Journal

John Kirkham’s Skate Fever Roller Disco’s are kicking off on the 5th July with the first one being held at Xsite at the Xscape Castleford in Leeds West Yorkshire.

I’m so excited have been for weeks and John’s kindly asked Rachael to DJ so no doubt the music will be fly.

I’ve been looking forward to this day for years, I like many people hate the feeling you get after a night out when you stink of smoke and even after a shower it’s still there inside you. The punishment of a sore throat should be a thing of the past.

Today England goes Smokefree. It’s now a criminal office to smoke in enclosed public places and workplaces from 0600 July 1st 2007. Places include bars, cafes, lunch rooms, membership clubs nightclubs, pubs and shopping centres is against the law.

Individuals lighting up illegally will face a fine of £50 (£30 if paid within 15 days or upto £200 if the case goes to court ). Business owners are liable for two separate offences (’failing to prevent smoking in a smokefree place’ and ‘failing to display no-smoking signs’) and could face fines of up to £2,500.

It’s the responsability of Local councils to enforce the law but you can help by alerting the businiess owners. You can also report it to your local council or phone the Smokefree Compliance Line on 0800 587 166 7.

The law has been introduced to protect people from second-hand smoke which causes and estimate 600 deaths a year. Hopefully the ban will also encourage smokers to give it up. I really hope the ban gets through to people as I’m pretty sick of people lighting up on the train station platfoms. Now that the bussiness owners are accountable we should see an active policing.

It’s the last Thursday of the month and that means GeekUp Liverpool is happening so if your around the Mersey you should pop along for a geeky chat. I unfortunately can’t make this event due to workload but hopefully I’ll make the next Liverpool event.

Event Details

When

6:00 PM Thursday June 28th, 2007

Where

3345 Parr Street, Liverpool, L1 4JN

Description

This Month’s Talk - Unobtrusive JavaScript with Dave Verwer

With every site you visit piling on more and more JavaScript and Ajax, what happens when a user comes along using a screen reader or mobile device that would choke on even a simple alert()? How can we take advantage of the power of these technologies without providing any barriers to users, this session will cover techniques to ensure that you can still serve up rich content without excluding users, all from one code base.

Upcoming

Let us know if your attending on the upcoming.org event page.

Things are extremely busy right now at the office and we are seeking a full-time standards-aware front-end developer who is passionate about writing clean, semantic and accessible HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. If that sounds like yours -or someone you knows- cup-of-tea drop me an e-mail and include your resumé and if possible a list of links to examples of your work.

Calling Leeds, Yorkshire based Designers/Developers/Geeks!

I’m really happy to announce that GeekUp has arrived in yet another city, this time Leeds. I’m grateful that Deb Basset has agreed to organise the Leeds events. Debs and her partner Rob have been attending the Manchester events non-stop since I met them at reboot last year. They drive a 3 hour round trip to Manchester how much more dedicated could a GeekUper be?

The inaugural GeekUp Leeds

When

6:00 PM Wednesday June 20th, 2007

Where

The Cross Keys 107 Water Lane, Leeds LS11 5WD

Description

The inaugural Leeds event!

Upcoming

Let us know if your attending on the upcoming.org event page.

I’ve uploaded some more photos from last nights Roller Disco at Billie Rox in Manchester to my Roller Disco Billie Rox Manchester set on flickr. Myself John, Dan, Debs and Rob went over after GeekUp. There are not as many shots as usual I was having too much fun skating so didn’t get out the camera much, but there are a few - enjoy.

I’ve been to the Roller Disco in Manchester at Billie Rox a few times this month and have taken lots of photos, some of which you can view in my Roller Disco Billie Rox Manchester set on flickr.

Today I found out from Kerry’s dad about a temporary ice rink in Southport similar to the one in Manchester. The ice rink is located in Southport Town Hall Gardens and upsettingly like the Manchester ice rink closes this Sunday 7th January 2007. I will lucky get to go skating on the rink this weekend, we were originally taking Shannon to ice skating at Blackburn Ice Area but Southport is a little closer and won’t be much longer.

The 400 metre ice rink lets you skate around the giant Christmas Tree in the Town Hall gardens and opens at 11am till 8pm, sessions last one our and cost from £4.00 for children and from £5.00 for Adults its slightly cheaper than Manchester’s ice rink but that’s because its Southport.

In the wee hours this morning while doing some R&D for a new project I started a few days back, I found out about a Roller Disco that happens in Manchester at Billie Rox on Portland Street every Tuesday and Thursday night! Since a collegue at code computerlove told me she had seen a poster around town about a Roller Disco, since then I’ve been trying to find out about it. I’m going to be attending the next event on Tuesday 2nd January and I’m really excited!

Me and Rachael have previously travelled down to London for the Roller Disco in Kings Cross and the London skates from Hyde Park, its great to see the North getting more attention. I hope this is the start of much greater things to come in the Northern Skate Scene.

Have you done your Christmas shopping yet? - Have you even thought about it? If not here are some discounts at popular retailers that may save you some pennies. I’ve collected them for various e-mails received so credit to those people for finding them.

If you find any other deals and discounts that you think should be here then leave a comment and I’ll add them to the list.

Happy Shopping!

Asos

Discount

15% Off

Discount Type

Online

Period

N/A

Details

Use the code HSBC182116

Cath Kidson

Discount

10% Off and Free P&P

Discount Type

Online

Period

Expires 30th November 2006

Details

Use the code CKLR06

Dorothy Perkins

Discount

15% Off and Free Delivery

Discount Type

Online

Period

N/A

Details

Use the code DPMN29

Faith

Discount

15% Off

Discount Type

Online

Period

Expires Saturday 2nd December 2006

Details

Use the code 150906

Hannah Zakari

Discount

10% Off

Discount Type

Online

Period

N/A

Details

Use the code hzhb10

HQ Hair

Discount

10% Off

Discount Type

Online

Period

N/A

Details

Use the code BEAUTYBIBLE

Lasenza

Discount

15% Off

Discount Type

Online

Period

Expires 30th November 2006

Details

Use the code AUTUMN06

Miss Selfridge

Discount

15% Off

Discount Type

Online

Period

N/A

Details

Use the code MSGL15

Oasis

Discount

20% Off

Discount Type

Online

Period

N/A

Details

Use the code GLAMOUR06

Powder Rooms

Discount

20% Off

Discount Type

Online

Period

N/A

Details

Use the code 4E5KT

Ravel

Discount

20% Off

Discount Type

Online

Period

Expires 30th November 2006

Details

Use the code NEWW20

Selfridges

Discount

20% Off

Discount Type

At the Till

Period

Friday 1st to Sunday 3rd December 2006

Details

Print this voucher and take into store

Warehouse

Discount

20% Off

Discount Type

Online

Period

Expires 30th December 2006

Details

Use the code MCY291006

Urban Outfitters

Discount

£10 Off if you spend £50

Discount Type

Online

Period

N/A

Details

Use the code URBAN1

USC

Discount

20% Off

Discount Type

Online

Period

Expires Sunday 3rd December 2006

Details

Use the code SDM20

Its been a really exciting day at code computerlove as we moved into our new offices and my my they are pretty freaking awesome! - take a look inside.

Not only do we have a new home but we’ve got a new brand identity to go with it. Including a new logo which sports a specially created font and we have commissioned a series of illustrations from Andrew Rae, which can be seen on the various pages at our new web site address www.codecomputerlove.com.

Manchester City Centre will host a temporary ice rink as part of this years festive programme. The rink will be located in Piccadilly Gardens and will be open for public skating from 17th November till 7th January. The 750m2 real ice rink is to be constructed near in the fountain area of the gardens. The rink labelled On Ice At Piccadilly joins the Manchester Christmas Markets, and the Wheel of Manchester to make up Manchester festive program along with many lighting displays around the city.

At £7.50 for one hours skating I thought that was a little pricey but after looking at Hampton Court Ice Rink and Tower of London Ice Rink we get off lightly. Full details including opening times and prices can be found on the On Ice At Piccadilly event page.

I’m going to try and get a bunch of people from the office together and see if they fancy an outing one evening, and it sounds like it could be a fun night out for the folks from GeekUp we’ve been looking for things to do for the Christmas meet, which will most likely involve a meal and then followed by lots of alcohol and maybe a skate?

I’ve just got back from the first official Pecha Kucha Night in Manchester, which I attended with Dave Verwer. We’ve held Pecha Kucha style presentations quite a few times at GeekUp but I hadn’t until this evening been to any official Pecha Kucha events since I first experienced it during my trip to Copenhagen for reboot8 earlier this year. The minute I found out about the Manchester Pecha Kucha Night I promptly ordered my ticket. The ticket cost me £15 as a non D&AD member or student, I feel the event was slightly overpriced but I’m glad I attended and would like to thank Max Fraser from Pecha Kucha Nights UK and the D&AD for bringing Pecha Kucha to Manchester.

The event took place in Screen 18 at Odeon Cinema in The Print Works, which had a very impressive turn out of about 350 attendees. The speakers in order of appearance, Tim Parsons, Nick Bell, Brendan Dawes, Jai Redman, Nick Johnson, David Fisher, Liz Birkbeck, Emma Booty, Jo and Christoph Shaw, Klaas Diersmann and Sakurako Haino. I’m not going to review each speaker but I was disappointed with the talks by Liz Birkbeck’s which was just a plug for her company Bubble, and the talk by Klaas Diersmann and Sakurako Haino who had not prepared and stood for 6 minutes just giggling to themselves and saying “um yeah”. On a positive note I was impressed with the work by Urban Splash and the talk by Jo Shaw, Christoph Shaw and Kevin Boniface which had me and the rest of the audience in hysterics from both the content and the fact that Kevin wasn’t able to speak properly because of a cough.

After the event myself and Dave grabbed a coffee in a nearby bar and chatted about various things including the projects we’ve both got on the go along with new ventures. One new projects is to contact and convince Kevin Boniface to create a podcast because his work was really great, I’ll keep you posted on how it turns out but you can listen to some of his work over on his myspace page.

I’ve uploaded some photos to my flickr account should you want to have a look, I warn the quality is pretty shocking.

Dan Morris and I (really it was all Dan) have been working on the GeekUp - Job Board, Web Industry jobs in the UK’s North-West. and its now available for public consumption. It’s still undergoing development and will be improved over time but its being launched ahead of tomorrows Ruby and Rails conference.

If you are looking for a job in the North West specifically in the web industry then the GeekUp - Job Board should be one of the first stops. If you are looking to recruit then its completely free to post a job.

No not my wedding, but GeekUp’s first full day conference and in just a few hours I’ll be the host.

I’m really excited! It’s been a crazy few weeks during the run up trying to get everything organised so I’m hoping it all runs smoothly otherwise we’ll have 40 upset punters.

GeekUp - Ruby and Rails is a FREE, one-day mini conference aimed at people who want to start developing using Ruby and Ruby on Rails. The event introduces attendees to the Ruby language and the Ruby on Rails framework.

The event has limited places so register early to avoid disappointment.

The Site Design

Stuart Frisby and I worked on the site and in what short time we had I’m really please with the result.

Crown Fashion for Walls Website went live and while I’m not usualy a fan of Flash websites, I’ll make an exception for this one. The website has alittle gem under the hood, it makes use of the SWFObject by Geoff Stearns which allows you to output content and then use Javascript to overlay flash for people with the Flash Plugin installed. It allows for search engines to correctly spider making the content search engine friendly, and the URL rewritting takes care of people entering the site by directing them to the correct page in the flash version.

Waterstones new website is live.

Related

Code appointed by Waterstone’s

We Are Adam Website went live.

National Computer Centre Group Website