Don't say: "Are you planning to stay all night?"

Post length: 1,187 words, about 5 and a half minutes.

A couple of weeks ago Paul, a work acquaintance of Dana and I, got married.  While they married in a small ceremony in Spain, they had a reception back here for around 200 people at a posh hotel.  I was invited, as was Phil, Dana and Tim.

We were told about it quite a long time ago, and Dana had spoken to Tim about him going.  He’d not been very keen on the idea and had initially tried to convince Dana that she shouldn’t go, simply because he didn’t want to.  Thankfully she stood her ground and said she was going, and that it was up to him if he wanted to.  He agreed to come along after he’d finished work and made his way back from Birmingham.  She offered for him to give both me and Phil a lift back after the reception. [read more]

Posted on Saturday 1st August, 2009 at 1:38 am in Home, People.
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Syndicate Out 0.3.1

Post length: 81 words, about 0 and a half minutes.

I have just released version 0.3.1 of the Syndicate Out WordPress plugin.

This minor revision fixes a bug encountered when editing the source blog entry — no longer will the same (effecivly a duplicate, albeit with the edits) entry be posted on the remote blog.  As this is a bugfix release it’s only got a minor revision number change, although I strongly advise all users to upgrade to this version as it’ll save you a whole load of headaches in the future!

Posted on Thursday 30th July, 2009 at 12:12 pm in Syndicate Out.
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Syndicate Out 0.3 released

Post length: 81 words, about 0 and a half minutes.

Hot on the heels of the first public release of Syndicate Out (0.2), version 0.3 is now available for download.

This release deals with a bug including the IXR library file, as well as adding keyword handling — they are now passed on to the remote server (as you’d kind of expect, really!).  I’ve also added a step to the install instructions relating to switching on XML-RPC posting on the remote blog.

You can download the latest release from the WordPress Plugin Directory.

Posted on Tuesday 21st July, 2009 at 11:21 am in Syndicate Out.
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First public release of Syndicate Out

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The first public release — version 0.2 — of Syndicate Out has been made available.  It is downloadable from the WordPress.org plugin directory.

I’d love to hear feedback and suggestions either here or over on the project page.

Posted on Monday 20th July, 2009 at 12:45 pm in Syndicate Out.
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Introducing Syndicate Out

Post length: 160 words, about 0 and a half minutes.

Here at Fubra we run a number of blogs — some personal, some corporate, some based on a specific site — the majority of which we’re in the process of migrating over to blogs.fubra.com.  In addition to this quite a few of our staff members maintain their own external blogs.  It’s fair to say that Fubra loves blogs.

With all this going on it can sometimes become a bit of a nightmare keeping tabs on what’s been posted where, not to mention managing posts which could quite legitimatly be posted across a number of our blogs.  To help us ease this process we’ve deloped a simple WordPress plug in  which syndicates the contents of our individual blogs into whatever other blog we want using WordPress’ built in XMLRPC functionality.  This plugin is called ‘Syndicate Out’.

The plugin will soon be available to download via the WordPress Plugin Directory, and I’ll keep this blog updated with the latest developments.

Posted on Friday 17th July, 2009 at 1:06 pm in Syndicate Out.
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A-Level Politics: How can Politics be Defined?

Post length: 819 words, about 3 and a half minutes.

The following essay was written as part of my AS-Level politics course at Halifax New College (which I’m concerned doesn’t exist any more — I can’t find mention of it on the Calderdale College website any more!).  It dates back to October 2002 and discusses how Politics can be defined.  It’s released here under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.

How can politics be defined?

Politics has not one meaning, but rather a number of different ones depending on how different perspectives analyse it, however, all different descriptions agree – politics is a social animal, one born out of the interactions between different indeviduals and groups, and how decitions are made.   Politics can be seen to be one of two categorys: conflict resolution or control of power.  The former being that politics is a process of removing conflict to produce harmony, and the latter being the ability to control and direct authority. [read more]

Posted on Wednesday 8th July, 2009 at 10:09 pm in School Work.
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The daily photo plan: update

Post length: 85 words, about 0 and a half minutes.

I feel bad.  This month I’ve let myself down.  There was a run of 4 days and have been quite a few separate days when I didn’t get a picture for my daily photo gallery, and at least one where I took a picture on a different day to the day I filed it under (although in this case the image was related to the day I labelled it as…).  I must try harder.

Catch up with the gallery here: http://www.flutt.co.uk/daily-photo/

Posted on at 9:02 pm in Blogging, Obiter dicta.
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BBC News' Devoted Jackson fans…

Post length: 275 words, just over 1 minute.

I spent a little time this evening watching the BBC News channel’s coverage of the death of Michael Jackson.  As part of it they went over to Lizo Mzimba, their showbiz correspondent, who is currently at the Glastonbury Festival (I feel a little sorry for him, he’ll be up all night covering this and then have to do Glastonbury in the morning!).  He spoke to a few people about it. The first was the keyboard player of one of the bands playing this year, and another two who he introduced as “music fans at the Glastonbury Festival” who were hoping to see Michael in London in the next few months.  He asked these two how they heared about the news.  First of all they said they heared through their mobiles, Facebook, and general word of mouth. And then one of them said “we caught on to it first over at the press tent”. [read more]

Posted on Friday 26th June, 2009 at 12:57 am in Obiter dicta.
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GCSE Media Studies: The Internet

Post length: 1,335 words, almost 6 minutes.

This essay was written for my GCSE Media Studies couse in April 2001, and covers the much debated question of the direction of the internet (or, more correctly, world wide web).  It’s released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.

Rather than fulfilling its expectations as a place for education and communication, the Internet has become one big advertising channel.

The media hailed the birth of the Internet as a revolution in the way information and education was distributed and shared. A feeling that the Internet was nothing more than a big advertising, moneymaking, opportunity for big business soon superseded this initial reaction. [read more]

Posted on Sunday 21st June, 2009 at 11:09 pm in School Work.
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GCSE English: An Inspector Calls

Post length: 2,119 words, about 9 and a half minutes.

The following essay was written for my GCSE English course in June 2000 and relates to the J.B. Priestley play “An Inspector Calls”. If you’re studying the book then a great copy to have is the Penguin Modern Classic version An Inspector Calls and Other Plays.

Who or what is Inspector Goole, and what is his role in the play?

The character of Inspector Goole can be explained in many ways.  It is thought, that he could be a ghost, an angel (sent from God to deliver the truth), a psychic (able to see the future), or simply just a socialist “Crank” – this is what, in fact, the characters in the play believe towards the end, as Mr. Birling says, “That fellow obviously didn’t like us.  He was prejudiced against us from the start.  Probably a socialist or some sort of crank – he talked like one.[read more]

Posted on Wednesday 17th June, 2009 at 11:47 pm in School Work.
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