Chris Riley's blog

This blog has moved

2010-03-05T22:07:00.001Z

This blog is now located at http://blog.cgriley.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://feed.cgriley.com/cgriley

Baby number two!

2010-02-27T21:36:00.000Z

In case you didn't know Dawn's pregnant again. What you might not know is she told me on Christmas morning, and filmed it. Now the secret is out see the video here http://www.vimeo.com/9787498 and be sure to read the description for the full details.

New sofa

2009-11-21T20:24:00.002Z

I've been promising Dawn we'd get a new sofa suite since we moved into our first house, as we have been using Mum and Dads old one. So, nearly 6 years on and in a different house I've finally relented!

We've gone for the Coco range (I know, the name couldn't be more perfect eh!), in Jumbo Chocolate. We've got a 3 seater, single chair and Cuddler Designer Swivel chair (essentially a large single chair that Dawn can't stop banging on about how comfy it is!)

So there you go, now we just have to wait 10 weeks for them to turn up.

Bloody connection fees and Pipex

2009-09-05T19:41:00.003+01:00

Gargh, as if moving house and getting to exchange of contracts hasn't been bad enough now comes the seemingly simple task of getting phone and broadband at the new house. How wrong can I be.

So, it turns out at the new house they use Talk Talk at the moment. Not my first choice for broadband and calls, that would be plus.net, but they would charge us £100 to connect the line. Plus they're more expensive than Talk Talk, so that's a bit of a let down. So, I thought I could get a BT line for calls, then get broadband from plus.net. However, again, that pesky connection charge, this time from BT for £122.50 puts us off. So looks like we're stuck with TalkTalk, we'll have to see how that goes.

So anyway, I then cancelled the BT line at our current house, and the broadband and calls with Pipex. Only both companies have stupid inflexible systems in place. BT can only cancel your line after 14 days. Don't ask me why, but that means our phone line will be active for whoever moves into our house 3 days after we've moved out, and we're going to be liable for the cost of any calls. Ridiculous, thank God we don't think anyone will be moving in immediately. And what if we hadn't had 14 days notice of our moving day, we'd have been screwed.

And as for Pipex, it is worse! I phoned up, and from today then can only cancel the broadband in 30 days, but the calls bit will be cancelled in 3-5 days. How stupid is that, so I wouldn't be able to ring anyone, but still browse the web. And it gets worse. So I say we're moving out in 13 days, but he can't do anything. 30 days, that's it. So now our broadband will run until sometime in Oct, even tho the BT landline is going in 2 weeks, so completely unusable, yet I'm still getting billed for it. One big con. And for the calls bit, I have to ring up again in a few days to cancel those, 3-5 days before we move out. They can't set an end date for the calls, no, that would be too sensible. It's a shame, because as a broadband service they've been super reliable.

Charlotte walking

2009-04-15T22:40:00.002+01:00

The Easter weekend has been quite a momentous occasion for Charlotte, she has finally taken her first solo steps, and like a good Dad I've made sure I captured the events on video :o) Below is a short 30 sec clip, enjoy!

For those who like photos, there's a couple of those too!

Developing at home, the proper way!

2009-03-24T21:41:00.005Z

At work we use Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server as our development environment. TFS in particular is really great, it provides source control and task management, perfect.

However, at home, when I'm coding sites like Recipe Binder and Track Playing, I use Visual Web Developer Express. This sadly doesn't support plugins, and there isn't a "TFS Express", so there isn't a way for me to protect my source code, or have change tracking. I've also found the various tasks I have for these websites scattered around, in emails, scraps of paper, and spreadsheets. I needed a way to backup my code, track my changes, and manage my tasks a bit better.

It sounded like a problem too far for a lone developer who wanted it all for free, however then I found this blog post by Trevor Power. He essentially had the same problem as me, and pointed me in the direction of 2 things, Subversion and Unfuddle.

Subversion I'd heard about before, but had never taken the plunge with it, simply because I'd not been able to find a suitable Subversion server to use (Google Code does it, along with a few others, but they require the projects to be open source).

Unfuddle on the other hand allows you to host unlimited Subversion repositories for free, with no restrictions about it being open source. But rather than just hosting my Subversion repository, it is also a project management tool, allowing me to create tickets and associate change sets with them, much like TFS does. It does a heap of other stuff too (which you can find out about via their tour), but I don't need those.

Unfuddle's free service, which is what I'm using, restricts you to just 1 project, and 200MB of space for your source code. However, source code being just text files, you're unlikely to hit that. The 1 project restriction isn't an issue either. Since you can create multiple Subversion repositories you can have one for each website you create. Then, within the project settings in Unfuddle you can create separate components - these you then name to represent each "project" you have, and assign your tickets accordingly. So, for example I have 1 main project, called "Chris Riley Projects", and within that I have a few components, "Track Playing", "Recipe Binder Facebook" and "Recipe Binder".

So, now when I have an idea or think of something I need to do I can create a ticket in Unfuddle, and then forget about it. And when I think about what I have to do, I have a list right there, that I can use just like my work item list in TFS. Then, when I "commit" changes to Subversion, I can associate that revision with a ticket, so that I know what changes were made for which ticket.

In terms of using Subversion, I'm using the TortoiseSVN Subversion client. This seems to be the most widely used client, and it is easy to see why. As you can't use plugins in Visual Studio Express you have to use it in Windows Explorer, but that isn't really an issue. Once you've got your files added to your repository, changed files are easily highlighted by TortoiseSVN, and you can commit back to the repository with ease. I'd go into more detail, but the best thing to do is to get acquainted with this excellent online Subversion book to understand the basics of Subversion, then install TortoiseSVN, read the help and get going!

So, all in all I now have my source code backed up, it is under change control so I know I won't loose previous work, and I have a way of working that means I don't have endless lists swimming around in my head. If this sounds anything like you, don't delay and get yourself sorted out!

Any questions on specific details fire away, I'll be happy to help if I can. I hope to post some more details about using Subversion at a later date as well, mainly my experiences with branching and merging, so keep an eye out for that.

Charlotte's new trick

2009-03-01T21:25:00.005Z

Charlotte has been a little behind the other children we know in terms of walking, she just needs to gain a bit more confidence on her own two feet. She has been happily crawling and cruising (walking supporting herself with furniture), but doesn't really stand unaided. Until now!

Today all our encouragement to help her to stand up from sitting has paid off. Of course in true Dad style I captured this on video for you all to see. I must apologise now for my voice, I'm in full on encouraging Dad mode ;o)

So the next step, quite literally, is baby steps!

I refuse to drive a God bus

2009-01-16T13:35:00.001Z

I tell you what, some people get right on my nerves. This muppet, in the news today, said he wouldn't drive a bus because it had an advertising campaign on the side of the bus that said "There's probably no God." (This is a fantastic campaign by the way, and being an atheist I fully support them spreading the word.) Well let me say this, what if the shoe is on the other foot, and the slogan read "There's probably a God" would we suddenly have reports in the news of bus drivers not wanting to drive buses - I think not. Well, I tell you now, I'm making a stand for atheists everywhere, if I see a bus with the slogan "There's probably a God" written down the side of it, I will not drive it, or ride it, for that matter. So there.

Chris wins.

Christmas photos 2008

2009-01-12T19:38:00.002Z

Hi all. As my Mum of all people keeps telling me, I've not posted much on here. Well, as usual I'm a busy man, with not a lot to say that would interest those here.

Anyway, you can't have failed to notice that it was Christmas a few weeks ago, and as a result of that there are a load of photos on Flickr to have a flick through. I've also got an absolute shed load of videos to go through, but I've not had the time or inclination to bother going through them yet, so watch this space.

Charlotte is 1

2008-12-16T20:04:00.003Z

Call it being a dad, or bloggers' fatigue, but I've not written much on here this year. I think the post frequency sparkline shows the trend quite nicely!

Anyway, the main news to report is Charlotte is 1! It is quite hard to comprehend that a full year has passed since she first came into this world. To celebrate this fact she has had no less than 3 birthday parties, plus her actual birthday as well!

If you've not seen them already there are lots of Charlotte pictures available on Flickr (although you'll have to be my contact to see them).

I've also put some videos on Vimeo, but again you'll need to be my contact to see them. Enjoy the birthday fun!

Moustache

2008-11-09T19:13:00.003Z

I'm not taking part in Movember (the month formerly known as November, renamed to support men growing a moustache to help raise money and awareness about male health issues) as Dawn doesn't like facial hair, at all. However that doesn't mean I have to miss out on the moustache fun - I have grown a stealth moustache! The stealth part being I just didn't shave, and didn't tell Dawn, and waited to see how long I could get away with it before Dawn commented on my hairy face. The answer, a better than expected 5 days!

However, on Saturday the game was up, and so I did some shaving, but not before taking some photos! First I trimmed it into a Goatee (of sorts), and then into a moustache. Based on these photos I think Dawn was right, I look shocking!

If you'd like to sponsor Tony, or any of the guys taking part in Movember from work, follow the links below.

Donate to Tony – Your donation will be registered against Tony [View Tony's Mo Space]
Donate to Team SDL – Your donation will be divided equally between everyone in the SDL team.

Charlotte's first crawl

2008-11-03T20:49:00.002Z

Not wishing to be out done by the Briddons, Charlotte decided it was time she could crawl too. It has been coming for the past couple of weeks, with her being more confident on her front and pushing herself up onto all fours, but finally today it has all clicked into place, and she is now a little crawler!

I wouldn't be much of a dad if I didn't grab the camera to record this event, and so via the magic of the Internets you can watch Charlotte crawling on the very same day! Apologies for the camera work not being that great, but you get the idea. Also apologies for my voice, I hate my voice on video, it is truly awful.

Grub in my apple!

2008-10-16T20:31:00.003+01:00

I've gone off apples a bit. I was eating my apple for lunch, as I've done pretty much every day, and as I was about to take my next bite I saw something crawling into a little hole. I've had holes from grubs in apples before, which is bad enough, but to see the grub disappearing into that hole is a bit off. So, needless to say I stopped eating my apple, and broke it open to find the grub. And then this fella appeared, the big brother of the first grub! So, I had two grubs, alive and kicking, in the apple I had been eating, nice. The only saving grace is that I didn't find half a wriggling grub! Anyway, as you do, I grabbed my mobile and filmed the grub crawling around my apple (sorry the quality isn't great, but you get the idea).

What is money?

2008-10-15T21:02:00.002+01:00

Now this is interesting - everything you needed to know about money!

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-9050474362583451279&hl=en&fs=true

Charlotte's first tooth

2008-09-30T20:31:00.004+01:00

Again, apologies for the ongoing blog drought. What with Charlotte, work, Google Reader, Track Playing, Recipe Binder, and the Web Riddle, writing a blog post comes low down on the list. Anyway I bring Charlotte news.

For those we haven't seen for a while, I've been updating Flickr with a fair few pictures of Charlotte! Just some of our recent favourites are below, but she is certainly growing up fast.

Charlotte is already 9 months old, heading on for 10, and has her first tooth coming through (well spotted / felt Suzy!) It is just a white strip on her pink gum at the moment, but is slowly pushing through. She can also sit up and is starting to figure out how to move a little bit to grab things just outside of her reach, but she can't yet sit up from lying down, or crawl. However, stick her in her walker and she is away. Open any cupboard door in the kitchen, and she is there, looking over your shoulder!

Charlotte is also quite the keen swimmer, and has been going swimming with Dawn every week for a while now - so long in fact she already has her first “Little Fish“ certificate, so I'm a proud Dad! We've also got our first finger paint master piece, produced at the playgroup she goes to, and by all accounts she enjoys getting messy!

So there you have it, the latest Charlotte news. Next blog post in a months time....

Track Playing and Radio Pop

2008-09-11T20:58:00.002+01:00

I know I know, it has been quiet on here again. And again it is down to my new project Track Playing. I've been busy working on various updates. The most important one is I'm the first developer to do an integration with Radio Pop, the BBC Radio Labs prototype. Track Playing tells them what programmes you're listening to, and allows you to “Pop”

Other new features include:

interfaces for iPhone, mobile, Wii and iGoogle
a link to listen to the radio live on iPlayer
updates to how albums are displayed
links to buy from iTunes and 7digital
now and next information pulled from bbc.co.uk/programmes
when the track playing was last updated

Coming next are integrations with imified.com for an IM client, allowing you to track any Last.FM user, showing the previous artist information, and maybe, just maybe scrobbling to Last.FM

Enjoy all of the updates!

Track Playing

2008-08-22T13:33:00.000+01:00

If you were wondering why it has been quiet on this blog for a while, the reason, as always, is that I've been working on another website!

This one is called http://www.trackplaying.com - it displays information about the track currently playing on the radio.

It takes data from BBC Music (beta), Last.fm and Amazon, and is hosted on Google App Engine. Mashup heaven!

It is based on my previous attempt http://cgriley.com/nowplaying/ that some of you may recall - http://cgriley.com/2007/10/now-playing.aspx

As usual the best way to figure out what it is all about is to have a look, hope you all find it useful / of interest. Let me know what you think of it in the comments....

A conversation

2008-08-13T22:31:00.002+01:00

Last Saturday, Dawn and I had a conversation whilst watching Last Choir Standing:

Me: Why does Myleene Klass keep saying they are singing for their lives. It isn't like they'll actually kill them if they don't get through.

Dawn: It would be more interesting if they did.

Me: !

Living the life of Riley

2008-07-26T19:38:00.004+01:00

If you've ever read my blog thinking “this blog is all well and good, but you've never told us how to live the life of Riley”, well this post is for you!

Take a week off work and then follow these simple steps. On the Saturday journey to your Uncles static caravan in Addingham Moorside that you're using for a few days. If you haven't got a caravan there, then sorry, I can't help you!

Sunday - visit Malham Cove, it really is spectacular. If you have the energy (we didn't as we'd had little sleep due to Charlotte settling in) do the circular walk which takes in Janet's Foss (a waterfall), Goredale Scar (a boulder littered valley) and Malham Cove and the limestone pavement. We saw some guys climbing Malham Cove as well, which always help add scale.

Monday - visit Skipton Castle and Skipton. The castle is well worth it, fully roofed it is in great condition and really lets you imagine the rooms as usable spaces that people would have once lived in, rather than looking at a ruin. Skipton itself has an award winning fish and chip shop (they were rather nice) and a good selection of shops to potter around.

Tuesday - visit the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway. Take the train from Embsay to Bolton Abbey, then walk from the station to Bolton Abbey itself (about 20 mins). Enjoy a great walk around the priory ruins, then walk back to the station and get the train back to the car. Charlotte enjoyed this, as you'll see in the video.

Wednesday travel home.

Thursday - Go snowboarding at Xscape, on a baking summers day who wants to be in the sun!

Friday - Go swimming with you baby daughter. If you haven't got a baby daughter then living the life of Riley will be tricky for you. We went to the Dearne Valley Leisure Centre which was much better than expected.

Saturday and Sunday chill out at home, do the odd chore, and don't think about work on Monday morning ;o)

Time lapse of Charlotte sleeping at 7 months

2008-07-25T20:14:00.004+01:00

Dawn and I have noticed recently that Charlotte wakes up rotated 180 degrees in her cot. We wondered how this happened, if it was quick or gradual, so got out our trusty night vision camera and created another time lapse video (just like the last one)!

This one is a bit longer, around 6:40, watch it here:

Charlotte sleeping time lapse at 7 months old from Chris Riley on Vimeo.

Vasco Lounge Bar and Restaurant

2008-07-10T20:16:00.003+01:00

It was our 3rd wedding anniversary yesterday, so to celebrate Dawn and I went to a Vasco Lounge Bar and Restaurant outside Rotherham, in Wickersley (it takes about 25mins to get there from ours).

It was a wonderfully pleasant evening. The restaurant is done out really well, the waitress was very plesant and attentive, and the food was very good, even better than our other haunt, Fahenheit Food!

After an appetiser of smoked mackerel pate and pickled cucumber Dawn had grilled asparagus with Parma ham and Parmesan cheese, and I had Chicken Liver Parfait, with a delicious orange marmalade. For main Dawn had the Coppice House Farm Beef Fillet with Lyonnais potatoes, creamed oyster mushrooms, french beans and mange tout with a red wine sauce and I had the Canon of Lamb roasted and served with ratatouille and thyme mash. Both were excellent! For dessert Dawn had and iced apple and honeycomb parfait, and I had the cheese board. We washed that all down with a glass of wine, and a coffee.

All in all it was a fantastic meal, the only downside was it was a little pricey. At just over £70 I think they could easily loose 1 or 2 pounds of each item on the menu, and they'd probably get more repeat business. But what do I know! Anyway, if you want to experience something outside of Sheffield, give it a go.

I couldn't agree more

2008-07-10T20:08:00.000+01:00

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001149.html

Sales Guy vs. Web Dude

2008-07-01T21:10:00.002+01:00

Techcrunch led me to this genius video - it is about 10 minutes long, but please, especially if you're a web developer, take the time to watch it - I was laughing out loud a bit too much! (You will need sound.)

Save yourself £100!

2008-06-12T19:53:00.005+01:00

Chris 1 - 0 Insurance Company

I've just phoned up to renew our home insurance, but instead of just accepting the yearly increase I said I wasn't happy, and consequently I've got £102 knocked off the premium for the year, and we'll end up paying £5 less a month this year than we were last year!! Get in - the moral of the story, challenge the price, you never know what they might say.

Update on the Logitech Harmony 555 universal remote control

2008-06-05T08:05:00.003+01:00

Just a quick update on the Logitech Harmony 555 universal remote control review I wrote back in February 2008. We had to replace the batteries yesterday, so if our usage is fairly typical that means you get 4 months out of your 4 AAA batteries.