BarGolf.net

When I get my finger out there’s a few things that I’m currently mucking about with,

VB.Net bindings for libHaru

libHaru is an open source PDF generation library. I got interested in this with some PDF generation stuff I was doing at work, so fed back some VB.Net interop skills I’d picked up to generate a VB.Net binding.

MyMotionBased Facebook application

My Facebook application that integrates people’s (runners, cyclists etc.) MotionBased.com activities into their Facebook profiles. My recent work has been some performance improvements and I’m hoping to put some long requested features in place soon.

Simple PVR app. for Linux

I know, they’ve been done a million times before. But I want a web based schedule served from my box in the roof (2x DVB-T cards) I can operate from my PS3 which squirrels the video files away so TwonkyVision can serve them back to my PS3 later at my convenience.

What’s stopping me from getting on with this stuff?

I managed 10 miles on my long run today, which is the furthest I’ve ever run. 9th Mile was the hardest had to keep remembering to pick my knees up to stretch them out a bit. Legs ache now mind you.

I missed last weekend’s long run because I was recovering from “EuroDoubleVision” - which was quite dehydrating.

Typically MotionBased is monkeying around and taking an age to process the upload, but SportsTracks shows from my GPS log that most miles were under 9:30 pace. Not fast enough for a sub 2 hour half though - which is my aim (not that I’m entering any more races ever though).

Whoops. I’d turned off comment moderation emails as RECAPTCHA seemed to be handling all of my tramadol spam nicely and completely failed to check if there were comments awaiting my input. Sorry folks!

I’ll check more frequently now I know I’m supposed to.

Another brief update..

I’ve published my MotionBased add-in for WordPress to the WordPress plugins repository as WPMB. This should now be regarded as the definitive location to obtain the add-in.

So far about 10 people have found it without me mentioning it.

Cheers,

Matt.

Well I’ve got a new Laptop. A very old Dell Inspiron 8000 - it was pretty good in its day, 1Ghz CPU, 512Mb and a nice 1400×1050 screen. I’ve splashed out 30 quid on a new battery (the original wouldn’t even charge), located an old 802.11b (B!) wireless card and given it the full Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy treatment.

I had some grief when I upgraded my 7.04 Feisty on my desktop machine to Gutsy. VMWare didn’t work, and I had endless troubles with the graphics card / dual monitor set up - which is still not quite as good as it was in 7.04 (but I have go the nice Compiz effects working). However on this laptop everything has gone great. The only thing that didn’t quite work was the standard driver for the wireless card (r8010) would just hang the box if I tried to connect to an AP. I’ve blacklisted it for now and used the ndiswrapper approach - I don’t wholly approve idealogically speaking - but it means I can sit in front of the telly watching Arsenal v Chelsea whilst updating my Facebook application code.

.. though it would be nice if suspend worked. Well suspend does sort of work - but unfortunately the resume part doesn’t.

Just a short note to say I’ve got the the point where I think I can publish my MotionBased plugin for WordPress.

You can see what it looks like in my sidebar on the left, and download the source from the link on the left.

Cheers,

Matt.

Following last Sunday’s abortive long run, I decided to start back at basics - do some more core and leg work at gym (which fortuitously I had failed to cancel back in September) - and build up distance again.

Seeing as it was very cold I decided not run outside (hence no log). After getting marooned 3 miles away from home last time I didn’t want that to happen in this weather. Instead I put down a steady 3 miles in the gym - I got the occasional beginning of a twinge from my pesky left knee but found that if I concentrated on foot placement for a bit it would go away. The other distraction was I had to go back to thinking in Km again, which left my brain with something to do. Actually at 5K I was feeling pretty good about my knee, but decided not to push it and instead stick to the plan.

I’m off to France next week with work so my knee will get another rest too, which should help. Hopefully over the next month I’ll build back up to 10Ks then see if I can revert to my original 10-13M plan.

Short note. Since I’m resting my wonky knee I decided to have a go at writing a WordPress plugin widget for the sidebar that works like the MyMotionBased application for Facebook.

The majority of the MyMotionBased code for parsing the data just copied straight over (note to self - publish Facebook code under GPL). The only fretting was getting it to work as a Sidebar Widget (that meant my old sidebar has been replaced with an all Widget affair) as this took a couple of Googles to get right.

I’ve got to finalise some styling so it looks OK and then write a configuration panel for it. But you can see how it’s going on the left..

I’ve just finished rolling around LMAO at the latest Stella Artois advert I’ve seen on TV (during a break in QI on ‘Dave’). After the usual interminable glossy cinematic build up it winds up with the tag line of “Pass on something good.”.

I think they’re asking me that, the next time I’m in the pub or about to have a drink at home, instead of that tastesome British real ale, crisp Bavarian lager, or strong Trappist brew I should instead give it a miss and drink Stella instead. Needless to say I won’t be taking their advice.. or have I misunderstood?

I’ve got about as much Tramadol as a man could possibly need now (whatever it is) - so it’s time to drop the spam that a blog attracts. I had a dig around for a decent Captcha mechanism for Wordpress (rather than write my own) when I happened across reCAPTCHA. Not only does this provide an easy to include Wordpress Comment CAPTCHA plugin, but whilst you’re responding to the CAPTCHA you’re also helping to digitize books from the internet archive.. What a brilliant idea.