Head Rambles

Grandad August 30th, 2007

Once more, with feeling, I have a problem.

For those of you who are new to this place, I have [had] a friend Ron, who with our pal Dick runs a web design business. I shot Ron [accidentally, I might add] a few weeks ago but couldn’t tell Dick. So I had to lash off and buy “HTML for Dummies”, “MySQL for Dummies”, “PHP for Dummies” and “CSS for Dummies” and then pretend to be Ron. They are incredibly boring books, by the way. Don’t get them if you want a laugh.

My problem is that I seem to be a better businessman than Ron.

My first site was a great success, and the phone hasn’t stopped ringing since.

I now have lost count of the number of jobs I’m working on. I think it’s six or seven. And they all want me to finish yesterday. I had two phone calls yesterday – two more jobs…..!

I am now slowly sinking in a morass of dollar signs and curly brackets. I have nightmares about pixels and database updates. I have resurrected S.H.I.T.

I want to sit here and smoke my pipe and drink my tea. I want to write rude posts on my blog. I want to visit other peoples blogs and leave rude comments there. I want to relax and enjoy my retirement. But I don’t have the time any more.

Mind you, the money is f*cking good!

• Web design , work
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Grandad August 10th, 2007

I am doing quite well at this web lark.

However, I am having a spot of bother with a bit of my coding.

It just will not work.

It’s erratic. It gives unexpected results. It’s annoying me.

I’m attaching a piece of code.

Do you think there is a bug in it somewhere?

• Web design
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Grandad August 10th, 2007

I mentioned the other day that I needed help with designing a website.

I was desparate.

That night, I gathered a list of all the deities I could find on Google.

I prayed like I never prayed before. I prayed to them all. Every God that had ever been invented. I’ll try anything once.

And it worked! I woke in the morning and things were a lot clearer. Suddenly all those weird thing you see when you view a web page’s source made a sort of sense. Amen to the power of prayer!

Then yesterday, I was happily programming away, and there was a ‘ping’ and a mail arrived in my inbox.

Nobody ever told me about this. I didn’t know you are billed by the minute? I know everyone calls themselves ‘consultants’ these days, but this is ridiculous.

You may think I am kidding; that I touched up the image above? I didn’t [apart from a bit of smudging].

I swear to God.

No I don’t.

I don’t want to be billed for that too.

• Religion? , Web design
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Grandad August 7th, 2007

Dick phoned me just now.

He’s looking for Ron. He’s wondering why Ron hasn’t turned up for work.

Now Ron is lost somewhere in a hospital waiting to be treated after our unfortunate incident last week. But I can’t tell Dick that his main employee has been shot [by me], so I told him Ron was staying here for a week or two, and that he had just nipped out for a while.

Dick said he had no problem with Ron being here, and that he would communicate by e-mail, and that Ron could carry on with the project he is doing at the moment.

Now, Ron once accidentally left his notebook here, so of course I photocopied it. It has all his usernames and passwords in it. So I can get into his mail. In fact, I can get into every site he has ever worked on!! So I can read his mail.

The problem is that I’ll have to do his work too. For the moment anyway. So I need help.

Apparently, Ron is working on several web sites that use HTML [I know what that is], PHP, MySQL and CMS. What the f*ck are the last three?

Can someone please send me an e-mail and tell me all about them, because apparently I have to have a site finished by the end of the week. I don’t want to know what they are. I just want a quick rundown on how to write them.

Don’t tell me about any books, or web sites. I don’t have enough time. I just want a quick rundown. Something simple like that you can speak Russian by talking backwards, or Italian by adding an ‘o’ at the end of each word.

If I can’t finish this work, I’ll have to explain what really happened, and then I’ll have Dick after me as well as Ron.

Help!

-aAa-

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Distance Learning programs can help. Whether it’s Computer Programming that has always fascinated you or you simply want to go back to finish your GED, online colleges make it easy.

• Web design
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Grandad April 12th, 2007

I have heard in the past about ‘hostile takeovers’ and often wondered about them.

I had pictures in my mind of boardrooms and people shouting at each other and solicitors sending nasty letters to each other.

The reality is far worse.

Last night, I was sitting minding my own business [that is a pun-to-be as you will see], when there was a knock on the door.

“Are you the owner of Silver Hair Internet Technology?” asks a bloke with a hat and dark glasses [even though it was night-time].

“I am” says I, thinking this might be a secret approach for a massive contract from an international organisation.

“We are taking it over.” I couldn’t say whether or not he batted an eyelid because of the dark glasses.

“F*ck off” says I in my politest tone.

He pulled a gun on me.

I was a little surprised as people in the countryside are usually quite friendly. People have take pot shots at me in the past but not at my front door.

Herself was inside doing her knitting, but when she realised what was going on she let Tiddles loose.

There was mayhem. Tiddles found one of them [there were quite a few of them apparently] and started playing with him. Bullets started ricocheting off the walls. The dog took cover as she hates loud noises and Herself started firing off the sawn-off. She nearly hit me a couple of times, but that was accidental. I think.

Then they started on the heavy stuff. When a mortar round blew the neighbour’s house to bits, I tought it was time to call a halt.

“What exactly do you want?” says I when the dust had settled a bit and Tiddles was back in the garage.

“We want Silver Hair Internet Technologies. We are prepared to pay a good price”

“Why didn’t you say so?” says I. I had grown bored of the web design business anyway and would be glad to be shot of it.

It transpired that he represented a company called “Hosting Online Technology” and they wanted to merge the two. So he gave me a very reasonable cheque [considering I had done little or no work] and I signed the papers, and gave them all a cup of tea.

In retrospect, I realised that I had been the victim of a hostile takeover, but I didn’t mind. They could have handled it better, and I’m a bit annoyed at having to apologise to the neighbour’s relatives.

So if you see a web design company called ‘shithot.ie’ don’t go to them. Ron’s company is much better anyway.

But God help us if Ryanair launch a proper hostile takeover of Aer Lingus.

Stealth bombers over Dublin?

• Web design
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