nickromney.com

My web hosting package is LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySql, PHP4), but my laptop runs Windows XP. Here is how I got a WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySql, PHP) environment for development at home.

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I’ve been using Mozilla’s Firefox browser for over a year now, and it’s my main browser. One of the key reasons is its extensibility, and here are the extensions I use (generated by the Listzilla extension):

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Followed the link on Heal Your Church Website to take the Nerd Quiz. And here’s the result:

When updating this website caused me to re-install, I checked to see the Google rank of “Nick Romney”. I’m pleased to say that this site came up first. So, with my ego suitably stroked, I decided to do a little more ego-surfing to see where I ranked. I was vaguely aware of the Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, having seen a news report on him years ago, and the name stuck. However, in this election year, it seems as if every man and his dog has a blog, even one by the name of Romney is a fraud. I haven’t read it extensively, but would like to confirm that I am 100% pure Nick Romney!

My Kodak digital camera captures up to 2 minutes of video, with sound. However, a 2-minute clip is 30 mb in Quicktime’s .mov format. In order to edit it (either for timing or file size), I could have bought QuickTime Pro, or do what I did, which was to find some free resources on the web.

The instructions on Digital-digest.com were excellent, and I now have a 5 mb .avi file. Lovely.

Read Eric Meyer’s roundup on SXSW 2004, and find that I too am a person mentioned in his SXSQ04i Wrap-Up: in that I hadn’t come across bookmarklets / favelets. Am pleased to say that I’ve now added in a few of Squarefree’s bookmarklets and Tantek’s favelets, and they’re becoming very useful.

Am just now testing out all the other features of blogging through WordPress and am trialling w.bloggar, which seems to work quite nicely for offline content generation, although doesn’t auto-generate the “Post Slug” for WordPress’s Permalinks, so I won’t be using it exclusively. However, I can conceive of using it quite intensively if away on holiday / away from an internet connection for an extended period.

As I’ve been looking up more and more on accessibility (section 508 guidelines etc.) for some site redesigns, I’ve become increasingly aware of some of the other issues around it, and finally read up on some dedicated sites about the different types of colour-blindness.

I think I’m deuteranomalous – i.e. the rods in my eye don’t perceive green as they should. The intensity of light is still the same, but the waves are off-centre. It’s not that I can’t see green light (am not dichromatic), just that I perceive it differently.

A test: Webexhibits – hover over “Protan” and “Deutan” (to the right of the dot pattern) and see what happens. For me there’s no change (only a slight change on the bud of the flower, but none in the dots).

Web designer’s palette: Visibone palette and colour choice

Great explanation of colourblindness, and opinion on design: Firelily

Ishihara-type dot tests (I failed!):

Update 10 March: The man in blue now offers the Technicolor web designer

How to write unmaintainable code

Amusing, and very in-depth. There’s a great deal about good coding practices written here, just in the inverse.

Goodle Good News

Entertaining spoof of Google. Cheered me up when I read it!