February 23, 2003
Random Musings
As the Hulk movie is on it's way reaonably soon I thought this was a funny blog! :)
Still playing Celebdaq and doing OK although one of the guys at work lucked out by having 1000 shares in the big dividend payer of the week and getting 32K added to his account... So, he's now winning in the little game we're playing between a few of us as he jumped from last place to first...
The weather outside is clear, slightly cloudy but there's actual blue sky out there... Cold though (OK, maybe not as cold as NE America or E Canada but still...)
Nothing much happening, work is still work and still the same. Still considering putting my CV in the field to see what happens. Thing is, the UK appears to be talking itself into an economic dip so may stay put for a little while to see what happens.
February 19, 2003
The reality of life in Northern England
This sort of thing just shows the reality of living in a real Northern town in the UK. And the government say there's no North-South divide.... Yeah right :(
From the Oldham Chronicle but copied below as I don't think the Chron keep articles online very long...
Third of people in Oldham have no job
by Janice Barker
FEWER than two-thirds of Oldham people say they have a job, according to the 2001 census.
Now a union leader is calling on the Government, Regional Development Agency, business leaders and Oldham Council to bring in measures to kick- start the economy.
Kevin Curran, senior official of the GMB general union, says special measures are needed to get Oldham people back to work, and out of the 260th ranking in a new employment survey.
Using data from the 2001 census, which asks people if they are employed, the Office for National Statistics found that only 62 per cent of local people said they had a job. The Isles of Scilly come top, and Liverpool bottom at 376th ranking.
Mr Curran said: “The results are a real body-blow to Oldham.
“Despite the Government’s New Deal programme, and low unemployment nationally, the statistics still make grim reading if you live in this part of the world.”
The ONS survey found that on average more than 70 per cent of people in areas such as leafy Bedfordshire or Oxfordshire describe themselves as employed, ranking 6th and 12th respectively.
Mr Curran added: “I am today calling on the Government to get together with the Regional Development Agency, business leaders, the council and community representatives, to introduce a range of measures to kick-start the local economy.”
He wants the Government to provide additional funds for investment in skills, a legal right to paid time off for training, a genuine policy of education for all, which helps adults to retrain or reskill, greater support for businesses, and more investment in transport infrastructure.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear...
Even though I KNOW England won't come anywhere near even sniffing the Cricket World Cup I just have to gloat at this news...
Sorry Carla / Carla's Family / Everyone I know over there. ;)
February 18, 2003
Celebdaq and wasting time
If you've read this blog before you'll know all about the quandry I have coming to work where I do. I used to enjoy the job when it had some challenges and I had things to do. Now I don't... I basically hate it... I have nothing to do, it's just silly.
My days are taken with dealing with stupid queries from stupid sales people who can't sell without discounting things (average discount appears to be 20% from book at the moment).
So, what to do. Well, I've finally finished my CV (if you want a copy you'll have to email me). I'm thinking about distributing it around some agencies so I can start looking for another position. There aren't any prospects for me here. I never see or speak to my boss unless someone escalates a problem around me. No prospects for promotion as this appears to be a "dead man's boots" scenario and it's very clear that there is a "chosen one" to step into my boss' boots if and when he departs.
Therefore I need to get off my backside and get this sorted out, right now I'm just mega-frustrated with things and hate coming in and wasting my time here...
So, if anyone has an interesting tech job that pays well based near Manchester that they want to offer me please email me!
One of the things I'm using to use up my time is CelebDAQ which is run by the BBC. This is a brilliant game where you get to buy shares in celebrities and the strategy is to buy the ones you think are about to get some press. The more press they get the more people want to buy shares and up go the prices! So, as long as you've bought at the right time you're making (virtual) money. They also pay dividends on the shares once a week, dependent on just how much press the celeb has got.
Great game. Go play!
February 17, 2003
Perhaps, just perhaps...
... this is what Blogger will look like after Google has finished with them! :)
Transfer done.
Well, I did it!
I transferred my blog to Movable Type. In the end, the extra features and the flexibility I'm going to gain have won out over blogger. It seems to me that *so* many people change from Blogger to Movable Type after they've been blogging for a while. It's almost an admission that blogger is OK as far as it goes and it was the first to bring blogging to the masses and for that it should be thanked but...
People then seem to get hungry for more flexibility and the ability to add things to their blogs etc. I've gone with MT because it allowed me to muck about with perl a bit more than I have done before which is a nice thing seeing as I pay for webspace with the ability to run cgi / php etc (php is the next thing on the hitlist).
So, this blog now officially runs off MT. So there! :)
Of course, blogger may just about have hit the jackpot given that it's just been bought by Google! Quite why I can't work out yet but the obvious thing this does is give Google access to over 1 million websites. If they started offering sponsor advertising on there they'd earn an absolute mint. That's what I think will start happening. I've decided to decentralise and use MT instead...
February 8, 2003
Just another test post
this is just another test post, I actually think I'm pretty much there now and MT appears to be bahaving pretty much exactly the same as my old blogger config inc archives etc etc.
seems to me that the additional flexibility is worth the effort required to configure this thing. Takes a while but there you go.
February 7, 2003
Stay with Blogger or change to MT?
Hmmm....
Currently starting to evaluate Movable Type for use. Looks pretty good. Most stuff built-in like comments systems etc rather than the bitty thing I have now where I'm using lots of different scripts to make mine and Carla's blog. Plugins available to extend it's capabilites... Hmmm...
What exactly are we getting for the dosh we've paid for Blogger Pro?
Have titles on your posts. MT does this for free.
Have Future or Draft posts. MT does this for free.
Upload files. MT does this for free. So does my FTP program!
Manage more than one blog from a single interface. MT does this for free.
Have a team blog. MT does this for free.
Looking very tempting actually. Perhaps I'll change this blog over first (Carla's will be a bit more scary I think) and see if the process is easy and I like MT. Only took me an hour or so to get it up and running yesterday so probably worth the effort just to see...
February 6, 2003
Test!
This is a test entry to see what happens when I publish the blog....
Spent the last hour or so installing MT, seems pretty straight forward really.