERL was easier than I expected and is something I would like to work more with in the future.  I don’t know exactly what to do with it,  but simply learning the basics of the language could be fun (I am sad to think that, I know).  In terms of the main things I learnt I guess the main thing was how our eBooks and eMags have evolved over time.  By that I mean the code has been changed to allow additional functionality.  This made editing the code from a script slightly tricky (Hooray for regular expressions).  I feel I can confidently say exactly how a particular eBook works in the backend.

This weekend is going to be eventful.  I am going to see Toy Story 3 on Saturday at roughly midday and then out for dinner at 7.   On Sunday I am going out with a friend for a cuppa tea in a coffee shop.

Originally I planned to stay in all weekend but plans often change. Hopefully this change will be for the best   I shall have to post my thoughts on Toy Story 3 if  I get a moment.

Looking to next week,  not a lot going on.  Just work.  Very boring.   Then again if I make that the plan then it will most likely change….

No real big issues with setup,  though wasn’t entirely pain free.  (No option to show characters on wifi password for instance)

This evening I have:

• Setup Mac hardware
• Setup a user account
• Updated the operating system
• Installed iWork and performed updates
• Installed Adobe Creative Suite 5 and performed updates
• Installed Firefox
• Added my iPhone to iTunes on the Mac Mini
• Setup the remote application I have on iPhone to control iTunes library

Not too bad for a couple hours work.  I will blog more about the experience, but thought I would let people know that I now have it

You slit my skin and the prophets reappear
Are you looking at me,  I’m looking at you
Sunken eyes, a broken smile
Walking under the sky of red
Hand in hand we go

I will have a look at this again in a couple of weeks,  this is a period of reflection.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Why?

I have  wanted one for sometime now.  I plan on doing more with my new camera so thought photoediting on the mac should make things easier     I also fancied a change from the different linux operating systems.  Its a cracking chance to learn something new.

The technical specifications are as follows:

• 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• 2GB (two 1GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM (upgrading to 8GB from non apple site)
• 500GB Serial ATA hard disk drive

The dimensions are:

• Height:  1.4 inches (3.6 cm)
• Width:  7.7 inches (19.7 cm)
• Depth:  7.7 inches (19.7 cm)

With any luck it should arrive sometime next week