JamesX

2006! Happy New Year!

It’s time once again to look back upon the year that was 2005…

January
Work started early on in January in preperation for the new school year and it wasn’t long before the heatwave hit Melbourne. January saw the least blogging by people and it was time for me to rant about it. It was also the month when I finally managed to get my eBay blue star, we celebrated Marc’s 20th birthday, and that horrible deer roadkill was unleashed upon the world. We continued to slug through the mountain of boxes at work and it’s also the same week that the RodentJet was born.

February
By February, uni was starting to appear on my radar and the timetabling gods seemed to be on my side. Either way, it didn’t phase me much as before long, the great South Pacific adventure had begun. It was one of the best, if not the best, holiday I’ve been on and by the end of it, I had taken almost 1,100 photos! The AFL footy tipping season was about to begin, Richard finally cracked the RMIT wireless problem and a new game was on the horizon…

March
Yes March is where it all began, World of Warcraft was taking centre stage at it began to occupy more than a little of everyone’s time. Our family friend Jean was over from England visiting and in between all of this, work and uni were plodding along nicely. As if it wasn’t already enough, No Worries, the latest play at work was a huge success.

April
It was a time for new things when April came around the picotux, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, the list of 200 things, “never have I ever”, and the release of Tiger (although I didn’t get it until later) were enough to keep me busy. I also got to celebrate Oscar’s birthday and I uncovered the mystery behind the Graphinc Calculator application.

May
May Day was when Tiger arrived on my Powerbook and brought with it a host of new features to help convert those who still believe Windows is a better OS. Hitchhikers hit the movies, and a day later it was Andrew’s birthday. Then came Remember Ronald Ryan and the fifth season of Big Brother began in earnest. It was also the time to launch the new backend on the site. It would still be some time before it all tied together, but having grandma away for 7 weeks was sure to help.

June
It was semester one exam season around the time that my relations were visiting from England. I took them to the football and showed them around Melbourne - including Phillip Island. June was also the month that GigManX was born. It had been a long while since my last gadget purchase and it was time for something new. FOXTEL iQ entered the household and it hasn’t stopped recording since! Exams were over and reports were printed just in time to finish the month with dinner at Han’s.

So that’s the first half of 2005. The second half can be found in Part 2.

So it’s taken me a while to get around to it but I’m pleased to report that the gallery is back up and running. Well it’s been running for a while, but there are now actually pictures in it! And for those who have been hanging out - Mel - to see them, the pictures from the cruise are up there. See it only took eight months to do it!

It’s takes a lot of time to resize and upload all the pics so I’ve tried to take a selection for each album as it’s just not possible to upload them all. To put it in perspective, there’s well over 1,000 photos of the cruise alone. You’ll want to be logged in when you visit the gallery pages too because depending on who you are, you will get a different set of pictures. So for those who still haven’t signed up, do it now.

I’ve also been tinkering with the blog and drastically expanded the list of categories. I’m nearing 500 posts now so I figured it’s time to add a little more organisation into the mix. As always, feedback is welcome.

Welcome to the fifth major revision of the JamesX site!

There are still a few changes that I need to make to jazz it up a little more, but I’m happy enough with the design to let it wild! It’s based roughly on the default Wordpress theme combined with a theme I found for phpBB. The reason for this melding of themes is so that there is a seamless transition from the Blog to the Forums. In case you hadn’t noticed, there are links across the top to switch between the two. The gallery is next on my list and will be making an appearance shortly.

Eventually the whole site will allow you to login and move between each area without needing to keep re-entering your details. I suggest that you sign up for an account so you can get started.

The most exciting part is that the site looks exactly (almost) the same in IE as it does in *cough* “standards compliant” browsers. The only real difference is in the fancy bullets that you will only see in non-IE browsers. But the look and feel is identical!

I welcome any comments or feedback about the new layout. It’s still very much a work in progress.

I’ve been doing a lot of tidying up on the server and making things a little better on the backend. I decided it’s time the blog got a facelift and so I’ve started adding images to posts. I’m working on a new theme for the page but judging by how long it normally takes me to make these things to my liking, it could be a while.

Forums are on the way. Stay tuned…

GigManX 0.4.1 has been released! The new version includes:

- Updated product activation backend
- System now knows if product has been activated previously
- Lyrics are now displayed exactly how they appear in Song Manager
- Notes now display in italics
- Songs are now listed in alphabetical order
- Added Teleprompt mode when lyrics are double clicked
- Database is no longer deleted when uninstaller is run
- Fixed crash when database did not exist at runtime
- Fixed crash when an attempt was made to delete last song in Song Manager

I still need more bug reporters so please, if you can, grab a copy and help with the testing phase.

Visit the GigManX site for more information.

It’s a reality - the GigManX site is now up!

There’s still a lot to be done, but at least the software app that’s taken a lot of my time (and everyone else who has been helping - Chris, Andrew, Dean and Lee) recently, has got a place to call home.

Visit http://gigmanx.pantherx.net/ for more information and get testing!