Joe's Jottings

But I managed it.

As it would be churlish not to mention the most powerful earthquake to hit England in 25 years, I feel honour-bound to post a comment, but my involvement in this national event is hardly glorious.  I was awoken by my wife who claimed the bed had moved, and could I check under it.

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I’ve been using Eclipse PDT as my PHP editor of choice for some time now and it’s pretty neat.  I even started extolling it’s virtues to other developers…which is when it suddenly stopped working on my machine.  Which was slightly irritating because I really needed it working…

The precise problem was that when I tried to create a new PHP project, processor utilisation went through the roof and the program simply stopped working.  The only solution at this stage was to use Task Manager to stop the program.

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This week’s book was ‘The Threepenny Novel’ by Bertholt Brecht.

I have to admit that I didn’t even realise we’d got it in the house until I was browsing the shelves and I came across it.  I knew it was based on his ‘The Threepenny Opera’, which in turn was based on John Gay’s ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ , and I knew it featured the character Macheath.  And that was it.

So…what did I think? 

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The Alan Parsons Project is one of those bands / musical collaborations / call it what you will that I keep promising to listen to and never get around to it.  Having just heard the song ‘Old and Wise’ on the radio, I really think I should get my bum in to gear.

Here are the lyrics – wonderful…

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This week’s ‘bus book’ has been a collection of Graham Greene’s short stories.

For anyone who’s not encountered the concept of a ‘Bus Book’ I refer you here…

I like Graham Greene. I particularly like his short stories and his novel ‘The Human Factor’, which I’ve always regarded as one of the two or three best espionage novels of the 20th Century. I like him so much that one of my own short stories is called ‘The man who liked Greene’.

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I use public transport a great deal, and some years ago I started carrying a book with me wherever I went when I could expect a delay or a longish trip.  This book became known around the house as my ‘bus book’.

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For the last couple of years I’ve used BT’s Openzone system to give me Internet connectivity when I’m away from home. This uses WiFi hotspots, but by one of those unfortunate twists of fate, most places I went had iffy WiFi hotspots, but excellent Mobile Phone coverage.

So, I decided to use the Web and Walk system offered by T-Mobile. Part of the thinking here was to make it easier for me to demonstrate systems ‘in the field’ and also allow me to stay in touch with my projects more when I’m away from home.

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