MrCeri

Mini Feed

09 Feb 2012

At the day job: new blog post: PubliSite User Roles (www.lineindustries.com/PubliSiteUserRoles)

08 Feb 2012

It’s all Dickens, Dickens, Dickens this week! So a timely moment to mention that, at the day job, I worked on this: www.whatthedickens.org

07 Feb 2012

Two months later, and my initial CrashPlan backup has just finished uploading (all 80GB of it).

31 Jan 2012

At the day job: another phase of work for our large mobile phone customer has been keeping me plenty busy…

26 Jan 2012

My kind of privacy policy: http://skipity.com/privacy

18 Jan 2012

You know I love those Rube Goldberg machines! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOMIBdM6N7Q

18 Jan 2012

Hmm, the Motorola Defy Plus vs. the Orange San Francisco II…? (the Defy+ is clearly better, but twice the price…)

12 Jan 2012

I welcome the proposals to get kids learning to program while still in school (see new reports here, here and here), but I wonder whether we have the teaching skills to carry it off? Then again, maybe this will tempt experienced programmers into teaching roles…

03 Jan 2012

If kids really are the future, how come mine get to spend another day watching Thundercats in their pyjamas while I have to go back to work?

02 Jan 2012

Not hating PHP as much as I remember. I suppose a change really is as good as a rest.

21 Dec 2011

Don’t know how to write this without sounding like an infomercial, but I notice that the PortableApps team released a big update this month, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. I’ve been using PortableApps for years now to take the pain out of using multiple desktops and laptops - and to top it off, it’s free :o)

18 Dec 2011

I recognise plenty of my own experiences in this piece from the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/12/voices-of-finance-it-consultant-developer. Leaving the financial sector may have lightened my pay cheque, but the work I’ve done since has been so much more rewarding.

13 Dec 2011

Been looking at cloud backup options for a while, and though we’re giving SpiderOak a spin in the office, at home I’ve started a trial of CrashPlan (unlimited storage and rock bottom prices are pretty compelling reasons!)

07 Dec 2011

Found out that one of our bigger PubliSite website’s has racked up a tasty 4 million visits this year! That’s visits, not hits!

06 Dec 2011

GMail SMTP servers seem to be down. Still, I suppose you get what you pay for, which in my case is diddly squat.

05 Dec 2011

At the day job: working on some updates to the Reckitt Benckiser corporate website

23 Nov 2011

Bookmarked: Kyle Bean, designer (http://www.kylebean.co.uk/portfolio/)

14 Nov 2011

Can’t say I’d heard of Bias Lighting until reading about it on Jeff Atwood’s blog. I’m pretty keen on good lighting when working at the screen for long periods (which I do every day), so I’ve just installed a lamp behind my monitor to see if it makes any difference…

03 Nov 2011

At the day job: seeing if SpiderOak can help improve our brittle server backup process…

01 Nov 2011

Big conference in London today on “cyberspace security”. Always fun to listen to hacks, pundits and especially politicians sounding uncomfortable while trying to use nerd terminology. When was the last time anyone referred to themselves as a “cyberuser”!?

22 Oct 2011

Could it be? A Guardian article on Apple that doesn’t paint Steve Jobs as the next Messiah!? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/21/tanya-gold-steve-jobs-deification-apple

17 Oct 2011

At the day job: I worked on this: http://foodindustry.asia

13 Oct 2011

Second time I’ve upgraded my iPad’s firmware, second time the process has thrown errors, corrupting the device, requiring a full restore. I don’t share this “user friendly, it just works” perception of Apple products. You can judge software quality by how well it copes when things *don’t* work - standard modal error dialogs with 4 digit error codes are not exactly user friendly…

06 Oct 2011

It’s been a while since I’ve done any mobile programming (my last experience was writing a football manager game for Windows Mobile 6). I’ve been thinking of dipping my toe back in the pool, and these two articles proved interesting (if lacking brevity):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/sep/16/ios-android-windows8-programming-choose

http://nfarina.com/post/8239634061/ios-to-android

30 Sep 2011

At the day job: having fun adding a new Event Calendar API to our PubliSite CMS (implemented as JSON payloads over HTTP). Once this is done we can finally release v.4.17!

28 Sep 2011

We currently have vacancies for a Digital Project Manager, Junior Front-End Web Developer, plus web development internships. More details at www.lineindustries.com

23 Sep 2011

I wonder what happens when a link to one of your websites gets tweeted by Stephen Fry (with his 3 million followers)? I believe we’re about to find out…

21 Sep 2011

Looking for a job? We’re looking for a Digital Project Manager: http://www.lineindustries.com/Job-Vacancy-Digital-Project-Manager

17 Sep 2011

So UK kids are to start learning programming in school - hang on, you mean they don’t already!?! Presumably too busy learning important skills like metalwork and how to play rounders… (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/16/uk_school_it_curriculum_trials_teaching_students_to_code/)

15 Sep 2011

I’ve written previously of my idea to build a sports prediction simulator - it looks like all I need to do is dust off my old copy of John Madden’s! http://www.wired.com/playbook/2010/09/ea-madden-2010-sim

09 Sep 2011

Good luck to Reckitt Benckiser and The Workroom in the upcoming Digital Impact Awards and B2B Marketing Awards. I’m proud to say that I (and my team at Line Industries) built the CMS that powers the www.rb.com site.

07 Sep 2011

Apparently Apple will be using Microsoft Azure (and Amazon AWS) to run their new iCloud service: www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/02/icloud_runs_on_microsoft_azure_and_amazon/. The heads of a thousand fanbois (on either side) are imploding as we speak…

31 Aug 2011

New Blog Post: Mini feed hypocrisy or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the micro-blog  http://www.mrceri.co.uk/blog/?p=1143

26 Aug 2011

Just created a Zerply profile: zerp.ly/ceriwilliams (not entirely sure why, but apparently it’s all the rage)

20 Aug 2011

If you love Rube Goldberg machines as much as I do (and you really should), then you’ll love this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKpxd8hzOcQ&feature=player_embedded

18 Aug 2011

iPad semi-bricking itself during a routine software update - not cool! iPad restoring apps and data successfully from backup, even down to the open browser tabs - faith restored :o)

15 Aug 2011

Finally upgraded our trusty Humax PVR-8000T to a PVR-9300T. The 8000T served us well for over 7 years, definitely one of my best tech purchases. I only hope the 9300T can fill it’s little brother’s big boots.

11 Aug 2011

Ah, good old British Summer weather - it’s nature’s water cannon! Who wants to go looting/rioting in wet daps and a soggy Cagoule?

02 Aug 2011

I worked on this: http://ipledge.rb.com

25 Jul 2011

Left a comment here: What’s New in Remembary 1.4

19 Jul 2011

I didn’t work directly on this, but the Royal Academy ‘Eyewitness’ photography competition website is one of my favourite examples of a site running on the PubliSite CMS (my baby).

15 Jul 2011

At the day job: started working on phase 2 of our project for a large mobile phone company that wishes to remain anonymous…

10 Jul 2011

Just arrived at the world of Google+. It’s pretty quiet at the moment…

05 Jul 2011

At the day job: updating our internal task management app to allow clients to submit tasks directly - eek!

03 Jul 2011

Thanks to my ancestors for fighting bravely, but ultimately losing the American War of Independence, so that me and my fellow British iPad owners might enjoy cheap iPad apps in the 4th July App Store sales.

30 Jun 2011

So the US army spends over $20 BILLION a year on air conditioning!? - Stay Frosty (man I hope I’m first with that joke, poor though it is)

27 Jun 2011

The Stack Overflow Dev Days conference sounds like a fun mish mash of technology goodness. Not sure I could justify the entry fee though. Makes me appreciate just how much of this sort of thing Microsoft puts on for free…

24 Jun 2011

Wrote a new blog post on the Line Industries website: Re-thinking browser support

22 Jun 2011

These photo-realistic paintings are amazing: http://nathanwalsh.net

17 Jun 2011

My lovely new Mattias Adolfsson book arrived today: The First In Line

14 Jun 2011

Finally gave in to my Apple cravings and bought myself an iPad (albeit a refurbished iPad1)

10 Jun 2011

Realised today that I’ve had the same mobile phone number since 1998! And the same email address almost as long. Though in the same space of time I’ve lived at 10 different postal addresses… (I may as well just move into cyberspace and be done with it. On another note, who the hell says “cyberspace” !?!)

07 Jun 2011

This week, I am mostly drooling over the Asus EeePad Transformer TF101.

01 Jun 2011

Incredible drawing: Solitude - A Work In Progress. Makes me want to sharpen my pencils :o)

26 May 2011

Had a chance to try out the Advent Vega and Archos 101 Android tablets recently. Didn’t enjoy the Vega experience at all, but the 101 is tempting (despite an inferior screen that screams “you get what you pay for”, and “I am not an iPad!”)

23 May 2011

At the day job: just finished working on a project for a major mobile phone company (who I’m not allowed to mention - it’s like having my own mini super-injunction!)

20 May 2011

Left a comment here: Battle of the portables: Netbook vs Apple iPad 2.