schwuk.com

This site is the work of David Murphy (aka Schwuk).

About me

I am an Engineer for a international IT company. My main role software development with a large side order of architecture. I also do some freelance consultancy, design, development and writing.

I am skilled in .NET development, Perl, SQL, PHP etc. I have a healthy interest in all things technical and computer related, especially Linux. I am the co-ordinator for the Cumbria Linux User Group.

I am currently certified in Microsoft .NET Web Applications and Web Services, and working towards my MCAD and MCSD certifications.

Powered by…

This site is powered by the Textpattern CMS, which is an incredibly flexible publishing system for people who want control over their content and layout.

It is hosted on my own server, which is provided by Linode whom I wholeheartedly recommend if you are looking for your own server.

The server is running Fedora Core 1 which is a damn fine Linux distro (of course Fedora Core 2 is better).

Styled by…

Me of course!

All layout is done with CSS, and all markup should be XHTML 1.0 Strict. Textpattern breaks this though…

Banners

The banners visible at the top of every page are rotated by a small PHP script. Sometimes you’ll get the same, sometimes you wont…

The images used in the banners are my own. They are sections of interest taken from larger images. You can view a full list of the banners if you like.

At the moment, all image manipulation is done with the GIMP running under Fedora Core 2.

This is a list of all banners used on my site. All images are taken by myself unless stated otherwise.

This is a section of the roof of the Sony Center am Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany. It is a portion of a photo I took whilst in Berlin on business in May 2003.

This is a section of buildings within the Sony Center am Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany. It is a portion of a photo I took whilst in Berlin on business in May 2003.

This is a section of clouds, taken from a photo I took whilst on holiday in Scotland in April 2004.

This is a section of the shoreline visibile from Tobermory on the isle of Mull. It is taken from a photo I took whilst on holiday in Scotland in April 2004.

This is a portion of a waterfall on the isle of Mull. It is taken from a photo I took whilst on holiday in Scotland in April 2004.

This is a view of Bassenthwaite Lake in Cumbria. It was taken by my wife whilst on a walk in Dodd Wood during July 2004.

The title isn’t as strange as it sounds – it’s actually three topics:

(Almost) disconnected

I’m now back at my computer after a weeks holiday. A nice break which was intended to be fully disconnected, but a deadline moved forward so I had to borrow my brother-in-law’s iBook to quickly re-work a website.

Usability

I have lusted after Apple computers since the original iMac came out. The release of OS X, and subsequent hardware and software releases have simply increased this desire.

So, I want a Mac. I need a Mac. But I’ve never used a Mac!

Yes, I’ve played with them in PC World, but I’ve never really used one. Last week was the first time I’ve used both a Apple iBook and OS X (10.3) in anger, and to a certain extent I found it lacking.

Everyone raves about the usability of Macs, but for a long-term Microsoft Windows and Linux user they really are quite strange. I got over most of the strangeness (right-clicking, the menus etc.) in fairly short order, but once I was back home and using my Fedora Core 2 machine again I was truly happy. OS X has lots of nice touches – like Expose – and I could see myself getting used to using it, but..

The question is: Do I still want a Mac?

…

Of course I do!

Upgrades

Both Matthew Revell and Sparkes of LugRadio have updated and upgraded their blogs recently. Both have gone with ‘off the shelf’ blog software (Blogger & WordPress respectively), both are using XHTML (only Sparkes’ validates though) and both are using CSS layouts. Good work all round!

Spakes’ moving from a custom blog to WordPress raised a question with me. I have absolutely no evidence to back this up, but it seems that more technical people are moving away from custom CMS/Blogs to ‘off the shelf’ ones. I’ve no idea what reasons they are using, but mine was simply because I had better things to do than tweak site engines all day.