Krioma.net

I was pointed towards [this] rather wonderful image of Comet McNaught and some auroral activity in the southern hemisphere, absolutely breathtaking.

If you have thought trying Linux is hard and alien to windows then you have been wrongly informed. It isn't too dissimilar. In fact the only difference in using it can be the installation procedure, you have to do and I know most people probably never have had to. So if you find yourself wanting to install and modern and competitive desktop try Ubuntu, there are some good guides out there and I would recommend, [this one]

As the new webmaster of the UoB Astronomical Society I thought it was about time I got this thing finished, so I spent most of last night doing that (once I realised a slight oddity in connecting to the guild's ftp server). Anyway most of the page was wrote quite quickly, I took the original redesign of Steve's and modified it quite heavily, essentially writing most of it in a different way. I think it looks nice a easy to use. I still have bits to write for it, mostly backend php stuff that will make things look better. Oh and I need to put lots of content on there! If you want you can take a look at [astrosoc.org.uk].

Whilst designing the page I came across a few useful things and a few problems. The first is, as expected, IE. My hate affair with Internet Explorer continues and I even came across an issue I hadn't realised it had before (luckily I found the info I needed to fix it, [here] if you are interested). It was easy to fix but the site just doesn't look as good in IE, I'll have to write a mod to get it looking as good but I doubt it. I gave up on getting the drop down menu boxes to run in IE, they work fine in other browsers (if you dont have it, get Firefox it is so much better!).

I decided that I would use some breadcrumbs on the site, I still need to get this exactly how I'd like but its not too bad at the moment... thanks to [Breadcrumbs_for_PHP_Lovers] for a nice little script to do just (almost) what I wanted.

I have also implemented a couple of php navigation systems that I have come up with, they are rather basic at the moment and if I make them a bit fancier I might put the code up here.

I decided that we needed an image gallery so I have gone with [Hoverbox], which I have modified a bit to suit my multiple page / gallery needs... thank god for PHP! :-)

Again take a look, [astrosoc.org.uk]

All I will say is wow, great photography... [Comet Between Fireworks and Lightning] (thanks to Clive for pointing this one out to me, wow!)

We went to Oceana in Brum on Monday, this was my first time there. Though it did have an interesting range of rooms it wasn't the greatest as it didn't seem to have much atmosphere - maybe its the rocker in me showing.. I don't go to non-rock clubs that often!

They did have a rather interesting disco entrance...

oh and guess who's drink is mine and who's is Lizzies?

Do you like my new pose... I think it shows off my angry side / possibly going grey, quite well...

I'm finding it hard to keep my hands still with my digital camera as I try to get a good shot of Venus with my basic point and click camera. I know what Ineed - an SLR and a mount, but heck I want to do it with my Canon IXUS. I have got some good shots in the past - I now want to get them in different places. As we walked home the other day Venus was nicely placed above the sports pitches so I gave it a go:

Not too bad but you can obviously see where I moved... argh. Though you can't on this one, but venus is rather small.. still quite nice

In my attempt I got, what I think looks nice this pic of the building by Victoria hall just outside of Birmingham Uni...

Woohoo, It snowed overnight and left a nice white blanket!

and on the tree...

... well maybe not but some the answers are interesting anyway...

It snowed here quite heavily in Birmingham this week. It was quite a welcome and fun change. This lead to many interesting developments occuring on campus.

The Snow Woman

Clocktower

The Snowman outside physics..

E = mc^2

Firstly I hate the Sun so I would have never came across this article without other people (Hi Clive!)... anyway here it is... [cambridge don't do snowmen]. It appears that while we were all having fun making snowmen all across campus that is not exactly what was going on at Cambridge, oh well. :-) (note: not child friendly).

The otherday I got through the professional photos taken at the IoP Awards... I think I came out looking ok...

Last night I was slightly disapointed. I'm not entirely sure why, I am putting it down to me being tired and my back aching a little. The gig was good and it was excellent that they played a 2 hour set but I got a little bored. I think it was probably just down to tiredness and the fact that at times they are a bit melodic... it was a good gig but not as good as I had hoped.

At the start of the gig we had the experience of a shoe flying towards us..

I also took some photos of the band...

I do like the background lighting they had...

by Thomas Hawk... quite an interesting article [here]

If you use the first example of the hacks you can get all my images thumbnailed nicely... see [http://www.flickrleech.net/user/ringsofsaturnrock]

What happens when you take long exposures of old arcade games? Well you get some cool pictures... [www.rosemariefiore.com].... who says gaming can't be beautiful

Today's APOD shows what I can only describe as a stunning image of the Vela Supernova Remnant... the detail is quite phenomenal... [Vela SNR]... I think I have my new background sorted.

For valentines day I bought Lizzie some roses....

This article, ,[Vista first look: Bugs and confusion] quite nicely describes what I feel about Vista. Vista is good but when I have used it I just would prefer to be using a Mac.

Then why not join the petition to the UK government to do something about light pollution... [starry-night petition]

I really feel we should teach a wide range of IT tools in Schools. Currently we focus too much on microsoft technologies and people just don't have a clue about how you can do things for free! You don't need to buy £200 office you can get open office for free etc... There currently is a petition (yes another one in the same day) to the UK government to try and change policy on this and, of course, to save the country some money! [Teach Open Source]

Last Night I had the pleasure of watching Bowling for Soup rock the Birmingham Carling Academy. The gig was great and just as I expect Bowling for Soup definitely put on a show. Sometimes a little too much show and not enough gig but it was thoroughly enjoyable. Lots of fun and well worth the cash. They are coming back for Download (which I may attend this year for a change from Reading) and a tour later in October... I think I will have to see them again.

The Fabulous Bowling for Soup....

Bowling for Soup with UK tour background..

A soft focus image of the stage...

Yesterday I noticed that Villa reserves were playing at home. Villa normally play their reserve matches in Walsall which is awkward to get to. Since I like to actually watch live football, not just on the tv, and live a 10 minute bus ride away - I went (with my Dad)! It was quite nice to see some live football. I hate the prices of the games at the moment and can't justify spending all that cash. I'm a Liverpool fan and so would obviously rather see them, but I like to see the occasional match... and at £2 for an adult I couldn't moan! It was a good game with some incident. Villa won 3 - 1 against Charlton...

[Israeli Defense Minister] inspires you with confidence..

Some people obviously have lots of time to waste, but if you are gonna waste it - waste it in a geek way! :-) [8MHz XP!]

Umm, I'm not sure how I feel about the news that Iran has launched its first rocket to space.. I always think that scientific endeavour is good but I have a feeling they are only doing this to show of some pride in what they are military capable of. I guess this might make the US think twice about attacking them... more [here]

It has now been a twenty years since the discovery of the supernova that gave astronomers a kick in the pants about their understanding of the death of stars. It was possibly the best observed supernova ever with Hubble being utilised to take detailed images. These observations have allowed for a detailed model of the final "breathes" of a star. The star is 163,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It actually blew up about 161,000 B.C., but its light reached the Earth in 1987. I remember studying the "light-echoes" produced by the explosion as an undergrad.. and from the other week as I now have the fun of teaching the same lab.. :-) For more, and some pretty pictures, see [here]