Category / thoughts

by Ashley Mann

Curséd curved corners

A couple of clients have expressed a penchant for divs with curved corners (a penchant which I understand, share and encourage). Now as you may, or may not, know (or care) – divs with curved corners are supported in Opera, Firefox and Safari (via the css ‘border-radius’) which is all nice and simple and standards-compliant and lightweight and all that good stuff that you want your design elements to be. HOWEVER (and unsurprisingly) Internet Explorer doesn’t support rounded/curved corners. In the past this meant lots of messing around with images and other things which all made things bigger, more complicated and…basically…not as good.

I stumbled across this solution to the IE issue http://www.htmlremix.com/css/curved-corner-border-radius-cross-browser which uses an .htc file (an htc file is relevant to IE 5+ and contains script that defines the appearance of an element). Now I have used this solution a couple of times with some success (although this does result in a faint outline to your corners in IE it’s better than nothing), although I’m currently having a few issues – these are possibly due to my server more than anything. Fingers cross that IE9 actually supports css3.

by Ashley Mann

Airy jQuery fairy

Now I’m fairly new to the world of javascript – I’ve been a slightly bemused onlooker for the last few years and have finally accepted that I need to get involved. Whilst I am by no means writing my own code from scratch I have started using the jQuery library and tweaking some pre-existing plugins. jQuery is (relatively) easy to use and (relatively) lightweight. To date I have mainly found uses for it in slideshows and tooltips – for which it has been superb – but it has far more uses than I’ve been able to get my head around so far!

Definitely worth a play around with http://jquery.com/

Over the next few months I am going to move onto building my own plugins as there are design elements that I use a lot that I want my ‘own’ versions of. I know there are quite a few other javascript libraries out there but I didn’t get on with any of them as well as jQuery – would be interested to hear other people’s experiences with mootools et al.

by Ashley Mann

26.2 miles is a long way

did the longest run of my training plan yesterday – a shade over 20 miles. bloody hell it was hard, i completely ran out of all energy at about 17 miles (possibly hitting the wall?) and the last 3 miles took me almost 40 minutes to complete – ridiculous when you consider the previous 17 had taken less than 3 hours.

oh well, at least i did it – although my knees and ankles now ache in a new and never-before-experienced way. also need to work on taking on some fuel during the race, consuming nothing apart from water isn’t a winning tactic.

by Ashley Mann

Impending

Oo-er, the London Marathon is now less than 4 weeks away, which is terrifying and ridiculously exciting in equal measure.

I’ve spent a good deal of time reading through all of the articles on the Runner’s World website, from training advice to what I should eat on the day to reading people’s accounts of previous marathons to how tight I should tie my shoelaces…there is a LOT of advice available.

Training is going ok…I could probably have done more but I think I am on track-ish. I got some new shoes on Saturday (Mizuno Waverider 13’s for those who care about that sort of thing) and after a longish run (14.5 miles) yesterday I have to say my legs feel significantly less tired than they have done recently. Although who knows how much that is down to the shoes.

My two potential problem areas are my left knee and my right hip both of which get a bit sore after 12 miles but if the atmosphere on the day is anything like it was last year then I’m sure that’ll carry me through any temporary soreness.

I am itching to do it but also slightly terrified that my body will fall apart and i’ll hit then wall and then promptly soil myself. We shall have to wait and see!

by Ashley Mann

Academia

As well as my web work I also work at Leeds Met doing bits of marketing and student engagement. Yesterday we had 2 guest lectures, one featured Dennis Weinreich (Head of Audio and Post-production at Pinewood Studios) and Dave Turner (of Pepper Post), they gave a brilliant lecture on post-production work-flow and the relevant roles and responsibilities involved in this process, a really unique and useful insight. Then, in the evening, we had the inaugural lecture of Ray Russell – one of our visiting professors. His lecture covered his career in the music industry, was part-lecture, part-performance and was funny, charming and entertaining in equal measure.

However, my point is, neither of these lectures had an an audience of more than 60 students/people, which is so disappointing. Leeds Met has over 600 (ish) students studying music-related courses so even if all of the audience at both lectures was different students (which it wasn’t), that still only represents 20% of the relevant student body. You couldn’t even argue that the lectures were repeating themselves, Dave and Dennis concentrated very much on audio post-production, dialogue, sfx etc whereas Ray is a composer and musician, two very distinct and different professions and skill sets – albeit often closely linked. It is an almost constant frustration to me how little students seem to want to grasp the opportunity to meet and learn from people like Dave, Dennis and Ray – although these are all shining examples of the professions that these students claims to want to take up.

Dennis said something to me in an interview I was doing with him that I think possible hinted at the root of the issue. “Working in the music or sound field isn’t just about playing about in recording studios, you have to really love it” and the problem is, I think for many music tech/production students that the romantic ideal is far more attractive than the reality – which is a lot of hard work.

by Ashley Mann

Eddie Iz Awesome

It was Sport Relief over the weekend (as I think I mentioned below), in the build up to the weekend I watched a 3-part documentary about Eddie Izzard running 44 marathons in 50 days (or similarly ridiculous numbers). Here is a man who is a self-confessed non-runner, who hasn’t done any training to speak of who sets off to run a marathon a day, 6 days on, 1 day off for something like 7 weeks to raise money for Sport Relief. This all took place last summer and I have to say, slightly shame-faced, that I wasn’t really aware of it while he was doing it. I heard a few bits and bobs but the whole thing sounds so hugely impossible that I don’t think it really registered with me. However watching the documentary I was so bloody impressed with him I ended up texting the number that popped up at the end of each programme to donate (something I have never done before in my life).

He put himself through a pretty mega ordeal and dealt with it all with amazing humour and grace. I’ve never really been that aware of Mr Izzard as a celebrity/comedian/activist before – really my only awareness has been that my Mum and cousin both think he is funny and he voiced those recycling ads and was in the awful film version of The Avengers. I thought he came across so well in the programmes, however it was never entirely clear what his motivation was, obviously he is an ardent believer in what Sport Relief is doing but that alone doesn’t seem reason enough to run over 1000 miles all around the UK. The first programme seemed to hint strongly that he needed to do something like this as a bit of a journey of self-discovery, he visited important locations from his childhood (e.g. the house where his Mum died from cancer when he was 6) and he is obviously an incredibly determined bloke, maybe that was reason enough? I think I need to try and dig out some of his dvds, apparently his style of comedy is very Python-like, which would suit me no end. But suffice to say, Eddie Izzard is a legend and I am very much in awe of him.

by Ashley Mann

Running, Raining, Writing

Nimes was bloody ace, a very pretty (in a kind of crumbly way) town. Lots of roman architecture and amazing cafés, we just mooched around, went to see Avignon and the Pont Du Gard, repeatedly braved public transport (and didn’t get lost once, although I almost managed to make us miss a bus by waiting on the wrong side of the road) and ate lots of bread and cheese, drank loads of wine and chilled out. In exciting cheese-related news, did you know that in France they have FULL SIZED BABYBELS! I kid you not, try to contain yourselves, and they’re fooking massive. Ace.

Spent a good chunk of yesterday down in Sheffield at the English Institute of Sport where Becca was taking part in a charity heptathlon for Sport Relief along with some celebrities and professional sports people. It was a really fun day, everyone was so nice, had a good chat to olympic diver Nick Robinson-Baker who was a very nice bloke and also spoke briefly to the very nice Jess Ennis (a special mention must also go to, now retired, ice hockey player Ron Shudra – an incredibly lovely man). It was such a rewarding event to be at, everyone had loads of fun, noone took themselves too seriously and were really generous with their time. Becca found it a bit weird that people were asking for her autograph though! I think there will be some highlights of it on Look North tonight, there were lots of cameras around and the whole thing was organised by the Beeb so you’d imagine it was recorded one way or another.

This week I will be cracking on with some structural changes to the Run For All site, finishing off things for Ben Cotton and Aisling Swindells, continuing work on the Pickles and Potter site and also starting work in earnest on the Northern Dales Farmers Markets site – for which I spent a very rainy Saturday in Richmond taking photos.

Marathon training continues, we went to Decathlon in Sheffield yesterday and I stocked up on new shorts – I haven’t run in shorts since I was at school. My oh my, running in shorts is brilliant!

by Ashley Mann

Nimes, Markets, stuff

Had a fairly productive Sunday that involved getting the earliest train to Skipton to take photos at the Skipton Farmers Market. Unfortunately despite the glorious weather it was bloody freezing, the train was late and I had a bit of trouble finding the market so ended up wandering around the entireity of Skipton town centre. Skipton is a bit of an odd place, part- nice, Dales, market town, part- horrible, scummy, crap-shopping-centre-filled- hole.

Anyways, I managed to get a few decent shots, the light was an absolute nightmare to work with – a really low, really bright, winter sun that had everyone squinting.

On Wednesday I’m off on m’holidays, we’re going to Nimes (which is in the South of France), have just tested my schoolboy French to the absolute limit trying to work out if and how we could get trains from Nimes to Avignon and Arles, which are both supposed to be nice. I just want to see the Pont du Gard in all it’s giant, double-aquaduct glory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_du_Gard). To be honest it’ll just be nice to have a bit of a break away from things, work on all fronts has been absolutely manic lately. I’ve not been to that part of France either so it should be interesting on all fronts.

One thing that won’t stop is the marathon training, although it’s annoying (so I’m told) how much space a pair of size 12 running shoes takes up in a suitcase. It’ll be fun to run around somewhere new, although I need to try not to a)get lost or b)forget that traffic is all…on the opposite sides of the road and stuff.

Am currently doing work for; Aisling Swindells (e-portfolio), Ben Cotton (e-portfolio/life stream), Nothern Dales Farmers Markets (complete site redesign and content development), Pickles & Potter (site development), Run For All (site redesign and digital marketing campaign) and have a couple more things in the pipeline.

Oo, also, i made a cheesecake yesterday, was really easy, has about a billion calories in and enough saturated fat to take out an elephant but tastes amazing, will pop up the recipe when i get a chance.

by Ashley Mann

Shin splints

Ran into, and home from, work yesterday.

Later that evening…cue pain in both shins. Ugh, I think running with hardly any warm-up and on icy paths was a stupid idea (running on ice made everything overexaggerated and silly). It would seem my only option is lots of stretching and doing low-impact exercises such as cycling til my legs feel up to running again.

Stupid legs.

Think it might be time for some new trainers too I think

by Ashley Mann

Design for design’s sake?

I went home last week to visit the folks, while I was there I was having a chat with my lovely Mum about web design. It was interesting to hear her views on the subject as she is very much a (self-admitted) technophobe who has to use the internet for various parts of her job. She showed me a few sites which she described as ‘annoyingly busy’, it was interesting to see what she thought of as busy I wouldn’t have described as anywhere near.
That brought me back to an almost constant issue I have, at what point does the designer pleasing themselves and the client leave out the most important group – the user. In all the work I do I incorporate extensive user-testing and feedback, I always try to create appropriate websites. Appropriate in so much as every piece of web-design has to be relative to it’s market, there is no point in creating a busy, exciting, colourful, over-the-top, entirely flash-based site for…say…a hospice, it would be inappropriate and not fit for purpose. I have stumbled upon a few sites lately that, in their own right, are nice pieces of design, but in context are cringeworthily inappropriate.
It sometimes strikes me when reading various web design blogs that target audience often seems to be missed when assessing important factors leading to a design. I completely understand the desire to produce designs that are bold and new and exciting, and this may be stating the obvious, but at the start of everything, something that should never be ignored or forgotten is who you are making the site for.

by Ashley Mann

Time flies

I’m getting a bit crap at this blogging malarky, time to buck my ideas up methinks.
The last few weeks have been incredibly busy with Big Things & little things work, I’ve been doing work for Run For All, The Sunshine Bakery, The Jane Tomlinson Appeal, TwoDucksDisco and Tristan Mann. I’ve also been discussing possible work with a few more really interesting clients. Hence the lack of blogging.

I’ve finally started to delve properly into the world of JQuery, which thus far seems very useful and I’ve also almost (ish) perfected bread-making, now to try and work out how to make jam.

My marathon training suffered a bit with the return of the cold weather but I’m battling on (even managed to convince myself to get out for a pre-dawn 5 miles yesterday), and with the marathon now only something like 2 months and 13 days away I really need to carry on putting in the miles. I’m having a bit of a mini trainer crisis (not a crisis about mini trainers). I need new trainers, do I get them now or closer to the day of the marathon – don’t want to leave it too long though as I imagine newish shoes+26.2 miles isn’t a happy combination.

Have also started taking cod liver oil to try and sooth my aching joints, everything starts falling apart when you hit 24 obviously.

Anyways, am off doon sooth to see the folks this evening, then have got a holiday in the south of France to look forward to in March. Aces

by Ashley Mann

Mid-season stumble

Righty dokie doke, an update, in diary form. I hope to post something of worth later in the week.

Marathon-training has been going especially badly this year, I’ll blame it partly on the snow but I’ve not been getting out and about on a regular enough basis. Although the runs I have been doing have all been 8+ miles I really need to get back into the swing of things, haven’t cycled to work since December…lazy bastard.

I had a brilliantly productive week last week, took time off from work (at Leeds Met) and did my very best to get my house ship-shape again. Luckily my limited flirting with DIY was a resounding success and not a disaster-causing catastrophy.

I also managed to put some serious hours into web work (with my ‘big things and little things’ hat on www.bigthingsandlittlethings.co.uk) and as a result have pretty much finished the redesign of the Jane Tomlinson Appeal site (hopefully it will go live this week or next), finished the site for the brilliant Sunshine Bakery (www.sunshinebakeryleeds.co.uk), wrote a preposal for the redesign and development of the Northern Dales Farmers Markets website and have also been working with Run For All on their digital marketing campaign.

If you are, or know anyone, who needs some web work doing then I am undertaking work at reduced rates until the summer to build my personal portfolio. Hopefully I’ll also be doing some work with/for the fab people at Oxygen (www.oxygenate.net).

I plan to write a bit of a post on my bread-making experiments (vastly improved thanks to a paving slab) and my plans for foraging. I bet you can’t wait…

by Ashley Mann

Happy new year n that

Bloody hell, 2010, that’s like the future (more accurately it is very much the present but let’s not split hairs). Hope everyone had a splendid festive period and that the snow isn’t getting too annoying (even though it is, lots).

2010 will be the year when i run a marathon for the first time (hopefully without getting chaffed nipples, falling over or poo-ing myself) and hopefully do another bike ride of some description.

I also hope it (2010) will be the year when I get into a position to go freelance with my web design business (bigthingsandlittlethings.co.uk).

Anyways, I also plan to continue posting borderline useless things here and have tried to convince myself that I’ll actively do more photography (if I can find the time).

p.s. did anyone else think Jools Holland was utterly shit this year?

by Ashley Mann

Happy Christmas & festive food (public service broadcast #2 candied peel)

I’m about to go sans-net for the next week or so as I head ‘down south’ to spend christmas at my parent’s house with my parents & brothers which will be ACE.
I bloody love this time of year, giving presents is so much fun – although I’m completely crap at keeping presents that i’ve bought a secret, I feel like my brain might burst if I have to keep a present secret for too long.

In the spirit of the season (and because I’ve been cooking festive foods for the last week or so), I thought I’d leave one and all with a recipe for candied peel, which seemed suitably festive.

3x Oranges (Navels are good)
500g caster sugar
500g water

    First score the skin of the oranges, from top to bottom – cutting all the way through the skin, to the flesh. Do this all the way round each orange until you can pull the peel off (whole if you can manage it) – you should get about 6-8 pieces per orange.
    Place the pieces of peel in a pan of boiling water for 15 minutes, rinse and repeat (with fresh water each time) twice more – this helps to get rid of the citrus oil in the peel which is very bitter.
    Dissolve the sugar in the water in a non-stick pan, over a low heat
    Once the sugar has completely dissolved, add the peel to the syrupy mixture and simmer (very gently – do not boil!) for 2 hours
    Lift the peel out with a slotted spoon and leave to cool on a rack overnight.
    Toss the cool peel in a little caster sugar and store in an airtight container – I reckon it’d keep for about a month

Enjoy!

Hopefully I’ll manage to get some training done over the xmas break but as the entireity of England seems to have come to a grinding standstill due to a light dusting of snow I don’t know if that’ll be possible.

by Ashley Mann

North/South divide

The South-East is so shit at weather.

North: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8418457.stm
“Last weekend we had temperatures down to -8C (17.6F). But it didn’t cause any disruption. The buses and trains were running and planes were taking off and landing at Inverness.

“I can only once remember a train getting stuck and that was in appalling weather a few years back.

“The train was caught in a snowdrift of about 5 or 6 ft (1.5m to 1.8m) in Sutherland.”

South: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8420057.stm
“Up to 20cm (8in) has already fallen in counties including Kent, Essex and Sussex and more is to come on Friday.

About 200 drivers on the M20 and M2 in Kent were stuck in tailbacks overnight and flights have also been cancelled. ”

a snowdrift of about 5 or 6 ft (1.5m to 1.8m) stops one train vs 20cm (8in) getting flights cancelled and drivers stuck

by Ashley Mann

Hand-made Christmas

I don’t know whether it’s the fact that everyone thinks they’ve got no money, or a strange longing for a bygone age (that never existed) when everything was handmade and lovely but there seems to have been a bit of an explosion in people pushing the virtues of making things yourself. Of course this could be an age-old phenomenon that I’ve just managed to miss until now – which is the most likely explanation.

As anyone who has followed this blog for a little while now may have guessed, I like doing stuff myself, I like making things. I like the process probably as much as the accomplishment of the end product. My aborted attempts at an indoor garden earlier in the year were thwarted only by a poor choice in soil (which resulted in a swarm of fungus gnats) rather than a change of heart or the onset of boredom. I am a firm, and I have been told maddening, believer in ‘I can probably do that’. And for the most part, I probably can.

However I did get slightly annoyed/bemused by something I saw on TV last week, ‘Kirsty’s Homemade Christmas’. The premise being that Kirsty (of ‘Location, Location, Location’ fame) makes handmade gifts and Christmas things and generally sticks it to the man (albeit in a very middle class way) and saves some money along the way. However it seemed to me that the resulting programme was either the most hilariously naive or cringe-worthyly-targeted thing possible. One episode saw Kirsty making her own baubles – lovely – however, here’s the catch, she was making them from blown glass. I don’t know how many people have the aparatus to do this at home, I know I don’t. We were helpfully informed that there were ‘courses available’ that would allow you to do this…but I can’t imagine that they’re cheap. The other episode that I caught had a similarly extravagant approach to crackers, with yards of expensive fabric and ribbons being employed. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem at all with the idea of making your own gifts etc, in fact I think it’s a great idea that should be applauded and promoted wherever possible, however it seemed to me that there were far more straight-forward ways of accomplishing some of the tasks addressed by the programme. Or maybe I’m just being curmudgeonly and it was, in fact, lovely festive fun.

On the opposite end of the scale, for me, was River Cottage Christmas. Now I must admit, I bloody love Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. I admire his approach to food and am frankly envious of the life that, tv leads me to believe, he leads. This programme, again extolling the virtues of making your own gifts, seemed to take a slightly more basic and realistic tone, no courses were pushed and you didn’t need to buy any particularly ridiculous ingredients. Much better. I then spent the rest of the weekend baking and cooking (which I had forgotten, is incredibly theraputic).

To cap off this weekend of festive diy I popped along to a craft fair at the Brudenell Social Club to see a stall being hosted by the lovely Cam, twoducksdisco and his fair lady friend, Sarah, Many Nice Things. You can read a bit about their stall on Cam’s blog, here; http://twoducksdisco.blogspot.com/2009/12/handmade-hard-times-handed-back.html. Again this just summed up my view that handmade is best made with love, care and attention. You don’t need your own glass-blowing furnace, hilariously expensive chocolate and enough velvet to coat your house.

Talking of handmade with love, care and attention.
Bon Iver-Flume
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvvQQHnpRfA]

by Ashley Mann

Jack Frost nipping at your bloody hands!

The first really, really cold morning of the winter and (luckily?) i was walking rather than cycling into work. The last time i cycled when it was really cold my hands went numb, despite the fact i was wearing gloves – possible due to my awful circulation, my shins went bright red and my cheeks felt like they’d frozen. Probably just me being a huge wuss though.

I’ve realised that it is time for me to ‘up the mileage’ if i want to stand any chance of meeting my current target of completing the marathon in under 4 hours 15 minutes. The slightly scary thing about all this is, i’ve never (knowingly) run further than 8 miles yet i need to be regularly running that, at a minimum, on a nigh daily basis by the end of the winter.

My first mental block is to work out how far that actually is, i want to be doing two 10 mile runs, a 5 mile and a ‘long slow’ run per week by the end of january. I’m currently happily doing a couple of 6.5 milers mixed in with a 4 miler and a longer run when i can find the time at a weekend but the ease of that schedule is that i have pre-planned routes for these runs, i’m going to need to work out something new to meet my new targets as i don’t fancy just doing circuits of a route i already do. i sometimes find the monotony of running the hardest thing to overcome and new routes should hopefully help compensate for the fact i’m going to be running for hours at a time.

i’ve also been pondering the prospect of doing some speedwork but in all honesty i don’t think i’d be able to motivate myself to actually do any, it’s hard, boring and i’d be doing it on my own – no thanks!

if anyone has a decent running route that i could do from horsforth in leeds please pipe up! i contemplated retracing part of some of my bike rides but they’re all pavement-free roads and i think i’d get squished fairly quickly.

Music – i had a rediscovering of Jimmy Eat World the other day, fab.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI8neuhPm_0]

by Ashley Mann

Words and Pictures and Work

So as you may or may not I do an occasional podcast (www.tapes-online.co.uk) with a chap called Cameron who also happens to be an exceptionally good illustrator/designer/drawer of ace things (http://twoducksdisco.blogspot.com/).

As you also may or may not know I also do web design outside of the 9-5 (under the title of ‘big things and little things’) and am currently doing Cam a website, I’m also working on a new site for the Jane Tomlinson Appeal (you may remember a mention from an earlier post, but probably not so here it is http://ashmannblogs.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/bike-rides-and-vans/) and a site for my brother who does things like talk about sport (http://tristanmann.wordpress.com).

If anyone else wants a web site doing then drop me a line, i’m an (x)html/css/php chap really.

Oh I am also going to try to keep up my music recommending, today it’s mirador by efterklang from their album ‘parades’ http://hypem.com/track/968772/Efterklang+-+Mirador+Live+ which is bloody lovely, it’s joyful, orchestral, beautiful and generally ace.