g7uk » work

Conditional server side includes and cookies

GS — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:24:36 +0000

I can’t write PHP or Javascript. I could learn, but I don’t have much interest. Most of my websites are good old-fashioned static HTML and I use server-side-includes a lot.

I thought I would write, in simple terms, about some of ways I’ve used them.
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Ill with stress

GS — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 03:40:43 +0000

We hear lots about stress in the workplace. When you’re effectively ‘trapped’ in a job and can’t escape the cause of the stress, it’s a terrible thing. But recently I’ve discovered that stress can creep up on you slowly and unexpectedly.

St. Peter’s Square, Manchester

GS — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 15:11:31 +0000

Workmen demolishing the spire of St. Peter’s Church, St. Peter’s Square, Manchester, 1907

Looking through the pictures in the Manchester Local Image Collection, I came across this wonderful photograph.

Strange grey blur and circles on photographs

GS — Mon, 21 May 2007 12:29:20 +0000

These are three photographs that I took on 11 February 2004 at about 6pm. At the time I thought they were rather odd and sent them to a few friends. Now it seems that other people have experienced strange circles and ‘orbs’ on digital images, so I thought I would publish them with some information.

Manchester’s Odeon cinema subjected to a damaging ‘systematic and methodical’ assault to prevent preservation

GS — Sat, 19 May 2007 16:18:37 +0000

Manchester’s former Odeon cinema, on Oxford Street, has been subjected to a ‘systematic and methodical’ assault to prevent it being preserved, according to the man who tried to save it.

Photographer loses image library in fire — how safe is your audio and visual data?

GS — Wed, 16 May 2007 09:59:53 +0000

As a photographer myself, I broke out into a cold sweat reading how this poor man lost most of his image library in the Lever Street fire. Equipment can be replaced but unique transparencies, negatives and digital images can’t be.

Help needed after the fire in Lever Street, Manchester on 30 April

GS — Sun, 13 May 2007 11:14:04 +0000

On 30 April, just four days after I wrote about the Basement Social Centre in Manchester city centre and said what a unique and absolutely spiffing place it was, a huge fire ripped through a building to the rear of it.
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Victorian Manchester: ‘Bank Robbery And Suicide’ in Didsbury

GS — Thu, 10 May 2007 12:11:16 +0000

We tend to think that guns, robberies and violent crime in Manchester are modern phenomena. But there was lots of it going on in Victorian times too. Even in Didsbury (heaven forbid).

Data collection by United Utilities’ foreign call centres

GS — Thu, 10 May 2007 11:19:14 +0000

Recently I mentioned how I called United Utilities and was asked for my date of birth for ‘data protection’ reasons. I refused to give it and they wouldn’t discuss my water bill.

Update on the eye test/spectacles drama with Boots Opticians. But good service from Glasses Direct

GS — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:11:07 +0000

This is an update on this entry. Very pleased with the spectacles from Glasses Direct. I ordered a semi-rimless pair for distance (£25) and a pair for reading (£15). I placed my order by telephone on Wednesday 28 March and they arrived just over seven days later on the Thursday.

I’m going to order a second pair for distance and maybe some to use as sunglasses in summer. The prices mean you’re not stuck with only having one or at most two pairs of glasses — which has always been my situation in the past.

The problems have been with Boots Opticans, Market Street Manchester branch, whom I paid to
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