Spacedmonkey

It is that time of the year again, to set some goals for myself, keeping them quite small, but hopefully make my life better. These are not really for you readers, but for me to write down publicly. By writing these resolutions down like this, I have to be held accountable and seeing them written down like this, it motivate me to do them.

1. Complain less and remain positive
   I think it is a very British thing to do to complain and be negative, but I think if you live your life complaining all the time, your just looking for bad things in life. Speak positive and you will be happy, at least that is the idea.
2. Don’t hold Grudge
   Much like the first resolutions, it is a matter of remain positive and happy. Holding onto angry is not good for your soul.
3. Get up earlier in the morning and have breakfast
4. Go to Orange Wednesday every week
5. Visit all of my friends at university
6. Go on Holiday
7. Start the process of learning to drive
8. Don’t buy anymore games until I complete all the games I have
9. Go swimming once a week
10. Drink less caffeine
11. Redesign all of the sites that I run.

What are your new years resolutions? What would add to this list?

One of the most interesting posts to write of the year for me, as it is time to look back on the resolutions I set at the start of the year. This year has been completely mad for me, it feels like everything has changed. With all this change, have I managed to resolve my resolutions?

1. Past my third year of University
   This is quite easily the hardest thing have ever done. It took every part of me, every piece of fire in me to complete that degree. It was one of the best days of my life when I found my result.
2. Get a full time job
   As I have previously mention on this blog, I managed to get a job with MW kellogg. But I only ended up working there for a week, when I got another job with a web design company, called Xanda. It is my dream job and I love it.
3. Try to swear less.
   This is something that I didn’t achieve, be a mixture of stressful times or living in the port city of Portsmouth. But F*** it
4. Find a place for important object, such as keys and wallet.
   After moving home, I managed this. I still loose things, but isn’t that just life.
5. Make sure my phone is always charged and on me
   I did manage this one to, it was a matter of keeping a charger in the living room and bedroom, so I can charge my phone anywhere I am. I also got a AirCurve dock for my desk at work, which will charge my iPhone.
6. Write a free application, either online or for your computer or phone that will aid the general public
   I have written a plugin for jQuery to get posts from Twitter, but I am yet to test it correctly and publish it on my portfolio. This will be completed within the next month. I am currently in the process of writing a scripts section of the portfolio, where I will open source lots of stuff I have written to date.
7. Go on holiday
   This one was a lack of money from not having a job. I have had weekends away, going to Portsmouth for some reasons, but not a real holiday. It is on this year’s list.
8. Closely monitor the amount of time that I spend on computers
   As I now work on computers everyday, I spend even more time in front of computers than ever. I do notice that I am doing it and do try and get away from my computer for at least 5 minutes in every hour. I also check facebook on my phone, spending less time in front of a big screen. Is that better?
9. Use my time more efficiently
   This is something that I do feel an have achieved by completing all of the above and manage to get out to socialize. If anything, I think that I need to slow down and chill out more.
10. Try and go out for a date-night once every two weeks.
    If you know me personally, you will understand why I do not want to dwell on this one. I will admit that I didn’t achieve this, as I was busy with number 1. Something I regret deeply.
11. Make sure the people around me know how important they are to me!

For the most part I am extremely happy with the year. I got more done in one year, than I thought I ever could. The things I didn’t manage to do was only stopped by the fact I had to focus on getting a my degree/job. Maybe I can work on these in the new year, I know that at least one of these resolutions will make it into this years list.

I have been known as a bit of an Apple fan boy in the past, as I am a massive fan of the software, which I think is hands down better than anything on the Windows platform. Now I am working, I thought it was time to buy myself a new laptop, as my current Macbook has seen better days. But when I looked at the newly released Macbook, it made me think. The newly released white Macbook, has gone up from £700 to £800, which is a bold move to make as we are in the middle of a recession and seeing that average prices on laptops have gone down from £600 to £300 in recent years.

This overpricing of hardware, is known as the Apple Tax. Apple tries to make it impossible to install their OS (OSX) onto other vendor’s hardware. But there are groups that are working on hacking the software to work on any hardware. These computers are called Hackintoshes. The first main stream hackintosh device, was the Dell Mini 9, which I know friends have successfully installed Mac OSX on. Since then a number of netbooks have been hacked to run Mac OSX. In my research for this post, I found an impressively detailed compatibility chart for hackintoshs. With this number of netbooks being able to run Mac OSX, the question has to be asked, how does the Macbook shape up to other laptops. Below is a table comparing the Macbook to one of the more expensive netbooks in the compatibility charts.
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One of the biggest problems in life is getting your first big brake, more so than ever in these troubled times. Spending months without a job, takes it out of you. I have many friends in the same place as me, so we decided to do something for ourselves. I teamed up with Jack Clarkson, an English Lit student and friend I meet at university.  What followed was months of discussion, fighting and designing with the result being something that, exceeded both of our expectations.

Today I am very proud to announce our love child, and it is called Unbored. Unbored is a reviews, articles and videos site, written by geeks, for geeks. What is great about the site, it is by young people who write about what they love. The writers say what they really think of thinks and poke fun at things that need poking fun at. This is where you can find bright new writers find there voice. What is best about this project, is that we did it all ourselves, from the ground up. I love the site, I know you will to.
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This is the message that the Maroochydore High School, Queensland, Australia, staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine. This is the actual answering machine message for the school.

This came about because they implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children’s absences and missing homework. The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children’s failing grades changed to passing grades – even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough school work to pass their classes. Read more