My wife just sent me this message about discovering the dogs had been through the Christmas presents under the tree. I thought it was amusing enough to share.
"I heard something move downstairs. Thinking it might be the postman, I went downstairs (knowing I hadn't heard the gate), but instead I found Pudding acting very mysteriously, Heze looking away from me, and a box that had been moved and a licked truffle on the floor (I had to check it wasnt a small poo)."
Thursday 17 December 2009
Saturday 12 December 2009
Social Media... the down sides?
The biggest problem I have with social media, by which I mean twitter, facebook, digg and the like, is that it doesn't adhere to a law of nature; that in life, there is a trade off between quality and quantity.
Take Terry Pratchett. To be fair, his illness makes him less able to be active, but still, I try to read his blog, follow his tweets, but he makes little impact. Yet, his books are some of the best. Or another author, James Herriot is dead! This makes it difficult for him to update his twitter account. And in this, has less value. Is this right?
Secondly, surely the point of "social" media is relationships? Does Steven Fry feel he has a relationship with the 54,284 people he follows? A quick look at his feed would see that it is perhaps suffocated by a majority of non relational posts. Does social media put us into a false sense of relationship? I have over 600 friends on facebook; many of whom did not get invited to my wedding. Because I don't know them.
Thirdly, social media is daunting. Incredibly so. Let alone marvelling at the glory of God's creation, just try following 500 people on twitter, and you can be overwhelmed with a tiny percentage of the creative power of just a sample of the world! How many articles are there of the 108 best articles, 80 best accounts, best 1000 logos, etc.
My worry is that this is making me appreciate text less. I will happily read a newspaper article about the changing etiqette within muslim schools in indonesia, yet I am less inclined to read a really well written music review about a band that may well interest me, online. Yes, that's a personal behaviour, but also a factor of the overwhelming availability of text, photos, music, video and other stuff.
Anyway, I'll leave it with that, and a link to visit - My friend Rich Wells (who I 'know' mostly through social media hehe) is creating a wonderful series of illustrations. Check them out at http://richwells.posterous.com!
xC
Take Terry Pratchett. To be fair, his illness makes him less able to be active, but still, I try to read his blog, follow his tweets, but he makes little impact. Yet, his books are some of the best. Or another author, James Herriot is dead! This makes it difficult for him to update his twitter account. And in this, has less value. Is this right?
Secondly, surely the point of "social" media is relationships? Does Steven Fry feel he has a relationship with the 54,284 people he follows? A quick look at his feed would see that it is perhaps suffocated by a majority of non relational posts. Does social media put us into a false sense of relationship? I have over 600 friends on facebook; many of whom did not get invited to my wedding. Because I don't know them.
Thirdly, social media is daunting. Incredibly so. Let alone marvelling at the glory of God's creation, just try following 500 people on twitter, and you can be overwhelmed with a tiny percentage of the creative power of just a sample of the world! How many articles are there of the 108 best articles, 80 best accounts, best 1000 logos, etc.
My worry is that this is making me appreciate text less. I will happily read a newspaper article about the changing etiqette within muslim schools in indonesia, yet I am less inclined to read a really well written music review about a band that may well interest me, online. Yes, that's a personal behaviour, but also a factor of the overwhelming availability of text, photos, music, video and other stuff.
Anyway, I'll leave it with that, and a link to visit - My friend Rich Wells (who I 'know' mostly through social media hehe) is creating a wonderful series of illustrations. Check them out at http://richwells.posterous.com!
xC
Thursday 5 November 2009
Complaints and completions
So, what have I been upto recently? I'm in the process of making a new font, called "Chirpy", coming soon. You can visit my new sites, built with the awesome Maft, as part of our web design company Salt and Light Solutions. They are:
My greatest complaint triumph also occurred today. Thanks to my dad, I'm a great writer of complaint letters. We had a shoddy installation experience with Northern Gas - don't use them. Despite photographic evidence, and written proof that their installers had lied, they spent 17 months ignoring my complaints, refusing to accept liability, and not honouring our five year guarantee. And then, today, I recieved this letter. Feels good.
Finally, my lovely wife bought me a ridiculously large headed (but quite cute) dog to sit on my computer. Ah, bless.
- JirehDecor.co.za - a home decor website, based in South Africa. One half built from scratch, with a Colorbox separating the two halves, and an OpenCart powered store, with advanced templating from Maft, and image replacement from the awesome Cufon - check the changelog page, I get a mention!
- Senior Volunteers Network - over at svnet.org, this is a Christian volunteering organisation for retired teachers. Built open the excellent WordPress, with the less excellent templating system, it has been a pleasure to work with these guys.
My greatest complaint triumph also occurred today. Thanks to my dad, I'm a great writer of complaint letters. We had a shoddy installation experience with Northern Gas - don't use them. Despite photographic evidence, and written proof that their installers had lied, they spent 17 months ignoring my complaints, refusing to accept liability, and not honouring our five year guarantee. And then, today, I recieved this letter. Feels good.
Finally, my lovely wife bought me a ridiculously large headed (but quite cute) dog to sit on my computer. Ah, bless.
Wednesday 7 October 2009
My first psalm
And here we have my first ever psalm. I found this very helpful to write. I hope it blesses you as it has me.
A psalm of praise
1Praise God!
2Hold your circumstances up to Him, trust in His purpose for you, and use His grace to surrender your life to Him.
3When times are hard, when people, situations and emotions are overwhelming you, Praise God!
4When times are good, when happiness, wealth and community surround you, Praise God!
5When you don't know what to do...
6lift up your arms,
7lift up your voice,
8lift up your heart,
9Praise the Lord!
A psalm of praise
1Praise God!
2Hold your circumstances up to Him, trust in His purpose for you, and use His grace to surrender your life to Him.
3When times are hard, when people, situations and emotions are overwhelming you, Praise God!
4When times are good, when happiness, wealth and community surround you, Praise God!
5When you don't know what to do...
6lift up your arms,
7lift up your voice,
8lift up your heart,
9Praise the Lord!
Monday 21 September 2009
Burnout (but not the PS2 game)
I've got burnout. I'm pretty surprised. I've always been a work 24/7 kind of chap, when I have a project I'm concentrating on I just do it. I work and work and work, sometimes with sleep and food, but mostly just work.
And I've never had a problem before. Except now.
Now. I. Just. Can't. Do. It.
Not only do I feel exhausted and surprisingly emotional, I also haven't got the driving ability to concentrate on the job at hand and just complete task after task. I need to do less work in my day, yet it's taking me longer to do the few things I am trying to achieve. Ironic.
I just did some work for a tutorial tomorrow on back pain, and noticed one of the causes of neck pain can be stress. Incredibly irritatingly, 5 minutes later, I just developed a burning, pinching pain in my right shoulder. And here's a shocker, now I'm more stressed.
Anyway, so I did a test this morning: The Burnout Self-Test. I managed to score a fairly impressive "63 - You are at very severe risk of burnout - do something about this urgently.". Which is all very well, but I have a medical course to do, that I am not allowed to take holiday from. I have 2 websites to do in the next few weeks, which would mean losing money AND letting down friends. And I have a charity to help run. What gives?
My plan:
Bless,
Chris
And I've never had a problem before. Except now.
Now. I. Just. Can't. Do. It.
Not only do I feel exhausted and surprisingly emotional, I also haven't got the driving ability to concentrate on the job at hand and just complete task after task. I need to do less work in my day, yet it's taking me longer to do the few things I am trying to achieve. Ironic.
I just did some work for a tutorial tomorrow on back pain, and noticed one of the causes of neck pain can be stress. Incredibly irritatingly, 5 minutes later, I just developed a burning, pinching pain in my right shoulder. And here's a shocker, now I'm more stressed.
Anyway, so I did a test this morning: The Burnout Self-Test. I managed to score a fairly impressive "63 - You are at very severe risk of burnout - do something about this urgently.". Which is all very well, but I have a medical course to do, that I am not allowed to take holiday from. I have 2 websites to do in the next few weeks, which would mean losing money AND letting down friends. And I have a charity to help run. What gives?
My plan:
- Take some more me time
- More prayer
- Don't take anything else on, but just slowly fulfill current commitments.
Bless,
Chris
Sunday 13 September 2009
Health, plugs and marriage
So I was ill for a few days, but happily I feel a lot better. Not much to say here today except to publicise two things:
Number one: MedRevise.co.uk. This is my medicine revision website, which I have been running since my very first year. We are about to launch into doing medical smartphone reviews - so please check that out. We are also hoping to see more people contributing to the site itself, so if you have any questions, please get in contact with me.
Number two: I've been really impressed with the following book: The Web Designer's Idea Book, a showcase of some of the best sites I've ever seen, with categorising and comments from the bloke behind designmeltdown.com. If you have a passion for web design, and you appreciate the art and logic behind good design, I think this book is for you.
That's about it - except check out the photos of Mark and Beth's wedding this weekend...
Ta ta, Chris
Number one: MedRevise.co.uk. This is my medicine revision website, which I have been running since my very first year. We are about to launch into doing medical smartphone reviews - so please check that out. We are also hoping to see more people contributing to the site itself, so if you have any questions, please get in contact with me.
Number two: I've been really impressed with the following book: The Web Designer's Idea Book, a showcase of some of the best sites I've ever seen, with categorising and comments from the bloke behind designmeltdown.com. If you have a passion for web design, and you appreciate the art and logic behind good design, I think this book is for you.
That's about it - except check out the photos of Mark and Beth's wedding this weekend...
Ta ta, Chris
Wednesday 9 September 2009
Working too hard...?
For the first time ever, this week I have just crashed out from working too hard. Mostly from doing too much web design. So there you go, it's not a surprise, but there really is such a thing as too much php. A shock, I know.
The error probably lies in the fact that my programme for the last week or so has been: get up at 6, do an hours web development, cycle 6 miles to placement, work in clinic as a medical student from 8 until 5, cycle 6 miles up hill home, and work until 11 on websites. At weekends that can just read, get up at 8am, work until 12 at night. Burning the candle at both ends (queue sample illustration).
Anyway, I'm taking some time out, and did a search for relaxing websites. This one is surprisingly relaxing, humour aside. Something just great about clicking, and watching someone else go through stress!
The next one is cool. Pretty sure its not lifesize, but its a bit like swimming with a blue whale anyway. That said, not sure how relaxing actually being face to face with a whale would be.
Finally the cheesy God one. But it is so refreshing to be reminded there is a place of safety to escape to.
Gonna relax, eat some nice food and read Clive Cussler books. And maybe take life a little easier in future...
The error probably lies in the fact that my programme for the last week or so has been: get up at 6, do an hours web development, cycle 6 miles to placement, work in clinic as a medical student from 8 until 5, cycle 6 miles up hill home, and work until 11 on websites. At weekends that can just read, get up at 8am, work until 12 at night. Burning the candle at both ends (queue sample illustration).
Anyway, I'm taking some time out, and did a search for relaxing websites. This one is surprisingly relaxing, humour aside. Something just great about clicking, and watching someone else go through stress!
The next one is cool. Pretty sure its not lifesize, but its a bit like swimming with a blue whale anyway. That said, not sure how relaxing actually being face to face with a whale would be.
Finally the cheesy God one. But it is so refreshing to be reminded there is a place of safety to escape to.
Gonna relax, eat some nice food and read Clive Cussler books. And maybe take life a little easier in future...
Monday 7 September 2009
A php twitter feed
I just made a new site - over at allaboutchris.co.uk (probably plugged that enough now), and I wanted to put on a personal twitter feed. But I didn't fancy using the javascript plug in straight from twitter, for three reasons.
This is all possible due to the joys of SimplePie a sexy little php number for parsing and caching rss feeds. Download it here.
So, to incorporate the twitter rss feed, first visit your twitter page, scroll down and click the "rss feed of "name"'s tweets" link. Copy the address bar, which should read something like "http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/18453541.rss". That's your personal RSS feed. Exciting, eh?
Now, at the start of your index.php page, put the following code:
Second line turns the feed into a variable
Third line is what we are going to write now.
Go create twitter.php, and put the following text in:
Not gonna explain it all - you have a brain. But basically, it gets the feed, works out what all the bits are, and adds s to the links - only "@link"s are automatically links in the rss feed, it doesn't change "http://link.com"s and "#link"s for some reason.
Then it turns 08:10:20.10 08/10/09 into "a few minutes ago". Feel free to delete that if you would rather have standard dates, or use other settings from the php date() function. If you want to add more stuff like "about 11 days ago", just work out how many seconds 11 days is (950400), and put that into the equations.
And there you go, voila! See it in action here (okay, just one more plug).
Any questions, just comment!
- I don't like javascript.
- The javascript one has an annoying second or two pause whilst it searches for the feed, then suddenly appears, whereas my php has caching.
- The javascript one is invisible to search engines.
This is all possible due to the joys of SimplePie a sexy little php number for parsing and caching rss feeds. Download it here.
So, to incorporate the twitter rss feed, first visit your twitter page, scroll down and click the "rss feed of "name"'s tweets" link. Copy the address bar, which should read something like "http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/18453541.rss". That's your personal RSS feed. Exciting, eh?
Now, at the start of your index.php page, put the following code:
First line includes the simplepie gubbins.<?php include_once('php/simplepie.inc'); $twits = new SimplePie('http://punkonacross.blogspot.com/rss.xml');include_once('php/twitter.php');?>
Second line turns the feed into a variable
Third line is what we are going to write now.
Go create twitter.php, and put the following text in:
//change the 0 and 3 to select tweets. //This is the first three. If you wanted the second three, choose (3,6) foreach ($twits->get_items(0,3) as $blogitem): $blogcopy = $blogitem->get_description(); $blogdate = $blogitem->get_date('U'); $bloglink = $blogitem->get_link(); //sort out description //lose the "bigonroad: " at the beginning - change to whatever your twitter username is $lookfor = '/bigonroad: /'; $putback = ''; $blogcopy = preg_replace($lookfor, $putback, $blogcopy); //make links links $search = array('|(http://[^ ]+)|', '/(^|[^a-z0-9_])@([a-z0-9_]+)/i'); $replace = array('$1', '$1@$2'); $blogcopy = preg_replace($search, $replace, $blogcopy); //make hashes links $blogcopy = preg_replace('/(^|[^a-z0-9_])#([a-z0-9_]+)/i', '$1#$2', $blogcopy); //sort out date date_default_timezone_set('UTC'); $timenow = date('U'); //change blogdate to text $difference = ($timenow - $blogdate); if ( $difference < 1200) {$blogdate = "a few minutes ago";} if ( ($difference < 2700) && ($difference >= 1200) ) {$blogdate = "about half an hour ago";} if ( ($difference < 5400) && ($difference>= 2700)) {$blogdate = "an hourish ago";} if ( ($difference < 86400)&&($difference>= 5400)) {$blogdate = "a few hours ago";} if ( ($difference < 172800)&&($difference>= 86400)) {$blogdate = "some time yesterday";} if ( ($difference < 604800)&&($difference>= 172800)) {$blogdate = "days ago";} if ( ($difference >= 604800)) {$blogdate = "ages ago";} //print blog echo ''.$blogcopy.' '; echo ''.$blogdate.''; endforeach;
Not gonna explain it all - you have a brain. But basically, it gets the feed, works out what all the bits are, and adds s to the links - only "@link"s are automatically links in the rss feed, it doesn't change "http://link.com"s and "#link"s for some reason.
Then it turns 08:10:20.10 08/10/09 into "a few minutes ago". Feel free to delete that if you would rather have standard dates, or use other settings from the php date() function. If you want to add more stuff like "about 11 days ago", just work out how many seconds 11 days is (950400), and put that into the equations.
And there you go, voila! See it in action here (okay, just one more plug).
Any questions, just comment!
Ah, that's tweet!
The last few weeks, to my surprise, Facebook has no longer been my home. The thing I run to eagerly to check is Twitter. And when confronted by others, generally with the question "What's so good about twitter?", often quoting the 'fact' that 40% of tweets are mindless babble.
And I don't know how to answer them, it's kind of like asking what's so good about staying in contact with your wife all day through text. It's not so much that its good, but like texting, its soon as normal a part of your interactions as talking, or as writing a letter used to be.
That study probably achieves the opposite of your initial impression. First of all you think "Man, that's a lot of pointless babble!". And then you think, "How much of my normal everyday conversation probably comes under their definition of babble?". The study includes things like "having chips for tea" as mindless babbles. I know that the majority of my texts, calls and conversations follow a what-did-you-have-for-lunch/where-are-you? pattern, which means probably about 85% of my words in those avenues are 'babble'. After analysing the poorness of your own ability to converse, you are left thinking "Wow, twitter is actually considerably more succinct than ALL my other forms of communication!"
So there you go. Follow me on twitter, because I'm less likely to babble than if you meet, call, text or communicate in any other way with me!
And I don't know how to answer them, it's kind of like asking what's so good about staying in contact with your wife all day through text. It's not so much that its good, but like texting, its soon as normal a part of your interactions as talking, or as writing a letter used to be.
That study probably achieves the opposite of your initial impression. First of all you think "Man, that's a lot of pointless babble!". And then you think, "How much of my normal everyday conversation probably comes under their definition of babble?". The study includes things like "having chips for tea" as mindless babbles. I know that the majority of my texts, calls and conversations follow a what-did-you-have-for-lunch/where-are-you? pattern, which means probably about 85% of my words in those avenues are 'babble'. After analysing the poorness of your own ability to converse, you are left thinking "Wow, twitter is actually considerably more succinct than ALL my other forms of communication!"
So there you go. Follow me on twitter, because I'm less likely to babble than if you meet, call, text or communicate in any other way with me!
Thursday 3 September 2009
Pretentious, moi?
I finally succumbed to that I'm-a-web-designer-and-I-have-a-personal-portfolio-site thing, and I've made a new site - its all about me, and found, unsurprisingly, at allaboutchris.co.uk. Shocking eh?
I would have liked chrislowry.com, but someone else already has that, and anyway, if I'm gonna have an ego site, I might as well make it blatant.
Give it a visit - feedback appreciated!
I would have liked chrislowry.com, but someone else already has that, and anyway, if I'm gonna have an ego site, I might as well make it blatant.
Give it a visit - feedback appreciated!
Monday 31 August 2009
A new start
It seems very easy to let time slip away. I have such a wide variety of interests, including music, walking, painting, graphics, photography, web design, medicine, God and charity work. Fitting this all in, with socialising as well is not really very achievable, most of the time.
However, maybe today will be the start of something new?
However, maybe today will be the start of something new?
Saturday 1 August 2009
Official Google Blog: Google Health: helping you better coordinate your care
Official Google Blog: Google Health: helping you better coordinate your care
I was quite impressed to read this. Obviously, in running my medical revision website, it's always good to see health rising up the agenda!
I was quite impressed to read this. Obviously, in running my medical revision website, it's always good to see health rising up the agenda!
Wednesday 8 April 2009
An update, and finances...
Hey there. Been a fairly long time since the last update. First of all
New Housemate
Marian has moved in, which is exciting for all of us. That now means there are 4 of us (plus two dogs and two chickens). Please pray she settles in okay, and is happy.
Finances
We have been discussing the best way to deal with our finances as a community. We aim to live a life of community, as exampled in Acts 2, and thus the subject of money has to come up at some point.
The difficult question, is how to have "everything in common"? We are looking at everything from pooling all our money, outgoings and debts, to just being more open about finances. Prayer appreciated, as well as any opinions/discussions on the subject...
Names Not Numbers
Myself and my wife help run a charity - called names not numbers. Please check out our new website! See it at: www.names-not-numbers.co.uk
That's about it for now.
Thanks for reading!
New Housemate
Marian has moved in, which is exciting for all of us. That now means there are 4 of us (plus two dogs and two chickens). Please pray she settles in okay, and is happy.
Finances
We have been discussing the best way to deal with our finances as a community. We aim to live a life of community, as exampled in Acts 2, and thus the subject of money has to come up at some point.
42They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.
44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.
And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.
And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
The difficult question, is how to have "everything in common"? We are looking at everything from pooling all our money, outgoings and debts, to just being more open about finances. Prayer appreciated, as well as any opinions/discussions on the subject...
Names Not Numbers
Myself and my wife help run a charity - called names not numbers. Please check out our new website! See it at: www.names-not-numbers.co.uk
That's about it for now.
Thanks for reading!
Friday 13 March 2009
MedRevise - an awesome medical revision wiki
This site has been put together by some medical student from Sheffield University - but its open for everyone. Its about half finished, so get involved - using the stuff that's there now, and adding the rest. Death to textbooks!Hope you guys enjoy checking out the site!
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday 12 January 2009
New housemates
We have a new housemate. She is called Pudding. And she's an 8 month old lab/collie cross. On the right is a picture of her with the chickens.
We are also (potentially) getting a new housemate. Not going to say what she is called, but she is moving in for a week as a trial run.
Prayers, as ever, appreciated!
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