https://stevenwilkin.com/ Recent content on Steven Wilkin Hugo -- gohugo.io en-gb Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2026/02/19/quitting-self-hosted-email-after-18-years/ Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2026/02/19/quitting-self-hosted-email-after-18-years/ Recently I was writing some code to send transactional emails for a project but I had to stop for some serious thought when it came time to configure the SMTP hostname and authentication details. I’d been self-hosting email for a long time so the first option was to start digging though old Ansible playbooks to add additional domains and accounts to my existing setup. The downside to this would be that email deliverability is arguably a lot more challenging now and if the project ever got any traction I’d effectively be running an email hosting company. https://stevenwilkin.com/2023/05/26/current-fitness-regime/ Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2023/05/26/current-fitness-regime/ Much has changed since my days of running a 5x5 strength training program: Monday Hamstring Curl Skull Crusher Dumbbell Curl Seated Calf Raise or Extension Lateral or Rear Delt Dumbbell Flye Tuesday Burpees Wednesday Hack Squat or Leg Press Plate Loaded Bench Press Barbell or Cable Row Thursday Burpees Friday Leg Extension Dumbbell Pullover EZ Bar Curl Seated Calf Raise or Extension Lateral or Rear Delt Dumbbell Flye Saturday Burpees Sunday Hack Squat or Leg Press Plate Loaded Bench Press One Arm Dumbbell Row My strategy for surviving the pandemic was to do some form of fitness everyday which has meant I no longer have off days. https://stevenwilkin.com/2022/07/03/learning-from-losses-in-trading-and-investing/ Sun, 03 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2022/07/03/learning-from-losses-in-trading-and-investing/ My financial independence journey has taken anything but a straight path. Some endeavours have worked out and some have failed miserably. Some situations I’ve had some control over and with others I’ve been powerless. Every financial loss has been painful but everytime I’ve come away with more experience and I’ve altered my approach to avoid making the same mistake again. Here’s a rough timeline of my most pertinent losses and what I learned. https://stevenwilkin.com/2022/03/20/buying-bitcoin-on-a-recurring-schedule/ Sun, 20 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2022/03/20/buying-bitcoin-on-a-recurring-schedule/ The house I was selling is finally gone and whilst it’s nice to have some cash the topic of inflation is getting a lot of attention in the current media cycle so it could be argued that I’ve actually lost an asset whilst gaining a liability. Wealth preservation There are no guarantees when it comes to investing and speculating but it is a certainty that cash sitting in a bank will steadily lose it’s purchasing power over time. https://stevenwilkin.com/2022/02/18/a-year-of-not-working/ Fri, 18 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2022/02/18/a-year-of-not-working/ A lot has changed since I last reflected on my professional situation. It’s now been over a year since I last did any client work and my time since then has been spent tinkering with personal projects, religiously going to the gym and reading. Financially independently My singular goal since 2008 had been to escape the rat race and have complete freedom in how I spend my time. Previous efforts at working less and having a better work-life balance ended in anxiety as I’d watch my cash balance steadily decrease and the usual concern of being able to get a new contract after time off would rear it’s head. https://stevenwilkin.com/2021/12/13/visualising-the-bitcoin-futures-curve-on-android/ Mon, 13 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2021/12/13/visualising-the-bitcoin-futures-curve-on-android/ During the summer I built a web application to visualise the Bitcoin futures curve which proved very useful in informing my trading decisions. As useful as it was however, each time I viewed it I had to wait for the application to first boot on Heroku and then to perform a sequence of API calls to Deribit before the chart could finally be rendered in the browser. Impatience as the mother of invention I’d no other major projects that needed attention so building a more responsive native application seemed like a reasonable task to take on. https://stevenwilkin.com/2021/09/08/unintentionally-switching-to-ubuntu-and-android/ Wed, 08 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2021/09/08/unintentionally-switching-to-ubuntu-and-android/ This post was mentioned on Hacker News recently and it reminded me of all the conversations I’ve had over the years with other developers, complaining about paying over the odds for Apple hardware and thinking it would make sense to switch to a Linux laptop and and an Android phone but never actually doing it. Interrupted plans At the start of 2020 my 2016 MacBook Air and iPhone were starting to show their age. https://stevenwilkin.com/2021/06/24/using-elixir-to-visualise-the-bitcoin-futures-curve/ Thu, 24 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2021/06/24/using-elixir-to-visualise-the-bitcoin-futures-curve/ For the last couple of years my cryptocurrency trading has focused on doing a carry trade between the Bitcoin spot and derivatives markets. This has involved buying spot Bitcoin and selling short a corresponding quantity of perpetual swap contracts and/or futures contracts. The mathematics of this trade are described in this in-depth article . To trade futures I’ve been using Deribit as they now offer contracts that settle up to a year in the future which I’ve found useful for longer term planning, especially when I’m borrowing against my spot holdings to increase the size of my position. https://stevenwilkin.com/2021/06/12/decommissioning-my-first-every-sinatra-app/ Sat, 12 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2021/06/12/decommissioning-my-first-every-sinatra-app/ For the past 12 years up until today stevenwilkin.com has been a Sinatra app. The purpose of the site was to help me learn Ruby which paid off handsomely and I went on to use Sinatra in many client projects so all in all it served me well. Time moved on however and the content fell out of date, the design increasingly became an embarrassment and I’d disabled the contact form as I rarely received anything other than spam through it. https://stevenwilkin.com/2021/06/11/migrating-from-wordpress-to-hugo/ Fri, 11 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2021/06/11/migrating-from-wordpress-to-hugo/ When I started blogging in 2006 the usual approach was to install WordPress on an Apache web server running PHP and MySQL. Shared web hosting accounts were widely available and more than adequate then but I was in the early stages of my professional life so instead I had a salvaged PC running 24/7 in my living room. I ran Slackware on it and kept a domain name pointed at it via dynamic DNS. https://stevenwilkin.com/2021/06/04/an-android-app-to-measure-exercise-performance/ Fri, 04 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2021/06/04/an-android-app-to-measure-exercise-performance/ During recent periods of restrictions due to the pandemic gyms have been closed and many people have resorted to doing body-weight exercises at home to maintain fitness and boost immune systems. My own personal routine has focused on burpees with secondary movements such as push-ups, squats, lunges, jumping jacks and mountain climbers. During the longest stretches of restrictions I was also able to do some resistance work using reusable shopping bags filled with large containers of water. https://stevenwilkin.com/2016/08/29/rpc-between-go-and-ruby-using-protocol-buffers/ Mon, 29 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2016/08/29/rpc-between-go-and-ruby-using-protocol-buffers/ I’ve previously written some thoughts on service oriented architectures and since then I’ve wanted to explore beyond the currently accepted standard of sending and receiving JSON data over web APIs. Protocol Buffers With JSON there’s an overhead of transmitting plain-text over the wire coupled with parsing that text in your application once received. For many cases this is probably acceptable but for a large-scale distributed system this can represent a not insignificant cost in terms of bandwidth and computing resources. https://stevenwilkin.com/2015/07/02/five-years-of-contracting/ Thu, 02 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2015/07/02/five-years-of-contracting/ April 1st saw me celebrate five years of working as an in independent contractor. This also means I’ve now spent two years in London and it’s been four years since I last worked in Northern Ireland. It’s scary how fast time flies. Changes and not My second contract here required the use of a limited company so it meant finally waving goodbye to the simplicities of being a sole trader. I’d originally set up NullTheory Ltd for my very first contract but was advised to go down the sole-trader route so it had been lying dormant for some time. https://stevenwilkin.com/2014/12/04/docker-and-go-hello-world/ Thu, 04 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2014/12/04/docker-and-go-hello-world/ One of the most bandied about buzzwords at the moment has got to be Docker. So many people I’ve spoken to claim to be moving their application environments to it and some even have it running in production with varying degrees of success. Fine in theory The theory of isolating groups of related processes into containers which then themselves can be further orchestrated to build out an environment is very appealing. https://stevenwilkin.com/2014/08/10/blogging-on-ansible/ Sun, 10 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2014/08/10/blogging-on-ansible/ A good friend of mine recently voiced the opinion that the day will soon be upon us when the traditional SysAdmin will no longer be relevant and all operations activities will be some variety of DevOps. Now, I’ve been managing my own infrastructure for some years but every package has been manually installed with every configuration file modified by hand, resulting in snowflake servers which are nigh-on impossible to recreate exactly and have occasionally caused me a lack of sleep. https://stevenwilkin.com/2013/12/29/a-simple-service-oriented-architecture-using-ruby-and-go/ Sun, 29 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2013/12/29/a-simple-service-oriented-architecture-using-ruby-and-go/ Some common pain points seem to keep cropping up time and time again as applications grow in size and complexity: tests get longer to run deployments become a much more involved process making a small fix to one area of code can often break something in another it can be much harder to reason about the system as a whole These large, monolithic applications are affectionately known as monorails in the Rails world and the common wisdom is to start splitting up the codebase into services: to extract areas of functionality out into self-contained, independent applications which work in unison to deliver the original capability. https://stevenwilkin.com/2013/09/02/serving-up-a-static-site-using-go/ Mon, 02 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2013/09/02/serving-up-a-static-site-using-go/ Like a lot of people in technology a portion of my time is spent wondering what will be the next programming language, framework or whatever to take off and become popular. Of greater personal importance is the matter of which one of them will get added to my toolboox next and press-ganged into productive use. For years now Ruby has been my goto for a lot things and I’ve been doing more and more OS X and iOS development but it had been some time since I last picked up something new and I had a hankering for some shinyness. https://stevenwilkin.com/2013/08/18/contracting-in-london/ Sun, 18 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2013/08/18/contracting-in-london/ Since I last wrote about my experience working outside of Northern Ireland I’ve returned to the UK, turned down prospects of contract work in Belfast and have set up shop in London. Serendipity A good while back Rob and myself had discussed the possibility of London. He’d been working remotely with a company based here and due to changes in his circumstances leaving N. Ireland was a valid option. Lines of communication between the two of us dropped off for a while as a result of travel, work and such like and when I finally got caught up with him I discovered he’d already bitten the bullet and was moving over. https://stevenwilkin.com/2013/05/26/decisions-decisions-decisions/ Sun, 26 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2013/05/26/decisions-decisions-decisions/ I can be an awfully indecisive person at times. Often I’ve been in the grips of analysis paralysis unable to pick a course of action to take, crippled with choice. When I was a student I read The Dice Man and was sorely tempted to make all my decisions by rolling a die or tossing a coin. Needless to say this is maybe not the best way for a person to navigate through life. https://stevenwilkin.com/2013/03/05/two-years-of-working-away-from-home/ Tue, 05 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2013/03/05/two-years-of-working-away-from-home/ I’m currently sitting in Melbourne enjoying the Australian summer and a well deserved break from work. I can barely remember the northern hemisphere winter I left behind a few weeks ago. I’ve only briefly mentioned working away from home before but January past marked two years since I last worked in Belfast. The pace has been hectic at times and I’ve spent more nights in hotels than I care to recall but from my first contract in Dublin to my last in the south of England I’ve found a consistant theme: being treated with more respect, working on more interesting problems and for higher pay. https://stevenwilkin.com/2012/07/26/an-introduction-to-websockets/ Thu, 26 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2012/07/26/an-introduction-to-websockets/ Last week I gave a short talk at BelfastJS outlining WebSockets: what they are, how you use them, examples, warnings and alternatives. That should cover the basics I think. A few months ago I spoke at BelfastRuby and it was good again to be sharing some knowledge with a bunch of people enthusiastic about technology and the local community. Hopefully we can keep things going and help make Belfast a supportive environment for those involved in the knowledge economy. https://stevenwilkin.com/2012/06/11/using-vagrant-and-chef-to-setup-a-ruby-1.9-development-environment-including-rvm-and-bundler/ Mon, 11 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2012/06/11/using-vagrant-and-chef-to-setup-a-ruby-1.9-development-environment-including-rvm-and-bundler/ It has become common practice these days to use tools like RVM and Bundler to manage a project’s dependencies. When these pacakages are in place, getting up to speed with another project is a breeze. The Pain But how about installing these tools themselves? How about other dependant pieces of software such as databases and the like? What if they have to be compiled from source? What if they have to be installed with a package manager? https://stevenwilkin.com/2012/05/20/an-ios-client-for-my-coffee-tracker-api/ Sun, 20 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2012/05/20/an-ios-client-for-my-coffee-tracker-api/ About 9 hours ago I dandered down the road to see what was happening at the FlackNite event being hosted in Farset Labs. When I finally got myself settled down with network access and a cup of coffee and said hello to everyone it seemed I was the only one without a project to work on. Nightmare. Decisions, Decisions I couldn’t think of what to focus on but Rob and Pete were sitting next to me and tinkering with some Objective-C and Cocoa. https://stevenwilkin.com/2012/03/27/an-introduction-to-sinatra/ Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2012/03/27/an-introduction-to-sinatra/ Tonight I gave an introductory talk about Sinatra at the second meetup of BelfastRuby. The Converser platform I’ve been building this last while uses a lot of Sinatra so when I was asked to give a talk about using Ruby to develop web apps without Rails it wasn’t hard to think of a subject. This was my first technical talk and apart from a touch of nerves and forgetting some of the jokes I had in mind I think things went well. https://stevenwilkin.com/2012/03/07/tracking-my-coffee-consumption-with-redis-sinatra-and-cocoa/ Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2012/03/07/tracking-my-coffee-consumption-with-redis-sinatra-and-cocoa/ I’ve often joked about putting together an app to track my coffee consumption, such is my reputation for consuming the black goodness. Like a lot of my other personal projects, the idea had a prolonged gestation period and was finally born through a welcome spark of motivation. Crafting fine web APIs Over the past 6 months the bulk of what I’ve been doing day to day with Vigill has involved building web APIs for consumption by mobile clients. https://stevenwilkin.com/2012/01/31/a-simple-app-to-monitor-google-chrome-on-os-x/ Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2012/01/31/a-simple-app-to-monitor-google-chrome-on-os-x/ I was on-site with Vigill one day before Christmas and I mentioned to Oisin an idea I had for an app. I was sick of having endless tabs open in Chrome, hogging memory, each one some seeming important enough at the time that I read it but now just a contextless enigma. If I at least knew how many tabs I had open, it would be a step in the right direction I thought. https://stevenwilkin.com/2011/11/01/my-also-ran-markdown-editor-for-os-x/ Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2011/11/01/my-also-ran-markdown-editor-for-os-x/ Quite often I feel the need to learn something new for the sake of learning something new. Covey aficionados would know this as sharpening the saw. I usually struggle deciding upon something however as there are so many areas to choose from in the software world and it isn’t everyday I feel drawn enough to something to put time and effort into it on top of holding down a day job. https://stevenwilkin.com/2011/09/05/a-tale-of-three-pull-requests/ Mon, 05 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2011/09/05/a-tale-of-three-pull-requests/ After years of earning a living through using free software I’ve finally contributed back to the open-source world. Frustration For the two and a half years I’ve been pushing some personal projects to Github and some of my code I’ve been told has even been helpful for others. While this is certainly open-source none of my efforts have affected existing codebases. Numerous times I’ve scoured the bug trackers of projects I’ve had some sort of interest in, on the lookout for an issue I could investigate, even getting as far as reading through upteen lines of foreign code but ultimately unable to add anything. https://stevenwilkin.com/2011/05/19/an-ios-client-for-my-uk-inflation-app/ Thu, 19 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2011/05/19/an-ios-client-for-my-uk-inflation-app/ After last week’s great Xcake meet I felt a fresh surge to take on new challenges and bend some less-familiar pieces of technology to my will. Motivation The first product of this enthusiasm was a prototype web app built to get a bit more experience with Python and Google App Engine. A few days later it got an API. The resulting rapid feedback loop led me to pick up my copy of Beginning iPhone Development which had been sitting gathering dust for the last couple of years and get stuck back into following the examples. https://stevenwilkin.com/2011/05/12/keeping-an-eye-on-uk-inflation-with-google-app-engine/ Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2011/05/12/keeping-an-eye-on-uk-inflation-with-google-app-engine/ For a long time now whenever I’m on the search for something interesting to work on that could potentially be of value to myself and others my attention is brought to topics like machine learning, data mining and natural language processing. These are all areas within computer science which are not particularly easy and have a higher barrier of entry compared to building a typical web application for instance. Yet, if implemented correctly they can provide great insight and fame and fortune are bound to be near. https://stevenwilkin.com/2011/02/20/a-minimal-rack-app-to-lookup-your-external-ip-address/ Sun, 20 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2011/02/20/a-minimal-rack-app-to-lookup-your-external-ip-address/ I think I first heard the term “Rack-app” when I started using Heroku to host a couple of projects. I didn’t know an awful lot about Rack but I did know that it helped a great deal when it came to getting my Rails and Sinatra apps off my workstation and onto the web. Tonight I thought I’d have another quick look at how it works, what it takes to build a Rack-app and what information about the request is available to the handler. https://stevenwilkin.com/2011/01/11/backing-up-delicious-bookmarks-to-couchdb/ Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2011/01/11/backing-up-delicious-bookmarks-to-couchdb/ Last year I started researching how CouchDB could be used for the BodyGuard web-app QA platform. Unfortunately I had to put my tinkerings to one side when some extra freelance work came in; contracting during the day and freelancing in the evenings quickly put an end to any spare time and my fitness efforts took a hit but I was only self-employed for a short while and it seemed the thing to do. https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/12/25/installing-rmagick-on-debian-lenny/ Sat, 25 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/12/25/installing-rmagick-on-debian-lenny/ Just a quick reminder to myself on how I installed RMagick on a Debian 5.0.4 “lenny” VPS. All commands to be run as root. Build ImageMagick from source curl -O ftp://ftp.imagemagick.org/pub/ImageMagick/ImageMagick.tar.gz tar xvzf ImageMagick.tar.gz -C /usr/src/ cd /usr/src/ImageMagick-6.6.6-6/ ./configure make make install Install the RMagick Gem gem install rmagick Bingo! As an interesting aside, ImageMagick handles a lot of image formats via delegate libraries. I previously installed RMagick on a CentOS box and had to separately install TrueType fonts which were necessary for the project in question. https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/12/13/minder-a-simple-web-app-monitoring-tool-written-in-ruby/ Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/12/13/minder-a-simple-web-app-monitoring-tool-written-in-ruby/ Background A few months ago I was tasked with migrating and maintaining a bunch of legacy Rails apps and a couple of them were misbehaving. Requests were hanging which was tying-up the front-end Apache child processes and resulting in all the web-apps on the server becoming unresponsive At the time I didn’t know what was causing the hanging requests, it wasn’t happening in a predictable manner and on the surface I had all the apps dependencies in place. https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/08/01/is-it-raining-in-belfast-redux/ Sun, 01 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/08/01/is-it-raining-in-belfast-redux/ Last year I created a nano-app which attempted to answer the question, is it raining in Belfast? I was never completely pleased with it but the objective was to get something done and get it done fast, which was achieved. This weekend I’ve been tinkering with another project and hit a bit of a stumbling block getting various pieces of software to co-exist. I decided a break from the problem would be beneficial but I still wanted to have some sense of achievement from the weekend and redeveloping this app seemed a good idea. https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/06/27/an-experimental-lifestream-app/ Sun, 27 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/06/27/an-experimental-lifestream-app/ Some time ago DW and myself had an enthusiastic conversation about logging various aspects of our electronic lives: emails sent and received, RSS feeds read, incoming and outgoing phone calls, the list goes on. At that time I’d already started tinkering with apps to track my efforts in the gym and changes in my bodyweight, I’ve used notebooks for this for years and thought it’d be interesting to have this information in electronic form. https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/06/08/rails-3-hello-world/ Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/06/08/rails-3-hello-world/ The past while I’ve been busy providing technical consultancy to BT and haven’t had much drive to work on anything on my own time. The itch has returned the past couple of weeks though so I thought I’d see what I’ve been missing in the Rails world and in what better way than getting a basic Rails 3 app up and running. My environment was already setup for Rails 2.3.* and Yehuda Katz’ post served as a guide to get me up to speed with the beta loveliness. https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/03/24/home-time-revisited-redeveloping-a-cakephp-application-with-sinatra/ Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/03/24/home-time-revisited-redeveloping-a-cakephp-application-with-sinatra/ I’ve just released the latest iteration of hometi.me, a little nano-app I’ve mentioned before. Deliberate Practice It’s only a trivial app but I’ve a bit of free time before the start of a contract so I thought it would be good practice to redevelop it, a task I’d been ignoring for a long time. Goodbye CakePHP, Hello Sinatra The original app was put together quickly with CakePHP, a PHP-based framework I’ve used since my first paid programming gig. https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/03/19/node-shoutbox-a-simple-node.js-demo/ Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/03/19/node-shoutbox-a-simple-node.js-demo/ Last month, at the inaugural Super Happy Dev Castle, my buddy Dave Rice told me about a project he was working on involving node.js, an event-based I/O system for Javascript. Javascript outside of the browser? This concept seemed almost ridiculous to me at that time but I thought it was worth a look and cobbled together a quick “Hello World.” I was greatly amused by creating a command-line app with Javascript but did nothing more about it until last week. https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/02/14/a-dummy-datasource-for-cakephp/ Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/02/14/a-dummy-datasource-for-cakephp/ I was recently developing a project at work which at the beginning didn’t need a database. However, Cake was still testing the database connection and issuing a warning as a result when it couldn’t connect. My solution was to create a dummy datasource which silenced the warnings and allowed me to get on with the rest of development in relative peace. The scope of the project changed and a database was required. https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/01/05/migrating-a-wordpress-database-between-domains/ Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/01/05/migrating-a-wordpress-database-between-domains/ Occassionally I find myself developing a WordPress theme which will then require moving from development into production or otherwise having to move a blog between domains. Apart from the transfer of the files, including plugins, theme and core WordPress installation, there is only 1 slightly gotcha: the database. I’ve never been quite sure why but WordPress stores the URL of the blog in it’s database, not once, but twice. For the blog to be migrated the database needs a slight tweak. https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/01/04/mysql-database-backup-with-remote-storage/ Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2010/01/04/mysql-database-backup-with-remote-storage/ Prevent a disaster After reading Jeff Atwood’s backup failure last month I decided to finally get around to doing something I’d been intending to do “one of these days” but had in actual fact been putting off for years. Here’s the steps I took to ensure the databases on my webserver were backed up every night and copies of the dumps stored remotely. On the remote storage machine Generate an ssh key pair with and empty password and put the public key on the remote server. https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/12/13/6-months-of-rehab/ Sun, 13 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/12/13/6-months-of-rehab/ I find it hard to believe, but I crossed the 6 month milestone at Rehab this week. The time has went in quickly, with a fast-pace and quick turnaround times being the norm. The vibe in the office has been great, with a decent soundsystem pumping out dance music all day and my producer Gary, aka DJ Gary Quinn, dropping in a few choice chunes. The guys here have a real passion for the web and enjoy a good laugh, for instance, this week we had a challenge to wear a different hat each day. https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/09/15/mashing-up-twitter-trends-and-google-images/ Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/09/15/mashing-up-twitter-trends-and-google-images/ I recently released the latest entry in my series of nano-apps. As with my previous efforts, istrending.com serves serves no real purpose other than as an act of deliberate practice: going through the process of coming up with an idea, writing code, registering domain names, setting up Cron jobs and configuring deployment systems to get it all up and running in a production environment. I questioned why I was even bothering with an app that was likely not going to see any traffic or be of use to people and when I hit a minor javascript problem the project was shelved for a few months. https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/07/31/5x5-strength-training-program/ Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/07/31/5x5-strength-training-program/ Since my last update strength training I’ve progressed from 3 sets of 5 reps to 5 sets of 5 reps: the infamous 5x5. I’m still training 3 days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday before work, still not doing any cardio and the Osgood Schlatters is still giving me gip. Here’s what my routine has been like lately: Monday Front Squat Overhead Press or Dumbbell Bench Press Clean Wednesday Front Squat Overhead Press or Dumbbell Bench Press Barbell Row Friday Front Squat Overhead Press or Dumbbell Bench Press Deadlift I’m training the front squat every session and alternating the overhead press and the dumbbell bench press between sessions. https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/06/16/developer-rehab/ Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/06/16/developer-rehab/ My unemployment is over! Last week I started as a developer with Rehab Studio. Code on! https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/04/21/because-everyone-needs-their-own-url-shortening-service/ Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/04/21/because-everyone-needs-their-own-url-shortening-service/ At the moment I’m in between paid work and have been using my time to generally enjoy life but to also improve my skills. I’m all about the skills. As an act of deliberate practice to hone my skills with web-application development and to deepen my understanding of the Rails framework I’ve been adding to my collection of nano-apps. A while back I had an idea to develop a URL shortener just to see how little code would be required but decided the world really didn’t need another one. https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/04/16/finally-after-2-and-a-half-years-my-rails-dvd-catalogue-is-go/ Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/04/16/finally-after-2-and-a-half-years-my-rails-dvd-catalogue-is-go/ Well, it only took me 2 and a half years but I finally used Rails to develop a catalogue for my DVD collection. The catalogue loosely fits in with my series of nano-apps and is hosted on movies.stevenwilkin.com. The code is publicly available on GitHub for anyone who’s interested. All’s left now is to actually use the system and fill in the details of my collection! https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/04/15/an-experiment-with-sinatra-haml-and-blueprint-css/ Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/04/15/an-experiment-with-sinatra-haml-and-blueprint-css/ In my last post I considered transforming stevenwilkin.com into a Sinatra app. Well, I did it, although I’m only mentioning it now. Not only was this my first experience with Sinatra but I also decided to try using HAML for the markup and Blueprint CSS to help with the styling. If I’m going to play with a new technology why not play with a few new technologies? I found Sinatra quite straight forward: you match up a HTTP verb (eg ‘GET’) and a url (eg ‘/’) with a block of Ruby and the results can be sent directly to the browser or an optional view template can be rendered. https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/02/15/first-production-rails-app/ Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/02/15/first-production-rails-app/ I released my first production Rails application, hugagoth.com, last night. I first started playing with Rails over 2 years ago and it has taken me until now to take an app through from conception to initial deployment. And an interesting journey it has been. When I first started investigating Rails I had never used a web framework before and the Ruby language really confused me, but there were a few things I liked. https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/01/26/nano-apps/ Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/01/26/nano-apps/ Last month Giles Bowkett in the trawls of his hypergraphia wrote a post on Nano-Apps, quirky one page apps which serve up a piece of trivia or answer a question like is George W. Bush still president? Previously I had put together hometi.me, a little AJAX-y app to let me know how much longer I had to go until I could leave work for the day and when a new nano-app reporting Belfast’s goodonpaper’s coffee drinking habits surfaced the bug bit me and I wanted to do something and do it quick. https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/01/21/2009-irish-blog-awards-nominations/ Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2009/01/21/2009-irish-blog-awards-nominations/ I’ve been quiet lax on the blog front for a while now, both in terms of producing and consuming blog content. Curse you Twitter! So it came as quiet a surprise while reading one of Matt’s blog posts to discover my humble blog had been nominated in the Best Personal Blog category of the 2009 Irish Blog Awards. Must. Blog. More. Update: Thanks to DavyMac for the great logo! https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/12/29/simple-example-of-accessing-the-twitter-rest-api-with-ruby/ Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/12/29/simple-example-of-accessing-the-twitter-rest-api-with-ruby/ To date, a lot of interesting applications have been built on top of the Twitter service with new apps being released almost daily, each one more ingenious than the last. In my spare time I’ve been tinkering with Ruby, my motivation being to learn something new and to see if Ruby lives up the hype that has been surrounding it in recent years. In conjunction with this I’ve also been experimenting with obtaining content from existing web sites and services, content being king after all. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/11/21/john-devlin-1977-2006/ Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/11/21/john-devlin-1977-2006/ My friend John Devlin, also know as “Tripper J,” is dead 2 years today. He was 29 when he finally lost his battle against an incurable, progress and fatal disease. As a memorial I’ve setup tripperj.com. We all still miss you John. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/11/11/strength-training-adding-variety/ Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/11/11/strength-training-adding-variety/ A couple of months ago I decided to add some variety to my strength training program. The main change has been to alternate between front and back squats. The higher frequency with the back squat has brought some much needed practice to an exercise I find mechanically more difficult to perform, quite possibly due to difficulties with my right knee I had when I was a teenager. Through the influence of stronglifts. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/09/30/666-the-number-of-the-feast/ Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/09/30/666-the-number-of-the-feast/ As any weightlifter knows, protein is an integral part of any diet. To this end I was picking up some chicken and whole milk the other day and you can imagine my amusement when it came time to hand over my shiny pennies that this was the amount owed: Rock on! https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/09/09/home-time-is-a-little-closer/ Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/09/09/home-time-is-a-little-closer/ Before calling it a day last night I pushed out another release of my “toy” web-application, hometi.me. Thank you Capistrano! I mentioned last month that I was intending on following the “release early, release often” paradigm with this project, but as always, life had other plans and I found myself doing very little hacking outside of the 9-5. Regardless, I believe this release provides a great deal of extra functionality and I’m content to just have gotten the code out the door. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/09/07/current-strength-training-program/ Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/09/07/current-strength-training-program/ For nearly 3 months my strength training has revolved around squatting 3 times a week and this is my current program: Monday Front squat Neutral-grip chin up Parallel bar dip Wednesday Back squat Overhead press Row Friday Front squat Dumbbell bench press Deadlift All squats are done to below parallel with all free-weight exercises being performed for 3 sets of 5 repetitions, after warm-ups, with the exception of the deadlift for which my “work” consists of a single set of 5 reps. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/08/25/squid-yes-please/ Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/08/25/squid-yes-please/ When I’m out in a Chinese restaurant my favorite dishes to order usually involve seafood, with salted chili squid being a regular delight. Squid is something I had never even thought of cooking before and recently my good friend Nick K mentioned that it was not only easy to cook but also inexpensive to buy from the ethnic store just down the road from me. In my naivity I presumed the squid I purchased to resemble that served to hungry diners, albeit uncooked and frozen, so you can imagine my surprise when I defrosted a box and saw a bunch of these guys staring out at me: https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/08/12/is-it-home-time-yet/ Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/08/12/is-it-home-time-yet/ I’ve just released the first iteration of hometi.me which provides an answer to the important question of is it home time yet? My general dislike of working for a living inspired me to craft a python script during my tenure at $BIG_CORP and last week the creativity bug bit me and I decided to quickly develop a web-application and get it publicly available. Thanks CakePHP! I’m following the “release early, release often” philosophy and as such this iteration only has the most basic of functionality but I’ve some more interesting/useful things planned and will get them out as soon as possible. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/08/01/deadlift-friday-no-injury-shocker/ Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/08/01/deadlift-friday-no-injury-shocker/ Once again it was my weekly deadlift session this morning but unfortunately I have no injuries to share with you all this time:( My lower-back and hips took a battering though so I might me complaining tomorrow and there would appear to be a possibility of having some tasty bruising over my left clavicle and anterior deltoid from doing front-squats of which I’ll post a photo of if they “shine through” :) https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/07/31/busted-fingers/ Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/07/31/busted-fingers/ Continuing what appears to be turning into a series detailing my training injuries I present the following: I nipped my finger loading extra plates onto the bar during the warm-up sets of my last deadlift session and I must say it looked more “impressive” covered with magnesium carbonate and dripping blood ;) More haste, less speed may be required next time. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/07/27/#-shutdown-h-now/ Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/07/27/#-shutdown-h-now/ I’ve just shutdown the beige box that was home to this blog for just over a year and a half until I started renting a VPS. I had intended to shutdown this machine since the start of the year but never got around to it and after a techie chat on IM with Dave Dripps earlier in the day decided to just “pull the finger out” and do the needful. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/07/18/bloody-shins/ Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/07/18/bloody-shins/ Yep, you guessed it, today was deadlift day: https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/27/squatting-3-times-a-week-and-a-return-to-early-morning-training/ Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/27/squatting-3-times-a-week-and-a-return-to-early-morning-training/ I’ve now completed my third week of a new strength program. This program involves full-body training 3 times a week with squatting each session (!) and deadlifting once a week. Until I read Practical Programming I didn’t know that bodybuilders were generally the only weight-lifters to squat once per week, or to “train legs” to use their lingo, but apparently many other weight-lifting disciplines are built upon more frequent squatting, especially power-lifting and olympic-lifting. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/26/what-no-version-control/ Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/26/what-no-version-control/ $WEB_CORP has taken on the maintenance contract of a particular site and the client has asked for some changes to be made along with fixing up some SQL injection vulnerabilities. My first step was to GET all the site’s scripts via FTP so I could create a local DEV instance of it and was surprised to see the following: $ ls -1 index*.asp index-old.asp index.11May2007.asp index.11Oct2006.asp index.13March2006.asp index.18aug2006.asp index.20Feb2007.asp index.20Jan2006.asp index. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/25/belfast-linux-meetings-restarted-on-last-wednesday-of-month/ Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/25/belfast-linux-meetings-restarted-on-last-wednesday-of-month/ Johnny has kicked the wheel off and BLUG meetings are starting up again on the last Wednesday of the month, starting this evening at 6pm in The Tap House, Lower Crescent, just off Botanic Avenue, Belfast. Some additional information is available on the BLUG Facebook group and on the Belfast Linux newsgroup. See you there! https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/18/barcamp-belfast-2008-this-saturday/ Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/18/barcamp-belfast-2008-this-saturday/ It’s nearly time to get your geek-on… Check out Andy’s blog for the skinny on BarCamp Belfast 2008. I hope to see you all there! https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/12/building-the-brand-stevenwilkin.com-gets-a-facelift/ Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/12/building-the-brand-stevenwilkin.com-gets-a-facelift/ I’ve just released the latest iteration of my “professional” site, stevenwilkin.com. There’s the possibility the designers I’m working with will think my design-fu is weak, but the site badly needed something as it has been barely put to use in the years I’ve owned it. I don’t know how the Steven Wilkin web experience will evolve but the words of Eric S. Raymond are ringing true when he mentions not hiding behind a hacker-style alias so I may put more emphasis on this domain in the future. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/10/batch-preparation-of-boiled-eggs/ Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/10/batch-preparation-of-boiled-eggs/ In my post on batch preparation of oats, written in response to Trent’s post, I mentioned that I also prepare the boiled eggs I enjoy for breakfast in advance. At the weekend past I’d just boiled a saucepan of eggs, cooled them with cold water and put them into a tupperware box when I remembered my previous post, so I took a quick snap to provide a follow-up: Whole, boiled eggs will keep for up to a week in their shells in the fridge and provide an excellent source of complete protein, saturated fat and dietary cholesterol along with a hearty dose of Vitamin D, all of which are essential to those pursuing an active lifestyle which includes weight training. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/05/steven-wilkin-professional-coffee-drinker-extraordinaire/ Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/05/steven-wilkin-professional-coffee-drinker-extraordinaire/ There have been times in my life when my job description could well have been best described as being a professional coffee drinker. These days however I’ve found gainful employment but continue to consume vast quantities of the stuff and even use coffee nomenclature to name my new *nix boxes. During a caffeine-fuelled session with my domain registrar I happened to lookup professionalcoffeedrinker.com; it was available, all sense went out the window and my money and myself were swiftly parted. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/04/a-developer-again-i-am/ Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/06/04/a-developer-again-i-am/ Monday was my first day as a developer with Creative Online Media and I must say it’s great to be wearing my coding hat again. The culture-shock has been enormous: I’m not flooded with emails and phone calls all day, nor battling with bureaucracy and the people are really chilled-out. I don’t know myself! The adjustment period will end and no doubt I’ll be required to produce product but I think this gig has potential :) https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/05/28/ticket-to-ride-a-break-from-the-rat-race-in-fermanagh/ Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/05/28/ticket-to-ride-a-break-from-the-rat-race-in-fermanagh/ I’m spending a few days down the country before I start my new my job catching up with my family, tinkering on some personal projects and just generally “getting my head showered.” I’m enjoying the break from the daily grind with my only real task being to steel myself for the upcoming change to my 9-5 existence. I find myself so resistant to change: my levels of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt seem to automatically soar at the prospect of anything out of the ordinary, but I’m presented with a great opportunity to sharpen my development skills within a lower-pressure environment. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/05/26/bye-bye-big_company-steve-leaves-the-enterprise/ Mon, 26 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/05/26/bye-bye-big_company-steve-leaves-the-enterprise/ I’m preparing myself for my last cycle home from $BIG_COMPANY. On the whole the experience has been, well, experience: neither good nor bad but worthwhile all the same. I do have gray hairs now though. Soon, process monitoring, environment management, receiving 700 emails a day and being on-call will be a distant memory. Along with my nemesis of the past 9.5 months, the Tibco TIC. And yes, before you ask, I have my name barrel in my pannier bag ;) https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/05/15/barcamp-belfast-2008/ Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/05/15/barcamp-belfast-2008/ I attended BarCamp last year and I heard this morning that details of this year’s un-conference have been confirmed. The fun is happening on Saturday 21st June, 9am - 5pm in the Peter Froggatt Centre at Queens University Belfast. See you there! https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/05/12/oats-weekly-batch-preparation/ Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/05/12/oats-weekly-batch-preparation/ I read Trent’s post on preparing oats at the weekend and decided to write about my own process. I’m also relieved I’m not the only one doing this kind of thing ;) Part of my weekend routine involves preparing my breakfasts for the coming week. I boil a large saucepan of eggs which end up in a tupperware box in my fridge and I start a process which results in the following: https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/04/16/command-line-history-me-too/ Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/04/16/command-line-history-me-too/ I’ve seen this on a couple of blogs recently so I thought I’d give it a go on the VPS this site is hosted on: steve@decaf:~$ history | awk ‘{a[$2]++} END {for(i in a)print a[i] " " i}’ | sort -rn | head -10 190 ls 80 cd 24 cp 22 sudo 19 rm 14 svn 12 history 11 tar 10 wget 10 vi And as root: 172 ls 59 vi 56 cd 22 apt-get 20 less 20 apache2ctl 17 apt-cache 15 cp 10 pwd 10 ps https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/04/14/big_corp-rides-the-snake-my-first-python-script/ Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/04/14/big_corp-rides-the-snake-my-first-python-script/ In between support tasks at $BIG_CORP I’ve been slowly reading through O’Reilly’s Learning Python and trying a few things out with the command-line interpreter. The first script I’ve written that actually does something useful is countdown.py: #!/usr/bin/env python countdown to 5pm 2008 SJW import datetime now = datetime.datetime.now() home = datetime.datetime(now.year, now.month, now.day, 17, 0, 0, 0) total_secs = (home - now).seconds hours = total_secs / (60 * 60) minutes = (total_secs - (hours * 60 * 60)) / 60 print hours, " hours and “, minutes, " minutes until 5pm” https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/04/01/updating-wordpress-via-subversion-it-works/ Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/04/01/updating-wordpress-via-subversion-it-works/ The last time a new version was released I decided to update my WordPress installation with Subversion with the idea being that this would make future updates easier. Well, the good news is that this technique works :) All it took was 3 simple steps: $ cd /var/www/sickbiscuit.com/blog $ svn switch http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/tags/2.5/ . launch wp-admin/upgrade.php via web-browser To be safe I backed up the database prior to the update and so far everything seems good, job’s a good ‘un! https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/03/27/1337/ Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/03/27/1337/ For the past week I’ve been using up the annual leave that I’d carried over from last year and hit the road for Fermanagh to spend some time with my family. My Mum and myself went to pay a visit on my Grandmother and while stopping to buy some flowers I spotted this on the dashboard: I couldn’t resist. Wikipedia artical for those not in the know. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/03/05/updating-wordpress-via-subversion/ Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/03/05/updating-wordpress-via-subversion/ I read a few months back that Stuart Langridge was using Subversion to keep his WordPress up-to-date and I thought: “that’s clever” and didn’t do anything about it. Today I was talking to Matt and he mentioned updating one of his WordPress installations and I noticed I was due an update myself. I downloaded the latest release and was having a quick skim through the upgrade procedure to make sure I wasn’t forgetting about anything and I spotted a link to the Subversion update instructions… I’m off work sick today and have the time so I decided to give it a go. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/02/28/new-site-theme-at-last/ Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/02/28/new-site-theme-at-last/ I finally got around to replacing the default WordPress theme. Now it doesn’t look like I don’t care about my site :) With so many freely available themes I found it difficult to choose but I stumbled upon plaintxt.org and my mind was made up: I needed one of those minimalist themes and I opted for the Barthelme which I am liking very much. For posterity I took a screenshot of my old, hand-crafted design: https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/02/23/new-5rm-deadlift-today/ Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/02/23/new-5rm-deadlift-today/ Over the past few months I haven’t been quite the gym freak that I’ve been in the past but one exercise I have continued to regularly train has been the deadlift. Saturday mornings had become my sole weekly strength session so I had to ensure I was getting as much bang for my buck as possible and nothing works the body like this exercise. I haven’t set a new personal record in any of the big movements since about November so it was a good boost to exceed my previous best. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/02/16/virgin-media-customer-satisfaction-shocker/ Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/02/16/virgin-media-customer-satisfaction-shocker/ As I mentioned yesterday, my broadband had been on the blink and this morning I decided to take action as I need to do some work from home this weekend. Just before 9am I phoned tech support and was surprised to not have to wait on hold: my call was answered almost immediately. The support guy was polite and after I explained the situation he tested the line from his end and without any messing around scheduled to have an engineer sent out between 12 and 4pm. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/02/15/trigger-happy-without-broadband/ Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/02/15/trigger-happy-without-broadband/ For 2 days now the “ready” light on my cable modem has failed to light up and hence I’ve had no internet access at home :( I’ve tried power-cycling the modem, leaving it unplugged overnight and even disconnecting and reconnecting the cable input. No Joy. I checked the Virgin Media service status page and can see that there was maintenance scheduled for Belfast this morning, maybe this will remedy the problem… https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/02/13/6-months-at-big_corp/ Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/02/13/6-months-at-big_corp/ I can hardly believe it, today I’m 6 calendar months into my position as Analyst Programmer at $BIG_CORP. How time has flown. More surprisingly, I almost seem to have grown accustomed to the stress of working with mission-critical systems and getting called-out in the wee hours of the night. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/02/12/fun-with-photoshop-and-cross-browser-css/ Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/02/12/fun-with-photoshop-and-cross-browser-css/ The consensus wasn’t to go live with the new site straight away after all but to create a better impression on the public by waiting on the final design and within no time at all Jordan had worked his graphical magic and delivered the goods. I was supplied with a .psd mockup and got busy with Photoshop. I hadn’t used this app in a while and it took some time to relearn how to use it but I managed to cut things up and proceeded to get stuck into the CSS. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/01/28/getting-ready-to-launch-infurious.com/ Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/01/28/getting-ready-to-launch-infurious.com/ I’m preparing to push my code for the new Infurious site into production so we can start selling our first application, Rickshaw. The site’s not too pretty but It Works and our freshly recruited designer Jordan has some interesting ideas for the next iteration. All the important stuff is present: people can download Rickshaw, purchase a license and the license details will be generated and mailed out to them. I’ve just had a dry run of this scenario and it all looks good. https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/01/04/site-migration/ Fri, 04 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/01/04/site-migration/ I’ve just finished migrating sickbiscuit.com from my home development machine to my new VPS. DNS records have been updated and decaf is now handling mail and web traffic for the domain allow the only thing I’ve copied over is this blog. Hopefully this will give me the motivation needed to spruce things up a bit as the last iteration of sickbiscuit.com looked like it was designed by a programmer ;) https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/01/03/28-today/ Thu, 03 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/01/03/28-today/ It seems like I’ve survived another year :) I’ve just finished processing my email and am reflecting on the goals I wrote this time last year: continue bodybuilding write more code blog more increase Linux skills get a “real” job Here’s the outcome: I put a lot of effort into training and nutrition last year and found that when vanity is my motivation then happiness will not be mine. I’m still trying to find a long-term strategy with this https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/01/02/infurious-in-person/ Wed, 02 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/01/02/infurious-in-person/ I met my co-conspirator Aidan in person for the first time today. He’s over here in sunny Belfast for a while and is working up on the third floor of the same building as myself, so we had a bit of lunch and got chatting about our plans for the future, our experiences of working for $BIG_CORP and life in general. It was good to finally put a physical person to the online persona and apparently neither of us looks like the photos we use as avatars ;) https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/01/01/isp-style-mail-server-on-debian-vps/ Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2008/01/01/isp-style-mail-server-on-debian-vps/ Last month I decided to invest in a VPS from VPSLink. I had been considering this for a while, especially after my experience using an Ubuntu VPS with Infurious and after 2 power failures within as many weeks due to building work nearby to my home, my hand was forced. No more hosting on a Linux box on the end of a DSL connection for me! I opted for a XEN based VPS running Debian Etch. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/12/28/asus-eee-pc-action-shot/ Fri, 28 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/12/28/asus-eee-pc-action-shot/ For nearly a week now I have been exclusively using an Eee PC. I promised an action shot and here it is: Using this device I have went about all my regular activities, even a bit of web development. The biggest hindrance I’ve found has been using a screen resolution lower than what I’m accustomed to and I’m not too keen on the button strip below the trackpad but I have gotten used to the keyboard to an extent though would certainly benefit from smaller hands ;) https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/12/22/asus-eee-pc/ Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/12/22/asus-eee-pc/ I’m currently visiting my family in sunny Fermanagh and typing this from the ASUS Eee PC handed to me by Matt as I left the office yesterday. One word sums up my opinion of this little device: “amazement.” I’m amazed that something of this size and at a price of £220 can run a full Linux distribution, has built-in WiFi and can therefore allow me to perform all my day-to-day tasks. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/12/18/infurious-update/ Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/12/18/infurious-update/ Just a quick update on what I’ve been working on for Infurious recently. Since finishing up on configuring Jabber I’ve been developing our website with the specific aim of allowing customers to download our products and purchase licenses for them. For this I’ve returned to CakePHP and been tinkering with the PHP portion of the AquaticPrime framework which Aidan has implemented in our upcoming application, Rickshaw. Other highlights have been working with the PayPal Sandbox and writing a component which generates “Buy Now” buttons for our apps and then handles the Instant Payment Notification and Payment Data Transfer callbacks once the transaction has been completed. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/11/07/reinventing-irc-jabber-is-go/ Wed, 07 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/11/07/reinventing-irc-jabber-is-go/ After a lot of frustration, reading of documentation and even giving up completely on certain paths of action I finally got Jabber up and running. The “Jabber burnout” as Adian called it was terrible and only now do I feel de-stressed enough to write about it. I initially setup an installation of jabberd2 as I have had previous experience with it and was comfortable with it’s administration. I got it working without difficulty and could connect to it via a standalone client but ended up abandoning it when I tried to get a web interface working with it. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/11/02/thats-me-that-is/ Fri, 02 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/11/02/thats-me-that-is/ I couldn’t resist… https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/10/27/back-in-mac/ Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/10/27/back-in-mac/ I’m writing this on the shiny iMac Matt dropped off the other night. As it stood, I was the only guy in Infurious not on the Mac platform, which is a pretty fundamental prerequisite for working in a Mac shop, don’t you think? I’m having to get re-used to the keyboard again and the mouse is giving me some difficulty which might just be due to the mouse itself, but all-in-all it’s been a not-unpleasant experience so far! https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/10/23/mod_python-trac-and-ubuntu-no-go/ Tue, 23 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/10/23/mod_python-trac-and-ubuntu-no-go/ As I previously mentioned, my current task as Infurious system admin is providing the team with a bug/task tracking system, namely Trac. My initial thought was: “our server runs Ubuntu, this should be easy…” I could get Trac running via tracd and I could see that mod_python was working via mod_python.testhandler but the two didn’t seem to want to play together. Last night, after much frustration, I just gave up and configured Trac to run as a CGI application. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/10/19/with-infurious-intent/ Fri, 19 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/10/19/with-infurious-intent/ It’s been a busy week. The lads and myself have been quite industrious, making plans and Getting Things Done. I’ve taken on responsibility of taking care of the Linux side of things and last night finished setting up an SSL enhanced, WebDAV accessible Subversion repository, for which Aidan has written an introductory guide. My current task is getting Trac installed and I’m quite enjoying being up to my elbows in command line goodness. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/10/09/google-analytics/ Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/10/09/google-analytics/ I got speaking to Matt this morning when I arrived in the office and he demonstrated to me the wealth of information provided by Google Analytics. It was really interesting stuff and I could see why he was so excited about it. I recently upgraded to Apache 2.2 on my development machine, substance, to “easily" get TLS working so I could use AjaxTerm and I haven’t had the time yet to play about getting awstats up and running again. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/10/02/ajaxterm/ Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/10/02/ajaxterm/ During my day job at $BIG_MONEY I’m behind a restrictive corporate firewall and as such can’t ssh to anywhere in the outside world. Which makes me sad. Step in AjaxTerm: What you are seeing is a screenshot of my screen session for a project I’m working on. Editing a Perl script with vi in my web browser, I love it! https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/09/22/i-now-have-wheels/ Sat, 22 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/09/22/i-now-have-wheels/ I picked up a new bicycle earlier today after probably a decade of not as much as even getting on one. I’m suprised how quickly it all came back to me, almost instantaneously in fact. It only took me 10 minutes to get home from Sainsbury’s with a pannier bag stuffed full with groceries. My life has taken on new meaning! https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/09/12/windows-rage/ Wed, 12 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/09/12/windows-rage/ A Windows 2000 workstation, the bloated Office 2003 suite, web-apps that only work with Internet Explorer… https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/09/07/carving-a-niche/ Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/09/07/carving-a-niche/ The past 4 weeks have been hectic: I’ve been overwhelmed with new information and I’ve developed a dependence on searching old emails, miscellaneous text files and word-of-mouth information. There is a plus side though: our team has a wiki. Free software to the rescue once again! The only problem is that a lot of relevant information is either missing, incomplete or of otherwise poor quality, so I found myself compulsively editing and I’ve set myself the challenge of improving the documentation of the various processes our team is associated with. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/08/13/citi/ Mon, 13 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/08/13/citi/ I started my new job as an Analyst Programmer with Citi today and so far I don’t have a login, my own machine or a permanent pass card and I’m not completely sure what exactly it is I’ll actually be doing but I have mastered the use of the coffee machine. It’s all good :) https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/08/07/mysql-upgrade/ Tue, 07 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/08/07/mysql-upgrade/ I finally got sick of not being able to use SQL subqueries and decided to upgrade my MySQL installation from 4.0.x to 5.0.x. I had wanted to do this previously but was afraid I’d end up breaking something and be left without a working development environment or a website either, for that matter, so I resorted to complicating my custom queries in CakePHP with JOIN statements :( I couldn’t find a 5. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/08/03/neuromancer-re-re-revisited/ Fri, 03 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/08/03/neuromancer-re-re-revisited/ I was having a quick look through some second-hand books last weekend and happened across a copy of Neuromancer by William Gibson, the “father of cyber-punk". I had to have it and this marked the third time I’ve purchased a copy of this seminal work. I started into it on the bus home yesterday and it still seems fresh. Neuromancer is one of the very few books I’ve read more than once and I’ve enjoyed it every time, so much so I’ve lost track of the exact number of times I’ve read it. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/07/30/new-adventures-in-clerical-progression/ Mon, 30 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/07/30/new-adventures-in-clerical-progression/ On my way out to work this morning I deposited a freshly signed and dated contract into the post. More details will be forthcoming :) https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/07/09/cakephp-1.2alpha-model-validation/ Mon, 09 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/07/09/cakephp-1.2alpha-model-validation/ I thought I was out of the woods. I upgraded my development copy of MacServ to the alpha version of CakePHP so I could make use of it’s pagination features; I tweaked my views to replace calls to various deprecated html helper functions with the new ones in the form helper, made one or two minor changes and thought I was good to go… First thing this morning one of the engineers was having problems adding a new repair. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/07/05/patching-cakephp/ Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/07/05/patching-cakephp/ I submitted a minor contribution to the CakePHP framework today, a patch to a patch, to be specific. It’s good to give back :) https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/06/30/barcamp-cometh/ Sat, 30 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/06/30/barcamp-cometh/ I’m now at BarCamp, hyped up on free coffee and looking forward to the upcoming geekiness. It’s been years since I set foot in a lecture theatre at Queen’s and in fact, I think I used to attend Computer Architecture lectures in the very room I’m in now. The line-up for today includes both technical and non-technical topics. and unsurprisingly, it’s the techy stuff that’s appealing to me more, in particular the planned talks on Zope and Ruby. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/06/27/barcamp-belfast/ Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/06/27/barcamp-belfast/ It looks like I’ll be attending BarCamp this Saturday. I had initially ruled it out, what with my hectic schedule, but my employer is sponsoring the event and as such I’ll be able to get Monday off work in exchange for representing the company. Happy Days. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/06/21/eurofeeds-upgrade/ Thu, 21 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/06/21/eurofeeds-upgrade/ Not 2 days after mentioning my initial impressions of EuroFeeds usenet service I get an email notifying me that they have upgraded retention on binary newsgroups to 60 days, with a planned upgrade to 85 days over the summer, as well as doubling the number of simultaneous connections on unlimited accounts from 4 to 8. Nice. I’m looking forward to testing this out :) Update: Ninan is now maxing out at 1. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/06/19/change-in-usenet-provider/ Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/06/19/change-in-usenet-provider/ My annual subscription to NewsHosting expired recently and as I had a huge backlog of media to get through I put up with the lack of new stuff for a while. I managed to leech a couple of releases from my ISPs servers but was unable to obtain a few others which piqued my interest, so I endeavered to remedy the situation. A credit card is not something I currently have access to, so I had no option but to go with a European based provider which would accept payment via Maestro. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/06/06/synchronising-production-and-development-code-with-subversion/ Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/06/06/synchronising-production-and-development-code-with-subversion/ Now that MacServ has been deployed keeping development and production copies of the code synchronised has become an issue. The app is still very much a work in progress, with daily requests for fixes & tweaks from the technicians using it and instead of keeping track of modified files and then manually updating them via scp, I decided to let laziness motivate me to utilise a less painful system. I spent a bit of time researching the use of rsync but decided that subversion would better suit my needs. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/05/31/macserv-deployed/ Thu, 31 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/05/31/macserv-deployed/ The initial version of my latest project, MacServ, has just been deployed. MacServ is intended to model the work-flow at Mac-Sys and to replace the existing paperwork. Deployment was scheduled for close-of-play yesterday and I thought I was home clear: I’d uploaded the scripts, configured the database and at a quick glance things appeared to be working. I was getting ready to leave the office and hit the gym only for one of the staff to discover that one of the apps controllers wasn’t operational… https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/05/15/nerves-of-chocolate/ Tue, 15 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/05/15/nerves-of-chocolate/ My brother got married at the weekend and as part of the preparations we had to transport the wedding cake from my uncle’s bakery to Lusty Beg island, where the reception was held: a distance of 10.6 miles, according to Google. Due to the size and weight of the cake it was decided that I would hold it on my lap while my brother drove, here’s an action shot: At every twist and turn in the road my nerves were jangled and by the end of the journey Tim had sweat stains under his arms. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/04/25/i-made-this/ Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/04/25/i-made-this/ I can’t believe it, but I actually took the time out yesterday to make this. Here’s what it’s meant to look like: ..and here’s my effort: It is safe to say I drank too much coffee yesterday ;) https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/04/19/the-pot-crackd/ Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/04/19/the-pot-crackd/ It was Sunday morning and I went through my usual routine: I got up, flicked on the coffee machine which I had filled with water and ground coffee the night before and went to the bathroom. I decided to get back into my bed for a bit and whilst I was lying there I heard a cracking sound. I feared the worst, thinking: “please not my precious caffeine preparation paraphernalia" and sure enough the black goodness was weeping from the pot and sizzling on the hotplate. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/04/13/ninan-1.1.0/ Fri, 13 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/04/13/ninan-1.1.0/ The latest stable of Ninan was released a few days ago and I’ve just gotten around to upgrading my installation of it. There wasn’t much to the upgrade process: I downloaded and untared the archive and I thought I’d play it smart and copy over my old ninanconfig.xml and it appeared to work, but gave up the ghost when it came to actually downloading something. I renamed the file, restarted Ninan, reentered all my details and preferences and I’m now happily downloading at 1. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/04/05/now-streaming-year-zero/ Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/04/05/now-streaming-year-zero/ The new Nine Inch Nails album is now being steamed in it’s entirety. Thankfully somebody saw fit to rip the stream and upload it to usenet :) https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/04/03/php-predefined-variables-on-bsd/ Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/04/03/php-predefined-variables-on-bsd/ I’ve been getting ready for the deployment of wow4kids.com and one of the final features to be into place was restricting access to the administrative back-end. I enabled admin routing in CakePHP and put all the back-end code into admin_* functions in my controller which are accessible via /admin/controller/action. I wanted to enable some form of access control but without utilising a full user management system which would have been overkill. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/03/23/new-workspace/ Fri, 23 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/03/23/new-workspace/ Here a quick snap of my new workspace: You can see my MacBook and the second display with the site I’m current working on along with my lunch and ubiquitous coffee mug… https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/03/07/iterm-on-os-x/ Wed, 07 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/03/07/iterm-on-os-x/ Over the past week and a half I’ve been fine-tuning my Mac experience: getting used to the system in general, in particular the keyboard, and building up my arsenal of applications. I’m not a Unix wizard, but I do make a lot of use of the command-line so I’m enjoying the underlying BSD-goodness of OS X and multiple terminal sessions are a necessity: one to tunnel select local ports to my home slackware box via ssh, one to perform local operations and one to host a screen session on our development box. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/28/first-post-from-os-x/ Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/28/first-post-from-os-x/ I’m composing this from the MacBook my new job has has provided me with. Coming from PC-land it’s a culture shock, a very sleek, stylised culture shock, but a culture shock none-the-less. I’ve got a 2GHz Intel Core Duo processor along with 1.5 GB of RAM at my disposal, so everything is very smooth and shiny but I’m having to adjust to an operating system I’ve never used before so I feel almost crippled when it comes to doing things I don’t normally even have to think about. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/23/nine-inch-nails-year-zero/ Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/23/nine-inch-nails-year-zero/ A trailer clip for Nine Inch Nails upcoming album Year Zero was released today and I’m sitting here, taking some time out from coding, listening to the tracks from it which were recently “leaked”. The tracks are: “Survivalism"(the forthcoming single,) “My Violent Heart” and “Me, I’m Not". It’s these last 2 which were discovered on USB drives in toilet cubicles at a couple of recent gigs. The files are all 320 kbit/s CBR MP3s and I’ve had the 3 of them on repeat. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/21/ajax-first-impressions/ Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/21/ajax-first-impressions/ I’ve been working on a form in my app and was faced with a decision regarding one of the fields: I need the user to select an object from a (possibly large) number of existing objects. I reckoned I had 3 options: a simple drop-down list, which could prove to be impractical; a pop-up window; or, behind door number 3, I could investigate the use of Ajax, which would have the added effect of adding some web 2. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/21/o-frabjous-day/ Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/21/o-frabjous-day/ Yesterday, the project I’m working on turned into a full-time gig. I start Monday as a full-time developer and can finally sign-off after nearly 6 years on state benefits. It works if you work it! https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/15/amazon.co.uk-free-super-saver-delivery/ Thu, 15 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/15/amazon.co.uk-free-super-saver-delivery/ I’d finished reading the last interesting book in my stack on Saturday morning so I wandered down to Waterstone’s to pick up something to tide me over until I got my act together and ordered some of the items on my Amazon wish list. On Tuesday afternoon I waved bye-bye to a few shekels and seeing as I’d still a good bit to go on the book I bought at the weekend I opted for the free delivery. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/14/pyaimt/ Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/14/pyaimt/ Last week I found myself with the need to communicate with some people via AIM. I’d never bothered with that particular protocol before but being a Linux enthusiast I detected the opportunity for a bit of geekery… All my IM needs are taken care of by jabberd running on substance. I can communicate directly with the people I know who use Google Talk and I’ve the MSN transport running to keep in touch with a few folks using that network, so, instead of taking the easy route and switching to a multi-protocol client, I opted to install the AIM transport. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/07/cakephp/ Wed, 07 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/07/cakephp/ I secured my first consultancy gig on Monday, developing a web-app for a local business; the end-product is to be deployed onto a standard *nix hosting account, so it’s going to be an adventure in PHP and MySQL from here on in. Since my first meeting with the client I started collating all the various bits and pieces of PHP I’ve written over the past couple of years with the intention of producing some form of crude framework which would allow me to develop sites quicker and easier. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/02/fun-with-port-forwarding/ Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/02/02/fun-with-port-forwarding/ I’ve been having great fun with tunneling connections through SSH lately and today it dawned on me that I could close another hole in my firewall by connecting to my Jabber server via a tunnel. In the past, when I’ve been working remotely, I’ve made changes to my firewall by connecting to my public-facing machine; from there to my desktop machine through a DMZ-pinhole and once a presence has been established within the “green zone” browsing to the routers web-interface with lynx. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/31/abbreviated-weight-training/ Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/31/abbreviated-weight-training/ Towards the end of last year I started rereading large portions of Stuart McRobert’s Beyond Brawn and seeing how I’d begun training in the mornings and consequently had less time to do so I decided to experiment with a more abbreviated routine. Here’s how my routine stands as of today: Monday: Squats Neutral Grip Chin-ups Single Leg Dumbbell Calf Raises Tuesday: Swimming Wednesday: Barbell Bench Press Bent-Over Barbell Rows Weighted Crunches Thursday: Swimming Friday: Stiff-Legged Deadlifts Parallel Bar Dips Dumbbell Shrugs When I was planning this routine I hadn’t had a break from weight training for a few months and I could feel that a rest would be in my best interests: I was starting to feel tired more often, progress had slowed and I knew from past experiences with over-training that if I kept pushing it I would only regress. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/30/site-update/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/30/site-update/ Over the past bunch of days I’ve been back into web-development land and seeing as I was staring at code for prolonged periods I decided I might as well “enhance" this site a bit too. I started with tweaking the frontpage: I rearranged things a bit and instead of displaying my latest blog entry in its entirety I now have excerpts from the previous 4 entries. I initially tried using the built-in the_excerpt() WordPress template tag to achieve this but I wasn’t too fussed with the result and after some brief searching I found a plugin called the-exceprt-reloaded which seems to do the job better. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/27/wikipedia-hijinks/ Sat, 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/27/wikipedia-hijinks/ I was reading this article on Wikipedia this morning and something didn’t seem quite right. See if you can spot it in this screenshot: I had been up from early morning and thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. I read it and re-read it and still the words remained, I can’t say I was shocked but I certainly was surprised. My next thought was “hehe, who can I show this to? https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/25/security-enhancements-for-dummies/ Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/25/security-enhancements-for-dummies/ I read a thread over on linuxquestions.org recently about server “hardening" and got thinking about my own security measures and the lack there of. Here’s an example of the content of /var/log/auth on the machine this site is hosted on: Jan 24 13:43:33 substance sshd[14182]: Invalid user test from 203.242.160.193 Jan 24 13:43:33 substance sshd[14182]: error: Could not get shadow information for NOUSER Jan 24 13:43:33 substance sshd[14182]: Failed password for invalid user test from 203. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/18/ninan-1.0.5-on-slackware-11.0/ Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/18/ninan-1.0.5-on-slackware-11.0/ A couple of weekends ago I decided to reconstruct the system I use for downloading from Usenet: I had been using a Debian machine which I had setup back when I was still trying to get into using Linux on my desktop and as such it was massively over-powered for the task at hand, namely, leeching files from binary newsgroups and making them available via a network share. What follows is a tidied up version of the notes I made as I went along. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/15/now-with-filter-coffee/ Mon, 15 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/15/now-with-filter-coffee/ Coffee time came around this morning at 11am just like it always does, but when I got to the kitchen there was no sign of the usual paraphernalia. I was placed in a moral dilemma: do I selfishly get busy with the 1 mug french press or dive into the catering-sized drum of Nescafe Original Blend? Thankfully, before I had to make my mind up, the green light was given for the purchase of some new equipment, so Phil and myself picked up some funds from petty cash and hit the Argos around the corner. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/09/uml-for-a-laugh/ Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/09/uml-for-a-laugh/ I’m just getting started in the development of my next application: a management system for the Agency’s various resources. The intention of this program is to allow members of staff to book laptops, projectors and so on and to see at a glance what is already booked, when for and by whom. Not since my days of 210CSC218 and the calamity that was my undergraduate dissertation have I done any serious planning or documentation for anything I’ve implemented to date, but for some reason the mood took me this morning and I found myself brushing up on UML and printing off a reference to remind me of the different symbols involved. https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/08/clickonce-yeah-right/ Mon, 08 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/08/clickonce-yeah-right/ I’ve just committed vdaExtensions 1.1 to SVN: I had had enough of stressing out about minor aspects of the user interface and just went for it and published the application. Only to discover that ClickOnce wasn’t working on the target desktops, doh! The problem was with the assemblies for the ReportViewer class. I have SQL Server 2005 Express installed on my machine and so had no problems with the app getting access to the appropriate libraries at runtime, but it didn’t look like the . https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/07/2007/ Sun, 07 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/07/2007/ It’s now a week into the new year and to heighten my perception of the passage of time my birthday fell on the 3rd, making me a ripe 27. I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I want to achieve this year and the essence of my ruminations was progression: my goal is to make progress in all my hobbies and interests and, of course, life in general. Some prominent points which came to mind are to: https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/05/winform-woes/ Fri, 05 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2007/01/05/winform-woes/ I’ve been finishing off the next release of vdaExtensions seemingly forever and have had all the functionality sorted out for ages and without much in the way of trouble but I’ve been struggling with the user interface. The only contents of my main form are a MenuStrip and the meat of the app, a DataGridView. Throughout the use of the program the DataGridView can change dimensions: information can be added/changed/removed and I’ve also added the ability to show/hide the various columns of the control, with the constraint that at least one column must be visible at all times. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/12/30/wordpress-2.0.5/ Sat, 30 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/12/30/wordpress-2.0.5/ I’ve been spending the festive period with my family and have almost enjoyed not having a computer, online and logged in, within eyesight for the majority of my waking hours. I’ve read and responded to my email and forums and was checking my blog when I noticed I wasn’t running the latest version of WordPress, so I thought I get back in the saddle and upgrade. I started by backing up the database using the handy Backup Plugin and creating a copy of the entire blog directory using cp -R. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/12/20/secret-santa/ Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/12/20/secret-santa/ It’s that time of the year again and is customary at the VDA we had our Secret Santa jollifications this morning. Once again, Paul proved himself man enough to fill the big guy’s boots and surprised us all by making his entrance with a guitar and serenading us with a rendition of Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody. Good show old chap! Next up was the main event: the distribution of gifts, yee ha! https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/12/15/friday-funk/ Fri, 15 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/12/15/friday-funk/ I got into the office this morning and went through my usual routine; I’d put in a good workout and the weekend is fast approaching: life seemed good. I was logged on to my workstation, launched Outlook (I know, I know) and attempted to connect to substance via Jabber and SSH. My heart fell. That Slackware box has been online for nearly a year now and other than my own lack of technical ability, the only problem I’ve had was when I upgraded my version of OpenSSL and OpenSSH refused to restart. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/12/14/bulk-powders/ Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/12/14/bulk-powders/ In my time honored tradition of bulk purchasing I placed an order with bulkpowders.co.uk, which arrived last week. I refrained from documenting it at the time as I’ve only just had the opportunity to sample the produce and here is what was waiting for me at reception last Tuesday: I’d been meaning to start buying my supplements online for a while but I wasn’t going to be saving much going for brand name products, especially when delivery costs were factored in. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/12/08/in-pursuit-of-vdaextensions-1.1/ Fri, 08 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/12/08/in-pursuit-of-vdaextensions-1.1/ The past fortnight has proved fruitful: each weekday I have risen early, went to the gym and spent the rest of the day at the office plugging away in Visual Studio. It’s been good to get back into developing vdaExtensions: it’s first incarnation was completed in August and I asked a few members of staff to try it out and Phil was the only one to give me feedback, I don’t know if anyone else even used it! https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/11/28/continuing-fitness-fanaticism/ Tue, 28 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/11/28/continuing-fitness-fanaticism/ This morning, like the one before it, was another 6:30am start. Tough to get used to but ultimately very rewarding. I’m enjoying getting my training down early and having the rest of the day to pursue the other areas of my life. Deciding to take a week off from strength training has been refreshing: I’ve been able to catch up on cardio, which I haven’t been doing as much of recently, so hopefully I’ll be a bit fitter before I hit the weights again! https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/11/24/early-morning-swim/ Fri, 24 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/11/24/early-morning-swim/ The alarm went off at 6:30am, I got up, put the coffee machine on and went to the bathroom. I’d finished my breakfast by 6:45am which consisted of ground oats, semi-skimmed milk and whey protein, blended. The stage was set and after a couple mugs of java I was good to go. I had often toyed with the idea of getting my training done and out of the way before work, leaving me with the rest of the day to relax, recover and enjoy the endorphins. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/11/23/blades-by-mail/ Thu, 23 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/11/23/blades-by-mail/ My shipment from Blademail.co.uk arrived this morning: I put the order through on Monday morning for a “Pillar Pack” of 100 double-edge razor blades which I’m hoping will last me for the duration of the next year: The pack contains 20 dispensers, each delivering 5 blades: I originally read about the traditional wetshave on Lifehacker, but paid no heed to it until one fateful day in Boots when I was in need of blades and low on cash and noticed how much of a difference in price there was between the “novelty” multi-blade shaving systems and the traditional single-blade setup. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/11/15/tuna-shake-baby/ Wed, 15 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/11/15/tuna-shake-baby/ A good while back, while I was reading up on the Squat, I stumbled upon the Tuna Shake. Tuna is a very inexpensive source of protein and I’ve possibly eaten the equivalent of my body weight of it over the past year; I didn’t think it was possible to consume it in the form of a shake and when I learned of this preparation I immediately thought of the time, effort and money I could save myself by adding these into my diet. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/11/01/rip-it-up-and-start-again/ Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/11/01/rip-it-up-and-start-again/ I’ve just finished putting the changes I’ve been making to this site live. The front page is now an integration of my latest blog post, a random image from my gallery and a short bio of myself. Getting the latest post was explained well by this post and boils down to including the WordPress header file and calling query_posts() with the appropriate search criteria, from there it is a simple matter of making use of The Loop and Template Tags, just like when creating a theme. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/10/26/xp-on-kubuntu-via-vmware-via-vnc/ Thu, 26 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/10/26/xp-on-kubuntu-via-vmware-via-vnc/ I finally got around to doing something today that I had been meaning to do since I got Kubuntu installed on my home desktop, namely, setting up a virtual machine running Windows XP so I can perform DVD encoding/editing/authoring. I’m a relative novice when it comes to these techniques and I haven’t put enough effort into finding the equivalent native Linux applications, so it is a case of better the devil you know for the foreseeable future. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/10/25/firefox-2/ Wed, 25 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/10/25/firefox-2/ I’ve just installed Firefox 2 on my XP workstation at the office, a week after my colleague Kevin installed IE7. The installation went smoothly and my extensions copied across ok and eventually got updated, but the theme I had been using wasn’t compatible, a new version of it wasn’t found by the add-ons manager and I didn’t like the default, so the first thing I did was look through the available themes and one that caught my eye was Mostly Crystal as it uses the Crystal SVG icon set I’ve come to love. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/10/24/httpd-log-analysis/ Tue, 24 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/10/24/httpd-log-analysis/ What a fun day yesterday was. I thought it would be interesting to know how many (if any) vistors I am getting to this site and proceeded to install and configure some tools to analyse Apache’s access logs. Through prior research I knew of the existance of Webalizer so I downloaded the source and attempted to build it. The build failed as I didn’t have the GD Graphics Library installed. I tried to build that but failed aswell, quite possibily because of another dependency. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/10/19/close-crop/ Thu, 19 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/10/19/close-crop/ Once again I got sick of the length of my hair: it had been a while since I had done anything to it and I felt it was looking untidy and I hated having no option but to style it in the mornings and after the gym, so last night I charged up the trusty clippers and set to work. I set the clippers to the longest setting and started off with a random swipe of my hair, thinking “this is it, no turning back. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/10/18/ruby-on-rails/ Wed, 18 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/10/18/ruby-on-rails/ I decided last week to see what all the hype was about and have a look at Ruby On Rails. I’ve been meaning to catalogue my DVD collection on my site for a good while now but nothing ever materialised, so I’ve got something to work towards and if RoR delivers what it promises I should get something up and running quite quickly. The first thing to do was to track down some kind of reference material to learn from and this book seemed like the right place to start. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/10/12/ghan-house/ Thu, 12 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/10/12/ghan-house/ Early yesterday morning we were all bundled onto a bus and were delivered to Ghan House, down in Carlingford for a spot of staff team building. Turning up on time meant me getting out of bed earlier than usual, so from the get go I was less than enthusiastic about the whole affair, but I weighed in and did my bit regardless. We were split into 2 teams, with the objective being for each team to cook 3 courses of culinary delight. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/23/bialetti-moka-express/ Sat, 23 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/23/bialetti-moka-express/ Yesterday the mood took me and I went hunting for some new coffee making appartatus. I didn’t get a replacement glass for my french press which was my original intention, but I did pick up a stove-top espresso maker and have spotted where to get the necessary component for my fallen Bodum, which shall be acquired at some point in the near future. It was a bit of a mission tracking this piece of equipment down, but just when I had given up I bumped into a work colleague who pointed me in the direction of Habitat who could thankfully satisfy my needs. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/21/my-brain-hurts/ Thu, 21 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/21/my-brain-hurts/ I’ve just finished hacking new features into a web-app my colleague Kev developed. Yep, I was deep into M$ country but as always nothing beats the sense of satisfaction that problem solving brings (for me anyways.) Any time I’ve went back over my own code I usually ask myself “what was I thinking of here?” so over the past few days I’ve felt pretty much like that what with stepping into some one else’s work and trying to understand what is being done, how it is being done and getting acclimatised with a foreign coding style. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/19/bye-bye-bodum/ Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/19/bye-bye-bodum/ I was doing a bit of washing up last night before I went to bed and as Fortuna would it, the glass component of my cafetière fell over in my dish rack and promptly broke. It was made of Pyrex / borosilicate glass and the fall seemed so mild for want of a better term so I felt both shocked and confused that such a thing could happen. Here’s a snap of the fallen soldier: https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/18/4mm-tunnels/ Mon, 18 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/18/4mm-tunnels/ I had been thinking about it for some time and finally decided to just go for it. So, a couple of hours ago I was signing the waiver and getting ready to get my ear lobes stretched for the first time. I can remember not liking the whole flesh tunnel thing, but over time, what put me off them was what happens when you remove the jewelery: the “cat’s arse” look. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/15/why-i-havent-seen-bicuspids-like-these-since.../ Fri, 15 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/15/why-i-havent-seen-bicuspids-like-these-since.../ I had the joy of going for a dental checkup this morning and I must admit I was a tad on edge, but thankfully I got the all clear and there will no repeats of the root canal work I had done earlier in the year …and I managed to get a quick snap of the x-ray which was taken when I was in quite a bit of oral distress and had just signed up with my dentist: https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/14/barely-legal/ Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/14/barely-legal/ Richard just drew my attention to this news item describing Banksy’s latest escapade, an exhibition which includes a “37-year old Indian elephant […] painted, from head to tail, in a floral pattern reminiscent of an old fashioned living room or a British pub,” genius! I hadn’t heard of Banksy before until I read about him replacing 500 copies of Paris Hilton’s album in record shops with CDs containing music by Danger Mouse and featuring doctored artwork. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/13/first-post-from-kubuntu/ Wed, 13 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/13/first-post-from-kubuntu/ I finally installed Kubuntu on my desktop machine at home at the weekend and I must say I am impressed so far. From my first experience with Red Hat 5.x in early 1999 (I’m guessing the version number from the date, I bought my first Linux book just before the exams of the first semester of my first year of Computer Science at QUB) I knew that *nix was real computing. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/12/here-lies-belfast/ Tue, 12 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/12/here-lies-belfast/ I was out and about with my sponsor on Saturday and we were walking up Stranmillis Ave and Friars Bush happened to be open for tours. My good friend Nicky K lives in one of the gate-keeper’s cottage, but in all my time living in Belfast I don’t think I’ve seen the place open to visitors and so I’d never been in it before. When I was a wee lad I used to live right next door to the graveyard of the local church so walking amongst the graves brought me back a bit. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/07/drumstick-boogie/ Thu, 07 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/07/drumstick-boogie/ As usual, Thursday night is leg night chez Biscuit; I’m just in from the gym and I’ve munched on a tuna sandwich and I’m just about to hit a meeting. I didn’t punish myself (much) and my workout could only have been described as “average” on a good day, but I turned up and did a bit. The focus was on practicing my squat technique and I must admit I was feeling fearful stepping into the power cage after my experience last week. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/06/pink-is-the-colour/ Wed, 06 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/06/pink-is-the-colour/ I was reading a discussion on Lifehacker this morning about listening to music while studying, whcih mentioned an earlier post about pink noise. Between the guy on the radio and one of my coworkers I knew I had to take action or suffer the consequences. I felt a MacGyver moment coming on. One of the comments on the pink noise post led me to download a little app which generates a wave file containing 12 seconds of the stuff. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/04/breakfast-of-champions/ Mon, 04 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/04/breakfast-of-champions/ I had a bit of a lie-in on Saturday and I was hitting the gym at 10am so I was only going to get the opportunity for one meal before my workout. I knew I would have to have a slightly larger breakfast than normal. When the food was on the plate my first thought was “I have to eat all of that?” followed by the need to photograph it: https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/01/squat-or-rot/ Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/09/01/squat-or-rot/ Over the past couple of months I’ve been working at removing machine weights from my training regime but up until last week I was using machines exclusively to train my legs. My mate Tony had shown me how to squat a good few months ago but not only was I afraid of injuring my back with improper form I was downright intimidated by this, the daddy of all exercises. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/08/24/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new/ Thu, 24 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/08/24/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new/ I thought I’d keep myself current and so I’ve just upgraded my installation of WordPress from 2.0.2 to 2.0.4. I was a bit reluctant to do so as I was happy with what the software was doing, but I remember reading some mention of security updates, so I went for the plunge. The log files on this box are filled with failed login attempts so I know for certain that people are trying to find a way in and if doing something as simple (! https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/08/09/its-alive/ Wed, 09 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/08/09/its-alive/ I’ve just published the first release of a little application I wrote to manage the list of internal extension & direct dial numbers of staff here at the VDA. A few members of staff have been asked to give it a whirl and report back. Up until now it’s been the responsibility of one of the admin team to maintain a spreadsheet containing the info and distribute printed copies of it to everyone else. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/08/04/i-for-one-welcome-our-new-version-2-overlords/ Fri, 04 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/08/04/i-for-one-welcome-our-new-version-2-overlords/ Yesterday, my copy of Firefox updated itself (to version 1.5.0.6 no less) and when it restarted I was reminded about the upcoming World Firefox Day. I’d read about this on Slashdot a while back and just forgot about it. I checked out the site and immediately thought of my colleage, Kevin. The $ORGANISATION’s a Microsoft shop through and through and Kev, like the bulk of the staff here, sticks to the web-browser that came bundled with the OS. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/07/27/clerks-ii/ Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/07/27/clerks-ii/ I had been looking forward to seeing Clerks II and was planning to go to the cinema to see it, but I gave in and downloaded a copy. I had a choice between 2 TeleSyncs: a 1-disc Xvid and a 2-disc SVCD. It was a close-run thing but I thought that the SVCD copy was (maybe) slightly better in quality and anyways, it would give me an opportunity to play about with DVD-lab. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/07/25/and-there-are-no-diamonds-in-the-mine/ Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/07/25/and-there-are-no-diamonds-in-the-mine/ Oh the joy! The office has gotten in the coffee supplies again. Imagine my surprise when I opened the cupboard to discover row upon row of bags of the stuff. I’ve been reading through the archives of a blog I stumbled upon a while back and came across an entry about coffee which mentioned it’s procurement via the internet. I love my coffee and have been a heavy consumer of it for many years (especially since I got into recovery) and when choosing a bean I always go for the strongest available, avoiding the different “blends” or “styles” that most supermarkets offer. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/07/15/syd-is-dead-long-live-syd/ Sat, 15 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/07/15/syd-is-dead-long-live-syd/ I’ve been visiting my family for this week and on the journey from the bus station to my Mother’s house I heard on the radio that Syd Barrett had died. His death occurred on friday 7th (as a result of complications due to diabetes) and was reported on tuesday 11th and I can definitely say he will be missed, goodness knows I know I feel a sense of loss. Syd has been a musical hero of mine since I was a teenager and I got turned onto the Pink Floyd. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/07/05/wee-me/ Wed, 05 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/07/05/wee-me/ I was sorting through my bookmarks in Firefox and I found a link to this site which allows you to create a miniature clone of yourself (in colour!) Here’s what I (mostly) look like today: Pretty much a Regular John, huh? I should really get back to some “proper” work, instead of creating things like this: Google Maps here I come… https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/07/04/new-docs/ Tue, 04 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/07/04/new-docs/ I put in my monthly expenses claim yesterday morning and decided to follow through on a plan that had been on the back burner for a while now: getting myself some new footwear. After sorting out the new firewall at the office I strutted my way down to the Doc Shop and bought a new pair of 8-eye Doc Marten boots. Here they are fresh from the box and laced up (photos from my phone unfortunately): https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/07/03/revolution-now/ Mon, 03 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/07/03/revolution-now/ Up until a few hours ago we had a Symantec firewall appliance protecting the office network from script kiddies and the like, but unfortunately it was prone to crashing and required regular rebooting. As I was returning from my coffee break I passed Kev who was leaving the room to go reboot said device. I was in an impulsive mood and when Kev returned I offered to build a new firewall. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/28/where-old-code-goes-to-die/ Wed, 28 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/28/where-old-code-goes-to-die/ Well, I’ve started a million different projects and finished none, so in an effort to quell the sense of dis-ease I’ve went back to whatever seemed nearest to completion before I abandoned it… …which has meant getting stuck back into Classic ASP and MS-SQL, not nice for a Linux-fanboy-wannabie like myself ;) Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica has been providing much needed mental stimulation while I at least try to make some progress on this thing. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/27/oldboy/ Tue, 27 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/27/oldboy/ After having it recommended it me months ago and having a copy of it gathering dust for nearly as long, I finally got around to watching Oldboy on Saturday night. Twisted and dark is the only way I could describe this movie. It begins with the main character, Oh Dae-Su, drunk and in a police station. He gets released from custody, gives the police the fingers, but on his way home is mysteriously kidnapped. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/23/jabber/ Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/23/jabber/ I’ve been deep in Linux-country for the past 2 days and have finally gotten a Jabber server up and running, along with the MSN transport. I’m suprised I succeeded to be honest, but by following the instructions It Just Works. jabberd is listening on nulltheory.com, so I can be contacted via ‘steve’ at that domain (having multiple domains definitely seems too complicated at times…). I’ve practically no knowledge of the use of public-private key encryption (studied the theory at uni though) so, as with my mail server, all communication is in plaintext for the time being. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/21/postfixed/ Wed, 21 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/21/postfixed/ After much frustration I gave up on using Virtual Mailbox Domains and gave Virtual Alias Domains a go instead, and it worked! I wanted to set my mail server up like that of a commercial webhost and not have to rely on having to create a local account for each mailbox, but my Linux-fu isn’t that good :( But I can now send & receive mail from steve {at} <$domain>, job’s a good ‘un! https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/20/candy-and-a-currant-bun/ Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/20/candy-and-a-currant-bun/ Just finished tweaking the site presentation, the background image was begining to embarass me. Some work with Photoshop and playing with a couple of colour choosers and viola, a new look. I love the flexibility of CSS, especially when combined with the appropriate tools. Now if I could only get my mail server working properly… https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/20/snootchie-bootchies/ Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/20/snootchie-bootchies/ Instead of working, I’ve been reading a series of entries on Kevin Smith’s blog about Jason Mewes and his struggle to get clean [Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. Not only can you read about the origins of the immortal “snootchie bootchies” but Silent Bob also talks about the countless rounds of rehab Jason had to go through and how he only got and stayed clean when he had fallen far enough. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/15/let-them-eat-cake/ Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/15/let-them-eat-cake/ I was chatting to Phil yesterday and we got to talking about the antics in the staff room at break time: 2:52 PM Philip: what you up to atm then? me: trying to transfer a site over from one hosting account to another… 2:53 PM pain in the ass Philip: i imagine so any more biscuit site updates? me: not yet… I was thinking of maybe a blog entry concerning middle-aged women and cake… https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/05/x-men-the-last-stand/ Mon, 05 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/05/x-men-the-last-stand/ Saturday night I decided to catch up with current going ons in the world of cinema, so I put on the latest installment of the X-Men franchise. I’d had a typical Saturday: I went to the afternoon meeting, fortified myself with some strong coffee afterwards and then hit the pool and did my usual 70-lengths of breaststroke. By the time I got home all I was in the mood for was occupying the sofa and eating like a champion. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/02/windows-genuine-advantage/ Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/06/02/windows-genuine-advantage/ I made the mistake of blindly installing all the Windows Updates on my machine at work yesterday and so installed the lastest version of Windows Genuine Advantage… When I was creating a Ghost image for of our new desktops I didn’t have access to our legitimate Volume License Code and so just used a pirated one, big mistake! At login this morning I was welcomed with a dialog box like this (not my screenshot): https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/05/31/i-read-the-news-today-oh-boy/ Wed, 31 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/05/31/i-read-the-news-today-oh-boy/ My photo has appeared in not one, but two newspapers today :) This is the clipping from page 14 of the Daily Ireland. I appear by myself (and in colour) on page 8 of the Belfast Telegraph and when I get the chance to scan the photo I’ll post it here. This is the second occasion I have been in the media as a consequence of my involvement with voluntary work. https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/05/24/and-so-the-legend-grows/ Wed, 24 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/2006/05/24/and-so-the-legend-grows/ Just put the development site live, fingers crossed! https://stevenwilkin.com/archives/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/archives/ https://stevenwilkin.com/about/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/about/ My name’s Steve, I’m 31 years old and I live in Belfast. Some people may know me as “Biscuit” which my friend Keith christened me some years ago: his reasoning for this was good at the time but unfortunately no one can remember the details now ;) I’m currently working as a technical consultant with a range of small and multinational organisations. I’m obsessed with computing and enjoy movies, music and books; my literary taste extends to biographies of my favourite musicians, hard science fiction and the works of Robert Anton Wilson. https://stevenwilkin.com/contact/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://stevenwilkin.com/contact/ The best way to contact me is by sending email to steve at this domain. You can follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/stevebiscuit