Going into town to meet Nat (who never rang, as she'd promised she would, so I didn't meet her in the end) and JCR Election Hustings (where Vad stole the limelight, so perhaps my lack of coherence wasn't noticed so badly) took up a lot of time today, so doing the problem sheet for 8am this morning got pushed back and back. So here we are, having walked it over to the DWB at half one. I could have walked it over in the morning, but it would have required getting up earlier (and the route is much more pleasant at 1:30am - jaywalking is fun!).

I'll leave it there tonight - I would describe hustings and my upsetness about Nat not ringing me in more detail, but frankly I just want to go to bed.

Well, I've figured I've got nothing to lose, so I might as well start diary-like blogging once more. There may be some useful tidbits of computing-related information included, and there will probably be a lot of things you'd rather you hadn't read. Hopefully not too many, though.

Today started at 11, after I discovered my alarm clock hadn't gone off at 10:50 to wake me up. Either that, or I had just turned it off without realising it and dozed back off. Had my first can of Pepsi of the day. I then proceeded to check email (and newsgroups, and Facebook, and OxGoss, and OxRo, and Boso; consider that an abbreviation); had a shower, then slowly consumed one of the two 150g bars of Fairtrade chocolate I got at the Coop last night. Checked the pidge (nothing had come for me, surprisingly enough), and went back to my room.

Natalie rang; I went over to Trinity to meet her and Alex. We proceeded to the Fowl and Foetus; I had a Diet Pepsi, Nat had Coke, and Al had Strongbow (most ladylike!). We chatted, and eventually decided to get food. At this point I got myself another Diet Pepsi. After a while, my sausage and mash came (very nice). We chatted for a while afterwards; my love life came into the discussion. Alex suggested numerous ways for me to pull, all of which seemed to involve drinking. After each I reminded her that I didn't drink, but the conversation kept coming back to Alex suggesting another activity that involved me drinking. Clubbing without drinking also came up, but to be honest I think I'd enjoy cutting off my own toes with a rusty blunt axe more.

No one seems to understand that I can't dance. Lots of people say that, but I'm certain that I'm different. (But then, who isn't?) The usual reply is "Neither can I, but I do", or words to that effect. I can't really put into words (might do later in an edit if I work out how) why this is different, but it just is. When I'm on a dance floor (which is rare enough), I'm paralysed: I cannot move. Having "GO ON, DANCE!" shouted at me doesn't really help this. I blame dyspraxia (but I do that for most things, makes me seem like I just want a scapegoat rather than solving my problems). Maybe I should take dance classes.

Might be going to G&D's tomorrow with Nat, depending what she decides when she leaves Al (Al has to go rowing). After getting back to college from the Bird and Baby, I had my second can of regular Pepsi of the day, after which I killed time online and then built myself a 6-tier can tetrahedron (of which I'm most proud, despite it being rather sad - picture below [yes, my room is messy, and the photo is blurred {and yes, I do like nested brackets}]), having amassed enough cans to do so. Then went to watch Doctor Who.

Thanks to the FA Cup Final going to penalties, Doctor Who was 20 minutes late starting. The residents of the TV room were most worried that we'd got the wrong channel or something, until we worked this out. Doctor Who was well worth the wait, though, and was quite scary, ending with a cliffhanger (being the first two-parter of this series). I won't give any spoilers away, but it has zeppelins. Everyone loves zeppelins. Anyway, upon the conclusion of that, I came back here and drank my third can of Pepsi and devoured my second bar of chocolate (making a total of 300g consumed today). And now my eyelid is hurting - most annoying, as I'm not even tired yet (the only cure I've found is to sleep). Maybe I'll have to see a doctor about it at some stage - it's only ever my right eyelid, and always roughly the same place on it. And always in the evening. Most odd.

Sorry if I've bored you. You didn't have to read it, though.

Amongst the blazing fanfare of piccolo trumpets and bugles, the new site is finally approaching completion, after a 2-year complete lack of updates. Static content is yet to have a navigation mechanism added, so sit tight.

All old blog entries have been ported over, but comments have not. Sorry if you were fond of them.

I'll post back once the site is finally finished (if that happens - which it won't, knowing what I can be like).

Edit: I think I've got the nav working properly now. Leave a comment or email me if you find any broken links (high likelihood) and I'll try to fix them. I know about some of the add-ins, and am working on them.

Edit2: OK, I think I've got the add-ins done now.

Edit3: I've now configurated some redirects from the old site (mvps.org/the_nerd) to the relevant pages on the new site.

OK, I just realised today that I had forgotton to release an add-in I wrote a while back. So the Default Zoom add-in is now available from the Add-ins page.

I apologise for the complete lack of updates in the last who-knows-how-long. I thought I had better announce that the blog, at least, is dormant, and will be replaced by a complete redesign sometime soon, probably over the summer. It may be ASP.NET, it may not. Depends how I feel.
Anyway, the main point of this post is that there is a new Default Layout Guides add-in available in the Add-ins area

EDIT: The link now works

2006 Edit: The link now works. Again.

I'm going to make this blog entry in the style of numerous sites, just for the fun of it.

Firstly, in the traditional style of this site: I added a new area today. I'd been meaning to do it for a while, but only got around to it in my 3 free periods today. It consists of PowerPoint stuff - free PowerPoint animations, and a custom Flag Animation service. Which is nice.

In other news, I managed to get ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) working the other day. It took a few days of sporadic work to accomplish, as Windows didn't really want to co-operate at first, but then I discovered that Windows was doing fine, but it was the firewall that wasn't co-operating. So now I can access the internet on my desktop and my notebook simultaneously.

:rolleyes:

Now, in the style of <Link Removed>:
I finished a new 1337 area today. I uploaded all of it on my 1337 56kzor m0d3m and made my ISP ph33r. It has PowerPoint stuff in it. Some d00d came up to me and tried to tell me that my new area suxored, so I dunked him in a vat of acid. He said "Ow", so I did it again.

In other news, I managed to share my 1337 56kzor m0d3m across my 2 1337 computers. At first it didn't want to work, but I poured concentrated NaOH over it and it started to co-operate. But it still didn't really work. So I called my ISP and asked what was up, and they said it wasn't their problem, so I bought out the company and made it their problem. And then I found that my firewall was the actual problem, so I used my 1337 market share to collapse Zone Labs. Hahahaha

Now, in the style of <Link Removed>:
I created a new area today. Click here to get it. It only works on skins 342 through 391 at the moment... I'm working on the other ones now. The nav link is only on skin 208 - I can't be bothered to edit the nav for the other ones. Oh, and I created another new skin today, based on a photo some dude took of a pencilcase being eaten by a hamster wearing lederhosen.

:rolleyes:

Umm... I managed to share my internet connection now. I didn't really want to, but I decided to anyway. So I'd better get around to fixing up that LAN cable, so the ICS actually becomes useful.

:rolleyes:

I use that smilie a lot, don't I? So I'll use it again

:rolleyes:

Laterz...

And finally in the style of <Link Removed>
Umm... I would have created a new area today, if I'd had the rest of the site finished... My plagiarised navbar is too bulky to add a link to, so I'll just post it here... Damn. I've forgotten the URL of my site again. Ah well. I'll just set up another one.
I would have shared my internet connection today, if I had managed to decide which modem/router combination to use.

I went up to the school this morning to register for my 6th form courses, and was shown just how out-of-date things are.
I was given three sheets of paper - one containing my option choices, and how they related to the blocks available. The second had my timetable, which was for me to keep. The third was a yellow form, on which I was to fill out my option choices, my GCSE results, my personal details, and my timetable.
They already have my GCSE results on a separate slip in school, they have my timetable on file as they have given me a printed copy, they have my option choices as they gave those to me, and they have my details on their computer as we have to give them in every so often.
So this yellow form was completely pointless. We had to tell them what they already knew, because they couldn't be bothered to get software to pull in the data from the various sources. Or was it because their data was in multiple formats? That is probably where the problem lies. They would make life far much easier for themselves by storing all their data in a central XML database and using forms applications (or InfoPath forms) to manae it - and then having a set of applications to deal with all the data.
We then had to sign our names next to our subjects on a wall - once we had managed to find the subjects (which had been handwritten on A1 flipchart sheets - so "Maths: Pure and Further Pure" was down as "Double Maths", as *almost* everyone doing it is doing double maths. If they had just used a DTP app linked to their option or timetable database, they could have had these automatically printed, with the right subject names. And they could have just had name lists preprinted (as it is quite a challenge to write legibly on a wall) and we could have "ticked" the boxes to confirm our choices.
I realise that we had to have the forms to confirm (yet again) that we aren't changing our options - but they could have left space on a preprinted form for that kind of thing.
The main problem here seems to be money - it would cost money to hire a programmer to design a suite of software apps and an XML database, and it would be too much effort to create an in-house solution (like they did with the electronic reporting)
Ah well. Maybe I'll be able to offer them a discount when I've acquired enough skills to take on the challenge.
:rolleyes:

The Default Text Box add-in is now available in the Add-ins section, and a more detailed tutorial instructing on its installation and use is available at Brian's site <link removed, site no longer active>. It allows you to save default settings for text boxes in Publisher 2002 and 2003, and allows these defaults to be saved to the registry