Chrizzles

No new posts cause I’ve been away for the festive season. Had a top time at our kid’s and got some really cool presents, though was a bit disappointed to find that the first season of the original series of Star Trek on DVD doesn’t include the pilot with Captain Pike, so have had to resort to downloading it. Got some really cool CDs including the new album by Amadou & Mariam, “Welcome to Mali”, which is brilliant. Also got “Dreams from my Father” by Barack Obama, which I'm part way through and it’s awesome. Got some cool Star Wars kits, including a Snowspeeder which is very well made and a Republic Cruiser which is about a foot long and very detailed. No idea where they’re going to go though.

haven’t done much in terms of web stuff on account of being away. Mark sent me a new mix that I haven’t had chance to listen to yet, but it’s Christmas-related, so I guess by the time I get round to it, it will be too late to put it on the site. I did help my brother set up a site for his father-in-law, but I didn’t actually have much to do with building the site, Andy had already built it, I just set  up the domain and the DNS and showed him how to upload stuff, corrected a few code errors and so on. Might keep an eye on it though.

Kind of nice to know there’s a site out there built from scratch by my brother. He’s very methodical about learning stuff. He basically decided his father-in-law needed a website, so got a book on html, read up on the various versions, and learnt how to write html. He basically feels that anything which follows a pattern of rules and logical steps, can be learned by oneself with the right study material and the determination to keep going until you’ve achieved what you set out to do. It was following this philosophy which has allowed him to do up his house to a standard that would make most people tremble. And we’re not talking about a small terrace house here, this is a 6-bedroom Victorian town house in Kidderminster, which is slowly being restored to its Victorian splendour by learning the required skills as and when the need arises - he even rewired the house himself. I sometimes wish I had that kind of self-discipline and determination, but as they say, each to his own.

Seem to have gone off on a tangent there. Ah well, that was Christmas, pretty much. Normal service will resume shortly. Thanks for holding, your call is important to us.

Chill Factor skiing taster

went to Chill Factor today with people from work for our Christmas do. I seem to have been absent the day they asked what everyone wanted to do and so I ended up with a "skiing taster". this consisted of ten minutes learning how to attach the skis, which could have been done in ten seconds, then queuing for 40 minutes to have three goes down the very bottom of the very smallest slope. Approximately the length of my living room. For this I spent 13 quid on waterproof gloves I will almost certainly never wear again. I got a taster of what it feels like to wear skis (the taste was "infuriating when you don't actually get to do anything on them") but that was pretty much it, other than a 5 minute sales pitch at the end to come back and do a whole day (apparently they let you ski if you pay for the whole day).

Epic, epic fail

New mix on Suga Suga

MarkB, who I maintain the Suga Suga site for has done a DJ mix set which is free to download. I got it this afternoon and it’s mint. He’s gonna do one every so often so I’ve made a download page and new image for the link on there, plus a flyer, which I’ve linked to the site so you can go get free stuff. Off you go then.

Fringe

Not much going on

Well, other than finally getting up to date with House, I haven’t really been up to much. I went over Nicki’s site today, cleaned up some links that didn’t have targets (I try to have all links to external sites open in a new window), edited the link back to my site in the copyright bit, so it just says “site by” rather than “developed, hosted etc blah blah” which was a bit cumbersome. Still trying to work out what to do with Mark’s site, though I did grab some pics off his facebook today to make a bit of a logo for him as an artist. Not sure yet where it’s going to go. Maybe on the “about” page, once I get Mark’s text, or maybe on an artist biography. Here’s the pic anyway:

Late Shifts

ok, so I’ve been on the late shifts this week and haven’t felt like doing much after work other than watching house. Also I was working 6 days straight and didn’t get a day off till today, which was mostly spent Christmas shopping. After dinner (and an episode of House with a *very* unexpected ending) I decided it was time to update Mark’s site. He released his first single on Friday, so I thought I’d add a link on the site to where you can but it. I decided to do a banner add:

Once I’d added that the rest of the site looked a bit crappy, so I’ve given it a bit of an overhaul: proper graphics for the links, swapped the crappy animated logo for a simple static one (might add another animated one if I can come up with something a bit better). Then I figured while I was at it I might as well create a page on facebook to try and promote it a bit more. I’m quite pleased with the couple of hours’ work and I think Mark will be too. Next step is an “about” page so I’ve asked him to come up with some text to go on there. And that’s about it for today – early start tomorrow.

Geburtstag

It’s my birthday today so I have mostly been building lego. YAY!

A general disinclination to work of any kind

I have done nothing productive today, unless you count building the lego knight in my advent calendar (am stupidly excited to find out tomorrow what accessories and accoutrements he’s getting), so instead, here’s something someone else made that amused me briefly. Read about it here. Basically it’s the guy who does the voices on Mortal Kombat saying stupid things at the request of an interviewer.

oh, and 5 points if you can source the quote I used for today’s title.

Jägermeister

Man I am so rough today. Didn’t get up till after one, so haven’t got much done in terms of work, but did manage to finally get to the chocobo dungeon in Final Fantasy X-2, which I’ve never managed to do before, and also got all the Break Damage Limit/Break HP Limit key items for the special dress-spheres, which was quite a result. Now just going to blast through to the end of the game and have killer accessories for new game plus and maybe finally get the elusive Mascot dress-sphere.

Yesterday’s rehearsal went really well - the first proper rehearsal. An initial setback in the form of the pub landlord having double-booked meant we had to go back to Dean’s and carry on there, but it turned out OK. WE got a fairly tight version of Beat It sorted out and also worked on my song Even if it Kills Me and Lee’s doing some really nice lead stuff on it. We’re still a bit sloppy in terms of timing and tightness, but doing much better than I had expected after such a short time. If we can get a regular weekly rehearsal schedule sorted I think we could be gigging in a few months.

All sorted

So Mum’s computer is sorted (though I did smash one of the old power units in rage when I’d done all the swapping and the fucking thing still didn’t turn on). All working properly now, though I’ve told Mum to get a new 4-bar extension lead with a surge protection cause that’s the second power unit the computer has eaten in 6 months. hmmm. and the extra hard drive is now installed in one of the old computers, which I’m going to check when I’ve finished doing updates an Mum’s

Got Mark’s site live today as well. It’s just a holding page at the moment, but it’s up and live and the mail’s working, so that’s a start.

http://sugasugarecords.co.uk

A mess

So I’m trying to fix Mum’s computer, which I thought would be a half hour job – replace the power unit with one from my old knackered computer, back-up the files on mum’s hard drive, put it all together and reinstall windows to resolve the startup issue. Only it didn’t quite go like that. Firstly I took the hard drive out of my external hard drive enclosure so I can copy Mum’s stuff across, then I though, while I’ve got a spare hard drive enclosure, might as well format the drive from my really old knackered computer and get an extra 80 GB storage. I really need more than that at the moment and am holding out for a terabyte drive in the near future, but 80 GB is still useful. So I started formatting the drive.

While that was running I got the power unit out of Mum’s computer and also got the power unit out of the old computer, only to find that the leads on it aren’t long enough to reach all the drives in Mum’s computer. Bugger. So I either need to get a bus into town to get a new power unit (which I was really hoping to avoid), or I get the power unit from one of the other computers upstairs (I’m amassing quite a collection, for playing about with Linux, and taking them to bits to see what goes where, but surprisingly the only computers you seem to be able to get cheap or for free are old ones, so I’m never sure that part-pinching is going to server any purpose).

I opt for the option which doesn’t require me leaving the house, but which does mean making more of a mess in the lounge. Some 20 minutes later and the old  computer has the power unit from the old old computer, Mum’s computer has the one from the old computer and the old old computer is consigned to the scrap heap (pretty much all useful parts have already been stripped). Meanwhile back over at the warp core the hard drive has failed to format. A few clicks and tweaks and a sound thrashing and it reconsiders its position and agrees to be formatted. I am dismayed to find that it’s only 40 GB though, not 80, so decide to just put it in one of the other computers as extra storage.

Now onto copying Mum’s files over as a backup (I’m planning to re-install windows shortly so it could go awry as I’ve never done it before. Dean tells me it’s relatively straightforward so I’m hoping not to fuck it up, but no harm in have a backup anyway. First attempt at copying the files across fails, cause I foolishly try copying everything. The computer gets confused, copies 2 GB then gets stuck in a loop. Cancel, delete, retry – this time just copying the My Documents Folder (i.e. just the stuff Mum would actually need to have backed up) and it seems to be working.

Next step is to get the hard drive back in Mum’s computer and first see if it will power on, then if it will, whether it will start up, and if it doesn’t, whether reinstalling windows will do it. fingers crossed.

Annoyed

A lot of the time I am my own worst enemy. The prospect of walking to work without tunes is not a happy one, yet even though I knew I’d be walking in today, it only occurred to me to fill and charge my ipod about half an hour before I need to set off. When I eventually found it it was devoid of battery life and full of old stuff I’m sick of hearing at the mo. So, quick round in the USB slot to get some charge and put some new…oh balls, I set it to automatically sync with the Pablo’s Ipod playlist, which it is now doing, overwriting the tunes that are already on there with…the tunes that are already on there. Quickly into the settings, cancel the auto sync, drag files on there manually from Recently Added. Shit! they won’t add, have I somehow broken my ipod? frantic clicking. oh, no, I just didn’t realise that as well as disabling the auto sync, I need to enable the manually update option.

So it’s finally now adding the tunes I want (after having to cancel the first lot, because even on USB 2.0 it takes about an hour to have 300 songs). And hopefully just in time for me to be able to set off to work and not have to run part of the way. I think I might put a new nano on my Christmas list so it can load quicker. And re-do my itunes settings.

A new site

Recently got back in touch with my old neighbour Mark (thanks, of course to facebook) and today we were chatting when he mentioned he is putting out a single soon on his own label. I asked (as I always do in these situations) if he needed a website. In fact he does, and has already registered sugasugarecords.co.uk but hasn’t had time to build the site yet.

We swapped a few emails and he sent me some graphics he designed for the logo. The idea was fine but the font was quite generic , so this evening has been spent trying to take the simplistic idea and just make it a bit more recognisable and less generic. I also plan to set up some more free hosting space over at freehostia, who I highly recommend if you’re looking to getting into web hosting – it’s reliable and free, and you can have multiple accounts. It’s not the fastest server in the world but it’s perfectly adequate, and great for getting a site up and running while you find out if it’s going to go anywhere. Basically if you get to the point where you need to move you’re site off freehostia, you’re probably making enough off it to afford to pay for hosting.

So anyway, here’s the designs. None of them are particularly exciting, but it’s a start. The bottom ones I quite like, but I’m quite conscious of the fact that it’s a bit reminiscent of reservoir dogs, so I might go for a different font, or a different colour.

 

In other news, the saga of the picture on Nicki’s Site goes on it seems. I got a better copy of the original source photo, so have re-done the main cover shot and it looks much better. the one I had was from a really small copy that hadn’t shrunk very well. Working from the original shot makes for a much more pleasing finished product.

A nation of complainers

I’ve been doing quite a few emails at work today (I work in tech support for an ISP) and I find it increasingly sad how many of the emails from customers are written in a disgruntled, accusatory tone, as though whatever has stopped working has been made to stop working deliberately, and specifically to affront the customer.

So many of the emails include phrases like “sort this immediately or I will find another provider” or “this has been going on for months and it just isn’t good enough”.

I know what it’s like to be pissed off about a service not doing what it should, I get it all the time, and I know there is a temptation to lash out at someone, but I just can’t believe so many people actually do exactly that.

The annoying thing is, the company I work for is actually very good at fixing stuff. We fix really hard, complicated stuff on a daily basis. We carry on far beyond the point when other ISPs would just say “we don’t support that” or just give up. But the majority of companies don’t do that, they do give up, they don’t support anything but what they absolutely have to, so people have to fight to get what they want.

Add to that the fact that a lot of companies cave straight away under pressure and give freebies to shut people up. Things they haven’t paid for and aren’t entitled to. Bonuses for staying loyal. We don’t do that We Fix Things Which Are Broken. That’s what you pay us for.

In recent years a lot of companies have replaced face to face contact with call centres, which in a large number of cases get outsourced to offshore companies, staffed by people for whom English is not their first language, who have never lived in England, and who don’t use the products they are supporting. This means to enable them to do their job, everything has to be simple, and scripted. This inevitably leads to people having to fight even harder to get what they want, and to companies caving even more easily and giving away more freebies (which they can now afford because they now spend a tenth of what they used to spend on wages).

So when someone emails us, they expect a fight, they expect scripted indifference, they expect us to bend over backwards to sort the problem out yesterday.

We’ve become a nation of complainers and forgotten how to be civil, and through having to so often fight for what we feel we are owed, we have forgotten that with decent companies who do care about their customers, you’re more likely to get what you want if you ask nicely. So next time you have to call or email customer services/tech support, try being nice, at least at first, and you might find it to be a much less stressful experience if the person helping you wants  to help you.

Back Soon

Just got back from Germany. normal service will resume soon.

Remembrance Day

I was quite mortified today by the number of people at work who didn’t observe the silence. I can’t quite work out if it was ignorance or indifference but it made me quite sad either way.

A busy day

So, as well as watching loads of house, I’ve also been productive on web stuff today. I started out by addressing the picture issue I was having last night with Nicki’s site. A suggestion came in the form of a comment from Dean on yesterday’s blog, suggesting that I should angle the picture slightly, to give it more of a “stuck-in-photo” feel. I tried that (in addition to the additional shadow top and bottom) and it really brought the thing to life. I still think it needs to be a tiny bit sharper round the edges, but that’s just me being anal.

In addition to the picture, I thought it would be kinda nice if Nicki could have a blog that is listed by her domain name. Doesn’t make any difference to the content but I just think it looks a bit more professional, so I had a look to see if I could have a blog running on the server where Nicki’s site is hosted. I had a look and as it’s windows based instead of linux that means no PHP, which means no blog. I can have a database on there, but only mysql or access, and as I can’t actually program databases that’s no use to me.

Then I remembered having seen something while going through the settings of my own blogspot blog about being able to essentially park a domain on a blog. I went and had another look and found that sure enough, you can put a domain on there. Ideal! Off I went to register a subdomain, and while I was at it, why not register houseofmog.co.uk for my other blog? So I did. The slight downside is that you can’t just point the A-record at the blogspot page. You park the domain on the blogspot blog and set the c-name for the domain to ghs.google.com. Not really a problem, except that the people I have my domains registered with will only allow a c-name in lieu of everything else. So you can’t have your domain pointing to a blogspot blog and still us your domain for mail. That’s a bit annoying. Easily remedied by just using a “blog.” subdomain, which is what I did, but still annoying.

Nothin’ goin’ on but the rent

Not done much in terms of sites or music today really. I've updated the graphic elements on my music blog, as well as updating the style on this blog. To try and keep me active on my projects, I've set a daily reminder for 9pm to remind me to blog, either on here or on my music blog. In order to have something to blog about, I therefore need to either work on websites, work on music stuff, or listen to something that I want to recommend, so I’m hoping that having the reminder will keep me more productive. Time will tell. I’ve also updated Nicki’s site with a few tweaks. Firstly I’ve removed the bit that said “full site coming soon” because I think 5 pages constitutes a “full site” even though there’s still *lots* to be done. I also updated the picture slightly, trying to make it look like an old photo, with an old style border:

The idea was to have it look like the picture was stuck on the page. not sure I’ve quite captured it so might have another bash tomorrow. I think it might just need slightly more shadow along the bottom edge.

The Pentatonic Minor

Dean came round tonight for some music theory tuition. He’s going to be the bassist in the band and is quite concerned that he may not have as much experience or competence as other members of the band. He is perfectly competent and quick to learn, so it is important at this point to encourage confidence. We went through the pentatonic minor scale: the various ways of playing it, how to transpose it to another key and of course how to work out which pentatonic minor to use over which key.

Dean was a little taken aback by how it was simultaneously simple and effective, and the look on his face was that of someone who has just encountered irrefutable proof of voodoo. All week he has been trawling through internet guides on how to read music and has become like a man possessed, determined to assimilate as much information as he can, in as short a time as possible. Seeing the simplicity of the pentatonic minor, and the doors it has opened will only serve to fuel this fire.

Dean is a man trying to get somewhere in a hurry, and I have just filled his tank with liquid Schwartz.

Websites

I’ve been doing some work on Nicki's site today. I decided it would be pretty cool if on the CV/resumé page, all the titles were links to the project Nicki worked on. So if it’s a videogame, I link to the official site for the game, or if there isn’t one I link to the game on Amazon, or a review, and so on; if it’s a cartoon, I link to the official page, or to an episode of the cartoon in question. Got through about a third of the list so far (she’s done a hell of a lot), but it’s starting to look pretty cool.

Yellow Team Band Project

Three colleagues at work who are all keen to get into, or back into, performing live have inspired me to start working on music again, with a view to playing live in a band again. It's just over a year since I left from rusholme with love, and nearly a year since I was ousted from sloganeer for having an opinion, and the time feels right to be getting involved in music again.

The sloganeer episode made me take a serious look at what I want to get out of music, and at the same time made me wary of collaborating again. I put so much into that band because I believed we were all striving for the same goal, and on equal terms. Finding out that one of my best friends, for whom I had sacrificed much was just using me for as long as I served my purpose, to be thrown away as soon as he saw his goal in sight, was a heavy blow, and put me right of collaborations for a long time.

instead I threw myself into my new job, and poured my creativity into my new hobby, web design, and music took a bit of a back seat. It worked out quite well because it got me spending a lot more time doing what I wanted to do in such a way that the work was its own reward, and not hanging around waiting for someone else (frwl), or catering to someone else's ego (sloganeer). It was a much more rewarding experience and got me learning useful new skills.

What I have realised recently is that it also occupied me for long enough to start *missing* doing music, which was exactly what I needed. Music has now come back round to being something that I look forward to doing rather than something I resent. Music is once again its own reward.

We had our first rehearsal (or more accurately, our first jam) at the weekend and it was great fun. we started off all playing against each other as we waited for some form or structure to come to the playing. we're four quite different musicians with very different levels of experience in terms of playing music, but it very soon became apparent that we all have the desire to play, and more importantly to play together.

Several days and several msn conferences later and we have a potential rehearsal space, a short list of songs we want to work on and a whole load of ideas about guitars, clothes, instruments, equipment and everything else that comes with being in a band. I have no idea if anything will come of it, but that's half the fun. we don't have a plan, we have ideas and enthusiasm and all the time in the world. This time, it's about having fun.