dave-smith.co.uk

Got this odd feeling at the moment, not sure how to describe it, I believe some people might refer to it as “being happy”

I’ve had it for a few days now, and it took me until just now to work out why I’m experiencing this, turns out it’s pretty simple.

I’m exercising again, this week I’ve been to the gym, been out for a run, and this morning I went for a swim, now I just need to keep this going, especially as the Marlow half marathon is in 5 weeks time

So after a flurry of posts after a year of almost nothing I’ve gone a bit quiet, no real reason other than too busy to really be able to post anything vaguely useful or meaningful. I’m working on a couple of useful (for me anyway) reference posts on my preferred way of setting things up and I’ve been continuing to have an interesting time playing with some cool and (sadly) exciting technologies.

Of course in all this cool and busyness something has to give, this blog being one thing and the other being my training, although if I’m being honest with myself the only thing stopping me training is my current lack of mojo. However these is news on this front, although I still haven’t been out for a run, I’ve done a couple of sessions of martial arts and the resultant temporary disability caused by doing something have almost spurred me back into training.

Notice the almost, I’m almost there, almost going for a run, almost dusting off the bike or the gym membership card. Almost.

Just the final step to take, or is it the first step? Every journey starts with a first step, and so does this one, tomorrow evening is martial arts, and from there it starts

One step at a time……

and back to the place I was happiest.

So with Wirewool at the moment I’m essentially doing some programming and some server work, and you know what, it’s great. Dusting off the coding, making stuff and setting up servers. Playing with databases, SQL, NoSQL, PHP, CodeIgniter and some Java, along the way working with continuous integration techniques and talking SCRUM and Agile.

The great thing is of course that being happy doing what you are doing has a knock on effect, I’m doing more, being more effective, playing with GTD and most amazingly of all feel like I’m almost ready to get back to training.

Happiness above all else should be my mantra, maybe this time around I can learn from the past and maintain.

Fingers Crossed

Well at least we’re not singing about. Finally I’m talking to an Independent Financial Advisor (IFA) and starting to plan a bit more with regards to mine and the family finances, happily having done the website for Orchard House as part of Wirewool I knew exactly who to talk to about the mess that was my financial planning.  Now with the help of Mike we’re getting things sorted and should, by some miracle, I make it to retirement age, I might actually have a pension, of course should I not make it for whatever reason then the sound financial planning now being put in place should ensure that Octavia and the girls are all ok.  Next step, sorting out wills……

Dull, but very very important.

but also perhaps what you enjoy.

So things changed, in my career, you start out doing one job, you’re perceived as being better than someone else in the business at their job (which whilst related to your job, isn’t what you normally do) so to help out the business and ease personal frustration you take the job and do a sideways shift / shimmy / move.

And while you enjoy the job, it’s not quite the same, not as creative, not as fulfilling.  Now I’m back doing what I used to do, with greater knowledge, a better perspective and enhanced ability, Dave++ if you like.

But importantly it is challenging, and I enjoy it

And in a theme running through from another recent post, it’s back to my childhood again as last night I decided to have a go at martial arts (hence the title) I used to do Karate to a very average standard when I was younger and when it got to the higher belts the required class attendance and increasing costs that went with that made me give it up and adjourn to the pub instead of an evening. (So childhood in the loosest sense of the word)

Which is a shame a with hindsight I enjoyed it, it was a great workout and of course had the potential to be useful should I ever need to defend myself.  So last night I returned back to the dojo (sort of) and went for a lesson with Samurai Fitness which not only train kids (including Iona) but also runs adult classes, and so it was for the second time in a week I was doing some circuit training, this time as a warm up, before doing some basic punches and kicks, all great fun and I’m looking forward to regular training sessions.

So in a major surprise to all in the household this weekend was mostly sunny, which meant it was time to tackle the “lawn” The only person upset by this was Jensen who seemed to enjoy being able to hide in the grass.

Now when I’m mowing the lawn I get very strong memories of doing the same as a kid, at home. To earn my allowance certain tasks around the house fell to me, the lawn was one of them (car washing was another IIRC) so every week or every other week depending on the weather I would be out in the backgarden fighting the beast of a flymo that was supposed to put stripes in the lawn and doing the edges by hand and strimming the bit aroudn the wall and paving stones.

If only we had had an “strim and trim” no idea why we didn’t. So when it came to replacing the cheap strimmer I had stupidly purchased when we first moved to the sticks, I knew I needed to get a “strim and trim” and what a difference. The edges around the deck are much neater and the bit at the far end of the garden near the coal shed is kept neatly trimmed. And as I work in the garden strimming the edges, then mowing the grass twice, I enjoy it much more, interspersed with childhood memories.

Oh and I still can’t coil the cables like my dad showed me all those years ago, but then my lawnmower has built in cable storage so I don’t need to

So I’m doing some interesting stuff at the moment which among other things has me reading up on Open Social which meant installing Shindig which before that (as the implementation I’ll be needing is Java based meant installing Tomcat.

And at this point I realised that nothing had really moved on in terms of servers / technology and setup, I know there is the argument that if you make it simple to do anyone can do it, but it should be a bit easier by now to have Apache / Tomcat running on OSX in harmony without resorting to Google and config file hacking, as it is I’ve just gone for a basic config with Tomcat running on a separate port (as per standard install) and after some memory leak issues (seemingly) have reverted back to running Tomcat as and when needed (to be fair this is more likely to have been as a result of a dodgy build of the site I was testing.

So for as pretty much as long as I’ve had my iPhone I’ve never managed to use BT OpenZone to access the internet. Never.

However I’ve cracked it, I can use it whenever I’m in range, as long as it isn’t one of the pretender BT OpenZone base stations which is really part of the cloud / hub thingy

Still this is progress right ?

Step 1.
Do a MAC address reset, do this on O2 by sending the word “wifi” (no quotes) to 2121, you’ll get a response telling your reset request has been received and to wait an hour before registering your phone

Step 2.
When you are in range of a BT OpenZone point, open safari and you should then get presented with the OpenZone welcome, select O2 as your provider, enter in your mobile number and with luck you should be good to go. I received an error when I entered my number but it still seems to have registered me, ever since I’ve been able to use BT Openzone happily.

Blimey

So after 7 years and a month I’ve moved on professionally, a multitude of reasons most of which it wouldn’t be right for me to talk about, but suffice to say the time was right, after all timewise with a good lawyer and mitigating circumstances I could’ve got less for murder!

There is no job to go to at this stage, what there is is a few months of breathing space and a chance to step back, to see what I’d like to do next, so looking for an interesting challenge that will keep me out if trouble, so I you know of anything, let me know.