Chris Miller » 2005 » October

Halloween is here

Chris — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 23:52:45 +0000

So it’s nearly Halloween again. Usually around this time of year there’s some sort of flat party that I’d be going to or hosting in a flat in Glasgow. But since I’m living in Dumfries, there’s no Halloween for me!

So rather than having a party, I’ve created a new theme that will be shown from the 29th of October until the 1st of November each year.

In case it isn’t Halloween just now here’s a screenshot of the theme:

Have a good Halloween, I leave you with me, as a zombie!
- Chris

Flocking

Chris — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 00:06:38 +0000

I’ve just downloaded and started playing with Flock, a new browser which is integrated with various types of online services like flickr, del.icio.us and blogging tools like WordPress (I’m actually writing this through the Flock blogging tool).

I’ve only been playing with it for a short while, but my initial impressions are that it’s pretty damn sweet.

It allows you to post things straight from flickr, downloading your photo stream and showing it to you, so there’s no need to go to the flickr site and grab the photo url or the code you want to paste into your post, you simply have to drag in the photo!

Anyway, I’m impressed and you should get yourself a copy to try it out.
- Chris

Getting fresh, or not so

Chris — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 12:40:58 +0000

It’s been a while since I last posted, things have changed a bit in that time.

I finished my job at the University over two weeks ago now, spent a week looking after the pub at home for my folks when they were on holiday and am now back at University and into my second week.

The Job

Went well, everything was finished, more or less, and all wrapped up. Steve Brewster and David McGookin colaborated and wrote a paper based upon what I did over the Summer. They’ve submitted it to CHI 2006, whether it gets accepted or not, we’ll have to see.

The Pub

An eventful week was had by all, consisting of things blowing up, throwing people out of the bar and kicking in doors. I’ll say no more.

The University

Uni is going fine, although the research readings course is a bit hefty. I’ve decided to do Information Retrieval (M), Types and Programming Languages (M) and Network Communications Technology 4.

The courses seem interesting enough, with TPL and IR both grabbing the attention quickly (Simon actually seems pleased about the class size dwindling each session. As I’ve said the Research Readings is taking up a lot of time: reading 4 papers a week and summarising 2 of them (all four for the first few weeks). Then there’s two in-depth reviews to be done throughout this term!

There’s another few courses which I am privy to, Research Methods and Techniques (M) is one which starts this Thursday and Professional Skills (M) (a sort of masters level Professional Issues) is due to start in another 3 weeks. Anyway, everything’s going well and all this reading and discussion of papers can be exciting at times. Most of the time it’s pretty boring though.

That’s the lot folks, hope everyone is having as good a time as me at their respective jobs or courses (or mid-morning TV watchings),
- Chris

P.S. I’ve now also managed to break the 3 st barrier on my diet, now having lost 3 st 2 lb (or 0.019958064 metric tonnes).