Well, I've finally got around to moving this blog to PyBlosxom. I've written my own plugin to generate the archives at the top of the page; I'm also now running on Nginx as a web server, which talks to Python Paste via FastCGI. So the blog is now dynamically generated. The next thing is to try and integrate the Disqus comments plugin.

The other thing I need to do is move the rest of my personal site(s) to this server.

I have lots of things I'd like to blog about; it's great to finally have this sorted out.

And yes, it's been another very busy year. Since my last post my third child was born (Hi Theo!), my oldest has started school (Hi Bethany!) and we've moved half-way around the world for a while... so stay tuned for more news (OK, maybe "news" is the wrong word).

OK, in an attempt to keep this weblog better updated, I'm just going to list a few things that have been happening lately.

• The Flex/ActionScript 3 development has been going well. The GUI framework is nice, the static typing isn't too painful, and basing everything on Cairngorm was an excellent idea.
• I have been working with Simon Owen to explore the Prophet 2000 3.5" disk format (well, so far he's provided all the tools, knowledge & advice, and I've operated the sampler). Stay tuned for a web page with details and an actual disk utility program.
• I have ordered a 1GB RAM kit as an upgrade for Chris's Pismo PowerBook. It's PC100 rather than PC133, but it's pretty cheap. And the Pismo is a nice little machine (for downloading episodes of House via Acquisition).
• If I had more time, I'd read these free books on meta-modelling & language-oriented programming from Ceteva. But I don't.
• I've acquired an old Roland GM-70 guitar-to-MIDI converter to go with my GK-2a pickup. I'll need to build an interface to go between them, which will mean cutting the 24-pin cable (c.f. here and here).
• I have all the bits for Johnny Chung Lee's Wii Remote-based head tracker; I just need to assemble them all.
• I'm trying to snag a NOVINT Falcon 3DOF haptic controller of eBay for cheap. Apparently they're going the same way as the P5 glove...
• The PCBs and components have arrived for my Dan Armstring Orange Squeezer clone, so I need to populate it so I can try and fit it in the body of my Strat. Then it's on to the copper shielding, the Bartolini puckups, the Wilkinson tremelo, the OTT pickup switching, the Rothstein passive filter block, the GK-2a integration, the Earvana compensated nut, the re-fret & de-laquering of the neck...

Anyway, back to work now. Time for another coffee. (Arse, my MPEG video works in VLC and Windows Media Player but not QuickTime.)

Oh wow, there's this cool site called YouTube. I've put up the version with sound and no caption.

I've been thinking about Blosxom (that I use for this blog):

• Do I upgrade? I'm hoping to overhaul my server(s) first...
• Do I install some more plugins? Something to handle <img> tags automagically would be nice.
• Do I write my own version in Lisp (c.f. Lisp-Blosxom)?
• Ideally I'd like some integration with Trac and del.icio.us. But I don't really want to learn any more Perl...

I have a lot of projects to tackle this year, and I intend to blog about them on the way. So what's the minimally sufficient structure? Hmmm...

$ svnadmin create --fs-type bdb newrepos
$ cd newrepos/db
$ rm *s __db.* log.*
$ cd ../..
$ cd oldrepos/db
$ for dbf in *s ; do db4.1_dump $dbf | db4.2_load -h ../../newrepos/db $dbf ; done 
$ cd ../..
$ svnadmin verify newrepos
$ svnadmin create --fs-type fsfs fsfsrepos
$ svnadmin dump newrepos | svnadmin load fsfsrepos

1. An author bio
2. An author photo
3. More descriptive posting titles
4. More predictive information in or around my links
5. More links to older postings and "classic hits" (which might mean checking the logs to se whether anyone actually reads this blog)
6. A navigable list of my categories
7. A regular posting schedule
8. Separate blogs for different topics
9. Writing that will appeal to a future hiring manager
10. My own domain name

I think that many of Mr. Nielsen's guidelines are worth reading. I should probably look at updating my homepage designs, also. ]]> Tue, 18 Oct 2005 08:01 GMT bits/happy-new-year http://johnp.net/blog/bits/happy-new-year.html It's good to see Chris Double posting to his blog again.

Bernadette and I are getting married in fifteen weeks time. We both hope to have lost a bit of weight by then. ;) ]]> Tue, 06 Jan 2004 07:56 GMT bits/moods http://johnp.net/blog/bits/moods.html Well, you might've thought that five weeks holiday would've been enough, but despite (or perhaps because) of that, I've needed most of the last three weeks as well before I've felt sufficiently "reinvigorated" to want to do much work.

However, I'm now feeling much better. Not that I was feeling really down, but I was having some difficulty feeling positive about things for a while there. And then plink, suddenly I'm rearing to go...

I did resolve not to feel guilty about it, which helped. Plus I'm getting into the meditation a bit more, and I'm hoping that will help me cultivate my equanimity in future.

'You think I'm experiencing a mood swing, Slick?'

'Yeah.'

'I'm enjoying a mood swing.'

Shit, have I really been working for myself for almost four years? Fortunately I now find it fairly easy not to freak myself out about this fact, but I admit I dread having to describe to anyone exactly what I've been doing all this time.

But still, I am (fairly) happy with where I am now and how I'm doing. Obviously I would like to be further forward than I am, but then I was even more willfully naïve about the problems I had to tackle when I started than I thought at the time.

So I'm still short on the "actual working software" front, but I'm pleased with my design, I've learnt a lot, I'm working better now than I ever have, and in the meantime the IT world is slowly moving towards the point where something like the Ngake VR IDE application in all its glory could actually have something like a receptive market waiting for it. So there.

Which isn't to say that a bit of a break working with some other talented, motivated people on some suitably interesting project for a decent lump of cash wouldn't be worth a go for a while. Stay tuned... ]]> Fri, 14 Nov 2003 01:56 GMT bits/blog-tidied http://johnp.net/blog/bits/blog-tidied.html I've tidied up this blog, mainly as a procrastination exercise. Note the "archives" at the top, and the use of CSS to make it look exactly like it did before. A pleasant distraction, until I had to break out my mouldy Camel book, which was a sign that it was time to get back to some real work. After lunch...

I also found some groovy PDF quick reference cards here: CSS1, bash, vim etc. ]]> Thu, 11 Sep 2003 00:35 GMT bits/at-last-the-day-has-come http://johnp.net/blog/bits/at-last-the-day-has-come.html I've finally released all the programs (and even some documentation!) to South Park, so that they can start their acceptance testing in earnest. Huzzah!

Now I'm free to do, ooh, all sorts of stuff:

• Try to figure out why the monolithic FreeBSD kernel I cunningly installed on the hard disk in the Libretto won't boot.
• Get our new old network hub off my desk and onto the wall with the others.
• Decide which combination of FreeBSD, Debian, Gentoo etc. I want to run on which machines, and actually install/upgrade stuff to suit. Then we'll at least be able to tunnel GRE-type protocols, which would be useful.
• And of course get as much Ngake code written as I can before we go overseas next month...

At least I've got rid of the millstone that was the old ThinkPad 760 I foolishly bought; I hope David actually gets some useful benefit from it while he's overseas... ]]> Thu, 07 Aug 2003 05:33 GMT bits/first-stored-procedure http://johnp.net/blog/bits/first-stored-procedure.html [ooh, programmer snobbery alert] ]]> Thu, 10 Apr 2003 05:35 GMT