26 May, 2024
Don’t design in customer traps on your systems
You know that friend, the one who always promises to help you move flat, or help you fix your mower, but then doesn’t turn up? Yes. Or the guy who goes on a date and pays for the meal and somehow that comes with access to your body? Or the airline that makes you think […]
20 May, 2024
A new manifesto for the web
This blog post has now been re-arranged with the manifesto at the top, and the reasoning that led up to it beneath. Because, after all, placing the important content six or seven hundred words in is hardly being pure, is it? Web Dogma 24. By me. Content First. All articles, images, and graphics must be […]
11 May, 2024
Design Dilemmas: When bathrooms become battlegrounds
In the world of transgender rights, the battle for the bathroom has reached fever pitch, especially in the USA. Now, I’m not here to referee in this brawl – because on one side of the debate you have the ‘TERFs”, and on the other, the trans rights activists sometimes labelled “handmaidens”. Both are terms about […]
16 November, 2023
Off-Cloud Backup for Heroku apps – a possible answer
The Heroku platform is an absolutely fantastic way to have to not bother with devops within a small development company. We’ve been using it at interconnect for years now, and whilst it’s not entirely perfect, it takes away one set of headaches and does so at a reasonable cost. All the services offer backups, and […]
4 September, 2022
Steps and missteps on my path out of poverty
At 18 I was skint and got made homeless. It took a lot of graft, patience and mistakes to get out of that and into a moderate middle class lifestyle. Here’s how.
2 March, 2014
What a difference a tyre makes – mini review of Yokohama Advan Neovas on track
Yesterday, finally, after a break of nearly four years, I returned to the race track. Not for a competitive event, but for a track day. And I learned a little… The scene has changed. Maybe. Track days were mostly full of road cars. Lotus Elises were hugely popular, but you’d see a collection of Porsches, various […]
22 February, 2013
Finding a missing person in South America (and elsewhere)
I promised, ages ago, that I’d write up some tips on how to find somebody who’d gone missing in South America. Recently I had an email from somebody in the same situation which has spurred me into action. Since 1997 I’ve found or been found by my mother, my brothers and my sister. Here I’m […]
10 July, 2011
Blog “Reboot”
Hello – here’s the refreshed blog. I’ve decided to revert to a more typical blog format, after many months of soul searching on the issue. I previously had a layout based on a framework we used at interconnect/it for a couple of clients But not only have I opted to switch to a blog layout, […]
12 March, 2011
Freedom of Information is Abused
In 2000 in the UK, the Freedom of Information Act gave us all the ‘right to know’ what our public bodies were up to. We can ask for information about a huge range of items, and it’s a great idea. Information should, in my view, be as open and transparent as possible. But there’s a […]
2 September, 2010
San Pedro de Atacama revisited.
I remember San Pedro as being quite sleepy, with little accommodation available, but also with plenty of tourists and bars. It was sunny, warm, and pleasant. This time around it’s somewhat less sleepy, a lot bigger (perhaps 2x? 3x?)…however, it’s the off-season and that means few tourists compared to the number of restaurants, so dining […]
31 August, 2010
Off to San Pedro
Just about to start packing for San Pedro de Atacama. I’ve been there before, so it’s a relatively familiar spot, though I didn’t spend long in the town. So this time I’m going to explore the locality a little more. I’m even thinking of sticking with it for a week or so and treating as […]
29 August, 2010
Itinerary Options
I’m still trying to decide what to do next, but I think I’m forming a plan. I did debate staying here for all the time I have, teaching some web stuff maybe, for free. But nobody seemed that interested when I mentioned it, so I think it’s worth heading off. I’ve already been to San […]
28 August, 2010
Arrangements, part dos
Anyone who’s experienced the death of someone close to them will know that there is often a lot to do. No exceptions here, plus the added pressure of limited time. However, I’m not entirely unhappy about the time thing… makes me get things done. Cementaria Parque de Arica So, following the funeral I went yesterday […]
27 August, 2010
The Funeral
And so it came. In a way it’s weird… I always felt there were only two likely things to happen. First, I would find my father (or he would find me) and a period of reconciliation may take place. Closeness, perhaps never, but reconciliation would be fine. Second, I would never find him, and that […]
25 August, 2010
Arica – Day 1
For no obvious reason I’ve woken up really early today. Maybe it’s something to do with the herd of elephants that evidently checked in around 1am. Or the, ahem, charmingly rustic plumbing that means the noise levels in here pick up markedly as the hotel awakes. But it’s not a bad hotel, the Hotel Amaru, […]
24 August, 2010
Chris Coveney…the Introduction
I’ve started writing this post in Amsterdam airport…I’m on my way to Arica in Chile where I’ll be (hopefully) burying my father, Chris, who died on the 19th of July. I say hopefully not because this is something I’m looking forward to but because I face a number of legal and monetary issues with the […]
19 July, 2010
WordCamp UK – Great Stuff + a Little Controversy
I went to WordCamp UK 2010 in Manchester… this is my write-up of the event, and its controversies along with my presentations…
19 May, 2010
WordPress Performance, Make it 3x Quicker!
I’d started to notice that my site could often be slow to load – other sites on the same server weren’t suffering the same way, so I wanted to document a simple way in which one can identify performance issues on the site. This is one of them.
5 December, 2009
Sean’s 40th Birthday Party
Sean’s 40. But he’ll always be two months younger than me. Dammit. Well, here’s some photos from his party. Enjoy…
13 July, 2009
Saab 9-5 Aero (HOT) Estate For Sale – SOLD!
Given that I’m selling my motorbike at the moment as well, you may well wonder if I’ve had some kind of financial crisis of my own. But thankfully, no. I just don’t need such a large and fast car any more. When I was doing a lot of sprinting I needed something capable of towing […]
8 June, 2009
Five Things Bing Does Better than Google
MS have, at last, come up with what appears to be a competent rival to Google. Here’s five ways in which it beats Google.
25 May, 2009
mySQL Database Search & Replace With Serialized PHP [Updated]
Ever needed to migrate a database to a new server or website (especially with WordPress and other PHP applications) and been stuck because when you do a search and replace some of the data seems to get corrupted?