Spacedmonkey

When I was young I used to love playing with Rubik cubes and the other day I decided to google them to see how they are solved. I came across some really interesting stories about them on Gizmodo. Here you go!

• Rubik’s Cube For the Lazy
• Rubik’s Cube For the Blind
• How to Solve the Rubik Cube in Six-Seconds

Every time I write a blog on here, I always feel guilty for not having the time to write more on this blog. In truth I have too much going on in my life at the moment to keep a truly up to date blog. I also find that lots of the things I want to blog about feel a bit pointless. There are so many blogs out there, so what is the point of rewriting stuff that someone has already written like so many others. As I am keeping myself so busy, what have I been doing?

Well of course, I have had university work to do; I am working on my second year of my degree at the moment so I have had lots to do there. I created a couple of pieces of work that I was extremely proud of. For one of modules, I had to write a Java program which was a massive undertaking. The Java program was a simple piece of network mapping software. It worked out amazing; I can’t say I have been more proud of anything, work wise, than this. Check out a screenshot of it in action on my Flickr account.

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Normally I don’t write posts on my web site personal site about computers, I have another blog called ComputingCorner for that but this time, I don’t feel like I can help myself. For Christmas I was lucky enough to get myself a brand new Macbook and I most admit that I love this thing. As a person that does computing and a little web designing this thing is prefect. It really has changed my life at University to have a working laptop in my lectures. The only thing that I have not enjoyed about this wonderful computer is the number of people that talk to me about it. I can’t seem to get it out of my bag without someone wanting to explain why their laptop is better. I am really am sick of it. The number of people that talk rubbish about Apple’s computers, is amazing. Some of these people have shocked me with what they think you can’t do or just sillyness. For example, you guy told me that you can not print on a Mac. I am sorry but WHAT! I have installed three printers on my macbook and have not had a single problem with any of them. In fact it was easier than installing a print on Windows. I have also heard that Macs are really slow, which is the stupidest thing I have ever heard as my macbook boots and runs faster than most high end Windows laptops.
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Just a quick note to all those who are reading this, I have recently setup my facebook profile to automatically converts everything I post my blog, spacedmonkey as notes. This means that my blog can be read from directly within Facebook and means my writings and rants get more eye balls on them. There may be so posts that are completely random, pointless, stupid, nerdy, weird or generally not understandable but keeping reading, their really is some gold. So if you are reading this as a note, check out my blog at www.spacedmonkey.co.uk or click on the original post link at the top that says “View original post”.

When looking at the web stats for this site, a looked at the list of search engine terms that brings visiters to the site from search engines. Interestingly enough the search terms that got the most people to the site was best jokes in the world. But when looking at the results I saw something else that interested me. The third result on the term terms was “jonathan harris” web design. That search is finding the post when I discussed my web design Portfolio. I run the search to see what came up and it turns out that there is another web designer out their called Jonathan Harris.

This is not the first time I have seen people on the internet with my name. For example the famous actor Jonathan Harris who was the star of the 1950s tv show Lost in Space. Their is also a British camera company called jonathanharris.co.uk. But this person with the same name seems to really both me. There is another guy out there that has my name and does exactly the same as me, making web sites. So I decided to read all of this guys site which is called number 27 and I must admit it a bit weird. It starts off with an odd personal statement about the Universe, which I personally think it rubish. Then it talks about some of the projects this guy has worked on. Some of this guys projects really put me to shame. I really like the Yahoo! Netrospective which is a selection the top 100 moments of the web from 1995 to 2005.

Well, all I can say is that my Portfolio looks much more interesting than Number27. Looking his bio, is was born in 1979, making him about 28 years old and has finished a degree in Computer science. So all this can mean for me that I have a bright future as I have lots more years to build up my design skills. So if you were searching for a different Jonathan Harris, free feel to contact me and give me ago, I am cheaper!

One of my hobbies is Web design, I really like making web sites and writting scripts. I am thinking about earning some money over the holidays making/administratoring sites for some bussinesses in the local area. So to show off my skill as a designer I have created a new web site called Jonathandavidharris.co.uk which is a portfolio that showcases some of all of my works so far. So as reading of this blog I thought you might be interested in seeing some of the other pieces of work that I have done. It is a good place to keep track of all the other projects that I have been doing while I haven’t been blogging on spacedmonkey.

It includes some pieces that I am very proud. I created a E-bussiness for Introduction to Internet applications module of my first year on my University course. The content based on another site I created a year ago called Teeny T-shirts. But this site has fully functioning stock control system and error checking order form. There is also another site called Meta Computing, is a frame work for my own blogging software. I hope to make this software use AJAX and be completely portable so that those who can not fans of using Wordpress and Movable Type have another opition. Lots of these work projects are hosted on this site as it is my kind of dumping grounds for all the little pieces of writtings and work I want to put on the internet.

If your interesting in hiring to create a web site for you, please fill out contact me. I do not give out free html advice, specially for modifying MySpace profiles. Pricing for any web site design is not based on any set price list and is based on the amount of developement time.

The Art. Lebedev Studio is the largest design company in Russia, founded in 1995 by Artemy Lebedev. This company has it’s fingers in a lot of pies including industrial design, graphic design, web design, and interface engineering. I found about this site by accident when try find some interesting desktop background on Google images. When looking around the site I found it very interesting. As a design company it has lots of really cool ideas for real world products and has a very different view on product design. With lots of different things the company makes, I was shocked to find out that they also make computer parts.

Most interesting is a product called Optimus keyboard (pictured left). Every key of the Optimus keyboard is a stand-alone display showing exactly what it is controlling at this very moment. Personally, I don’t think that I am going to be rushing out to get one just yet as, looking at the Art. Lebedev store, the prices that seem to start at $1400, which is a little out of my range. It is still very interesting to look around the everything part of the site and see all the idea they have.

There is also I never nice set of desktop backgrounds, which are entitled posters which are free to download and use on your own computer. Personally I love the background called, New directions and I used it as my background for many months.

It is nice to see stuff like this, with some much of the internet full of rubbish. Hope you enjoyed the site.