The only time televised politics ever seemed truly entertaining was of course during episodes of The West Wing. I found out today that the best show on television over the past 5 years has reached its end. Its sad, but somewhat expected.
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Interest - January 23rd, 2006
The Masters Snooker final was a cracker. After over 7 hours play and 19 frames only 4 points separated John Higgins and Ronnie O’Sullivan. It was a fitting end to a great tournament and the best way to say goodbye to the Wembley Conference centre which is set to be demolished next year to make way for new apartments.
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Interest - January 20th, 2006
The story lines over at CAD are getting a tad droopy. The current one is a good example. There seems to be a huge lack of FUN and when the jokes DO come they are very poor (Take elephants as an example).
Its fine having the long story lines, but waiting 3/4 days for the next comic in a 10-part epic is very hard work for the reader. Maybe working on both the comic AND animated series has stretched Tim a little too thin, I hope he can find his focus again.
Thankfully the boys over at PA are still producing classics like this..
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Design - January 20th, 2006
I have been working on the re-design for this site for a few weeks now. The first step was to update the logo:
The logo on the right is my old logo. Its rather bland with squared edges but I always did like the pink colour. Now believe me when I say I tried my best NOT to follow the “rounded corners gang” but there is something very appealing about them. For a long while I wanted to keep the old square logo and slot it into the new design somehow. But the lure of rounded edges and a glossy sheen got to me.
This reminded my of an article I found a while ago on Digg. “Why Do We Love Rounded Corners?” tries to explain why designers have turned to rounded edges more and more in recent years.
It has some interesting points but the main idea centres around the fact that human beings draw an affinity with anything that’s “organic” or “soft” in nature. Therefore using rounded edges in web design will ultimately make a user feel at ease and relaxed.
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Interest - January 17th, 2006
At the top of the page it says “Welcome to the In-development version of my site.” I feel I should explain this after a late night of development.
This website wont just be a blog, the intention is to offer information on any services I can offer businesses and individuals who are stepping into the web arena with very little experience.
Over the years I have heard 100s of stories from people whose first endeavour into the web ended up costing thousands of pounds with little return other than a humbling dose of experience. My hope is to educate people who, for whatever reason, feel the need to have a website.
The underlying narrative of this advice will be that websites needn’t cost the earth. Most businesses and individuals who jump into setting up a website do it for the wrong reasons. The first question I ask anyone who comes to me enquiring about setting up a website is “Do you NEED one” the second question is “Do you REALLY NEED one”. Generally, they don’t.
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TV - January 16th, 2006
This years Masters snooker tournament started this week, sadly with some horrendous games from Stuart Bingham, Steve Davis, Ian McCulloch and Joe Perry. The “Masters” moniker should never be linked with games of such a low quality. Rumour has it a nasty cold virus is the culprit.
Mark Williams and Paul Hunter weren’t much better, but Hunter has a genuine reason for his lack of recent form so lets leave it at that.
I attended last years final where Ronnie O’Sullivan played an in-form John Higgins into submission. It was a wonder to watch and the first time I have ever attended a live snooker event.
Wembley however is a truly shocking place to visit. Maybe when the new stadium is finished it will have some draw.
The full BBC TV schedule can be found here. The whole tournament is also available to watch online so if you have a decent broadband connection and are in the UK view the schedule here.
Flickr won the photo album war as soon as I worked out how to use the FAlbum WordPress plug in. It has just been updated to work with WordPress 2 (which this site runs on) so get the update here.
I managed to get it working with my Flickr account here take a look, you can see how easily it integrates with WordPress. I failed to find anything as impressive for Zoto or Gallery.
Still haven’t upgraded to a Flickr pro account yet, I feel I should get all my photos in order before I actually pay anything. If anyone out there wants to give me a new year gift and upgrade me to pro you can find me here 
Both flickr and zoto great online photo tools. However flickr has the edge when it comes to Wordpress integration.Using the FAlbum plug in simple photo albums can be imported to Wordpress: My Photos. And the WP flickr Post Bar makes inserting photos from your flickr set simple:
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Interest - January 10th, 2006
Patch made it onto the The Rainbow Bridge List at petloss.com
He can be found under P listed as:
Patch Jack Russell 15 years 01/04/06 Michael Kimb Jones
