http://blog.simpleigh.com Just another WordPress weblog Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:14:20 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Current wpm: 56 (up from 20). Starting to get to grips with things now. I wrote out all the letters on sticky-labels and affixed them to the keyboard, which really did make an enormous difference. I no longer had to feel around for a key, or look at a separate ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/12/dvorak-day-n/ Current wpm: 20 (stable from 20). A weekend away from the computer has prevented any further speed improvements. Maybe tomorrow will see a better result. I'm starting to remember where all the keys are, but am not at all fluent and have to make heavy use of the "backspace" key. ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/11/dvorak-day-4/ Current wpm: 20 (up from 12). Did some serious practice today. Also made another keyboard layout so that I don't have to re-learn all the punctuation. Will this process continue until all the keys are restored? Using the computer is very frustrating. Typing long passages is tiring, and it's really ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/11/dvorak-day-3/ Current wpm: 12 (down from 100 or so). Using the MS Keyboard Layout Creator, I've put together a UK Dvorak Variant. Am considering using speech recognition instead of typing, which is now tedious. http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/11/dvorak-day-2/ I'm currently typing this very slowly having changed my keyboard layout to the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard. It's proving quite slow-going, but will hopefully speed up my typing and reduce the strain on my wrists. Next report to follow. http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/11/the-dvorak-simplified-keyboard/ I find the attitude of some software developers ridiculously arrogant. They all think that they know best. They know the best algorithms, they write in the best language, and above all, they make the best decisions. Sometimes, however, I'm not so sure. Today I decided to clear out ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/06/its-ok-the-software-knows-best/ Action: "A drop of alcohol will spice up this bolognese sauce." Reaction: It now smells like an accident in a mulled wine factory. Action: Trying to cook bolognese at all. Reaction: My shirt is covered in ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/06/cooking/ Today sees a serious sandwich combination, namely ham and mustard. I recently provided a buffet supper for some friends, and included this classic combination a long with some others, all unashamedly stolen from the Hotel Felix afternoon tea menu: Ham & Mustard Cream Cheese & Cucumber Smoked Salmon Cheese & Pickle (admittedly their combinations were ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/06/more-lunch-blogging/ Nobody could really be surprised when spam emails started appearing. Every other communication medium is filled with advertisements and unsolicited intrusion. Newspapers are filled with adverts, and we are harassed by junk mail, telemarketing and door-to-door salesmen. Two experiences have give me something more to think about when it comes ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/06/in-defence-of-spam/ Ham and sun-dried tomato omelette, salad with thousand-island dressing. Maybe I ought to do more of this. http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/06/lunch-blogging/ I've never really had a backup strategy. Now and again everything's turned to toast, but previously it's not been much of a worry. As one gets older, however, things start to seem more important, and constant nagging focuses the mind as well. Each loss of data eats away at your ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/06/leighs-backup-strategy-begins/ Recently I've been entering a lot of phone numbers in a database. This is dull. Phone numbers do, however, open up a load of (slightly) interesting geekery. One of the problems I had was with the London dialling code. Numbers in London tend to start with 0207 or 0208. I ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/05/whats-in-your-phone-number/ MSDN: All print providers must export the initialization function, InitializePrintProvidor. Pointers to all the other functions must be supplied in a PRINTPROVIDOR structure. (Note that these two names are misspelled, but are consistent with the names that appear in the header file, winsplp.h.) Of course, one can't correct the ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/05/link-of-the-day-2/ The collective wisdom of the Internet states pretty categorically that Microsoft is evil, Google is never evil, Macs are cool and Linux is best of all. Of course not all of that is true, and you can't always believe what you read on the Internet. Google isn't evil but colludes ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/05/open-source-software-a-chink-in-the-armour/ Computers are quite good at waiting. My computer spends a substantial proportion of its day in an idle state waiting for me to do something. It also spends time waiting for network resources, and it makes me wait too. When I go to a webpage or request something online the ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/05/is-the-network-timeout-dead/ Recently I've been writing code to produce a database of Alumni in the University's Architecture Department where I work. Somewhat irritatingly the servers all run on IIS which required me to learn how to talk to SQL Server with ASP. The irritating part being that I've only just learnt how ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/05/misinformation-on-the-internet/ I was amused to have finished migrating this blog over to Wordpress to read this article on Coding Horror: I've been thoroughly impressed with the community around WordPress, and the software itself is remarkably polished. That's not to say that I haven't run into a few egregious bugs in ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/05/wordpress/ Having recently discussed the strategy of comparing one's antagonist's actions to those of the Nazis, I was amused to notice Dr Crippen referring to a similar technique: Over the years, I have seen far too many women who have been raped. There will be others, patients of mine, who ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/05/further-reading-godwins-law/ Comparisons to the holocaust seem rife today. Any attack on civil liberties is compared to the way the Nazis treated the Jews. Another example crops up today via the UK's leading anti-vaccine site, JABS (no link love, search for it yourself). The government is considering making vaccination compulsory for children ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/05/nazi-germany-an-argument-technique/ Recently Cambridge saw the opening of a substantial extension to the Lion Yard shopping centre - the Grand Arcade. This development features 50 or so largish shopping units as shown in the floorplan. I was somewhat amused to wander round the arcade soon after its opening and discover that many ... http://blog.simpleigh.com/2008/04/shopping-vacuum/