It is not possible to discuss the weather with a person whose head is placed where sunshine never falls, and yet who feels themselves to be a climate expert.

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My advice: re-establish the morning sitting. Life without the morning sitting is like trying to walk without legs. This is the beginning, the foundation, of strengthening personal presence. If we are absent, then life is all stuff. Nothing real happens; so when things go wrong, it’s not possible to deal with them. If we are present, things will continue to go wrong; but, increasingly, the things that go wrong are real.

Robert Fripp’s Diary, Thursday, 1st November 2012.

Love it.

Now, let’s get some perspective back and talk about something else shall we?

It’s also sad that as nations become more comfortable, our ability to collectively aspire becomes lessened. Kids are now growing up, not dreaming of ‘doing’ for the betterment of mankind, but to be celebrities and to accumulate ‘stuff’.

Hat-tip to Susan Bulloch.

Music

I loves my music I does, and 2011 was another corking year. Far from the madd(en)ing crowd, there’s always plenty of good stuff out there being made and re-discovered. The year started off with my continued rediscovery of Frank Zappa (one of my early music loves), and a special new liking for the 1981 album, You Are What You Is, which is as good an introduction to his music as any I reckon. Album of the year? I have two, both of which came out towards the end of 2011: 50 Words For Snow from my all-time favourite Kate Bush, and Grace For Drowning, a wonderful double album from Steven Wilson. About a month after Wilson’s album came out, I got to see him and his band live in London, and will be seeing him again in 2012: an absolutely stunning show—go and see him if you get the chance! Finally, honourable mention again for Kate Bush, this time with her May release (yes, two albums in 2011), Director’s Cut.

Work

Funny old year. In November 2010 I finished a long-term assignment in London, and decided not to jump back on the contract wagon straight away. Instead I opted for the freelance life for the next eleven months, working on all manner of projects and technologies. This has been absolutely fantastic in many regards: lots of mobile web development, some work with IBM Connections, and so on. There was some XPages action, but 2011 was really the year that Domino dropped off the radar for me, with a lot of Java, PHP, HTML5, Javascript and Ruby instead. I am now working on another contract assignment, this time in MediaCityUK, doing lots of new (and high profile) stuff, which has been a tremendous learning experience thus far.

This site

The aforementioned work events have thus left me with a wee dilemma when it comes to this site; I’m not really sure in which direction to take it. Earlier in the year I experimented with some Ruby-themed posts, and also some HTML5 and Javascript how-tos, but neither “series” made much of an impression. I guess I still get a lot of Domino people here maybe ;-) Anyway, I have a back-log of tech stuff to write about, some of which should be of interest to the yellow world, so stay tuned!

Enough navel-gazing. I wish you and yours all the very best for 2012: here’s hoping it’s better than 2011 for all of us (it’s already looking good, as Daniel Lieske has released the next chapter of his Wormworld Saga!)

Almost three weeks ago I started a new full-time contract, unusual for me in that it is based miles away from home in Manchester (MediaCityUK to be precise). I’m working as a mobile web developer, using technologies such as HTML, CSS3, Javascript, Linux and PHP (Zend framework, amongst other things). All very interesting, and with a very pleasant team in delightful offices. The downside of the job is that I’m away from home Monday - Friday, spend a lot of time on trains, and eat peculiar meals at strange times of the day :-).

So, more content as and when, but I felt I owed some sort of explanation for my absence here!

• Big-ish project customising IdeaJam for a major global financial customer. Gave me a chance to really dig in to Matt White’s code and find out that, you know, it’s good.
• Two projects for some smaller companies, dealing with greenfield IBM Connections / Domino integration for one, and modernising some exceptionally well-coded Lotusscript for another.
• Dealing with many many recruitment agents (sad face).
• A six day contract building an HTML5 iPad application from excellent Photoshop designs. The main challenge with this project (aside from time) was building an HTML / Javascript-rendered 360° model which needed to rotate when swiped, but which also needed to have an overlay of links (twelve in total) which appeared/ disappeared as the model rotated through 75 frames. The rotation came courtesy of Petr Vostřel and his jQuery Reel plug-in. The links overlay took some actual work ;-)
• Coding some bits n pieces for the upcoming MyMusicRX app, which Bruce describes in more detail here. Good fun!

Who knows what October will bring?

In recent months I’ve enjoyed working on very interesting projects courtesy of some people out there in the wider community, and also thanks to previous clients and network contacts. You may have seen (from all the tweetin’ and wot-not) that we have started publishing case studies over on the London Developer Co-op site. The first one relates to a rush project I worked on in May and June, which was an off-line capable HTML5 mobile web application. All sorts of tricks in this one, and you can read about some of them in the case study (some pretty pictures too).

My particular thanks go to our splendid partners at Elguji Software for picking the post up in their blog.

Future case studies will focus on some other projects and technologies—look out for musings on things as varied as Flex application development, XPages, Javascript and more. For these and other updates be sure to follow us on twitter or visit our news page.

What else? Well, preparations are ramping-up in LDC Towers for Lotusphere 2012 (or whatever it will be called!) In years past we’ve set a standard with our t-shirts, and this of course must be maintained. Look out for plenty of give-aways when the time comes. Look out too for more training opportunities with our very own Dr. XPages, Matt White! Matt is running a four day course in Vienna next month (seats still available here), and of course XPages101 continues from strength-to-strength, with the latest video all about the new Dojo Mobile Controls in 8.5.3. Matt will of course be in attendance in Orlando, as will Messrs Myers and Woodward (yes, Julian’s even worse than me at keeping his blog up-to-date), all things being equal.

Finally, the LDC servers are steeling themselves for this weekend, when a certain young man by the name of John Wilding will be auditioning on that staple of Saturday night entertainment, The X-Factor. Why? Well, we host his website don’t you know!

If you have web, web application, mobile web or XPages work that needs doing, you know where to come.

You know, I hate to start things on a downer, but first Pete Postlethwaite and now Mick Karn? (Not to mention Gerry Rafferty). This is a terrible start to the year: three extremely talented men, with a lot more to give us. R.I.P. each of you. :-(

Please head on over to Bruce’s site to read the full story, and for details about the piece of “isometric pixel art” we commissioned as the prize in our charity draw! Here’s a sneak preview:

As implied in the name, the drawing will take place at Lotusphere—specifically during UK Night on Monday 31st January, 2011. All monies collected will go directly to the CCA in honour of Danielle Elgort who lost her battle with cancer in 2003.