10 posts from 2006

How are you ringing in the New Year tonight?

Quietly for a wee change - just my wife and I (along with Mr Bollinger and perhaps Mrs Bacardi Breezer)

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For Christmas we always have our kids dressed up smart (it detracts from how tired the parents look after being woken up at daft-o'clock!) - this year they looked particularly smart and cute as you can see!

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Georgia, my eldest little monster, got a new "big bike" for Christmas this year from Santa. Here are some photos of our trip out on Boxing Day to "road test" it!!!

As you can see, she really got the hang of it and even worked out how to use the brakes!

All the other photos of the "road test" are here

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Happy Christmas everyone - hopefully Santa was as good to you as he was to me (10.4" digital photo frame, plays music, movies, photos, slideshows and a remote control - very very cool!)

We did Christmas dinner for the family again this year (gluttons for punishment or what!) - it was fantastic once again, Samantha did a fabulous job with the cooking (OK with a little help from Mr Marks and Mr Spencer, but hey it still tasted the same!).

As usual the kids got way, way, way too many presents (all donations for a house extension gratefully received!) but it was great to see them opening them all up and being amazed (for all of 10 seconds granted) with them before moving onto the next big pressie!

Photos of the day here

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Originally uploaded by Alex Waddell.

As is normal for this time of year, Glasgow City Council goes all out to make George Square the centre of Christmas in Glasgow. The most striking thing I think about the whole setup is not the ice rink or the massive Christmas tree (in the background), rather it's the column that is lit up every year. It just looks amazing, don't you think?

My youngest is now almost 2, my eldest just over 3 - they both sleep through the night (yay!), they feed themselves and my daughter Georgia (she be the eldest one) can dress/undress herself. To be honest I think all they need us parents for is to drive them to/from the shops/nursery/grandparents.

Here's the dilemma.....

I fancy getting back into coding now that I've got a bit more free time on my hands. I've got a MacBook and Mac Mini and have just signed up to the free ADC so I can get the latest XCode and some other developer goodies.

So, does anyone have any tips for XCode development?

Any good online resources or demo code I can play around with?

Any suggestions for small apps that people would like to see written?

Tell us a little something about your first car.  Do you have any photos you can share? 
Submitted by tamara.

The first car I ever owned was a 1990 Vauxhall Nova with a little 1.2 litre engine. I bought it in 1993 for £3000.

A great little runabout, really easy to maintain, although it did start to fall apart after a couple of years. I traded it in for a Rover 214 (don't ask, cr@p car I know however I was swayed by the cheap finance and the fact that it had a nice profile...).

The salesman gave me £1200 for it as a trade in, even though half the electricals were shot, the brakes were very, very dodgy, and it had more rust than paint!

As I recall he said "That's a great wee car you've got there son!" - who was I to complain, it was the end of the month and he needed my sale to make his quota so it all worked out in the end.

What was the first movie you remember seeing in a movie theater? 
Question submitted by mainmor.

Star Wars in 1977 at the Royal Playhouse cinema in Tenby, South Wales, UK. Surprisingly I never liked it and never took to Star Wars at all - no figurines, no comics, hated the other movies.

So I just got myself a gorgeous MacBook 2gHz in white - what a beautiful and fantastic laptop. Having had a mac mini since April 2005, I'm totally converted to Mac, OS X and the total lack of viruses and malware.

I use Windows XP at work and it did take some time to get used to the differences in the OS - one of the many things I like about OS X is that everything just works. For example, I got a Canon Powershot A540 recently, plugged it in and it just connected straight into iPhoto - no wizards, no "search for a driver" etc....this is how it should be.

The Macbook is possibly one of the best laptops I have ever used (I've had many from PackardBell, Toshiba, Dell and IBM) - nothing comes close to be perfectly honest.

Welcome!

I have a reputation for having an opinion on just about anything - this is where I hope to express those opinions and no doubt upset some people at the same time!

Read a little more about me, my background, my family and what pushes my buttons here