Author Archives: lornajane

02 Mar
2008

Farmhouse Cake

This is the recipe for the cake I made for php london, its a “Farmhouse Cake” apparently but it reminds me of Dundee cake and keeps really well for a good couple of weeks in a tin, which can often be useful!

8oz butter
8oz caster sugar
grated rind of 1 orange
4 eggs, beaten
8oz self raising flour
half tsp nutmeg
3 oz ground almonds
14 oz mixed dried fruit
3oz glace cherries

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C, and grease an 8 inch deep cake tin (I have a great one with a bottom that comes out so the cake comes out in one piece).

Cream the butter, sugar and orange rind together, then add the eggs a little at a time. Fold in the flour, then stir in everything else and put the mixture into the tin. Cooking time is 2 hours 15 to 2 hours 30 minutes – but keep checking on it and if the top starts to burn then cover it with greaseproof paper.

01 Mar
2008

PHP London 2008

On Friday was this year’s PHP Conference in London and I must say it was a roaring success. The whole conference had completely gone up a gear from last year (the only other time I’ve attended) with a larger venue, choice of tracks, more attendees and better food.

I was there representing phpwomen.org with a stand and some t-shirts to give away as well as some information about the group. We took 30 t-shirts and they were all completely gone by lunchtime, which was a great response. Even after that the stand was buzzing all day with people dropping by to ask about the group and how to get involved/get more t-shirts/help us gain more recognition. I was surprised and pleased by the response of attendees, both male and female, I met so many interesting people that I can’t begin to list them here but it was great to chat to you all! Its great to be able to raise awareness at events like these and the phplondon committee were wonderfully supportive of us throughout the organisation phase and during the day itself.

My new employers, Ibuildings were sponsoring the event so I was also able to spend some time with my colleagues and meet some new ones. I also briefly rebranded to the distinctive red ibuildings shirts at one point, to look like part of the team while we took some photos. It was great to see the guys doing the Zend Platform demos and to be able to hang around with them – including the guys from the Netherlands who were there. Ivo Jansch (CTO over there) gave a talk which I enjoyed and was well received all round. I didn’t realise until then that I actually work in the tallest team ever! I’m one of the smallest – at 5’11” this is pretty unusual :)

Since I was doing so many other things on the day I didn’t get to a lot of the talks but what I did see was well-prepared and the audience were great, with some really interesting questions being asked in all the sessions I attended. There were two tracks, in rooms just across the corridor from one another, and the rooms were well-managed and ran smoothly throughout the day. The conference also provided a “recharge room” with juice for people and devices alike. The venue was great and was big enough for everyone without any crowding or bottlenecks.

All in all I’d like to congratulate the organisers on a great event – can’t wait for next year :)

28 Feb
2008

Offline Geeking

I don’t spend a lot of time hanging around with geeks in the real world. I spend a lot of time hanging around with them in virtual spaces and some of the people I have met there are my closest friends. Offline meets are … quite different. Lots of geeks are quite shy, for starters. Some are quite egotistical, like the guy I met last year at the pre-conference social for phplondon and was horrified to hear that I create PHP using vim instead of a “proper IDE” and said how happy I was that I had made the effort to reach out to the conference and that he was sure I would learn a lot – the implication being that anyone who writes code with a keyboard is clearly a n00b. I’m hoping to avoid a repeat of that experience. I know I don’t look like a PHP developer but the friends I meet online can’t see that and I kind of forget … until an offline meet.

Perhaps experiences like these put me off doing the real-life thing but I am honestly so excited about PHPLondon tonight and tomorrow that I can’t imagine staying away. I’ll be promoting phpwomen at the main conference and I’m really excited about that too – look out for flocks of girls in bright purple t-shirts!

(OK, maybe not flocks…)

24 Feb
2008

PHP London and Another Busy Week

I heard last week that the PHPLondon conference is completely sold out – I had a funny feeling it might be :) I will be there, this Friday 29th February and looking forward to a great event. I’ll be at the pre- and post-conference socials, if you are an online acquaintance please stop me and say hi – I should be easy to spot as I’m female, tall, and have curly hair, there aren’t a lot of us around! I would be very pleased to meet you anyway so do say hello.

PHPWomen.org will be represented there, we have information about the group plus some women you can talk to (whether you are a woman or not, we’re not discriminatory!). We will also be giving away a few t-shirts, we don’t have a lot though so do come and demand one if you want one.

Once again things are very busy this week as I am travelling on business so I won’t be online a lot. Only been back a few days and it would be an understatement to say that I’m tired but hopefully things won’t carry on at this rate forever. Anyway its Sunday which usually means I should be packing …

21 Feb
2008

Speaking at Dutch PHP Conference

A quick announcement: I’m speaking at the Dutch PHP Conference this year, my talk is entitled “PHP Deployment with Subversion”. The conference is in Amsterdam, you can find out more on its website http://phpconference.nl, and it takes place on June 14th. It’ll be my first big speaking engagement, and I’m also really looking forward to meeting a lot of Dutch friends there.
19 Feb
2008

Seaside Sunset

Here’s the view from my hotel balcony yesterday evening:

So far the Netherlands is a great experience, my colleagues are friendly and its a lovely country to visit.

17 Feb
2008

European Adventure

For once it’ll probably be pretty quiet around here next week. That’s because I’m catching a ludicrously early plane to Amsterdam in the morning to spend a couple of days in the Ibuildings Vlissingen office, and then flying direct to London to work there the rest of the week.

There are going to be a lot of firsts, I don’t fly a lot and haven’t flown outside the UK alone before – so flying through both Schipol and Heathrow in the space of a few days is going to be probably a bit scary! I don’t visit London much either (haven’t been for almost a year in fact) but I have an Oyster card and an underground map to assist me. I’m also delivering training for Ibuildings which is a new career step for me but one that I’m very excited about (as well as hyperventilation-inducingly anxious) so all in all its going to be a pretty exciting week! I’m also getting to meet colleagues from both offices and practice my dutch for real :)

(Of course, there will be lots of blog action if I find myself at a loose end and with internet connection!)

15 Feb
2008

Fetching Fingerless Mitts (again)

Last year I made these lovely fingerless mittens from a pattern called “fetching” on the knitty.com site.

I’ve made some more! After a trip to Farfield Mill in September I bought one skein of lovely local-made wool. I adapted the fetching pattern, adding extra cable repeats at the cuff, elongating the middle section of the glove, and replacing the thumb with a vertical slit which is achieved by knitting the circular knitting straight for 8 rows just before the final cables. Here’s the result:

And a little closeup on the cables, as I’m very proud of how these gloves have turned out (apart from the interesting ‘S’ shape I achieved when I did one of the cables in the wrong direction and didn’t realise until I was almost finished the glove! We call that “a feature”)

12 Feb
2008

Learning Dutch

I now work for IBuildings who are really a Dutch company, and as a result I’m starting to realise it would be useful if I could manage a handful of Dutch phrases. My colleagues and other IRC friends from The Netherlands have all been very helpful and have promised to teach me new phrases one at a time. So far the list goes like this:

(Dutch -> English)

  • hallo -> hello
  • hoi -> hi
  • dank je -> thankyou
  • hoe is het? (apparently pronounced as “who is hat”) -> how are you?
  • thee tijd -> tea time
  • ik heb zin in taart -> I feel like having cake

    • I’m sure there are more phrases to come, I’ll be keeping them here to help me keep track of what I have learned :)

10 Feb
2008

Crochet Robot

I recently met up with an IRC friend, Davey Shafik, in real life for the first time. A couple of days beforehand I realised that he lives in Florida and sometimes meets up with my good friend and phpwomen.org mentor, Ligaya Turmelle. This seemed like too good an opportunity to miss to send her something little, so I made her this (and finally it reached her so I can post about it! This was actually made at Christmas time):

He’s just crocheted, nothing complicated, and I made him up although I’ve seen plenty like him doing the rounds on craftzine and similar sites. I know I’ll get asked to make another so instead, here’s the pattern and if you can’t crochet, I’ll teach you. He’s a really easy toy and was quick to make. Lig says “he’s cute” which is all the encouragement I need :)

Robot Crochet Pattern

materials: 3.5 mm crochet hook, DK (8 ply) yarn scraps, black embroidery thread, tapestry needle, toy stuffing.

N.B. These are British Crochet instructions, if you know what “single crochet” is then you need to convert it to American format, see my previous post on the differences, basically this is all “dc” which is “sc” in American terminology.

Foundation: 24 ch.

Round 1:1 ch (counts as dc), dc in remaining back loops to end, turn, crochet along the other loops (they were the front loops, then you turned the work, so they are kind of back loops now) back to start, join.

Round 2: 1 ch (counts as dc), dc all round, join.

Rounds 3-18: as row 2.

Finish Body: This is where we seam across the top of the round to make the shoulders, so hold front and back of body together and do 8 dc across both front and back stitches, as if using crochet technique to join pieces. Then crochet across the middle part, where his neck would go, then crochet closed 8 stitches at the end of the row too, going through front and back stitches together as before, finish off yarn. You should have a big square shape with a smaller slit on the top edge.

Cast on Head: With other colour of yarn, crochet a row of dc around the slit, (this is the basis of the head) join.

Rows 1-8: 1 ch (counts as dc), dc all round, join.

Now stuff the robot with the toy stuffing, as tightly as possible.

Finish Head: (Similar to method for shoulders) Fold flat and crochet two stitches together across top of head, finish off yarn. Weave in all ends.

Aerial: ch 8, finish off. Using yarn ends, stitch first ch to 3rd or 4th one in chain and join other end of aerial to middle of top of head (see picture).

Feet (make 2): 3ch, join to form ring. ch 1 (counds as dc), 5 dc into ring, join. 4 more rows of 6dc, and stuff the shape (its fiddly!). Then leave a long end, thread through remaining stitches and pull tight. ch 12 with long end and finish off. Attach to robot with yarn end.

Hands (make 2): make a little pom pom (I just sounds yarn round my fingers a few times and tied it round the middle with one end of a long tail of yarn, then cut through the loops). ch 18 with the long tail, finish off, and attach to robot.

Face: using black embroidery thread, embroider a face.

Pattern Notes

This is my first ever attempt at publishing a pattern, although I often make things by just beginning and then working in the right direction rather than finding a pattern. If you make him, I would really like to hear from you and if you have photos too then that would make me actually dance with joy :) Similarly if its unclear or you spot any mistakes then please add a comment – feedback is welcome!