I’ve been having a nice relaxing christmas time here in Arizona. The only fly in the holiday ointment is a case of the sniffles I appear to have picked up. I just hope it doesn’t interfere with my ability to taste all the regional southwest go
Here in the States right now the Homeland Security threat level is a warm orange colour which roughly translates to “be afraid, be very afraid… but not completely terrified just yet”.
Nollaig Shona dhiabh, Feliz Navidad, Frohe Weinachten, Glaedelig Jul, Buon Natale, Joyeux Noel…
I’m in Arizona.
I went to see it last night.
Here’s a great piece by Maciej Ceglowski celebrating the scientific achievements of the Wright brothers but decrying the intellectual bankruptcy of the patent system that so obsessed them:
It looks like a well-worn chestnut is being resurrected in web design circles (if I may horribly mangle my metaphors).
John Gruber has published what is quite possibly the single most useful Applescript I could wish for: PHP Syntax Checking in BBEdit.
Jessica and I went to The Lord Of The Rings exhibition at the Science Museum in London today.
I always feel a little funny when I write here about watching DVDs and other domestic activities. After all, many of you haven’t yet had the opportunity to visit my humble abode (but if you’re ever in the neighbourhood, do drop by).
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been enjoying the extended edition DVD of The Two Towers. I’ve also previously made mention of the fact that I’ve been using my iSight as a webcam.
Stick these in your fat pipe and smoke ‘em:
While my days are filled with PHP coding over at Message, I’ve been escaping in the evenings into the world of Middle Earth.
Here’s a message I sent earlier through the contact page at Macoholics:
One week ago I was in Bologna. I was walking through cobblestoned streets lined with red-roofed old buildings. Many of the buildings were painted in the typical Renaissance style of yellows, browns and oranges.
There’s a special group story up at {fray} right now called Pet Stories.
Bologna was everything I hoped it would be; fascinating, filling and fun.
I’ve been quite a busy bee lately, working over at Message with my head full of objects, arrays, functions, queries and other inhabitants of the PHP world.
I got a nice email today from a very talented web developer named France Rupert telling me about the newly redesigned Sprint PCS site.
While I’m working over at Message, most of work consists of fairly hardcore PHP and MySQL.
Joe Gillespie has been handing out the same advice I gave about updating Flash sites to work in the soon-to-be-crippled Internet Explorer (although he neglects the vital <noscript> when describing the JavaScript fix).
If adactio was a ransom note, this is what it would like.
I went to see The Matrix Revolutions over the weekend. I enjoyed it. Then again, I enjoyed The Matrix Reloaded so what do I know?
I find it strange to read an article that I completely and utterly disagree with. It’s like being afforded a glimpse into an alien mind.
I’ve put together a new article. It’s basically a rundown of some Photoshop actions I use to create nice photographic effects.
Let this serve as a practical demonstration of the multitudinous uses of the hyperlink.
It looks like I’m going to have to miss the Brighton Bloggers meetup tomorrow night in the Wi-Fi enabled Black Lion pub. There’s a Salter Cane gig happening down at the Freebutt and I have yet to master the art of bilocation.
All went well with the Salter Cane concert last night. My bout of gastroenteritis had luckily passed by the time the gig rolled ‘round.
This is turning out to be the year of nostalgic concerts. Not only did I get to see Ministry a few months back but on Thursday, Jane’s Addiction came to town as part of the BBC’s "One Live" roadshow (the broadcast is archived for ano
It looks like graffiti artist Banksy was in Brighton recently. I spotted some of his work near the North Laine.
Here’s an interesting article about Wi-Fi that makes the point that trying to make people pay for wireless access is often more trouble than it’s worth:
A List Apart is back! But you probably knew that already.
My Onion Article Generator is showing up in strange, far-flung places. Sacre bleu!
Yesterday’s magazine section of The Guardian included an extract from a forthcoming book entitled "Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin" by Francis Spufford.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, I have discovered that there is, in fact, such a thing as a free lunch. I know because I experienced it myself courtesy of the good folks at Nixon McInnes.
I went to see Frank Black in concert last night.
Because I enjoyed it so much when I saw it in the cinema, I made sure to snap up a copy of The Matrix Reloaded when it came out on DVD a few days back.
Another day, another great gig courtesy of local promoters The Gilded Palace Of Sin.
Words fail me:
This is going to be yet another entry of pure OS X geekery so if that’s not your cup of nerd tea then look away now.
I’m not sure who is most deserving of my anger and contempt: Mike Doyle of Eolas for pursuing a wilfully destructive court case, the US Patent Office for allowing such a ludicrous patent to be granted in the first place or the judge who found in fav
Another week, another rock’n’roll gig. Last night I saw the New York band Alice Texas in action.
I spent the weekend with my old pals from Hamburg, Schorsch and Birgit, who were in town for a quick visit.
Coca-Cola have unveiled a giant hi-tech billboard in Picadilly Circus with all sorts of gee-whiz gadgetry:
I’m feeling a bit fragile today after a somewhat hedonistic night out.
I’m taking it easy today. It is, after all, Labour Day in Australia, Independence Day in Nigeria, Armed Forces Day in South Korea, National Liberation Day in China and a public holiday in Botswana.
Here’s one for the OS X users amongst you. There’s an article over at O’Reilly called "What’s on Your Dock?":
Remember how I was saying that the wireless reception in my iBook went all screwy a while back? Well, I sent the iBook off to Apple so that they could have a look at it.
The always-inspiring Adam Greenfield does it again with an article entitled "Compassion and the crafting of user experience".
Take some time out to linger over some pretty hilarious parody sites:
The Bump exhibition wasn’t the only cool discovery I made today.
Brightonians, get yourselves down to the Fabrica gallery post haste (you remember: the pierced church).
It’s time for a brand new site section here at adactio. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… articles!
Ahoy, me maties! Today do be "talk like a pirate" day, ye landlubbers.
Here’s a great article by Jeff Veen on the practical, financial reasons for using CSS and XHTML when building websites. He cites a speedier development process, the simplification of ongoing site maintenance, faster page loading times and the increa
Here’s a timely update to my last post. Wired News is reporting that the Internet Software Consortium are releasing an emergency patch for backbone computers running BIND:
I bet Sofia Coppola really wanted to have Jessica’s domain name for her new movie.
The first time I visited Dan in Baltimore, the town motto emblazoned on benches was “The City That Reads”. The last time I was there, the motto had been changed to the more bomabastic “The Greatest City In America” because, apparen
There is something inherently funny about juxtaposing Orson Welles with the world of advertising.
Johnny Cash
I have the horrible feeling that while I was working over at Message last week, I passed on my cold to Andy.
I have my iBook back!
Make some coffee.
This had me laughing out loud (I’m such a geek); San Francisco’s mayoral candidates are given the Voight-Kampff test from Bladerunner:
I was inspired by this post over at Idle Words:
I had a horrible experience today. My mobile world literally came crashing down around me.
It really takes a lot for spam to be memorable, but this is one of the weirdest I’ve seen a long time.
I’ve been struck low by a cold, all sniffles and blocked nose. That’s why I wasn’t able to make it to last night’s Skillswap talk by Rosie Freshwater on Search Engine Optimisation.
Rabbit rabbit.
I’ve been putting my new iSight through its paces over the last week.
Much fun was had at last night’s Brighton Bloggers meetup. Pete has posted up some pictures. He had the cheek to call me the Alpha geek. Talk about the pot calling the kettle #000000.
Eagle-eyed observers will have noticed something new on this site over the last few days: a webcam. That’s thanks to my new iSight and a piece of shareware I’m evaluating called EvoCam.
I’m back and I’m tuckered out.
This Wi-Fi finder is great for tracking down wireless networks at airports. They’re usually to be found in close proximity to the executive lounges.
I’m at an Apple store in Phoenix where my mother-in-law is about to become the proud owner of a brand new iBook along with some other goodies like an airport card, a (free) printer and an iSight.
I just got myself the niftiest little gadget ever: the Kensington Wi-Fi Finder.
Sometimes, very occasionally, Google gets it wrong. Trying, for instance, to match up the right picture to go with the financial headlines over at Google News.
Swimming is just like riding a bike: life-threateningly dangerous but good exercise.
I’ve been using my new camera for almost two weeks now so I figured it was time to weigh in with some thoughts on how it measures up.
Even though I’m on holiday and I should be spending all my time swimming, sunbathing and eating tacos, I just couldn’t resist doing a bit of design work.
Contrary to what some would have you believe, the internet is a wonderful thing.
There’s a new picture by Jessica up at The Mirror Project.
I’ve just made a nifty little discovery: the mall in Sierra Vista has Wi-Fi.
Brighton web designer, pal and all-round good guy Andy Budd has joined the blogosphere.
It looks like I won’t be getting an iPod after all.
On the morning that Jessica and I were leaving Brighton I decided I’d chronicle every step of the way. When we boarded the bus to Heathrow airport I was already whipping out my digital camera.
I’m in the States. Baltimore, to be precise.
I’m heading stateside tomorrow. I plan to spend three weeks soaking up the sun in Arizona.
Anyone from ‘round here will tell you that the city of Brighton & Hove is split between the hip, sleazy Brighton and the posh, old Hove (actually).
Things are afoot in the Brighton blogosphere.
The Skillswap talk is over and I’m recovering with a drink at the Wi-Fi’d Grand Central pub (Andy Budd on one side of me, Jon Hirsch on the other).
I’m at the Skillswap event on PHP Objects and Patterns (mostly a sneak peak at PHP5).
My trip to Canterbury was a great success. Not only did I get to explore the magnificent cathedral grounds in depth, I also posted my first moblogged entry to this journal (using GPRS over Bluetooth).
I’m in the lovely town… sorry; city of Canterbury.
I’m trying out a new service called
Here’s the Guardian article about writing Guardian articles from the beach in Brighton.
I’ve been completely snowed under with work today. That’s why I wasn’t able to make it down to the beach to greet the team from The Guardian who are putting together tomorrow’s edition using the free Wi-Fi provided by Pier to Pier.
I’m sitting downstairs in the Grand Central pub in Brighton enjoying the bandwidth.
Seeing as I can’t afford a Volkswagen (not to mention the fact that I can’t even drive), I’m trying to get my hands on an iPod by other means.
I’m trying something new here.
This is not the journal entry you were looking for. Move along, move along.
After setting up my Bluetooth GPRS connection, I was all set to post my first mobile journal entry when I went to the beach yesterday evening to have a few drinks with Andy Budd.
Please excuse the unwieldy title for this entry but I want to make sure that Google can point other souls in the direction of the helpful advice I am about to dispense.
There’s a great interview with Eric Meyer over at DMX Zone.
It’s another beautiful day in Brighton.
Over the last few days, England has been enjoying something of a heatwave, a beautiful heatwave.
I’ve been honing my Quake playing skills lately, but Gamespot have a review of what sounds like a "must have" for fans of first-person, multiplayer adventures. It’s called Real Life:
My friend Andy Budd, from Message, has just launched a website to showcase his photography.
I am so there:
Everyone’s been talking about the new design over at Adaptive Path. It sure is a beauty; a crisp, clean, elegant design wrapped up in yummy XHTML and CSS.
My personality is, apparently, living in the 1990s:
I’ve got a new picture, taken on my trip to Dublin, up at The Mirror Project.
I came back from Ireland with my MP3 collection significantly enhanced by Diarmaid’s bounties. While we were both iChatting this afternoon we ended up at one stage listening to the same song.
I went to Ireland and all I got was this lousy image gallery.
I’m back in Dublin after a week spent down in Cobh.
After bidding farewell to Dublin with a trip to Guinness brewery, Jessica and I caught the train down to Cobh.
My second day in Dublin was a very relaxing affair.
Having spent the day sampling the culture of Trinity College and the cuisine of The Bad Ass Cafe, Jessica and I spent our first evening in Dublin sweating it up in a loud room full of slam-dancing bodies.
My trip to Dublin has been a blast so far.
I’m off to Ireland tomorrow. I have duly updated my travel page.
Yesterday really brought home to me just what a nice town Brighton is.
It’s funny, but with all the big announcements from Apple about super-fast computers and nifty video-conferencing cameras, the thing that I’m most excited about is the release of Safari version 1.0.
I’ve been updating my portfolio with some sites I’ve worked on recently. All of them are table-free, valid XHTML/CSS pieces of work.
Sometimes I come across a website that’s so beautifully designed and elegantly executed that I don’t know whether to be inspired or depressed by it.
When I wrote earlier this month about Microsoft’s decision to stagnate browser development, I took a fairly pessimistic view of where we developers now stand.
There’s a Food And Drink Lover’s Festival going on right now in Brighton. As dyed-in-the-wool food lovers, Jessica and I have been doing our food loving duty, checking out all the goodies on offer.
I’m sure the people behind "Who Represents" are the same people who decided on the domain name for "Powergen Italia".
I’m out on the veranda with my neighbours, Chris and Karin, who live at the top of our building. We’re sipping some beers and bidding farewell to the last of the sun’s rays.
Jessica and I went along to the Virtual Festival Awards last night. I was rooting for Jessica’s site in the "Best Personal Site and Weblogs" category.
Feeling down? Depressed? You need to listen to some country songs to cheer you up:
I’m just back from a day out in London; Hammersmith, to be precise.
I found it ironic when James Lileks yesterday referred to a cartoon by saying “when it gets political it’s just embarassing”. This pretty much sums up how I feel about Lileks’ Daily Bleats.
Well, my stint as compère at Silicon Beach is over.
I was just emailing with Dave Phelan about tonight’s Silicon Beach event. I told him I’d probably be able to recognise him from his webcam pic and asked him to give me a wave.
Apparently, I’m going to be the compère for tonight’s Silicon Beach event at the Sumo Bar on Middle Street.
Satire: Keeness and severity of remark; caustic exposure to reprobation; trenchant wit; sarcasm.
Richard’s pictures of Venice are giving me really itchy feet.
Microsoft have not so much announced, more let slip, that there won’t be any more updates to Internet Explorer.
As promised, I’m blogging wirelessly from Riki Tik’s in the North Laine, Brighton.
Mark Frauenfelder is making another switch.
According to recently published research that has geeks the world over rubbing their hands with glee, playing video games may actually be quite beneficial:
I’m in a garden in Lewes. The sun has gone down and I’ve just finished eating some barbequed meat surrounded by fellow geeks from the Brighton New Media list. The perfect end to a beautiful sunny day.
It looks like Brighton is about to get networked, just in time for Summer.
Apple have released an update to iTunes but you might not want to download it just yet.
I had no idea when this picture was taken that I was opening myself up to a potential tirade from a Starbucks manager. Lawrence Lessig has the story:
Jessica and I went to the cinema today to see The Matrix Reloaded.
Here’s some not-so-mindless fun: a Java emulation of the game of the soon-to-be movie of the television series of the book of the radio series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
I gave my SkillSwap talk on CSS based design last night. I had been preparing for it for a while which is why my journal entries have been somewhat sporadic of late.
Arr, there be some strange goings on in Brighton, m’lad. They do say there be a ghost ship riding the waves last last night. Arr!
I can relate to these tales of terror from the world of web design.
Congratulations to Jessica and Richard, both of whom have been shortlisted in the "Best Personal Site and Weblogs" category of the Brighton & Hove Virtual Festival Awards.
I give up.
This is getting ridiculous.
I’ve noticed a trend in the naming conventions of local New Media companies (although I’m sure this trend applies beyond the boundaries of Brighton & Hove).
Malkovich this Malkovich.
English footballer, David Beckham is worth £10.53m.
I’ve updated the “About” section of this site to include a brief accessibility statement.
Following up on my earlier post about Newspeak, here’s a superb essay by Thomas Pynchon on 1984 which is part of the introduction to a new edition of the book published next week. In it, Pynchon finds hope in the very inclusion of the Newspeak Appen
I feel I must apoligise to American readers for my earlier entreaties for a happy May Day.
Jessica came across the website of a surf-rock band that I used to play with when we were both still living in Freiburg, Germany.
Happy May 1st, my fellow working class comrades.
So we’re finally starting to see some sanity in the great “music biz vs. the rest of the world” conflict.
I’ve updated the "About" section of this site to include a new page about this site and how it was made.
Oh, dear. Brighton doesn’t fare too well in one man’s mission to rate the beaches of the world:
This site has been getting mentioned in some good company lately.
The Designer is a very pretty looking site that publishes a PDF design magazine.
I’ve been laid up with a nasty cold since yesterday, probably due to the schizophrenic moodswings in the weather lately.
All software development should be this efficient and transparent:
I’ve cobbled together a little WAP version of this journal.
I was bemused to see that an e-book version of Down And Out In the Magic Kingdom for Microsoft Reader is available for purchase at Amazon.
This site, along with that of fellow Brightonian Richard Rutter, gets namechecked during an excellent interview with CSS guru, Eric Meyer:
I had the opportunity yesterday to dine in a very swanky restaurant in the heart of London overlooking Hyde Park.
It was a gorgeously hot sunny day today.
There’s a new Public Beta of Safari available for download.
I’m the luckiest geek alive.
There’s a reason for this post’s unusual headline: I’m doing some small scale googlebombing.
Now I know I’m living in the future.
A spectacular car chase, bullet time, people flying through the air…
"Men, we have got to find Saddam Hussein."
I finally succumbed and got myself a mobile ‘phone.
Bleeding ears, stiff upper lip… it must be John Simpson:
I have my new iBook. More importantly, I have extra RAM and an airport card for my new iBook.
Forget Russian Ark; here’s a really impressive one-shot movie.
From the department of redundancy department:
Following Ben and Meg’s lead, I’ve added the nifty IndyJunior Flash app to my "About" section.
I walked by the the West Pier today. There were still wisps of smoking coming out of the superstructure.
I tend to rise late, the lack of a nine-to-five schedule being one of the advantages of life as a freelancer.
I’m upgrading my iBook.
Jason Kottke has posted up some pictures from a peace march in New York.
Set aside some time and read through other people’s stories.
Now, this is funny:
Making branding more honest. My favourite is the rebranded Google.
A British commander addresses his troops and tells them:
Let us hope that in the fog of war, no bombs intended for Iraq are used to bomb county Monaghan in Ireland.
Alan Keith OBE passed away yesterday.
Clutter is an aptly named little OS X application that at first glance appears to be a candidate for PerversionTracker but which, on further investigation, is actually really handy.
Today is my national holiday.
Is it a miracle or is it a rewired Billy Bass?
I attended a meeting of fellow Brighton-based geeks and coders yesterday.
Here’s a handy tip from Jeffrey Zeldman, prompted by a question asked at the “CSS: Between the (Style) Sheets” panel that he co-hosted at SXSW: how to preload hover states in CSS rollovers.
You may remember that on my birthday I mentioned that I received of the soundtrack to the movie Avalon.
The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy for me.
This is probably only going to be of interest to fellow mac-heads out there, so if talk of the latest OS X apps puts you to sleep, look away now.
This is one the best articles about the fundamental nature of the internet that I’ve read.
Hidden away on the listings page for the Sussex Arts Club is the regular singer/songwriter Thursday night slot for March 20th.
I love it when the web works like this.
The colours really are that vivid.
A transcript of part of an iChat conversation with Jamie over at Message:
In the spirit of practising what I preach when it comes to web standards, I’ve re-written Jessica’s professional site, Lost in Translation, in XHTML strict and CSS.
Now that Sarah Michelle Geller is leaving Buffy behind her, I hope she will have more time to write books about algorithms and data structures using Java as the implementation tool:
We are smart because we are Jedi:
The story of one man’s encounter with horror itself, made manifest in the form of a radio controlled indoor blimp.
Before I discovered the web (heck, before the web was even invented), I was a busker.
When I was growing up in Ireland, this television programme used to be on.
Today is my birthday, mein Geburtstag, mi cumpleanos, mo bhreathlá.
It’s been a busy week for Cascading StyleSheets.
Earlier this week, I mentioned the trailers for the book Robota.
In some ways, Voice Box is a pretty neat application. It downloads RSS feeds and turns them into sound files that you can save (and even sync to your iPod).
I sometimes find myself working on websites for typically corporate businesses.
This live, literally on-air, description of Lufthansa’s experimental flights with broadband access mirrors my own frustrations with the ludicrous idea of using a pop-up window as a control mechanism:
If there was a fight between Angry Robot and Strong Bad, who would win?
Here is the BBC transcript of Hans Blix’s presentation to the UN security council.
Here’s something a little bit different: a trailer for a book.
The editor of Cre@teOnline explains why the magazine is closing.
Eric Meyer and the gang have revamped the Netscape DevEdge site with Cascading Style Sheets.
I sense a disturbance in The Force. Census data released today shows an unusually high concentration of Jedi in a certain seaside city:
Happy Darwin Day!
Mark Pilgrim has started publishing a series of stories, to number one hundred when they’re all finished.
I just had a chat with Jamie from Message where we went from the Pixies to EmmyLou Harris in just a few degrees of separation.
Konfabulator is just about the coolest OS X application I’ve seen in a long while.
I’m back from a day in London where I enjoyed the closest thing a geek like me is going to get to culture.
I had no idea that I had such a crazed look on my face while I was giving my talk the other night.
Eric Meyer likes my site:
Here are those pictures of the Palace Pier burning taken by Jamie over at Message.
Brighton’s Palace Pier caught fire tonight. It was quite spectacular but luckily nobody was injured.
It looks like I’m going to be taking part in a talk/discussion/chat type thing tonight at the Sussex Arts Club in Brighton.
For those of you who missed the state of the union address, here’s the audio update.
What really happened to the West Pier.
A new book by William Gibson is always a cause for celebration. I’ll grab myself a copy as soon as I’m done with Cryptonomicon.
Jessica is very kindly treating me to a day of music in London.
I’m back in Brighton.
My time here in Arizona is coming to an end.
Today’s the day to eat some trout.
For your viewing pleasure, some new pictures from Seattle. Mostly seafood.
I’m back from Seattle.
Standing in front of what is supposedly the original Starbucks (not true: the original building was demolished) Jim Page sang a song about Seattle:
I’m in Seattle and I’m blogging wirelessly from a Starbucks.
As I prepare for my next ‘plane trip, I thought I’d share these pictures of an airplane journey.
Jessica and I are headed to Seattle.
Is this going to happen every time I leave Brighton?
I’m still in Arizona. I’m just taking it easy, lounging around watching movies.
…but mostly rain.
I’m off to Arizona.
Now that I’m getting ready to head off to Arizona, I’m faced with the usual dilemma of choosing the right reading material for the trip.
It looks like I made it back just in time to witness the birth of a browser. It’s a nifty little app from Apple called Safari.
I’m back from Ireland.
It was a somewhat subdued New Year’s celebration for me this year. I’m nursing a cold which has dampened my party spirit a little.