Alex Hardy

I’m not going to comment on relative pros or cons of Ruby and Rails, because I’ve never used it - I’ll leave that for others to debate. My experience so far of building data-driven websites is based on a degree of self-taught PHP/MySQL knowledge. My understanding of OOP is limited and I’ve never used a “framework.”

That said, I’ve found this article: Ruby on Rails for the Rest of Us quite enlightening. It offers a well written, unbiased intro to what Ruby and Rails are, their history and some good explanations of what certain concepts like framework, model-view-controller and scaffolding actually mean. It also discusses advantages of using these methods.

Now, I’m no hardcore programmer but I think I’m a pretty intelligent chap. I’ve built some complex projects (in my opinion) in Director, Flash, PHP etc. If I struggle to find a credible, concise introduction to a subject that I can understand without downloading the Matrix into my brain, then something is seriously lacking. Which makes this particular article very welcome.

This variation is by me; taking on board aspects of the newer logos and some other ideas of my own that I’ve been playing with.

Ste and I both like this one, but there’s more work to be done before we feel like we’ve cracked the logo. We’re going to have a crayon session tomorrow night.

[UPDATE] This version tweaks the kerning (I thought the e-s-h was a bit dodgy) and adds a little bit of shading for depth. At this moment in time I’m not convinced by the gaussian blur I’ve added, but I’ll do no more tonight! We can chin-scratch over it later.

OK! here are some further developments on the logo front

That’s right, you heard me.

Masterpiece Megatron.

Too hardcore for America, with their poncy toy gun restrictions - importers have to fit an orange safety tip to the gun barrel and make $100 worth of collectors’ piece look stoopid. For this reason, it was thought up until now that an MP Megatron would never get made.

March 2007. I think I know what Jon will be wanting for his 30^th birthday.

Let’s face it - joking aside, I’d like very much to get Windows Vista on my Mac with Parallels Desktop. Ian uses Windows XP via Parallels on his first-gen MacBook Pro and it’s a fantastic tool.

The first time you push the hotkey, and your Mac OS X desktop rotates away to reveal Windows XP you can’t help but laugh like a megalomaniac.

The power! Muahahahahaha! *Ahem*

Ian uses it mainly for Visual Mind, Zinc, Internet Explorer testing and presenting our PC-only projects. I have to admit, a spot of Half Life 2 would be nice, too

There’s always been a bit of a fly in the ointment though. You can’t use the Boot Camp partition you created (for restarting under when you need every bit of speed you can squeeze) as a virtual hard disk drive. You’d have to install Windows and your apps all over again inside Parallels, which frankly is a completely ludicrous waste of hard disk space.

But soon no more! Woohoo! Other treats include drag-resize the window and your virtual machine automatically changes screen resolution, drag-and-drop between OSes, “coherency” which apparently displays Windows apps as running processes inside OS X (in the dock and such I assume) and the performance boosts that come with any self-respecting update.

I look forward to getting a MacBook Pro in a year or so with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Windows Vista Home Premium (MS demand Premium for virtualisation). Ha, maybe I’ll stick Kubuntu in there for a giggle

[UPDATE] Aah.. So this is what coherency looks like. Sweet.

… it’s OK to start feeling a bit Christmassy

Once again, it’s snowing in Skin Care World. Aw.