A constructive day, housekeeping, Fabric’s new compilation, and putting the cat out…
It's another late night, so it must be time for another rambling blog entry about “what I've dun lately”. If you read this, I can guarantee you'll be bored… ;o)
This is going to be a bumper blog entry of all the really really boring stuff I've done this week altogether, so you only have to “ignore” one thing instead of loads ;o)
Posted by Alex on Wed 28th February 2007
Taking away my toys… :o(
(This is a *really* boring blog entry, but I have to write it - sorry!)
With the impending arrival of the campaigning season, it's only fair to assume that any unfair advantage a candidate has should be taken away from them wherever possible. Unfortunately for me, given I have fairly wide-ranging access to UPSU.net, this means certain steps need to be taken to ensure I (or a “helpful friend”) can't take advantage of this power by turning UPSU into a “Vote Alex” campaign.
The problem is, simply turning off my account would prevent me from writing in my blog, posting on the forums and maintaining my profile, all of which are privileges available to everyone with a UPSU account.
It would also be impractical to “transfer” ownership of my account to another - standard - account, because we don't have that kind of tool on UPSU.net, and it would make a complete mess of the auditing system I've put in place over the last couple of weeks.
So, in the spirit of fair campaigning (i.e. to make sure I can't misbehave when I come home trolleyed from a night of drinking…), I've been wandering around UPSU's code today turning off some of the controls. Here's what I can't do on UPSU.net any more:
- Edit any web pages in the elections mini-site,
- Edit any news articles in the elections mini-site,
- Log into the administration back-end at all - so I can't:
- view or edit peoples' accounts,
- change advertising settings,
- move pages around,
- add, edit or remove the SSI modules - for example, the toys which generate the “latest news articles” code on the elections homepage,
- … and a load of other things, too,
Tomorrow my FTP access to the site will also be disabled, too, so I won't be able to edit code on UPSU. On the plus side, this means I won't be tempted to spend hours writing and tweaking new projects, which will be great for my sleep pattern (I almost *always* think of a great new tool around midnight which “will only take 10 minutes” and keeps me up for the rest of the night…).
Now I don't have anything to do, maybe I'll actually (a) get on with making My First Video Blog, and (b) start planning my campaign … maybe!
Big love /al
Posted by Alex on Sun 25th February 2007
Coming soon - Pure:FM direct from UPSU.net
I've just had a quick chat with Carl, Pure:FM's resident web guru, and he's beginning work on a brilliant little pop-up Pure:FM player.
This will mean no more having to hunt around Purefmdotcom to find out how to listen to their shows; you'll just have to click a link on any UPSU page (in the “now and next” box - pic somewhere on the right there) and away you go.
Naturally there'll be some things that have to be tackled first; a lot of computers have either one type of media player progam - e.g. Windows Media Player - or the other - Real Player. Some don't have either, for example a number of the University PCs, so we need to make sure that the end result is able to work on the widest range of systems possible.
With a little bit of luck, and a not-inconsiderable amount of work on Carl's part, I'm confident we'll be able to get this up and running in time for the elections. Fingers x'd then!
Alex is the UPSU.net web monkey, and loves adding new toys to the site. He's also running in the UPSU Elections for Media & Publications officer, and trying to finish off his degree as well. He's also half Welsh, but please don't hold that against him…
Posted by Alex on Sat 24th February 2007
Green enough for ya…?
I wonder if the proportion of elections coverage on the homepage is just - possibly, maybe - a little too high…? ;o)
While the elections are *the* most important part of the Union's calendar, it's not fair to assume that everyone is interested in having it quite literally forced on them.
Time to go searching for some alternative content to bring things back into balance. Any suggestions?
Posted by Alex on Sat 24th February 2007
Videos for everyone - add YouTube vids to your blogs
UPSU.net has a new toy, which (I hope) will make it a lot easier to add a video to your blog, and easier for us pixel geeks to add videos to news and web pages.
Find out more here, and to see a really bad impression of Richard Hammond advertising a boot sale (… or something …).
/al
Posted by Alex on Sat 24th February 2007
The Friday Random: Weightless Dog (take 2)
After making a bit of a mess of trying to post this the first time round, here's a second attempt to make this work…
And don't worry kids - the dog was fine. Just a bit surprised, apparently…
Posted by Alex on Fri 23rd February 2007
How (not) to post a video in your UPSU.net blog…
- Find a video you like on YouTube,
- Start a new blog entry, and think up an appropriate title (witty and/or attention-grabbing is better),
- Copy the handy HTML code provided by YouTube and paste it into the HTML editor in your blog,
- Click the “update” button to return to your blog's WYSIWYG view,
- Click the “save entry” button,
- Admire your… Oh bugger, where's my video gone?
- Click the “edit” link to open your blog entry again,
- Click the “HTML” button to see what's happened to your HTML,
- Wonder why your HTML code seems to have turned itself into a random jumble of code that makes no sense to anyone,
- Repeat steps 3 to 6 at least 5 times,
- Google for an answer to the problem,
- Try 15 different permutations of your Google search. Still nothing,
- Google for a plugin to work around the problem,
- Find a plugin but not too sure if it'll work, so off we go to take a database back-up before anything else is done…
So, far from being able to upload a video about a floating dog, I'm now looking for a way of putting YouTube videos into blogs without breaking everything.
Posted by Alex on Fri 23rd February 2007
Why you shouldn’t let your photos play on the information superhighway…
In the spirit of not taking myself too seriously during the elections campaign, here's something that's haunted me for two years with no signs of giving up just yet… ;o)
I found some aviator sungigs while I was dismantling a car with a friend a couple of years ago, so I popped them on and struck a pose… And my “mate” grabbed his camera and snapped this photo (click any pic to enlarge):
… Git. As if that wasn't bad enough, he posted it on a forum I'm a member of. So, being a lovely bunch of community-minded folks, they did their bit for the community… With Photoshop. Just like Tony Hart, here's some of their best efforts… Gits, the lot of them…
And finally, my favourite…
B'stards, the lot of them… ;o)
Posted by Alex on Fri 23rd February 2007
Chin up!
Just came out of the elections candidates' briefing to find this:
D'oh!
Posted by Alex on Thu 22nd February 2007
Another late night
I'm supposed to be in work nice and early tomorrow; I promised myself I'd be in bed around 9pm when I started feeling tired.
Like the best-laid plans, that didn't happen - I'm sitting here stuffed full of pancakes, trying to figure out how to record video podcasts with the sound and video synchronised (harder than it looks apparently…), wandering around UPSU.net thinking of everything I'd like to get done (on my wish list), and wondering what all the other elections candidates are doing - sleeping, partying, planning…?
Still, I've added a new toy to go with another of UPSU.net's new toys tonight - you can now click one button to export a personal note from the notes thing I cobbled together last week into a blog entry. It *should* work, but when I click the button to try and export *this* note into my blog, it's bound to all go horribly wrong now ;o)
…
!! It worked! Right, enough geekery - bed-time. PWs tomorrow - I need a pint or three after this week!
Peace out /al
Posted by Alex on Wed 21st February 2007