painting websites

I’m really liking the whole mixed media thang at the moment. Created a couple of watercolour headers that display based on GMT sunrise and sunset. Never realised PHP had sunrise/sunset functions, you larn a new thing every day, huh? Still very much WIP, but I’m loving the paint. I’ve gone all painty.  I painted the cats and the landscapes separately, so I can move ’em about. Taking photos of the paintings with a K850i is perhaps less than ideal however – I think I need to get a scanner working..

dojo master regexp your arse, glasshoppa!

Dojo Toolkit and Regexp monster child runs amok. Citizens terrified. Where will it stop?? I want to put ‘>=2 ‘ in a combobox. Dojo master say no. In fact, it seems to be escaping any even vaguely ‘dodgy’ characters. I can’t put < in, fair enough. I can’t put & in. I tried ‘<‘ even. It converts that to & lt; but it won’t resolve anything with an ampersand in either. This bug, and yes I say it IS a bug, is bugging the arse off me. bloody wordpress is at it too! Leave me the hell alone! What is wrong with you people?!?!

xubuntu vs ubuntu – battlefield: antiques roadshow

xubuntu how I love thee.. let me count the ways.  Now don’t get me wrong, Ubuntu is marvellous.  Point and shoot wondrousness, especially good for putting on the PC’s of those that wot not a lot.  I have however been swearing and crashing about a fair bit recently, trying to fudge some working things out of the PC graveyard that clutters my house. For old and manky PC’s, you can’t beat xubuntu. On various kludged old PC’s, I found that the xubuntu install went much more smoothly and quickly, notwithstanding the obvious benefits the light desktop has on the final effort.  Even things that afaik shouldn’t be any different.. Perhaps I am imagining it.  I’ve even cleaned off one Ubuntu install…

gmail conversation view (hell)

Great for chatting with your mates, utter utter hell if you are trying to use it for business. For instance, I am trying to repair a knackered timesheet for some freelance work. I just want to see all the relevant mails by date. Can I do that? Not on your nelly. I have to go through EVERY CONVERSATION to see if there are emails for the relevant dates, or maybe I just do a search for each individual day? Howwww tedious! utter utter madness. you can suggest that google stop being completely psychotic here. losing the will.

Sloe progress

A blog you say? I have one of those? I must tie a note in my finger. Not much has happened in the wild foods section in leekworld recently, there was a brief go at rose jelly, but it was more of a strange syrup in the end – I have learned from the experience however, and will share that 1lb of wild rose petals is a completely ridiculous amount, and would take all flipping day to collect – IF you could find enough bushes! Moving on.. an offer of access to a good big clump of (semi) wild blackthorns (plus apples and plums) has rekindled me creative juices. Sloe gin is the first and most obvious choice, but I’m…

Addict until proven innocent..

Boots the chemist will no longer sell citric acid over the counter..  So in addition to being given shifty looks, you also get turned away to pursue your sordid business elsewhere, thankyou. Luckily for me, Lloyds Pharmacy just up the road doesn’t care if you’re a junkie or a WI member (or both, or neither..), and I was able to obtain all the ingredients and equipment for tomorrows elderflower and rose products extravaganza…

if only it came in ecru..

I suppose I shall start this not even alive yet collection of gibber and nonsense with a mini rant regarding templates. I’m not knocking them, oh no. I’d just like to come to the realisation that they are utterly pointless. It’s a bit like gambling, I suppose. The next one I find will be perfect, and it will save me a marvellous amount of time that I can use to do other marvellous things. This never ever happens. I find a template that is almost like something I would want.. then I spend hours and hours swearing at the obtuse markup, changing all the colours, re-jigging the design and recreating all the images. This is happening right now. I’m just…