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.

Now that I do not have as much work to do, I think it is time to kick back and getting to having some fun. Of course, there are lots of things I can now do like to see films out, going drinking and the like I can now do. I have been enjoying talking to friends and really finding out what people have been up to, that has been amazing. The thing that really is getting to me, is that now that I have got used to working really hard on my university work, I it find it really hard to unwire and just chill out. It is funny that the first thing I wanted to do when all my work was over was to get back on my computer and start playing around with Spacedmonkey.

I think instead of just chilling out, for the next couple of weeks I am going to end up arm deep in writing for my many web sites. I have already added Live search to Spacedmonkey this blog. Try it out today, it really is cool. I also have lots of other plans. So watch this space for updates as I go and first looks at the cool stuff I am doing.

The thing that interested me the most is the very small amount of numbers that I both recieve and send texts to. I had tonnes of numbers on my phone, friends of old and random people I didn’t really know. From all this, I worked out that I only really needed four numbers.

• Mother(of course)
• Girlfriend
• Best friend on Course
• Sholder to cry on

But being without a phone most useful tool that I have used instead of having a phone is the social networking web site Facebook. With Facebook I have the ablity to have a portal to my community of friends and family where I am. To me at least, it has nearly replaced my phone as the way I interact with my friends. Now I have a new phone, I really need Facebook everywhere I go. A while back I installed the Mobile app. It sends me SMS messages when I get a wall post or message meaning I have both the phone to make calls, texts and now facebook in one device.

With new devices like the Iphone coming out, it is funny to think that I am never happier than with a really old crap phone in my pocket. It means that when I lose this one I don’t really care because it costs me nothing. It also shows how much I really care about new features in phones. I couldn’t give a crap if there is a the best camera in the world in my phone now, as long as I can make calls I am happy. So stick that in your pile and smoke it O2!

Personally I not a massive fan of fireworks. I always think that they go on for to long. So the long couple of years I have reallly put off doing anything interesting for the 5th of November. I big part of me doesn’t really understand the holiday, all about some guys who hates the government and wanted to kill lots of people. But this year, I go invited to a friend’s party where there would be fireworks. This time, for the first time in years, I was truly impressed with the fireworks, maybe it was the feeling of friends being around me and watching them or the fact that I was in a dark garden and they were closer and more personal to me, I don’t know. It felt like I was a child again and the magic of the fireworks was back.

With fireworks, come some amazing looking pictures and I really wish I had a good camera with me on that night but I didn’t. So check out the very few pictures I did manage to take with my Camera phone, viewing the new album on my flickr.   Also see other pictures I have tagged fireworks.

Been going around Freshers fair as a second year I found a wonderful Society that I just had to join. The HUG SOC, is simply a club designed to make the world a better place with hugs. This society was so clever and so cute, it had to be joined. If you want more information or to join (kinda) check out the HUG SOC Facebook group.

Also, if your wondering about the random picture on this post, well I saw this picture on Flickr, thought that it was powerfully cute and needed to be on my site.

HOME
a house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household.

As a young man, I know that I am not really going to have a stable home. It is a case of changing my state of mind. Instead of thinking that home is where all my stuff is, it is where I lay my head. With this new state of mind, it comes a feeling on home sickness. Not having a true home means that your home sick even when your in your house. It is all just weird…

• That it didn’t matter how late my first lecture was, I’d still sleep through it.
• That I could change so much and barely realize it.
• That you can love a lot of people in a lot of different ways.
• No matter how ‘cool’ you were in school, no one here cares.
• That if you wear polyester everyone will ask why you are so dressed up.
• That every clock on campus shows a different time.
• That if you got good a-levels, so what? It doesn’t matter here.
• That I would go to a party the night before an exam or essay due-date.
• That you can know everything and fail a test or know nothing and ace a test.
• That I could get used to almost anything found out about my friends.
• That most of my education would be obtained outside of lectures.
• That friendship is more than getting drunk together.
• That Sunday is a figment of the world’s imagination.
• That Psychology is really Biology, that Biology is really Chemistry, that Chemistry is really Physics and that Physics is really Maths.
• That it’s possible to be alone even when you are surrounded by friends.

1. You cry for your mother.
2. You cross the street without looking for cars.
3. Snack time is a necessity.
4. You bundle up for the outdoors without caring what you look
   like because everyone else looks as stupid as you do.
5. You stay at home and play games with your friends.
6. You wear your backpack on both shoulders.
7. You wear big mittens.
8. Playing in the snow is a legitimate activity.
9. You take naps.
10. You look forward to cheese toasties.

When I think of my life at the University of Portsmouth can not seem to imagine what it would be like without the internet. It is such a big part of how I interact with the world and the people around me. It is how I relax by watching funny videos, how I research work problems and where I talk to my friends at the end of the day.

So here is my top ten useful sites

1. Your univierisity web site
   In my case, Port.ac.uk. It is easy going to the most useful tool when there, as most of your life will be spent checking your timetable or email addresses of your lectures. Other unis have forums and blogs. Check it out.
2. Youtube
   One the most useful sites on the internet for filling in time between lectures. There are also lots of viral videos that spread like wildfire. The worst two were
   The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny and Kitty cat Dance.
3. Google
   It is a very powerful tool for researching papers. It has lots of useful tools like book search and Scholar. It also allows you to find all the porn you will ever need.
4. Facebook
   I have already talked about facebook in another post. Also see Myspace.
5. Wikipedia
   Wiki is multilingual, web-based and free encyclopedia. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world. When you looking for sources, first place to go. Do remember that it is can have false information and page can change whenever anyone can edit it.
6. Dictionary.com
   You don’t know what one of big word that a lecture or posh person said means, look it up for free.
7. BBC news
   This may seem like a funny one, but I didn’t watch normal TV all the time I was at uni. I got all my news from this site. It started to worry me that I wasnt such who prime minister was and other big events were happening and I didnt know about them. you can also check the weather on here and use it to as a reference.
8. Ebay.co.uk
   Find cheap cloths and pretty everything on here. It past I have had problems with this site, I wouldn’t by anything you would ever want to return, like Computers or CDs.
9. Ebuyer
   For all those things you need Tech wise like cheap laptop or printer, my first stop site. It cheap and the review system is good.
10. IMDB
    The Internet Movie Data base, settling fights about who was in what movie.

The internet is not evil, it is a tool, how you use it is up to you!

There are some really good bits in like the bit about lost weekend on page 198.

Lost weeks are so dubbed because they are periods in which, due to overrindulgence, once loses everything – money, sense, dignity, memory, coordination and bowel control. There are not necessarily limited to a weeked , and can last as long as a month, depending on how dedonistic and out of balance your life has become.

You can buy it on Amazon.co.uk and at time of writing was only �6.71. You can find it use ISBN which is 0 95361 1035.

You can also find more cheeky guides at their official website.

Whether you�re still deciding where to go or just two weeks from your finals, this book is an absolute must.

Facebook

This is the second part of series of posts about life at university and my thought on my first year. The first post in the series just had some general thoughts I had coming straight back from Portsmouth. This post is entitled “faceboking“.

As a student at university, prepare yourself to spend hours of your life on this web site. I have heard facebook discribed as, “Like crack”. If you walk around a computer room in any university campus, you will see many screen with this site on it. I know that I personally have spend hours, tagging myself in photos, search for friends and reading other people walls. But many do not understand this phenomenon. Why is facebook so good?

The site seems to understand that people want to know what their friends are doing and share information easily. The site was orignally designed for students and even now when it is open, it still has that at it’s core. It understand that MySpace is different market, that facebook users don’t care about what look of their profile and that not everyone in the world should be able to see your profile. So other people on your network can see your profile. Your network can be a workplace, region, high school or college. For example, I am member of London and Uni. Portsmouth ’10. Only people that live in london or are currently going to Portsmouth. This is very useful and cuts down on spam friendship requests.

It is truly amazing how useful this site can be, but it can also make problems. For example, if you make a complete fool of yourself one night and say something not very nice. If someone takes a picture of you and tags, people that you would normally very see again maybe be able to find you. Also as everyone can see your relationship status, lots of people as you why have you not changed your profile to in a relationship. This is called making your relationship, “Facebook Official“.

Personally, even through there are bad things about facebook, I still love the site and will use it as long as everyone I know does. It really shows real people, you can really tell how popular someone is by the number of pictures they have been tagged in. This article on the BBC news site, seems to prove that people on facebook are more truthful and real.

If I was a new student to uni, I would get used to the site before going off to university so you can be a good facebooker. Learn that things written on the internet can be taken lots of ways. Don’t write anything you wouldn’t say to someone face. Understand that things write on people profile are public. Happy facebooking.