It was quite easy to create a basic 'add entry' form, and bookmark it so that it loads in the Firebird sidebar. Click on each of the following to view pictures, . With a button in my bookmarks toolbar that launches this sidebar (web panel) page, it is easy to quicky edit the current day's weblog entry.

Today I experimented with Firebird's Alternate stylesheet ability. Basically if a site has multiple stylesheets (1 default plus a few alternatives), then Firebird provides a widget in the bottom left part of the status bar that allows the visitor to switch between the stylesheets. There is now an alternate design, as well as a 'large fonts' option. It could be used better, but I was only playing about; however it has great promise for usability design in the future. There appears to be a slight bug in the version of Firebird I'm using (it's a nightly release, I expect as much), and the switching between sheets isn't as fluid as it should be, but it's still very impressive. For those with IE, you can switch using the following links:

• Default
• Alternate
• Large fonts
• Print

These links set cookies, so that the change persists over the site, I may well add links to the navigation sidebar/menu area for stylesheet switching/remembering.

I decided that I liked the theme switching and saving the pref into a cookie, and so I added links for it to the footer template.

The baby responsible for my job (I am covering a maternity leave) has been born.

17:00 Yay! Time to go to the pub and meet a former colleague (from a previous work-place).

Some good/bad news. The final test match of the England v's South Africa test series started today.

I just saw Fenner!!!! He was waiting for the lift.. wonder what he's doing here.

South Africa had most of yesterdays cricket, hopefully England will have better luck today.

14:20 SA all out for 484 off 127.

England did well in the cricket today. England beat Macedonia 2:1 in football today. England beat France 45:14 in the rugby today.

England declare on 604-9 just before lunch, 120 runs ahead of SA. Let's see if we can keep their 2nd innings total to a low score.

SA ended the day on 185 for 6, not a very high score, setting up a good chance for the final day to produce a result one way or the other.

England took two early wickets, putting Bicknell on a hat-trick, though he wasn't able to take a third in three balls.

11:28 9th SA falls. SA 215-9. Now Adams and Ntini bat together, the 10th and 11th batsmen, who shouldn't last long together.

11:45 SA's final wicket falls, on 229. Setting England a total of 110 to win.

11:59 SA drop a catch, England 1 for 0.

13:35 England lose a wicket, 47-1.

14:11 England win by 9 wickets.

Though the overall result is a 2:2 series draw. And I can just tell some people will be asking, what's the point of it all. But even if one side had won, what would the point be? Once it is over, it doesn't count towards anything other than history. Puts one in mind of the corrupted saying 'it matters not to win or lose, but how you play the game'. The point isn't just to win, because winning doesn't lead to something greater, the point is that a test series is the ultimate test of skill, and the ultimate cricketing spectacle. Over 5 days, teams can swing back and forth between winning and losing, the balance of the game shifting with events. Even in losing a team can show strenth and courage.

England man of the series was, my favourite, Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff.

Today I have been working out some costs for installing ADSL for the whole apartment block. 512kbps daytime (6mbps evening) ADSL for the block of 20, including hardware should cost about £30 per month for the first year and about £10 per month every other year (not taking into account that ADSL may become cheaper).

This includes a decent consulting/labour payment for looking over the design and physically installing, I have a friend who would probably be interested in sharing it with me.

Of course, my objective is simply to be sitting on the end of a 6mbps connection, whereas in reality it'll be slower than a glacier with the whole apartment block trying to 'download music and movies with rapid broadband' blah blah nonsense advertising.

Oh no, my home machine has gone offline... I wonder what on earth has happened... maybe it exploded, or perhaps burnt down.

2 years ago today I had one of the most important exams of my life. I passed it, and was thus able to study on an MSc computing course. Oh.. and a bunch of other stuff happened which some morons (in my country) refer to as 'nine eleven' whereas it's obvious they (those using day/month/year date format) should refer to it as 'eleven nine'.

Fun lesson in how to give Mac training without a single mac in the room. Lots of Mac screenshots, and a very labourious animated powerpoint presentation. Oh what fun.

I had an enjoyable weekend. Visited with my sister and nephew and had lots of fun. It's amazing (to me) how smart he is. We were out in a bookshop, and happened to read a book about what a child/toddler his age should be expected to do, and he's does far far more. And that's not bias because he's family. For example, the book said he should be able to build up a stack of blocks '2 blocks high', well he builds them up about 10 or so high. It's quite deceptive, he's above average height for his age, and one can forget exactly how young he is.

Today I've been asked to submit a quote for a web maintainance contract, though I won't be supplied details etc until next week.

Today at work we start the new year's induction programmes. This means everything is supposed to be hectic, although I am not sure to what extent I'll be run off my feet. In total I am invoved with 11 inductions over 8 days. I should probably clarify that I'll be delivering the induction sessions, not receiviing them.

The first induction session went well, with just a few teething troubles that have been sorted out now, so that means the one I will have to do later (the first one I do on my own) will go swimmingly well. So yay me! Will let you all know later if I had a nightmare or not.

Had a kebab for lunch.. which is perhaps not the best thing before I have to give an induction session (straight after lunch), am happily full up and quite relaxed.. which is perhaps on reflection a good state to be in before taking an induction session.

The induction session yesterday was a breeze, and I'm looking forward to my next one this afternoon.

My session today was great, except that the room has no air conditioning and it was so hot!! All the students receiving the induction are new, just started last week, and it's a strange and of course enjoyable task to be involved with Uni students, reminds me of when I was still one.. not all that long ago.

I have three induction sessions to present today. I'll be kept quite busy by them, and will probably have to take a late lunch, at about 2:50 because two of the sessions cross over my normal lunch times.

The students of my second session went AWOL for a while, and I almost thought I had some time off, but then they turned up just in the nick of time .

My third and final session went well, except that most of them didn't have their registration cards and therefor had to log in with temporary user accounts. Not that I really care, causes extra trouble for them, not me.

I must confess that I have been having a great amount of fun doing these induction sessions, and if the training sessions are half as much fun, I'll be having a fun 8 more months here.

We're well due another Babylon 5 quote:

Marcus, Babylon 5 Late Delivery from Avalon (3x13)

Today as I was setting up an induction I bumped into a new student, someone I know from my BSc University days... was a real surprise!

On the way home, I saw a newspaper stand, with a headline poster up, hand written, advertising the latest issue. Nothing unusual, however it read 'Fergie aide arrested, dramatic picture' which I found humerous. The phrase 'dramatic picture' was obviously trying to explain what the paper contained, however to my eyes it looked like the result of an img tag's alt attribute being shown when the picture was unavailable. Perhaps I've just been doing web pages too long. Though one day, if we trust the future that films show us, posters will be dynamic and digitised, and could well be written in a form of html, and such things might occur when a picture fails to load and an alt message shows instead.

There is a pause in PGCE inductions today, however I will be dooing 1 single MA/PhD induction session. The material is all different, and thrown together by yours truly. So it certainly should be fresh and new.

Two inductions today, both went well. Almost at the end of inductions, just a few more to go. They're still fun, and go much faster as I seem to rush them through it a little more, better time management per task from me I suppose.

I really must stop agreeing to go to the pub at lunch time... while I don't get falling down drunk, it probably isn't the best if (like today) I have to take classes after.

Shadowrun today. I played a new character after my last one died last session after being turned into a vampire by the bad guy, then killed by my party for being a vampire. My new PC was a rigger, I had fun.

Just the 1 induction to give today, and then that's the inductions over and done with.

12:55 That's it. Inductions over.

15:40 Time for tea and jelly babies.

I've been looking at buying an iPod.. a 40GB model. Standard price is £398.99 although as an employee of an educational institution I can get it for £366.60. That's still quite expensive, but as my current mp3 player cuts out every time I breathe, it's about time I had a new one.