Posts for February 2004 (18 entries)

Light Angels

29th February 2004, mid-afternoon | Comments (25)

This weekend, Andy Budd, Jeremy Keith, Jon Hicks, Richard Rutter, and Stuart Langridge came down to Dorset. We chatted, we walked, we ate, we drank, and at one O’Clock on Sunday morning we took my camera and torch out to the field for some long-exposure action…

View this post in full (66 words, 9 images).

Snow, by torchlight

27th February 2004, terribly early in the morning | Comments (36)

It’s one-thirty in the morning. Should you go to bed? Or should you take the dog for a run in the snow, and then spend an hour leaping around the field with a torch and a camera?

Hmmm, decisions, decisions…

View this post in full (42 words, 4 images).

Snow, at last

26th February 2004, early evening | Comments (17)

It snowed here for a few hours this afternoon, and although it was pretty dark I nipped out and snapped a few photos, also taking the chance to let the dog run around a bit — she really seems to like the snow…

View this post in full (142 words, 7 images).

Working in America

25th February 2004, evening time | Comments (25)

Let’s say you know a British web developer/photographer. He’s self-employed, has clients in the UK and clients in the States. He’d like to go and spend some time in America.

Ideally he’d like to stay there a year, working for the same clients, photographing the country, generally doing his thing, but doing it there, instead of here.

Because of the complex and inaccessible US visa system, he can’t figure out if he has any chance of getting a visa to live in America as a self-employed person, or if he has to quietly visit under a holiday visa and leave the country every three months.

If such a person existed, would anyone be able to offer him solid, reliable advice on the visa situation?

Missing socks

25th February 2004, the wee hours | Comments (16)

For no good reason, this poem about socks popped into my head this evening…

View this post in full (184 words, 1 image).

Poppy and the corn field

23rd February 2004, late at night | Comments (16)

I took these the other day when I took Poppy for a walk.

You know, I could really do with another person to help when I'm taking photos of her. Pointing and saying Go there... no, there... look, Poppy, Poppy! Yes, good girl, now go there... look, here's a stick, see? Fetch it! Go on! There. No, fetch it... alright, yes, very good, now, stay, stay... no, stay! Oh, forget it. Yes, good girl, well done, no, off, off! just doesn't seem to work.

Plus, the sight of me lying down on the ground (which I usually do when I photograph animals) seems irresistible to her, and she ends up leaping all over me, licking me to death.

Daft animal :o)

Poppy in a corn field
Poppy leaping through the corn

Tell us everything! Well, not quite everything…

21st February 2004, the wee hours | Comments (27)

Now here’s an odd thing: if you’re a terrorist with an overwhelming urge to confess, or you’re the friend of a terrorist and you’re thinking of cashing him in, the CIA have thoughtfully provided a web-based form where you can spill your guts…

View this post in full (407 words, 2 images).

Re-designing comment forms

19th February 2004, the wee hours | Comments (66)

Here’s a question for you: why, in almost every comment form you see on the Web, do the Name, Email, and URL fields come before the Comment textarea?

The primary goal of a comment form is to collect a comment. So, why is the comment textarea almost the last thing the user gets to see?

Can you think of a good reason?…

View this post in full (552 words).

Pickled Peppers

18th February 2004, the wee hours | Comments (13)

Molly says she saw some Peppers in her local market today and her post struck a chord with me — didn’t I have some silly Pickled Pepper thing somewhere? Didn’t I write something about that a while back? Now, where would I have put it? Ah yes, here it is…

View this post in full (384 words).

Twenty-one photos

16th February 2004, late at night | Comments (30)

I can’t summon the energy to write today, so instead of words here are twenty-one random photos from my hard drive (view all twenty-one in the full post).

View this post in full (108 words, 21 images).

Filed under: Irony

12th February 2004, the wee hours | Comments (29)

I feel I ought to point out that my recent WaSP buzz regarding Great Britain’s excellence in the railway department was, how can I say, a ‘touch ironic’.

View this post in full (424 words, 1 image).

Poppies everywhere

11th February 2004, early evening | Comments (31)

I went out for a walk with the dog, and managed to get this photo of her…

View this post in full (17 words, 1 image).

Firefox errors and Firebird extensions

9th February 2004, late evening | Comments (41)

Quick tip: if, when you try to load Firefox 0.8, you find that you’re faced with an error message such as Error launching browser window:no XBL binding for browser, take a good look at the extensions you already have loaded into Firebird…

View this post in full (117 words, 1 image).

Grrr, hear me roar

7th February 2004, late at night | Comments (21)

I’ve just been watching an old home movie from my university days (1997). It was about two hours long and contained a variety of things: some sporting action, some talking with friends, some general messing about.

Bits of it made me smile, bits of it made me laugh, and bits of it made me curl up with embarrassment at my 20-year old self…

View this post in full (352 words, 1 image).

Poppy and the deer

7th February 2004, late afternoon | Comments (12)

Six photos from two recent walks: the first was a quick foray into some (slightly) snowy woods with my friend Richard, and the second was one of my (supposedly) daily strolls with the dog.

View this post in full (240 words, 6 images).

Dynamic @import CSS files using PHP

3rd February 2004, mid-afternoon | Comments (35)

Safari users, who until recently were greeted with a “Downloading 1 of 94 images” message when viewing this site, will be pleased to hear I’ve discovered the joys of combining PHP and @import CSS files — the result of which is that I’ve been able to shrink my weather-banner-CSS from ninety-five static rules (ninety-five!), to two dynamically generated ones…

View this post in full (368 words).

Providing feedback on comment submission

2nd February 2004, terribly early in the morning | Comments (12)

If you’ve posted a comment to this site before now, you’ll know that after hitting the submit button you’re redirected to see your newly posted comment, nestling amongst it’s friends, in loco…

View this post in full (569 words, 1 image).

Anna Riley, wish number one

2nd February 2004, terribly early in the morning | Comments (33)

I have a very clear idea of what my ideal partner will be like, and I’ve just seen an almost perfect representation of her in a film called Keeping the Faith. Jenna Elfman is the actress, Anna Riley is the character, and I am recording this here for the day I get my Three Wishes…

View this post in full (120 words, 1 image).