GuyWeb 2002 post roundup
[27.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 20:00]
Ralf and Jacquie came up to visit us here in Milton Keynes, bringing
with them a pleasant touch of Southampton. Yesterday we went to Alton
Towers and experienced the truly exceptional new ride ‘Air’ which
really does give you the sensation of flying. Unfortunately we didn’t
managed to get on the halloween maze but has two goes on Oblivion
and one on Nemesis as well as the rip saw and Enterprise. Splendid
fun all round. It has to be our Oblivion cart that broke down though
– right at the top, thus extending the anticipatory drop by at least
ten minutes. It was damn cold and the wind was just starting to pick
up.
Today, the wind is tearing down trees. Yet we still managed to venture
out to show Ralf and Jacquie the infamous Milton Keynes concrete cows
before a full fat feast at Nandos followed by bowling.
Tomorrow Milton Keynes becomes a total pay and display area. Pity
those who work in retail in the centre who have to pay £180
a year in order to park to do their job. This £180 doesn’t even
guarantee a parking place. I just shake my head..
Soon I will be updating this site during the day. I’m at my most
creative whilst their is daylight. Movable
Type content management enables this. I still worship the ground
beneath this amazing, free set of CGI scripts. Until I’ve found the
time to customize the templates, you can find the daily blog here (www.guyweb.co.uk/weblog/).
Zeldman has changed the design
of his site from the painful red/black combination to the more warming
green/white scheme that he’s been using on his exit gallery for years.
We like it this way.
The designer behind Wired’s revamp
has the best looking site I’ve seen in ages. Stop
Design is a wonder of CSS based web design that validates against
W3C doctypes and uses a table less layout. Fab bloody tastic. Hopefully
other commercial site web designers will follow his lead. I don’t
mean to go on about web design related stuff on this page but this
site really did need a mention. Soon their will be a specific web-design
based blog attached to the ‘Weblinks
for designers‘ mini-site.
[23.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 22:00]
I’ve finally got Movable Type installed. To say I’m over the moon would be an understatement. Now
I need to work out how to use the blessed thing. Still, it can’t be
harder than configuring a MySQL database, CHMODding file permissions
uploading specific files in ASCII or Binary and setting minute configuration
settings now can it? I wipe the single bead of sweat from my forehead
and plough on..
So, I’ve got new PC courtesy of my very good friend Mr. Ben Davis,
my content management system is up and running and I had a jolly good
swim today. Elsewhere in the world a mental-case sniper is threatening
the kids of Washington, our firefighters are threatening a strike
over the most firey night of the year and president Bush is still
enjoying the thought of wiping out Baghdad.
In order to cleanse my mind I’m off to Alton Towers with Ralf, Jacquie,
Helen, Paul, Sarah and Jo this weekend. Let’s hope the weather holds
out..
[22.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 19:15]
The host of my deathbru site has vanished! Freenetname.co.uk has been the home of deathbru since 1999. It was initially set up
to enable web designers to get a free .co.uk domain name. The only
catch was that you had to use their dialup. No problem. Today their
site is no more. THeir dialup connection still works and my site is
still there. But where have they gone. More importantly where has
the support gone? I’m a little worried because I can’t remember
my password. No good when you’re attempting to migrate everything
from one computer to another. I’m hoping their servers are temporarily
off line. If not, I’m buggered! The strange irony of it all is that
the actual deathbru site is now actually sitting on the guyweb server.
The domain name merely points you to it. I feel a call to Nominet coming on..
What has Zeldman done to his
site? This week it will mostly be available in red. Black text on
dark red background? I know you’ve got jury service but, come on!
[21.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 19:15]
It’s dark. It’s wet. It’s cold. There’s something comforting about
coming home to a warm house after a long day at the office.. The Office,
rejoice it’s on tonight! The fourth
episode of the current series is gonna be funny and will be the
highlight of today.
OK, now here’s a question: Do you find the lines of text on this
page too long? If so you’re probably using a computer with a monitor
resolution of 1024 pixels wide and above. If the width is fine you’re
probably using a monitor with a resolution set to 800 pixels wide
and below. It’s hard to please everyone, but I’m working on a solution.
Please let me know if you have any ideas,
suggestions or requests about the design of this page.
Getting in touch with yer mates is a great thing to do. This weekend
I spoke to Marie, Matt and Deans. Deans spent the night in a police
cell after our mate Robbie accidentally pushed him through the window
of our local kebab house. Luckily the glass shattered and Deans wasn’t
hurt. However, both Robbie and Deans were held by the owners until
the police turned up and took them off to jail. Deans couldn’t eat
his kebab due to being handcuffed. His drink was in one hand and the
kebab in the other. He was ordered to give his kebab away. Robbie
wouldn’t talk without his brief. Robbie now has to pay £400
for the window. Deans was freed the next morning. All in a drunken
night out in Portswood..
[19.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 12:00]
A bit of fiddling about finds me ever closer to installing the amazing
site publishing system Movable
Type. Now ready to roll as soon as a few permissions are set.
Today, hopefully, I will have a new computer. If this is the case,
I might be able to do some work on this site. We can but hope..
[15.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 22:00]
England 2 — 2 Macedonia
England played a cracking game on my home
turf of St. Marys against
Macedonia. We should have beaten them. I’ve yet to pay a visit to
the new stadium – the pitch looked cracking! Greatest moment: Matt
Le Tissier shaking hands with the England squad prior to kick
off.
[14.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 20:45]
For anybody cares, the home page of GuyWeb now validates again. Whoopee! That darned statcounter code needed re-writing. Plenty of other pages on this site don’t validate.
They will be fixed over time.
My PC seems to have established over the last 24 hours. I’m getting
used to the error messages at startup and the ‘illegal operations’.
They are becoming reassuring warm constants in my life.
Milton Keynes has an Indie/Alternative club. I’ve never been there
but I may give it a try. It’s called Revolver and it celebrates it’s five year birthday this week.
It’s time for me to buy some interior doors for our house and a sausage
dog to stop the front door draft. Just a bit too chilly at the moment.
Tonight, rivers may burst.
[13.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 19:30]
Yet another exceedingly funny new episode of The Simpson’s premiered
tonight on Sky 1. Homer buys Marge a Carp
Pond for their wedding anniversary. They later discover that a
rare breed of caterpillar called a ‘screamapillar’ is living on a
lilly in the pond. It basically screams all the time. Homer is ordered
to look after it by some bloke in authority. He accidentally kills
it and has to do community service. Whilst delivering ‘Meals
on Wheels‘ he takes pity on an old woman and helps her out with
chores. Soon she has Marge doing her chores too. One evening whilst
they are waiting on the old lady she is mugged for her diamond necklace.
She dies. Homer and Marge are implicated in the murder. The both have
to face the electric Chair. Homer says it was all his idea and thus
takes the punishment alone. Except the whole thing was an elaborate
‘Beadle’s About’ type thing hosted by Carmen
Electra and nobody dies. The episodes just get stranger..
The tracklisting to Silvertone’s latest Stone Roses compilation "The
Very Best Of The Stone Roses" is:
I Wanna Be Adored, She Bangs The Drums, Ten Storey Love Song, Waterfall,
Made Of Stone, Love Spreads, What The World Is Waiting For, Sally
Cinnamon, Fools Gold, Begging You, Elephant Stone, Breaking Into Heaven,
One Love, This Is The One, I Am The Resurrection
OK, so no rare tracks. Any Roses fan already has everything here.
Who’s gonna buy this? Utter gash. Submit your own Stone Roses compilation here.
If you absolutely must have this collection, CD
Wow have it for £8.99 including postage and packaging.
[12.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 17:00]
Deathbru.co.uk has moved over to the GuyWeb server. You can still
type in www.deathbru.co.uk but you’ll re-directed into this host. I’m hoping to update the site
soon with some exciting news about the new long awaited album – ‘Subway
to Venus’.
I have added a permanent link our holiday review — something
I neglected to do earlier. You can find the review here.
This site looks best in a browser window of around 800×600 pixels.
The page resizes to your monitor size. The reason for this is to make
it completely user-friendly and avoid horizontal scrolling. However,
if you like your browser window open at full screen and have a monitor
resolution over 800×600 the lines of text on this page can be quite
long. It’s your choice, but I’d make your browser window a little
smaller or make the text bigger.
Gibber gibber. PC in pieces. 🙁
[10.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 22:30]
My PC is playing up. Tell a lie, my operating system is
playing up. My PC is just fine. A little rough around the edges, but
all the bits still work. It’s the crumby Windows ME system that sucks.
Windows ME supposedly stands for ‘Millennium Edition’. Yet the fact
that it constantly gets really lethargic and falls asleep leads me
to believe that ME stands for something else entirely (appropriately).
So what’s the problem?
Well, yesterday I was culling a load of programs I no longer (if
ever) use. Windows has this handy facility called ‘Add/Remove’ programs
located in the Control Panel. It enables you to ‘completely’ remove
programs and their associated registry thus keeping the system nice
and tidy. Today this facility is inexplicably no longer available.
Thus I’m left with a load of old cack that I can’t get rid of. Why
is this so? Because most new programs don’t come with and ‘uninstall’
facility and rely on the add/remove programs that Windoze provides.
Mac users will be screaming – ‘Just stick the programs in the trash
and reboot!’ – Oh if only the world of Microsoft was that easy. ‘Sometimes
I really miss my old G4 Apple Mac. Despite it’s own flaws, at least
you could load/reload programs when they started to go wrong.
But seeing Mac OS 10 Jaguar, I’m not so sure I’d want to go back
to Mac anyway. All the simplicity of Mac seems to have been thrown
out in favour of complex Windows-like tat.
So for now, I’m left with Windows ME. I can’t upgrade to Windows
2000 because Microsoft created ME after 2000. Win 2000 is effectively
a downgrade from ME? Logic? Hmmm…
At least I can still get my site out. Tomorrow my modem probably
wont work. If nothing appears here for some time – assume the worst.
Keep your eyes on the notice board (I can update that anywhere).
Anybody got a solution? Please let me know.
[09.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 19:10]
Brrr, It’s getting chili in here. The worst thing about keeping an
online diary is the fact that your best mate who you were supposed
to be going out on the beer with on Saturday night catches you regaling
tales of the alternative plans 😉 Still. try convincing four macho
than mach lads to come out for ‘hippy shit’ and samba dancing instead
of pencil skirts and pastel shirts.
[08.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 20:10]
Took a trip down to Southampton this weekend and ended up drinking
crazy flavoured vodka at the premier live venue ‘The Talking Heads’.
Danced the samba with Jacqueline and Ralf and all for the £4
entrance fee. Top notch venu, top notch night. Check it out.
The new series of The Office is accompanied by a cracking
web site offering funny moments, wallpaper and character profiles.
Also, Alan Partridge has a new series coming soon. He no longer works
for the BBC and now lives in a caravan whilst his house is being built.
Still the no.2 DJ on Radio Norwich, the new series promises to be
another classic. Re-live quality moments at his
web site. Any one for monkey tennis?
[07.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 19:00]
Silvertone are soon to release YET
ANOTHER Stone Roses compilation album. So, now they have managed
to bleed ‘The Complete Stone Roses’, ‘Turns Into Stone’. ‘Remixes’
and ‘The Very Best of The Stone Roses’ from one album and the associated
B-Sides! Insanity. The only way any roses fan will buy this compilation
is if it contains stuff from their Geffen era and stuff from the Crimson
Tonight live import EP. And I can’t see that happening somehow.
So what will we get? Probably ‘Complete’ minus the dodgy tracks but
with a few of the remixes instead? I hope they prove me wrong. I can
see the steam coming out of Mani, Reni, Ian and John’s ears right
now.
More photos of our fantastic
holiday are now available.
[04.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 10:00]
The Athena Beach Hotel is a superior 4-star hotel on the sandy beach
of Kato Paphos, with easy access to places of cultural interest as
well as entertainment spots. 1.5km from the tourist centre, 2km from
Paphos fishing harbour, 4km from the city centre, 15km from Paphos
Airport and 160km from Larnaca Airport. Read
the full review and then view the first five holiday
snaps.
[03.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 19:00]
The first five pictures from
our holiday are available now. Particularly of interest: the ancient
internet access console. More tomorrow.
Helen and I arrived back safely in the UK at just after 12 midnight
this morning. After more endless queuing and cattle moving we sped
down the M25 and up the M1 to arrive in Milton Keynes just after 3am.
Loads of photos to show you — I’ll get them up as soon as possible.
On the house front Bushey Close has been taken off the market thereby
quashing our dreams of buying as splendid party house — doh!
… A plan is now being hatched.
[01.10.2002 | Posted by Guy at 09:00]
Why, in the letters pages of broadsheets like ‘The Times’ and ‘The
Telegraph’ all letters addressed to ‘Sir’? It’s about time that these
papers got out of the dark ages and made themselves a handy tabloid
size and didn’t use archaic terms like ‘Sir’. My choice of paper lies
with The Guardian though if
I buy it I only read G2 – the tabloid sized bit. The news I read on-line.
I also read The Sun. Now there’s
a nice balance!
This holiday slow release is running out of juice fast. We fly back
tomorrow. Normal service will resume.
30.09.2002
The murmierings of a lune? Maybe. For some brain flexing see my
Communication, Culture and Media essays. Scooter’s new track (the
one where a load of girls in thongs bounce about) nicely steals parts
of a KLF track. Can’t remember which one but it has the words ‘All
aboard, all aboard whooaaa!’ – You know the track. Please let me know
the name as it is really bugging me!
[Pre-Posted by Guy at 09:00]
29.09.2002
Also on Forein Yard was another funky tune called ‘Bless Brian Blessed’.
I love the title of that track. It would make a great double A with
‘Si Si Si Siesta’ – The holiday hit that Deans and I wrote last year
In Gran Canaria. If ever released it will certainly become the next
‘Macarena’ (or however you spell it)..
[Pre-Posted by Guy at 09:00]
28.09.2002
I once wrote a song called ‘Wise old Monkey in a wheelchair’ for the
unreleased Deathbru album
‘Foreign Yard’ It would have been a classic. The song basically tells
the story of and old monkey who is crippled and gets about in a little
wheelchair. A comfy tartan blanket keeps his legs warm and he wears
a pair of wire John Lennon spectacles. His house has been adapted
with ramps so he can get about. Obviously it’s not his house as monkeys
don’t own houses. Rather, it is his kind owner’s house. Every night
the wise old monkey in a wheelchair wheels himself into the front
room beside the fire to watch re-runs of Catchphrase. He’s pretty
good at working out what Mr. Chips is depicting. He scorns the idiocy
and lack of knowledge of the contestants. I may write a children’s
book.
[Pre-Posted by Guy at 09:00]
27.09.2002
Probably sitting on a beach with a cocktail in one hand and Frank
Skinner’s biography in another. Incidently, the book is an extremely
funny read and well worth a purchase from His Master’s Voice where
it is available in their two for a tenner deal. I also bought ‘Fast
Food Nation’ and am already feeling a little ill..
[Pre-Posted by Guy at 09:00]
26.09.2002
Sun is shining, weather is sweet yeah, makes you wanna move your dancing
feet.. Let the holiday commence. The GuyWeb desk is empty. Until we
return this site will be under the control of the fabulous Deathbru
drummer ‘Meatball Man’. He’s highly capable and will deliver my pre-recorded
messages to you on slow release. If our plane has crashed these words
will be spookily coming from the grave..
[Posted by Guy at 09:00]
25.09.2002
‘Before the dawn I feel like a samaritan, so off I go to do good deeds.
You’re sitting there reading Cosmopolitan so here I come to help with
you’re needs…’ The immortal, classic lines from the Bionic Blimps
‘Before The Dawn’. I just unearthed a tape of a truely great album.
Pete Neale and I recorded our first album as The Bionic Blimps back
in early 1999. Listening to it now, under today’s musical climate
it would be a sure fire no.1. When I return from my holiday I shall
do a mini-site on the greatness of this little known band. I may even
put some MP3s up..
Here we are in Paphos. The sun is shining, weather is sweet, yeah
– makes you wanna move those dancing feet.. Two more days and we’ll
crack open the carrot juice.
[Posted by Guy at 09:00]
24.09.02
Helen and I have found the house of our dreams with one day to
go until we go on holiday. We’ve put in an offer and ours is on the
market. It’s in Buckingham and it has to be seen to be believed. I
managed to take a few shots
of the kitchen and dining room for you to see.
[Posted by Guy at 17:00 | Your
comments]
20.09.02
I’m not usually one to blow my own trumpet but I’ve just about
cracked the message board now. Not
only does it look a heap better (still using shonky html for the time
being – sorry) you now have the ability to add little smiley faces,
hyperlinks and text formatting. This was no mean feat for me (brain
switches off when programming is involved!) but by Jove the boy works!
I’ve added a new link to each post with the post time called ‘Your
comments’ – a link directly to the message board and indeed for you
to contribute something. So go on, give it a try..
I’m giving my mind a break from the Movable
Type content management system while I’m on holiday. Will plough
back into it in a couple of weeks. Any help greatfully received (mine’s
the ‘mt.cgi doesn’t like me’ on the MT support forum).
OK, now for parking at Gatwick. Anybody know any good spots to leave
a car for a week without paying hugely exorbitant prices (i.e. not
£60+)?
[Posted by Guy at 21:40 | Your
comments]
18.09.02
The more observant of you will have noticed a new graphic at the
top of the right hand column. It links through to a petition against
a war on Iraq. Please add
your signature.
Miss Dynamite beat The Streets to the Mercury Prize. Still, the observant
little chap will undoubtedly deliver us another slice of the zeitgeist
next year and be up for it again. Or not. Yippee! Anybody got John
Squire’s new album yet?
Mike has found an extremely
funny site that shows you how to ‘Kev up’ your car with nothing more
than some cardboard, tin foil, cellotape and a pair of scissors. You’ll
find the link on the message board.
Updates to this site will occur in every now and then during the day
on said message board as it’s the only part of the site I can write
to at work. When Movable Type works this home page will also be updated far more frequently. So
stop moaning, Mike!
As our holiday in Cyprus draws ever near my yearning to leave the
season of mists and mellow fruitfulness grows ever stronger.
[Posted by Guy at 19:10]
16.09.02
Spent the weekend in Bournemouth soaking up a few rays and saturating
the arteries. On the good advice of Mr Harry Deans we enjoyed a cocktail
or two in Bar Bliss before being refused entry to OElements. Good
job too as it was going to set up back £16 just to get in the
place! So Helen and I returned to Bliss leaving Sarah, Paul, Dave,
Kat, Ian and his missus to brave the elements. Sunday was a crazy
golf fest and the play offs saw me come a well earned second. We stayed
in ‘The Diplomat’ hotel which was reasonable enough but not a nice
as the one we stayed in two years ago.
Bought the new ASH compilation despite never really being into the
band. Discovered that the Gran Turismo track that I adore is probably
not by ASH at all! I’m undecided about the New Paul Weller offering
and still curious about the new John Squire. Still, this year isn’t
doing too badly for good music and the new Supergrass record is just
around the corner!
[Posted by Guy at 20:00]
14.09.02
This being the web I could quite easily rectify the glaring spelling
mistake below. Somehow, I’d be cheating. Don’t know why but the fact
that I spelt the word Ill ‘I’ll’ is a testament to how full of cold
I was. Ill I was, but fine I am today. Ready for a trot down to Bournemouth
despite a gloomy start to the day.
[Posted by Guy at 09:00]
12.09.02
Am I alone in thinking that Paul Oakenfold’s new single ‘Starry
Eyed Surprise’ sounds not too dissimilar to Five’s ‘Got The Feeling’?
I’ll yesterday. Getting over it today. Watched plenty of MTV as a
coping strategy.
[Posted by Guy at 20:00]
10.09.02
I’m just one Pearl module away from managing all this content
with Movable Type. When all is well I shall celebrate by launching
a brand spanking new Stone
Monkey site. Today I have a cold. Summer is definitely over now.
Tomorrow will be sad.
[Posted by Guy at 20:45]
09.09.02
A mere nine days into September and summer has completely deserted
our fair Isle. I feel the twinges of SAD pricking my soul. And what better melancholy soundtrack to the cold,
dark autumn/winter nights than the still excellent and often moving
‘A Rush of Blood to the head‘?
Other recent musical purchases include The
Streets eponymous debut which cleverly manages to catch the essence
of what it is to be a 24hr geezer; The
Music’s debut tinged with dirty Led Zep riffs and Iron
Maiden’s ‘Seventh Son of a Seventh Son’ (available at Virgin’s
mega sale). Still looking forward to The
Manic’s greatest hits yet am more reserved about the new John
Squire having listened to the demo on his site. He only sang backing
vocals on ‘Tightrope’ (Second Coming) and now we know why..
[Posted by Guy at 19:40]
Yet another great Simpsons episode was premiered on Sky 1 last
night. Bart got a rare ‘panda’ disease from a mosquito and had to
be contained within a bubble for a week. Yet more proof that the Simpsons
production team are doing far too
many drugs.
Went to yet another wedding reception on Saturday. This time it was
at the Copthorne
Hotel, London Gatwick. A great hotel indeed — all beams
and rafters. £3.10 a pint but hey, what can you do? The facilities
were top notch: gym, sauna, pool and steam room with a little gargoyles
head that spews out cool water! We found a nice little pub in Copthorne
and got pissed watching England draw 1-1 with Portugal before joining
the festivities in the hotel.
Sunday we enjoyed a roast duck pizza in Bella Pasta with Ralf, Deans
and Jackie in Southampton. The service was pretty poor but the pizza
was fantastic!
Tony Blackburn has
won I’m a celebrity get me out of here which will no doubt please
Daily Mail readers all over the country (he’s on the front page this
morning, everybody else has Tara). He certainly seemed to get into
the spirit of things and wholeheartedly deserved his champagne breakfast.
Now let’s see what it does for their careers..
[Posted by Guy at 07:45]
05.09.02
After much spleen venting yesterday I though I’d lighten things
up a little with a link to a superb site of rather
good stuff. Particularly interesting is the Turretaphone.
Use this amazing music device to impress others with your musical
dexterity. Basically a swearing device. It’s funny because it’s true!
04.09.02
There are plenty of good things about living in the land of Keen
Milton: ‘Real snow’ ski-slope, speedy route from a to b, concrete
cows etc. So why does a city that is supposedly ‘progressive’ not
have a decent waste disposal system? Granted, MK Council do a fine
job of managing recycling: red box for paper, blue box for bottles
– but far be it for them to install the wheelie bin system that the
majority of the rest of the country has had for years.
Instead of putting my rubbish in a nice sturdy green bin, each week
I slog three black sacks onto the pavement to the utter glee of the
local moggies. The same sly felines that have taken a frequent dump
on the drive. So much so that it’s now hard to spot the gravel through
the shit.
Tomorrow’s thursday – bin day. Tomorrow morning I shall walk outside
to the joy of clawed up rubbish bags spilling their litter all over
the road. Half of my junk will not have been taken because some ‘garden
rubbish’ might have been in there and the bin men don’t take garden
waste unless it’s in a council brand green bin bag.
So, please, please, please MK council can we have wheelie bins? I
know there are garbage truck modifications to be made and and lot
of monet needs to be spent so you’ll probably never do it so I’ll
shut up now. But nevertheless – if enough people bother the MKWeb forum, maybe, at least somebody in the council might think about it. ::views::
Far be it from me to publicise the evil and corrupt
fabricated UK pop music industry but I’m totally addicted to the Sugababes latest no.1 hit ‘Round Round’. Something about the bass line I guess.
It’s so damn funky! Ever since ‘Overload’ broke the charts a couple
of years ago these guys have been a welcome break from the complete
toss that gets aired on Radio
1 these days.
Mark Radcliffe rightly pointed out today that Nelly’s ‘It’s getting
hot in here, so take off all your clothes’ track has been on the playlist
for at least a hundred years. It’s dross like that finds me looking
for Radio 2 at ever increasing moments. Somehow, the Sugababes work.
I don’t know why but they do.
And for the ‘non manufactured bands?’ – The latest one from ‘The
Music’ certainly yanks my chain. Remember, there’s still chance to
catch them on the evening session before Lamac gets the boot this
christmas. ::views::
[Posted by Guy at 20:00]
03.09.02
The new Manics track ‘Door
to the river‘ is available for free on NME.com as a taster of
their greatest hits package ‘forever delayed’ which is released on
October 28th.
Unfortunately it’s crap. James Dean Bradfield sounds utterly disinterested
and back are the sickly strings that were aborted for the last album.
Still, you might like it.
[Posted by Guy at 19:00]
02.09.02
Just finished reading Bill Drummond’s ’45’. And an absolutely
splendid read it is. Go out and buy a copy and take heed of the wisdom
imparted by the Aylesbury based creator of the KLF, The K-Foundation,
The Time lords, The Justified & Ancients of Mu Mu and the Jams.
Whilst the book does not go into great detail about some of the more
well known events in his life: The burning of a million quid or that Brit’s performance in 1992, he provides plenty of other lesser
known stories like the time he gave London’s homeless thousands of
cans os Tennants Super on New Years eve. The encounter with Tammy
Wynette is strangely touching and his love for the early days Peter
Green music had me totally identifying with the guy. The KLF of course
draw some interesting parallels with Deathbru.
Both bands being the stuff of legend.
If any of you have no idea what I’m rabbitting on about simply enter
‘The KLF’ into Google. Whilst
on your hunt, any budding and would be no.1 hit makers could do well
to hunt out the complete text of ‘The Manual’ if you can find it.
So, September. Here we are. A mere nine days until the 1st anniversary
of that incredible hideousness. To keep my mind fresh I’m still designing
web sites for people other than myself.
The all new ‘photo gallery‘ section
is now live. I’ll be populating it with pics shortly but for now a
selection from the last month is available.
Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of The Deans exposing himself
at the Giddy Bridge this saturday night. If I did it would be on Ebay by now fetching a good grand or two!
Remember to leave your mark on the message
board. If you don’t, I’ll send a Kebab after you. And you wouldn’t
want that now, would you?
A search bar has appeared on this page. Use it but don’t abuse it.
You know what I’m talking about…
30.08.02
Not only is Mark Goddier being axed from
radio 1. The last ebb of quality live music is being wiped from Radio
1. The
Evening session will be no more as of December. It’s to be replaced
by a show with a ‘broader
musical base’. so more 1extra bling-bling crap then? Lamac will live
in a Radio 1 caravan and be wheeled out every now and then for an
outside broadcast. The rest of the time Tong and Westwood will keep
him alive by feeding him nails.
ITV’s latest reality TV expo ‘I’m
a celebrity get me out of here‘ yet again finds me sadly hooked.
Is it me or has Darren Day changed his accent? I know he’s a master
impressionist but that cockney twang is just crap! Helen tells me
that that’s his natural voice. I beg to differ. Support
me on this.
Good news on mobile phone spamming: A Leeds based company called Moby
Monkey has been fined for promising financial rewards to anybody
who rings their premium rate number. Now we need to get the gits who
constantly bung up email accounts with their filth.
The rather pointless ’12’ film rating has been scrapped in favour of the ’12A’ rating.
This means under 12s can now see a tit or hear one naughty word as
long as their mum or dad is with them.
And finally, that fabulous ‘All
your base are belong to us‘ movie has been unearthed again. A
real visual and sonic delight.
[Posted by Guy at 19:00]
29.08.02
One exciting thing to look forward to this Setember on guyweb
is a new, improved photo
gallery section. I’ll be posting any significant photos from my
Digi-cam on the site and pointing to them from the newly designed
gallery.
Helen and I have booked our holiday. We’re off to the Athena
Beach Hotel in Cyprus.
[Posted by Guy at 22:30]
27.08.02
‘A Rush of Blood To The Head’ — the new album by Coldplay has to be heard to be believed. The single ‘In My Place’ was kept
from the top spot by a Steve Lillywhite enhanced Darius but the album
will be next week’s number 1. The aching melancholy of the debut ‘Parachutes’
is back in bags but is aided by more extravagant arrangements and
passion fueled by the September 11th terrorist attacks. With the one
year anniversary just around the corner, this album will surely soundtrack
a few tributes. Hear it. What
do you think?
[Posted by Guy at 22:30]
26.08.02
‘Bank holiday comes six time a year. Days of enjoyment to which
everyone cheers. Bank holiday with a six pack of beer then it’s back
to work…A G A I N!’
My lungs are full of pure sea air from the solent. My mind is refreshed
and my RSI has been cured. My Links for Web
Designers page has become a site.
[Posted by Guy at 20:00]
22.08.02
‘Tis true that not much has been posted here lately. I’m working
full throttle on two web sites for clients which doesn’t leave me
too much time to be witty, poignant or cool. Still let me tell y’all
that shortly my University lectures will be available to to view online.
So you can all rub your hands with glee and the prospect of finding
out all the postmodern intricacies and references to Jean Baudrillard
in The Matrix… I’ll also be properly developing the photos area
and making sure I tell you with each new day whether new photos are
available. Aren’t I nice?
Just time for a mini-rant… Why have Emap turned Q4Music into a bland and unmemorable pointless exercise of a site? It used
to be so good — daily stories and features, working reviews
archive, good design etc. Now it looks like they’ve got the monkey’s
in again. Thankfully NME.com still
thrives as a decent online music community.
[Posted by Guy at 18:20]
20.08.02
Both Ben and Jo will be pleased to know I’m busy putting all the
hours into getting their sites shipshake.
For the rest of you, why not check out some seriously mind numbingly
brilliant examples of cutting edge web design at Net
Diver? That should keep you busy for a few years…
[Posted by Guy at 18:40]
19.08.02
A simply fab encyclopedia of music has been unearthed by Francois
Jordaan . It’s called allmusic.com and if there’s a band/artist you can’t find on the database then you’re
thinking pretty damn obscure!
Want to find out all about the history
of the Apple logo? Why not pop
along to find out why it’s got a bite out of it and why the rainbow
colour scheme. Absolutely fascinating. Whilst we’re on the topic of
the Apple logo: the Apple
Collection has a load of great wallpapers featuring the icon.
Whatever rocks your boat, you’ll find it there.
[Posted by Guy at 18:00]
GTA3 freaks will be interested to know that the followup ‘GTA:Vice
City’ is soon to be released on these shores. My reliable snout Seamus
found two great sites promoting the game: KentPaul.com and ConcreteTV.com are the
sites and you can find out all about them from the man himself in the messageboard. I nearly purchased
a PS2 myself for the princely sum of £25. The only problem being
that the CD/DVD drive didn’t work. So, a rather strange looking door
stop then?
Hoddy’s ranting again.
About tax this time! Can somebody please get him some beta blockers?
[Posted by Guy at 19:40]
15.08.02
So, Mark
Goddier is to leave Radio 1 this christmas. The inventor of the
evening session, the king of the UK Top 40 and the last relic of the
golden age of Radio 1FM will be no more as of January 2002. Mathew
Bannister’s so called ‘revamp’ of The
Nation’s Favorite has already seen the likes of Simon Mayo, Andy
Kershaw and Nicky Campbell stricken from the books. It’s only a matter
of time until John Peel and Mark
Radcliffe are shown the door. At this point I will cease to listen
to 1FM and move over to the *new* nation’s favorite Radio
2. Fortunately the Hairy cornflake and Simon
Bates have never got near the thing — rather, it’s become
the hip, trendy ‘happening’ beast that Radio 1 used to be. Classic
shows presented by Mark Lamar, Jonathan Ross and ‘Whispering’ Bob
Harris — Nice 🙂
Buy Mark
Radcliffe’s book ‘Showbusiness — Diary of a rock ‘n’ roll
nobody’: available very cheap through Amazon.
Then visit his
tribute site and yearn for the classic days of the graveyard shift.
Ahh, those were the days…
[Posted by Guy at 18:00]
It’s mid—August and the streets are melting. The World has turned:
The thickest smog ever hangs over much of Asia (an amazing 2 miles thick),
our atmosphere is being pounded by meteorites and Europe is suffering
terrible floods. Our planet is not a happy bunny. You think it’s hot
today? Just give it twenty years…
Whilst still wrestling with Movable
Type, the message board is doing
a competent job of managing your comments. So much so that I’m now
going to invite some (hopefully) intelligent debate on the topic covered
above: The World has turned — Discuss.
Back to basics tomorrow! RIP Web
site Garage 1995-2002.
[Posted by Guy at 00:00]
13.08.02
Web Designers: At work yesterday
I was given a whirlwind tour, live from New York, of the Nielsen Norman Lift for Dreamweaver product. It’s a must for anybody using Macromedia’s premier WYSIWYG web tool. It reminds you to add those precious ALT
tags and has a handy tool for creating accessible tables. So what’s
the catch? Over £200 a pop is the catch. Let common sense previal
and visit Web Standards or the W3C for some free, helpful
advice.
Talking of work, my last employer has just re-launched it’s Intranet
service. My
old beast has been upgraded and renamed ‘Northern
Bytes‘. Splendid stuff from me ‘ole mucker Stephen
Turvey who also maintains the healthy cash-cows Halflife
World.co.uk and Medal
of Honour.co.uk.
Hitometer dies in just two
days time. 🙁
[Posted by Guy at 20:15]
11.08.02
The message board has returned.
It’s bigger, better and more functional than before. Unfortunately,
only eight of you can log into it at a time — what do you want,
the shirt off my back too?
[Posted by Guy at 22:30]
Another fabulous all-day drinking session in the home land. As well
as eating the gut-busting ‘whole hog’ at the Highfield pub, revelations
aplenty at The Varsity, when, on reuniting with Mat Hayward and Dave
Higgins we make the discovery that Natz Olden is engaged to Simon
Fiske. Who’d have thought it? And more to the point, is
this true?
[Posted by Guy at 15:00]
09.08.02
Six weeks later my Sky Digital system
is working again. Turns out the power supply had burnt out a few essential
parts of the box. So, kids, remember to turn your box of at night!
The not so ‘Magic Eye’ still doesn’t work.
My old mucker Matt Sapiano has his
own website and it’s utterly
thrilling… if you’re into meteorology. Even more shocking is that
Matt is in a croquet
club.
[Posted by Guy at 18:05]
08.08.02
Normal service has resumed. A temporary glitch I hope! The last 24
hours has enlightened me to the fact that Pollock-inspired John
Squire (Ex Stone Roses and Seahorses guitarist) has a new
project due for release on the 16th September. I cannot wait.
Happy birthday Andrew Ratcliffe.
[Posted by Guy at 23:50]
07.08.02
The site has been down for a little under 24 hours. I’m assuming my
host has got some serious problems as domain
domain, hostzone and websiteit,
all part of Knightmaster Enterprises are all down too. On top of that
an old site I designed (Swan
Pool) is also down. You wont be reading this until the site is
up, by which time everything will be hunky dory. Let’s hope normal
service resumes shortly…
[Posted by Guy at 18:54]
05.08.02
There’s a great movie trailer on TV at the moment for a film starring Benico Del Tores. Except it’s
not a movie trailer at all, but infact a clever (and rather expensive) advert for the new £90,000 + Mercedes.
Just who Mercedes think they’re marketing at I have no idea but the
ad has certainly got a few tongues
wagging.
New Coldplay album just weeks
away :: Sky TV to be fixed on friday…yer
right! UK TV now has it’s own
digital TV guide so you can flick between UK Gold 1&2, UK Drama,
UK Style, UK Play, UK Horizons etc without passing through the usual
quamire of dirge. Roll on friday…
[Posted by Guy at 21:00]
04.08.02
Congratulations to Jinny on tying the knot. More importantly, thanks
for the free bar at the reception! Mental note – must buy a PS2 if
only for the hideously addictive Grand Theft Auto 3.
This month’s Computer
Shopper (which is actually labeled September 2002 – why do they
do that?) has an excellent article on backing up your VHS tapes for
future posterity. Video tape, it seems, will only last up to ten years
without degrading After that it’s anybody’s guess as to when the mold
will start to appear. So get them old wedding videos out now and copy
them onto VCD.
The message board remains down.
Either I’ve bodged up the code or my ISP has moved me off a Microsoft
server. Either way, it’s not there. So I’m soldiering on trying to
install Movable Type. A big challenge indeed but when it’s live it’ll
be worth the wait. You can still leave messages old
style.
[Posted by Guy at 17:00]
03.08.02
If you’re having trouble getting onto the Message board it’s probably
because it runs off a pretty rubbish Access database. I’m working
on this at the moment. Looks like I’m pretty likely to go for Movable
Type just as soon as I can get my head around the installation/configuration.
My Myres-Briggs profile suggests that I hate this sort of stuff and
I’m inclined to agree.
[Posted by Guy at 09:00]
01.08.02
The re-launch is a month old. To celebrate
this fact, the Daewoo Matiz Courtesy car that had been provided after
our accident exactly a month ago, decided to get a flat battery. And
you know what? We don’t have AA or RAC cover. And why not? Because
we have a nice new Fiat Punto.
Why the hell would we need roadside help?
Nationwide Crash Repairs – the suppliers of the car were absolutely
no help at all. The fact that the accident was not our fault and we
had been hit by the business development manager of a security systems
megabucks firm in his Mercedes to which no damage was done mattered
little. I mean, this guy gets his PA to sort him out with another
Merc whilst his old one gets a valet while I waste time and effort
on insurance companies. Elephant.co.uk have been absolutely rubbish throughout… You just don’t need it.
Still, not to worry. We’ve successfully re-mortgaged our house with
the ‘Life’s complicated enough‘
building society. Should see us through the next couple of years.
Nearly 200 CDs from my collection have been successfully ripped onto
my home PC. Now all I need to do is wait for a decent portable MP3
player comes out. Such a beast would not require a hard
drive to store music. It would also require more than the measly
64mb standard that Rio machines come with. We’re talking 8 Gigabytes
here. According to Mac User Fujifilm are working on such
a beast as we speak.
Things to look forward to this August on guyweb.co.uk: More articles,
something constructive on the right hand column on this home page,
Helen actually putting something on her part of the site, loads of
resources pages and maybe a few other bits ‘n’ bobs.
Things for me to look forward to this month: My Sky
Digital subscription working properly, a holiday in the sun and
the return of the traveling circus that is Guns ‘n’ Roses at the Leeds
festival.
[Posted by Guy at 00:00]
30.07.02
GuyWeb.co.uk is built using
a rickety old Wintel 400mhz machine. I use a ultra fast P4 at work
but I still can’t get Apple Macs
out of my system. The desktop wallpapers on my machines come from The Apple Collection,
I lust after the IPOD and
above all else really miss Internet
Explorer Mac Edition. One day I’ll be able to easily part with
£400 for a basic Apple MP3 player. Until that day comes I’ll
stay with the affordable PC equivalents ta very much.
[Posted by Guy at 21:30]
29.07.02
Ladies and gentlemen stand by for Mr Mike
Hoddy. A taster is here. Today was so
hot I started to melt. Luckily some violent thunder and lightning
should mean tonight I will sleep peacefully.
[Posted by Guy at 21:15]
28.07.02
Wot a day! England are doing pretty well in the Commonwealth
Games and the cricket.We’ve
got some seriously hot weather going on and I’ve just found the worlds
smallest web site. Stonemonkey are on the verge of finding a new
drummer and Monkey
Magic is now out on DVD! For those of you who care NTL are now begging people to stay with them. Amusing…
[Posted by Guy at 23:00]
27.07.02
Kate, Would you
believe it? For a Friday night the public houses were weirdly empty.
The eerie silence was surely caused by the hysteria surrounding the
BB final. The White Hart even played the event on their (working)
Sky Digital system in the tradition usually reserved for World Cup
finals. Still, most people didn’t venture away from the comfort of
their own armchairs. Average bar serving time: 2 minutes. Now that
aint bad!
[Posted by Guy at 09:15]
26.07.02
Wot a scorcher! Seriously, how
hot has it been today? It’s the Big
Brother 3 final and I’m not even staying in to watch it. Weather
like this deserves beer gardens and Stella. Not that I could have
watched it… But hey, good news on the Sky
Digital front – they’ve allowed me the Sky Protection plan for
£60 a year. So all I need to do is give ’em a buzz when the
system is up the shoot and someone will fix it within 3 working days.
Now, I’ll believe that when I see it.
And it’s one nil for the consumer. The cretins at T&H motors
have replaced the faulty exhaust. The new one is as quiet as a mouse.
The manager must have known the other one was wrong before my treasured
Punto left his forecourt. So, this weekend I shall compose a letter
to their head office explaining how I have been a victim of fraud
by the garage. I’m sure the threat of loosing the ability to perform
MOTs should be sufficient enough for me to be compensated for 1. Being
the victim of fraud 2. Terrible customer service to fix the thing
3. Endless phone calls 4. The loss of two hours of my working time
today while I sat and watched them smashing the exhaust off with a
hammer 5. The sheer stress of it all.
Still the beers are chilling and so can I. P.S – My money’s on Alex.
[Posted by Guy at 18:45]
25.07.02
Lennon & McCartney, Jagger & Richards, Carberry
& Deans
So, the garage the fitted the faulty exhaust finally admits that
the thing is knackered. A mere four days have passed. Manager Paul
OZ at T&H Motors in Bletchley was quite uninterested in leaving
his plate of chips to reexamine our poor Punto but some stern looks
and mention of the Office
of Fair Trading soon got him off his arse. Two sparkeys followed
him to the vehicle. I started it up, revved it a bit and one sparkey
says to the other: "sounds hollow dunnit"
To which I reply "Yes, there’s no sodding mufflers in there."
The sound is no different to when it left the garage four days ago.
Mr OZ: "I can’t do it now, the part will have to be ordered,
come in at half ten tomorrow morning" (my working time). Of course
I’ll go in tomorrow morning and the part wont be there and some other
lame excuse will be used. I’ll let you know how it goes…
Still no TV. My waistline is getting and smaller but then I’m not
going to the gym at all whilst in this time of crisis! My last ditch
attempt will be tomorrow when I try to buy a indoor ‘Super looper’
TV aerial. I’m not holding out too much hope. Expect to read an antsy
letter to the head of Sky Digital customer services here soon.
[Posted by Guy at 18:15]
24.07.02
For those of you who still do the old Southampton Thursdays/Joiners
scene tonight it’s DJ Hammys 42nd birthday and it’s Matts leaving bash before he jumps ship to
the States,
so get yourselves down to The Rhino, in what is sure to be a night
to remember !!
"Backing sounds will be provided by Matt and his old partner
in crime Toby. We will also have live MC action from Christian who
has some strange stage name I can’t remember." – Hammys mailout.
It’s also Hammy and Emma’s 5th Wedding anniversary on the 25th so
– a big congratulations. Is it really 5 years? Jesus…
A mere two days until we discover who’s won Big
Brother 3. I can’t say I’m decided who I want to win. My big hopes:
Spencer, Sandy and PJ are all out, leaving a fairly dull bunch. You
know it’s running out of steam when the BB website starts running old news stories in a vain ateempt to keep you coming
back. The Sun has it’s money
on pig-gene Jade. I’m not so sure, it’ll probably be a showdown between
Kate and Alex despite the kraut’s ticking time-bomb about to go off
any minute and completely screw up his chances. He already openly
admits to Jade that he has no desire to stay in contact when he leaves.
It’s only a matter of time before the ‘pissing in the shower’ incident
comes up again…
Of course I’m not seeing any of this ‘cos Sky still haven’t sorted
out my system. Saturday I will cancel and mourn 🙁
[Posted by Guy at 22:00]
23.07.02
I don’t know, some people just don’t want to make any money! Helen
had such a great time on the Isle of Wigit that she’s yearning for
another holiday. This time we’re gonna venture out to the Balerics
in September. So we trundle of to Going Places for some advice and
the girl showed absolutely no interest in advising us or helping in
any way. We did all the talking, came out none the wiser with a handful
of weighty brochures vowing never to venture into that particular
travel agent again. Twats.
Still got a a crap Sky Digital picture though have discovered that
having the box set up with subtitles enables me to get the general
gist of what’s going on. This amazing service is still costing me
£16.99 a month. You can’t complain (sic).
[Posted by Guy at 23:30]
22.07.02
An excellent weekend by all accounts. The sun was shining, the lager
flowing and I got to watch some telly. That’s right, still no Sky
Digital I even rang the dreaded NTL on Sunday in a desperate attempt at getting my basic Milton Keynes
cable hooked up. After forty minutes on hold I gave up. Good job because
I remembered NTL Hell and NTL
Hell World would become my new first and second choice Internet
destinations.
There only seem to be two options left:
- Cancel Sky Digital and get Helen to sign up for it under her name. Thus we get installation for a
tenner, a new digibox and dish and a years worth of warranty. - Cancel Sky Digital but dont sign up again. Instead, erect a 30ft
pole on the roof of our house with a high gain aerial in an attempt
to catch some terrestrial beams. Then politely tell the MK corporation
to f off when they complain that we’re ‘ruining the Milton Keynes
skyline’. Because it’s oh such a wonderful place!
Today our Fiat Punto underwent
it’s second service. Total cost: £258. Cause: too many speed
bumps in Milton Keynes. Let tomorrow bring me joy…
[Posted by Guy at 20:15]
19.07.02
It’s Friday, summer’s here and I’m off to the sunshine capital of
England – my very own hometown of Southampton. I can see those beer
gardens now…
For those of you stuck in the office this afternoon I sincerely feel
for you. But worry not, because Lycos have launched an excellent dumping
ground of wicked email attachments that will brighten up your
already sunny day.
[Posted by Guy at 12:45]
18.07.02
CCN have yet again performed a great injustice. £12500 anyone?
For what? Telesales? Sounds reasonable. Er, no, for somebody who in
the grand scheme of things would be classed as a ‘professional’. Perfectly
reasonable. Will they never learn?
Off to sample the delights of Thai Cusine. May try to find Lord Deans
a bride. Todays expenses: two new front tyres for my Fiat Punto. I
curse this Milton Keynes and its roundabouts!
[Posted by Guy at 18:45]
17.07.02
Helen and I have been thinking of moving out of Milton Keynes. Much
as we love this functionalist, postmodern utopia it just lacks the
warm, friendly, community spirit of a place like, I dunno… Buckingham?
It’s no secret that we fell in love with the county town of Buckinghamshire
the moment we chanced upon it two years ago. Not having enough readies
to buy a traditional cottage with exposed beams, open fire and old
stone we made do with the ultramodern MK. Indeed we did well – house
prices are soaring and there’s no way we could afford to buy as first
time buyers a year later. Right place, right time.
Now we’ve got equity we could easily afford a place in Buckingham.
But for these reason’s we’re staying put: We can remortgage our house
and finally settle our univeristy-inherited debts. We can extend our
existing home. We can get a second car and thus I can do a bit more
independent traveling. And then there’s the issue that interest
rates have to rise. So whilst we’d rather not be living in the
land of Keen Milton our quality of life aint half good right now.
If only my Sky Digital would work properly…
[Posted by Guy at 23:00]
Many thanks to Statcounter.com for providing us with a decent replacement for the soon-to-be defunct Hitometer. And thanks to Stephen
Turvey for telling me about it.
This site will soon step up a gear…
[Posted by Guy at 17:45]
16.07.02
Alex is up against Tim!
Well Tim can kiss his sorry ass goodbye then… Try this ancient Big Brother funny.
[Posted by Guy at 18:30]
15.07.02
Your hero returns… I’ve just spent the last two days being incredibly
ill. This Saturday I ventured down to the popular School
Disco night in the old Hammersmith Palais. Unfortunately I wasn’t
able to fully appreciate the cheesy 80s extravaganza due to being
poisoned by a BK Whopper
courtesy of Euston station. Never again…
You’ll be pleased to know that £94 pounds later my Sky reception
has improved. That is not to say that it’s fixed because it sure isn’t,
but at least it’s watchable. I got to see what a totally weird bastard
Alex’s dad out of Big
Brother is.
[Posted by Guy at 19:30]
11.07.02
Still no Sky Digital. Spoke
to a ‘technician’ who kindly informed me that as I don’t have an extended
warranty I’ll have to fork out £60 for an engineer to fix my
system. How nice. Again, please can somebody tell me how to align
my dish properly using my Maplin Kit!
[Posted by Guy at 19:30]
10.07.02
The persistent rain over the last few days has completely screwed
up my Sky minidish signal! To avoid
paying a whopping £40 to have the thing aligned yet again, I’ve
bought a satellite finder kit from Maplin.
Unfortunately the instructions have been written by some Thai sweatshop
translator and mean nothing to me. I get the general gist of it but,
by Jove it’s complicated! If anybody has any simple, easy, step by
step instructions on what to do please contact
me. Read my rant.
[Posted by Guy at 20:00]
09.07.02
Tragic news! Netscape are killing off the Website
Garage. I’ve been using the hitometer service for years now and will be very sad to see such an excellent
service go. This explains why it’s been so hard to retreive hit statistics
lately… Netscape announce that the service will be gone as of August
in this short
note. No explanation is given as to why. So it’s off to the cgi
archive for me…
[Posted by Guy at 21:30]
This weeks Mac User (12th
July 2002) has an excellent feature on Photoshop
7. So if you want to know all the ins and outs of using the industry
standard photo-editor I’d advise you to get a copy. Guides include:
Healing brushes, pattern fills, textures, colours, file browsing,
painting tools and a few useful case studies in each area.
Cryptically titled "Point",
Zeldman draws our attention to an article on News.com that discusses Internet Explorer’s dominance in the browser market.
So much so that even the founder of Netscape prefers it! As always Web Standards have a counterpoint.
[Posted by Guy at 10:19]
08.07.02
Coming soon – a few pages on people Helen and I know or have known and what they’re
up to now. It’s going to be a sort of Friends
Reunited thing but on a much smaller, personal scale. So if any
of you would like to send us some info about what you’re doing now
please get in touch.
Harry Deans is getting into ‘house’ just as Mark
and Lard have proclaimed that dance music is on the way out. Did
anybody see Tim breakdown like a baby in the BB diary room on Sunday? What a loser. He’ll be out within the next few
nominations. Unbelievably Jade will avoid eviction this week!
I’ve had a few questions about this site not looking right on Netscape.
All I can say is your browser is just plain naff. This site tries not to use legacy code, proprietary tags and poor quality markup.
It saves me work and makes for good standards-compliance. A List Apart have an excellent article enplaning exactly what is wrong with Netscape 4. Please read it and
then upgrade to Netscape 6,
7 or Mozilla 1. You know it makes
sense!
[Posted by Guy at 17:30]
05.07.02
I’m back from a short three-day break at Sandown on the Isle Of Wight.
Nothin’ like good ole’ blighty for a quality holiday! Tonight Adele will be voted off
Big Brother and justice will be done!
Free arial poster of Glastonbury in this weeks NME. Coldplay’s new single is the bees knees. I’m expecting their next release to
be album of the year.
[Posted by Guy at 19:30]
02.07.02
Just bought the new Oasis album
‘Heathen Chemistry’ and, by jove, it’s a return to form. I measure
a great album by it’s ability to fit on one side of a C90 and this
indeed does with nearly five minutes to spare!
The material is all classic Oasis. Standout tracks: The Hindu Times,
Songbird and Better Man. Both Songbird and Better Man are Liam compositions
and are a world away from ‘Little James’. Oasis have always been about
pub anthems and this beauty has got at least 4. Even the NME agree.
Oasis not your thang? Like your rock tinged with a hint of tap-esque
irony? Then Jack Black’s Tenacious
D should go down a treat. The funniest video ever made is currently
doing the rounds on MTV2.
Ministry
of Sound have pulled off another shocking coup by getting poster-girl
Kate into the Big Brother house The model – who appears on the poster
ads for the our new Clubber’s Guide To Ibiza 2002 album, did the photo
session just twelve days before she entered the Big Brother house.
Whilst we’re on the theme of Big
Brother – can we please lose Adelle and Jade? The next three week’s
evictees in order: Jade, Tim, Adelle. You heard it here first.
[Posted by Guy at 00:00]
01.07.02
Wahaay! Guyweb.co.uk Mk
2 is officially live. This is the home of Guy
Carberry and Helen Ratcliffe. I’ve
totally redesigned the site to make it a bit more easy on the eye
and quick to download.
The site is for Helen and I and our mates to keep in touch and for
self-indulgent ramblings on the order of the day. If you don’t know
us but like the site anyway, hey – that’s fine by us. Starting these
things off is always weird ‘cos you don’t really know what to say.
So I’m gonna go now.
Cheers to Hostzone and Domain
Domain for giving the site a new home. A big shout also goes out
to Atomz for providing us with
a topnotchsearch facility that really works!
Design note: gone are the pointless frames, the orange colour
scheme, the deprecated font tags and in comes this shiny new XHTML
& CSS based site. Most people who’ll visit this site will have
absolutely no idea what CSS and XHTML is. Those who do will appreciate
the need to use it. In a world where the desktop PC will soon be the
last place you browse the web it’s important to write web sites with web standards in mind. Being
a web designer for The Open University,
I thought It would make sense to practice what I preach using my personal
site. But before I get criticized for still using tables rather than CSS for positioning let me make
it clear that when I’ve got some serious time to dedicate to this
site I’ll sort everything out under the bonnet! For the time being
it’s fairly functional but not every page will validate. I’ll be keeping
a design note page running soon for all you web designer types to
keep up with my progress – thus saving everybody else from reading
meaningless, irrelevant gobbledygook on the home
page.
[Posted by Guy at 00:00]
30.06.02
It’s the last day of June. This site officially
launches tomorrow. Brazil won the world cup today 2-0 against
Germany. Although they beat us in the quarter’s, we just had to support
Brazil against the krauts didn’t we? It’s a muggy Sunday afternoon
with the first drop of rain is falling from the sky. Spare a thought
for the Deans who is roughing it up at the annual Glastonbury festival. Helen and I are off for a short break to Sandown on the
Isle of Wight next week – glamorous I know! Doing a sun-dance now.
The new Oasis album is released
tomorrow. I’ll reserve all judgment until I’ve heard the album. So
far: First single = excellent, second single = cack. So 50% good so
far.
Still enjoying the new Oceania club in Xscape in Milton Keynes.
[Posted by Guy at 18:10]
27.06.02
I’ve now written my own Message
Board script using my limited knowledge of ASP. I’ve copied the
few messages that were on the old board (there wern’t many) and all
seems to be working OK. I’ll probably have a bit of a play with it
over the next few days to make sure it does what it’s supposed to.
So guys, what do you think of the pics?
[Posted by Guy at 11:42]
26.06.02
Oh yeah, the Gran Canaria photos are here. Mike, David, Sarah, Jamie, Deans, Helen #2, Wendy, Emma
take note!
I’ve compiled a list of useful links for web
designers. Anybody else will find this stuff particularly dull.
Another great reason for creating my own message board: the existing
one has been down for the majority of this afternoon. Please persevere.
[Posted by Guy at 17:30]
The site is not yet officially live.
I’ve got a message
board! Please leave me a message!
The message board has been provided by the old faithful ALXNET.
Unfortunately, what started off as a free web tools site, is now becoming
and increasingly commercial outfit. Thankfully they still refrain
from splashing banners all over their boards. I’ll be developing my
own message board script soon which will be much better.
Web designers will notice the XHML reference at the bottom of this
page. The aim is to completely retool this site using W3C recommendations. As I’ve put this site up fairly quickly and it’s
a personal site – I’ve not had a great deal of time to validate it
properly yet. When this site has been through it’s paces I’ll make
sure it links to the certificate. The tables will bugger off eventually
too.
I’m having trouble with Blogger.
For some reason I’m unable to use their FTP service. I just can’t
get the files up. So, for now, I’m not using the service. I’m investigating
a few other options including Radio Userland and the one that Web
Standards.org use. Watch this space.
[Posted by Guy at 09:04]
23.06.02
Thanks to some splendid chaps at Domain
Domain (our new host), GuyWeb will be back online as of July 1st.
We’ve been off-line for three months since Freenetname did the dirty on us and tried to charge us nearly one hundred squid
for reregistering the name.
Still, not to worry. We needed a change. Now we’re getting unlimited
amounts of webspace, full PHP, CGI, ASP whatnot support for a mere
£80(+vat) a year. Now, you can’t do better than that.
The new-look, retooled GuyWeb will be split into my bit and a little
site for Helen too. My bit will contain loads of stuff on my two main
interests: web sites and popular culture. Helen’s will no doubt have
some HR stuff in it. both
bits will be powered by Blogger so that we can update often with useless, inane chatter. Please join
us.
While you’re waiting, why not download a standards compliant browser: Mozilla 1.0, Netscape
7, Internet Explorer 6 (PC), Internet Explorer 5.2 (Mac) . Not sure why you need one? Check out Web
Standards.org.
Tags: Life