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Morphix dans le cuisine (avec un apron) | 8:51 27 Apr 2004

So what's new? I've been bizy in the kitchen lately..Pukka Pies, Lasagne, Puff Pastry Pizza, Chocco Coffee, all new additions to Morphix's cookbook.
Inbetween cooking I managed to squeeze in a bit of work, and started an online survey for a new online payment and billing service called EcashBilling.com which we're launching towards the end of May. Stephanie has been bizy with EcashBilling.com also, as well as doing some updates to her homepage. I just booked her plane tickets for next week so hopefully we'll get some nicer weather that week, it's pretty dismal right now.

bizy doin web stuff | 14 Apr 2004

Don't police cars look like giant wasps?
Today I'm continuing work on my first online shopping store site, which is powered using the very excellent Interchange. Oooo I love Interchange. It rox. But Internet Explorer sux. I've stopped using it becuz it just lets tooooo much bad shit get onto my system, even with a firewall I get heaps of spyware and damn annoying pop-ups. That's not even mentioning the browser crashing every hour. Anyone else feeling that vibe? Well, you could always ditch Internet Explorer and switch over to Firefox. It's alot like Internet Explorer but open source and alot more stable and secure. Since I changed over I haven't had a single problem! You can even import your favourites list straight into Firefox and customise the look of it and stuff.

Summer is here! | 12:32 13 Apr 2004

I'm on my own and working again after spending nearly two weeks with Steph at my place. She had planned to arrive on my birthday (30th March) nice and early to bake me a cake, but our plans got ruined when the airline cancelled her flight and I received a call from my distressed little French sweetie stranded at the airport. Luckily, she was able to take another flight from a different airport and arrived at Birmingham International Airport around 10.30pm. I quickly dashed from Redditch all the way to Birmingham by taxi first to the train station with a ride in my old friend Ashan's taxi, and then I waited for a train to New Street Station which was LATE and very stressing since Steph was on a straight thru train from the airport to Redditch which only stopped briefly at New Street Station, and I needed to be on it! I got to New Street Station eventually, and in just 2 minutes got a ticket and found Steph's train and got on it and we made the journey back to my place arriving around midnight! Phew. Steph showered me with many nice gifts including some very useful stuff for my flat. Steph went home on bank holiday Monday. I tried to sneak into her suitcase, but unfortunately she couldn't carry it so I had to stay behind.
I also got a new television from my mother and brother which is silver and very posh indeed. My old television died ages ago and I never bothered to replace it since I hardly watch tv these days, even though I have a TV card in my PC. I used to watch TV everyday and follow all the soaps but I just don't have the time these days, but now I have this new TV I will watch more films. Actually I did watch The Doors, the dramatised story of the 60's rock band. Quite a good film.

Happy birthday to meeee | 8.30pm 30 Mar 2004

Tis my birthday today. I'm errr...30 something! Still waiting for my cake and presents. Steph is on her way from fwaaaance. Her flight was cancelled but she managed to get a later flight luckily. phew.
I been real bizy lately workin on stuff and haven't had time to update my homepage or do much else. But now I'm on a 2 week break so expect more updates and pix. And I might even try and hook my camcorder up to the PC and shoot some video. Can you believe I haven't even had time to play with it properly since I bought it!

The Mystery of the invisible website | 7pm 11 Mar 2004

[Warning: this entry may make you extremely drowsy and sleepy unless you're a techie and into this stuff, in which case it will be an interesting and enlightening read]
Yesterday while carrying out some routine maintenance of my webserver I noticed a VERY large number of failed http requests in the server's error log. All for the same file (cgi-local/links.cgi), strangely all the requests appeared to originate from my OWN server, via a domain name I recently accquired (webshoppingsites.com) but wasn't using and had moth-balled. How can this be I thought! I wracked my brains trying to solve the mystery, but all I had was a load of IP addresses from people making the failed http requests to www.webshoppingsites.com/cgi-local/links.cgi. But it was enough to go on.. A quick search on Google for "cgi-local/links.cgi" returned a no1 listing for a little Free for All Links cgi script provided by a Matt's Script Archive. After trawling his site for some clues and finding nothing, I decided to download his links script to see if he was using my domain in an example in his form or something, but alas, nothing. With the failed requests still coming in thick and fast every few seconds, I decided something had to be done. And then it came to me. Install the script! I installed the script and set it up so that the incoming requests would be served, and sure enough I started getting some links being myseriously added into the links page! Now I was getting somewhere. I visited some of the websites from the links and e-mailed the owners asking where they submitted their link to my site from. I got a reply, bingo! All the requests were coming from a free software product called (**censored**). Some lamers have produced this software to exploit Matt's Free For All Links script which is on countless websites around the world, by adding all of the websites into the software and allowing people to submit their site to 10,000's of websites using the software without even a reciprical link or visit or anything. Tsk! I still don't know how my domain name webshoppingsites.com managed to end up in their listing, but my guess is the domain name was once used by someone else before I registered it. The makers of that software should damn well check out the websites included in their software and make sure people are happy to be included there. Now I'm having to introduce some blocking measures to stop these requests.
P.S. Matt, if you happen to read this, PLEASE add some local host security into ya Links script to kill off spam parascites.

Cleaning is good | 10:24 9 Mar 2004

Spent the last 2 days cleaning my flat. Cleaned the floors, under the tables, behind the sofa, inside my computer, everywhere has been cleaned, polished and tidied. Why all the cleaning? Cleaning is therapy. When you can't concentrate or relax properly it's becuz of dust and dirt. Clutter and Untidness = Chaos and unease. When you clean up your place you regain control over your environment and your life. Sounds crazy? Give it a try.
Inbetween cleaning and tidying I created a new dessert, my Butterscotch pie. Mmmmm. So sweet. I bet Steph won't eat it, it's a "sugar bomb".
Last week I discovered a new thing called SmartStamp and it rox. It's a new service provided by our friends at Royal Mail (damn their website is slow!) which brings the post office onto your computer and let's you print your own postage labels like this. No more buying stamps, no more standing in queues. About time too! I should be on a commission here I think.