http://simon.geek.nz/home/ Scared of the Peacock Revolution since 2006 http://simon.geek.nz/flat-warming-2-return-of-the-sun/ <p>I have moved! Physically, that is. From there to here. I now have some amazing things like "space", "sun" and "working doors". I hear those are good things to have. Anyway, as seems to be the tradition, I get to have another flat warming. Though the sun does a good job of that already.</p> <p>This one will be on the 9th of March starting at around 1300, going until people leave or get kicked out. Dinner may even occur during that time.</p> <p>There will be wifi, which may even be upped to the phat 100/10 pipe by then, a special guest ("I'm a special guest!" the special guest said while reading that) and maybe some sort of party food. Like fairy bread. I should totally have fairy bread. The wifi's probably going to be passworded, since I can't be bothered turning that off and I don't think this base station can make a guest network. You can type the password in by hand if you want it. Oh yeah, no booze. Apparently that's still not a given.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/flat-warming-2-return-of-the-sun/">(More)</a> Sun, 17 Feb 2013 15:55:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/flat-warming-2-return-of-the-sun/ http://simon.geek.nz/honours-all-done/ <p>Finished my Honours. Brain is still complaining. You can read my <a href="http://s.geek.nz/report?blag">report</a> on explaining type errors in Haskell if you really want to.</p> Fri, 30 Nov 2012 10:20:24 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/honours-all-done/ http://simon.geek.nz/discerning-god-s-will/ <p>I gave a talk at Vive tonight. The original idea was to have it on discerning God's will. It kinda turned into I have no idea what. As is common when I give a talk I write entirely myself (so, not the one I gave during youth alpha), you get my notes! So no ad libs and stuff. Maybe I should start recording them.</p> <p>I even got a picture of this one! Thanks to Guy.</p> <p><img class="center" height="957" width="715" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Simon/_resampled/resizedimage715957-A25IvMxCEAA98Ju.jpg-large.jpeg" alt="" title=""/></p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/discerning-god-s-will/">(More)</a> Sun, 16 Sep 2012 20:44:31 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/discerning-god-s-will/ http://simon.geek.nz/research-proposal/ <h3>Explaining Type Errors in Haskell</h3> <p>I propose conducting research into improving the error messages provided by the Haskell type system. This would be done by implementing a different algorithm for the type checking system that provides more information about type errors.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/research-proposal/">(More)</a> Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:01:05 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/research-proposal/ http://simon.geek.nz/so-this-happened/ <p>This finally happened. I mean, I started on it last November, then spent most of the time when I was the only one in the office on it too. However, that's all in the past and it's live and downloadable! WOO!</p> <p>So, yeah. <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/pocketrent/id503034172?mt=8">this</a> happened.</p> <p>:D</p> Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:25:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/so-this-happened/ http://simon.geek.nz/testimony-take-3/ <p>These seem to be becoming a <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/talk-notes/">yearly</a> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/testimony/">occurrence</a>. They'll probably stay like that for a while too.</p> <p>I was going to record it this year, so I could then transcribe what I actually said rather than post what I wrote, but I forgot to grab my phone as I went up. So you get my unedited notes instead. Hooray!</p> <p>Maybe next year I'll actually figure out how to record things from the console, or just stick in an aux/monitor and use that.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/testimony-take-3/">(More)</a> Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:26:35 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/testimony-take-3/ http://simon.geek.nz/so-long-2011/ <p>I'm shameless ripping this from <a href="http://gintearsandcremebrulee.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/bye-2011/">Lauren</a>, though I may not have answers for all the prompts.</p> <p>2011 is gone, so it's time to answer some questions about it that may or may not serve any point.</p> <ol><li><strong>What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?</strong><br/>This one is fairly simple. I <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/moving-out/">moved out</a> of my parents' place and went flatting by myself. It's been an interesting experience, to say the least. Having to be fiscally responsible and living between pay days at time has been a different experience.</li> <li><strong>Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?</strong><br/>I didn't make any new year's resolutions, and I won't make any for this year.</li> <li><strong>Did anyone close to you give birth?</strong><br/>No.</li> <li><strong>Did anyone close to you die?</strong><br/>No.</li> <li><strong>What countries did you visit?</strong><br/>I just stayed in New Zealand this year.</li> <li><strong>What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?</strong><br/>It feels weird to say this, but a social life. Being by myself all the time has its benefits, though there are times when I want to be with people.</li> <li><strong>What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?</strong><br/><a href="http://simon.geek.nz/rip-steve/">October 6</a>.</li> <li><strong>What was your biggest achievement of the year?</strong><br/>Getting made exempt from having a degree.</li> <li><strong>What was your biggest failure?</strong><br/>Gosh, I usually forget these. Um, I got a C in a COMP paper. I also had a loss of control back in August.</li> <li><strong>Did you suffer illness or injury?</strong><br/>I got food poisoning once. That was probably it.</li> <li><strong>What was the best thing you bought?</strong><br/><a href="http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/railroad-story/id458631627?mt=12">Trains</a>.</li> <li><strong>Whose behaviour merited celebration?</strong><br/>I can't think of anything that happened the especially warrants celebration.</li> <li><strong>Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?</strong><br/>The left-wingers (mostly on Twitter) that said democracy lost because National won the election. Seriously people, just because the majority of voters didn't vote the same way as you doesn't mean that democracy failed.</li> <li><strong>Where did most of your money go?</strong><br/>Rent.</li> <li><strong>What did you get really, really, really excited about?</strong><br/>Nothing. It takes a lot to even get me to normal-excited. I can think of maybe three things that could get be really excited. None of those happened in 2011, and I don't foresee them happening this year either.</li> <li><strong>What song will always remind you of 2011?</strong><br/>None. Songs, if they reminded me of anything at all, remind me of things a lot more specific than a year.</li> <li><strong>Compared to this time last year, are you:</strong><br/><ol><li><strong>Happier or sadder?</strong><br/>Sadder.</li> <li><strong>Thinner or fatter?</strong><br/>My siblings will say fatter, I have no idea. It's not something I particularly care about.</li> <li><strong>Richer or poorer?</strong><br/>Probably slightly richer, mainly because I've actually started saving.</li> </ol></li> <li><strong>What do you wish you’d done more of?</strong><br/>Spending time with friends. I did barely any of it in 2010, and even less in 2011.</li> <li><strong>What do you wish you’d done less of?</strong><br/>Procrastinate. I do it far too often and it shows.</li> <li><strong>How did you spend Christmas?</strong><br/>I spent the morning at church (doing sound) and the afternoon/evening with my family. My team won again. Rather convincingly too.</li> <li><strong>Did you fall in love in 2011?</strong><br/>No.</li> <li><strong>What was your favourite TV programme?</strong><br/>Caitlin got me watching <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daria">Daria</a> and it's, so far, the only show I've enjoyed enough to be able to watch it more than once.</li> <li><strong>Do you dislike anyone now that you didn’t dislike this time last year?</strong><br/>No.</li> <li><strong>What was the best book you read?</strong><br/>Pride and Prejudice. It's a great story and I prefer the ending in the book to the ending in the BBC dramatisation.</li> <li><strong>What was your greatest musical discovery?</strong><br/>Rebecca Black. Need I say more?</li> <li><strong>What did you want and get?</strong><br/>Things. I always want and get things.</li> <li><strong>What did you want and not get?</strong><br/>There's one thing in particular and I'm not telling you that.</li> <li><strong>What was your favourite film of this year?</strong><br/>Despicable Me.</li> <li><strong>What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?</strong><br/>Went to uni, went to lectures, went home. Ordered pizza. I turned 20.</li> <li><strong>What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?</strong><br/>Feeling alone a lot less.</li> <li><strong>How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?</strong><br/>Black.</li> <li><strong>What kept you sane?</strong><br/>God. More so than in previous years.</li> <li><strong>Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?</strong><br/>Siggy. Who wouldn't?</li> <li><strong>What political issue stirred you the most?</strong><br/>The Copyright infringement file sharing amendment thing, though nowhere near enough for me to vote Green.</li> <li><strong>Who did you miss?</strong><br/>Can't think of anyone. Aren't the internet and <a href="http://xkcd.com/101/">this</a> great? :D</li> <li><strong>Who was the best new person you met?</strong><br/>Sophie. She's the person at St Mary's that includes me that I didn't know before this year. I already knew Guy and Ben.</li> <li><strong>Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.</strong><br/>God is there to be relied on, always.</li> <li><strong>Quote a song lyric that sums up your year</strong><br/>"Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday. Everyone's looking forward to the weekend."</li> </ol> Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:31:17 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/so-long-2011/ http://simon.geek.nz/honours/ <p>I got made exempt from requiring an undergraduate degree to get into Honours! Just need the compsci people to let me into the courses now, though there's no reason why they shouldn't :)</p> <pre>Confirmation of Programme For your records, here is a confirmation of the programme(s) and course(s) for which you have applied: Programmes BSCHON - Bachelor of Science with Hons Major Computer Science BSC - Bachelor of Science Majors Mathematics Computer Science Courses COMP 425: Computational Logic COMP 489: Research Project MATH 432: Matroid Theory MATH 435: Computability and Complexity MATH 483: Special Topic SWEN 423: Object-Oriented Paradigms SWEN 430: Compiler Engineering </pre> <p>Current progress:</p> <p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Simon/_resampled/resizedimage715225-Screen-Shot-2011-12-13-at-10.57.32-PM.png" width="715" height="225" class="left"/></p> Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:15:26 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/honours/ http://simon.geek.nz/rip-steve/ <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/"><img width="715" height="168" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/awesomes/_resampled/resizedimage715168-ttitle.png" class="center"/><img width="715" height="651" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/awesomes/_resampled/resizedimage715651-thero.png" class="center"/></a></p> <p>For those that don't know, I am somewhat of an Apple fanboy.</p> <p>Firstly, Apple is fine. Steve has been grooming the current group of executives for long enough that they'll manage fine without him. In fact, they have been running the day-to-day without him for some time now. Their share price even closed higher than yesterday, though that may be because the markets closed before Apple made the announcement. So the next two or three CEOs will carry on Steve's vision, unless they do what that Pepsi Co. guy did and balls things up completely.</p> <p>Steve was an inspiration.</p> <p>He started Apple with Woz in a garage. He was fired, then saw Apple almost declare bankruptcy before being instated as CEO and revolutionising the company.</p> <p>He brought us the iMac, iPod, iPad and iPhone (which, according to rumours, was entirely so he could make the iPad). Under his leadership, Apple released products that were not only functional with a decent form factor but that people actually wanted.</p> <p>He did all this using methods that the majority of business consulants say don't work and you should never use.</p> <p>So, to the man reknown for his temper, black turtlenecks, blue jeans and that particular brand of sneakers from this particular fanboy, <b>thank you</b>.</p> <p>Thank you for Apple and its products. Thank you for showing us that anything is possible, no matter what others say. Thank you for showing the tech industry how to do presentations. Thank you for inspiring countless others to continue what you have begun. Thank you for creating the current tech industry. Thank you for giving us the tools I now use daily and can not do without.</p> <h1 style="text-align: center; border-bottom: none;">Thank you Steve!</h1> <p>I have no doubt that you will be greatly missed.</p> <p></p> Thu, 06 Oct 2011 16:58:50 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/rip-steve/ http://simon.geek.nz/i-just-discovered-something-amazing/ <p>Not only can you get jumpy elePHPants as well as normal size ones, but there are pink ones too!</p> <p><a title="The elephpant army has arrived by derickrethans, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/derickrethans/6123855470/"><img alt="The elephpant army has arrived" height="425" width="640" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6063/6123855470_5fcd86b744_z.jpg"/></a></p> Fri, 16 Sep 2011 09:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/i-just-discovered-something-amazing/ http://simon.geek.nz/silverstripe-and-php5-4-talk/ <p>I gave a talk tonight at the SilverStripe meetup on SilverStripe and PHP5.4. A PDF copy of my slides is available <a target="_blank" href="http://simon.geek.nz/assets/Talks/SilverStripe-PHP5.4.pdf">here</a>.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/silverstripe-and-php5-4-talk/">(More)</a> Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/silverstripe-and-php5-4-talk/ http://simon.geek.nz/huge-success/ <p>This was a triumph, I'm making a note here.</p> <p><a href="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/PHP/Screen-Shot-2011-07-23-at-10.14.32-PM.png"><img src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/PHP/_resampled/resizedimage715817-Screen-Shot-2011-07-23-at-10.14.32-PM.png" width="715" height="817" class="center"/></a></p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/huge-success/">(More)</a> Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:15:08 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/huge-success/ http://simon.geek.nz/worlds-apart/ <p>I am the only one to blame for this<br/> Somehow it all ends up the same<br/> Soaring on the wings of selfish pride<br/> I flew too high and like Icarus I collide<br/> With a world I try so hard to leave behind<br/> To rid myself of all but love<br/> to give and die</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/worlds-apart/">(More)</a> Fri, 01 Jul 2011 17:18:40 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/worlds-apart/ http://simon.geek.nz/connecting-to-a-wifi-network-using-terminal-in-snow-leopard/ <p>The server that runs the Welshs Books point of sales system decided to pick a sad and failed to finish booting. It's a Mac Mini running Mac OS Server 10.6(.7). After taking it home, setting it up headless and doing some magic I got it to finish booting and could SSH in over an ethernet cable.</p> <p>Since I'm a nice admin with full root access to a system I don't use, I figured I may as well run softwareupdate while it's sitting on my desk (cause the ADSL it's normally on sucks). Instead of turning on internet sharing, I started finding out how to get the server to join my wifi. Normally this involves clicking on a menu item, pasting my password and hoping I got my password right. Turns out it's a lot harder to do via the command line.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/connecting-to-a-wifi-network-using-terminal-in-snow-leopard/">(More)</a> Sat, 04 Jun 2011 21:11:11 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/connecting-to-a-wifi-network-using-terminal-in-snow-leopard/ http://simon.geek.nz/goodbye-teenager-hood/ <p>Contrary to popular belief, I am not ≥25, but am only 19. Though that's changing <a href="http://s.geek.nz/3J">sometime soon</a>. As such, you should all get me "leaving teenager-ness" gifts, or something. I've even made a small <a href="http://s.geek.nz/3L">list</a> of some of the things I may want and my previous <a href="http://s.geek.nz/3K">list</a> is probably mostly still accurate, though you could be creative as well. Creativity is occasionally fun, I'm just no good at it :)</p> Wed, 01 Jun 2011 11:45:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/goodbye-teenager-hood/ http://simon.geek.nz/comment-moderation/ <p>I'm tired of spam coming in when I'm sleeping, so I now need to manually approve every comment.</p> Sat, 30 Apr 2011 22:40:04 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/comment-moderation/ http://simon.geek.nz/i-m-back-baby/ <p>So, <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/lent/">lent</a> is now over. That means I can have my social life back. If I haven't tweeted already, it probably means I'm asleep and will be tweeting again later today! Woohoo!</p> <p>Given that I didn't miss Facebook at all, it can stay blocked. Cause who cares about it?</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/i-m-back-baby/">(More)</a> Sun, 24 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/i-m-back-baby/ http://simon.geek.nz/you-re-a-turtle/ <p><a href="http://xkcd.com/889/"><img src="http://simon.geek.nz/assets/xkcd/turtles.png" width="574" height="207" title="You're a turtle!" class="center" alt=""/></a></p> Sat, 23 Apr 2011 15:35:56 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/you-re-a-turtle/ http://simon.geek.nz/thought-patterns/ <p>I found this on Libra, dated at 2138 on 2010-12-23. I can't be bothered reading it, but I assume it was just whatever I was thinking at the time that I could type fast enough to record. Henjoy.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/thought-patterns/">(More)</a> Fri, 22 Apr 2011 12:01:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/thought-patterns/ http://simon.geek.nz/why-i-don-t-do-design/ <p>I think the tabs look great :D</p> <p><a href="http://simon.geek.nz/assets/work/Screen-shot-2011-04-15-at-2.34.16-PM.png"><img src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/work/_resampled/resizedimage600375-Screen-shot-2011-04-15-at-2.34.16-PM.png" width="600" height="375" class="left"/></a></p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/why-i-don-t-do-design/">(More)</a> Fri, 15 Apr 2011 14:36:25 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/why-i-don-t-do-design/ http://simon.geek.nz/remember-when/ <p><img src="http://simon.geek.nz/assets/comics/s92cartoon-bw.png" width="700" height="1144" class="left" alt="" title=""/></p> Thu, 14 Apr 2011 08:53:08 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/remember-when/ http://simon.geek.nz/fucksticks/ <p>They're still pushing this? When will governments learn that bowing to the power hungry RIAA just pisses off the populace?</p> <p><a href="http://creativefreedom.org.nz/2011/04/copyright-bill-has-second-reading-in-parliament/">http://creativefreedom.org.nz/2011/04/copyright-bill-has-second-reading-in-parliament/</a></p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/fucksticks/">(More)</a> Wed, 13 Apr 2011 18:19:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/fucksticks/ http://simon.geek.nz/random-pages/ <p>I got bored of only looking at old posts when I noticed bots hitting them in my access logs and I can be bothered having a look. So, I added a random page link. It's just up there, inbetween (or sometimes below) the previous and next page links.</p> <p>Man, I was even more of a knob back then than I am now.</p> Sat, 09 Apr 2011 09:33:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/random-pages/ http://simon.geek.nz/awesomes/ <p>Who has four awesomes and could spend all day in bed with them if he wanted to?</p> <p><img class="center" height="480" width="640" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/awesomes/four-in-bed.jpg" alt="" title=""/></p> <h5 style="text-align: center;">This guy!</h5> Wed, 06 Apr 2011 20:14:53 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/awesomes/ http://simon.geek.nz/we-re-live-baby/ <p>We hit our first deadline. Woo!</p> <p><a href="http://s.geek.nz/work">http://rentbox.co.nz/</a></p> <p><a href="http://s.geek.nz/work"><img class="center" height="602" width="715" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/work/_resampled/resizedimage715602-Screen-shot-2011-04-02-at-8.11.27-AM.png" alt="" title=""/></a></p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/we-re-live-baby/">(More)</a> Sat, 02 Apr 2011 08:31:34 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/we-re-live-baby/ http://simon.geek.nz/clyde/ <p>I attended the ICF (I think) quiz night, and came away with, amongst other things, a new cuddly. He's called Clyde now :)</p> <p>He's cuddly and stuff too :)</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/clyde/">(More)</a> Sun, 27 Mar 2011 09:32:10 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/clyde/ http://simon.geek.nz/flat-warming/ <p>For those few of you that don't know, I have left the apparent warmth of Kilbirnie to the frozen wastelands of Karori*. Due to the frozen nature of the suburb (or something like that), I apparently need to have a flat warming. So, let's do this.</p> <p>My flat warming will be on April the 2th, that's the Saturday a fortnight from tomorrow, starting at say 1300. So I have enough time to wake up and clean up and stuff. If people are still around at dinner time, we can order pizza. Mmm, pizza. I might order some anyway.</p> <p>The flat's at <a href="http://s.geek.nz/home">38B Verviers Street, Karori</a>.</p> <p>I should also mention there'll be no alcohol and there may be wifi. If you would like the wifi password, it'll pay to let me know beforehand so I can send it to you (it's 32 random characters. You don't want to have to type it). I make no guarantee that you will be able to get on, or even see the network (my phone can't).</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/flat-warming/">(More)</a> Fri, 18 Mar 2011 22:06:35 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/flat-warming/ http://simon.geek.nz/google-fail/ <p>Apparently, Google knows the answer to an <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=0%5E0">equation</a> that <a href="http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=0%5E0">Wolfram|Alpha</a> doesn't.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/google-fail/">(More)</a> Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:29:46 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/google-fail/ http://simon.geek.nz/waaah/ <p>I've thought up so many awesome (IMHO) tweets, but get foiled every time:</p> <p><a href="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Simon/Screen-shot-2011-03-09-at-3.41.42-PM.png"><img src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Simon/_resampled/resizedimage71569-Screen-shot-2011-03-09-at-3.41.42-PM.png" width="715" height="69" class="center" alt="" title=""/></a></p> <p>If I don't adapt soon, this is going to be a long 7 weeks.</p> Wed, 09 Mar 2011 15:42:14 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/waaah/ http://simon.geek.nz/lent/ <p>Lent starts tomorrow and this year I'm giving up social networks. This excludes chat protocols (Jabber, AIM, Skype), though I haven't decided yet if IRC should also be excluded. So, things I'll be without for the next 40 days:</p> <ul><li><span style="color: #333333;"><a href="https://twitter.com/simon_w">Twitter</a> (my social life), including CoTweet</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;"><a href="https://facebook.com/supremely.awesome">Facebook</a></span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Foursquare</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;"><a href="http://s.geek.nz/askme">Formspring</a></span></li> </ul> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/lent/">(More)</a> Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:16:31 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/lent/ http://simon.geek.nz/personally-for-you/ <p>With Due Respect,</p> <p>I am Simon Ridley a staff of Standard Bank,London branch, United Kingdom. I am contacting you concerning a deceased customer and an investment he placed under our banks management three years ago, and I would respectfully request that you keep the contents of this mail confidential and respect the integrity of the information you come by as a result of this mail.</p> <p>I am contacting you independently of our investigation and no one is informed of this communication. I would like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you. In the year 2007,the subject matter; came to our bank to engage in business discussions.He informed us that he had a financial portfolio of Ten million United States dollars, which he wished to have us turn over (invest) on his behalf.</p> <p>I decided to treat his case personally; I made numerous suggestions in line with my duties as the de-facto Chief investment officer of the bank, especially given the volume of funds he wished to put into our bank.We met on numerous occasions prior to any investments being placed. I encouraged him to consider various growth funds with prime ratings. The favoured route in my advice to customers is to start by assessing data on 6000 traditional stocks and bond managers and 2000 managers of alternative investments. Based on my advice, We spun the money around various opportunities and made attractive margins for our first months of operation, the accrued profit and interest stood at this point at over One million United States Dollars, this margin was not the full potential of the fund but he desired low risk guaranteed returns on investments.</p> <p>In November 2008, he asked that the money be liquidated because he needed to make an urgent investment requiring cash payments in Finland.Where he said, he is investing with a Firm that is building a housing estate outside Helsinki for the government of Finland. He directed that I liquidate the investment and deposit the funds with a security firm. I informed him that Standard Bank would have to make special arrangements to have this done and in order not to circumvent due process, the bank would have to make a 9.5 % deduction from the funds to cater for banking and statutory charges. He complained about the charges but later came around when I explained to him the complexities of the task he was asking of us.</p> <p>Cash movement across boarders has become especially strict since the incidents of 9/11. I contacted my affiliate and made the funds available to a security firm. I undertook all the processes and made sure I followed his precise instructions to the letter and had the funds deposited with the security firm. The Security Firm is a specialist private firm that accepts deposits from high net worth individuals and blue chip corporations that handle valuable products or undertake transactions that need immediate access to cash. This small and highly private organization is familiar especially to the highly placed and well-connected organizations. In line with instructions, the money was deposited with the security firm. The Customer told me he wanted the money there in anticipation of his arrival from Norway later that week. This was the last communication we had, this transpired around 26th February 2009.In June last year, we got a call from the security firm informing us about the inactivity of that particular p</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/personally-for-you/">(More)</a> Sat, 12 Feb 2011 12:48:03 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/personally-for-you/ http://simon.geek.nz/moving-out/ <p>After 19 years, 5 months and 10 days (give or take a couple of days) my physical address is changing for the first time. I'll be leaving the flatlands of Kilbirnie to move to the frozen peaks of Karori.</p> <p>I'm able to move out from the 19th, planning on actually moving on the 26th. Freebies would be nice :) (The place comes with a fridge, stove and microwave. It already has cable too :D)</p> Tue, 08 Feb 2011 08:52:19 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/moving-out/ http://simon.geek.nz/talk-notes/ <p>For the two leaders that missed it. They don't get my banter, nervousness or the ad lib stuff.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/talk-notes/">(More)</a> Sun, 23 Jan 2011 11:13:05 +1300 Sound Guy http://simon.geek.nz/talk-notes/ http://simon.geek.nz/testing-take-2/ <p>Well, that didn't work. Stupid @twfeed. So MOAR TESTING!!</p> Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:23:05 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/testing-take-2/ http://simon.geek.nz/tis-a-new-year/ <p><a href="http://www.explosm.net/comics/2281/"><img alt="Cyanide and Happiness, a daily webcomic" src="http://www.flashasylum.com/db/files/Comics/Rob/newyears_2011.png"/></a><br/>Cyanide &amp; Happiness @ <a href="http://www.explosm.net">Explosm.net</a></p> <p>Survive a new year everyone!</p> Sat, 01 Jan 2011 22:04:50 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/tis-a-new-year/ http://simon.geek.nz/merry-christmas/ <p><a href="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/comics/226773111c11998lt2va71f60899.jpg"><img height="903" width="715" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/comics/_resampled/resizedimage715903-226773111c11998lt2va71f60899.jpg" class="centre" alt="" title=""/></a></p> <p>In the words of Jonathan Coulton: Christmas is interesting, like a knife through your heart.</p> <p>Merry Christmas everyone :)</p> Sat, 25 Dec 2010 02:48:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/merry-christmas/ http://simon.geek.nz/where-s-wally/ <p>Lets go looking for someone. Instead of Wally (or Waldo depending on where you're from) it's me! I'm in today's Dominion Post. Find me :)</p> Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:05:45 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/where-s-wally/ http://simon.geek.nz/geek-10/ <p>My primary computer is this shiny, 15" MacBook Pro. It's currently running Mac OS 10.6.5 on a Intel Core i7 2.66 GHz with a 256 KB/core L2 cache and a 4 MB L3 cache. Doesn't look like system_profiler tells me the make of the CPU but it's a mobile one, so only has two cores + two hyperthreaded cores instead of 4+4. Mactracker (very useful app) says it's a M620 in the Arrandale family</p> <p>It has 8 GB of DDR3 RAM at 1067 MHz on a 1067 MHz system bus.</p> <p>The hard drive's 500 GB (500,107,862,016 bytes) at 7200 rpm with one mountable Journaled HFS+ parition which currently has 235.6 GB free with a 3 Gigabit link speed. There's also a 8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) also at 3 Gbps.</p> <p>It has a Intel HD Graphics chip with 288 MB shared VRAM and a NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 512 MB discrete VRAM. The display's 15.4" with a maximum resolution of 1680 x 1050 and the antiglare option.</p> <p>The AirPort Extreme card supports 802.11a/b/g/n, there's Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, gigabit ethernet and no modem.</p> <p>The ports it comes with are: 2 USB 2, 1 FireWire 800, 1 gigabit Ethernet, 1 Mini DisplayPort, 1 SD card reader, 1 3.5mm audio in, 1 3.5mm audio out, 1 Kensington cable lock</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/geek-10/">(More)</a> Fri, 19 Nov 2010 10:35:06 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/geek-10/ http://simon.geek.nz/geek-9/ <p>I currently use Mac OS 10.6.4 (have yet to upgrade to 10.6.5 cause I can't be bothered rebooting) running on Darwin 10.4.0 on my personal laptop. At uni, I use NetBSD 5.0.</p> <p>I also have some version of Windows 7 installed in VirtualBox, solely for IE8 (and 9 when it gets made public).</p> <p>In the past, I have used:</p> <ul><li><span style="color: #333333;">Windows 3.1 and 3.1.1, on two separate 486s. Mainly for DOS games.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Mac OS 9.0-&gt;9.2.2 (horrible, ugly, ick, yuck, spew)</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Windows 95 (more gaming)</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Windows 98 (still more gaming)</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Windows ME (punishment?)</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Windows XP (school forced that on me)</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Mac OS 10.3(.3, I think) up till 10.6.5, probably including every point version.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Max OS Server 10.6</span></li> </ul> Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:04:10 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/geek-9/ http://simon.geek.nz/geek-8/ <p>Ooh, I get to use a &lt;ol&gt;! Haven't done that before on my blog, I don't think. (Can't be bothered looking either)</p> <ol><li><span style="color: #333333;">Email</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">IM</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Twitter</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Phone (my mobile, not the landline and ring so I don't have to use the tiny keyboard)</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Snail mail</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Something else I can't think of at the moment.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">And another thing</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">SMS</span></li> </ol><p>Actually communicating in person could be anywhere from on top to just above SMS depending on how I'm feeling and who the person is.</p> Thu, 11 Nov 2010 13:12:14 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/geek-8/ http://simon.geek.nz/geek-7/ <p>iOS for both. It has a ton of apps (the competition advertising their app stores is just hilarious), works well, can play my DRMed content and doesn't need to sync through some company's servers.</p> Wed, 10 Nov 2010 14:46:52 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/geek-7/ http://simon.geek.nz/geek-6/ <p>Currently, coke. Rather a lot of it. Did you know you can get 24 packs? Which make the cans about 80 cents each? It's great :D</p> <p>I could post a picture of my empty cans, but it makes it look like I have a problem.</p> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:46:54 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/geek-6/ http://simon.geek.nz/geek-5/ <p>I get into trouble for most hacks now, so that rather limits the scope I can respond with. One recent hack I'm rather proud of is a screen scraper I had to write (they don't provide an API for the data I want) that has to login in first. Initally, I was logging in manually then handing off the session cookie. That started breaking for some reason (I found out why later), so, instead of attempting to fix it, I rewrote it to script the entire process.</p> <p>The login page does some annoying stuff with JavaScript, including setting cookies and appending things to the URL. Which is kinda a bitch to do with cURL. A bit of poking showed that the cookie being set doesn't actually matter and the thing appended to the URL is always the same. So I hacked in a check whenever parsing the content that if it contained the specific marker, it would append and redirect. Login worked, and the cookie handling I had to build for that meant that the rest of the site worked fine.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/geek-5/">(More)</a> Mon, 08 Nov 2010 21:35:33 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/geek-5/ http://simon.geek.nz/geek-4/ <p>This is a really hard one. Since I have very little overlap between my applications, I can't really compare them.</p> <p>Somethings that the "greatest" application isn't:</p> <ul><li><span style="color: #333333;">Written in a portable language like Java, AIR, Flash</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Exclusively in the "cloud"</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Broken</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">More expensive than it should be</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Have a horrible learning curve</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Have a non-native UI</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Full of overused buzzed words anywhere, including in its marketing</span></li> </ul><p>Isn't it great how Zend Studio is all of those except in the cloud? I'm sure Zend would do that if they could though.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/geek-4/">(More)</a> Sat, 06 Nov 2010 21:11:29 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/geek-4/ http://simon.geek.nz/geek-3/ <p>I'm actually writing this while at my day job.</p> <p>If I went by what I'm doing now, my day job would be writing blog posts and drinking Coke while watching that guy over there playing StarCraft 2 while the electrians (I think) tidy up our "ceiling" cables and stick in a cable tray by drilling into the support beams and really annoying the SilverStripe designers and marketing staff.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/geek-3/">(More)</a> Fri, 05 Nov 2010 10:04:10 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/geek-3/ http://simon.geek.nz/geek-2/ <p>My preferred language would have to be <a href="http://www.php.net/">PHP</a>. Apart from being loosely typed, allowing me to be lazy, well supported and good at what it does (web stuffs), it also has a ton of rather useful inbuilt functions, with an <a href="http://pecl.php.net/">easy way to get more</a>.</p> <p>Then there's the <a href="http://www.php.net/manual/en/">online manual</a>, and the nifty <a href="http://www.php.net/urlhowto.php">manual lookup URLs</a>, that make finding information on that one particular function you don't use enough to know off my heart including a rather large amount of user-submitted comments (all manually improved, so usually not bad), the large repositories of <a href="http://www.phpclasses.org/">user</a> <a href="http://pear.php.net/">submitted</a> <a href="http://php-scripts.com/">scripts</a> (I have never used the last site, I just needed another link).</p> <p>There's also the awesome elePHPants and the recursive acronym itself: PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.</p> <p>When not using PHP, I'll probably be using either C, Objective-C, or, if I need to STL-whore, C++.</p> Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:18:38 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/geek-2/ http://simon.geek.nz/geek-1/ <p>I consider myself a geek mainly because other people call me one. Sure, I'm somewhat obsessed with certain things (computers and the internet mostly) and almost all of my life resolves around these things and sleep. Though being a self-proclimed geek just seems to lose its stigma (to me at least).</p> <p>On top of that, I also currently own three .geek.nz (the most awesome 2LD) domains. This one, one that just redirects to this one until I figure out what to do with it and my personal URL shortener.</p> Wed, 03 Nov 2010 09:21:46 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/geek-1/ http://simon.geek.nz/new-30-day-thingy/ <p>Now that #30daysofme is finished, it's time to spam you with something else. This time #30daysofgeek.</p> <p>I'll try to have a post up some time each day, but will not make any guarantees, nor a nice big list.</p> <p>I'll add relevant links if I remember when I awaken.</p> Wed, 03 Nov 2010 00:08:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/new-30-day-thingy/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-30/ <p>What a post to finish up with. I mean, I can just feel it fizzing out from here.</p> <p>I do not believe I have a favourite song and the ones I like depend on my instantaneous mode. However, if I go by my 25 most played songs in iTunes, I get:</p> <table border="1"><tbody><tr><th>Name</th><th>Artist</th><th>Plays</th> </tr><tr><td>(I Wanna Be) Like Other Girls</td> <td>Atomic Kitten</td> <td>613</td> </tr><tr><td>Stop</td> <td>Spice Girls</td> <td>472</td> </tr><tr><td><a href="http://simon.geek.nz/star-wars-by-moosebutter/">Star Wars</a></td> <td>moosebutter</td> <td>469</td> </tr><tr><td>Backstabber</td> <td>Disciple</td> <td>460</td> </tr><tr><td>Life is a Highway</td> <td>Rascal Flatts</td> <td>444</td> </tr><tr><td>Code Monkey</td> <td>Jonathon Coulton</td> <td>429</td> </tr><tr><td>Glass to Arson</td> <td>Anberlin</td> <td>422</td> </tr><tr><td>Phoenix Fever (anthem)</td> <td>Carl Webley</td> <td>400</td> </tr><tr><td>Hearts of the Innocent</td> <td>Kutless</td> <td>391</td> </tr><tr><td>After the World</td> <td>Disciple</td> <td>389</td> </tr><tr><td>Three Days Later</td> <td>FM Static</td> <td>383</td> </tr><tr><td>Spice Up Your Life</td> <td>Spice Girls</td> <td>378</td> </tr><tr><td>Wish That I Could Read Your Mind</td> <td>Jump 5</td> <td>375</td> </tr><tr><td>The Final Countdown</td> <td>Europe</td> <td>371</td> </tr><tr><td>Big Bang Theory Theme</td> <td>Barenaked Ladies</td> <td>363</td> </tr><tr><td>Worlds Apart</td> <td>Jars Of Clay</td> <td>361</td> </tr><tr><td>A Laptop Like You</td> <td>Jonathon Coulton</td> <td>359</td> </tr><tr><td>MMMBop</td> <td>Hanson</td> <td>353</td> </tr><tr><td>The Copywrong Song</td> <td>Mike Corb</td> <td>350</td> </tr><tr><td>Let Me Go</td> <td>Mumsdollar</td> <td>344</td> </tr><tr><td>Shut Up And Play</td> <td>The O.C. Supertones</td> <td>340</td> </tr><tr><td>Chapstick, Chapped Lips And Things Like Chemistry</td> <td>Relient K</td> <td>337</td> </tr><tr><td>Trouble Is</td> <td>Jars Of Clay</td> <td>336</td> </tr><tr><td>Cannonball</td> <td>Five Iron Frenzy</td> <td>332</td> </tr><tr><td>Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble?</td> <td>Christian Techno</td> <td>330</td> </tr></tbody></table> Sun, 31 Oct 2010 09:00:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-30/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-29/ <p>I'm assuming by month, they mean the period of time I've been doing this challenge. The main thing is that I'm still not very good at organising my time. Hence the 15-or so day gap in the middle. Also, coke is a lot cheaper in boxes. As is Red Bull. Mmm, caffeine.</p> <p>I've also learnt that the effort I have to put in to socialise with my church-based group of friends is a lot more than I need for #geeknight. Also, walking home from Mt. Cook at 0300 on Saturday or Sunday mornings is a great time to be introspective.</p> Sat, 30 Oct 2010 09:00:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-29/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-28/ <p>One year ago (well, as close as I could get):</p> <p><img src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Simon/_resampled/resizedimage710532-Picture-222.jpg" width="710" height="532" class="center" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>And now:</p> <p><img src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Simon/_resampled/resizedimage710532-Photo-on-2010-10-28-at-22.14.jpg" width="710" height="532" class="center" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>In the past year, I've grown my hair and left my lighter pair of glasses at El Rancho. I have also had to dress up a couple of times in between.</p> <p>Other things that have changed include getting a higher paying job (that actually pays on time), I've done a year of uni (well, four exams to go over the next two weeks) and I've actually spent a couple of Friday/Saturday nights out of the house.</p> Fri, 29 Oct 2010 09:00:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-28/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-27/ <p>I'm doing this 30 day challenge because people on Twitter were and I long to fit in.</p> Thu, 28 Oct 2010 09:00:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-27/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-26/ <p>Most of the time, I try not to think of them. If I do think of them, I have to start figuring out why they're my friends and if it was just because I was forced into it or because we actually do have something in common. Stuff like that.</p> <p>So it's nicer on my brain if I don't actually try thinking about them :)</p> Wed, 27 Oct 2010 09:00:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-26/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-25/ <p>I've seen people post pictures of what's actually in their bags, but I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to list everything.</p> <p>My bag's currently rather empty. What I found in it:</p> <ul><li><span style="color: #333333;">Laptop sleeve</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Plastic bag big enough for my laptop (the StudentIT one my iPad, iPad case and iPad keyboard came in)</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">All Saints Hataitai news sheet thingy</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Some SWEN222 notes</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Jacket</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Handy dandy notebook and pen</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Receipt and fuel voucher from when I stacked up for the last #geeknight</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">3.5 to 5.5 adapter</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">5.5 to 3.5 adapter</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Generic supermarket plastic bag</span></li> </ul> <p>What I would normally expect to find in it when in transit:</p> <p> </p> <ul><li><span style="color: #333333;">Laptop sleeve</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Plastic bag big enough for my laptop</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Laptop</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Jacket (unless it's raining or insanely windy)</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Handy dandy notebook and pen</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Cans/bottles of something, unless my destination already has them</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">3.5 to 5.5 adapter</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">5.5 to 3.5 adapter</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Power pack</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Generic supermarket plastic bag</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Bike lights (if I've got them and don't need to be using them. @yomcat has them at the moment)</span></li> </ul> Tue, 26 Oct 2010 09:00:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-25/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-24/ <p>Why would I write them a letter? I currently live with them, and iChat is lots more convenient.</p> Mon, 25 Oct 2010 09:00:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-24/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-23/ <p>Just like Sheldon in episode 1x01 of The Big Bang Theory, better bandwidth. Though I'm not going to masturbate for money to get it.</p> <p><video src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/movies/Internet.m4v" preload="load" controls="controls">You need a better browser, like <a href="http://apple.com/safari/">Safari</a> to view this clip.</video></p> Sun, 24 Oct 2010 09:00:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-23/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-22/ <p>Either, I'm one in a million and there's lots of me in China, or my experiences, which shape my personality, are the only things that make me different from everyone else.</p> Sat, 23 Oct 2010 09:00:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-22/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-21/ <p><img class="center" height="720" width="300" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/happy.png" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>Well, that was easy.</p> Fri, 22 Oct 2010 09:00:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-21/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-20/ <p>I don't actually see myself marrying someone I currently know.</p> <p>Though I do see myself being with one of these sometime:</p> <p><a title="double_tail by T.Lensselink, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/m0ssy/3452477231/"><img alt="double_tail" height="545" width="640" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3622/3452477231_e0eb13dd3b_z.jpg?zz=1" class="center"/></a></p> <p>(The big blue thing, not the little blue thing or the cat)</p> Thu, 21 Oct 2010 09:00:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-20/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-19/ <p>As far as I'm aware, I only have the one nickname. Sound Guy. I got it because I was the sound guy at <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/cutting-edge-2010/">cutting edge</a>, and that's what Pete (most likely) introduced me as to the kiddies.</p> <p>I also have it on the back of a shirt.</p> Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:00:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-19/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-18/ <p>I'm back baby! (Well, maybe. We'll see how distracted I get again).</p> <p>This post appears to be all about my future aspirations. I guess I could think of a couple.</p> <ul><li>Pass my 5 upcoming exams</li> <li> Get my "secret project" to a state of public release in the not to distant future. </li> <li>Move out of parents' place.</li> <li>Get my Honours degree eventually.</li> <li>Fully pay of my student loan.</li> <li>Get into the higher end of the IT salary bracket.</li> <li>Have at least one date/generic romantic fling (I'm setting the bar really high here)</li> <li>Max out one of <a href="http://store.apple.com/nz/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro?mco=MTg5MTY5NDQ">these babies</a></li> <li>Get awesome enough that I can get a verified Twitter account</li> <li>Do something amazing</li> <li>Attend a WWDC</li> <li>Learn to programme for the iOS.</li> </ul> Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:00:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-18/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-17/ <p>There's no one in particular I can think of, and I've been trying to think of someone for the last ten minutes or so. I like being me and am content with myself as well.</p> <p>I suppose if I had to pick someone, I'll prefer an African orphan living in a slum, just for the completely different experience.</p> Wed, 29 Sep 2010 10:13:09 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-17/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-16/ <p>I couldn't find one I wanted to stick online in iPhoto, so cam whoring time :D</p> <p>So here I am, basking in the glow of my 24" Apple LED Cinema Display (with builtin iSight, that took the picture) listening to what sounds like Falling Up at work, late on a Saturday :)</p> <p><img class="left" height="480" width="640" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Simon/4-up-on-2010-09-25-at-19.04-2.jpg" alt="" title=""/></p> Sun, 26 Sep 2010 12:07:00 +1300 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-16/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-15/ <p>I don't actually own an iPod. So I used my three other music players instead:</p> <p>My iPhone:</p> <p> </p> <ol><li><span style="color: #333333;">Devil Went Down To Jordan - ApologetiX</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Rock On - KJ-52</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Shine (Re-Mix) - Newsboys</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Macgyver theme</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Supersonic - Family Force 5</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Superfly - The O.C. Supertones</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Top Gun Anthem - Harold Faltermeyer &amp; Steve Stevens</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Tonight - Rapture Ruckus</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Everything - Pillar</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Teenage Politics - MxPx</span></li> </ol><div>My iPad:</div> <div><ol><li><span style="color: #333333;">Can You Feel It? - P.O.D.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Going Crazy - Plus One</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Like A Rolling Stone - Anberlin</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Cheap Birds - ApologetiX</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Roots in Stereo - P.O.D.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Four Kids In Memphis - Five Iron Frenzy</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Foreign Language - Anberlin</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">You Probably Shouldn't Move Here - Five Iron Frenzy</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Lifestyles Of The Rich And Nameless - ApologetiX</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">We're Takin' Over - Jamie Rowe</span></li> </ol><div>My laptop:</div> <div><ol><li><span style="color: #333333;">Jesus Freak Reprise (10th Anniversary Version) - dc Talk</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">You Have What I Need - Hawk Nelson</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Bless The Broken Road - Rascal Flatts</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">SCC Vs. Out Of Eden - Various Artists</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Heart Of  A Champion - Carman</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">International Mystery Man - The Lads</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">All Things New - Rapture Ruckus</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Move Over - Spice Girls</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Get Down - Audio Adrenaline</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Dirty Second Hands - Switchfoot</span></li> </ol></div> </div> <p>My iPhone only has 2.77 GB of music on it, so is my higher ranked stuff. Both my laptop and my iPad have my entire iTunes library on them. My iPad was on shuffle, my laptop in iTunes DJ set to play higher ranked songs more often.</p> Sat, 25 Sep 2010 18:43:59 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-15/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-14/ <p>Taken at @yomcat and @tacmoy's wedding. Probably the only time the entire (well, most of it) family have been together.</p> <p><img class="leftAlone" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Uploads/_resampled/resizedimage600450-DSCF0900.JPG" width="600" height="450" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>It's missing 2 aunts, 1 uncle and 10 cousins.</p> Sat, 25 Sep 2010 18:35:22 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-14/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-13/ <p>Dear Simon</p> <p>Stop hating on me.</p> <p>Love, Simon.</p> Thu, 23 Sep 2010 03:01:47 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-13/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-12/ <p>Because of work, I'm running a bit behind. I'll try and catch up (like, today should really be getting post 15, but that's not likely to happen) then get the posting at the right time again.</p> <p>The title for today doesn't really apply to me, as I'm using SilverStripe, not Blogger. I found out about SilverStripe a couple of years ago (can't remember when) but didn't start using it until the <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/ghop-wrap-up/">GHOP</a>, where I made things for it and Google gave me money and goodies.</p> <p>I made a blog because, back when I made it, I was a totally nob and it seemed like the thing to do.</p> Thu, 23 Sep 2010 00:55:58 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-12/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-11/ <p><img src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Friends/_resampled/resizedimage715536-Photo-on-2010-09-17-at-16.58.jpg" width="715" height="536" class="center" alt="" title=""/></p> Sun, 19 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-11/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-10/ <p>Most of the time, I listen to <a target="_blank" href="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Music/Library.pdf">this playlist</a>, in iTunes DJ, with higher ranked songs played higher.</p> <p>If I feel like it (mainly sad/angry), I'll switch to <a target="_blank" href="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Music/meh.pdf">this playlist</a>, also in iTunes DJ, with the same settings.</p> Sat, 18 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-10/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-9/ <p>Currently, nothing.</p> Fri, 17 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-9/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-8/ <p>I suppose I've got a couple still:</p> <ul><li><span style="color: #333333;">Get my work done, so that I get paid and stuff.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Get all my assignments done on time, so I don't fail.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Survive today, because surviving is good.</span></li> </ul><div>Yup. That's pretty much it.</div> Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-8/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-7/ <p>This was originally going to be two people, but iPhoto doesn't appear to have any faces for Joe and searching otherwise takes too long. I should really spend a weekend just naming everyone sometime. Anyway, I digress.</p> <p>While this person may not have had the biggest impact on me, she has had one of the biggest (I don't particularly rate people's impact on me, though I kinda know the people that have had a major impact).</p> <p>She is basically why I can function around them women folk. It took three years of interaction with her before I could manage a one-on-one conversation without being completely flustered and overheating. Since she was pretty much my only female contact in a social setting during this time (basically all of secondary school), I've got her to thank for being able to function slightly better outside of a single-sex private school :)</p> <p><img height="900" width="600" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/stalkery/_resampled/resizedimage600900-54.jpg" class="center" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>This is <a href="http://chocolateisstupid.blogspot.com/">Natalie</a>, aka Switch, back at @tacmoy's 21st. She's probably not going to like me posting a picture of her (she's offline at the moment, so I can't ask her).</p> <p>Apart from helping me to not be as sucky at social things, without realising it, she's also an amazing person that I enjoy talking to and being around. She's one of a select few that I can be around for extended periods of time without my introvertness complaining about too much people time. She's also one of the top two people I chat with. I could go do a log-line count, but can't really be bothered.</p> Wed, 15 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-7/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-6/ <p>This is actually really easy. I don't have a favourite super hero, nor one that I've heard of that I'm not indifferent about. I suppose this comes from not watching TV/movies while growing up.</p> Tue, 14 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-6/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-5/ <p><br/><img class="center" height="450" width="600" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/informatics/_resampled/resizedimage600450-P8072861.JPG" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>This was taken in Sofia, Bulgaria when I was there for the IOI last year. Obviously sex shops aren't as taboo as they appear here.</p> Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-5/ http://simon.geek.nz/to-my-friends/ <p>Especially those of you that have had to put up with my mood swings and have still been there, thanks.</p> Sun, 12 Sep 2010 23:43:24 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/to-my-friends/ http://simon.geek.nz/no-cms/ <p>This is a follow up post to <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/cms-less-silverstripe-install/">this one</a>. I'm assuming that you've already read it, and have a site that already doesn't use the Pages part of the CMS. This turned out to be rather easy. All I did was delete the cms folder, remove calls to methods that were on classes that no longer exist and run /dev/build. As I already had the <span style="font-family: Monaco, monospace">Controller</span>s in place, the transition was seamless.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/no-cms/">(More)</a> Sun, 12 Sep 2010 14:46:06 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/no-cms/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-4/ <p>The theme here seems to be procrastination. While it's a habit that I could do without, there's a more annoying (for me) one. Though it's actually a toss up between two, both of which have worse effects than procrastination.</p> <p>The first one is not getting anywhere enough sleep. I have an alarm that goes off at 0713 each weekday and most Saturdays, so I can get to uni on time. My body is expecting about 10 hours of sleep a night, which it used to get regularly. I end up getting tired around 2030, then get un-tired around 2330 and whenever I go and try to get some sleep. This leads to me not getting to sleep until around 0130, if I'm lucky, leading to not much sleep and a Simon that leaves the house so tired I'm surprised he hasn't forgotten anything important yet.</p> <p>The second one is not eating, especially on weekends. I have a rather good habit of forgetting to do this. Then it gets to dinner time, and I haven't eaten all day and am rather hungry. This showed up on Monday and Wednesday, when I had midterms starting at 1800. Midterms are annoying enough without drinking two red bulls on an empty stomach.</p> <p>I can't really be bothered going into more detail. StarCraft awaits!</p> Sun, 12 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-4/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-3/ <p>So, there's actually going to be 8 photos.</p> <p><img height="450" width="600" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Friends/_resampled/resizedimage600450-wuv.jpg" class="leftAlone" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>My first love. Sadly no longer with me.</p> <p><img height="600" width="450" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Friends/_resampled/resizedimage450600-wedding.jpg" class="leftAlone" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>This is from @yomcat's and @tacmoy's wedding. It's the only place I have photos from that have both me and churchy-friends.</p> <p><img height="400" width="600" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Friends/_resampled/resizedimage600400-ball.jpg" class="leftAlone" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>This is from my 7th form ball last year. Simeon's missing, cause he didn't go to it, but this was pretty much the group of people I spent my final two years of high school with. I see a couple of them every so often, though being a year below me now doesn't help that much.</p> <p>These next four are from programming camp, held in Auckland at the start of the year. Before I started going to uni and tweet-ups, this was pretty much the only place I was around people like me. I guess it's why I managed to be happy the entire week, which doesn't happen very often outside of camp.</p> <p><img src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Friends/_resampled/resizedimage600450-camp2.jpg" width="600" height="450" class="leftAlone" alt="" title=""/>Hacking! With gotos! :D</p> <p><img src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Friends/_resampled/resizedimage600450-camp1.jpg" width="600" height="450" class="leftAlone" alt="" title=""/>We walked everywhere, and talked about random stuff. Can't remember what though. Maybe bartog rules?</p> <p><img src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Friends/_resampled/resizedimage600450-camp4.jpg" width="600" height="450" class="leftAlone" alt="" title=""/>We were also sent to the beach. Something to do with getting away from computers.</p> <p><img src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Friends/_resampled/resizedimage450600-camp3.jpg" width="450" height="600" class="leftAlone" alt="" title=""/>Sorry Jethro, I've already got a topless man ;)</p> <p>Finally, how I try to be. Doesn't always happen though. Stupid blueness overwhelms my awesome yellowness from time to time.</p> <p><img class="leftAlone" height="375" width="600" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Friends/_resampled/resizedimage600375-faces.jpg" alt="" title=""/></p> Sat, 11 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-3/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-2/ <p>This should be rather easy. The name of this blog used to be "Simon's blag", which was a <a href="http://xkcd.com/148/"><span style="color: #333333;">xkcd</span></a> reference and a rather self-descriptive (though mundane) blog name. Sometime last year, I rebranded to the current ElePHPant Haven.</p> <p>For those that don't know, I have two elephants. They're small and blue and cuddly and currently complaining that I left the covers of the bed. They also have PHP on the side and are imitation PHP mascots. The person that made the suggestions for the redesign was helping me pick, and came up with relating it to my elephants. The Haven is because it's supposed to be a safe-ish place for them to frolic. Or whatever it is that they do.</p> <p>The subtitle on my blog also kinda relates. For those that don't know, <a href="http://oreilly.com/">O'Reilly</a> make technology-based books with animals on the front. Either the ASP or .Net one has a peacock on the front. 2006 is just the year I registered simon.geek.nz, so picked that as the start year of the blog. Though it may not have been, since I was just a domain of nzmac.org before then.</p> Fri, 10 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-2/ http://simon.geek.nz/tweet-buttons/ <p>I've added tweet buttons to every post. They sit just under the post and let you tweet about how awesome it is (as I know you all want to :D).</p> Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:49:22 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/tweet-buttons/ http://simon.geek.nz/day-1/ <p><img class="left" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Simon/_resampled/resizedimage400600-XO8X0092.JPG" width="400" height="600" alt="" title=""/>Uploading this picture took a lot more effort than it should have. Turns out PHP was only accepting files up to 2M in size and total post of 8M. Was just a little too small ;)</p> <p>The photo was taken 51 weeks ago from tomorrow at my ball. This is the most dressed up any of you are likely to see me, unless I get married and get dressed up for that.</p> <p>The person I was dancing with was picked for me, since the only person my age I would have been comfortable taking couldn't fly up due to other commitments.</p> <p>Now to try and think up 15 interesting facts. Luckily (for me anyways, maybe not for you), I'm the only one that has to find them interesting.</p> <ol><li><span style="color: #333333;">My right foot is one size larger than my left.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">I have barely visible scars on my actual eyeballs, which are the results from an eye operation I had in my infancy.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">I have flown the furthest in my family.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">I can survive watching a 3D movie/tv-thing for about 10 seconds before the headache gets too big.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">I keep walking into StudentIT and then walking out broke, though I have yet to find my EFTPOS limit while doing so.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">The glasses I wore during primary school made me look like Harry Potter minus the scar.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">It requires more effort than it's worth for me to visualise things or think in pictures.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">I do not remember my dreams, even if I'm woken up in the middle of one.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">I have not dated anyone, nor do I plan on dating before I graduate.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">I do not consume alcohol.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">When not at uni or work, I can usually be found in my room.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">My left knee is currently infected.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Twiiter is the major component of my social life.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">I skipped 100 level maths and computer science in an attempt to do a 1 year degree in 3 years.</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">I like Apple products, though there are some I will refuse to get.</span></li> </ol> Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/day-1/ http://simon.geek.nz/30-days-of-me/ <p>It's 2253 and I'm bored, so I figured I'll jump on the bandwagon and do this "30 Days of Me" blog challenge thingy. Posts should be going live at 0900 each day, starting on Thursday.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/30-days-of-me/">(More)</a> Wed, 08 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/30-days-of-me/ http://simon.geek.nz/cms-less-silverstripe-install/ <p>This pops up every so often on <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#silverstripe">#silverstripe</a>. Is it possible to use sapphire without the CMS?</p> <p>(For those that don't know, sapphire is the PHP5 framework that SilverStripe runs on. You can get it on its lonesome from svn at http://svn.silverstripe.com/open/modules/sapphire/. At the time of writing, branches/2.4 is the "stable" branch. trunk may be rather borked at the moment)</p> <p>While the answer is rather simple, yes, actually explaining how to do it is a bit more complicated. Luckily, I've recently done this, to an extent. While I can't share the specifics about it (with regards to the site, yay for NDAs!), I can explain how to do it now, with sample code.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/cms-less-silverstripe-install/">(More)</a> Mon, 06 Sep 2010 09:30:00 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/cms-less-silverstripe-install/ http://simon.geek.nz/quadracentifiable/ <p>Every so often, there's a SEO competition run by someone. Basically, they take a random word and SEO companies have to try to have the top hit for that word in Google at the end of the competition. Or something like that.</p> <p>This time, the word's <a href="http://www.nzseochallenge.co.nz/">QuadraCentifiable</a>. Three days ago, there where no hits for it at all. Now there are some. The main way to get high ranks for a word like QuadraCentifiable is to get lots of inbound links containing it. So here's another one.</p> Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:04:53 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/quadracentifiable/ http://simon.geek.nz/i-m-not-expected-to-have-a-life-anywhere/ <p>I'm used to my friends and Twitter expecting me to not have a life, but now IRC is joining in as well. I've been known to hang around in <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#silverstripe">#silverstripe on FreeNode</a> with the handle simon_w, where I seem to end up helping people fix things as well as making out with the VCS bot (CIA-xx, the xx keeps changing) and annoying Australians (I'm allowed some fun, right?). This happened on Saturday night as I was playing some StarCraft 2 (I've got two guess passes somewhere if you'd like one. I've also got two WoW guest passes):</p> <pre>[20:24:19] &lt;iRogue&gt; ss23: tends to be pretty dead here in teh weekend - might have more luck getting a response on monday [20:24:45] &lt;ss23&gt; Damn :&lt; [20:25:15] &lt;ss23&gt; Silly SS developers that have lives... [20:25:21] &lt;iRogue&gt; :P [20:25:25] &lt;ss23&gt; I would've at least expected simon_w to be here! </pre> <p>I then talk, and get (as a response to me being there):</p> <pre>[20:27:05] &lt;ss23&gt; Ha, I knew it :P</pre> <p>The full chat logs are available <a href="http://logs.silverstripe.com/index.php?date=2010-08-28#20_22">here</a>, since ss-log was actually running at the time.</p> Sun, 29 Aug 2010 14:17:51 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/i-m-not-expected-to-have-a-life-anywhere/ http://simon.geek.nz/from-pete/ <p>This was on my iPad, it's by Pete:</p> <blockquote>I like to type on my new iPad. I wish that I had one, but I don't. this makes me sad, but not too sad, because I have Jesus in my heart. I don't know why I am speaking as I type. Does it come with proper word processing software, mr simon?</blockquote> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/from-pete/">(More)</a> Sat, 28 Aug 2010 09:41:26 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/from-pete/ http://simon.geek.nz/hackers/ <p> </p> <div style="width: 315px;" class="captionImage left"><img height="442" width="315" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/pretty/Screen-shot-2010-08-22-at-11.17.49-AM.png" class="left" alt="" title=""/><p class="caption">Shamelessly taken from the <a href="http://kiwicon.org/">Kiwicon</a> landing page</p> </div> <p> </p> Sun, 22 Aug 2010 11:20:39 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/hackers/ http://simon.geek.nz/things-ever-programming-language-needs/ <p> </p> <ul><li><span style="color: #333333;">Functions, not just methods</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">semi-colons</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">#defines</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Closures</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">The ability to make it look like you're using a dragon</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Automatic type casting</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">printf() style output</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">SIGSEGV</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">pointers</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">operator overloading (I want - to mean + dammit!)</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">The ability to shoot myself in the foot</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Compiler specific language implementations (Does it get executed right to left, or left to right? Neither!)</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">Minimum size only for data types (64 bit short? Don't mind if I do)</span></li> <li><span style="color: #333333;">globals</span></li> </ul> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/things-ever-programming-language-needs/">(More)</a> Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:25:44 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/things-ever-programming-language-needs/ http://simon.geek.nz/ipad/ <p>Or, why you should get one. Sure it has great things like a decent keyboard in portrait</p> <p><img class="center" height="953" width="715" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/iPad/_resampled/resizedimage715953-notekeys.png" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>Landscape and portrait support in most apps</p> <p><img class="center" height="953" width="715" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/iPad/_resampled/resizedimage715953-IMG_0008.png" alt="" title=""/><img class="center" height="536" width="715" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/iPad/_resampled/resizedimage715536-IMG_0009.png" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>Support for iPhone apps in either 2x</p> <p><img class="center" height="953" width="715" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/iPad/_resampled/resizedimage715953-IMG_0010.png" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>Or 1x</p> <p><img class="center" height="953" width="715" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/iPad/_resampled/resizedimage715953-IMG_0011.png" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>A browser that looks like a computer's</p> <p><img class="center" height="536" width="715" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/iPad/_resampled/resizedimage715536-IMG_0013.png" alt="" title=""/><img class="center" height="953" width="715" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/iPad/_resampled/resizedimage715953-IMG_0014.png" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>Maps, that Google can't do properly</p> <p><img class="center" height="953" width="715" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/iPad/_resampled/resizedimage715953-IMG_0015.png" alt="" title=""/></p> <p>Genius for apps (as of yesterday)</p> <p><img class="center" height="536" width="715" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/iPad/_resampled/resizedimage715536-IMG_0016.png" alt="" title=""/></p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/ipad/">(More)</a> Mon, 09 Aug 2010 10:36:49 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/ipad/ http://simon.geek.nz/should-i-care/ <p>I turn 19 in <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/countdown.php">this many</a> weeks/days/hours/minutes/seconds. Currently, I couldn't care less. Why should that state of mind change? Why should I care, at all, about entering some new inconsistent period of time?</p> Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:48:35 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/should-i-care/ http://simon.geek.nz/whats-the-point/ <p>I took a hiatus from church at the start of the year for a couple of months (until midway through April if I remember correctly). Reflecting on that period, it actually resulted in a higher proportion of Sundays that I actually enjoyed.</p> <p>Now, I don't really see a point in going to church. As I'm on sound most of the time (rostered on every second week, plus the cover/filler guy and I get special events too), I can't really get into the praise and enjoy it. I have to try and restrain myself from being moved too much by the sermon, so I'm not incapacitated for the praise after the sermon.</p> <p>I can partake in personal praise from my bedroom (in fact, I do that must of the time. iTunes is great) and get sermons I can take the time to enjoy and think over from podcasts.</p> <p>Next, people will probably mention the social aspect, and coming together to be part of the community.</p> <p>Let's see how that falls apart. In a normal service, I arrive sometime between 1630 and 1800. I pick a seat and wait for the service to start. If I'm lucky, a couple of people will have greeted me, with a potential conversation with Byrce before the service starts. If I'm not, I'll get a few waved greetings and nothing else.</p> <p>During the service, I sit alone. I'm usually sitting before anyone else is, so it's their choice.</p> <p>After the service, I used to try hanging around until the end so that people I would like to talk to weren't otherwise engaged. This got interpreted as me wanting a ride home. Go figure. So Matthew and Christian chat for a bit, with maybe one or two others, then I go home. Community fail.</p> <p>These means the main reason I continue going to church is to do sound. Mainly because there's no one else willing. Seriously, this is the roster for June-&gt;September. Weeks I'm rostered on are green. Positions I'm rostered on or covered for are red.</p> <p><img src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Simon/_resampled/resizedimage450600-roster.png" width="450" height="600" class="leftAlone" alt="" title=""/></p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/whats-the-point/">(More)</a> Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:22:01 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/whats-the-point/ http://simon.geek.nz/shiny/ <p>I have a new shiny. It is called Shiny. That is all.</p> Fri, 23 Jul 2010 19:56:47 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/shiny/ http://simon.geek.nz/how-to-make-facebook-better/ <p>Making facebook better is really easy. Edit your hosts file with your favourite editor with root access (like sudo pico! (start the holy war!)) and add:</p> <pre>60.234.72.4 www.facebook.com 60.234.72.4 api.facebook.com 60.234.72.4 facebook.com </pre> <p>For non-windows computers, your hosts file is /etc/hosts. For windows computers, you're screwed anyway, so too bad. Try <a href="https://google.com/">this</a> though.</p> Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:48:53 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/how-to-make-facebook-better/ http://simon.geek.nz/url-shortener/ <p>I've finally gotten around to making my URL shortener database driven, rather than mod_rewrite and mod_php driven. Next thing I need to do is add some stat whoring, but that can wait.</p> <p>It's such a basic implementation, that I used cat and echo to open source the code and one SHOW CREATE TABLE query for the schema. Complete source code, including the database schema, is available <a href="http://s.geek.nz/source.txt">here</a>.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/url-shortener/">(More)</a> Sat, 17 Jul 2010 11:30:21 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/url-shortener/ http://simon.geek.nz/php-upgrade/ <p>Thanks to <a href="http://www.dotdeb.org/instructions/">this article</a>, I will be upgrading this box to PHP 5.3.2 from 5.2.6, about nowish. This means things might break. Fun times!</p> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 10:09:36 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/php-upgrade/ http://simon.geek.nz/totally-stole-this-from-beth/ <p><a href="http://argonescence.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/into-the-airwaves/">See?</a> Totally stoled from her.</p> <p>Rules</p> <ol><li>Shuffle it up with your music</li> <li>For each question, press the next button, and the title of that song is your answer.</li> <li>YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS</li> <li>Put any comments in [brackets] after the song name</li> </ol> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/totally-stole-this-from-beth/">(More)</a> Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:14:15 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/totally-stole-this-from-beth/ http://simon.geek.nz/dfs-date-preparation/ <p>Yay for graph theory :)</p> <p><a href="http://xkcd.com/761/"><img src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/dfs.png"/></a></p> <address>Source: xkcd</address> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/dfs-date-preparation/">(More)</a> Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:14:36 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/dfs-date-preparation/ http://simon.geek.nz/sneak-peek/ <p>I'm currently working on a site that you don't know about. Well, maybe you do. (Hi people that paid for my laptop?) But it's shiny. So you can have a screenshot, which some things removed so you can't see them. LIke the logo, which gives it all away.<img class="left" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/work/_resampled/resizedimage600401-Screen-shot-2010-06-26-at-5.50.25-PM.png" width="600" height="401" alt="" title=""/></p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/sneak-peek/">(More)</a> Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:54:01 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/sneak-peek/ http://simon.geek.nz/finally-licensed/ <p>I've finally stuck my blog under a licence other than the "this is all mine, don't use it" copyright that NZ law sticks it under. I've picked a CC-BY-SA licence, which means you can use my content wherever you want, including for commercial purposes, so long as you attribute it to me and any changes are also released under a CC-BY-SA licence. There's a link to the legal stuffs in the footer if you want to read the actual licence.</p> <p>You can get a waiver from the licence if I grant one to you specifically. All that legal disclaimer stuff.</p> <p><img class="center" src="http://assets.simon.geek.nz/Simon/cc.png" width="88" height="31" alt="" title=""/></p> Sun, 27 Jun 2010 12:27:12 +1200 Simon Welsh http://simon.geek.nz/finally-licensed/ http://simon.geek.nz/italy-lost-to-bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz/ <p>So, yeah, Italy came bottom of our group.</p> <a href="http://simon.geek.nz/italy-lost-to-bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz/">(More)</a> Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:12:59 +1200 Larry http://simon.geek.nz/italy-lost-to-bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz/