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Beauty in simplicity – CSS

On August 10, 2011 By

I haven’t always worked with CSS, as much of my work is involved with coding.  However I love playing with CSS, and I love that in its purest sense it’s so very elegant and powerful.  I’ve always been of the philosophy that you should be able to take one basic html structure, and apply virtually [...]

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Sony – are they really treating their loyal customers with respect?

On July 20, 2011 By

Today I got this email:

Tell us what you think of PlayStation® apps/services

Dear Alex

We value your opinion. Please help us by completing a short survey on your views on some PlayStation® apps/services. The questionnaire should take 5-10 minutes to complete.

Simply click on the link below to take part…

http://survey.euro.confirmit.com/wix/p999999.aspx?r=9999&s=IVQKWILF

(If you encounter [...]

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Clive Barker Imaginer

Clive Barker exhibition at the Crown Gallery

On July 17, 2011 By

There was a rather cool exhibition at the Crown Gallery earlier today.  Clive Barker made a rare visit to show his work and to sign autographs for his fans.

Many years ago I read Weaveworld, and it was my favourite fiction book for quite a long time.  I also read (and recommend) The Great [...]

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Successful web application design

On July 14, 2011 By

As an application developer I sometimes get a little frustrated with some attitudes towards functionality.  There is all too often too much temptation to throw in as many different aspects and functions to a design rather than to focus on streamlining the user experience for the core of what you’re developing.

As an example, you [...]

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Oomiwa jinja (大神神社)

Oomiwa Jinja Shrine in Nara, Japan

On July 7, 2011 By

Next year is going to introduce some big changes to my life, and I’m really looking forward to it.  Sometimes life has hard lessons, and just sometimes it seems that fate plays you the most wonderful cards.  One of the things that I’m looking forward to most is a rather significant trip to a [...]

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Is Japanese difficult to learn? A programmer’s perspective

On July 5, 2011 By

When I mention that I’m learning Japanese, many people ask something along the lines of “isn’t it a difficult language to learn?”  To be honest, the only true answer is that it’s difficulty is a direct inverse of your interest level, so really the question boils down to time, and how one would rather be [...]

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Sample class to escape a MySQL input value

On June 20, 2011 By

There was quite a simple but effective snippet I came across recently
that highlights how PHP getters (magic methods) can be useful.

Please don’t use this code as it is, as it’s for illustrative purposes
only; it doesn’t check for magic quotes that the server may be using,
and you may want [...]

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Nara Deer

A new era

On June 18, 2011 By

This is yet another new start to my website.  This time round it’s a completely different approach.  I’m going to keep developing Japanese learning aids, and I will be posting messages about technical and interesting things that I find.  Using WordPress will hopefully allow me to post content without the distraction of fiddling with things, [...]

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