h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Right, I've been lazing around too much I think, apart from doing the stuff for the local CAMRA branch that is. But I've not really done anything, even though I've got lots I could be doing. I've recently been totally rebuilding technoimbiber.co.uk, my beer profiling website, but apart from the design and a few components, I've not got any more done. I did a website for north oxforshire camra, and even though that's up and running they still need me to maintain it in parts because I've not written some of the admin screens. Then there's the East Anglian Brewers website that needs tweaking and setting live, although I think a rebuild will probably be better. Away from the beer I've started playing Neverwinter Nights again, although I always get to roughly the same point and never bother to go any further. Instead I start building my own module, and surprisingly I've got one I'm building but haven't got around to doing too much with. As in the intro is there, the first few sections and then the main area is built, but not the shops, merchants, house interiors, npcs and sub-quests. I also said I'd do a website for a friend of mine who's an artist and wants to display examples of her work online to try and get some business. I've got the rough design, just not done much with it, although having seen her work since I started I think I want to change the design. The problem with doing a website for an artist is that you can't do anything that detracts from the pictures themselves, and use of colour has to be really watched. What may go with one picture could easily clash with another.
Then there's all the stuff in the house. I've got about three weeks worth of clean washing sat in a pile in the living room because I haven't been bothered to put it away, and this is something I normally moan to the missus about her doing. There are book shelves to put up, that have been waiting to go up since November, and books to unpack onto them.

And then there's looking for a job!

So there's stuff to do, that I just don't seem to get around to. My classic flaw really. I'm sure I've written before about not getting around to things. I reckon it's a short attention span, once I've solved a problem about how to do something, I tend to lose interest. There've only been a few things in my entire life that keep my interest for any length of time.

So, I'm going to start setting myself goals, written down and achievable. The first is working on technoimbiber.co.uk. I've done one section of it to an almost finished degree, the forum system isn't hooked in as that needs to be built at the same time for all sections. So, today's goal is to build another section. This is achievable, in fact I should be able to build two or three sections, but I'm going to aim for at least one, hoping that I can stick with it!

I've done two hours coding on it, but rather than doing one section, I've found I've been altering several. Hmm. Ah well, they needed doing and at least I'm getting something done.

I think I deserve a short break

Oy! Get back and get some work done. No good sloping off to the pub.
At least there isn't when it's not me doing the sloping off

Had a loverly pint of 'Double Centuary' tother night Cottage brewery I think... Can't quite remember... I had to sample an awful lot of it to make sure, plus compair it to another few... four differnt beer in order to assertain for sure how it tasted good luck with the website

As soon as I've got a working demo of the new system 2legs, I'll have to make sure you can test it The hardship of having to drink beer and enter it into an online database. And before you ask, no I won't be paying expenses

An update on the site if anyone's interested, I've been working on the profile matching system today, and got it sussed. It's not working exactly the same as the previous set of code, so I'm saying it's working more accurately because I can't find any difference except that the code is trimmed and slightly faster. Although anyone who can count those extra milliseconds needs to get out more. The main reason for restructuring the code though is that I'm going to be re-doing the mobile aspect of the site. Currently you can add breweries and beers, and rate them using your mobile phone, both wml (old) and xhtml (new) system are catered for. But that's it. Admitedly that's all the main site does at the moment as well. But, when building the original version of the site (it's now going to be release 3) I built in not just breweries and beers, but pubs and beer festivals too, as well as message board forums and other goodies. To concentrate on the profiling system however, I trimmed the other goodies out. They're still there, but not hooked in. What I'm currently doing is altering the code structure to be more object oriented, using the same system I developed not long ago for a major financial institution in London.

The data access is done through one layer of classes, which are called up by a second layer of display classes. These in turn are called up by the page that's being displayed to the user.
Sounds overly complicated but it means that I can use the same data access classes for both desktop and mobile internet. Each has it's own set of display classes to show the information using the correct coding. The desktop display classes use javascript occasionally, the mobile display classes never do. Having display classes and then laying them out on a page rather than just calling the data classes from the page and laying the information out there, means that I'm able to re-use chunks of display code again and again. Altering it drastically by sending it css information as and when needed. Also, the same or similar thing is used often on the site. The profile graph is an example of this, used on the page listing the beers the breweries brew, used on the page that give more information on the beer, used for the user palate on their matches page, and on their palate profile page. Re-doing this each time is a pain in certain parts.


So, basically, once I've got the desktop site up and running, getting mobile and pda versions will be rather fast, and will both provide the same full functionality. You too will be able to sit in a pub and chat with like minded people over the internet using nothing but your mobile phone

A friend of mine wrote a locked blog entry mentioning that his company is looking for a PHP developer, and does anybody know one? Of course, I thought of you immediately. The job's in Nodnol, though, so I won't immediately point him your direction. Let me know if I should.

The job:
http://www.aardvarkmedia.co.uk/jobs/

The friend in question is one Alasdair Watson, a web developer and network guru himself. He's a very nice, laid back fellow with a thick Scottish accent, a comic book writing habit, and a fine appreciation of hard liquor. Though his entry about the job is friends only, you can read the rest of his journal at http://alasdair.livejournal.com/