Author Archives: lornajane

07 Sep
2007

Reliably Avoid Subversion Collision – Commit First!

Subversion is a source control system – an excellent accompaniment to software development especially in a team setting. When working with a number of people, it is likely that at one time or another there will be collisions – for example at the moment a project I am working on has a team making some amendments requested by the client for a website. Subversion is handling it all well but the main template files and stylesheets are colliding often as everyone is making changes.

Commit First!

The collision will only occur if you check in a change and someone else has already changed that line in a file. To avoid getting a collision in your working copy, the best thing to do is to commit your change before the other person does.

This approach of commit early, commit often will help you to develop more smoothly without the interruptions of a collision and without struggling with lots and lots of merged files when you’ve left it too long between commits. Additionally you’ll have more checkpoints in your own development history so if you need to go back a few steps, the repository will be able to help you whereas if you didn’t check in, it won’t!

That’s my tip for the day – on a day in a place where many people are bug fixing a single project!

05 Sep
2007

Setting up MySQL to listen to external ports

I had some difficulty setting up mysql to listen to external ports on a server – the development web server uses databases on another box. The important setting was in /etc/mysql/my.cnf where I removed the line:


bind-address = 127.0.0.1

You should then be able to connect a client from another server to this mysql server.

As a warning – bear in mind that it is usually good practice to set up user permissions to only be valid when accessing from localhost if that is the intention – check your mysql table if you can log into the server but then start getting permission problems for other users.

Hope this helps someone!

29 Aug
2007

Ripple Blanket

I have a new niece, as I might have said already. Clearly we knew she was on her way a while ago and so I have been crocheting a blanket for this baby for a while. I chose to make a ripple blanket, crocheted in the round and using this pattern. The wool is Sirdar Snuggly DK and the hook was 3.5mm. I found that the pattern worked perfectly and the resulting blanket lay flat – however the snuggle wool is a bit thinner than normal DK.

Here’s the storyline:

The first photo was uploaded on 10th March, and the blanket was at this point with a final row to go when we got the call to say Natalie had arrived. I forgot to photograph the blanket after putting on the border as we were rushing off to meet her but here it is with its owner:

27 Aug
2007

Tile Transfers

Our house has a cellar, which contains the kitchen. The steps down to it are very sterile white tiles and have been described as being “morgue-like”.

I have been thinking of painting some of the tiles, or even retiling although that seemed rather extreme as we’re likely to change the cellar a lot in a few years time. So I bought some very inexpensive tile transfers from the local hardward store, and applied them immediately allowed them to collect dust until my sister came to stay this weekend and put them on the tiles so now it looks like this:

And here’s a closeup:

It definitely ranks as an all-time best DIY quick-fix, in fact I can’t think of a better one. Suggestions welcome :)

21 Aug
2007

Sunshine Booties

I’ve been a busy bee since meeting Natalie and have finally got round to making these booties as I promised. Here they are:

The pattern was really easy to follow and had photos at every stage which is just as well because it its a very peculiar shape until you get to the end and it becomes obvious how it all goes together! I’ve got the “Fitted Knits” book by the same person and I’m feeling confident about tackling one of the basic (and much bigger) patterns from the book now.

The booties are crochet and use DK wool and a 4mm hook. I did each one in about 3 hours – a nice midweek project :) I’m desperate to do the ones with big curled pointy toes but I’m not sure if they’re too silly … mind you I suppose the baby can’t argue yet!

21 Aug
2007

Twitter, meet Facebook. Facebook, Twitter

Having recently embraced the social networking revolution, or not, I have recently been getting exasperated by how out-of-date my status gets when I can’t be bothered to update it. And how annoying that there are statuses on both Facebook and Twitter which are both out of date.

I stumbled across the instructions at http://www.jeffsandquist.com/HowToPublishYourFacebookStatusToTwitter.aspx and used these so that when I update facebook, the same status appears as a tweet1 on twitter!

If you use both applications then I’d recommend giving this a try. It uses twitterfeed as a go-between to get your RSS feed of statuses out of Facebook and in to Twitter. If you give it a try, let me know how you get on?

1 I am assured that “a tweet” is the singlar label for an entry on twitter. And furthermore that a person posting these entries can be said to be “tweeting”. So now you know!

20 Aug
2007

First Edition Painting

In case anyone thinks its been a bit quiet on the house front, I’d like to reassure you we’re still pottering away here. We’ve got a loo roll holder and a towel ring in the bathroom, Kevin’s fixed the bedroom door’s rattling and we’ve also painted our first wall!

Wall is possibly an exaggeration since I only painted the top 18 inches of it but we have to start somewhere. I disliked the terracotta paint in the front room as soon as I saw it, here it is:

I put up with it for a while but then I bought red curtains and it had to go!! Here’s the new look front room.

 

I can’t show you the dresser against the new paint to compare it because we moved it get to the wall. The top part lifts off – and its too heavy for me to help Kevin lift it back on, so its on the floor until some strong person visits us!

19 Aug
2007

New Niece

My niece or nephew is here – and she’s a niece called Natalie. She was born late last night and we got to meet her today! Here she is:

Yawning :)

With her Dad:

Some very proud first-time grandparents!

And Kevin and I being very brave and holding the baby ourselves. We’re not used to kids but this one is adorable.

 

17 Aug
2007

Small Company vs Big Company

When choosing a career move, whether its your first job out of university or the next step on the ladder, the type of organisation you work in will make quite a difference. Different sectors are all different and each has their own culture, but the size of the organisation is a big factor as well. So far I’ve worked for companies of 6 people, about 120 people, around 2000 people, and now there’s about 18 of us at my current workplace. I have also spoken with friends with different experiences.

Big Companies.

The advantages Larger companies tend to be better at paying overtime or booking holiday because they have systems to organise this. They are also more set up for supporting employees because there is an HR department and some policies and procedures for getting things sorted out if the need arises. They can also usually cope with people on maternity or long-term sickness leave without too much impact on the business and the other employees.

The disadvantages Large companies, certainly here in the UK, have a bit of a one-size-fits-all attitude to employees. The results tend to be silly things such as if one person is thought to be covering their poor timekeeping by changing their shift pattern a lot, the whole company will be stopped from changing their shift pattern more often than every three months, for example Each role in a large company tends to be quite well-defined and you will not find yourself outside of your job description very often.

Small Companies

The advantages If you like variety and hate bureacracy then a small company is for you. In small companies I have variously rewired phones, assembled furniture, cleaned kitchens, crawled on the floor, sold products and even ordered stationery. I’m a software developer by trade so that’s quite an impressive list. Whether this suits you or not is very personal; I thrive on it but its not for everyone. The other big advantage of a small company is that they tend to be quite flexible, in terms of changing job roles or working patterns. This is something to do with being quite reasonable and judging each case on its merits rather than feeling like they have to be uniformly inflexible in case anyone feels hard done by. And you can all go to the pub together on a Friday.

The disadvantages They’re the same as the advantages! There will be days where you wonder what your job specification actually is. There will be days when your flexible employer will expect you to be flexible too and you’ll be in the office 12 hours after you arrived. If you don’t get on well with a colleague then there is no getting away from them, because the organisation is so small. If you like to have an organised, well-defined job which will not bother you when you leave at the end of the day, then probably a small company may not be the right place for you.

15 Aug
2007

Netball New Year

In my own personal netballing calendar, the season starts today! Its the first training session of the season this evening and I am quite looking forward to it. I’ve updated the Shipley Netball Website with functionality to record results as well as fixtures.

It will be great to see the friends I haven’t seen all summer – and to be reunited with my award which is still in the loving care of Janet.

I’ll be playing this season with most of the same people as last year and for the first time in 5 years I’ll be playing with the same team two seasons in a row, which will be something great in itself. There are some team changes and some league changes all to look forward to and I’m sure plenty of blood, sweat and tears as well. Happy New Year :)