Flipflops.org » Stuff

Replace multiple spaces with Notepad++

Flipflops — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 22:46:16 +0000

The one programme I miss when I am at work, forced (not entirely unwillingly) to use an iMac with a screen the size of tombstone is Notepad++

I’ve been trying to process a text document with a search / replace, but the regular expression support seems a bit limited (see wiki)

To find two or more spaces I used the following expression:

([\s]+)([\s]+)

Signage

Flipflops — Mon, 10 May 2010 22:06:35 +0000

Been making a few signs lately…

They are for a wedding (not mine)

Crikey

Flipflops — Mon, 10 May 2010 21:53:28 +0000

I really can’t believe that I haven’t written anything for five months. I’ve been a bit busy what with baby no. 3 and the (not so) new job… but even so.

Note to self: must do better.

I feel stupid blogging about a vacuum cleaner but…

Flipflops — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:57:26 +0000

We have just bought a new vacuum cleaner (I hate it when people (e.g. my girlfriend) call them hoovers)) to replace the beaten up old piece of junk we inherited from one of our grandparents.

Anyway other people we know did loads of research (like Which) and apparently the best vacuum cleaners you can get at the moment are Miele vacuum cleaners. So a few people we know bought them – and we’ve just got one…

And it really is amazing. It is awesome. It actually sucks the carpet up of the floor creating a kind of carpet wave as you hoover the room. Our house is considerably cleaner now than it was a few days ago.

Miele S 5211 Vacuum Cleaner (on Amazon)

Symbiotica

Flipflops — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:13:12 +0000

I’ve been meaning to announce the launch of my company Symbiotica Media Ltd – based in Devon near the city of Exeter. As you will be unsurprised to learn it is a web development company – so if you need beautiful, functional websites and applications that are a joy to use, look no further.

I have been so busy that our main website still isn’t ready, but we now have a delicious looking blog up and running.

If you read flipflops.org regularly, you will rightly guess that we will be working with CakePHP quite a lot, but current projects also make extensive use of Wordpress and Tarzan AWS. I’m also built and am using a great a little, lightweight XML template engine based on the Page Controller pattern, and hopefully more Django soon.

Wings of Desire

Flipflops — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:31:42 +0000

I always wish aeroplane windows were a bit bigger, and am unable to understand the people who do not stare out of them as you take of and land. It doesn’t matter how many times you have flown, people who just read the in-flight magazine must have dead imaginations.

Hannah Storie, I need your help.

Flipflops — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:17:31 +0000

Affect. Effect. I can never remember what the difference between them is. This really bugs me, so much so that this week I actually when seeking an answer. I asked Wolfram Alpha; it was able to tell me the population of the town where I live; it was able to tell me how many angels you can fit on the head of a pin, but it was unable to help me with Affect and Effect.

Eventually Grammar Girl helped me out with a picture of an Aardvark. I still felt it was not enough. I found this:

affect is the act
effect is the result

(here)

That is the best so far, it is a functional mnemonic, but I feel it lack a certain something. Hannah, where are you? Whenever Ben and I ran into gramatical conubdrums you were always there to help with a handy diagram we could pin up on the notice board.

Snowmen

Flipflops — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:05:09 +0000

Christmas is coming and it’s time to send out Christmas Cards. I really like this years batch and cutting out snowmen and sticking them down with a bit of glue is a nice way to spend these cold winter evenings.

UK Towns and Postcode Areas

Flipflops — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:55:04 +0000

The other day I needed a list of UK post towns matched up to postcode areas, which I found on wikipedia.

Anyway I have tidied it up and put it into two database tables postcode and town

You can download the SQL file here towns.zip

Hope it comes in useful.

Summer

Flipflops — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:33:52 +0000

Everything is looking a bit grey on the page lately. I’ve been meaning to put up a bit of colour for a while, we did have the odd flash of summer I suppose…