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Cookies and Curl
21 December 2009
Read morecurl is the C URL library - its a command-line tool for making web requests, with libraries available in many languages. Personally I prefer to use it from the command line and recently I have been using it with cookies for a web services which set a cookie at login and …
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New Camera: Fuji Finepix F70
17 December 2009
Read moreRecently I've had a new gadget in my life - a Fuji Finepix F72, which is really an F70 but exclusive to Jessop's in a different colour (I have no idea why retailers do this but hey, it means mine is shiny black).
The camera is a birthday/christmas gift from …
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Sound Issues with Kubuntu Karmic Koala
15 December 2009
Read moreSince upgrading my work machine to karmic koala, I've noticed that my sound had stopped working. There were some broken packages in aptitude and Skype knew there was a problem as it notified me when I tried to make a call. I saw some issues reported with karmic, notably this …
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Speaking at PHPUK
11 December 2009
Read moreI'm pleased to announce that this year I'll be speaking at PHPUK in London in February. I've attended this conference for the last three years, and attend its related user group, PHP London whenever I can find a reason to be in London on the right day. My talk this …
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PHP Advent 2009
04 December 2009
Read moreI'm very proud to be able to say "I'm a PHP Advent author" - I've been invited to take part in this year's event and my article One Step at a Time is now live!
My post this year is aimed as a reminder to us all that we can all …
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PHPWomen Calendar 2010
02 December 2009
Read moreI'm halfway delighted and halfway cringing to announce that the phpwomen calendar is now on sale. This was a project organised by my friend and colleague Johanna Cherry, who saw an opportunity at php|tek 2009 to photograph the majority of the core PHPWomen members all in one place and …
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Cobweb Wrap
01 December 2009
Read moreAfter around 15 months of ongoing work, I've finally finished my cobweb wrap which I initially started (original blog post here, complete with links to yarn sources) to make a good travel project. Well it was certainly that - small and lightweight, I took it on three transatlantic trips all told …
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Speaking at PHP Benelux 2010
30 November 2009
Read moreI'm delighted to announce that I'm speaking at the inaugural PHP Benelux Conference, to be held on Saturday 30th January in Antwerp, Belgium. The talk will be "Passing the Joel Test in the PHP World"; I gave this talk PHPNW09 in October and it was well-received there, so hopefully I …
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Are Games Just For Gamers?
26 November 2009
Read moreI'm a keen gamer, or I thought I was - but I'm also female and very busy, which apparently is outside the expected criteria. My preferences are typically for platform style games (Zelda) although I'll play pretty much anything that's easy on the eye and doesn't require superhuman powers of hand-eye …
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Conference Biography Help
20 November 2009
Read moreI've been updating my conference details recently, in order to submit my talks for php|tek in Chicago (the call for papers closes on Monday - get your submissions in!). One thing which I struggled with is my biography, I used to have a paragraph which sort of said "Lorna is …
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Email As a Means of Social Communication
16 November 2009
Read moreRecently I've been spending a lot of time away from home, and busy with clients within office hours, which means I'm not available via my usual real-time communication mechanisms. This has given me the opportunity to enjoy email as a means of staying in touch with people that I would …
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Burndown Charts
10 November 2009
Read moreDisclaimer: I am not an expert on this topic and have never studied it formally. This is purely an explanation of how I've seen these charts used within Ibuildings and included in my talk Passing the Joel Test in the PHP World which triggered lots of questions and tweeting.
Burndown …