The idea spawns content, design, usability and interaction.

Once I have an idea in my head, I brainstorm content and features in OneNote.

Then comes usability.

Then comes basic design.

Then comes the coding.

Then comes iteration of all of the above and lots of sleepless nights

Currently I am developing:

http://www.moorespeed.co.uk

http://www.getmecooking.com

I have started:

http://www.baconaholic.com – a fun site about bacon

but I have been too busy with the above websites to spend any time on it. I will get round to it someday.

I created these StackExchange sites:

http://london.stackexchange.com/ – Q&A site about London

http://sapbasis.stackexchange.com/ – Q&A site about SAP BASIS

http://www.starbase24.com/ – Q&A site about the Star Trek Online MMORPG

But they didn’t get off the ground. The feedback I was getting from the Star Trek gaming community was that they didn’t understand the concept of the site, so just stuck with forums and sites with FAQ pages. This is a real shame as forums and FAQ pages are really terrible ways of getting information to questions and the StackExchange sites are excellent.

and then there is:

http://www.performit.co.uk – I updated it recently, but it needs a decent design (currently looks rubbish)

http://www.performit.co.uk/network/ – I haven’t updated this in years and I’m not planning to

http://www.techboy.co.uk – haven’t updated this is ages. Lots I would like to add (in particular results of races) but other things take priority. I haven’t got much incentive to work on this

http://blog.techboy.co.uk – I would like to tweak the design (it is currently quite hard to read) and add my own logo. maybe change the entire template. Any ideas? I would also like to add more content, but I haven’t really got much incentive to do so

I have worked in Milton Keynes for 4 years now and have paid (I think) £235 per year to park my car in a public car park outside of my office. This year it has gone up to £270 (more if you live outside of Milton Keynes). For that I am not guaranteed a parking place and there have been times where I have not been able to get one within a 5 minute walk of my office.

I have been fined £30 on each of these occasions:

• They wrote my car registration wrong on my ticket (got 2 letters the wrong way around). This was not noticed for 6 months, then one day I got fined
  • I wrote 2 letters of complaint but did not hear anything back by post/e-mail/telephone (is it illegal to ignore challenges to appeals?)
• I took my car in to get serviced and had a hire car. Out of habit I walked from my hire car to the office without paying for a parking ticket
  • I wrote them a letter and they replied to say ‘tough’
• I have twice forgotten to renew (they don’t send reminders). My fault I know, but I think they should give a reminder or warning first (with 5 days to pay)
  • I appealed once but they said ‘tough’

The really bad things are:

• The parking ticket does not say that you can pay on-line, but you can
• They do not always reply to letters or e-mails
• You can’t order a new parking permit on-line
• You can order a parking permit via the post, but it takes up to 10 days – and they still have to phone you for the credit card payment
• To get a parking permit quickly, you have to visit their office in Central Milton Keynes (which is only open from 0900 – 1700) and in the past it has generally taken 1 hour (queueing)

So tomorrow I will have to:

• Pay for a parking ticket so that I can park outside my office. I will have to do this by mobile phone as I haven’t got change available
• Walk to the council office and buy a 1 year parking permit at £270…

Next time you see a car parking attendant, ask them: What are you? Some bottom-feeding, scum sucking algae eater?

It will work great with my Canon 40D which is a digital SLR. I have always had an interest in photography and did a photography course in Italy last October. Plus I would like to get more into food photography, so I can make better photographs for my cooking site GetMeCooking.

The flash can be used on the body of the camera and can also be used as a remote flash, so I can use it as a slave flash, to get rid of harsh shadows when shooting food. I am thinking of getting some light diffusers to go over the flash and also maybe turn my dining area into a mini food studio. I plan to photograph the recipes I make ‘on the go’ with my camera, only making a really good photograph for the end result. Taking really good photographs while cooking is too time consuming so isn’t really practical.

Speedlite 580EX II Specifications

Canon ‘Flash Work’ document – as you can see from this document, there is a lot to learn!

Canon Speedlite 580EX II

Plus I got a Feedback Sports, Pro-Elite Bicycle Repair Stand, which will make it so much easier to work on both my road bike and my mountain bike! Just as well as I have already entered the 2010 Questars series of 4 races with Dave and I will also enter some Triathlons this year. Plus lots of training!

Feedback Sports Pro-Elite Bicycle Repair Stand

Plus I got a few other things such as mountain bike specific socks, CO2 based type pump and some travel books on Nice.

I wish I hadn’t been given so much chocolate and biscuits. After losing a few Kg’s recently, I think I’ve put it back on again – I’m afraid to jump onto the scales! Time to crash diet again…

A friend has invited me to go walking with him in the Lake District. That would be really nice and I thought about it, but I’ve decided not to as I’m walking up 3 mountains:

• Snowdon (Wales – 1085m)
• Scafell Pike (England – 978m)
• Ben Nevis (Scotland – 1344m)

in 24 hours on Saturday/Sunday as part of a 3 Peaks charity event with some people from work so I wouldn’t want to do any major exercise on Thursday/Friday. Plus I’ll be driving up on Friday and coming back on Monday.

I’ve looked on TravBuddy and YowTrip but can’t see anything I fancy. Hmm…

I was tempted by a walking holiday like one to Everest basecamp or Jordan (lowest point on earth) but after doing a lot of sporting things recently (and more coming up) such as walking up Snowdon twice 2 weeks ago, 6 hour Adventure Races, a Sprint Triathlon, a half marathon, etc. I think I deserve something more relaxing. So I’m thinking of a photography course+holiday like this one in Italy.

Any other suggestions? Please post them here.

Backup plan is a Herman Miller Mirra chair.

Recently I have had a run of bad luck.

Today:

• Next door started revving the engine of their VW camper van at 7.40am – I was trying to sleep having gone to bed at 2am
• On Wednesday I found that I’d lost my padlock for the gym, so:
  • I went to Halfords today to buy a new one – only I couldn’t find one there (and it took me a few minutes to get out of the car park). So I drove to B&Q and found 2 padlocks for £7, but when I went to pay for them there were long queues and I couldn’t be bothered, so I ditched the padlocks and went to the gym (I knew they sold them at £5 each)
• When I got to the gym the free gym car parking ticket machine (which accepts tokens) was broken, so I went and put £1 in the normal machine – only it wouldn’t accept one of the 5p pieces I was using! Luckily someone was kind enough to exchange that 5p for 10p. Then I walked back to my car and noticed that the ticked showed that it had taken 65p of mine, not the £1.05 that I had put in! So I had to go over to a ticket machine (a different one this time) and put in £2 as I didn’t have any smaller change – this time it worked
• I went to the local fish and chip shop and had to wait a few minutes for them to cook chips. Then they forgot to give me the curry sauce, luckily I remembered it before walking away. Then I went to my parents house to eat the fish and chips with my brother
• Then I went home and couldn’t get into my house! One of the 2 locks on my front door wouldn’t open – and then the key snapped in half. Fortunately it didn’t get stuck in the lock. So I went back to my parents house borrowed a spare key and fortunately it worked…
• All day, every traffic light I approached turned red and I kept getting stuck behind people driving at 40mph
• The display on my washing machine has messed up again. Sometimes it fixes itself and sometimes I have to take it apart to fix it

Maybe tomorrow will be better…

First of all, I prefer to write ‘xmas’ because the word ‘Christmas’ is too long is too religious for my liking.

I’m not a Scrooge by any means, but I don’t like the xmas period because:

• It’s a religious holiday and I’m an atheist. I haven’t met a single person who I would consider to be any where near religious so don’t get me started on the whole religion thing
• Xmas has nothing to do with religion – even for 99.9% of the people who say they are religious
• Car parking is a nightmare at xmas time – and I work at an office in the Milton Keynes town centre and have to park in a public car park
• The shops start advertising xmas things at around September time
• People always get sick just before xmas, probably because of the close proximity of people as they go shopping
• I often don’t know what presents I want
• Other people don’t know what they want
• The whole present buying thing is rubbish
• Cards are a total rip-off. A small a piece of printed cardboard for over £2 (in many cases £3-4). Plus the content on most of the cards isn’t even good – they are mostly playing on the a dumb, childish type of ‘insult’ humour

I have learned to buy all of the presents as late as possible because sales always start in the 1-2 weeks leading up to xmas.

Still, at least it’s some time off of work (I get a ‘Deloitte day’ – which this year was the 24th December, xmas day, Boxing day and New years day). I (like most other people in my company) have taken the Mon – Thur off of work using my standard holiday entitlement.

I do see the point of New Years day, but on the times that I have ventured out into town in the evening, it has been very quiet indeed and most of the restaurants are closed. People tend to stay at home or go to a local firework display. This year I’m going to see some friends up in Leeds.

I don’t like the concept of New Years resolutions. I check and adjust things as I go, I don’t wait until New Years day to make a resolution. Plus I don’t make a pointless resolution on New Years day – no point really as you can’t predict what is going to happen that year.

Another thing that comes just after xmas (and as mentioned above, just before xmas too) is sales in shops. Sales come about for a few reasons, the main ones are:

• Prices kept artificially high for the time leading up to xmas
• Surplus of unsold stock needs to be shifted before new trends/replacements come out

Every year the shops get crammed with people buying goods for no real reason other than it is in a sale and therefore must be a bargain. However I do most of my shopping online so avoid the sales (and get better/same prices than can be found in the shops anyway). The only things I really go to shops for are clothes and food.

Having said that there are 2 things that I would like to buy:

• HTC HD mobile phone. The mobile phone providers usually do better deals just after xmas (Orange are now giving more inclusive talk minutes for the same prices as of the 27th December). My current contract expires on the 2nd January so I’ll get the HTC HD next weekend, or the following week, either on O2 or Orange. I currently have the HTC TyTn II
• Giant Anthem X1 mountain bike. One online shop has the bike at 15% off (which is a £330 saving), although I’ll want to go for a test ride at another shop first. I’m just not sure if I want to buy the bike now or later as I haven’t got any races planned yet