Notes From A Small Island

Website Language Selection

Wed, 07 May 2008 14:13:01 +0100

You will all have visited websites that present their content in more than one language - and they allow you to select the language in some way. Right now I'm struggling to find examples, but here are some of the more common options:

1. A special front page presenting language options

2. A series of flags on every page (or at least primary pages)

3. A series of translated names with separators (e.g. English | Francais | Deutsch )

4. A drop-down box

5. Some kind of 'world' icon with a link saying something like 'Change Language' (usually in English)

6. Like option 3, but using ISO codes (e.g. EN | FR | DE )

Because this is a vital usability issue, I would have expected to see many erudite blogs and usability articles about it - however, after a protracted bout of surfing, I only found one article that was any use (mind you, it's a good one, particularly comment 29): Indicating language choice: flags, text, both, neither?.

I referred to this article when designing the EntroPay user interface, and ended up using option 3 from the above list, for these reasons:

Option 1: interferes with user flow, especially when trying to 'funnel' users through a sign-up process.

Option 2: You try getting a Mexican to click a Spanish flag to see a page in their language. 'But I'm not Spanish, I'm Mexican, and proud to be Mexican! Goddamn gringo reactionary website, etc.'

Option 4: If a drop-down box defaults to 'English' and you only read Korean script, you will not see the Korean word for 'Korean' anywhere on the page unless you start clicking at random.

Option 5: Same problem as option 4.

Option 6: Useful if space is at a premium, but the elegance breaks for non-Roman alphabets.

I had to revisit the issue recently as the list of languages offered by EntroPay is soon due to expand, and so I again toyed with the other options above, along with some other icon-based solutions, in order to save some space on-screen.

However, at the end of the day, I find that I still believe option 3 is the most usable and sensible way to go, so I'll just have to move some nearby content elsewhere instead.

Post comments with any unusual or innovative language selection methods you've found!

House Photos 1

Sun, 04 May 2008 15:26:15 +0100

I managed to take a few pics around the house today, and here are some for all you nosey types.

From left to right: some detail of our freshly stained and varnished front door, with cute spyhole that can be opened from the inside; a small niche in the doorway leading to the living room (spot the Reduced Shakespeare Company mug that needs to be put somewhere else); and the view up the steps from the basement to the ground floor.

[THUMBNAILS - SEE ORIGINAL POST]

Finally, a superb example of the GF thinking laterally and managing to create vegetable storage in an otherwise useless corner of the kitchen (the metal plate below conceals the underground well and will soon be given a coat of Hammerite).

[THUMBNAILS - SEE ORIGINAL POST]

The enamel bowls cost �15 for the three, the cord was �4 and the brass hook was salvaged from one of my toolkits.

More soon.

House Pics Soon

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:45:28 +0100

I've received a few requests for photos of the new house, and I realised I hadn't posted any at all (apart from the inside of the main bedroom before we actually moved).

If you're after photos of the whole frontage or street or something like that, you're shit out of luck I'm afraid. I'm not about to publish anything that might reveal precisely where I live to people who know their way around Malta. The internet is home to some very strange people - yes, even stranger than me.

However, as soon as I get a chance I'll take a few detail pics (a window here, a door knocker there) - just to illustrate some of the things that we like about the house, and some of the things we've done to it. A bit of atmosphere. Expect the first few in a week or two.

Chunks

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:08:23 +0100

The dust has started to settle, and now we're kicking it up again with various chunks of work that need doing on the house.

- Front door is stripped, stained and varnished, and its ironwork is repainted
- Curved grill over the dining room window is repainted
- TV, hifi, cable etc are all plumbed in (though I still have to put up the wall-mount speaker stands)
- Internet is in, and I've run a Cat5E link from the router in the living room to an 8-way switch in the basement office (the walls are way too thick for wireless)
- loads of surplus wood has been sawn up for use in the wood fireplace
- Kitchen is in and working, apart from the marble worktops and one extra shelf unit
- Plumber (see below) has been 'retired' and we're getting quotes from another for the remaining plumbing jobs
- Bathroom window is stripped, stained and varnished
- Balconies are now decked with various plant pots, flowers, etc.

All this has of course been achieved along with the hard work of the GF's parents - not just her and me. But I'm still exhausted with all the manual jobs, to the extent that working at the office is almost a nice relaxing break. Almost...

Comment Acknowledgements

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:20:03 +0100

I just realised that after I revamped my blog engine back in February, the little panel that says 'thanks for your comment' after you submit one wasn't being shown.

That was rather rude behaviour (bad blog!) and I have put the matter right. So you can now post your comments in the sure and certain knowledge that my blog will thank you for doing so.

Post-Move Trauma

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:37:43 +0100

Well, nothing ever goes to plan, and the short story of the move is that it was extremely stressful and not a little chaotic, as with all moves. However, there were two highlights...

Highlight 1 - The Movers

The conversation about six weeks ago went something like:

'So, you'll do everything - packing and moving?'
'Yes, we do everything.'
'And you'll bring us a few boxes a week before so we can pack a few fragile things ourselves?'
'Yes, OK, call me when you need them and I'll bring them over.'
'OK fine, we have a deal.'

The conversation on the morning of moving day went more like:

'But you didn't pack everything. We can't move things like this.'
'Hang on, you said you'd complete the packing. Where are all the boxes you should be bringing?'
'We don't have any boxes. We don't pack, we just move.'
'That's not what we agreed!'
'I never told you we would pack for you.'
'Bullshit! The only reason I chose your quote was because you said you'd pack and move, and came in a bit cheaper than the other company that said the same.'

He then went in to bluster mode, claiming that no Maltese moving company did packing, which was a blatant lie, as the quickest of flicks through the Yellow Pages would show.

After going round in circles for a while, he clearly decided he didn't want to lose the day's income, and miraculously remembered where they could get a big stack of boxes (at their normal supplier, a pulping outfit in Santa Venera). These were duly fetched and in the end we got it all done, with the only breakages being a plastic storage crate that got squashed, and the handle on the bread bin.

Highlight 2 - The Plumber

The final bits of work on the house are still being carried out by various tradesmen under the auspices of our project manager, and on Saturday the plumber was in, to connect the kitchen sink and the appliances (he's also an electrician, allegedly).

We couldn't monitor him, being too busy with the move - and that's the project manager's job anyway. When he finished and left, I found that the power plug had been cut off a portable TV that was in the kitchen - and hadn't reappeared on any of the appliances either. So firstly we have an electrician/plumber (electrumber? plumbician?) who doesn't carry mains plugs, and secondly we have a plumbician who is a thief.

The project manager and I have a call scheduled later today, and I'm kind of looking forward to it.

So anyway, we're in the new house now (which I am really glad about, honest - for all its current issues it's going to be a stunning home in the end), with some rooms already starting to look complete and others still a mess. Inevitably it will take weeks if not months to get things how we want, and we've started work already - hopefully we can keep the inertia going.

Last Entry Before The Move

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:19:21 +0100

This is my last chance to blog before we move house (tomorrow).

However, there's still quite a lot to do tonight, so all I'll say is, wish me luck and I'll give you a debriefing early next week.

Wow, I'm an Uncle

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:10:20 +0100

Yesterday I became an uncle - how awesome is that? My sister gave birth to her first baby, and mother, father and new daughter are doing fine.

I thought I might suddenly feel older when this happy event occurred - to be honest I actually didn't think I would ever be an uncle until news of my sister's pregnancy came through last autumn - but nothing really feels different, apart from being really happy for my sister and her family.

Hopefully I'll be able to see my new niece when I visit the UK at the end of May, and in the meantime, I'm sure I'll get to hear assorted gurgles and yells over Skype.

Noise Pollution Part 2

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 03:49:14 +0100

It's nearly 4 AM. I'm in the study, working. I've been here for the last 30 minutes, and I've been wide awake since 2.30 AM. Why?

Because just over three months ago, someone who lives three doors away decided that, in a curious denial of all that is logical, a dog was not for life, but was actually just for christmas. A christmas present for their teenage daughter, to be precise.

Said daughter is obviously now bored with her present, and the dog spends its nights in the back yard. Naturally, as soon as it hears a cat, or any movement inside the house where it would no doubt prefer to be, it starts yelping, and usually continues for at least half an hour.

A couple of weeks ago the guy who lives in the apartment above us (and is equally sleep-deprived) actually went round to politely try and talk some sense into the owners (for instance, perhaps if the dog was kept indoors overnight, they would sleep better themselves as well as the rest of the village), but he may as well have been asking a bicycle to sing a duet with him. Apparently they even tried to deny they owned a dog - until he (and they) heard its barking coming from behind a closed door off their hallway.

I've never liked dogs - they're all unhygienic and many of them are dangerous - but right now if I was standing at this family's front door and happened to be carrying a shotgun, I'd be aiming a little higher than the dog.

The two weeks before we move house suddenly seems like two years...

Doomed

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:00:59 +0100

Sometimes there's nothing as satisfying as wielding a hammer and saw destructively.

When we bought our house, there was a horrible old set of furniture in the main bedroom, which we allowed the seller to leave because we thought we might actually need it for a few weeks. Here's a peek, taken before the seller moved out:

[IMAGE - SEE ORIGINAL POST]

Happily, it turns out we won't need it, and today I spent about 4 hours completely destroying the wardrobe and two bedside cabinets, before taking them to the public 'dump' site down the road at Mriehel. Extremely satisfying. Don't worry, it might (or might not) look like an antique, but it definitely wasn't.

Next weekend it's the bed and the chest of drawers, then I can put down the hammer for a bit.

Tiny Dicks

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:49:53 +0000

There's one thing I can't quite work out about the Maltese - particularly the younger generation...

Every young person here seems to feel the need to pimp their car with a huge sound system that shakes every building within 200 metres.

Yes, Mr next-door-neighbour cunt with your black spoiler-ridden Opel Astra - I'm referring to you, among others.

Is your penis so small that you need to disguise it by customising your car to illegal noise levels? Does it add meaning to your life? Does it get you girls? Somehow I doubt it.

ZigPress

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 05:58:03 +0000

And so my website rebranding and re-organisation is ready.

For a long time I've wanted to separate out my personal blog and my freelance portfolio, and I now have a new portfolio site at www.zigpress.com.

I also created a new version of this site with the blog on the front page and no portfolio, and this (as you can see) is also now live.

I actually did all the design and development work for both the sites back in February, but it took me ages to get around to the final pre-launch testing.

One nice thing I discovered is that zigpress.com already has a Google PageRank of 3, without me doing anything to the domain since I bought it last year. I've no idea why this is, but I'm not complaining...

Pumping The Piss

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:51:11 +0000

As a brief follow-up to my last post, this should make you laugh...

Our vendor, now known for his 'strip the house bare' tactics, and now revealed as a Mr J Calleja of St Julians (yeah, bite me), has tried another scam today.

When he vacated the house, he took with him an electric submersible pump, which was in the well under the house and pumped the well water up to the roof cistern so one can use it for showers etc (reduces government water consumption). When we first viewed the house he mentioned the pump but did not say he would be taking it with him, so we assumed it would be staying, as it formed part of the plumbing of the house, and there would be no reason for him to mention it unless he was leaving it. We weren't pleased when we realised it had been removed, but again, there was little we could do.

However, guess what - I got a call today: 'You know the submersible pump - I thought my father was gonna use it but he's not now - do you want to buy it from me?'

Well. You can probably guess exactly what I suggested he could do with it. Clue: it would involve pain and hospitalisation.

Maybe I should change the locks in case the new kitchen appliances disappear as soon as they get installed...

House Purchase Retrospective

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 07:04:06 +0000

Now that the house we waited so long for is ours, and the dust has settled (literally - with stone walls, there's an awful lot of dust), it's time to look back over the process of buying it and give credit where credit's due.

The first qudos go to Simon Estates, a small but keen real estate agent based in Naxxar, and in particular their negotiator Peter Farrugia. Before we found the house we bought, Peter found us a new build property and was extremely helpful in every way, from visits to technical advice, as well as being a thoroughly nice chap. Unfortunately that purchase fell through as regular readers will know, but Simon Estates weren't to blame.

Secondly, I must mention the estate agency that actually found us the house we finally bought, and persuaded a hesitant vendor to sell it to us (it had been taken off the market a few weeks before we saw it). That honour goes to the Sara Grech agency, who at times seemed less organised and 'on the ball' than Simon Estates, but who got the job done in the end.

Regarding the banks and the legal process, all that needs saying here is that, just like the UK, you have to keep chasing and chasing to get anything done (particularly the banks).

And finally a note of caution: this may just have been our vendor (who shall remain nameless on this blog), but when buying an older property in Malta, make sure that you get, in writing, a complete list of which fixtures are being left and which are being removed. When we got our keys we found the place was, bizarrely, missing one of the water heaters. Our vendor swore blind that he'd told us he would be taking it (which was not the case but we had nothing to prove otherwise). Obviously our previous house buying experience was all in the UK, where such things are considered part of the structure of the property, but, well, a water heater? You either have to laugh or cry.

Still, they're not expensive, so we're now moving forward, eager to move in next month when the works are complete.

What A Choice

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 07:34:35 +0000

Today the Maltese go to the polls for their long-expected though hastily-arranged general election.

Politically, the Maltese people are famously quite a polarised bunch, so this means a weekend of tension followed by a Monday when shops keep their shutters down to avoid damage caused by either suppporters of the winning party getting over-exhuberant, or supporters of the party in second place getting over-angry.

And what a choice they have this year...

Partit Nazzjonalista
In power for the last few terms, with similarities to the British Tories, and responsible for the current construction clusterfuck. Can you imagine putting environmental protection and planning into one government department? That's what the PN did. No wonder Malta's open spaces are shrinking.

Malta Labour Party
The other big power base. Haven't seen power for a while, and run by a guy who is prone to say 'it just is', refusing to provide any further explanation, when asked why a particular political or social situation has come about.

Alternattiva Demokratika
The greens, who are also similar to Britain's Liberal Democrats. Their leader has recently been arrested for some kind of fraud, in what looks like a dirty tricks campaign by PN (they were granted the right to pursue charges over 2 months ago, but only chose to exercise that right 2 days before the election - amazing timing, eh).

Azzjoni Nazzjonali
Billing themselves as 'The Voice of the Silent Majority', this bunch seem more like the British National Party in some of their views. I'd hesitate to call them fascists, but not for more than a few seconds.

And in fifth place - no, wait - that's all there is. Oh dear.

Finally, A House Of Our Own

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:21:04 +0000

You may recall that a few months back the GF and I were trying to buy a property, which fell through because we couldn't trace a former co-owner who still had a share in it...?

And then we found another place and it looked like that wasn't going to work either due to the seller being indecisive...?

Well, I'm happy to report that, as of today, we are now the ~~terrified~~ proud owners of that second place, which is a 350-year old 'house of character' in the centre of our favourite town in Malta.

It started out as a stable block for the adjacent (now defunct) windmill, and over the years has been extended, reconfigured and eventually fully restored, so that it is now a cosy and characterful home, with stone walls 1 metre thick in places. We're having a few things done to it before we move in (a new kitchen plus some odds and ends), and plan to move into it in a few weeks.

It feels good to be a (co-)homeowner once again, instead of renting - I really begrudge paying for accommodation when it's not my own investment.

Choosing a JavaScript Framework

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:10:00 +0000

This is one for the designers that read this blog.

Incidentally, when I posted the last entry (the Camino photoset), my traffic spiked massively, so I guess I have quite a few readers using my RSS feed (at the moment, to see photos in my posts, RSS users have to click through to the actual post, so I get proper analytic data).

Anyway, I'm working on a new website (one for me, not a client) and I need it to do some fancy visual things (lightboxing of images and HTML content, etc). Because there's no point in re-inventing the wheel, this means using one of the many lightbox implementations available, which in turn means using a JavaScript framework of some kind.

Last year, having not previously used any frameworks, I kind of 'fell into' using Prototype (and occasionally Scriptaculous), mainly because a colleague was using them and I was working on a different bit of the same web application. Indeed, I used Prototype, Scriptaculous and Lightbox 2 when creating www.rhodagarland.com. However, I always felt that using Prototype was a bit like renting a Chieftan tank to do the shopping - rather heavyweight, and does loads of things you'll never need it to do (though that may depend on where you shop).

So this time around, I worked out exactly what I needed to achieve for this site, and then went hunting, first for a lightweight framework, and then for a lightbox script.

This site proved very helpful, and led me by a very round-about route to this one. By this point I was starting to think 'maybe jQuery is the one for me' and then this charmingly-biased article clinched it. The stuff that made the author choose jQuery is the kind of stuff that appeals to me, too.

Having 'bagged' my framework, the next task was to choose the lightbox script to sit on top of it. I went back to the first article, and initially wondered if I would be stuck, because none of the jQuery lightboxes in it looked any good (for example, Thickbox is way too clunky-looking). However, a quick Google turned up Facebox, which should fit the bill very nicely thankyou.

Initial testing is firmly behind my firewall, but hopefully the new site will be released soon...

Comino Hike

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 10:36:25 +0000

Too many of my posts lately have been political rants or just general grumbles, so here's a lighter one to cheer us all up in the midst of the winter weather.

Last spring I went hiking on Comino with my parents (they spend about 3 months a year living on Gozo and the other 9 months in France), and it was a glorious day so I took a few pics.

[THUMBNAILS - SEE ORIGINAL POST]

Comino is an amazing island - arid scrub (called Garigue), sand, rocks, and a couple of beautiful bays on the North side. It also has the famous Blue Lagoon of course, which is fantastic for snorkeling but gets very busy on summer weekends.

Comino has a hotel, some holiday bungalows, a couple of farmhouses, a pig farm, a medieval tower built by the Knights of St John, and an old isolation hospital. That's about it. Apart from a couple of burger vans near the jetty, there's nothing else but plants ,animals and great views.

It's a great place to get away from the routine for a day, and the best thing of all is that it's only about an hour from home (including the boat trip).

With Friends Like These...

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:31:10 +0000

The Truth About Facebook. You'd have to be mad to join. And once you do, it's not easy to leave. Almost like scientology...

Church and State

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:44:32 +0000

This is a post I drafted many months ago, and I suddenly realised I'd never published it. So, finally, here it is...

Those who know me from when I lived in the UK have probably wondered 'so how the hell did such an enthusiastic atheist end up in one of the most heavily roman catholic countries in the world?'

The honest answer is 'completely by chance'. It might sound odd, but when The GF and I were contemplating emigration, we chose Malta for a number of reasons, but the predominance of catholicism didn't factor (as either a positive or a negative!).

Maybe it's because faith simply doesn't play a role in my life - it's just not on my personal radar. By the way, I don't really regard myself as an atheist - I don't see the need to have a word for someone who doesn't believe in a god or gods, any more than we need a word for someone who doesn't believe in Narnia, Frodo Baggins or Santa Claus.

Having lived here for a while now, I've found that the insidious disease that is religion does still make itself felt in Malta, but mainly by the state, not the people I meet (well, not often anyway). The main manifestation is that none of the political parties will enact policies that go against traditional catholic views, for fear of losing votes. Hence, divorce and abortion are both illegal in Malta, and same-sex partnerships are not recognised by the state. Hell, homosexuality itself was illegal here until the mid-1970s!

Even though Malta is a member of the EU, and even though there is (in theory) a separation of church and state in the Maltese constitution, in practice all the political parties are inextricably intertwined with the catholic church and will probably continue to be so for many years. The government gets away with breaking its own rules in this way because the EU doesn't seem to have a remit to legislate in these 'cultural' areas.

Of course I would like to see both abortion and divorce legalised in Malta, just as I would like to see gay couples afforded exactly the same rights as straight couples. These are basic human rights after all.

However, so long as I live in Malta I may be waiting for quite some time for any of these, let alone all of them, so it's probably a good job that I'm straight, with no intention of getting married, and no qualms about modern methods of contraception...

I've Joined The Eurozone

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 07:38:14 +0000

The tiny Meditterranean island nation of Malta, where I live and work, has joined the Eurozone today. How exciting is that?

When I moved here from the UK almost two years ago, I had a personal currency change, from Pound Sterling to Maltese Lira (and the prospect of joining the Euro was very likely but not certain).

On arrival I had to do these calculations:

If I had N Pounds, it was worth roughly 0.6 x N Liri.
If I had N Liri, it was worth roughly 1.6 x N Pounds.

Now everyone here has a currency change to deal with, and later today I'm going to head to the ATM and make my first Euro withdrawal. I really know how to live it up, eh.

Now I have to do these calculations:

If I have N Liri, it's worth 2.3294 x N Euros.
If I have N Euros, it's worth 0.4293 x N Liri.

I stopped thinking in pounds quite a while ago, thank goodness, but it's still going to take me (and probably everyone here) a little while to adjust.

Irresolute

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 15:14:29 +0000

Hmm, well hello 2008, I see you peeking around the corner, waiting to be allowed in.

I was reading another blog, and another one (both rock in their own way), and it kind of inspired me to think about some of the things I think about at this time of year, that I should really post here.

I tossed a few thoughts around, and finally decided that a review of my year was way too anal, and a set of resolutions would be way too risky (i.e. holding myself up to future ridicule when I achieve none of them), so I settled for a little set of aims for 2008 - things I really want to do, and I'm going to try to pull off (but not beat myself up over if they don't happen).

Here we go, children...

1. Buy a new server
My home server sucks. I mean, it works, but it's about as quick as a tortoise on downers. It's a P3-800 with 3 huge (and full) hard disks and a puny power supply that shuts down in the summer if I leave the window closed in the study. And it still has a CRT monitor! Yes, I know! Thank goodness for new laptops every 18 months courtesy of the day job.

2. Move house
This is actually a done deal, we get the keys in March, but I'm such a 'glass half-empty' guy that I'm still thinking of it as an 'aim'.

3. Live more healthily
By this I mean physical health - which probably involves a little more exercise and a little less alcohol. Notice I didn't mention giving up smoking... one thing at a time, Andy.

4. Say no to freelance
Well, just new clients. I have so much work and yet I still find it hard to say no if someone says 'this other client of yours says you're so great, I really want you to build our new corporate site'. It has to stop. The money's great but I need my life back.

5. Go diving, goddammit
I like scuba diving. I moved to Malta. Malta is about the best place to dive in the Meditteranean. How much scuba have I done since I got here? Zip. Nada. Bupkiss. Other quaint American phrases for None. And I have no idea why (though see above about getting my life back).

6. Redesign this site
It's about time. And I have some ideas. No, you'll just have to wait.

So there we are - hope springs eternal. At some point later in the year I'll re-read this and no doubt the words 'well, one out of six ain't bad' will float through my head.

Happy New Year all.

Clean Up The Beeb

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:52:32 +0000

If, like me, you're a regular user of the BBC website (especially the News site), but you're based outside the UK and are now getting fed up of the animated adverts that are screwing with your attention, not to mention the page layout and your bandwidth, here's the solution.

1. Make sure you're using Firefox when visiting the BBC sites (better still, make it your default browser).

2. Install the Adblock Plus plugin.

3. Add these filters to the Adblock Plus filter list:-
http://m.uk.2mdn.net
http://news.bbc.co.uk/css/screen/shared/ads.css
http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/

Voila - a clean, ad-free experience. And that last filter will clean up many other sites as well, including The Register.

That African Bear

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 10:52:16 +0000

You must have heard about the imprisonment of the British teacher in the Sudan for allowing her pupils to name a stuffed bear Mohammed.

You may also have seen the strength of opinion about this on the BBC website.

As someone of no faith whatsoever I've been following this quite closely, and what shocked me was the amount of aid the British government have been giving to the Sudan government - over US$500million so far.

I can't find a citation right now, but I'm certain that multiple British governments (including the current one) have on more than one occasion said that they will not support oppressive regimes.

It seems quite clear to me, and these recent events have only strengthened my view, that all islamic regimes are oppressive.

Take another example. Recently a Saudi woman was gang-raped. When it went to court she was punished (200 lashes and 6 months in jail) - for being in the car of a man she wasn't related to.

Surely the time has come for western countries to cease all aid to countries with islamic regimes indefinitely, sever all trade and diplomatic ties, and recall all of their citizens currently working in these countries. Incidents like this are sadly not surprising any more, rather they simply throw into sharp relief the complete and permanently irreconcilable incompatibility between western and islamic values.

Freelance Launches, Part II

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:45:04 +0000

And now the other site I mentioned in my previous post is live - have a look at Focalpoint Optics Ltd.

It's been a hell of a weekend doing this launch - and there's still more to do (ye gods, is there more to do) - but my client seems pretty happy with progress so far.

It was a big project because I've had to integrate a discussion forum, a photo gallery, and other custom features, into a consistent layout and appearance, with a unified single login. Obviously I picked a forum and gallery that already had the ability to merge logins, but it was still a challenging project, and has been in development since August.

The most challenging aspect has been importing forum user accounts, topics and posts from the client's old forums. I toyed with various automated tools, but in the end wrote my own scripts to take the data from a groaning, unstable SQL Server database into a fresh MySQL server, and it proved to be the best approach. In fact the topic import is still happening as I speak.

This weekend has definitely been a milestone - I have no new freelance projects on the books now - though ongoing work for Focalpoint is going to keep me occupied well into the new year and I'm still fending off other prospects - Focalpoint and I have great plans for this site...

Freelance Launches, Part I

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:59:41 +0000

My freelance life has certainly been busy recently. Over the last couple of weeks I completed and launched 2 sites, and this weekend I'm launching another (with some trepidation - it's a large, complex project).

But the two I recently launched have both been an absolute delight to create.

Salt Box Music Company is a deceptively simple site, essentially acting as a brochure for an Oxfordshire-based company that provides interactive music education sessions for young children. They work with the Oxford School of Music and with local authorities, as well as doing private sessions and party work. For this site, my life was made easier because the company employed a graphic designer to create their (quite complex) logo, although making it web-friendly (i.e. reducing the bandwidth overhead) certainly took some work.

Rhoda Garland is a small site providing a brief professional profile, and is an update of a site I created a couple of years ago. However it has now evolved from a single-page microsite to a multi-page site, and features local (Malta) photography and a thumbnail-based photoset with expanding images (that sounds wierd - have a look to see what I mean).

I'm pleased with both of them, for different reasons, and I'll post again on Sunday when I've done the other launch (if I'm still alive and able to look a PC in the face at that point!).

Malta and the EU

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:11:01 +0100

It's with a certain sense of hope that I post this entry. I don't often make postings as a result of newspaper articles, but every rule must have an exception.

In the Times of Malta today there were two articles that illustrate perfectly the struggles going on in Maltese life and politics since the country joined the EU in 2004.

Firstly, EU gives Malta last chance on spring hunting - this is a fantastic story and gives me some hope that the barbaric bird hunting endemic to Malta may finally be curtailed, particularly in the spring migratory season.

It's almost certain that the majority of the population is against hunting (there have been many opinion polls in recent years), however all of the political parties seem to regard the issue as a scorchingly hot potato, and none of them will take the initiative and say they intend to ban hunting. The logical action (a referendum) seems quite out of the question.

Now the EU has confirmed that it will drag Malta through the European courts if spring hunting is not banned. You'd think with that threat hanging over it, Malta might give in, but I doubt it. I suspect that the Maltese government will let itself be punished in and by Europe, so that it can blame Brussels for the ban, even though this would be a completely transparent attempt to save face and would fool no-one.

Secondly, EU serves Malta with seven warnings - another illustration of the shifts in culture and standards that must inevitably take place when a country joins the EU. I think the issues in this article will take a little longer to resolve though - they're at very early stages in the legal process.

Scream Daisy

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 07:55:05 +0100

I don't seem to get to gigs very often, so when I see a local band I like to post something about it here...

On Saturday I heard that Scream Daisy, a quite well-known Maltese band, were playing in the open air in my town that night, so with it only being 10 minutes walk from my house, and not having seen them before, I went along.

It probably wasn't an ideal gig for them - it was staged as part of a village week, where there are various events each night, and the audience was quite small (probably no more than 200) and quite casual about the whole thing.

Still, they played and sang well. To me they sounded like a cross between Winter Moods, U2 and Snow Patrol, and there's nothing wrong with that. They played all original material (or at least no covers that I knew) and I found myself enjoying almost every song. I don't have their album yet (and they're about to release another), but based on the gig, I think I'll try and get hold of it soon.

Isn't English Wonderful?

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:14:13 +0100

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer are in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.

(Brought to my attention by my mate Darren Cassar - it's on his CMS while he builds his new site)

Snakes and Arrows

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 20:52:03 +0100

Being a long-time (and I mean long-time) Rush fan, I was amazed at how much time had passed between them releasing their latest album and me realising they had, and buying it (May 2007 to today, if you must know). There's really no excuse.

The album is called 'Snakes and Arrows', and it's rather compelling.

For those who know little about Rush, it's a modern rock album, with strong melodies, challenging lyrics and remarkable musicianship.

For those who know lots about Rush, well you probably bought it in May so there's not much more to be said! But let's say a few words anyway. Since Neil's (drummer) double family bereavement in the late 90s, the band took a huge (and understandable) break before releasing their 'Vapor Trails' album (17th studio album if I haven't lost count), which got mixed reviews - I wasn't too keen on it (not enough strong melodies), though I did see them (for the fifth time) in the UK on the R30 tour in about 2004-ish, which was awesome.

After Vapor Trails, they released an EP of classic blues/rock covers, called 'Feedback', which was - well - different, though very cool.

But 'Snakes and Arrows', the new release, is something quite different. Some reviews have put it close to Vapor Trails, but I don't agree. It provides catchy vocal and instrumental melodies without compromising the band's essential nature, and the arrangements are solid and 'in your face' without drowning the spirit of the songs - it's really tight, and really gets you noticed in the street if you're listening on the ipod and getting into it properly... And - this is something new for Rush - there are loads of tiny 'homages' to earlier tracks on earlier albums (going back 20 years or more)- a guitar chord here, a drum pattern there - which probably sounds cheesy but actually works really well in this context. You have to be a fan to notice most of them though.

My favourite track? Well, it's early days. Right now? 'Bravest Face' - mainly because it reminds me so much of a track on Geddy's (singer & bass player) solo album 'My Favorite Headache'.

As someone who has followed Rush's fortunes and releases (and tours) closely since '2112' in 1977, I don't think this new release will ever be my favourite Rush album (that privilege will always be reserved for 'Grace Under Pressure'), but I'm really impressed with it, and it's currently occupying most of my Winamp playtime. The phrase 'return to form' is over-used and slightly cliched now, but on this occasion I can't avoid thinking of it - it's certainly their strongest album since 1991's 'Roll The Bones'. The whole CD is really rather addictive. Neil, Geddy, Alex: nice one guys - thanks.

Introduction to Atheism

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 17:54:34 +0100

While browsing all sorts of sites recently, I came across an article which expresses almost perfectly my views on religions and religious beliefs - so I decided to post the link here. It's also on the Links side panel.

Introduction to Atheism

The only way in which I would take issue with the article is that I don't think of myself as 'an atheist'. I don't think that we need a special word for people who don't believe in god or accept the premise of theism, any more than we need a special word for people who don't believe in fairies or Santa Claus.

Languages and Hybrid Design

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 07:48:04 +0100

Here's a new one for the debate regarding semantic tableless CSS-based design versus old-fashioned tables-for-everything HTML.

Let's say you design a great site with floated DIVs, negative margins, semantic tags, all driven by well-formed CSS free of browser-specific hacks. At this stage you're quite proud of the code quality, and all is well with your world.

Then along comes the request: it now needs to be multilingual...

Functionally, that's not a problem. You pick your method (a folder per language, or a session-based locale with strings in a database, etc), and sooner or later you have a site that is operational in more than one language.

However, if one of those languages is Portuguese or worse still French, unless you're a veritable CSS genius, you now have a broken layout. Strings of content that previously fitted nicely between a logo and a login form are now twice as long and all your floats are appearing in the wrong place (or not at all). Wider buttons push floats below other floats, etc. Anything where you assumed that some text would be a certain maximum length, and placed other elements alongside it in some fashion. Firefox tends to cope with this sort of thing better than IE (especially IE6), but you're likely to find problems in all the current browsers.

At this point you have three choices:

1. You spend time recrafting your CSS so that it can cope with much more verbose content (which could well push you beyond commercial deadlines - good CSS takes time - and you may come up against problems you simply don't know how to solve)

2. You throw your rattle out of the pram and rebuild the site to be completely table-based (which is guaranteed to work but could take at least as long, will screw your SEO and the shame may lead to deep psychological problems)

3. You take the hybrid approach. You look at the specific areas that are breaking, and introduce the minimum number of tables and table cells that it takes to stop them breaking.

I like pure tableless CSS layouts as much as anyone, but I'm also pragmatic. You'll have guessed from the way I phrased the options that when I faced this issue, I took option 3.

In fact I think there's a lot to be said for hybrid coding, especially when you're up against tight commercial deadlines. You could easily spend days sorting out multi-column floats and partial clears, when one table could mean the difference between meeting and missing a deadline.

My Snorkel Shack site is an example of hybrid design - it uses a table to define the columns, but is still semantic (header tags are used properly, etc), and it does alright in the search engines. On the other hand, my Ta'Qali Crafts Village site is fully tableless, but even though it's a simple layout, the page template definitely took longer. Of course, with both of these sites being personal projects, I had the luxury of no deadlines.

So let's hear it for pragmatism. Hybrid designs don't appear to suffer in the SEO stakes, as long as the use of tables for layout is kept to the absolute minimum, and as long as other tags are used semantically (headers, lists, etc). If you're the kind of designer who likes perfectly-crafted CSS but find it sometimes just takes too long, give yourself a break. A table a day keeps the deadline at bay.

Espresso Bongo

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:03:14 +0100

A warning to programmers everywhere: Girl overdoses on espresso coffee.

Dammit. I love a double espresso or three in the morning.

Next they'll be saying that pizza is unhealthy...

Captcha'd

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 07:59:26 +0100

Recently I've been getting more and more spam comments on my blog, and also spam enquiries from my contact page. Their content and quantity suggests that they are probably generated automatically by a computer (which in turn was programmed by lowlife scum - there, I feel better having got that off my chest)

Now obviously, all my blog comments are moderated, which means my blog pages don't get polluted with this stuff, but it's still a real hassle having to log in and delete about 60 spam comments every few days, while making sure I don't delete the few real ones I get!

So, I've finally (and somewhat reluctantly) implemented Captcha on both my blog comment form and my enquiry form. It took me about 3 hours from googling Captcha to going live with the new features. I do some of my best work on Saturday mornings while the GF is having a lie-in...

For those not familiar with this technique, my old friend Wikipedia has a (rather dry) Captcha definition. The basic idea is that humans can read quite distorted text, but computers can't. By requiring people to read distorted text and type it in as part of their comment or enquiry, I can ensure that all comments and enquiries were submitted by a human.

The version I'm using (a widely-available freeware implementation using PHP, that I have modified quite heavily) is not perfect, but it should provide enough protection to cut my spam down significantly. The law of diminishing returns will also help me - it's simply not worth someone trying to beat the Captcha, just for the sake of being able to automatically post large quantities of comments to a small, fairly insignificant blog.

Another One Bites The Dust

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 10:23:22 +0100

And apparently not (see last post). The seller has backed out. These local property owners are so capricious...

All I want is someone who is legally entitled to sell their property and who is willing to make a decision and stick by it - is that so much to ask?

You know, I'm not going to make any more property-related posts on the blog until we've actually moved. It's just too depressing, making a really positive post about a house one week, and then making a post the next week saying it's not going to happen.

A House of Character

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 18:54:12 +0100

In my last post I promised an update on the house situation. I'll be brief, as I'm really busy at the moment.

The situation is looking quite good once again - we've found a 350 year old house of character in our favourite village, which isn't actually on the market at the moment (so no competition), but for reasons which are a bit convoluted, we were allowed to look around. We've now also taken our interior designer / project manager to have a look (there's a small amount of work that needs to be done on it), and the results of that discussion were positive too.

So I think we're going to try and get this place - which means I have a lot of phone calls to make tomorrow...

Time Is Running Out

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 07:46:30 +0100

Some bad news... well actually more a tipping point. You may remember that our house purchase was dependent on getting a witnessed signature from some guy in Germany, to give us clear freehold title over the property? Well, we've extended the konvenjum (contract exchange period) twice, and although he did send back one signature, it wasn't witnessed, and getting it witnessed apparently involves him renewing his passport because it ran out. Yes, I know, ridiculous isn't it.

The bizarre thing is that every single problem we've had with this can be traced to Malta having stone-age (well, biblical-age actually) laws on separation and divorce. I've always said, anything involving religion always ends in trouble.

But it looks increasingly unlikely that we're going to get this resolved quickly, and we have to call a halt somewhere, otherwise it will just drag on and on.

So we've started arranging viewings for other properties in the local area, at least one of which looks promising. If we haven't resolved things with the current property by early next week (the new contract deadline), we'll abandon it. Time is money, especially with Malta joining the Euro next year - prices are going to soar.

Changing tack like this is going to involve getting some prepaid stamp duty back from the government, which is bound to prove entertaining to say the least, but that will be our notary's problem, not ours.

Flashing Once Again

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:17:10 +0100

A project has come around that's finally got me working in Flash (a web animation software package, for those that don't know) again - which is nice. What with the drive to simplicity and accessibility, Flash animations tend to be specified less than they used to by clients - and in fact this is a project for my main (day job) employer.

It's not a dreaded intro page (thank goodness), rather an attention-grabbing panel on the front page of the company's new public website, to be launched on or around 1st August. Up to now, I haven't put any of the sites I've built for my employer into my portfolio page, because this site is mainly about my freelance work, but I may do so with this one, because I'm very pleased with it. Watch this space...

However, the main point of this post is that I worked out a trick with Flash MX (I never upgraded to 2004 or the latest, because I like the MX interface) that has saved me a lot of time.

When you import PNG images into Flash and convert them into movie symbols for use in the main animation, they somehow seem to get 'smeared' a bit when you view the animation in a browser. The top and left hand edges seem thicker, and the bottom and right hand sides are a bit further than you want them (by 1 pixel, to be exact).

The solution?

1. Do the import to library as normal.
2. Drag the bitmap from the library to the stage.
3. F8 (convert to symbol).
4. In the dialogue box that lets you decide what kind of symbol to make it, make sure that the registration (origin) corner is the bottom right one. That's the crucial bit.

That's it. Easy, eh?

It's saved me no end of time making images with 1px transparent borders and then positioning them 1px higher and left than I actually want them...

A Birthday

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 08:23:49 +0100

The date has arrived when I realise I'm a year older... well, a year older than the same date last year anyway.

This time it's quite a big birthday. Two clues:

1. I'm 14,610 days old.
2. My life is supposed to begin today.

All I can say is if someone sees my life somewhere around, please tell it to start without me - I'm too busy right now...

Work Patterns

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 21:09:45 +0100

I was checking my freelance work log tonight, and was quite pleasantly surprised at the volume of business I'm doing each month. My instinct in selecting clients to join the small but happy throng seems to have been canny, in that most of them are generating repeat or ongoing business, and more than one has referred new clients to me. And all this with no advertising - virtually all my clients are word-of-mouth referrals. I've also turned down 3 quite juicy prospects over the last 6 weeks due to volume of existing work.

When I started freelancing alongside regular employment (initially just to prove to myself that I could, if I'm honest) I figured that if it went well, a dilemma would raise its ugly head at some point. That dilemma would be, do I quit regular employment and go all out to get more private clients in a hurry, or do I just keep things going as they are, and retain the free health cover and stock options?

Many freelancers must come up against this, and I really didn't expect to have to deal with it until at least mid-2008.

However, although I'm not quite ready to make a decision yet, it is going rather well (and I'm enjoying it - full creative control is not to be sneezed at), so I think it might be a little sooner than that. After doing a few calculations, it seems the extra freelance business I would have to generate to give myself the income I've become accustomed to, is much less than I previously thought.

Mind you, there's a house purchase to complete before I make any other major changes in my life. One thing at a time, Andy, one thing at a time.

The Triumph of Hope over Probability

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 07:37:25 +0100

This article on the BBC News website brought some amusement to my day yesterday: Vatican's Driving Commandments

Those of you living in Malta (or who have been here on holiday) will be aware of two things -

1. The overwhelming and inexplicable preponderance of catholicism here, and
2. The insane way that nearly everyone drives (ex-pats included - I'm not setting myself apart).

Just for laughs, here are the vatican's 'Ten Commandments of the Road':

I. You shall not kill.
II. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
III. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
IV. Be charitable and help your neighbour in need, especially victims of accidents.
V. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.
VI. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.
VII. Support the families of accident victims.
VIII. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
IX. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
X. Feel responsible towards others.

I think the ones that will cause the most trouble in Malta are III, V, IX and X, with V a clear winner.

Social Life

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:57:15 +0100

Today I returned to the office where I spend 4 or 5 days a week, after a period of working from home after the injury, and then the UK holiday. It was quite strange walking around slowly with crutches, rather than dashing to see someone and then dashing back to my workstation.

I returned to find that a colleague is leaving (Ciao Nickkkkky!), and there is a beach barbecue tonight in his honour (which I'm not attending - crutches don't mix with miles of soft sand). It turns out there is also a big company social gathering this Thursday evening at a swanky seafront hotel, to celebrate a product launch (I will attend that one - I designed the product's user interface so I really ought to be there!). And just in case anyone was getting bored, there is a developer's social weekend in a couple of weeks time, where we all go to Comino and party. I think I'll go to that one as well - I missed my colleagues while being cooped up at home, and a good chill-out weekend with them (paid for by the company) is probably just what I need.

But this highlights a long-standing problem with my employer - you get no social events for ages, then 3 (or more) come along at once, usually at quite short notice, and everyone's expected to go. My attendance record for these has been patchy to say the least - but sometimes after I've spent days on end with the guys at work, I want to spend my evenings with the GF instead, you know? And of course when I have deadlines for freelance clients, that comes before socialising.

Still, the launch evening and the Comino break should both be cool. And who knows when the next social event will be - if previous experience is anything to go by.

RSS Feed

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 17:59:18 +0100

At the prompting of a blogging friend, I finally sat down for an hour and created an RSS feed for this blog.

It's fairly basic right now (no images) but it allows people to syndicate my content using RSS software.

Quick Break

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 16:47:19 +0100

I'm writing this from South-West England, Cornwall to be precise, while on a short break with the GF. It's really nice to get away for a few days, even with my mobility being rather restricted right now (see previous article).

I've been able to work on my site a bit to provide new functionality for freelance clients, and also start work on some plans for a major redevelopment of a particular client site. Yeah, I know, it's supposed to be a holiday, but I can always fit in the odd hour or two for web projects.

I have to say, the journey to the UK from Malta proved easier than I expected. At Malta Airport, they used a scissor lift truck to get me on the plane (Malta Airport is way too small for those gangway tubes you see at larger airports), and at Gatwick, we were met at the plane, and a helpful, cheery guy took us on an electric buggy, right through passport control, baggage reclaim, and then all the way to the car rental centre, which saved us so much hassle.

My foot is gradually getting stronger, and I reckon I'll be off the crutches in another 7 to 10 days.

Crappy Week

Wed, 30 May 2007 18:10:38 +0100

This has been a troublesome week so far.

Firstly, our notary uncovered an irregularity with the ownership of the house we're buying, dating back several years. It's a bit complicated, but boils down to (a) an earlier owner not understanding Maltese property laws, and (b) the current owners being a bit silly by waiving their right to a title search because they knew the earlier owners. So everything is put back a few weeks while the notary tries to track down some guy in Germany and get him to sign a letter which says that when he separated from his wife, he signed over all rights to property she bought in her own name.

You'll note that I used the word silly above. That doesn't represent even a fraction of a smidgen of a tiny piece of the way I actually feel about the above pair of cock-ups, but there's no point in being libellous. Just take it as read that much stronger words are in my mind.

The other really crappy thing that happened was that on Monday night I slipped on the stairs to our apartment, my foot broke my fall at a rather strange angle, and I managed to knacker a ligament. So now I'm hobbling around on crutches, trying to elevate the foot as much as possible, and hoping that the airport staff are nice to me when I fly to the UK next week for a family visit.

I've also got a friend's wedding to go to on Sunday, and I just hope I'll be able to squeeze the offending, swollen foot into a shoe by then.

Music Scene

Sun, 27 May 2007 16:20:37 +0100

Over the last few months, as a musician and music lover, I've been gradually picking up on the local music scene, looking out for who's hot and who's not.

You've already read about the Ira Losco gig I went to, and there are a number of other bands who are big on the local music scene, but who those outside Malta may not have heard of.

The artists with the highest profile (and who have music deals and releases) are currently (post a comment if I've forgotten you) Ira Losco, Winter Moods, Scream Daisy, Tribali (their percussionist Peter-Paul Galea lives a few doors up from me) and Indigo.

So far I've got CDs by Ira, Winter Moods, Tribali and Indigo, and I'm going to try and get hold of a Scream Daisy CD, and then do a full review here on the blog.

Based on the CDs I bought so far, all of them deserve wider exposure - they can hold their own with many international artists that chart in the UK and the USA. And they all get regular plays on my PC while I'm working.

mublo

Sat, 19 May 2007 13:40:34 +0100

I was looking for a way to show on my blog what I'm listening to on my PC - without any intervention by me. I'm a confirmed Winamp fan (I really don't like Windoze Media Player) so I hunted through their plugin library and found mublo.

10 minutes later my blog started to show what my Winamp was playing (at the top of the sidebar if you haven't spotted it yet), updated at 1 minute intervals.

mublo is pretty nice, I have to say - a perfect example of a niche Web 2.0 application (and without any Ajax!). my only criticism is that for long song titles, I would like it to break onto a second line, rather than shrink the text. But hey, it's free and it's easy. Click on the song name and my mublo page will open, so you can see my tracklist history.

Oh, by the way, I switched my site to Helvetica (well, Arial) for a change. Like it?

Eastovision

Sat, 12 May 2007 18:03:20 +0100

Well, naturally the Maltese press is full of the fact that Malta didn't qualify for the Eurovision final (in Malta, for some reason, Eurovision is slightly more important than the pope).

L'Orizzont (a Maltese Tabloid with strong political affiliations, like most of the Maltese press) is recommending a boycott of future competitions, though the Malta Times is more circumspect, and is merely commenting on how the competition has changed since the expansion of its boundaries. However, it did ask the chairman of Maltasong (the NGO responsible for managing Malta's entry) whether he thought a boycott was appropriate, to which the answer was naturally no (well, it pays his salary - what answer did they expect?).

To my casual observer's eye it seems quite clear that partisan voting is becoming more and more of an issue, now that so many of the former Soviet Union satellite states are now independent nations with their own voice and (crucially) their own friends.

All I can say is, thank goodness it's only a bit of fun. Maybe some newspaper journalists are forgetting that.

What's that? Yes, of course I'll be watching tonight! Sadly we don't get Terry Wogan's peerless commentary here in Malta, but it's always an entertaining slice of perfect camp nonetheless.

Listed on AboutMalta

Wed, 09 May 2007 07:54:11 +0100

This blog is now listed on www.aboutmalta.com, a directory site (though not a true search engine) featuring all sorts of sites based in Malta and relating to Malta.

Unfortunately for some reason the webmasters changed the description I submitted (I referred to web design as well as life in Malta) - so when there are loads of web design posts on here, some visitors could be a tad confused!

F-F-Fireworks

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:11:07 +0100

I must share with you a rather fun evening the GF and I had last night.

This was the weekend of the 'Malta Food and Fireworks Festival 2007'. It's an annual thing (as the name suggests), where fireworks companies from around the world compete for a title, by way of fantastic displays (with accompanying music) above Valletta's Grand Harbour.

This year it was spaced over 3 nights, with open air concerts, food, etc, all available on the newly restored and trendy Valletta Waterfront (a stretch down by the cruise liner docks that used to be trade warehouses and is now a clutch of restaurants of varying quality - some great, some indifferent, but all with outside tables and superb views across the harbour).

The food festival turned out, rather bizarrely, to be a series of burger and donut vans scattered along the waterfront road - ah well, nothing in Malta is ever what you expect, and Chinese Whispers had clearly been at work between the planners and the marketing agency... sadly all the Waterfront restaurants were fully booked (pause while Andy smacks head for not thinking of booking ahead).

However, last night's concert had Ira Losco headlining (more about her in a moment), with two support acts - the first being Fabrizio, who famously dragged Malta to an unprecedented last place in the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest, and the other a young band called Klinsman, who clearly modelled themselves after Green Day (and sang a couple of Green Day covers to prove it, one being quite a good version of American Idiot). They seemed about 12 years old to me, but I suspect that's because it's a veeerrrryy long time since I was playing on stage in a band...

Moving on swiftly from the support acts, we come to Ira herself, who is probably Malta's biggest music export (she's quite big in Germany and has supported some huge names, like Katie Melua and Elton John). Ira is... well, she's quite something - black hair, slim, dark eyes, a classic Maltese beauty. Also full of energy, and one hell of a voice. Her style is Avril Lavigne meets Evanescence plus some more mainstream pop.

Ira and her band played two quite short (but impeccably performed) sets, although the second almost never happened. Between her sets, the second fireworks competitor of the evening was due to do their thing, but technical problems meant that their theme music kept starting and stopping (notice the stutter in this post's title), and in the end Ira and her band were brought back on to do their second set early, so the fireworkistas would have a chance to get sorted.

Naturally, just before Ira and crew launched into the first song of their second set, the fireworks theme came over the PA, and everyone turned around 180 degrees to watch the Chinese entry over the harbour. So Ira had to hang around a bit, but after the fireworks her second set was just as good as the first.

All in all, a slightly unpredictable and eccentric evening, but really fun in spite of the gremlins (or perhaps because of them).

PS. Ira, I'm now a fan.

PPS. Both firework displays were brilliant, though I think the China entry had the edge over the Malta entry on this particular occasion.

PPPS. I forgot to take the bloody camera.

Web 2.0 Names - All A Bit Silly?

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 07:24:57 +0100

Recently I managed to buy a couple of quite short but easily pronounceable .com domain names, to be used in future projects. I've got some quite definite ideas for one of them, but I'm still thinking about the other.

While thinking and surfing for inspiration, I found myself at many Web 2.0 related sites - both serious and spoofs - and this one in particular was very funny: Cerado's Web 2.0 or Star Wars Quiz.

The whole Web 2.0 thing can be taken in different ways - there's no doubt that some collaborative, interactive sites are generating a huge amount of traffic and probably income (e.g. Flickr), but there's a lot of wierd dross out there as well - almost like a second Dot Com Boom. Personally I'm not convinced that sites using AJAX (the Web 2.0 technology du jour) can be truly accessible, but it might be fun to jump on the bandwagon for a project or two.

IE7 Non-Standard Event Handlers

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 07:25:42 +0100

Recently I had a problem where, when using IE7 (a rare occurrence and only ever for testing purposes) an XHTML 'SELECT' element would not open properly. On first click it merely took focus, and it would only open with another click. On Firefox, needless to say, everything was perfectly fine.

Further investigation with a colleague revealed that the incorrect IE7 behaviour only occurred when the element had an 'onfocus' event handler.

30 seconds of Googling revealed SELECTs in IE7 - use onfocusin! which spoke of an IE-specific event handler, 'onfocusin', which would solve the bug.

I left the 'onfocus' event handler there, added an identical 'onfocusin' handler (all the handler did was change background colour so being called twice wouldn't matter) and all was well. Except, of course, the page would not validate, because 'onfocusin' is not a W3C standard handler - it's just something dreamt up by Micro$oft.

So, if you need to rectify this behaviour in your pages, and you want pages that validate, you're going to have to do some server-side browser detection and only include the 'onfocusin' handler if the user's browser is IE7 (earlier IEs are fine), otherwise include the normal and standards-compliant 'onfocus'.

And if you're thinking this looks like a return to the bad old days of designers having to use branching code to make sites work in IE5 and Netscape Communicator, you'd be right. Micro$oft are still making life as difficult as possible for designers who don't want to restrict their users to a single browser. And this famously arrogant approach still seems to be deliberate - there's no reason I can think of for introducing two new event handlers (yes, they created 'onfocusout' as well - sigh).

The Red Tower

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 16:59:18 +0100

A photo post, now I've got my thumbnail gallery working.

Today GF and I went up to the Red Tower - about 25 minutes drive from home - which we've been meaning to do ever since we moved here. It's been restored and is managed by Din l-Art Helwa (the Maltese National Trust), and costs a very reasonable 50c to look round.

[THUMBNAILS - SEE ORIGINAL POST]

The tower was built in 1649 by Grand Master Lascaris (i.e. The Knights of Malta) and the views from the top are fantastic.

Understanding The Ex-Pat Outlook

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 07:13:55 +0100

'So why did you decide to live in Malta?'

That's a question I have been asked, on average, once a week, every week since I moved to Malta in January 2006. When people ask, I always find it difficult to answer (on a practical level - there were many reasons), and I don't propose to answer the question in this post either. However, every now and then it gets me thinking about my attitudes and feelings about Malta as a country and a place to live.

I've come to the conclusion that they're quite coloured by the actual decision to move here. Living in a country that you've chosen to live in is very different than living in a country by default (i.e. by being born there), and I really think it changes your outlook fundamentally.

I find I lean towards a more positive, optimistic view of life, perhaps because to do otherwise would mean I had made a mistake.

Likewise, I tend to be more businesslike and calm about handling the vicissitudes that life throws at me (except perhaps by financial institutions!), possibly because I know I am responsible for being where I am - whereas back in the UK I felt no 'ownership' over many parts of my life, because I hadn't made the decision to be there - it was just how things had always been, it was just where I happened to have been born.

I also find myself fiercely defensive of Malta when other non-Maltese people criticise aspects of the island or its culture (though there are limits - I condemn the bird hunting as much as any right-thinking Maltese or Gozitan person).

When people emigrate, they often say they're moving for a more relaxed lifestyle, away from stress, etc etc, and they often wait until they retire because they link work to stress and relaxation to spare time.

My theory is that if you make a decision to live in a different country, you're bound to feel more relaxed about life (all other things being equal), because you've taken control. You're living in a country and culture that you decided to live in, not one you just happen to be living in because you haven't done anything about it.

Slightly Mollified

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 17:51:24 +0100

And so our home loan has today been granted (and just in time as well). This makes my last post look like a bit of a heavy rant (which it was), but it's good to let off steam sometimes - and I stand by my view that Maltese banking has a very long way to go before it matches UK standards.

The next step in the house saga is to get the land search results back - if they are OK (i.e. no-one is planning to put a 6 storey building in front of our view), then that should be everything.

Bureaucracy

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 19:30:51 +0100

I'd forgotten how convoluted buying a house actually is, not having done it for about 5 years.

I also hadn't bargained for the fact that HSBC Malta, even though it bears the global HSBC brand, is actually a pre-EU HSBC takeover of a local bank, and its culture and bureaucracy is still pretty much third-world. The delays, confusion and general incompetence are pretty much what you'd expect from a bank in Zimbabwe or Senegal (I know, I've been there).

So, a week after applying for a mortgage, we're still in limbo (despite HSBC's 48 hour decision guarantee, which is obviously not 48 consecutive hours), having to provide various extra documents signed in blood (slight exaggeration but only slight) detailing all our worldwide assets (which are many and varied), and meanwhile our notary (the lawyer who manages the whole house-buying process) is sitting at his desk, twiddling his thumbs and discretely watching his calendar...

The most annoying aspect to the whole process is that our local bank branch should have known that extra documents would be needed at the start, but no, they waited until head office bleated before letting us know.

I suspect that as soon as the mortgage is granted, we'll be shifting our current and savings accounts to a different bank...

A Busy Week

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 15:55:31 +0000

So, we pressed ahead with the house we saw a week ago, and within a week we have managed to get an architect's valuation, estimate of the cost of finishing works, copies of the building permit and plans, a mortgage (they call it home loan here) quote, and have made arrangements to move funds from elsewhere to Malta for the down-payment.

However, I'm naturally cautious (some would say pessimistic), so I'm not saying it's ours yet. Let's just hope. Right now I'm feeling a tad wired, with many more things still to co-ordinate (and the day job is super-busy right now, just to cap things off).

But the week had some delightful moments. GF and I went to one of our favourite restaurants earlier in the week (eating out is our favoured method of relaxing), and halfway through our meal we got talking to a young American couple eating at the next table, here for a holiday between study semesters. We really enjoyed chatting with them, and invited them to join us for a meal at another of our favourite restaurants later in the week. It proved to be a really fun evening (hope they thought so too) with conversation topics spanning education, travel, culture, religion, Malta and more, and I'd like to think we'd try and meet up again if our paths come close in the future.

A Cautionary Tale

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:57:13 +0000

I can't quite believe this. After all I've heard about the Maltese Pulizija (police) and their reputation for being somewhat capricious and antagonistic, I had this encounter...

The scene: The main road between Attard and Rabat, just after the evening rush-hour. I overtake a car, and then see two police motorcycles parked ahead of me, one of whom is flashing a blue light and signalling me to pull over.

The assumption: Shit, I was speeding. Damn, damn, damn.

The dialogue...

'Step out of the car, please'.

'Sure, OK. What was the problem?'

'When you overtook the other car, you were over the double white lines in the middle of the road.'

'Really? Sorry, I thought I was just inside. Sorry about that.'

'Are you on holiday?'

'No, I live here.'

'Ah, do you have an ID card?'

'Yes, here it is.'

'Where are you from originally?'

'The UK. I moved here last year.'

(pause)

'Go. I forgive you. But don't do it again.'

'Really? Thank you. I'll be careful in future. Thanks very much.'

Our hero drives off, not quite believing his luck (and still convinced he was probably speeding during the fateful manouvre).

Room With A View

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 10:58:00 +0000

We may have found a house to buy. That was quick, wasn't it?

However, we only found and viewed it because we knocked a garage off our set of search criteria, which means we'll simply have to find one to rent as close as possible to the house. That shouldn't be difficult - we saw loads of garages under new and unoccupied apartment blocks while driving around the neighbouring streets.

It's a nice place, on 3 floors, with a back terrace and a large usable roof with great countryside views. It's in shell form, so will need finishing with floors, doors, plastering, etc, but it's got the right number of rooms and the price is very competitive. A shell place also means I can put power sockets where I want them, place network cabling without wrecking existing surfaces, etc.

Here's a view looking one particular way from on the roof. It was a rather rainy day when we looked around it, as you can see!

[IMAGE - SEE ORIGINAL POST]

We're going back for a second viewing, and if all seems OK it will be time to confirm things at the bank and find a notary. Of course it may not come together - there may be something wrong with it that only an architect can see, or any number of other things could go wrong, but at least it feels like we're making a bit of progress.

Hey, I can add photos

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 16:55:00 +0000

Because my blog is custom-made, I'm having to implement all the 'standard' blog features myself, such as trackbacks (implemented but not properly tested yet), RSS feeds (not yet done), and photos (done - read on).

So this posting is simply a test to make sure that I can put images into my blog posts. If it works you should see a photo below.

[IMAGE - SEE ORIGINAL POST]

Hey, it worked! The above pic was taken the day after Christmas Day at one of my favourite villages on the neighbouring island of Gozo, a place called Xlendi (pronounced Shlendy). Xlendi has several good bistros along the seafront, some great dive sites, and despite many apartment blocks around the edge it still has a sleepy fishing village feel to it - especially after mid-afternoon when the day-trippers have left.

On Boxing Day it was gloriously sunny - a little chilly when the wind got up, but perfectly warm enough for an al fresco lunch.

The Great Property Hunt Begins

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 15:50:00 +0000

And so, having lived in Malta for over a year, the time has come to stop renting and start looking for a property to buy. GF (GirlFriend) and I have looked at a couple of houses in the town we currently live in, but they were too cramped and the layouts were geared to each floor being rented out as a separate small apartment (3 kitchens in one house, anyone?).

So, with property prices in our favourite town being quite high (for Malta), and with most of our 'selling up in the UK' profit staying firmly in long term offshore investments, it's back to the drawing board.

Do we go for an 'unconverted house of character' (a standard Maltese term meaning a 150 to 300 year old stone house with rooms around a small central courtyard) or a new 'shell apartment' (rooms exist, but floors, doors, kitchen, bathroom etc have to be put in) - either way we'd have to factor in building costs for renovation or completion, and continue renting our current place while this was done.

Or we could go for a finished apartment (new or older) or maisonette (which is an apartment with a private front door - no shared staircase or lift) that we could just move in to.

But it seems that over the last year, property prices have gone up considerably, which means our original plan of buying a nice house with garage that we could live in immediately is out of the window - unless we move to the south of the island where property is cheaper but the commute to work would be doubled.

I'll post again once we make some headway on this new challenge.

A Big Blog Hello

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 17:02:00 +0000

Welcome to the blog! The first post to a new blog is always effectively a test, to see what things look like, check everything works OK, etc.

In this case, because my blog is entirely self-built from scratch, it's also a test of the blog's programming, functionality, database linkage, everything really. The code that powers my blog is a stand-alone web application that I've christened 'ZigPress', and in the future I may offer hosted blogs as a service from www.zigpress.com. This may take a little time to organise, but it seems a logical thing to do. For now, the ZigPress domain simply redirects to this site.

I've called my blog 'Notes from a Small Island' with absolutely no apologies to Bill Bryson. Ahem, Bill, Britain is not a small island. Malta is a small island. Get a sense of scale, man.

I'm not sure yet how often I will post articles here, and I'm not sure yet what topics I may feel moved to discuss. I've set up some topics (see the panel on the right), but these may change...

Anyway, I'll post again fairly soon, and remember, a conversation is just a blog comment away.