https://vurt.co.uk/post/ Recent content in Posts on vurt Hugo -- gohugo.io en-gb Giles Paterson Wed, 02 Jan 2019 09:08:04 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/making_time_to_experiment/ Wed, 02 Jan 2019 09:08:04 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/making_time_to_experiment/ Innovation is important for every business; as a way to create new products or services, improve what you already offer in interesting ways or to rethink the way you do things. But how exactly do you achieve that? Where do ideas come from? How do you test and validate them? And how much is it going to cost to do so? We’re used to helping our customers produce novel and innovative solutions to their problems, but it’s easy to forget to make time to innovate ourselves, particularly when it comes to new areas of technology. https://vurt.co.uk/post/nima_delicatessen/ Thu, 24 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0100 https://vurt.co.uk/post/nima_delicatessen/ £20 to spend at B13 8DD? Yes, it's another shopping "challenge". This time though, I had no idea what the shop was. One Thursday, after a morning session of Music Shakers in King's Heath, we took a stroll over to Moseley so that I could find out what was at B13 8DD. Nima Delicatessen What I found when we arrived there was an amazing looking shop called Nima Delicatessen. https://vurt.co.uk/post/kicking_the_project_off_with_style/ Sun, 30 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0100 https://vurt.co.uk/post/kicking_the_project_off_with_style/ Last weekend I got the 40 Project off to a nice start by completing the most straight-forward (and traditionally present-like) of the cards: "£50 to spend at Superdry". Why Superdry? Well they happen to make shirts that fit my tall, skinny frame plus they're decent quality. And most importantly of all, I like them. Judge me; I don't care! We popped into our local store while we were in town and I ended up looking like this: https://vurt.co.uk/post/40feet/ Sat, 22 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0100 https://vurt.co.uk/post/40feet/ One of the challenges set for me as part of my 40 Project was to take pictures of 40 pairs of feet. Take Photos of 40 pairs of feet (with or without shoes) Now I could probably have gone out and found friends, family or colleagues to take part in this project but it seemed like a fairly arbitrary reason and I wasn't sure if the resulting collection would have a cohesive theme. https://vurt.co.uk/post/the_forty_project/ Sat, 15 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0100 https://vurt.co.uk/post/the_forty_project/ The Forty Project I recently turned 40… And my partner gave me a rather interesting gift: An array of coloured labels Rather than buying me something (I have enough stuff), she has thoughtfully given me a series of forty challenges and experiences to do over the course of the following year. Each card contains a clue to a gift or experience or a challenge for me to complete: A selection of challenges https://vurt.co.uk/post/dell_da200_linux_fix/ Tue, 30 May 2017 11:54:45 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/dell_da200_linux_fix/ I recently upgraded to a Dell XPS 13 for my development machine at work (Lovely hardware, with official Ubuntu support from Dell) and it’s been great. The only fly in the ointment has been the Dell DA200 mini usb-c adapter that provides ethernet, USB, VGA and HDMI connectors. Due to a bug in the firmware for the adapter, the HDMI connection doesn’t work under linux except at very low resolutions. https://vurt.co.uk/post/personal_productivity/ Wed, 08 Mar 2017 08:08:29 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/personal_productivity/ For the past couple of years I’ve been trying various organisation and productivity tools/schemes in order to be more organised in my daily life. I’ve tried: GTD Google Keep Ad-hoc todo lists org-mode agenda Trello many others While the tools and techniques were interesting, none of them really stuck with me. Part of this is because it’s hard to form a new habit but also it’s hard to know which parts of a technique you should use and which aren’t relevant to you. https://vurt.co.uk/post/per_project_environment_settings/ Tue, 07 Mar 2017 17:49:10 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/per_project_environment_settings/ I often have multiple clients' projects checked out on my machine at once, and need to be able to switch between them fairly regularly. These projects usually require various environment variables to be set up (for things like build options or deployment targets). In the past I have just stuck these in my .profile or .bashrc and left them there whether or not I was currently working on the project. Usually this is ok but it does mean that I ended up with old cruft in my environment after a project finishes. https://vurt.co.uk/post/using_webpack_to_develop_a_bookmarklet/ Thu, 16 Feb 2017 09:08:04 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/using_webpack_to_develop_a_bookmarklet/ Most websites these days are full of clutter, which often gets in the way of the content you’re trying to read. Edward Tufte knows a thing or two about information design and there’s a great project that provides CSS to apply some of those ideas to websites. A little while ago, I knocked together a bookmarklet to allow for distraction free reading of websites using the Tufte styles. There are plenty of pre-existing solutions out there but I wanted to have ago myself and see how you could apply “modern” web development tools to something as archaic as bookmarklets. https://vurt.co.uk/post/reading_the_web_distraction_free_with_edward_tufte/ Mon, 23 Jan 2017 16:13:17 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/reading_the_web_distraction_free_with_edward_tufte/ Edward Tufte knows a thing or two about information design, apparently. Most web site designers do not. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could apply some of Tufte’s experience to arbitrary websites when you’re reading them? By utilising the work of others, I’ve created a simple little bookmarklet that does just that. A few months ago, I came across a project that aims to create a style sheet for web pages that makes use of Tufte’s ideas about presentation for books and handouts. https://vurt.co.uk/post/sticking_to_resolutions/ Fri, 20 Jan 2017 14:42:04 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/sticking_to_resolutions/ Approaching the end of January, I’m willing to bet that most New Year’s resolutions have already fallen by the way side. There are countless gym memberships going unused and many journals started only to peter out around now. I’d also guess that most people won’t think too much about it until the end of the year when they’ll resolve to really try this time around… The thing is, you don’t need to wait until the end of the year to start a new habit or set yourself a new objective. https://vurt.co.uk/post/org_capture_configuration/ Wed, 21 Sep 2016 12:08:33 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/org_capture_configuration/ I’ve decided to have another go at Getting Things Done, but this time using Emacs, as that’s where I spend most of my time these days. As part of that, I wanted to configure org-protocol so that I could easily capture snippets from web pages as part of my research for projects. The basic idea is that I should be able to create a new entry in my gtd inbox (I’m using a file called refile. https://vurt.co.uk/post/a_summary_of_the_five_stage_learning_model_paper/ Fri, 19 Aug 2016 16:12:10 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/a_summary_of_the_five_stage_learning_model_paper/ I’m interested in learning about how we learn, and inspired by Adrian Colyer’s blog and QCon keynote, I decided to have a go at reading and summarising a paper. I’ve chosen “A Five-Stage Model of the Mental Activities Involved in Directed Skill Acquisition” by Stuart E. Dreyfuss and Hubert L. Dreyfuss. It was written in 1980 for the United States Air Force. Th paper proposes five stages through which a student passes when learning a new skill, and that concrete experience becomes more important that abstract principles as the student progresses. https://vurt.co.uk/post/hypnobirthing_when_plans_go_awry/ Sun, 26 Jun 2016 20:31:46 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/hypnobirthing_when_plans_go_awry/ I have recently become a father for the second time. Less than 48 hours ago, my new baby son was born, sharing his birthday with his teenage sister. I am currently filled with a mix of emotions, as I’m sure all new parents are. I’m overjoyed that my child has been born and that he’s healthy. I worry for his future given the turmoil Britain is currently in, just days after voting to leave the EU. https://vurt.co.uk/post/magit_and_yubikey/ Tue, 24 May 2016 17:25:27 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/magit_and_yubikey/ I use a Yubikey Neo to store my ssh keys on. To do this, it’s configured as a smart card, following Yubikey’s own directions. It’s great because it means I have no keys stored on my computers - it’s extracted from the yubikey each time I need it. The end result it my ssh key is physically attached to my keyring. Each time I want to use my ssh key, I have to enter a PIN to unlock the yubikey. https://vurt.co.uk/post/qconlond2016-day1/ Mon, 07 Mar 2016 21:08:04 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/qconlond2016-day1/ @willhillbet Love Failure & Embrace The Fallout WillHill are java centric enterprise but use range of languages as needed by each project Guiding principles of small apps & leaning on your platform for heavy lifting are more important. Frontend has graceful degredation to cope. R&D department looking at mitigating failure Load profile changes depending on event type Driven by calendar Cheltenham festival etc. Very spikey Capacity to deal with peak load - idle rest oftime Failure matters: Failure impacts revenue - can’t take bets but also can’t pay them out Customer retention - people quick to blame/criticise when things don’t work Rules: Keep learning Best time to understand how it works is when it’s dying If its not broken, try harder Everything is disposable, except ideas & learning. https://vurt.co.uk/post/simplifying_blogging_with_emacs_skeletons/ Fri, 29 Jan 2016 18:08:23 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/simplifying_blogging_with_emacs_skeletons/ One thing that hugo posts need is a frontmatter section that contains various metadata such as the post’s title, description, date etc. It can be in various formats but they all get a bit tedious to keep typing out again manually. Now, hugo can speed this up with archetypes (essentially post templates) but they won’t work with my org-mode setup because I use a separate location for my org based content. https://vurt.co.uk/post/blogging-with-emacs-and-hugo/ Thu, 28 Jan 2016 18:08:04 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/blogging-with-emacs-and-hugo/ I’ve recently updated my blogging setup so that I can write my posts using org-mode from within Emacs. Why? So I can get into the habit of using org-mode more frequently, and because I had a spare half hour to tinker with my emacs setup… By default Hugo expects you to write your posts with markdown and it then converts them into static html for uploading to your website. Hugo does not (currently) support org mode files natively so I needed some way to convert my org-mode content into markdown. https://vurt.co.uk/post/machine-specific-emacs-config/ Wed, 27 Jan 2016 11:43:18 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/machine-specific-emacs-config/ I’m a regular Emacs user, although I still class myself as a beginner - every day I find some new feature or function that I’d like to make use of. I’ve taken a modular approach to my emacs configuration, whereby my init.el file adds a subdirectory lisp to the load path where my actual configuration lives. Within the lisp directory there are individual files of the format init-feature.el that contain the configuration for a specific feature or group of functionality. https://vurt.co.uk/post/developing_react_native_android_apps_with_linux/ Thu, 15 Oct 2015 09:08:04 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/developing_react_native_android_apps_with_linux/ React Native is Facebook’s open source framework for building native applications on iOS and Android. It achieves this by providing a common developer experience so that a developer learns one set of tools and can apply it to both platforms. It takes the component approach used by React and applies it to the mobile app world. As part of our research and development work here at Black Pepper, we’ve been investigating how we can make use of React Native to write Android and iOS apps for our customers. https://vurt.co.uk/post/new_website/ Tue, 05 Aug 2014 10:32:25 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/new_website/ I’ve updated my website to have a new look and feel, obviously based on a bootstrap theme because I’m no designer and I’m lazy. However, the biggest change is that I’ve moved away from using Wordpress to a static site generator called Hugo. I’ve stopped using Wordpress because I was sick of constantly having to upgrade it and I was equally sick of the constant attempts at comment spam. Even though I had various anti-spam measures in place and comments had to be approved before getting posted - every day I’d get half a dozen random user accounts generated by spam-bots. https://vurt.co.uk/post/rewriting-history-with-git/ Fri, 31 May 2013 09:15:40 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/rewriting-history-with-git/ Sometimes when working with git branches, you’ll find you need to rewrite history to correct a mistake. For example you squashed your commits into one and pushed them but then realised you’d missed something from the squash and need to do it again. Now, while you can perform the git rebase -i again and make the changes locally, you won’t be able to push this back to origin as your branches have diverged. https://vurt.co.uk/post/messing-about-with-mri-data/ Fri, 18 Jan 2013 15:25:40 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/messing-about-with-mri-data/ Over the past couple of years, I’ve had 2 MRI scans of my left knee as part of ongoing treatment/diagnosis for chronic pain. When discussing my treatment with the consultant, I was intrigued by the images produced by the scanner - detailed images of the inside of my knee from several angles. And thanks to the Data Protection Act, the hospital has to provide me with the data from thescans if I ask for it. https://vurt.co.uk/post/january-frost/ Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:00:41 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/january-frost/ img_0001_04, a photo by gpaterson on Flickr. I went out for a photography walk this morning, after a heavy frost. This one turned out rather well I think, might be a candidate for my calendar project… Here are a couple of others: https://vurt.co.uk/post/bill-a-soup-recipe/ Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:34:29 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/bill-a-soup-recipe/ Here’s my recipe for delicious bill-a-soup: Ingredients: 450 g broccoli, cut into florets 175 g grated cheddar cheese 175 g potatoes, chopped 1 medium onion, chopped 750 ml chicken stock 1 tablespoon sunflower oil pinch Salt and pepper 1/2 teaspoon sugar Method: Put the stock in a pan and bring to the boil https://vurt.co.uk/post/apt-behind-a-proxy/ Mon, 07 Feb 2011 10:11:56 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/apt-behind-a-proxy/ At work, we have to run all our web traffic through an NTLM authenticated proxy, which is a bit of a pain on Linux, requiring us to make use of the cntlm proxy. We run this proxy locally on each linux machine (to prevent all traffic appearing as if it comes from one user in the logs), which is fine, but it does cause one or two issues with apt. https://vurt.co.uk/post/ubuntu-10-04-ambiance-theme-issues-with-firefox/ Fri, 21 May 2010 14:20:01 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/ubuntu-10-04-ambiance-theme-issues-with-firefox/ I came across an interesting issue concerning the default Ubuntu 10.04 Ambiance theme and read only inputs in Firefox today. Basically the foreground and background colours for disabled/read-only input fields are the same, meaning that you can’t actually read what’s in the fields. Here’s an example screen shot from an internal web app I’m currently working on for my employers: And here’s what it looks like when using the New Wave theme in Ubuntu: https://vurt.co.uk/post/ubuntu-10-04-64-bit-eclipse-3-5-native-proxy-support/ Fri, 07 May 2010 15:07:31 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/ubuntu-10-04-64-bit-eclipse-3-5-native-proxy-support/ Eclipse is a great IDE and I’ve been using it day to day for a number of years now. However when I recently got a new laptop at work and installed Ubuntu 10.04 on to it, I ran into a problem with the Proxy configuration. At work, I’m stuck behind an NTLM authenticated proxy which I can get my system talking to thanks to running cntlm locally and setting the gnome proxy settings to point to that. https://vurt.co.uk/post/ubuntu-lucid-10-04-active-directory-woes/ Tue, 04 May 2010 14:51:45 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/ubuntu-lucid-10-04-active-directory-woes/ I was looking forward to the launch of Lucid Lynx as one of the main features being touted was improved support for joining an Active Directory domain, in the form of Likewise-open. Now this isn’t something that most users will care about, but in a corporate environment, allowing users to login to Ubuntu using the same credentials as they use on their windows machines is pretty important. Previously I’d set things up manually by configuring Samba and Winbind, but that was a pain in the backside, so Likewise-open was an appealing option. https://vurt.co.uk/post/ubuntu-autofs-sambacifs-tweak/ Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:18:51 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/ubuntu-autofs-sambacifs-tweak/ For a while now I’ve been using autofs on my work laptop to automatically mount windows shares when I access them. I achieved this by following this guide on HowtoForge. Everything runs fine and it means I can do a simple ls /cifs/machinename to access all the shares on that particular machine. Provided I’d remembered to create a credentials file for that machine name… The auto.cifs file shown in the howto requires you to create a credentials file for each machine that you want to access. https://vurt.co.uk/post/the-oracle-sun-merger/ Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:38:30 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/the-oracle-sun-merger/ Well, now that the EU has approved the Sun/Oracle merger, the details of which Sun technologies will survive have started to emerge. First a little history; Oracle bought BEA, makers of Java application server Weblogic, a number of years ago. Sun, obviously, has their own opensource application server Glassfish. Oracle isn’t known for their embracing of opensource philosophies so there was a lot of worry that the Sun technologies would get dropped and merely have the good bits integrated into Oracle’s products. https://vurt.co.uk/post/study-with-the-open-university-using-ubuntu/ Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:32:03 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/study-with-the-open-university-using-ubuntu/ I’ve recently enrolled with the Open University for the first time, to study Software Project Management. The first course I’m taking is M865 Project Management and ultimately I’m studying towards the Postgraduate Diploma in Management of Software Projects. The OU is pretty heavily geared towards using Microsoft Windows and associated software when studying and submitting assignments, and I’m strictly a Ubuntu kind of guy, so I’m going to be in for a few issues along the way, no doubt. https://vurt.co.uk/post/ilford-hp3-panchromatic-found-film/ Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:26:15 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/ilford-hp3-panchromatic-found-film/ Recently I bought a Kodak No2 Box Brownie on ebay with the intention of hacking it about for a project. Don’t worry, it was listed as broken and indeed the shutter was shot - I wouldn’t destroy a functioning camera! The camera and the film I found inside it. Whilst cleaning the camera I opened it up and found that it still had a roll of film inside. The film label stated it was Ilford HP3 Panchromatic, which turns out to be a forerunner to the current HP5 film, first introduced in 1942 before being replaced by HP4 in 1965. https://vurt.co.uk/post/scrambled-eggs-recruitment/ Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:30:13 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/scrambled-eggs-recruitment/ Recently I’ve done a round of recruitment for a 12 month temporary Java developer role for my employers and so I’ve been thinking a lot on how best to determine the skills and ability of a candidate. Incidentally, if anyone was in any doubt as to the harsh ecnomic climate we’re in, we received 77 applicants for this position, normally we get around 12… Our standard recruitment process is to shortlist based on CVs, telephone interview the shortlist and then get the best 3 or 4 in for face to face interviews. https://vurt.co.uk/post/technotrend-s-1500-ci-and-mythtv-remote-control/ Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:18:43 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/technotrend-s-1500-ci-and-mythtv-remote-control/ Back in January, I built myself a PVR using MythTV (I went for the Mythbuntu distribution to simplify things) and have been very happy with it on the most part. However a recent distribution upgrade from Ubuntu Hardy to Ubuntu Intrepid left me with a non-working remote control which was not ideal, to say the least. Now a bit of background, I’m using a Technotrend S-1500 tv capture card to receive free-to-air satellite transmissions here in the UK (aside: I originally chose this card because it came with a CI slot which I could use with a Dragon CAM to get subscription services from Sky - a not supported configuraiton but working according to my research. https://vurt.co.uk/post/porting-django-to-10-from-an-earlier-version/ Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:05:08 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/porting-django-to-10-from-an-earlier-version/ I use django for a personal web development project and whilst it is a lovely framework, it’s been undergoing very active development to get it to a 1.0 release. The previous release was 0.96 but that was sometime before I started my project, so I’ve been working to a version checked out of subversion around 4 months ago which contained some new features but not everything that eventually made it into 1. https://vurt.co.uk/post/things-to-do/ Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:05:01 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/things-to-do/ Well, work isn’t exactly lighting my fire at the moment, but with the economy and job market as it is at the moment, I’ll take stability over interesting. So it’s time to do a bit of personal development to stop me going insane. I have a number of projects I’d like to make some progress on, so I thought I’d list them here to give me a bit of incentive. First off we have: https://vurt.co.uk/post/further-adventures-in-scanography/ Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:41:24 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/further-adventures-in-scanography/ Well, it turns out that the banding I was getting on the images wasn’t due to reflections from the metal guide rail. I totally dismantled the scanner, bought some matt black spray paint and gave the inside of the scanner a good going over. This involved removing the sprung cable that drives the scanning head, masking off the electronics (which are glued in place it seems), going outside when the weather was good and spraying it all to hell :-) https://vurt.co.uk/post/scanner-camera/ Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:39:21 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/scanner-camera/ Something I’ve fancied doing for a while now, is making a camera out of a flatbed scanner. Why? Because it seemed like a good idea at the time. I like cameras; I collect them. I love photography and I love tinkering with things. It all seemed like a good idea at the time. My first attempt at this was a couple of years ago when I took a HP Photosmart 1200 book scanner and thought to marry it with something like a Lubitel 166U to produce a self-contained, digital Lubi. https://vurt.co.uk/post/good-service-plume-tyre-service/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:29:35 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/good-service-plume-tyre-service/ Now, the internet is full of posts, forums and people complaining about bad customer service. You can’t swing the metaphorical cat without hitting half a dozen livejournal communities dedicated to it… And this can be very useful - a quick google of a company’s name before you engage their services can save you headaches later. What there is less of, it seems, is people writing in praise of companies and the service they have received. https://vurt.co.uk/post/database-configuration/ Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:27:43 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/database-configuration/ At work, we’re building a new website for the organisation based around the InfoGlue CMS. It’s an open source, java based content management system that provides nice separation between content and site structure and is extensible enough for us to tailor the admin side of things to our users needs. All in all, decent stuff. One thing that has been a source of immense frustration to me has been the way they configure database connections. https://vurt.co.uk/post/why-the-obsession-with-video/ Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:59:10 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/why-the-obsession-with-video/ Why are people obsessed with uploading flash videos in place of short, well written instructions on how to perform a given task? The web is full of people posting 5 minute long, low-res flash videos of how to install software X under linux or some such when a simple page with 5 bullet points and a couple of screen shots would do the job so much better. Here’s an example illustrating how to run Windows XP in a virtual machine on Linux using VirtualBox. https://vurt.co.uk/post/possible-holiday-destinations/ Fri, 28 Sep 2007 09:40:19 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/possible-holiday-destinations/ Well I really fancy taking a holiday soon - I’ve not had a proper one in ages. I’ve been thinking about a city break in eastern europe maybe. I’ve just found out that there is an airport at Coventry which is serviced by Thompson Fly and WizzAir. WizzAir fly to Gdansk and Katowice in Poland, and after reading up a bit, I quite fancy the idea of Katowice - maybe make a photography trip out of it. https://vurt.co.uk/post/site-update/ Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:28:13 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/site-update/ Well as you have probably guessed, I’ve made some changes to the site as a prelude to hopefully becoming a more regular blogger. The changes aren’t simple cosmetic either, I’ve moved totally from a blosxom based set up to a word press one, with a new customised theme. My last experience with wordpress was when it was known as b2, so things have changes a fair bit since then ;-) https://vurt.co.uk/post/nokia-770/ Sat, 18 Aug 2007 21:44:52 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/nokia-770/ I’m typing this post on my new Nokia 770, using a foldup bluetooth keyboard and the python based Maemo Wordpress client. I have to say, it’s a very nice portable computing platform. Being linux based, it’s more than just a PDA, it’s more like having a proper computer to carry around with you all the time. Without the keyboard, it’s a little slow typing using the stylus and on screen keyboard, but it’s acceptable. https://vurt.co.uk/post/cleanup/ Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:58:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/cleanup/ Well then, cleaning the bike was fairly straightforward, if a bit labour intensive. Like any bike cleanup, it consisted mainly of degreasing everything, giving the frame a wash and then re-lubing everything properly when reassmbling, only more so, since this bike had at least 20 years' worth of gungy oily crap to remove :-) Now, you can use expensive proprietary cleaners for this job, but to be honest, I find ordinary washing-up liquid to be as good as anything, although if you are particularly worried about the finish of your paint job, use an ordinary car wash liquid. https://vurt.co.uk/post/bike_sleuthing/ Fri, 29 Jun 2007 02:58:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/bike_sleuthing/ Well, some digging around on the internets, has turned up a number of possibilities for my bike. The research hasn’t been as easy as I would have hoped because most of the vintage raleigh resources cater for the American models, as opposed to the British ones, which seeme dto come in a greater variety and with slightly different spec to their American counterparts. Browsing Sheldon Brown’s Retro Raleigh pages lead me to believe it might have been a Raleigh Super Course or Raleigh Record, but the componentry seemed a little more basic on my model. https://vurt.co.uk/post/stripped_bare/ Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:32:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/stripped_bare/ Well an evening with some tools resulted in very greasy hands and the following pile of bits: Not shown are the handlebars, brakes and some other bits that I intend to reuse. The deraillieurs and down-tube shifters have no future use for me, but I’ll hang on to them in case I ever want to rebuild the bike as it was originally intended. The wheels are 27" x 1 1/4 so it may be tricky getting new tyres for them, but hopefully online suppliers will still stock them. https://vurt.co.uk/post/new_bike/ Sun, 24 Jun 2007 18:27:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/new_bike/ I really like the idea behind freecycle, as the old saying goes, one person’s trash is another’s gold or something like that. Anyway, in response to a wanted ad I posted last week, I was emailed with the offer of an old road bike that was cluttering up a woman’s garage. She only lived round the corner from me at work, so I popped over in my lunch hour and soon became the proud owner of this rather nice bike: https://vurt.co.uk/post/teacreference300/ Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:02:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/teacreference300/ I desperately need a new HiFi - my only source of music playing are my computers which are not exactly top quality. I’ve been playing more and more CDs lately as opposed to my massive MP3 collection, so I’d like something to do them justice. However, it’d also need to handle my MP3s with aplomb too :-) I’ve always liked the Teac reference kit and now they do the 300 unit which combines CD, DAB, USB, MP3 and… DVD support. https://vurt.co.uk/post/portfolio_website/ Wed, 21 Feb 2007 20:51:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/portfolio_website/ I’ve decided to maintain a separate website for my black and white photography. It gives me a separate space in which to exhibit my work, in a more professional manner than here or flickr. You can view my portfolio at gilespaterson.com https://vurt.co.uk/post/pentaxdslrremote/ Thu, 09 Nov 2006 20:14:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/pentaxdslrremote/ I recently bought myself a nice Pentax K100D camera to complement my traditional film cameras. Whilst taking some self portraits, I realised that I could benefit from a remote for the camera, rather than relying on the self-timer. There are two official choices: A Pentax cable release that connects to the 2.5mm socket on the side of the camera A wireless Pentax IR remote Now The first option didn’t really appeal as I’d need a reasonably long cable and there is the potential for it getting in shot. https://vurt.co.uk/post/t_shirts/ Wed, 02 Aug 2006 13:38:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/t_shirts/ There’s a new online t-shirt company started up called Dshirt.co.uk They seem to be following a similar model to threadless.com but being UK based, tshirts should arrive a bit sooner :-) They also have a competition running at the moment: Win £15,000 with Dshirt and Datawrite https://vurt.co.uk/post/note_to_self-2/ Fri, 28 Jul 2006 17:59:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/note_to_self-2/ I stumbled across this great comic strip. I really must check out more of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s stuff. I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere before. Curse my swiss cheese memory… https://vurt.co.uk/post/i_burnt_my_foot_today/ Sat, 01 Jul 2006 21:37:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/i_burnt_my_foot_today/ [The full extent](http://www.flickr.com/photos/gpaterson/179263596/) Today I managed to burn my foot. How did I do this, I hear you ask. Well, I did it by walking. Walking barefoot. On a pavement. For about 20 metres. That is all it took for me to receive burns to both feet and a blister 5cmx6cm and about 1.5cm thick. Why was I walking barefoot? To reach the icecream van before it left so that I could buy an icecream for my daughter izzy. https://vurt.co.uk/post/incidents_of_note/ Wed, 28 Jun 2006 15:33:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/incidents_of_note/ I currently work for the West Midlands Fire Service as a Principal Systems Developer in their ICT department. As part of my job, I have access to data coming in from the firemen as they respond to incidents. Most of this stuff is the usual fire and rescue stuff. Some of it’s can be a bit grim reading as it is presented in a series of chronological snippets as the incident unfolds, so it can be a bit of a shock sometimes to find out someone has died, and all the grisly details. https://vurt.co.uk/post/nigerian_spam/ Tue, 27 Jun 2006 10:29:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/nigerian_spam/ Well, we all know those nigerian spam mails offering us a cut of the action if we help them get some money out of the country will always be around. At least now though, they’ve become brief and to the point: I have a new email address! You can now email me at: deeeemel098@yahoo.com I AM RICH BUT SICK I NEED U TO KEEP MY FUND AND GIVE TO CHARITY REPLY DE MEL - DE MEL HIRANYA Well, it brought a smile to my jaded face anyway https://vurt.co.uk/post/damn_and_blast/ Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:56:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/damn_and_blast/ When I left my last job, I made a backup DVD containing all my personal stuff that had been on my work computer. Bookmarks, email archives, documents, things of that nature. I came to retrieve something from the backup today only to find that whilst it looks as though the files are there, and of the right size, they are in fact corrupt. Each file contains nothing but zeros. Huzzah. https://vurt.co.uk/post/i_m_special/ Tue, 02 May 2006 13:12:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/i_m_special/ [Special Badge](http://www.flickr.com/photos/gpaterson/130799722/) It’s nice to know that I’m appreciated at work. And now with this handy-dandy badge, I can advertise my specialness to all and sundry. https://vurt.co.uk/post/excellentmusic/ Fri, 06 Jan 2006 10:38:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/excellentmusic/ Now I don’t normally use this site as a blog (or indeed for anything in particular), but I’ve just stumbled across some fantastic music, and since my usual place for reporting this sort of thing is down at the moment, I thought I’d post it here. Anyway, the band/artist in question is the Brighton based metronomy. The music is a very pleasing low-fi electronica that I find particularly appealing. I’m not very good at describing music, so it’s probably best if you just listen for yourself. https://vurt.co.uk/post/new_domain_part_2/ Thu, 05 Jan 2006 16:22:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/new_domain_part_2/ Ok, so it no longer acts as a redirect to this site. I’ve set it up with it’s own, independent web space, but I just haven’t put any content there yet… One day I’ll not be so lazy and I’ll set it up properly. https://vurt.co.uk/post/well/ Mon, 02 Jan 2006 10:54:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/well/ It has been brought to my attention that I start most things I write with the word “well”. I think I’ll have to try and stop doing that, in some sort of new year’s resolution style. Oh well. https://vurt.co.uk/post/new_domain/ Thu, 29 Dec 2005 00:08:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/new_domain/ Well I’ve finally got around to registering my full name as a domain. It’s currently just pointing to this site so you can use www.gilespaterson.com if you like to get here. Eventually I’ll use it to display some of my photographic efforts, when I have a more complete portfolio. https://vurt.co.uk/post/apartment_for_sale/ Sun, 16 Oct 2005 09:50:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/apartment_for_sale/ Well, my 1930’s mansion block apartment is now up for sale. If you’re looking for somewhere to buy in Kingston-upon-Thames, then please take a look at the details of my apartment. For further details, you can contact my estate agents, Goldsnapes. https://vurt.co.uk/post/note_to_self/ Tue, 04 Oct 2005 23:04:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/note_to_self/ Streaming video from the computer to the netgem using VLC worked with mpeg2 video at 1024kbs with audio at 192kbs. Quality was fairly poor, so try increasing video rate to 2048kbs. Also resolution was slightly wrong in that the image seemed to be “zoomed”. The edges of the picture were lost. Try looking up correct PAL resultions (VCD/SVCD and DVB-T) https://vurt.co.uk/post/120pinholecamera/ Tue, 05 Jul 2005 14:00:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/120pinholecamera/ Well, I’m camera obsessed. There’s no denying it. I was bored last weekend, so what did I do? I built myself a pinhole camera, that’s what. And not just any old pinhole camera, this one takes 120 roll film and produces 6cmx4.5cm negatives. So why 120 roll film? Well, I wanted to make a pinhole camera that could take multiple shots, and I didn’t fancy just creating something like the dirkon 35mm pinhole camera. https://vurt.co.uk/post/ginger_beer_update/ Mon, 04 Jul 2005 17:12:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/ginger_beer_update/ Well my ginger beer recipe seems to be a big hit. Since being featured in the b3ta newsletter, it’s received a massive amount of attention and I’ve had quite a few emails from people who have tried it out. Considering I only put it online because I was bored, I think it’s done quite well for itself Anyway, if you’ve tried the recipe, I’d love to hear from you. https://vurt.co.uk/post/silent_hill_4/ Wed, 22 Jun 2005 16:08:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/silent_hill_4/ I’ve always liked the Silent Hill games, but for one reason or another I missed out on Silent Hill 4 when it was released. I must rectify that soon. Well I have this game, but it’s a pile of pants. A real disappointment. It’s as if the people who developed this game had only heard about the previous silent hill games in passing. https://vurt.co.uk/post/2005-05-13-gilespaterson/ Fri, 13 May 2005 17:50:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/2005-05-13-gilespaterson/ for now just some boring vital statistics: age: 29 location: Solihull job: Software Engineer and I can’t be bothered with anything else Feel free to take a look at my probably massively out of date cv Oh, and here’s a picture of me, if you’re really desparate: Sexy! https://vurt.co.uk/post/2005-05-13-cameras/ Fri, 13 May 2005 17:07:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/2005-05-13-cameras/ I’ll expand on this entry when I get more time, but here is a quick list of the cameras I own (y’know, i case you want to rob me or something): Canon AV-1 SLR Lubitel 166U Agfa Isola 1 Lomo 135BC Houghton-Butcher Ensign 2 1/4B Box Camera Houghton-Butcher pocket carbine folding camera Nothing fancy, mostly old, but I like ‘em all. https://vurt.co.uk/post/2005-05-13-photography/ Fri, 13 May 2005 17:04:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/2005-05-13-photography/ My interest in photography has been rekindled recently, and I am currently taking evening classes in black & white photography and darkroom work. I intend to implement a nice little photo gallery on this site to show some of my photographs. However, I’m still playing around with some ideas at the moment so I don’t have anything implemented yet. In the mean time you can take a look at my old photo gallery at http://photos. https://vurt.co.uk/post/workinprogress/ Fri, 13 May 2005 16:55:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/workinprogress/ Well, as you may have noticed, vurt.co.uk has changed somewhat. I’m in the middle of revamping the site so things will be in a state of flux for a while. All the old posts have disappeard, although I still have them archived. I may resurrect some of the more interesting ones as I go, but don’t hold your breath. I want to concentrate more on using this site to display some of my photographs. https://vurt.co.uk/post/thoughts/ Fri, 13 May 2005 15:42:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/thoughts/ I originaly started my website (eons ago…) so that I would have somewhere to dump my random thoughts and what not. Strangely it never really quite worked out like that. Although I do have a (private) wiki that is more or less serving as a brain dump at the moment. Anyway, my plan (always planning, rarely implementing), is to write up any useful things and thought I have here. Of course, I’ll probably never get round to actually doing that, but you never know. https://vurt.co.uk/post/2004-10-29-firstpost/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0000 https://vurt.co.uk/post/2004-10-29-firstpost/ This is a test. There is nothing to see here, please move along.