So, I’m back again - and this time with some new features.

Some things you can expect from this website soonish maybe:

• A commenting system for you guys
• Forums, if I can be bothered.
• A new layout; this one is starting to grate for some reason. Might be a while though.
• Possibly a return of the pictures collection, if I can write the code to fit in with the layout.
• Much, much randomness.

So, all in all, a fair amount to come. I’m also going to make a concerted effort to completely remove the new toolbar I put in, because it is now starting to annoy me and I quite liked the old one. However, to get it working with crappy IE5/6, I’m going to have to muck around with JavaScript. Oh, the fun, the fun of it all.

Anyway. Enough ranting. In a meaningless attempt to try and organise my life, I am now going to present to you the life of Dave in concise, bullet point notation.

• I went back to uni.
• I did lots and lots and lots of maths.
• I drove around a bit and got some nice shopping.
• Again, the maths thing.
• I did a little work here and there when I had time.
• One of my housemates left. Which annoyed me.
• Maths. Lots.
• I finished term, and went down to Plymouth for a week and had a lovely time, thank you very much.
• I came back to sodding Walsall and did yet more bloody mathematics of a crap nature.
• On the upside, I went out and saw Paul and Jo yesterday and Sam today.

So, there we have it. My life for the past three months. Isn’t it great?

No.

(Apart from one obvious thing which doesn’t need to be mentioned).

I will update later. Right now, the toolbar calls. Which is quite wrong and somewhat disturbing really. Oh well, never mind.

2:17 am | Posted in Academia, Maths, Personal, Site Development | No Comments »

Woohoo, RSS feed seems to work. For those that care (and/or know what it is). Make sure you have an RSS-enabled browser (i.e. Firefox) and you’ll be able to keep track of all the headlines from here. Will probably improve this a little but it’s quite easy to maintain and implement.

(RSS - Really Simple Syndication - is an easy way to announce things like news articles, blog entries and the like.)
Anyway, I will be updating the site with some various bits and bobs at some point today/tomorrow/whenever I have free time because I’m quite bored.

Other than that, Sarah’s come over to stay for a few days (which is great) but I’m really, really knackered so haven’t shown it very much. I’ve worked my arse off for the past 2 days on coding bits and pieces and editing a piece together today. In total, I got maybe 5-6 hours sleep over the past 72 hours so I’m really not feeling terribly well. Also, having been up since 7:30am this morning, it’s getting rather late and I’m feeling rather tired - I really don’t know why I’m writing this now, for instance.

Anyhoo, as far as the updates are concerned, I’m going to completely overhaul the backend and make it a lot more nicerer (yes, I know, it’s not a word, although it should be) to work with when I’m implementing new features. The new backend will be something rather cool from a programming point of view - for those that are interested, my backend is quite modular in nature, using a lot of OOP in the new PHP 5.
It won’t look particularly different to you guys (yet) but as I continue to upgrade the code (which I mainly do, just so you know, to try and keep my skills ticking over) with some new stuff, I’m going to try and add user comments and maybe a way for all the QM people to keep in contact. Who knows, I might even scrounge enough money to make the photos get back online.

Anyway, I’ve said enough for tonight. It’s now 2am, I’m tired and I ache like shite. But I’m going to sleep now and make it all better. w00t.

Catch you all later.

1:59 am | Posted in PHP/MySQL, Personal, Site Development, Web Development | 1 Comment » | Show comment » | Hide comment » |

As I write this, I’m currently sitting back in Coventry awaiting a phonecall from Sarah to get me to pick her up from university. This is a rather boring wait (I’ve been here for a 1/2 hour now) so I decided to boot up her computer and write something. I can almost bet that because fate loves me so much, the phone will be going shortly.

Anyway, I’ve not done a lot this past week - although I really should have. Not only do I have this goddamn essay to write, but I also have an assignment for a module called Modelling Nature’s Non-linearity that’s worth 40% - and it’s a pig. On top of that, I haven’t been to bed before 4am for the past week and, after having got up at 7am this morning (and going to bed at 4) I’m feeling rather worse for wear and a bit tetchy.

Hmm. What else?

Not a lot really. Mainly I’ve been playing CS a lot and generally been tired. I may be working down at Oxford this week, which is always good since I could really do with some money.

And rather typically, the phone just went.

Blah.

2:20 pm | Posted in Personal, Whining | No Comments »

Well kids, I’m back again after a short (2 month) break from updating the blog.

Some of you may wonder what the post below this one was all about. Basically, someone noticed that I’d done two stupid things which I should really not have done:

1. I left the root of my webserver directory (xyloid.org) without an index file, causing a filelist to be displayed instead of nothing.
2. I left the MySQL administration software (which gives me web access to the database) unprotected - so anyone could’ve gotten to it.

I’m not usually so lax with security, but there you go. I fixed all that and also created a few .htaccess files to fix some other folder permissions. I also went through all my scripts and fixed some outstanding security holes (as small as they might be).

Rather than a public posting, it would have been far more convenient for the person that discovered the flaw to e-mail me. But there we go.

Onto other things. I’ve just finished uni for the term (finished on the 3rd or thereabouts) and am pretty knackered out. This probably isn’t helped by the fact that I’ve not gone to bed before 4am for the past 5 nights in a row, which hurts. What have I been up to since I got back? Absolutely nothing. I don’t think I’ve ever been so bored. Nobody’s back from uni and Sarah’s in Barbados (like I keep saying - it’s alright for some) and the people I know from QM are still in term so aren’t doing anything much.

All around, it’s a bit of a bummer.

The lack of amusing things to do has also led to some vast improvements in the site. If you look at the Archives section, you’ll find it’s all nicely organised by year and month (just in case you all actually care about any posts I’ve made in the past. I’ve also taken down the link to the Stats section (since I can’t be arsed doing that) and the People section (because it’s broken and it needs beating a bit). I’m going to expand into some newer and more interesting areas very soon I think - although I don’t quite know what those might be.

Anyhoo, I’m a bit bored now, so I’m going to listen to some music and work a bit more on the site. Maybe I’ll find a few more background images. Will probably post later (at about 2am :\)

12:21 am | Posted in Personal, Web Development | No Comments »

Hey all, I’m back again and this time with even less time!

Yes, for some reason I’ve gone and done it again and come back here in a (probably vein) attempt to write some various crap that may or may not depict what is going on in my life. I got inspired today whilst reading old bits of crap on the old website, and decided that it would be a nice idea to go off and recreate this thing. I got some new hosting for my other bits and pieces (all of £5.99/mo, whoa kids) and hence because of the bandwidth restrictions I’ve decided to take the photos off.
So, here it is, the new layout. Now, before you all start mithering about this and that (which, undoubtedly, no-one will) I’d like to point out how the site should look. The sidebar on the right is - or rather, should be - very pretty and took me a long while to work out (as well as learning a bit more about CSS locators). Not only is there the subtle transparency, but there’s also the added bonus of that little box thing that highlights as you roll the mouse over the text. Add to that the fact that you have a picture in the background and it’s like being hit in the face with a brick, but in a good way (note to self: take more pills).

However, some of you of the Internet Explorer variety will notice that either the transparency doesn’t work, the mouseovers don’t work very well or both. Also, those with SP2 will notice the extremely annoying pop-up thing that keeps coming up with the active content filtering thing. Rest assured, I’m not trying to l33th4×0r your box with my h4×0r sk1llz. I’m simply trying to get IE to recognise that I’m trying to make a box transparent. See, that’s how completely stupid it is.

Tip of the day: Download Mozilla Firefox and use that instead.

So, apart from typing this ridiculous amount of text, what have I been up to? Not, as they say, a lot. I’ve got myself a new car (which is a Citroen Xsara 1.4i Forte for anyone who cares) and travelled around a bit. Seen Sarah a couple times over the holidays but I’m kindof getting used to that quite a lot of late. Last few weeks have been spent working, intertwined with a visit from Sarah and before that a holiday in Ireland which is always good for a laugh. You can sum up my holiday in just a few words: Sarah, work, Ireland, car. That’s about it really.

Anyway, I’m back to university tomorrow so I am going to make a concerted effort to keep the site updated at (fairly) regular intervals. Hopefully I can go at least until Christmas before I stop updating again. So tell your friends, and maybe I’ll put the forum back up if anyone still cares about it.

Catch you all later.

1:53 am | Posted in Personal, Site Development, University, Web Development | No Comments »