all things me

Today I’ve been doing the layout for a portfolio I’m doing. It’s for a computer studies’ course “Digital Media Technology” (emphasis on webpage techniques). I know that making a layout will take me a lot of time because I always tweak and tweak to no end. Changing colours, fonts, widths, placings. Next I’m going to start worrying about the technique part; I have access to a database and I’m using PHP to do all kinds of cool things Here’s a little tasting of the layout I’m whipping up:

Oooh, pretty! What do you think? Oh yeah, I’m making a blog There were several topics available, but I felt most passionate about a blog. Go figure.

It’s going to be really interesting to get to dig into the stuff that makes things work. I know WP, I can use it, do a little tweaking, but the database part is complete blur. Today I learnt how to set up a database connection and do statements. Unfortunately the db at the dept. of computer studies is using Oracle — I’m more familiar with MySQL — but luckily I was just on a introduction to databases course where we learnt the Oracle syntax. And luckily, they aren’t disturbingly different.

*go backs to staring at the layout in awe*
Sometimes I amaze myself. Sometimes.

While I was escorting two foreign students to someone at the office who can help them, some guy pointed at me and said “you!” in a rough voice. I thought he thought he knew me, but I didn’t know him, so I said “huh?”. When I was walking away, he said — mockingly — “huh?”.

Maybe I should’ve said “oh bugger off”.

It’s late, I have to make work hours, I’m tired and hungry and I can’t deal with idiots right now!!

A A A A A A R R R R G G G H H H ! ! ! !

Finally… FINALLY Protege ontology builder has the ability to create sibling classes. It’s a new feature in the newish stable release, 3.0. For a year almost, after the ontology has grown to such proportions that the subclasses of some classes don’t fit in the window (not even on 1280×1024) , it’s been such a pain in the neck to scroll up and down everytime I want to make a new class.

Until now.

How can something so little (the icon) be so powerful and wonderful, and save several moments of argh-ness?

Now my upgrade to WP1.5 “Strayhorn” is pretty much complete. Everything looks more or less the same, right? It was quite an ordeal, but not because of WP. The server decided to start acting up right when I was going to upgrade the database (corruption hazard, I’d guess) and then I had to go to the sauna and then watch 24. But, after wondering why my menu’s links aren’t clickable (an extra closing div), why the cool comment thing I did wouldn’t show up (there was a is_single inside the comment call function), checking that the site really works well table-less (I’m so proud of myself!), and activating Spam Karma and trackback moderating, I can try to relax for the night.

There are still things to do: I had “home-made” static pages which I have to change to pages and some plugins to activate. I also have to dig into the world of page templates and make the most of it because now my code is full of <?php if (is_whatever()) { ?> statements — very messy.
Of course I have to update Ami’s page, but it’s an earlier version of 1.5 so there’s not much to do.

It’s going to take some time to learn where everything is. Write and Manage are different things and I have to remember to modify the right file because of the theme system (great feature). I am going to hack that Dashboard away because it takes quite a while to load all the stuff it loads (feeds from several dev sites, I assume, plus the dev blog at WP home)

I love the is_ functions that are now properly a feature.

I gotta get to bed now.

[edit: 16th, 2005] I had to edit the login page because the font in the fields was GIGANTIC. Geez. I ain’t blind. [/edit]

Ick ick ick. I don’t like the default theme, but I have to go to the sauna now and I’ll continue upgrade after that. I have my theme ready and everything.

Anyway, finally the server works and I was able to upgrade and SEE that it works. *dances around*

OK, now. Theme’s up but that’s all. I’ll be adding some plugins and things as soon as 24 ends

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!
In Finland it’s a day for friendships which is much fairer because we don’t all have valentines (or maybe you all do, but I don’t) but people usually have friends…

Don’t know if any of you ever glance at the Recently updated posts, but if you glance at it now you can see I’ve been updating my old old posts. Yes, I admit it. I’ve been checking my posts for typos. I’m a little odd like that. But boy did I find some silly blurts.

I’m also pondering whether or not to publish a post about the secret of mine that is now done, finished, over (I guess) on my part. ‘On my part’ being the operative phrase. Aren’t I annoying?

This, well… yesterday, morning I was feeling very sick. Very. I don’t really know why, but the world was spinning around me and I could hardly stand straight, let alone walk. I just hope it’s not yet another bug because I’ve missed enough lectures as it is (= one). Luckily, it settled down after a few hours and the rest of the day I’ve been feeling fine — if a little queasy. I wonder what that was all about.

I’ve been trying to make people use Mozilla instead of Internet Explorer. I’ve succeeded a couple of times, but there is one big hurdle in my way.

People who aren’t comfortable with English, will have difficulties using Mozilla — especially if computers are ominous machines to them to begin with. Mozilla’s Finnish translation is, I hear, lacking (I’m sure the bigger languages have more people sharing the burden of localisation). And the small glimpse I got showed one of the most disgusting mistakes there is. The Finnish localisation project is probably run by computer guys whose grasp of grammar is infamously bad (oh, the shivers I get on every single computer studies’ lecture).

My sister claims Mozilla is noticeably slower than IE on her machine (*cough*as if*cough* she has twice as much Ghz than I do). Maybe she says that just to spite me. Sure pages load slower on the first view in Mozilla because she has all the files in the IE cache!

I would install Mozilla on my grandparents machine but Grandpa doesn’t know any English. I’m having high hopes that Dad will come around.

I’ve thought about offering my help to the project, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t have the time.

… which is why I also bought Dreamcatcher today. It’s always dangerous to go through the DVD section in sales season (I took a biiiig de-tour to the horror section though so it’s all my fault).

Yesterday we finally got ADSL connection. I forgot it at one point and wondered how the sites load so quickly It’s nice, we’ve had 56 kb dial-up (it might’ve been 28 at the beginning) since 1997, and it was annoying not being able to download programs properly (for example my Java environment is really old because the file sizes are whopping). GetRight which is able to pause and resume downloads only works on IE so I don’t use it…

Anyway, downloads are a rarity, but it’s wonderful to have pages load really snap.

I’m reading Dan Brown‘s “Angels and Demons” at the moment. It’s soooo good! Very addictive! When I get off the bus I feel like walking my nose in the book all the time. Before lectures I read until the teacher starts talking and as soon as they say “let’s take a break” I dig the book up from my backpack.
and I have already bought Digital Fortress and Deception Point. I wish it was this easy to get all the Kings in my bookshelf. Then again, it’s better that there are loads of Kings even though it takes time to acquire them.

(The computer guy that came here to set up the ADSL was really cute Like a Gary Barlow in his early years.)

I don’t understand people who write their URL in the WP forum profile without the http:// so when the link is created around the person’s name, their site URL gets attached to the forum address making urls like “http://wordpress.org/support/www.mycoolnewsite.com”.

Hi, my name is Minna and I’m an alone-in-front-of-tv-laugher. My sister can’t understand it. When she’s at the computer and hears me laughing, alone in my room, she thinks — or is convinced — I’ve gone bonkers.

I, however, don’t see any difference between social and solitary tv laughing. The programme is no less funny (or more so) when watched alone. Thus, I shouldn’t feel the need to stifle my bursts of laughter just because I happen to be alone.

My preferred SIFOTL programmes are Coupling and Scrubs. They’re hilarious.