The End of 2012

Posted: Mon 31 December, 2012 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2012/13, Change, D4D™, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Introspective, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

At last, we’re at the end of 2012.

It’s been quite a year, all things considered. I’ve written about that elsewhere, so don’t need to repeat myself really. Suffice it to say, it’s been eventful.

As it is, I’m closing off 2012 with no debt, and with the groundwork done to start building back up from. There’s a long way to go – it won’t be done in 2013, I know for a fact – but the basics are done, and now it’s “just” the building back up.

I’m not planning any big changes for 2013, to be honest. I’m happy with work – yes, I did just say that – and so long as things don’t change too radically, I hope to be there for the full year. (And even I can’t believe I just wrote that) I’m as secure as possible in the house, the tenancy goes through to November for sure. Of course, things can still change when it’s rented property, but it’s as safe as it can be for the moment.

So the basics are as safe and stable as I can make them for the moment. I’m not planning anything major changewise – 2013’s a year to get myself sorted, and to deal with myself rather than dealing with anyone else.

I feel pretty optimistic about it, to be honest. I don’t know all of what it’ll bring – who can? – but regardless, I think/hope it’s going to be a good year.

On the Shoulder

Posted: Thu 27 December, 2012 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Commuting, Domestic, Driving, Stupidity, Thoughts, Work-related | 2 Comments »

One of the developments in the work that’s been going on with the M1 has been a new congestion relief scheme. It’s been piloted on other motorways (mainly around Birmingham) and has now made its way to junctions 7 to 15 on the M1.

The plan is surprisingly simple, but takes a lot of work beforehand. Basically, the hard shoulder becomes a fourth lane in times of need, and new ‘refuges’ off the hard-shoulder are put in for cars that actually have broken down.

It’s a good scheme, and since going ‘live’ in early December it’s worked well, except for one assumption that has turned out to be rather flawed. And that assumption is this : that drivers actually read motorway signs.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about drivers who can’t (or won’t) think ahead and so fuck up traffic for everyone, and this is a similar situation.

Basically, when you can use the hard shoulder, the road information signs read “Congestion. Use hard shoulder“. You’d think that was pretty simple, and easy to understand. But no, most drivers appear to not see it, or not understand it.

How do I know? Because I do use the hard shoulder, and blast past the drivers in the other three lanes. (When I say ‘blast’, I’m usually going 60 – it’s just the other three lanes are stuck and doing 40) It’s perfectly legal, because I’m not jogging between lanes, just sticking to my inner lane and going past slower traffic. But when I do, a good 40% of the drivers flash their lights at me, implying (I assume) that they think I’m doing something wrong. Which implies that they’ve not read the signs, that they think the hard shoulder isn’t for driving on.

It’s not common yet, which could be the other reason people don’t get it. Whether it’ll catch on, I don’t know. But I do know it works pretty well so long as you can read the damn signs.

Party Avoidance

Posted: Sat 15 December, 2012 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Work-related | 4 Comments »

This weekend, I’m avoiding the work Christmas Party. It’s not local – it’s kind-of-local to the Devon office, but not for my office – and involves a 5-ish hour coach journey. Each way.

Mainly though, I just really didn’t fancy it. Not necessarily as an avoidance of the Festering Season – although that’s a happy side-effect – but more as a reflection of my current state of being.

In short, I’m knackered. I’m really bad at Not Working – even when I’m officially on Leave, and Not Working – and it’s always in my head. As part of an email on Thursday, I realised that my team of three (me, my developer colleague, and the designer) are responsible for no less than fifteen websites within my employer. Not just ‘basic’ websites, but also the systems to manage the businesses – and they’re complete business entities, not just side-projects or marketing biff – so it’s pretty intense. And that means my head’s always on The Next Issue.

I’ve been taking time off, as I had a massive backlog of holiday time to take, but still, I’m wiped out. Primarily because even with that, this month has involved lots of work, silly mileage, long trips, long days, and not much in the way of turning my brain off.

So the weekend would have consisted of an early start (6.30 AM – on a Saturday!) followed by a massive 5 hour drive/ride down to a venue on Dartmoor (No, it’s not Dartmoor Prison), a big company do with 100+ people and lots of drink (a lot of ex-military people equates to a lot of drink!) followed by another (minimum of) five-hour drive/ride home – allowing extra time for people to stop, week, puke and so on. That just strikes me as a weekend where I’d rather do my own stuff, sleep in, and generally recharge my batteries a bit.

Thankfully I’m not the only one missing it – there’s been a few others over the weeks – so I don’t feel too guilty. I’m best off out of it, and with the state my head’s in at the moment, everyone who is going is better off without me there. Quite simply, I’d be no fun.

All of which means it’s a quiet weekend, and right now that’s just fine with me. I’ve still got bits to do, just to get them out of my head, but at least it’s going to be done on my terms.

What’s Next ?

Posted: Thu 21 June, 2012 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Getting Organised, Resolutions, Sociable, Thoughts, Time, Work-related | 3 Comments »

Looking back over the archives, it’s now five years (nearly 5 years 1 month, in fact) since I moved (with Herself) into the first house I’d owned, or been involved in owning. (And still the only house, actually) Which means that it’s eight years since I got together with Herself – and it’s also seven and a half years since I left Manchester, but that’s less relevant to this post.

Now, five years on, I’m back to being on my own, back in a rented place. It wasn’t entirely my choice, more a conclusion to plenty of events in the run-up, but it’s where things are, and I’m going to try and make the best of it.

The thing is, I don’t really feel like I’ve made any progress in those eight years. Sure, there’ve been lots of changes, and lots of stuff has happened, but when all’s said and done, have I progressed? No – indeed I’d say I’m in a worse situation than I was back then.

Back in 2004, I was working – admittedly at a job I didn’t much like – and doing OK. My finances were up-and-down, more so than they should’ve been, but I really only had debts of £1,000 at any one time – my bank overdraft, and that was it. The house was rented, and was OK. I didn’t drive (ah, OK, that’s progress) – but I didn’t need to, with a decent transport system at my door. Sure, longer travel was more of a pain, but I was used to that.

Now, I’m working – at a job I like, but don’t want to do Forever – and my finances are shit. I owe a significant amount of money, and know it’s going to take a long time to sort that out. That debt has been my own choice, to a degree, but I’m not happy about it, and I want to get rid of it. It’s just that sometimes that looks like a bit of an insurmountable task. The house is rented, and is OK. I do drive, and have a car, so yeah, that’s progress.

I don’t have any assets, realisable or not, and I don’t really have anything of merit going for me right now.

The job? It’s OK – even good – but it’s not really what I want to do any more. Except I don’t know what I do want to do, either.

And with everything else going on, I most certainly don’t feel like I’ve anything to offer anyone else. I don’t want anyone else either, so it’s not all bad, but it’s the feeling that’s just a bit grim right now. All I’m going to focus on for the foreseeable is getting myself sorted out, figuring out what I want to do/be, finding what (if anything) makes me happy, and all that jazz. It’s not reinvention time, but it is – I think – rediscovery time.

What’s going to come next? I honestly don’t know. This is either a new beginning that leads to something interesting, or it’s the beginning of the end. Who knows which way it’ll go? Not me, that’s for sure.

[Note : I’m just having a down day. Not great, not by a long chalk. But I’ll get through it, one way or t’other]

Epic Mileage

Posted: Thu 9 February, 2012 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Commuting, Domestic, Driving, Travel, Work-related | Tags: 100000, 160000, mileage, mondeo | 1 Comment »

Nuts, I thought I’d posted on here when my car’s mileage went over the 100,000 mark. However, I can’t see it. It’s somewhere around April/May 2009 though, from the look of it.

Anyway, today, with my daft mileage kicking up all the time, my car’s clicked over the 160,000 mile mark.

Looking back, I got it in March 2007 when it had a mileage of 56,000.

So in just under five years, I’ve added 100,000 miles to it. Which isn’t a bad average, considering the stupid mileage I’m doing at the moment. I’m quite surprised, actually, that the average is that low. There must’ve been some times where I did a lot less than 20,000 miles a year – although off-hand I can’t quite think when that would’ve been.

Ah well.

2012 – The next twelve months

Posted: Thu 5 January, 2012 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Resolutions, Stupidity, Thoughts, Time, Weight Loss, Work-related | 4 Comments »

This year I’m not going to lay down a big old list of plans. They rarely work out, or I’m just too ambitious – or other things take over.

Take last year’s list, for example :

Write more
Take more photos
Do more websites
Get more business
~~Pay stuff off~~
~~Get off the antidepressants~~

Not much, really. Yet most of it didn’t quite happen. Work and life got in the way, and things just didn’t quite happen.

Mind you, I did get off the antidepressants, and I did take photos when I got the chance, so that’s not too bad. I also completed a fair few websites, and some other projects – just not for myself.

I think I’ll be keeping the same basic list for this year though. It’s written with the best of intentions – but the knowledge that things change, including my motivation. But I think the 2012 list will be (in no particular order) :

Write more
Photograph more
Owe less
Weigh less

And that’ll do, I think.

2012, and 2011

Posted: Wed 4 January, 2012 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, D4D™, Domestic, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »

So here we are, in 2012. I’ve been insanely slack this winter (and for a fair amount of 2011, to be fair) and I still don’t know what the plan will be for D4D™ in 2012. We’ll see.

As Blue Witch suggested in her comment on the previous post, 2011 wasn’t really a great deal of fun for D4D™ – plus I’ve been busy with other odds and sods.

Being ‘Corbetted’ (as I understand it’s now known) wasn’t any fun at all. Basically, this involves being threatened with legal action because you’ve made comments regarding your personal opinion about someone’s stupidity in light of a very stupid error – and that person then doesn’t have the sense to either contact me (whether by phone, email, or comment on the posts in question) but instead waits two fucking years before complaining through solicitors. We’ll just ignore the fact that Article 11 of the EU’s Human Rights Charter specifically says …

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.

After all, Gore Grimes conveniently ignored it, so I might as well do the same.

So that might explain some of why things went a bit quite here.

The other major change for me was that I stopped wanting to write about some of the more personal stuff that’s been going on. Writing that kind of thing bit me hard at the end of 2010, and the effects of that rumbled through into 2011.

D4D™ used to be a place where I could write, and dump my brain when I needed to. In 2011, it stopped feeling like I could do so. It affected my desire to write at all, to be honest – well, that and the stupid levels of commuting, but that’s no decent excuse either.

I don’t know what will happen to D4D™ this year. It may be that it’s coming to a natural end. After all, it’ll be ten years in August – maybe that’s a good closing point. I don’t know yet.

I don’t know that I want D4D™ to end. I don’t know that I want to keep it going. So it’s all a bit up in the air, and I guess only time will tell.

Kindle

Posted: Wed 27 July, 2011 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Reviews(ish), Travel, Work-related | 1 Comment »

A while back, I bought a Kindle . I’d been playing with the iPhone version for a while, and with the onset of Big Commute, thought I’d give it a thrash.

In general, I have to say I’ve been pretty impressed with it.

On the downside, I’m now on my third one – the displays don’t appear to be strong enough to withstand being carried in a backpack without an additional case. The first one cracked after a couple of weeks, the second one cracked within 24 hours, and the third one has been fine – allbeit because I’ve now got a purple leather case for the damn thing.

Throughout the problems, and the need to replace two devices, I was really impressed with Amazon’s customer services. In both cases, I went to the website, registered the issue, and clicked “Call me now”. Immediately, the phone rang, I was put through to an adviser, and the issue got sorted. The replacement was couriered out (and arrived next day) and I then had 28 days each time to send the broken device back – again, postage paid and done by courier. It was the most painless returns scheme I’ve seen in a very long time – and impressively done.

As for the Kindle itself, it’s a nice bit of kit. The eInk display is a bit slow and weird to update, but you get used to it very quickly. Actually, the entire thing is a bit slow – if you’re used to blipping through options etc., you have to learn to slow down a bit. I think it’s all down to the limitations of the display, but it’s livable-with.

Reading on it is – I find – very simple. No eye-strain (there’s no backlight, so it’s black text on a grey screen) and no problems. The text is clear, regardless of font size, and all told it’s pretty good. Purchasing books is totally painless – click to order the book, and within 30 seconds it’s on the device. Very nice indeed.

It’s not the same as reading a ‘proper’ book- but it’s also a lot less intrusive, and easier in crowded situations. A lot of the books I’m reading at the moment are “trade paperback” size – which seems to mean ‘about the same size as a hardback’ – and on the Tube or whatever, they’d be a pain to read while people thump past all the time. With the Kindle, it’s a lot easier.

All told, I doubt Kindle will replace my books totally. However, when it comes to reading while commuting, it may just make the difference.

Yes / No

Posted: Mon 7 February, 2011 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Agency Idiocy, Business, Cynicism, Design, Geeky, People, Stupidity, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Via the linguistic/literacy genius known as Sevitz (or Svetzi) comes this gem…

Oh. My. God.

I’ve worked with some spectacular options for Yes/No, but this one is way up there.

Progress – What’s Next? 2010/11

Posted: Sat 6 November, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2010/11, Change, Depression, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Introspective, Own Business, Photography, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing | 2 Comments »

So, following on from how (badly) I’ve done in 2009/10, what’re the plans for 2010/11 ?

Honestly, I don’t really know. I guess the main points can be brought down to :

Write more
Take more photos
Do more websites
Get more business
Pay stuff off
Get off the antidepressants

Other than that, more of my activity will be down to altering life, seeing friends, travelling, doing other odds and sods along the way.

I don’t know what the run-up to 40 will bring, but right now the thing that I do want to do is not stress about it over the next year.

We’ll see.

Progress, or Lack Thereof

Posted: Fri 5 November, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2009/10, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Introspective, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing | Leave a comment »

This time last year, this was the list of what I wanted to do in 2009/10…

Mortgage renewal
Build up own business
Design/Launch some of the sites I’ve got ideas for (I know, that’s an ongoing thing – but different sites/ideas this time, as always)
Write more – I want to get at least one solid piece done. I failed in 2009, but it’s still a plan for 2010 instead.
Photograph more – again, I’ve got some ideas for big projects on this, I just need to get started on them.
Lose more weight – I want to lose at least another stone in the next year, and ideally more. But a stone will be the target for now.
Get to the gym more – something I’ve really slacked on this year
Do some business planning, and figure out (to some degree at least) what the fuck I want to do next with my life.
Get back in touch with (and visit) various friends I’ve been useless with for the last couple of years.

So, how did I do?

Yeah, didn’t do the renewal.
Still working on that, allbeit slowly
I did launch a couple of new sites over the year, but nowhere near as many as I wanted to. Mind you, I’ve also culled out a number of the ones that aren’t going to work out, too.
Certainly written more, along with submitting a couple of small pieces to competitions and the like.
Photography hasn’t been so successful. I haven’t had the inspiration or motivation as yet – there’s been a number of things I have done, but not what I was planning to do.
Lost weight – I’m down a stone on where I was, with the intention of losing more.
I didn’t get to the gym at all
I didn’t really do much in the way of business planning, although equally I’ve had enough to keep me going over the year.
I got in touch with friends, saw a few, and then went back to being crap.

All told, not a great year for achievement. Stuff’s been done – just not as much as I wanted to, and/or not in the sections I planned it to be. All told, it’s a bit of a worry, with the culmination in a year’s time of that five year plan – but then, there’s been lots of change in that five years, if I look back to where I was when I started it. So I can live with that – there’s been progress, work and change, they just hasn’t taken me along the path/road I expected them to.

Cost Less, Make More

Posted: Wed 11 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Business, Cynicism, Own Business, People, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Another work(ish)-related post, but a subject close to my heart, and usually good for some thoughts and rants.

In this case, we’re currently considering buying one of the most-pirated pieces of software in Christendom, Adobe’s Creative Suite. The reason it’s massively pirated is simple – the fucking ridiculous cost of it.

If we look at getting one licenced copy of the full bells-and-whistles CS5 Master Suite, it costs no less than £2,700. For a piece of software that’ll be updated/outdated within a year. What small company (or even medium-sized company) is going to pay nearly three grand for CS5 ? Let alone what little one-man-band web design company. And yes, you can get a smaller/cheaper CS5 Web Premium for web design. That’s a mere £1,680.

Even more insane, that’s the prices if they send the software in a box. For download purposes, CS5 Master Suite is – um – £2,780. Yep – it costs you more to download the fucking thing than for them to box it up and stick it in the post. What?

Adobe are forever bitching that their software is the most pirated. There’s a reason for that – it’s priced itself out of the “reasonably affordable” market.

I’m pretty sure that if Adobe charged (for argument’s sake) £270 for the CS5 Master – 10% of the current price – the piracy figures for it would drop like a stone. £270 is reasonable for the software – perhaps even a bit more, but 10% was a nice example. Piracy wouldn’t stop completely – there will always be those for who even a pound is “too much” – but it would reduce epically. More people would buy the software – my own suspicion is that they’d actually sell more and make more by having the software at the cheaper price.

Sure, the price has been cut by 90%. But if you get 100 people buying it at £270 instead of one or two at £2,700, you’ve made a shitload more money on your bottom line than you have at £2,700 per copy. Even on the upgrades, people would be more likely to pay again for an upgrade, rather than pirating it.

And that’s the logic that seems to escape these companies. Reduce the price to a sensible/affordable level, more people will buy, less people will evade. Seems logical to me, anyway.

Getting Work Experience

Posted: Tue 10 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Advertising, Business, Design, Norfolk, People, Thoughts, Weirdness, Work-related | 4 Comments »

Over the last few weeks at work (roughly three months, give or take) we’ve been looking at recruiting a graphic designer – it’s the one area where the IT team lack skills, and with a lot of [currently unmentionable] big projects coming up, a designer is going to be a highly relevant part of the role.

What I wanted was a newly-graduated designer, looking for work experience, and getting them some solid commercial experience. I contacted two of the local colleges (including one with whom we’ve had a previous positive experience with getting in a web geek) as well as UEA and the STEP programme, both of whom have services for finding placements for graduates. Like a bell-end, I believed all the media pap about “[x] graduates applying for every job“. What a mistake.

The entire process turned into a nightmare. The colleges didn’t come back with anything – the one we’d previously used didn’t even bother responding – and UEA and STEP between them threw back ten applicants, of whom six were useless from the start, and not even qualified as graphic designers. Three of those had decided that “designing a new site” meant “developing a new site” – which it doesn’t and didn’t – despite us specifying that it was a graphic design role.

Of the four we interviewed, three were incredibly awful. I understand that they’re just out of university, but if that’s the level for recent graduates, it’s a real concern. Even the CVs they sent out were all formulaic and dull – if I’m looking at potential designers, I want to know they’ve got an eye for at least how a CV should look, something “designed” to make it stand out from the pack.

Now maybe it’s me being unrealistic – it’s certainly based on the other graphic designers I know and have worked with before – but if I’m interviewing a designer, I shouldn’t receive a blank look when I ask what things inspire their designs, or to name me a design that they really love. I wouldn’t have cared at that point whether it was something on cars, bikes, office equipment, technology, websites, anything – I just wanted to know what they thought of the industry they’d chosen to be part of, the sphere they had just graduated in. Three of the four responded to both those questions with a look of total incomprehension, no spark, no nothing. Not one of those three could name me even one designer they liked. Me, I could whiff on for ages about certain designers, concepts etc. – I love design, I just can’t draw to save my life.

We have finally found someone who I think will be really good. His work stood out from the first moment – a CV with a design to it, even though I personally hated the image used, it was still designed – and the projects he’d done at university, including his final project which was fantastic. In interview he brought in a portfolio (none of the others had) and could talk about what inspired him, the stuff he liked, the way he worked and so on. It was a reassuring interview after so many let-downs, and I’m really pleased that he’s come through.

It’s been an awesomely frustrating experience – one that’s put me to the edge of saying “Screw it” and going a completely different route. I find it utterly amazing how bad most of the people who applied for the role were. And it’s not even like we were trying to get the role as an internship, which seems to be the new ‘latest greatest’ way of getting work experience. We’re paying the designer – I believe that good work should be rewarded, not got for free as an internship – and while it’s not great money, it’s better than nothing. (We’re using the standard established STEP rates) So it’s not like we’re taking the piss, or taking advantage of the graduates – it just seems like they don’t know what the hell they’re actually doing.

How Not To Get Business

Posted: Wed 23 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Work-related, Writing | Leave a comment »

Despite currently being in the world of the “Properly Employed”, I still frequent some of the forums for freelancers and the like. If nothing else it’s useful for seeing if there’s other small projects etc. coming up that I can also do for a bit of money.

Among other things on these forums, there are sometimes people trying to get started in freelancing, or pimp for more work.

Yesterday had one of these examples, and it just had to be written about.

The entire content of the message was :

Hey pple? I need a article writing job, smbdy help

Now that really is a spectacular example of how not to get any work whatsoever through a freelancer’s forum. Or indeed through any forum.

In fact I’d go so far as to say it’s the single most awesome example I’ve ever seen. If anyone were to give this bell-end a job, they’d entirely deserve what they got.

Different Paths

Posted: Mon 21 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Education, Geeky, Introspective, Reviews(ish), Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Over the weekend, we went to see Bon Jovi at the O2. It’s their greatest hits tour for the “Circle” album, and they’re at the O2 for 12 nights all told. Now I have to say, I’m not a massive fan of Bon Jovi. Herself is, Brother-in-Law is, so we all went.

The gig itself was really impressive. Bon Jovi’s performance was pretty storming, deifnitely one of the better big gigs I’ve seen – even for someone who’s not a massive fan. I only recognised or knew about a third of the tracks performed, but still, that’s fine.

What was more impressive (for me, anyway) was the stage set, which really was impressive. Right from the start it let you know it meant business, with a massive high-res screen coming down to obscure the view while Bon Jovi came onstage, and which then split into individual columns to travel round the stage.

There were a number of other really stunning technical bits, including some epic lighting, and that same matrix screen also showing that the columns could also split out into individual screens.

But the piece de resistance is the five mobile 6′ x 9′ screens at the back of the stage. They’re made (yes, I researched!) by ABB robots, who say the following :

ABB robots, accompanying Bon Jovi’s “The Circle” tour will be the first set of industrial robots to be a part of a concert tour. The visual intrigue of the show will be enhanced by the five ABB robots positioned toward the back of the stage, each with a 6’ x 9’ LED video panel attached to their articulated arm. The robots and screens will move to the rhythm and beat of the music while displaying real time video footage of the show and digital animations. At various intervals the five robot arms move into a formation where the LED panels become one continuous, five panel screen. The robots will accompany
the nearly two-year long tour, which features over 60 concerts in North America and Europe.

These screens/robots are simply amazing – they’re all articulated in all three axes, and move individually, in time with the music, as well as at one point becoming a staircase. It’s an exceptional demonstration of what can be done now with stage sets if you’ve enough money and creativity.

Stage sets, lighting and effects have always been one of my real geek-out subjects, and that geek in me was totally appeased by the Bon Jovi stageset.

Seeing things like this gig is one of the things that makes me think about What Might Have Been. If I’d stayed in school (and gone on to college, university, whatever) then I’d have gone on to do one of two things : Stage Lighting/Sound/Sets, or working with the Great Apes.

Stage stuff would’ve fulfilled my geeky needs bigtime, and I’d hae loved to do it. Working with Great Apes would’ve fulfilled other parts of me, and I’d have been equally happy doing either. In fact if I were to win a lottery or something, I’d go back to do one of those things. (Most likely the work with Apes, in honesty)

I don’t regret the path I’ve taken, not for one minute. But every so often I do think of the different paths available, the roads not taken. Last night was one of those times.

@Media 2010 – Thoughts

Posted: Sun 13 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: @Media 2010, Geeky, Own Business, Reviews(ish), Thoughts, Work-related | Tags: wdx. #wdx | Leave a comment »

So last Thursday and Friday I was in London for the Webdirections @Media Conference. It was the first time I’d been in a couple of years (I last attended the 2007, I think – holiday for the ’08 one, and tubularity stopped me from attending the ’09 one) so it was interesting to see what had changed – and of course what had stayed the same.

Of course the big difference was that @Media is now run/organised/owner by WebDirections, rather than through Vivabit as it has been in previous years. I’d not heard of WebDirections before, but apparently they’ve done a number of similar conferences in Australia etc.

To me, it seemed that the focus of the conference had changed quite a bit this year (or maybe over the last couple of years, I don’t know – can’t really comment on the ones I didn’t/couldn’t attend) to be more about design and programming, rather than the accessibility and user experience themes of previous @Medias I’ve attended. And that’s a disappointment.

The focus this year was very much on Javascript (which used to be a real no-no) and about telling designers to not worry so much about making designs work in all browsers and versions. There was virtually no mention at all of accessibility, except in one session through the two days. For a conference where accessibility and so on were paramount at the start, that’s a pretty sad state of affairs.

The other thing I really noticed this year was how corporate some of it seemed. In previous ones there’s been sponsorship from big companies and so on, but this time it was more going down the “stands in the public areas” type of promotion. Again that could be something that’s happened more in the last couple of years that I’ve missed, so it’s not such an eye-opener for other more regular attendees.

It was a good conference though, don’t get me wrong – I’ve got a lot of stuff to take out of it, bits that I’ve learned, bits that will make sites I work on better in anumber of ways. I’ve enjoyed it – it’s just been interesting to see what’s changed.

Spinal

Posted: Tue 8 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Health, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related | 1 Comment »

On Sunday, I put my back out. Not completely certain of how, but I’m pretty certain it involved a load of garden furniture in the car, then losing my temper while getting it all back out of the car at home.

Then stupidly (in hindsight) I sat down on the floor to assemble the new table – yep, I braved the joys of self-assembly garden furniture, and achieved it with no swearing and no pain. Well, not ’til I stood up again having done the job – or at least I tried to stand up.

At that point my lower back hurt enough that I nearly passed out – full-on black and white vision, the lot. Really not funny. Luckily I’d already unpacked all the new garden chairs, so I was able to road-test one of those while waiting for everything to get back to normal.

My pain threshold is pretty high. Not awesomely high, or “stick needles in me and I won’t notice” high, but high enough that I’ve been able to do stupid things like walk on a totally stuffed ankle, get annoyed with a nagging toenail and pull the entire thing out, or have various dental bits done without painkillers. And yet the pain in my back was enough – and I suppose surprising enough and sudden enough – that it made it almost unbearable at the start.

It’s got better since – looks more like a twisted muscle than a stuffed disc, for example – and while I was fragile yesterday, I was still able to go in to work and do most of the normal stuff. The only two things I actually wimped out on were a) walking Hound and b) getting the rest of the growbags out of the boot of the car. Walking would’ve been painful, lifting bags of compost again would’ve been truly, epically, weapons-grade stupid.

Today’s a bit better again, thankfully. But it’s made me rather more aware of my back for a while, and I’ll try not to re-stuff it. Frankly, it fucking hurts.

Political Contacts

Posted: Sun 11 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Politics, Work-related | Tags: #debill, east falkirk, election, Labour, linlithgow, morons, Politics | 3 Comments »

via Twitter/TwitPic, another fine example of why politicians should never ever be allowed to control the internet, or access to it…

Contact details for Labour Party in Linlithgow and Falkirk, with a super-long URL, and errors on Twitter and Facebook names

How not to do it.

So a few pointers…

You really expect your voters to type in www.linlithgowandeastfalkirklabour.org.uk ? Get real.
And separate sites for each constituency? Really? I guess joined-up communications and corporate message just kind of got by-passed.
A hotmail email account? For politicians? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. (Mind you, the actual site doesn’t even appear to list proper email addresses, and just uses a contact form)
It really helps to have the proper names in your Twitter and Facebook contact details. Not “site.com/yourname”. FFS.

And these clueless fuckers are indicative of the type of politicians who brought in the Digital Economy bill? Jesus H. Christ on a shiny metal bicycle.

Conflict and Surrender

Posted: Fri 2 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Creativity, Depression, Domestic, Health, Own Business, Photography, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing | 1 Comment »

It won’t give up, it wants me dead
Goddamn this noise inside my head

© Nine Inch Nails, “The Becoming”, Downward Spiral album

That’s not quite where I am at the moment – but somehow it still seems to be the best lyric for describing things at the moment.

I’ve written before about my regular issues and history with depression, and the way I normally fight my way through it. Recently though, that’s not been the case. If I’m honest, the last three or four years have involved fighting, but only getting to an impasse, a holding action to keep ground, rather than a victory.

I’ve made lots of plans, and had the intention to do things. It’s just that I never seem to find the time or the final motivation to get them done. I keep on trying, and I keep on failing – and at the moment there’s no good reason for Why. I just don’t get to it. That final bit, that final push, is missing, AWOL.

So I’m working on getting through it, but I’m also going to go a different route this time. I’ve a doctor’s appointment in a couple of weeks time, and I’m going to aim to get some anti-depressants. Not something I’m overly happy about, but I think it’s time for me to try them again.

I had a very negative experience with them many moons ago, so I have some really serious reservations about them. But if I can give them a go and they work, so be it. If not, it’s another avenue tried and I need to find other options. But at least I’ll be trying the avenues this time.

Documentation

Posted: Thu 4 February, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Security, Web Development, Work-related, Writing | 3 Comments »

In the run-up to the Festering Season, I had one hell of a lot of work coming in with some documentation that needed doing in order to get us what’s known as PCI-DSS accreditation. PCI-DSS stands for “Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard”, and it’s a total fucking nightmare.

Anyway, one of the big steps in attaining this PCI-DSS standard is to have somewhere around a metric shit-ton of paperwork. No kidding. There’s some 230-odd points in the PCI-DSS standard, and each one of the bloody things needs documenting. It’s a serious bit of work just getting all the paperwork done.

With the other stuff I also had to do in order to get everything in place, the documentation took a back-seat, and we ended up getting it done by me speaking into a dictaphone, and then getting an audio-typist to type it all up. It was supposed to save me a stuff-load of time. And it worked – I’d got all the dictation done in two and a half days, and the typist did everything in time for mid-January.

Or so we thought.

It turned out that the audio-typist was a tossbag, and didn’t actually do all that much in the day they were in – at the end of which they said they’d done it all.

Cunty fucking bugger.

It’s taken me the intervening three fucking weeks to get things back to where I thought I was in mid-January. Three weeks of doing this sodding documentation, three weeks of making sure it’s right, and that it all makes sense. Oh, and still doing all my normal insane workload as well.

This goes some way to explaining why I haven’t been writing much on D4D in that time – I’m utterly damn sick of typing, and didn’t have the time or headspace to do much here.

I’ve just now finished the documentation for PCI-DSS. We’ll review it tomorrow and next week, so I’m sure there’ll be some edits. But that’s just fiddly crap – the most important thing is that I’ve broken the back of it. I’m done.

I’m also utterly fucked. But that’s beside the point. I’m done with the documentation. Happy, happy day.

Shit, Meet Fan

Posted: Sat 23 January, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Geeky, Technology, Work-related | Leave a comment »

It’s been a quiet couple of days here on D4D™, and with good reason.

On Thursday, the database at work died in spectacular fashion. It’s been getting shaky for a while, but this week it keeled over totally, and since then I’ve been putting in silly hours getting things back to something approaching usable.

The problems are many, but basically the entire site – user-facing and company-facing – is database-driven. Without the database, there’s no business. It just grinds to a halt. So it’s been a case of “fix the essential bits, deal with the rest later”.

The other main problem is that the database was originally written as a proof-of-concept, a basic thing that’s then been extended and extended. Think of the original as a bungalow. The current site, all built off that bungalow, is the size of an airport, and all balanced on the roof of that original bungalow.

Because it wasn’t written with “the big picture” in mind, some of it is downright fucking nasty- and I suspect the original developer was also learning as he went along. For example, there were no date columns in there ’til I came along – instead it all used some very dodgy string-handling to figure out dates.

One of the main tables in the database now has 170,000 records in it. Which (in the database scheme of things) is nothing. Well, until you realise that each of those 170,000 records has 180 fields in it. That one database table is 600Mb in size. Oops.

So the last couple of days have been spent in Database Intensive Care. I’m through the brunt of it now, but it’s meant that other things – food, sleep, relaxation, D4D™ – have taken a back seat. I’m still going to be working on stuff around this for the next week, but things should be a bit calmer now that the urgent repairs are done, and it’s now more a case of fixing the underlying issues.

Thank fuck my assessment isn’t next week.

Getting Rid – More Stuff

Posted: Mon 11 January, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Own Business, Photography | Leave a comment »

As well as getting rid of the poxy hire car (with luck), we’re also getting shot of some other stuff through eBay.

Admittedly, Herself is being the driving force on it – the majority of the stuff is hers, which makes it a good reason for her being so – but we’re working on it.

The really big lot is the floor tiles – we bought enough to do the floors in all the rooms in the house, plus the extensions we initially thought we’d do. However, we’re now pretty sure we won’t be doing the extensions in the foreseeable future, and the thirty-odd remaining boxes of tiles are taking up space in the garage. So they’ve been on eBay, and we’ve already sold a third of them, with people wanting the other twenty as well.

The next big set of lots is going to be Herself’s doll’s house and furniture. Nothing’s been done with it as long as I’ve known her, and again it’s all taking up room in the garage. We’ve looked at other options before, but now it’s going on eBay, and we’ll see how it goes (or even if it goes) from there.

And my part in the proceedings? Primarily, it’s been about taking photographs of the stuff that’s for sale, working in some small way to build up my photography portfolio a bit, see how things go on that score too.

Ideas for 2010

Posted: Thu 31 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2009/10, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing | Leave a comment »

Well it’s New Year’s Eve, so it’s time for me to have a few thoughts and ideas for 2010.

As always, there’s a number of ideas and plans coming together at the moment, but whether they’ll all come into fruition or not is something only time will tell. But for now this is the list of what’s in my head, and we’ll see what happens. I’m trying to keep it down to four or five categories, just to simplify things a bit.

Photography : I really want to make some progress on the photography side of things, work towards selling some bits if possible. I’ve got some contracted work to do for the charity I worked with a while back, and from there see what progresses.
Writing : Again, I want to get to the point of having some stuff actually done and finished. I planned to do this in ’09, but that hasn’t worked out. There’s a few bits that have been started, but I need to finish at least a couple of them and work that way.
Work : I’ve made the commitment to stay in the current job throughout 2010 – allbeit with the “unless everything turns to shit as a result” proviso – which will keep the bills being paid and me in general work. But I still want to get some of the outstanding projects and ideas into some version of reality.
Social Life : Over the last couple of years (really since moving to Norfolk) I’ve been utterly shit on the social side of things. So I plan to spend some time getting back in touch with friends around the place, and seeing them etc.
Money : For me, 2009 wasn’t a good year financially, and want to spend 2010 getting back into a place that I’m happy with. Currently I’m not happy with the situation for debt, and I want to get a significant dollop of all that paid off if at all possible.

And that’s it. There’ll be more detail over time, I’m sure – and there’s also stuff on the domestic side – but that’s the rough plan. It’ll do for now.

Being Trusted

Posted: Thu 17 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Security, Thoughts, Weirdness, Work-related | Leave a comment »

With the new job I’m actually finding myself in a fairly serious position of trust and responsibility – quite weird, for having only been with the company for two months.

For example, I’m completely responsible for the security of the data, a lot of which is seriously sensitive. That’s fine, I’ve been there before with other sets of information, but the sheer scale of this one is what makes it a bit intimidating. The stuff I’ve inherited from my predecessors is – to be polite – a bit shambolic, with what looks like a lot of “Oh, that’ll do” workarounds. So I’m getting to fix these things, and that can be a bit stressful.

This week has been (and still is, to some degree) a high point on the stress levels, because of two big jobs.

First, I’ve had to change all the encryption methods on the site, to bring it into accordance with some industry guidelines. That means de-crypting the existing data, re-encrypting it with the new method, then de-crypting it all again to make sure it matches the first set of de-crypted data. For 75,000 records. Suffice it to say, there were *lots* of backups in place, so I could roll it all back whenever.

Second – and this is due to be happening either tonight or tomorrow – we’re moving all the database stuff over to the new server. Again, having a seperate server for the database is a requirement of the industry standards but means a lot of work – killing the site, taking backups, copying them to the new server, and restoring the data. We could have used replication to copy one database to t’other, but to be honest I’m happier with the slower method which I’m familiar with in this case, rather than one I haven’t needed to use before.

Along the way, I’m also now a key-holder for the office – something else I don’t actually mind, and have done plenty of times before – but again it’s that responsibility, that trust which I still find surprising. I shouldn’t, but I do.

The final piece of this has started this week, as we’ve now got a new developer on board so I’m now in charge of a team of three developers, having to set up all the infrastructure for development areas, change control, training, documentation, everything. I’m responsible for two other people’s jobs as well as my own. That’s the scary bit – in the case of the new developer, I’ve been the one to interview him, I’m the one who’s said he’ll do the job. If I’m wrong, then he’s going to go, and won’t necessarily have anything to go to.

It’s all a bit of a leap into the – what? It’s not unknown, I’ve run small teams before, and run other businesses before I got back into IT and Web stuff. But it’s a big leap for me all the same, from where I was working last year as sole developer for one of the local councils, and now I’ve got a team, a set of plans, and a whole shitload of work.

Weird the way things work out sometimes, isn’t it?

M 521 BNH

Posted: Thu 10 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Driving, Thoughts, Work-related | 6 Comments »

Normally, you’d think that the car park for my office is a fairly secure place.

It’s on a small industrial estate, and has big barred gates (allbeit ones that are open through the day) that have notices on about “No unauthorised entry” and the like. It’s fairly small, and I tend to park in the corner of it, due to usually being one of the first to arrive.

Today though – and this is on the account of the people who saw it, I didn’t – some fuckwit old bastard came in to our carpark while (apparently) visiting the Post Office sorting office next door, swung round into the parking space next to mine, and put a scratch down the side of my car. He then backed out, pulled away, went into the sorting office, did whatever he had to, and fucked off. No attempt was made to come into our office and say “Sorry” or anything.

It’s not a big scratch, and it really just joins the collection. Fortunately I’m not precious about my car, and – as I’ve always said before – plan to drive it into the ground, so one scratch more or less isn’t really relevant. I should probably get them fixed, but with the time I spend driving (and thus nowhere near, for example, a body shop) I can’t be arsed. Maybe sometime in 2010. Maybe.

But all the same, I’m pissed off. I know I’ve scraped another driver’s bumper and not done anything about it, but that was in a multi-storey car park in the middle of London. Yes, I could’ve left a note on the windscreen or something, but I didn’t. But here it’s a car-park for one office building (which only has one company in it) so it’s a bit different.

So all told, I’d just like to say that the driver of the car with the registration M521BNH is an utter, utter cunt. He’s also bloody lucky he didn’t do it to either of the director’s cars – currently a Bentley Continental, a Porsche and a fucking boat-like Audi Q7.

Dell vs. Apple – the desktop version

Posted: Wed 2 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Geeky, Own Business, Work-related | 3 Comments »

Following on from yesterday’s post regarding the difference in price between Dell and Apple, I also ended up doing one between desktop machines. You know, just for the sheer fucking hell of it.

Similar plan – same specs where possible, same plan. Not bog-standard, not top-of-the-line, but mid-end on both models…

	Dell	Apple
Model	Optiplex 360	iMac
Processor	3.06Ghz Core 2 Duo	3.06Ghz Core 2 Duo
Memory (RAM)	4Gb	4Gb
Hard Disk	1Tb	1Tb
Monitor Size	22″	21.5″
Graphics Card	ATI Radeon HD3450 (256Mb)	ATI Radeon HD 4670 256MB
Keyboard	Logitech Wireless	Apple Wireless
Mouse	Logitech Nano MX Revolution	Apple Mighty Mouse


Price	£895.35 inc VAT	£1,199 inc VAT

Yep, think I know which one I’d go for…

Dell, Apple, and HP

Posted: Tue 1 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Geeky, Own Business, Work-related | 4 Comments »

Yet again today I’ve been involved in an argument about the costs of Dell vs. Apple laptops. It gets really old, really fast.

All the normal excuses get trollied out, “They’re not that more expensive really”, “Apple Macs are lovely, and built from a solid block of aluminium”, “Dells fucking suck” so forth, so fifth.

So for the sheer fuck of it, I decided to do a comparison. Dell vs. Apple Mac vs. HP (as one person recommended). HP isn’t really fair, as they don’t appear to offer much in the way of customisation.

The spec : An “office-ready” machine. (i.e. not Dell’s low-end inspiron, but corporate Latitude). 4Gb RAM. 500Gb hard disk (or highest size possible). Best possible monitor/screen resolution. And what we come up with is this :

	HP	Dell	Apple
Model	HP Compaq 6730b	Latitude 6500	Macbook Pro
Screen Size	15″	15″	15″
Processor	2.53Ghz Core Duo	2.53Ghz Core Duo	2.53Ghz Core Duo
RAM	4GB	4GB	4GB
Hard Disk	250Gb	250Gb	250Gb
Resolution	1280×800	1920×1200	1440×900
DVD Drive	Not Specced	8x DVD +/RW	Superdrive 8x (DVD +R DL/DVD)
Additional Info, as requested by Matt in the comments
Dimensions	WxH : 35.6×26.6cm Depth: 3.4cm	WxH : 35.8×25.7cm Depth : 3.3cm	WxH : 36.4×24.9cm Depth: 2.41cm
Weight	2.7Kg	2.3Kg	2.5Kg

Price	£767 inc VAT	£1105 VAT	£1299 incl VAT

Not the most convincing (once you’ve added in VAT – Dell and HP don’t show it ’til afterwards) but still the Apple is nearly £200 more than it’s nearest competitor.

Interesting though.

Committed

Posted: Tue 17 November, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Own Business, Photography, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing | Leave a comment »

Over the weekend, I’ve made a decision and a bit of a commitment, which came as quite a shock to me once I’d decided on it.

Up ’til now (a whole month!) I’ve been looking at the current job as a six-month contract that’s likely to extend, rather than as a permanent role. My aversion to permanent roles is well-documented (and recently re-witnessed by Herself when this job came up) for a range of reasons, so seeing it as a contract role was more of a sanity thing than anything else.

Anyway, I’ve made the decision – allbeit with the proviso “Assuming that it doesn’t go as horribly fucking wrong as the last one” – that I’m going to be here for the next twelve months, through to the start of 2011. After that, all bets are off – but I’m going to do my best to stick out this role for the whole of 2010.

As you can imagine, it’s all been a bit of a shock to the system , but I do have my reasons for making this decision/commitment.

First of all, I’d quite like to have a year that’s considerably calmer than the last two years have been. In this case, while I’m still going to be doing work for myself (and for the clients of my own company) I’d rather reduce the stress levels a bit by not having to keep on chasing new contracts. Making this choice will basically put contracting “on hold” for 13 months or so. With the way contrating and work has gone this year, I can certainly live with that.

Additionally, it means that (hopefully) Herself will be less stressed out about my work situation. She’s never been a great fan of how contracting works, and this year has done nothing to help her opinion of it. That’s completely fair – my own impression of it has taken a pretty big knock this year, and that’s as someone who prefers it. So it’s no surprise at all to know that Herself will be happier if I’m locked in to this for a year.

Another reason is that – as others have said this year – I need to give “proper jobs” a fair crack of the whip. My experience of them ’til now has been unremittingly negative, but I need to give it another go.

The final reason is kind of related to the first. I want to have the time/energy to get other plans done. I also don’t want the pressure of “my livelihood, paying for the house, paying the bills etc. etc. are all dependent on these plans working”, so it makes more sense to keep my head down for a year, do the things I want to outside of that 40ish hours a week, and know that everything’s paid for, that holiday time is paid for etc., and I don’t need to stress (as much) about it.

So yes, that’s the decision made. Unless all else goes wrong, I’m now in the same place ’til Jan 2011. I’m still torn about whether this is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. We’ll see.

Plans for the Next Year

Posted: Fri 6 November, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2009/10, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography, The '09 Writing Project, Work-related, Writing | Leave a comment »

OK, so following on from yesterday’s post about what’s been done over the last year, this is the list (in no particular order) of the things I’d like to get sorted in 2009/10 as Part Four of the Five Year Plan…

Mortgage renewal (carried over from last year – we did it, it fucked up, we couldn’t be arsed to keep on with it)
Build up own business
Design/Launch some of the sites I’ve got ideas for (I know, that’s an ongoing thing – but different sites/ideas this time, as always)
Write more – I want to get at least one solid piece done. I failed in 2009, but it’s still a plan for 2010 instead. And if it fails then come this time next year I’ll try to do it as a NaNoWriMo thing, as promised already.
Photograph more – again, I’ve got some ideas for big projects on this, I just need to get started on them.
Lose more weight – I want to lose at least another stone in the next year, and ideally more. But a stone will be the target for now.
Get to the gym more – something I’ve really slacked on this year
Do some business planning, and figure out (to some degree at least) what the fuck I want to do next with my life.
Get back in touch with (and visit) various friends I’ve been useless with for the last couple of years.

And that’s “it” for the year. There’s lots of sub-bits on pretty much all those main items, but that’s the plans so far as I can see.

I’ll probably write some more about them over the next couple of weeks, as I get clearer ideas. But for now, this’ll do.

Jobless

Posted: Wed 7 October, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Stupidity, Thoughts, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Sashinka's photo of job-seeking David

Even after having been crapped on last week by the jobs market (and one company in particular) I still find I have a problem with the kind of story and image posted by sashinka.

Now fair enough, I understand that David feels he can’t get a job. But really, is anyone going to stop him in the street to interview him? And offering to work for free for the first month – well that just smacks of desperation.

I understand, I’m not someone who wants to work “In The City” (ever noticed how City workers always capitalise it, even in spoken conversation?) so I don’t get some of it. But if you’re dedicated enough to want to work there that you’ll sack around in a Sandwich board for a while, you should be prepared to walk your arse into every single job agency going.

Equally, if you’re desperate to work, you’ll take on anything. I’ve been there and done that – worked in some of the shittiest jobs known to man in order to make ends meet. If I’m that hard-up, I’ll do it again. OK, I might aim to not work on the bins again (did that one summer in Oxford for a month. *shudder*) but if that’s all that’s going, I will.

I have a related problem with the people who whine that they’ve sent off “hundreds” or even “thousands” of CVs and never got a response from an agency or company. Now I’m sorry, but if I’ve sent off even twenty CVs and not had a single response, I know I’m doing something wrong. If I send out ten CVs, I’ll normally get at least five responses from agencies. It’s usually higher than that, but I’m trying to be equable here. (For once) My CV is good enough that it gets a response. It’s simple to read, lists my skills and experience, and that’s it. It breaks lots of the ‘rules’ that CV-advisors give out (I’ve never yet bothered with wasting space on a paragraph describing myself, for instance) and yet it gets responses – and, by extension, jobs.

Yesterday was a perfect example of that. I sent in my CV to an agency for a role they advertised, they called me back, and I’ve got an interview for it this morning. The company involved took less than an hour to come back from seeing the CV with an interview request. I’m in there today, and we’ll see how it goes.

The same happened with the one that fell through – CV to agency, from agency to company, and a phone interview on the same day. Two days later I had the interview, and had an answer by the end of that day. Sure it fell through, but that was a funding/project thing rather than a “me” thing. I can’t do anything about that.

But if I’d sent a hundred CVs and not got a response at all? You can bet that I’d be doing a few things including:

Rewriting the damn CV – big-time
Calling agencies, if only to use the “checking it got through to you as I hadn’t heard anything” line
Asking those agencies for feedback, why the initial CV didn’t get a response
Reconsidering how I was doing things.

Ah well, rant over with for now. There’s more I was thinking about, but I haven’t quite got it strung together in my head yet.

Changing Plans – A response

Posted: Thu 1 October, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Business, Depression, Introspective, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Now here’s something I don’t do often – respond in a proper piece to a comment on another piece.

In this case, in yesterday’s “Changing Plans” post, Andy commented…

I have to say, following your blog & Twitter, that your contracting seems like a monumental effort/nightmare/arsepain. There’s a lot to be said for a regular job, not least: a) a bit of security (so you’re not always worrying about what next week brings) and b) the luxury of a bit of time to think and plan your next big move (i.e. away from what you’re currently doing).

You don’t strike me as someone who’d be content/comfortable with a regular job, no matter how short term – but it seems to me like you’re in a cycle that you need/want to get out of as it’s causing you grief.

And I couldn’t agree more, to be honest. Maybe I do need to bite the bullet and look at a “proper job”. I don’t know. This year has been utter shit when it comes to contracts, and work in general. In fact I’d go so far as to say it’s been the worst work year I’ve had.

You’re right, there is a lot to be said for that “proper job”. I get that totally. It just doesn’t (for whatever reason) chime with me at all. I don’t know why – and I’ve looked into it a lot – but it just doesn’t. Maybe I’ve just never had a positive experience of that regular job, but maybe my mindset won’t let me have a positive experience of that regular job. Either way, I’ve never been happy in a regular job.

I’m not happy with what I’m currently doing. I’m good at it, but I’m no longer happy with it. However, I know I need to keep on doing it (whether as contracts or regular work) until I get things sorted for doing Something Else. That doesn’t help. Getting fucked over and treated like crap also doesn’t help. (Although in my experience that’s something that happens regardless of a job being proper or not)

This week, I also feel like crap anyway. I’ve picked up a cold from a friend (who will be receiving a snot-filled slap when I next see him) and honestly, I’d rather be at home.

The change of plans, when everything was ready and in place, has added to that, and knocked my confidence a bit too. That’s down to being a control-freak, and not liking it when I get stuffed over with nothing I can do about it.

I’ve got three or four ideas about what I want to do instead of this, which have been chatted about a few times with friends over the last couple of days. It’ll take time – unless I get incredibly lucky – to sort them out and decide what to do, as well as to implement the ideas, make the changes, and get those things off the ground.

It’ll take time – but the last week has illustrated pretty perfectly why I need to do it, and make the changes. And if nothing else, it should make for some more fun on D4D.

Changing Plans

Posted: Tue 29 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Agency Idiocy, Charm School, Customer Services, Depression, Domestic, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Today I got a call from one of the agencies I’ve been dealing with, and all of a sudden everything changes.

The contract I was supposed to be starting on Monday has been cancelled. Apparently the directors of the company in question have decided that the project won’t go ahead, so they’ve pulled the budget for it.

And lo, no job for me. All my paperwork had been signed, ID stuff sent and the like and now it’s all for fuck-all.

This is one of the things I hate about contracting over having a “proper” job – and that’s a pretty small list, believe me – that things like this can happen at the drop of a hat. If it were a ‘proper’ job, the project decisions and budget would all have most likely been sorted well before it came round to getting someone to do the work. It’s something that seems to have been happening quite a bit this year, and it’s not something I’ve seen prior to this. Sure, I’ve had one contract come to an end before it was supposed to – and I’ve had plenty more extend well past when they were supposed to finish – but up ’til now I’ve not had to deal with ones that get cancelled before they start.

It leaves me at a bit of a loose end, as I’d already closed off the current contract to end on Friday so everything was ready for Monday’s start at the – now non-existent – new place.

So I’m back to square one. Sending out updated CVs, talking to agencies, going to interviews.

I won’t deny, it’s been a serious hit on me today – I’m not feeling great anyway, so this has just been kind of the last thing I needed. All told, it makes me want to chuck in the entire thing and head off to Pastures New (or at least Pastures Different) with a totally different job/career/work-life.

It won’t happen yet, no matter how much I want it to – but I think it’s something I need to start properly working towards. (And I know, that’s not grammatical – I just can’t think of the grammatical way to put it)

In summary? Today’s bollocks. Next week ain’t looking good, either.

Laptoppage

Posted: Mon 14 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Own Business, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Following on from the recent post where I wrote about the fact my current laptop is/was dying at a great rate of knots, I ended up ordering a new one and it arrived (without prior warning, which is always a bit of a worry) on Friday.

It’s nothing hugely special, just a Dell Inspiron thing, but it will more than fill my requirements for the forseeable future. There’s a twin-core beast of a processor, 4Gb of memory, and a 500Gb hard-drive, coupled to a monitor with a 1600×900 resolution. I got the extended battery, as it’ll still get used on a regular basis while travelling and so on.

And even better, at the time I ordered it it cost me exactly £500. If it lasts like the last one did, it’ll be 2012 by the time I think about getting another one. God only knows what the basic spec will be by then!

It’s got a couple of idiosyncracies – I think the weirdest thing is that for the first time ever, I’ve got a machine that doesn’t have any indicator lights on it for hard-drive, battery charging, etc. It’s *very* strange to not have them – or maybe this is a new trend that I’ve just not spotted ’til now.

As always, I’ve spent time over the weekend copying files over, archiving/deleting stuff, sorting out software installations and the like, but I think we’re pretty much there now. I’m still missing my CS3 install, but I’ll get the disc back for that sometime (and there’s no real hurry) and then it’ll all be done.

So it’s nothing hugely special – but it’ll do, and it cost me less than half what a commensurate MacBook would do. I think I’ll stick with what I’ve got, thanks.

[Update : Having looked at Apple’s on-line store, an equivalent MacBook Pro would’ve cost me from £1,500 – so I’ve got what I need for one third of the price of the Mac. Can’t think why I don’t want to go Apple, can you?

Travelling – Results

Posted: Thu 10 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Getting Organised, Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »

The interview in Cambridge today went well. In fact, it went so well that I already know I’ve got the work, starting in October for a minimum of two months, and almost certainly carrying through ’til January 2010.

The day started pretty well, with travel through London running so smoothly that I got the earlier train than the one I’d expected to get. Sure, it meant I got to Cambridge an hour before the interview time, but that also meant I wasn’t belting for trains/taxis/whatever, and was generally less stressed.

During the journey, I also got a call from another agency about another contract down in Reading. I’ve been put forward for it before (it’s a long-term project, and obviously has quite a turnover) by two other agencies but it’s never got any further. No idea why – and as today shows, my CV and interview stuff normally serves me pretty well – but those are the breaks sometimes.

So all told, it had already been a pretty productive day by the time I got to the interview itself.

After the interview, things went a bit tits-up, but still survivable all told.

First, the bloody taxi to get me back to the train station took nearly half-an-hour to turn up. I’d given the location where I was standing, without knowing there were two similar places on the same road – and the cockstick despatcher hadn’t asked which one I was at. So of course it went to the wrong one. Two snotty calls later, he finally arrived.

As a result, I belted through Cambridge station to get to my train back to London. And because I’m a twat, mis-read the signs, and ended up on a different train. Fortunately it was one that wasn’t due to go until well after the one I’d planned to be on, so I was able to get off before ending up on the way to Points Unknown.

It did, however, mean that I couldn’t get another train for another half-hour, which put me as getting back into the office later than I’d planned. (Not that it matters massively as I’ll still be over the contracted hours for the week by the end of tomorrow)

Other than that small fuck-up though, it’s been a good day.

Un-fucking-Believable (Part 5)

Posted: Tue 8 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, National Express East Anglia, Travel, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Just so people know I’m not just pissing in the wind when it comes to the way National Express East Anglia (NEEA) have doubled their prices overnight on the Norfolk->Cambridge line, I have also contacted NEEA’s Customer Services department via email. (I did this over the weekend, but haven’t yet had any response – hardly a surprise, I know)

The email read as follows…

How do NEEA justify doubling the cost of a ticket from Attleborough to London overnight with no warnings?

Upon arriving at the station, there is a piece of A4 paper wrapped in plastic on one noticeboard explaining that suddenly NEEA have decided that Attleborough -> Cambridge is a peak-time line until 10am “to bring it in line with other services leaving London”

It may have escaped NEEA’s notice that the line from Attleborough -> Cambridge neither leaves London nor comes from London. It is the line between Cambridge and Norwich. One has to change services (and in fact train operator) to get to London from Attleborough. And considering that I took the 7.55 train from Attleborough, and don’t get in to London ’til 10.15, that journey in no way constitutes a peak-time train, according to NEEA’s own Terms and Conditions.

So – how do NEEA justify this?

Also, how do they justify doing so overnight, with no advance warning. My £40 ticket – properly paid for on TheTrainLine.com – was invalid, so I’ve also had to pay £74 extra. The price rise isn’t mentioned on NEEA’s “News” page, nor is the arbitrary change of line to a peak-time line. In fact, even the guard and ticket inspector weren’t aware of it ’til Friday.

Are NEEA trying to get rid of customers? It’s now cheaper to drive to Cambridge and/or London than it is to take the train. (It’s also likely more convenient, as it means not having to hang around on stations while changing trains etc.)

I have no expectations that it will ever be responded to, because NEEA are (on current appearances) a bunch of profiteering scumbags with no regard for their paying customers at all. The only thing they appear to be interested in is their profit margin – although that, I suppose, is privatisation for you.

I’m also going to be putting the same complaint in ‘proper’ writing, and sending it in to NEEA

However, I’ve also contacted a couple of the local papers – who seem far more interested in the whole ‘ripping off customers’ thing. In fact I’m due to speak to one of their reporters today…

No Frills

Posted: Wed 26 August, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Customer Services, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

During the new contract, my accommodation in London is courtesy of Travelodge, also known as “The RyanAir of hotels” – well, in my book anyway. They’re definitely “No Frills”, but as a room/bed for the night they’re serviceable.

In this case, they’re also at least £25 cheaper per night – so yes, £100 per week – than their closest competition. And in this contract, where the day-rate is being squeezed so hard it’s almost screaming, that £25 per day/night is a significant difference.

It’s interesting to see over the years (He said, sounding like a right old fart) how the Travelodge rooms and facilities have changed.

Back in October 2006, for example, I had a big rant about Travelodges based on the one in Cambridge which was (and probably still is) a total piss-take. (And yes, if you look around on that month you’ll also see I swore never to stay in one long-term again. Ah well.) At that time, the Travelodge was charging obscene rates for phone calls and dial-up internet connections.

Now, there’s no phone at all in the rooms. I assume they realised there was no real money any more in having landline phones when ‘everyone’ has a mobile, and ‘all’ laptops have a wireless network capability. There’s wireless internet (in this case through Spectrum Wifi) for a fee which is fucking extortionate if you’re there for one or two nights, but works out pretty well if you know you’re there for a month. (Something like £10 for 24 hours, but £30 for a month).

And of course you still pay for breakfast – although if you book online it’s got something like a 20% discount on that too.

I still think that to some degree Travelodge and the like are extortionate – if you think there’s 150 rooms (give or take) in just this one Travelodge, and people are paying at least £60 per night, that’s a pretty good figure per week. Assuming 75% occupancy, that’s at least £47,000 per week, excluding extras for food, drink and internet access. But at the same time there’s obviously the demand there, so why not charge for it?

Speeding

Posted: Sat 22 August, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Driving, Own Business, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Last week, Gordon wrote a small piece on driving too fast.

I too drive fast – when the situation and environment allow, anyway. One day I’ll get stopped for it I’m sure, although I’m normally also pretty aware of what’s going on around me – and what’s coming round the next bend, or over the next peak of the road.

Admittedly, at the end of July I thought I’d possibly been had twice in one journey. The first was a speed camera on a bridge over the M4. I’d driven down to Chippenham for an interview – a minimum four hours of driving each way – and was on the way back. I came round a corner and there it was on a bridge, although still a fair distance away.

The second was closer to home, the A11 on the final stretch back. Again, coming over a peak on the road (not that Norfolk has peaks as such, but there’s a number of dips in that stretch of A11) and there it was, still one dip/peak away.

I don’t know the range of these cameras, where they’re focussed in order to get the best details. I don’t know if they have a specific focus point, or if it’s flexible – I assume it’s somewhat flexible, to account for road conditions and topography, and all that jazz.

What I do know is that wherever they were focussed, those cameras weren’t focussed on the places where I first saw them. By the time I got into whatever their focus-zone was, I was legal.

On both occasions I was travelling between 85 and 90mph. The road was pretty clear, the weather was fine (bright sun), and everything was safe. But still, well, I was speeding, and at least 15mph over the limit. Oops.

If I had been tagged on either occasion, I wouldn’t have objected, it would have been entirely fair. In some ways, I got lucky by not being caught – although in some ways I’d also argue that it was because I was aware of things in the distance.

I’d like to say that those events made me rethink my driving speed. But if I did, I’d be lying.

Five Year Plan – Half Way!

Posted: Sun 5 April, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography, Writing | 1 Comment »

Back in November, I made a more basic list of what the plans would be for 2008/9 on the Five Year Plan.

I’m now halfway through – both the 2008/9 year, and the Plan itself. Which also means that in 2½ years time from today, I’ll be 40. Shite.

Anyway, here’s the list from November, along with progress comments.

Sort out the mortgage renewal along with Herself (March/April)
Write and Launch the main site ideas that are in my head at the moment, and see how they do
- Daily Word Challenge : launched
- Creativity Merger Site : done
- Two Three other primary sites : under development
Promote one of the other sites I’ve done, which has a big dollop of potential – probably going to sack this one off
Complete the NCFE Photography qualification/course – ongoing, 2/3s of the way through now
Redesign my photography site – considering a significant change of theme on this one
Promote the photography and site more – working on it
Write at least one more big piece to get it out of my head at last – getting there
Possibly redesign D4D™ a bit – I know, I’ve been talking about it now for years
Oh yeah, and…
Lose some weight, as my plans for doing so in 2008 have emphatically failed – primarily due to zero motivation to do so, but also due to life over-riding gym etc. Ahem, yes, well, absolutely bugger-all done on this one.

It’s time – Part One

Posted: Wed 25 March, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, House Purchase, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

While we’re taking a break, the redone mortgage will (hopefully) be wading it’s way through the paperwork mire. We did all the application guff a couple of weeks back, signing up for a 5-year fixed-rate deal which looks to have been pretty much the best option for us. No fee, no transaction charge, and an OK interest rate.

We’re also changing lenders – Nationwide weren’t able to provide us with anywhere even close to the best deal – plus their valuation calculator is so wildly wrong in our case that it’s just about unusable. So we’re moving on.

The interest rate we’ve got isn’t as low as the base rate- but we never expected it to be. However, it’s a rate we’re happy with, and it lets us know what we’ll be paying between now and 2014, regardless of what interest-rate idiocy goes on between now and then. And that works just fine so far as I’m concerned.

We could almost certainly save ourselves a bit of money by just making some payments at the SVR rate, but I feel much happier with having the fixed-rate deal sorted out, and making the payments based on that. After all, when the rates go up – and they will – there’ll be a ton of people currently paying on the SVR rate who suddenly try to apply for a fixed-rate deal, at which point I’d lay money on the lenders immediately upping the charges for those deals. So I’m happier being “stupid” (according to a couple of people I’ve talked with) and doing what we’ve done.

The other part of the deal is that we can overpay – and overpay by a significant amount each year – the mortgage. And that’s something I’d very much like to take advantage of. I’ve written before about how I find the mortgage debt is something I’m very aware of so I’d be a lot happier to be paying off over the odds, and reducing the interest paid by a significant amount at the same time.

I’ve some ideas for how I’m going to work on the overpayments – but that’s a post for tomorrow.

Pay Assessments

Posted: Tue 24 March, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Recently, the current workplace has announced a change to the assessments/appraisals procedure that’s used to define pay rises. And because of the current financial climate, they’re doing everything they can in order to get out of giving any pay rises at all.

Firstly, anyone who’s been here less than nine months doesn’t qualify at all for an appraisal. There’s only one “full” appraisal per year, and an interim one come Augustish, so they’ve got to wait ’til this time next year before a pay rise can even begin to happen.

Back in August, the “interim” appraisal laid out some goals (assuming you’d been in your current position for more than six months) that each person should have attained over the year between “full” appraisals.The chances of anyone completing all these goals is – to say the least – minimal.

If people haven’t completed all their goals, then they need to have a good reason why not – including evidence of what they were doing that meant the goals weren’t completed. The requirement for evidence has only been revealed in the last two weeks. Without evidence, they’ve no chance of getting a good appraisal.

If people have completed all their goals, then they will score a “2” out of 4. A score of “2” means ‘does the job adequately’, but doesn’t equate with a pay-rise.

To get a pay-rise, a person has to score at least a “3”, and to be assessed by their line-manager as being worthy of a “3” as well. To get a “3” they would have to show evidence of having completed everything in their own job, all their goals, and having been helpful and hyper-motivated to other people outside the team they’re in.

To get a “4”, I think you’ve just got to be Buddha, Gandhi and Mother Theresa all rolled into one. With some humility on the side, obviously – it’s no good being perfect without it…

Just about everyone now knows that they’re not going to get a pay-rise, regardless of how well they’ve worked through the year. Needless to say, the motivation levels have fallen through the floor.

All this is being marketed as an improvement on efficiency, alongside providing financial savings for the company. What they don’t seem to have realised is that there’s also been a significant hike in number of people now wanting Out, and looking any/elsewhere for a new job. I wonder what the savings will be when you add in all the new recruitment and training costs?

Mortgage Motivation

Posted: Mon 2 March, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Creativity, Cynicism, Depression, House Purchase, House Work, Introspective, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | 4 Comments »

Over the years, many people have told me that it’s more sensible to have a mortgage than to keep on paying rent. Rent is, supposedly “dead money” – you’re not getting anything for it (except another month living in your property of choice) and you’re just helping to pay off the landlord’s bills.

Finally, two years ago, I jumped off the bridge, and got a mortgage with Herself on this place. Since then we’ve been doing a lot of work on the place (as any vaguely regular reader of D4D™ will know) and that side of things is all going OK. Of course, the fact is that on that score rental is easier – if something needs doing, you call the landlord or letting agency, and it gets done.

For me though, while I’ll continue on with the mortgage, I’m discovering that it has a far more negative effect on me than I’d be happy with on the real long-term.

I find that the knowledge of the amount of the mortgage keeps coming back to me, that it’s kind of a mill-stone. I don’t want to lose it, I don’t want to change it – but I’m constantly aware of it.

Maybe it’s that I’m a late-starter on the entire house-buying front, that if I’d been doing this since I was twenty-seven then I’d be used to the knowledge of the debt by now. (and I’d be nearly halfway through paying it off, which would help too!) Maybe over time the awareness of the debt faades a bit. I don’t know – I’ve only been doing this for two years, after all.

I don’t want to have the mortgage for the full term of it – the plan has always been to overpay whereever possible, and by as much as possible within the terms of the mortgage, although over the first two years we haven’t been able to do that at all (mainly due to me being a slack-ass, and not doing the necessary extra work through the aforementioned lack of motivation) but the intention is still there for the next mortgage period.

And that’s the balance I need to find, too – between the awareness of this (to me) sodding huge millstone of debt and the desire to reduce it as much as possible.

After all, there’s no money more “dead” than the interest I’m/we’re paying to the fucking bank. Paying back 2½ times the amount borrowed? That’s “dead money” indeed.

Goals

Posted: Tue 17 February, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Depression, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Own Business, The '09 Writing Project, Thoughts, Writing | Leave a comment »

Yesterday, in a comment on the post about colour-schemes for D4D™, Gordon wrote :

Step back a minute.

Why do you have this blog? What do YOU want from it?

Which seemed like a pretty good starting point for a post, to be honest.

1. Why do you have this blog?

There’s a number of reasons, but the main one will always come out as “Because I wanted to see if I could“. Over the years, I’ve had many many projects that I’ve started up, got about 75-80% of the way through, or even all the way to launch, and then got bored and not completed them. (or not continued putting energy into them) There was always something new to try, something else to work on.

D4D™ was a way to combat that. It was an ongoing project, sure – but it’s been one I’ve kept on with now for six-and-a-bit years. Maybe it’ll fade out at some point – the odds are that it will – but it’s kept going, kept me going, and I haven’t just faded off with it. Sure, it’s nowhere even close to what I envisioned when I started – them’s the breaks – but it’s kept on happening.

Also, it was a way to get me back into regular writing. Not necessarily about anything – even a quick trawl through the archives will easily show there’s no consistent theme to any of this rubbish – but to be posting at least one piece per day, every day. Years back I’d written two book-length stories as well as an absolute shed-load of shorter/smaller stuff (some of which is utterly cringeworthy now, but some of it still works to one degree or other) but they were fuelled by depression and a need for catharsis on certain experiences. Between then – about 1995 or so – and 2002 when D4D™ came on the scene, I hadn’t written a damn thing. Since then, some 750,000 words – and it must be coming up to the 800,000 mark by now – have gone through D4D™.

Of course, at some point I want to be doing more “proper” writing, as I’ve mentioned before. So at that point, D4D™ will either mutate once more, or get put on hold. Or some weird bastard-child intersection of those two things. Or something else entirely.

2. What do YOU want from it?

Now that one’s a bit harder. I don’t really know what I want from D4D™ – other than to be a braindump space, where I can splurge out some of the things and thoughts that keep on happening. It’s a healthy venting spot for my more cynical moments, but it’s bugger-all use for the more creative stuff I want to be working on.

I suppose I could add a different section to D4D™ now that a lot of the other stuff has gone The Way Of The Bin, which deals with the bigger stuff, or even get back to doing a “Page” for a longer piece every so often. (That’s what I would do with the old rants etc. anyway, should they ever make a comeback) Or I could just have a different site for that writing stuff. I don’t know yet.

So I suppose what I want from D4D™ is to maintain a status quo, to allow me to keep on writing – with no aim of becoming BWABD (Blog With A Book Deal) or anything other than just that general dumping ground for whatever’s going on in my brain at the moment. Or at least whatever’s going on in my brain that is a) not related to other sites/writing and b) not related to the multitudinous other business ideas etc that are forever battering round the brain cells.

In fact, I think that’s what the aim will be for now – to let the site keep on going, to keep it doing the same kind of things it has for the last six years.

Of course, that means that I’ve got an open hand when it comes to colour schemes etc. – but for now that’s going to stay the same too, and the yellow will remain as a reminder of the reasons why D4D™ came into being at all…

Femtocells

Posted: Thu 12 February, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, House Work, Own Business, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Is it really geeky to be interested in getting one of these as and when they’re released in the UK?

Basically, it’s an extension of the cellular (mobile) network, connected through broadband, and allowing improved mobile access in phone blackspots. Like – well – our entire house/street.

Yes, geeky as all hell, but still I can see plenty of use for it just where we live…

A drop of blood in a sea of piss