A List Apart re-design

A List Apart, one of my favourite web design related sites have unveiled they're new look and it is fabulous. Still simple and easy to use, but no longer in one narrow column sitting in the centre of my screen with a kind of generic look. Instead it spreads across my screen (although the columns are still not completely liquid), making readability better. The combination of graphics and typography gives it a more elegent feel rather than the chunky, squarish look of the old site.

I approve :-) It's also good to see that they're going to resume regular(ish) updates - standards and accessibility are interesting topics and ALA always has some interesting articles on implementing useful (and sometimes just experimental) applications.

Elsewhere, another solution to the image replacement problem arrives: Theirry Image Placement. I have yet to read through it completely, but it looks rather more complicated than most of the other solutions. If it solves all of the various issues (which none of them do yet - I've used a technique that's great, but falls down in the images of/CSS on scenario) then it's definitely worth thinking about.

Programming joys

I have been temping as a secretary/administrator since I finished uni while I look for a job in my chosen field. For the most part, this is rather dull, easy work that pays the bills but certainly doesn't add much to my life. The real advantage is that my hours are arranged to leave me with time every day for going on interviews, making phone calls, networking and sending out the all-important job applications.

Every now and again, something comes up that's vaguely within my field and I get to spend a few days really enjoying what I'm doing. A couple of months ago I was asked to design some new brochures for the department - cue me learning to use Publisher, playing with graphics and doing some writing. This week, I've been asked to turn some forms that the department members have to use into Excel spreadsheets, complete with calculations.

These forms have, until now, been arranged as Word documents with lots of tables. Filling them in involves gathering lots of information and numbers, doing half a dozen calculations that always get mucked up halfway through and then typing everything in. Wouldn't it be much simpler if people could just put in the basic numbers and let the spreadsheet do the hard work for them?

Until this week, the most complicated thing that I've done with Excel is use basic maths formulas for accounting and reconciliation in my previous disguise as a purchase ledger clerk. Some of the results that my colleagues need to generate vary depending on different factors, so I've been delving into the more complex side of Excel - IF clauses, OR, PRODUCT, nesting IF...

Hell, it's almost like actual programming, something that I love doing. There's something incredibly satisfying about working through logical operators and finding that your idea works. It doesn't matter what language I'm working in (and, really, Excel formulas probably don't count as a full programming language), it's logic and problem solving that I really love. Delving into code, operations and working out the logic of if and else, true and false. Figuring out what a language can do and how it can do something that you need.

Maybe that's why I'm enjoying the process of learning PHP/MySQL so much. I've got a crude version of the system that I aim to build already - a couple of features still need to be added, but I'm already looking at a good basis for what I need. It's got some basic server-side validation for the forms, functions for administering elements as well as forms for user submissions, search scripts and (hopefully) generates valid XHTML and CSS on the client side. The next stages are learning a bit of JavaScript for client-side form validation and learning about sessions and authentication. The bit that I'm really enjoying, though, is taking the stuff that the book teaches and putting it all together to do what I need it to do.

Sometimes I'm such a nerd.

Robin Hood I am not, but...

Sunburnt, windburnt and thoroughly exhausted, but very happy - just about sums up the weekend. Today was the day of my first archery competition, AKA the club championships. It was an all day event, so obviously we couldn't shoot our usual six dozen arrow rounds. The really good members shot a Hereford, the rest of us shot various grades of Bristol. This entails twelve dozen arrows at three different distances. A Bristol IV, the round that I shot, consisted of six dozen at 40 yards, four dozen at 30 yards and two dozen at 20 yards, with a break for lunch after the first six dozen. I have no idea what the folks shooting the Hereford had to do in addition to all this - they were out at 80 yards (then 70, then 60), as were the Bristol Is, so it must be some esoteric archery thing that I haven't stumbled upon yet.

I came out of it rather better than I'd expected - runner up ladies novice and first place in score corrected for handicap. Of course, the fact that I've had a very high handicap until now and apparently shot much better today than I thought I had helped. The downside is that today's work will have improved my handicap (made it lower) so I'm going to have to shoot much better just to maintain it. Erp.

But it was a really good fun day, lovely to see people get prizes at the end and now I have two medals to find homes for.

All of that fresh air and exercise has completely exhausted me so I'm going to have some supper and a very early night so that I can be reasonably intelligent at work tomorrow.

At last, she goes

Discovery blasts off from Florida.

Finally. As a girl who can still vividly remember wanting to be an astronaut at age six (well, that or a ballerina - I was a six year old), I am thrilled to see the shuttle program back in action. Now, if NASA can just build a viable replacement by 2010, all will be well.

Yes, I do think that we need to stay in space. Why? Because we need to know. There are experiments and ideas that can only be investigated out there. More importantly, we are a race that always needs to know what is out there. We want to touch the moon rocks, see Mars, leave our solar system and find out whether we really are alone or whether this is a universe teaming with life, just waiting for us to get off our bipedal asses and find it.

~~~

I've been a little behind on my reading, but I was going through my RSS feeds today and spotted an article from Digit about the changes to Apple's iPod range. Most interesting where the price reductions and extra features - at least now I know that the 6GB iPod mini's are really £169 and it wasn't a random special offer. An iPod is definitely top of my list of "things to buy with first proper pay cheque".

Interview and book review

Had an interview today - not my first, probably not my last, but memorable.

Plus points: For the first time, I walked into a company's offices and immediately wanted to work there. My liking for them only grew during the interview. They were a small company, seemed relaxed, friendly and enthusiastic about their work - exactly what I want. The work sounds interested and varying, with plenty of opportunity to get real experience with web application development. The job emphasises the technical side rather than the sales/marketing side and they are looking for someone to train in ASP/ASP.NET rather than someone with several years of experience.

The downside: I don't think that I presented myself well. Leaving aside my slightly unusual approach to one of the logic tests, I know that I backtracked myself a couple of times and probably didn't sound like I had any idea of what I wanted. I was too vague sometimes and trying too hard to find the answers they wanted to hear rather than just being myself. I think the worst one was answering the question on what I wanted out of the next five years of my career. During my last interview, the company was very gung-ho about project management and running my own projects immediately, rather less happy about my interest in the more technical side of the work. So I answered the question this time with a babble about experience and leading projects, which they clarified by asking whether I was looking to be a project manager or a technical specialist. At this point I was honest and answered the latter, but I have a feeling that the damage was done. I also babbled about prefering the web applications development side over the standalone software because that's "where it's all moving towards and it's what excites me". The easier (and more honest) answer would have been that figuring out how websites worked is what started me on the IT route and it's what I've had in my mind during the worst moments of artificial intelligence and the nastiest exams.

In a nutshell, I'd love the job if they offered it to me, but I think that I blew the interview. Still, plenty of jobs out there and each interview gets me the experience and forces me to think about questions so that I can answer better (and more honestly) next time.

I had been considering writing a review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, except I know that several people are reading this who probably haven't finished it and would kill me if I accidentally spoiled them for anything. So instead...

Hammered by Elizabeth Bear
I've been following the 's LiveJournal for a long time, but her book isn't available on your average British bookstore shelf so I had to wait until I want to Canada to pick it up in Chapters. My reading taste's generally run more towards fantasy, but this was pure SF and I really enjoyed it. Her central character isn't your typical heroine - not beautiful, not young, cynical and battle-scarred. This isn't a happy, Star Trek-esque world where everything is perfect. It's grittier, more real. The bad guys are nasty, the good guys are on the side of light but aren't perfect and don't necessarily do the right thing. There were some touches that I particularly liked about this worled - the USA is recovering from collapse and religious extremism and Canada has filled the vacuum as a global superpower. On paper it sounds unlikely, but Bear makes it feel real and plausible.

There are several plot threads running through this book, some of them personal to Jenny Casey, the central character, and some of them concerning the global situation. By the end of the book, Bear has managed to tie them all together so that everything makes sense, but leaves you with enough questions and curiosity about everything to eagerly anticipate the sequel.

Book review: Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Bujold

After two books in a row that I didn't particularly enjoy, it was a relief to finally get my teeth into something this addictive.

I discovered Bujold last year with her Vorkosigan books - a series that I highly recommend - and her fantasy books haven't yet disappointed me. They are never quite what I expect and stand out from the usual run of epic or heroic fantasy by not quite following their rules.

Bujold's central heroes are usually outcasts for some reason. Vorkosigan is deformed in a society that fears and abhors mutation, the heroine of 'Paladin of Souls' (her previous fantasy book) had been considered mad for fifteen years and the hero of 'Hallowed Hunt' hosts an animal soul.

The previous fantasy books, 'Curse of Chalion' and 'Paladin of Souls' were set in the Kingdom of Chalion. 'Hallowed Hunt' is set in a neighbouring country, the Weald, introducing a new set of characters and intrigues. Bujold creates strong, memorable characters that take up residence and won't let you go until you reach the end of the book. Her heroic characters are always flawed in some way and her villains can always evoke sympathy because they aren't painted completely black. This makes them much more interesting to read than pure black or white characters.

Bujold's other strength is the plot and, more importantly, her ability to release information at just the right pace. It's impossible to put her books down because you always want to turn the next page and find out just that little bit more. If I think that I've spotted where she's going in the plot, she'll prove me wrong a couple of chapters later and the ending is never quite what I expect.

Hallowed Hunt was gripping, fascinating and an instant entry on my list of books to keep and re-read.

The joy of recruiters

So far, my experience of recruiters has been rather mixed. Last week was the most depressing: um, no, I suspect that if I go back to accounts and hint in a couple of years that I'd like to move across to development, the net result will be that I'll be a chartered accountant in ten years, all dreams (and skills) of software development crushed.

Other recruiters have been more hopeful, particularly those dealing with graduate positions. Despite the unhelpful recruiter last week, there are enough adverts on the job sites and boards for graduates that I still believe firms are looking for graduate developers. Maybe my background is a little different from other candidates, but I regard that as a strength rather than a hindrance. I have maturity, experience in the workplace and I'm used to dealing with difficult clients. It's not easy to get out of a meeting with promises (from the vendor) of paying my company lots of money when that vendor really wanted me to pay them. That's what a purchase ledger clerk has to do, sometimes, and if you can manage that, you can manage any number of tricky customer/client/vendor meetings. I have the kind of workplace skills that many other new graduates will be missing, even if I don't have the experience of working in an IT department.

I'm impatient, though. I've only been job hunting for a few weeks and already I'm impatient to find that position and get started. Temping as an admin for the last few months hasn't been thrilling and, more importantly, it's not what I'm really itching to do. I can keep myself busy with projects at home, learning new stuff (PHP/MySQL), developing sites (the Quaker thing), going back through university notes, but it's not the same as actually working at something that I want to do. I'm not being challenged or excited. I'm not using all the stuff running around in my brain.

I'm not being paid enough.

I am going to swallow my frustration and continue plugging away at the job hunt until I find something. After all, I've talked to several people who took up to a year to find their first position after graduation. My few weeks is hardly a drop in that.

In other thoughts, I may have to think about replacing my trackball. The left button is getting a little flakey. Of course, it's nearly five years old so maybe that's not a bad life-time for it...