FiddyP

I bought a tripod! Also made the Commentluv API skeleton from Andy Bailey on Vimeo.

This is my video made as soon as I opened my new Toshiba Camileo Pro HD cam (well, a bit of charging was needed). It’s 720p HD footage and Vimeo do a good job of streaming hd footage.

Little Venice London new hd cam test from Andy Bailey on Vimeo.

You’ll have to view the video at Vimeo to see it in HD. I had all the light settings wrong and I didn’t have a tripod but, it’s a pretty good camera for a hundred quid and will be good to do future video blog posts.

kick the recession in the credit crutch! from Andy Bailey on Vimeo.

Octeth Products created the outstanding own hosted newsletter software OEMPro4

UKfast provide outstanding web solutions for small shared hosting to professional corporate site hosting and management.

Chinese New Year and get a bargain from the recession from Andy Bailey on Vimeo.

Were you born in the year of the Ox? Is the recession a nice way to get a bargain? what would happen if over 600,000 people had easy access to commentluv? all these and more in the above video.

I spotted a tweet by @jquery about a new plugin for jquery called pop! which turns out to be quite a nice little pop up box for blogger commentluv.

here’s what it could look like in the comments of blogger if you’re using js-kit with blogger. Not that now you can click on the links for where the comment author has been and what other posts they have.

You can download and install the pop jquery plugin and read the instructions at http://pop.seaofclouds.com/

view as a single post to see the comments after the break. (continue reading…)

phew, I have managed to get back to the pc after a little while away and just in time (well, close) to announce the winners of the PacktPub contest.

All someone had to do was visit the PacktPub website and choose a book they want to win, link to it in the comments and post about the contest on their site.

First winner is Dominique Goh from http://www.dominiquegoh.com/ who wins a WordPress Theme Design book by Tessa Blakeley Silver

Second winner is Kelly from http://www.myqute.com who wins the WordPress for Business bloggers book.

well done you two! I’ll send your email addresses to packtpub tomorrow (just time for you to change your mind about which book if you email me quickly) and they will send you your books as a PDF attachment soon after.

I’ve managed to get some major bookends done for some projects I have on the go and I’m really looking forward to being able to code for fun again now that I have stabbed the various work monkeys on my back!

However, I can’t get my blogger commentluv sorted until js-kit get their script fully updated. Sometimes it works on js-kit and sometimes it don’t. Sorry to all you google bloggers out there using commentluv but until js-kit have settled into their final script, every change I make is only temporary. Please be patient until they have a final stable comments script and then I can make commentluv work on their system consistently.

***Update***
Apparently there was a minor bug in the blogger Commentluv script that didn’t close the </a> tag in the comment which prevented the comments from synchronizing. That has been fixed.

If you are having issues with commentluv not showing then please visit your js-kit settings page and enable the expand “leave a comment” so your page shows the form instead of the user having to click the link to show it.

Another company to update their comment system is Typepad. Their new comment system that allows you to track comments is unfortunately, incompatible with the typepad version of Commentluv. This is due to them not loading the comment form until after the rest of the page has loaded which means commentluv can’t see it when it loads.

I’ll have to figure out some way of pausing the script load until after the comment form appears.

Another monkey on my back was an old project that got canned because a company I was being outsourced from didn’t pay their bills! Luckily, the restaurant owner managed to contact me and I was able (after much hassle) to transfer their site to my own server and update the database to work properly.

Mazza Indian Restaurant & Lounge is located in Kettering, Northamptonshire and is a very fine Indian restaurant indeed! The décor is awesome, food is incredible and the service is quick. (not to mention they have a fantastic website)

Click to visit Mazza Indian Restaurant in Kettering

I have updated the Newtown Santa Run 2009 site with some added oomph! and added a new domain name so it is up to date.
The Newtown Santa Run is going for the world record in 2009 and will be taking applications all year from people all over the planet to participate in the world record breaking attempt in Powys, Wales.

Visit the Newtown Santa Run 2009 website today and find out how to become part of history.

My haircut calamity from Andy Bailey on Vimeo.

So, did you want to hear about my haircut? This video blogging lark is all new to me so I don’t really know what you’re expecting when you visit FiddyP. Care to share your thoughts in the comments?

Maybe a more tips/advice kind of way instead of telling you the banal events of my life. It is fun though, being able to speak instead of type is more my style anyway. I tend to get carried away with typing and then have to keep revising what I’ve written whereas, doing a video post kind of makes it more personal. It’s just a shame I have bugger all interesting to talk about!

If you think I should go back to text entry or stop blartin on about haircuts and get down to some serious stuff, please let me know!

(and that mark on my t-shirt? that’s a splash of tea!)

Video blog post back from the gym from Andy Bailey on Vimeo.

My first camera test to start video blogging from Andy Bailey on Vimeo.

Even though I have been on the internet daily and done plenty of geeky digital things over the past month, my blog hasn’t had a new post to display for a while and it feels like I haven’t done anything at all!

For me, less blog activity = more busy life so when things need my full attention, it’s my blog that is the first to suffer. There was a a time when I would postpone real life events because I had a regular post spot to write or I’d get itchy feet to get home when I was out and knew I had lots of comments to respond to.

The past few months however, has given Life the opportunity to show me that the word “important” has a fluid meaning. Things that were, are no longer and things that weren’t are suddenly more important than anything else …until they’re no longer important any more and I can get back ‘on track’.

Right now, there are some pretty big important things to get done. It may involve moving, it may involve a massive change of career and more but for sure, IT’S VERY IMPORTANT I GET THEM DONE!!

but enough of my moaning about stuff that can’t be changed…running parallel to all these important things is something else that has consumed my days and nights over the past year, the Commentluv site and plugin.

Now, this would normally have been one of those “it’s important, oh wait, now this is more important” times but I took all the pressure off by going to a professional team. I said “I want this” and they said “that’ll be xxx.xx $ please” so I said “yes!” and now all the pressure is off me because I have paid a deposit on a completely new site which will be running on a new platform and have so many wanted and useful features that you’ll be blown away!!
The backend script for CommentLuv is also being rewritten with a view to providing much more functionality and also allow for a much better stats system.

The work is due to start in February and in the mean time I will be looking for people to take on staff positions. There will be a variety of positions available as the time comes to launch the site so stay tuned to the newsletter (due to start again soon) and this site for how to apply.

I’m already arranging the first paid writer and hope to get a lot more in the coming year which had the effect of taking a huge amount of pressure off my shoulders while I sort out the things with people who don’t understand what blogs are (you know, the real life people out there in real life). I’m still around and I’m still coding when I can, the rest of my digital life will return to normal when my analogue life finds it’s feet!

follow me on twitter to get my updates, I’m always on that in one way or another (yey blackberry storm!)