January 2012
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2012
This is the fourth year running that i’ve written a post with a mini review of the previous year and jotted down the plans I have for the coming year. Here’s the 2011/2012 edition. 2011 in review First up, the big one. In April 2011, I joined EQ Design in Aberdeen to lead the digital offering of the company. In short, I have never been so happy working for someone else. I get to...
November 2011
Up the creek without a vessel
Sad news. I discovered tonight that the globe in Aberdeen has made itself into a pretentious lunchtime eatery. For many months, this has been the venue for #rafting. Rafting started out as a massive burger and a pint on a Friday lunchtime (when i worked with Fifth Ring) where some of us would commandeer a table and have a little bit of lunch and chat. One day a random guy approached our table and...
September 2011
Mighty Meetup Aberdeen is BACK
Thought i’d do my bit to help promote the Mighty Meetup in Aberdeen which returns tomorrow night (That’s Wed 14th Sept 2011).The summer break is over and the Mighty Meetup returns with a topic which i’m sure is close to all of our hearts, spec work. As ever, the meetup is organised by Deer Digital and this time, Fifth Ring are picking up the tab for beer and pizza. If...
Extremely Quick 6 months
Today marks 6 months to the day of me joining EQ Design. What started as a message through LinkedIn to ask if I was interested in the position quickly snowballed into a couple of cups of coffee before talking things through with EQ properly. I bit their arm off and did what I had to do to make this move a reality. That 6 months have already past has caught me a bit by surprise. It’s very...
August 2011
31 days on the veg
If you know me, follow me on twitter etc, you’ll know that for the 31 days of August, I decided to eat as a vegetarian. I lovingly named it #meatismurdermonth. What follows are my reasons why, what I’ve learned and what I’ve concluded.I always believed that vegetarianism was a bit silly, that vegetarians don’t eat properly, we’re natural carnivores and that veggys are...
Designers need to learn from each other
Something got my back up today. To be perfectly honest, this is something that’s been bubbling away under the surface for many years. Today it boiled over. Today Adobe announced a new product promising “Design and publish HTML websites without writing code” Although a massive debate erupted about this, the new product wasn’t the issue for me, the anti-print design sentiment...
Designers need to learn from each other
Something got my back up today. To be perfectly honest, this is something that’s been bubbling away under the surface for many years. Today it boiled over. Today Adobe announced a new product promising “Design and publish HTML websites without writing code” Although a massive debate erupted about this, the new product wasn’t the issue for me, the anti-print design sentiment...
In defence of spec work
This is a lively old topic again so I thought I’d take the opportunity to have a little look at the other side of the argument. I do need to be clear though, I’m not pro spec work. I do believe that to be truly able to understand something, one must first understand both sides of an argument.At the top of this post I have said “this is a lively old topic again”, I say...
April 2011
How to tell which version of Ubuntu you have
Noting this for myself as I always forget but knowing that more of my friends are using Ubuntu these days, it might be handy for others also.open your terminal type: cat /etc/lsb-release see something like this: DISTRIB_ID=UbuntuDISTRIB_RELEASE=10.10DISTRIB_CODENAME=maverickDISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=”Ubuntu 10.10” Posted via email from Mark McAulay | Comment »
March 2011
A post about Beer
Not sure i’ve ever posted about beer before so here goes.I love the beer made by BrewDog, it’s no secret. I think in 5am Saint I have found what I consider to be the best beer made in Scotland, hands down. I am a bit of a fanboy and i don’t mind admitting that, not one bit. I just sampled the ‘new’ Punk IPA and it left me a bit confused. This new version comes in at...
EQ Design day 1
It would be really easy to write this post as a straightforward ‘compare and contrast’ of my old job and my new one. As such, I’m not going to bother. Easy is boring.Thursday 10th March was my first day as an EQ employee and it was brilliant. Even though I managed to be late on my first day, everyone at EQ was properly welcoming and I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a first...
Edinburgh Geekery March 2011
MissionOn the 2nd march, I set off on what had turned into something of a personal mission to operate outside of my comfort zone. I was off to Edinburgh to meet web designers and developers away from my usual Aberdeen haunts. Going ‘Lone Wolf’, I wanted to put some real life faces to twitter avatars, to see how meetups differed from the Aberdeen scene and to see how i’d get along...
February 2011
Marks new job or here endeth the speculation
The last few days have been entertaining. I had no idea that my moving jobs would be the subject of the interest it has been. Thanks to everyone who’s been in touch, it’s been somewhat flattering if not a bit bizarre! It’s time to put the rumours to bed though. I am very pleased to announce that I have accepted a position with EQ Design. I can’t fully express just how...
January 2011
can you hear the drums?
I had planned to post all of this at one go at a later date but as Aberdeen has lived up perfectly to it’s ‘village’ status of gossip once more, I felt I should at least make some kind of an announcement today. Anyone who’s read my previous posts will know that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time at Fifth ring, I work with some very clever people, learn a lot, contribute...
Scotch On The Rocks Badge
This year I will be attending SOTR in Edinburgh. The last time I went to this conference I had my mind blown out of the park and judging by this years lineup, I look forward to becoming a dribbling wreck once more.The organisers have launched the website and made some badges available to sponsors, speakers, attendees and of course…badgers. I however require a unique badge. Based on the...
2011
Here is my now yearly review of the previous year and a bunch of things I aim to get done in the coming year so fuelled with new year enthusiasm, i’ll keep the review brief and the ambitions high.2010 in review This was a big one. This year saw the end of me being the master of my own destiny that i had been for the previous 7 years. In March, I chose to return to being a cog in...
December 2010
Best website you've worked on this year
Was asked a great question by a client during lunch today and wanted to put it out there to you allWhat is the best website you’ve worked on this year? (The criteria is for the “complete package” in terms of design, programming features et al) Posted via email from Mark McAulay | Comment »
First Mighty Meetup Event in Aberdeen
Tonight was good. Actually, tonight was much better than good. Tonight was excellent. The first Mighty Meetup kicked off with four speakers talking about web related subjects. Node.js, web fonts, digital project management, CSS3 and jQuery. This was like catnip for the the discerning web geek.Although this was the first event, James and Alice really captured the essence of running a targeted micro...
First Mighty Meetup Event in Aberdeen
Tonight was good. Actually, tonight was much better than good. Tonight was excellent. The first Mighty Meetup kicked off with four speakers talking about web related subjects. Node.js, web fonts, digital project management, CSS3 and jQuery. This was like catnip for the the discerning web geek.Although this was the first event, James and Alice really captured the essence of running a targeted micro...
Mighty Meetup Aberdeen
It’s been a long time since the digital community came out in force in Aberdeen for a purely digital event, too long in fact. The sleeping giant of the OKN will return for its 5th run out at some point but in the meantime, a number of smaller networking events (some focussed on digital/tech, some not) have popped up and for the most part, those I have attended have been interesting, fun and...
October 2010
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GODFLESH at The Arches, Glasgow 2010
Tonight, Phil Thompson and myself drove to Glasgow to realise a dream we’ve both individually held for nearly 20 years. We saw GODFLESH live. Given that they split up in 2002, this was one gig that we simply weren’t going to miss. There’s always a niggling doubt when going to see a band you were into so long ago…will they still be any good etc? I am reporting that this...
Ignore the mess or re-write sloppy code?
Like all developers and web designers out there, I often get handed some legacy code to work on. I’m perhaps being too nice with the term ‘legacy’, let me try again. Sometimes I get handed the most sickeningly bad, amatuer, non-sensicle, written by demons in the shittiest part of hell code (yes…that’s more accurate). The dilema is often what to do about it. The purist...
You're Not The Twitter Police
We’re all human beings and we all know what that involves. We all know that we wont get along some of the time and we all know that we have the potential to get caught up in things we maybe wouldn’t ordinarily get caught up in. Many of us are also twitter users and we all know what that’s about too. Only it seems that sometimes, we maybe don’t… I’ve personally...
August 2010
Yes, I do sleep
Several people have now said to me things like “do you sleep?”, “you are a machine” and “you work too hard”. It’s become apparent I’m giving the impression that I’m some sort of superhuman, one man working machine and I just felt that I should explain myself a bit because this is definitely not the way I see things. I am beginning to fear...
June 2010
import a sql file on the MySQL command line
Because I had to figure this out the hard way, Here’s a reminder for myself and others on the best way to accomplish this. I had a 21MB file.Assuming you already have your dumped sql file. remember where you saved the file log into mysql command line client run this: source /full/path/to/your/file.sql bask in glory Posted via email from Mark McAulay | Comment »
May 2010
Ditched the cloud for a Linode
I’ve been using a server at the rackspace cloud for quite some time now to host my personal projects and for the most of it, i’ve been more than happy with it. Of course there was always the latency issue of using a US based server but that I could live with. The deal with cloud hosting is that you pay a minimal flat fee and then pay for bandwidth/storage/etc on top of that. The costs...
One Month On
‘Tempus Fugit’ as they say in Latin.Just over one month ago I joined Fifth Ring as a Front End Developer. To say I hit the ground running is a bit light on impact to describe what has been one of my busiest months in years. I’m thoroughly enjoying my time here so far though and getting the opportunity to learn about project management on a larger scale while also learning about...
April 2010
Aberdeen web types, let's go to the pub
It’s been a long time since I did something about this. Far too long in fact. I’ve spoken about it but now is the time for action. A lot has happened, not just to me but to many people in the local scene. That got me thinking…damn, we have a lot to discuss…followed shortly after by damn, I could totally handle a beer with some geeky web chat. Web designing and developing...
March 2010
A new start
Today I made it official and joined up with my new employer. I am now to be known as a “front end developer” and can be found at Fifth Ring.It promises to be a big challenge and will involve working on many high profile clients. I am super excited to join the Digital Media team at this stage and look forward to adding my experience and know-how to the already fantastic team that is...
McAulay moves on
After the sale of Gravity Lab in 2006, ran by Graeme Benzie and myself, I joined forces with Stuart Ebdy and Mike Duguid and founded East Coast Interactive. Over the following 4+ years we grew the company into a well regarded digital media agency. Today, in March 2010, I have decided, after many months of careful consideration and much discussion with friends and family to leave “my...
February 2010
Installing django-cms
NOTE: I have re-posted this due to fixing a couple of errors I had. It should be fine now but if you do find something wrong, just leave me a comment and i’ll update as needed. I am working on Ubuntu 9.10 here, not windows or mac…sorry, although I dont expect things will be much different for mac at least…if I get a chance i’ll run through this process on windows too and...
install django-cms
I am working on Ubuntu 9.10 here, not windows or mac…sorry, although I dont expect things will be much different for mac at least…if I get a chance i’ll run through this process on windows too and update the article but no promises. I’m assuming that Python, Django and sqlite3 are installed already. For reference, I am currently using Python 2.6.4 and Django (trunk...
Some UX clarity
I think i understand UX a bit better now. Here a point in case: I click on a link posted to twitter only to be redirected to some not apparently clear Facebook page, I then have to find the link I was expecting to visit in the first place, click that one, then be met with a warning page telling me to “be careful” and this time having to press a button to confirm i’m happy to...
Current Flash bashing mantra
I vowed not to get dragged into this but the fetid stench of bullshit has gotten too overwhelming now.This whole “No one will be using Flash, the world is moving to HTML5” may be true on mobile browsers and certain mac products due to vendor lock out but lets not believe this hype, the dominant platform today and for the foreseeable future is still windows by a country mile…and I...
January 2010
UX - what the hell is it and who's responsible?
For quite some time now, the phrase “User Experience” has been bandied about in web design and development discussions and to be honest, I’ve not personally understood exactly what was meant or indeed, seen it be challenged. To start with, what is it? what does user experience or “UX” actually mean to designer, developer or client? This is actually an integral part of...
more wireframing
drawing little boxes and arrows on little notepads is all well and good but… Posted via email from Mark McAulay | Comment »
ok 2010, lets do this
After a particularly heavy going 2009, I’ve taken stock of my professional and personal life and have made some aims and ambitions for the year ahead. 2009 held some big challenges and some fairly heavy duty decisions had to be made, the fruits of those decisions will start to come this year I hope. Like every year for the past 4, I’ve made a decision to learn a new programing...
December 2009
New to development? you wont go wrong with CFML
I struggled a bit with writing this post, maybe it’s because I think I’m not really qualified to do so. One thing’s for sure, I grow tired of seeing CFML being bashed about with the same old tired and increasingly silly points so I thought I’d throw in my experience with the language and what I found to be a huge benefit and something that people, particularly “front...
October 2009
google wave invite bribery
Having thought that I’d sent all my available googlewave invites out, I was surprised to find I still have one left so instead of handing it out in the same manner as the rest of them (first come first served), I’ve decided to be a little more creative with this one and use it for bribery.To get your hands on the invite, here’s what you need to do. As you may know, OKN05 will be...
September 2009
mcaulay: ah well, another night of an ill child.... →
mcaulay: Just wrote out our last wedding... →
mcaulay: looking forward to getting my grubby mits... →
mcaulay: Tea is helping →
mcaulay: Ah great...The trackpad on my laptop just... →
mcaulay: @Scobleizer instead of a lightweight... →
mcaulay: Hopefully tea will help my sleep deprived... →
mcaulay: @gra_design haha your concern is noted... →
mcaulay: @graemebenzie I dare not drink instant... →
mcaulay: @cole007 happy birthday squire →
mcaulay: @gra_design cool, will give it a go →