To catch up

Well I have moved to Northern Ireland, yep it has been a while since I updated this. I have been working for a new company here in Belfast by the name of i-path. The main aim of the company is to build software for Digital Microscopy and e-learning and that is where I come in. There is to be a Europe-wide test in the next few months using our new software which has been developed between Adam and I over the last 2 months which will allow the test participants to analyse and answer questions about a digital slide, following the test we will be further developing the system to have more of the functionality of the old system which was designed in flash but using JavaScript and the .net framework. I am quite pleased to say that the new system is considerably faster than the flash predecessor and with some optimisations which we have been doing over the last week is even faster than it was then.

We moved into a nice flat in Holywood and Heather now has a job with a company in the centre of Belfast so we are up at the same time in the morning and take the same train in which is a nice journey even if it is getting busy now. It could have something to do with saving money as the train certainly is cheaper than taking the car every day and it misses out the stress of finding a parking space in the city centre.

As for everything else, I have started going to the Queens University Roleplaying Society, which is actually a roleplaying/anime/gaming society so in one corner we have normal roleplaying games, on the back wall we have guitar hero and various other games projected onto the wall and somewhere upstairs there are screens showing anime movies. I have started to get used to Belfast, though I am still lost. I know where the nice shopping centre is and I even went to a couple of others, though I can't remember where they are. With time it will be fine and this will be my first Christmas away from my family so it will be a bit different.

Posted by Christopher Chestnut on 2008-11-20 11:01:46

Frame bug fixed

A site I have been working on requested the news and events system to be deployed on their system but unfortunately their testing server is a Unix machine with PHP and their live machine is a windows box with ColdFusion and no php.

So what was supposed to be a simple task of restyling the application to look like the rest of the site has turned into a choice of redesigning the application into ColdFusion, a very large task that I don’t have enough time for or deploying an i-frame linking to another page with the working application. The i-frame option is something I really do not want to do especially from the accessibility problems which this causes it makes me shiver.

So the decision was made and I started building the page tested it and found it had an error “no doctype” but other than that it worked properly. So I added the XHTML doctype, but then the i-frame reverted to its default size width 100% and a height of roughly 200px, when I wanted the frame to fill the page. After a bit of fiddling I found the solution by putting it into a div tag and getting it to fill the page. Best of all it works in the main browsers and validates correctly. Then I thought it is only really the position=fixed; CSS attribute applied that is affecting the div box height, so I moved the code down to the iframe CSS and it still worked and used less code so w00t.

Posted by Christopher Chestnut on 2008-09-18 11:16:36

On the Move

Well Heather and I are on the move, I have just accepted a position with a company in Northern Ireland located in Belfast so I will be there and working in a matter of weeks. The company is i-path diagnostics and I will be their senior programmer, where I will be designing and building e-learning and diagnostic applications, which is very interesting and I can’t wait. Though it has been a bit hectic in the flat getting a new flat there but like a cat I always seem to land on my feet so it should be fun.

Posted by Christopher Chestnut on 2008-09-05 11:16:36

Very clever, Very dangerous but very clever

I am reading an article on the register titled an anatomy of a malware scam, it is very interesting. The idea of a series of spam blog posts (which he prevents by being 100% monitored) which entice the user to download some fake antivirus software by prompting the user with fake javascript generated windows that look like legitimate desktop windows, where it doesn't matter what you click it will cause you to download the software even the close button as it is just a linked image.

It is interesting as it has different behaviours depending on your actions such as attempting to hit cancel will cause it to periodically remind incorrectly inform you that you have virus and malware on your machine and tells you your security is low. If you are tempted into downloading it the malware creates a fake copy of the windows security panel and it tells you that you are "under attack" or "malware programs are sending your private info over the web" or it has found "evidence of files being modified" and to fix it all you have to do is go to their site and pay for the full version paying by credit card. So now they have your credit card details. It gives you increasingly concerning messages and psychological cues that you are in danger if you do not perform this action.

A final interesting note is that as far as the writer can find it does nothing else, it just tries to get you to pay, giving them your credit card details. It would not take a genius to make this actually do some harm, but that's the point it is the insidious threat by making you do all the damage to yourself.

I was telling this story to my colleagues at work and one of them said "it is just another bug they have to fix" my response was that "it is not a bug in the software it is a bug in the human being" which is very true, you do it to yourself.

Posted by Christopher Chestnut on 2008-08-26 16:18:28

China: A Photographic Portrait

Went to see the china exhibition on Saturday, it was very good, both for the art in day to day life which I very much liked and found very interesting. The farmers who were using the weight of children to plough the land, and the shock on the face of an elderly man walking towards the camera when two women basically wearing modern dresses which would show more flesh than was acceptable. Heather found the gallery especially good because she had an earache which meant that loud noises were hurting her ears, but the gallery was quiet and peaceful.

Details about the gallery here.

Posted by Christopher Chestnut on 2008-08-26 14:52:44

Samurai Spirit and Mort

Went to see Mort in the afternoon the weekend before last weekend, it was very good. Though quite disconcerting seeing the actors and actresses walking down the street carrying a scythe or other things, it was very funny and especially good for the use of set materials. The entire show took place on the same stage area with a desk and a chair, with them simply being moved around the stage. Though I have a sneaking suspicion I know the actress who played the witch, Heather thought she recognised them as well. I have no idea who she is, no synapse are firing.

That night we also went to see Samurai Spirit, it was fantastic, well worth it I would happily go again. The actors were also in the kill bill movie which should give you an idea on how well it was performed. Nothing was spoken, it was all performed through, lighting, music and motion, to tell a series of short stories. The bit at the end was very good though, they invited a man up to the stage to try out what they were doing for over an hour. The physical comedy was great, it added a light note to finish the show. I am very impressed.

Posted by Christopher Chestnut on 2008-08-26 14:23:06

Kamui performs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

I will first say, this is not me but the coincidence in the name has enticed me to see this show. I had seen the posters to the show around the North Bridge area, but today at lunchtime I spotted a group of Chinese actors walking along Buccleuch Street with a huge sign with 1 word on it Kamui. This sold it to me, if I can get tickets I will definitely go see this, this coming Saturday. Not to mention it is an action packed story about Samurai's which will be amazing. Well it would be the show is called Samurai Spirit. As for the name, Kamui is the name of the group, it should be great.

Another activity that I will definitely be doing this Saturday will be visiting the City Art Gallery, it is the location of the "China: A Photographic Portrait" exhibition which I have been helping advertising with the Confucius Institute. It looks amazing, from the images I have seen so far.

Posted by Christopher Chestnut on 2008-08-08 13:38:09

Refreshing UNIX skills

We have recently been having problems with Adobe Contribute where users for certain sites published new pages or their changes to existing pages, but the files when complete were un-editable and were unable to be viewed, resulting in 403 access denied errors. This was because the files that were being written to the server had 0600 permissions. i.e. read write access to the owner and no other access, as a web browser is considered as other, it cannot access the site, the file should have 644 permissions ideally granting read access to all groups.

I searched various sites and manuals for why contribute might have been doing this, and found that it would be very unlikely that it is an admin setting in contribute, more likely it would be a setting on the server because I have noticed this problem on other pieces of software. It was time to crack out my UNIX skills and have a search. Using umask I found the default permission for the server being 600, I tried changing this which appears to have worked (changed in the .profile section so that affects every session not just the one in which I was editing). I will have to see tomorrow if this has had a lasting effect.

Posted by Christopher Chestnut on 2008-08-04 17:22:54