Don’t Forget Your Mouthpiece

My name is James, and I am an AOL user.

Like they say, the first step is admitting you have a problem, and I have certainly been having those in the past few days. Read the rest of SMTP Port Blocking: A Confession

Today I launched two new sites. The first is my web design business site at jtwebstudio.co.uk. The second is the site for my folks’ B&B and studio gallery in Orkney - book early to avoid disappointment! Both sites done nicely in XHTML and CSS with no tables for layout. Read the rest of Shameless self-promotion

Last night I went to my former place of employment to see a stunning performance of Shostakovich 7 by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Mariss Jansons. While there I met one of my former colleagues who told me about an amusing incident she had witnessed a few weeks before, when the Vienna Phil were in town playing Mozart: Read the rest of Elitist? Moi?

Sounds riveting doesn’t it?

I did this a while ago on my laptop, and it was a major headache. When I came to do it again on my desktop (laptop is in the laptop hospital having an AC socket replacement) it was no less of one. The problem is that most of the web-available tutorials are either incomplete or not up to date with the new versions of the software, and if you’re anything like me the official documentation is not so much verbose as impenetrable. So, in an effort to help mere mortals like myself, is as simple an explanation as I can muster of how to do it. Read the rest of How to install Apache 2/PHP 5/MySQL 5 under Windows XP

I should really learn to read things properly. Two pages on in my PHP book was the section on session variables. One of which is the basis for this new, improved, go-faster version of my hit counter. Read the rest of Hit Counter 2.0

Here, for what it’s worth, is my attempt at a very simple hit counter for a PHP-based web site. It’s similar to the day when I first brought a horn home from school and played it, much to the delight of my family - “Yes, very nice dear. Why don’t you take it outside?” In other words, it’s a bit crap but I’m proud of it nonetheless. Read the rest of PHP hit counter

Olly Green, 4th horn in the Philharmonia Orchestra, died very suddenly a few days ago. He was only 28.

I can’t claim to have known him beyond having met him a couple of times, but the horn playing world is a small one and I know that his loss will be deeply felt within it, and beyond.

The trivial things I have been getting wound up about this week have been put sharply into perspective.

My thoughts are with Olly’s family and friends.

Today I went to watch Leeds United play at Millwall. The last time I saw Leeds play was 10 years ago, when we beat Manchester United 3-1 at home, so it was an odd experience to see a team so far removed from those days when we were serious Premiership contenders. Read the rest of E-I-E-I-O. up the Football League we go

Guardian Unlimited | Arts news | £33m tax bill could close orchestras

British orchestras face a £33m tax bill that, if collected, could “kill them all off in one fell swoop” according to one orchestra insider. “The problem is so gigantic that literally everyone would go bust,” said another symphony orchestra source.

The liability for the tax bill is understood to have come “out of the blue” only weeks ago. Orchestras are now holding emergency meetings with Arts Council England, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to try to solve the crisis.

Read the rest of The tax man cometh

Since I don’t currently have the readies to be flying to Australia for conferences (or even cycling to Brighton for conferences), I’ve been doing the next best thing by listening to podcast recordings of some of the presentations from the Web Essentials ‘05 event which happened recently in Sydney. Read the rest of some approaches to public speaking