Saturday, March 22, 2008

ODI - Office for Disabilty Issues.

I have been working closely with the RNIB, RNID and other enablement organisations to produce the Office for Disability Website and the Equality 2025 Websites for the Department for Work and Pensions.

Delivered as a Static Classic ASP website, but built using a bespoke ASP.NET 2.0 Content Management System that used XML to manage the content, site structure and site versioning.

http://www.officefordisability.gov.uk/
 

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Happy Birthday Chaps

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Rafi, Jessie, Dave ( in order of "day" of birth)
Happy birthday to you

Many many more happy returns

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

My desk (updated)

I've got my dual lcd screens now...

I better get on with some work now.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Week 2 Day -1

Its wet, windy and I'm dry driving to/from work.

Reasonably productive day, more intranet maintainance, and continued development of administrative tools.

Successfully negociated Question of the day number 3

How do I export my Active Directory users into Excel?

Done, and stored in an Excel File...

Next...

Friday, March 07, 2008

Day 4 - Question of the day

There's none for ages, then two come at once.

Questions of the day that is...
The first a simple, "how do I do this in SQL", the other "how do I create the correct type of access database file for my labeling application". Obviously, these were sorted out in a matter of minutes, but they asked me, that's what is important.

It's all starting to kick in now, I'm starting to get use to where most things are, and can deal with some of the simpler queries, ie. can you arrange for this new starter to be added to the intranet, etc...

We had a employee benefits (elements) meeting this morning (2 hrs), pretty interesting, about benefit elements we may want to add to our already strong benefits package.

  • BUPA Cash Plan - ie. Optical/Dental/Oestopathy/Chiropractor/In-Patient... + 20 other benefits [ before Tax & NI ]
  • DENTPLAN Cash Plan - purely dental benefits at a higher value than the BUPA Cash Plan [ before Tax & NI ]
  • Discounted Mobile Phone+Tariff [ before Tax & NI ] ie. N95 + 750 mins and unlimited text for about £20 a month.
  • Buy and Sell Holidays - to and from the company [ before Tax & NI ]
  • Discounted High Street Vouchers - buy £10 @ £8.50
  • Share Incentive Programmes - Buy Co Shares [ before Tax & NI ]
  • Stakeholder Pension - you put 3% of wages, Company put the same as you rising up by 1% every 6 month to 7.5% of wages against your 3% over next 2 year [ before Tax & NI ]

Basically most of these, they will take out of your gross pay, and you pay Tax and NI on the balance.

I'm only interested in only a few, probably the BUPA cash plan, the discounted mobile phone+tariff, the buy and sell holidays and the Stakeholder pension, even then I may not opt in for all of these at the moment. [[sssh... keep the cash]]

The BUPA cash plan is in addition to the BUPA Healthcare Plan that comes as part of our normal benefits.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Wiimote projects and more

  • Tracking Your Fingers with the Wiimote
  • Low-Cost Multi-point Interactive Whiteboards Using the Wiimote
  • Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the Wii Remote
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/

http://www.wiimoteproject.com/

Day 3 - getting in there

Arrival 8:50am.

Finished documenting COM components, went for a short walk at lunchtime.

I started writing routines to access the databases after lunch, SQL and IBM DB 2. pretty simple stuff really, I was apprehensive when they mention AS/400.

They are already trying to move me over to Lotus Notes, hence my uploading of the archiving routine I wrote, don't wanna lose it, could use that at home (wait a minute, I use Thunderbird)...

Building a prototype cms to upload new product unto the get-electrical site.

Once the prototype is built, then I test it using the COM Components to send the data from the AS400 to the live SQL server.

Depart 17:45pm

Realtime traffic info

Live traffic information updated in real time, for Birmingham, Kent, Leeds, London and Manchester.

Details average speed and car per minute passing certain points

http://www.realtime-traffic.info/

Archive Mail Macro for Outlook VBA

Something I quickly knocked up to tidy up my mailbox, don't know if it might be useful. you need a folder called "Archive" under you mail inbox for this to work.


Sub archiveIT()

Dim diff: diff = CInt(InputBox("Enter total number of day to retain", "Archive Mail", 7))
Dim myOlApp As New Outlook.Application
Dim myNameSpace As Outlook.NameSpace
Dim myInbox As Outlook.MAPIFolder
Dim Destination As MAPIFolder

Set myNameSpace = myOlApp.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set myInbox = myNameSpace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)
Set Destination = myInbox.Folders("Archive")

Dim msg As MailItem
For x = myInbox.Items.Count To 1 Step -1
Set msg = myInbox.Items(x)
If msg.FlagIcon = olNoFlagIcon Then
If Abs(DateDiff("d", msg.ReceivedTime, DateTime.Now)) > diff Then
msg.Move Destination
End If
End If
Next
End Sub

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Day 2 - Back and Forth, losing it!

Decided to go to work by m/bike today, left at 8:30, arrived at 8:50am.

Still can't access all the systems I need, basically spent the morning, geting password, getting my permissions upgraded...

Forgot my wallet this morning and I'm short on petrol, especially if I want to go to the gym later.

I decided to go home and get it, left work at 12:30, arrived home as 12:50, open the front door with my keys, put the keys in my helmet, then promptly forgot that I had the keys, and therefor couldn't get into my room to get my wallet. decided to have some lunch, then remember "Hold on! how did I get in the house?", got my keys from my helmet, ran upstairs and changed my jacket, took vitamins, tablets etc.

Left home at 13:10, halfway along my journey, remember that I went home to get my wallet. Arrived at work at 12:30, with just enough fuel to get back home.

Found all the source code for all applications in sourcesafe, found the VB6 COM Components, unfortunately there is no documentation, therefore, I need to create some.

I've also found a UML documentation tool, BOUML http://bouml.free.fr/ we are currently using version 2.21.4, I starting the documentation of all the classes and methods for the COM components, this should help me understand the interface between get-electrical.com and our internal system.

Finished at 5:30, I was planning on going directly from work to the gym, now I have to go home, get my wallet, buy some petrol, then go to the gym.... arrrrggghhhh!

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

First Day

Left home at 8:25am, Driving by car, Lots of traffic at M25 Junct 24 going to Potters Bar.
Arrived with a minute to spare, after getting settled in to my cubicle-ish, (Photos to follow)
was introduced to the guys, and walk around the office and shown the various groups and individuals here.

Had a chat with my boss Steve, about what projects I have lined up.

  • Familiarise myself with the http://www.get-electrical.com/ website, as I will be the main contact for this.
  • All communications between the get-electrical.com site and the ERP system is currently via VB6 COM components, the idea is to replace these with httppost XML data transfer using web services.
  • Create and Maintain a CMS to manage the products / Promotions and Adverts on the live site.
  • Replace database with either SQL 2000/5 for the get-electrical.com site.
  • Introduce a CRM system - either bespoke or purchased
  • Introduce a Document management system for the Finance department
that's just to start with. (grin)

One thing for sure, I will not be bored.

When for a walk at lunchtime, got lost, had to use the TomTom in my phone to find my way back.

Still trying to get my machine running with VS2005 and various other app, I've inherited my machine from a previous developer, so everything is set up his way.

I was the last one out, other than Steve. and that was 5:40pm, I still managed to get home just before 6pm. [ it was still light ]