It wasn’t really the plan was it but I’ve let a few weeks slip by without writing on the main part of my blog. As usual a few real world issues got in the way. So I thought I’d do a quick catch up post, I may write separately about one or two of the topics but for now:
Oxford University
My youngest daughter Rebecca was invited to Oxford University for an interview. She’d applied to read English there. Now I didn’t go to Uni, instead I did vocational studies. Rebecca’s Mum didn’t go to Uni either. However, I realise that this is a big deal for Rebecca and the magnitude of her achievement on simply getting an interview has left me very proud indeed. Ironically she appeared apathetic to the whole process and whether that was a feeling of fear or perhaps lacking self-belief, who knows. Nevertheless they asked to see her and even if she isn’t offered a place, that’s something which she can add to her CV of achievements.
Lisa, Rebecca and I all travelled down to Oxford and stayed overnight. While Rebecca was being interviewed Lisa and I did a walking tour of the university and very good it was too. We were even able to have lunch at the Pieminister shop in the covered market. Oh happy days!
The interviews seem to have gone OK and Rebecca was very calm when we saw her at the end of the day. She’s a bright button and if she wasn’t successful then it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. She’s already been offered places at two of the better Universities in the country and no matter what she does or where she goes I know she’ll do well. I think we find out tomorrow funnily enough.
Goodbye Newark, Hello London
Out of the blue I spotted that my server hosts, Linode opened a new data centre in London. I got myself a second server there server pretty sharpish and I’ve spent about 5 days moving everything over. I eventually deleted my server in Newark and now everything I do is UK based. Ping responses from my new server = 28ms compared to 107ms before. Cool! I also took the opportunity of moving from CentOS to Debian. I think I’m happier with Debian, it makes me feel a bit more beardy!
If you want yourself a super-cool UK based Private Server, it’s a no-brainer. Linode seriously rock. Hell I’ll even help you set it up for a few beers or something. It’s EASY! Click one of the Linode links in this post to go look-see and I get referrer credit towards my hosting.
GIT
One of the knock-on effects of my new server has been that I’ve stopped using Subversion for the time being. There was an incompatibility problem that I could either sort out (which I couldn’t be arsed doing) or try something else. That something is GIT, the fast version control system. I’m only using it for web development and the only user will be me so although it’s a bit like using a sledge hammer to crack a nut, it works for me. I’ll write more about it in another post.
Incidentally, I’m not knocking Subversion, I’m just trying something different.
Christmas
Over the festive (sic) period I’m going to try and put a few sites together. More later…
Catch-Up
It wasn’t really the plan was it but I’ve let a few weeks slip by without writing on the main part of my blog. As usual a few real world issues got in the way. So I thought I’d do a quick catch up post, I may write separately about one or two of the topics but for now:
Oxford University
My youngest daughter Rebecca was invited to Oxford University for an interview. She’d applied to read English there. Now I didn’t go to Uni, instead I did vocational studies. Rebecca’s Mum didn’t go to Uni either. However, I realise that this is a big deal for Rebecca and the magnitude of her achievement on simply getting an interview has left me very proud indeed. Ironically she appeared apathetic to the whole process and whether that was a feeling of fear or perhaps lacking self-belief, who knows. Nevertheless they asked to see her and even if she isn’t offered a place, that’s something which she can add to her CV of achievements.
Lisa, Rebecca and I all travelled down to Oxford and stayed overnight. While Rebecca was being interviewed Lisa and I did a walking tour of the university and very good it was too. We were even able to have lunch at the Pieminister shop in the covered market. Oh happy days!
The interviews seem to have gone OK and Rebecca was very calm when we saw her at the end of the day. She’s a bright button and if she wasn’t successful then it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. She’s already been offered places at two of the better Universities in the country and no matter what she does or where she goes I know she’ll do well. I think we find out tomorrow funnily enough.
Goodbye Newark, Hello London
Out of the blue I spotted that my server hosts, Linode opened a new data centre in London. I got myself a second server there server pretty sharpish and I’ve spent about 5 days moving everything over. I eventually deleted my server in Newark and now everything I do is UK based. Ping responses from my new server = 28ms compared to 107ms before. Cool! I also took the opportunity of moving from CentOS to Debian. I think I’m happier with Debian, it makes me feel a bit more beardy!
If you want yourself a super-cool UK based Private Server, it’s a no-brainer. Linode seriously rock. Hell I’ll even help you set it up for a few beers or something. It’s EASY! Click one of the Linode links in this post to go look-see and I get referrer credit towards my hosting.
GIT
One of the knock-on effects of my new server has been that I’ve stopped using Subversion for the time being. There was an incompatibility problem that I could either sort out (which I couldn’t be arsed doing) or try something else. That something is GIT, the fast version control system. I’m only using it for web development and the only user will be me so although it’s a bit like using a sledge hammer to crack a nut, it works for me. I’ll write more about it in another post.
Incidentally, I’m not knocking Subversion, I’m just trying something different.
Christmas
Over the festive (sic) period I’m going to try and put a few sites together. More later…