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Sheffield Tap

Went to the launch party this evening.

The beer selection really is exceptional and I hope to god they can keep it in the same condition as it was tonight past the first few weeks. We work in the Electric Works opposite and the immediate area is so desperate for a proper beer house / after work stop-off that this is a godsend.

The setting is very traditional and it’s certainly got loads of character - reminded me of some of those impressive Victorian city centre boozers in Liverpool. On the downside I found the seating arrangement pretty uncomfortable and didn’t get the impression I’d want to hang around too long chatting.

The big downer though is that they were playing god awful music and in a big high room with terrible acoustics it’s just a waste of time. Mind you it was a party and maybe they’ll not bother with music normally. I hope not cause it’s got real potential otherwise.

I don’t know if they are planning to do food. They had some on tonight but it was just party food (very good mind you). I really hope they can knock out some good grub as well as the beer. The area is completely crying out for a decent Friday afternoon lunch spot and I’m sick to death of M&S salads.

Posted by Ian on Dec 9th 2009 | Filed in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

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I come from Sheffield and work for WANdisco. More about me.

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Posted by Ian on Jul 28th 2009 | Filed in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Comments done right

I love how basic tools can be used to such great effect as this.

I’m off to Sudbury in Massachusetts next week. Googling I found their police log. Nothing too unusual, you can read a paper here for a similar thing (a bit more depressing in Sheffield than in New England mind you). But the comments just make this. This is where a web community meets a real one, with great effect.

What is operating to endanger anyway? ;-p

Posted by Ian on Jun 29th 2009 | Filed in observations | Comments (0)

Nice looking product - Uservoice

Over the years I’ve had loads of ideas for projects and it’s no big deal that I haven’t acted on any of them yet. When people do such a good job without me, I really don’t mind. The reality is whatever I do build I’ll be wanting all the building blocks I thought of.

As much for copying later on for my own model, but also because the underlying project is something I think works so well and every company should do, I’m highlighting Uservoice.

Good work chaps. Another thing I don’t have to worry about when the time comes and I need ya.

Ian

Posted by Ian on Jun 14th 2009 | Filed in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

I think I’d like Cat

While researching Picante de cuy (Guinea Pig with spices), which I’m determined to cook and eat sometime, I came across a recipe for Braised Cat. Unfortunately, this breaks one of my rules about eating meat, as I know what I feed my cat on, but it’s all useful information in a recession. 

Tasty cats can be cheezeburgers?. From http://catrecipes.com/recipes/index.html

Posted by Ian on May 26th 2009 | Filed in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Totally outragious, that’s what it is…

I’m flying to California on Monday to meet the WANdisco team. I’d rather not fly. I’d like to sail over and maintain my green credentials. But it would take too long so flying it is.

I’m going from Heathrow. The flights are the cheapest and direct, but that means I have to get from Sheffield to London to arrive before 9 in the morning. Not a problem you’d think. We have these great things called trains. 

Think again sucker

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Posted by Ian on May 11th 2009 | Filed in politicsish | Comments (3)

How to use Subversion at two sites

For the last six weeks I’ve been working for a company called WANdisco; a Silicon Valley based business with a product that the more I learn about, the more it fascinates me. In development since 2001, the current WANdisco product range is actually a two stage affair. First, a common replication engine called Dcone sits underneath every product and organises a type of Peer to Peer communication between instances of itself running on different physical servers. On top of this runs product specific code for each piece of software WANdisco has support for; currently Subversion, CVS and Jira

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Posted by Ian on May 11th 2009 | Filed in Tech | Comments (0)

Amazon. Lean Business? Meh.

So, the story quickly:

- I order Oreilly’s Subversion book from Amazon. I have just started working for WANdisco who sell a Multisite and replication solution for Subversion. 

- I didn’t ask initially, but when I do my boss is happy to pay for it on expenses, so I just need a VAT invoice.

- I go to Amazon website to print one to PDF so I can claim it (no paper here nosiree)

- “You can’t print an invoice from the Amazon website, but if you contact us we’ll send you one”.

Honestly… It’s true.

I mean. I just don’t get this. They are going to post me an invoice, at their expense, so I can scan it in?

WTF.

Posted by Ian on May 1st 2009 | Filed in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Pastures New (Part Two)

Again?

Yep. After nearly 10 years, with just over three in my second stint, today I handed in my notice and will leave Plusnet at the end of February. Although I’m one of a few long in the tooth Plusnetters to move on recently, it’s certainly nothing sinister. I’ve simply decided that a change is as good as a rest, and an opportunity for an interesting new challenge in a much smaller business than BT is something I found it hard to say no to.

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Posted by Ian on Feb 2nd 2009 | Filed in General | Comments (21)

An unlimited number of monkeys

I know it’s not that unusual for random word captchas to be amusing. I’ve seen examples but never had one of my own, until today.

 

Captcha Fail

Captcha Fail

I tried to add some more comments but for all the rest what I was offered seemed pretty random. Maybe it’s a special captcha script. If so I might have a go myself :-)

Also, I wonder if I’ll find out why Plusnet Sucks?

Edit: I’m informed it’s definately a random google captcha, but I still don’t know why Plusnet sucks (at least not for this guy). 

Posted by Ian on Jan 23rd 2009 | Filed in Plusnet | Comments (0)

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