Well, sorry for not posting for a few days – I’ve actually been quite ill with a combination of tonsilitis and a few other things, so I’ll be back prodding disinteresting foo your way in a day or two. My sleeping pattern’s still shot to hell which isn’t making things easier – it’s 2:48am here.

In the interim, I’ve updated my Amazon Wish List, and was surprised to find out just exactly how bollocks their system is for this:

• Pages with no submit button
• Emails sent in HTML with no text alternative
• Terminology (‘move’ says to me moving an item up/down the list, not ‘create a new wish list and put this item in it’)
• Slow, unnecessary page reloads (one every time I deleted an item)

So it’s a shorter list than it possibly could be – sorry.

“The clever idea is to insert thousands of microscopic image sensors in-between the liquid crystal display cells in the screen. Each sensor captures its own small image, but software stitches these together to create a single, larger picture.”

That’s going to screw it up for those having one off the wrist, eh.

I’ve been messing this afternoon with Ajax in relation to some Multimap foo, and in the course of trying to make things look pretty I happened upon the Script.aculo.us libraries again. I looked at these a while back as a way of doing pretty things with image blocks and drag-n-drop, etc. but never quite got round to playing properly – this afternoon gave me the excuse.

Life’s never simple in these things is it? Inevitably it led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth as I attempted to make the sodding thing work in IE6 and Firefox at the same time (really, if I find the guy who broke z-Image just hold me back) but it was even worse to find out that IE7 is going to be even more retarded even after beta-2. It was just one thing after another really. It works fine in Safari, Camino, Firefox, Netscape and Opera… but IE’s a no-no. Oh well.

Positively wound up, I eventually came home to Nicky’s excellent remake of a Wrenthorpe classic – teriyaki salmon and noodles – and heard all about Ellie’s first day at Big School. So, now sat in the sun lounge with a beer I’m wondering what became of Betty Boo, and it’s led me to revisit the early 90s on my iPod and finally un-knot. I think I’ll probably end up coding in the Pot Oil again, and hopefully finish some other non-work projects I’ve been doing for fun. Maybe I can get online-social tomorrow again.

Still, it’s a lovely sunny evening. Good photography weather.

Yesterday I posted an entry about ‘going to ground’ – and I did indeed do that and disappeared off-planet from about 2pm through to 8pm, mostly due to my insomniac Monday morning. Today I find that Jeremy Zawodny is writing about concentration and distraction, which is sort-of related.

If I need to concentrate on a project, I’ll go to ground. My work method is such that I can have three screens on my desk – my Win2k laptop, my Mac and my Linux box, and yes I use all three. Occasionally there’ll be VNC sessions to other boxes as well, all feeding back status on different projects, which is good when we’re doing rapid development on web apps and I need to tweak stuff. However, if I really want to get a lot of work done on a project, I’ll turn my phone off, redirect to voicemail, shut off MSN and IRC (or close the screens) and just get on with it. Very occasionally I’ll get pissed off with working in the office and go find a pub, or a park if it’s a nice day. Not all employers like it, but after a week or so some see the advantages when it gets to billing time.

When I was travelling to London every week, I’d get loads done on the train there and back. At least two hours of peace and quiet, other people going about their business without interrupting me, and the leisure of thinking over a problem while you idly gaze out of the carriage window into the middle distance. I really do miss that. It’s the same reason that I’d get tons done at RIPE meetings (and it’s RIPE52 this week in Turkey, the lucky buggers).

Maybe we just need a cure for information overload.

Argh. After a good evening last night burning garden rubbish and clearing the end chunk (the bit which I really want to grass over and plant a fruit tree in the middle of), I hoped I’d be absolutely knackered but instead my addled brain woke me at 4am and I’ve been awake since. The last time I did that I ended up taking photos. Benjamin decided that he wanted to get up at 6ish too so he’s been keeping me company through the mists over Wrenthorpe.

Still, I ended up having a bath (and trimming the goatee I seem to be regrowing) and sorting my head out. Some bizarre things I’ve browsed this morning so far:

• The Wikipedia entries of Lembit Opik and the Teletubbies (although they weren’t related searches really).
• RFC4472, Operational Considerations and Issues with IPv6 DNS.
• A Device for Measuring Musical Talent (seriously, ModernMechanix rocks).
• The Most Popular Words in Google 2006 – seems to be the usual suspects, no surprises there.
• K9 Animated Series Confirmed – did they not bloody learn after the 1981 spin-off K9 And Company?

Yesterday I felt very proud of myself – I actually managed to invent a Yorkshire Pudding method which worked. From memory it involved 4 eggs, 200g plain flour, pinch salt, 300ml milk, 2tbsp tepid water, and some pepper. Wazzed it all up in the blender and poured it into the smoking hot fat – they rose really, really well.

Anyway, I’m rather hoping it’s going to be a quiet day. I’ve got a lot to do for ${new_contract} and I’m not sure my head will allow me to stay awake if the phone keeps on interrupting. I’ll probably end up shutting off MSN and IRC, and keep out of harm’s way.

For the past 6 years or so I’ve teleworked to some extent – be it while travelling on the job while I was at Gemstar or when I was doing my three-days-from-home at CentralNic. Today’s one of the more pleasant days – I’m sitting working by the Rochdale Canal in Sowerby Bridge, in The Moorings (photo from where I’m sat here).

Believe it or not I find that working from pubs is actually quite productive because I simply don’t have the distractions of IRC and MSN. I can get some bandwidth if I really need it using either the Vodafone 3G network or the Orange GPRS network (it’s very rare that both are out at the same time, although my gripes with Orange are well documented), and working in a sandbox under Linux gives me a full development environment and there’s very little I can’t deal with. Of course, I can’t upload code on-the-hop but I’d consider that an advantage in terms of code reviews.

Teleworking can get interesting – some pubs get stroppy if you plug your laptop in, some have locals who just won’t shut up, some landlords just give funny looks, but most are just glad of the daytime business. In my experience, as long as you have cash for beer, a mobile, a comfy chair, a bit of GPRS and a decent battery (and power if you don’t), you’re fine.

Now, if this client would just turn up I’d be 100% happy

It’s almost 14 years since the original Mundane Life (probably still browsable on the Wayback Machine knowing my luck). Sharing odds and ends of things isn’t too bad an idea as long as it doesn’t get personal I guess, so here I am.