Jumping on the Bandwagon

On the weekend I jumped on the bandwagon and joined twitter. Unfortunately, some twit had registered the names 'jonathandyer', 'jdyer' & 'jonnyd' and never posted a tweet on any of them. So I've got the name dyerjonathan. Still not too bad.

After I linked it up, I was able to add the twitter widget to blogger. On the right. (RSSers you'll have to imagine it.) I then added the Twitter widget to Facebook, so my status updates are always added to both. Finally, I added my feed to twitterfeed. So now, whenever I update my blog, all my Facebook & Twitter contacts can see it. Pretty cool.

The only thing missing is followers. So if you're on Twitter, follow me. Or leave me a comment here so I can follow you!

For the next Internet craze, I'm hoping to be a bit earlier to the plate. After being so late with Facebook & Twitter.

The War Against the Information War

I'm usually critical of all things government and bureaucracy. Indeed, when you look around society there's plenty of reason to be. But there is one thing that I think is awesome about our country and it's government. It's something our government hasn't figured out how to ban yet.

Free Speech.

I'm very thankful that shows like 'The Chasers War on Everything' & websites like this are legal. As opposed to China, where sites like myspace and facebook and other subversive sites are routinely blocked.

So because I can without getting thrown in jail... KEVIN RUDD IS A TERRIBLE PRIME MINISTER.

How have you exercised your rights recently?

What do you do?

I usually have trouble explaining to people what it is that I do for a living. They ask me, ‘What do you do for a living?’ or ‘What is it that you do in Adelaide?’or even ’What do you do with yourself?’ I then prepare myself inwardly, take a deep breath, and say something like‘I’m an IT Engineer’ or ‘I’m a Web Developer’. Most of the time that results in a blank stare. So I press on. ‘I build and maintain websites and online applications for various companies and Government Agencies.’ I then get a half-genuine ‘ohhhh’. I then will get the pleasure of sitting through some story of a computer that doesn’t work, or perhaps an expression of someone's frustration with computers generally or a statement like ‘All that’s way over my head.’

I sometimes wonder why I bother with the dumbed down version. I should reply with something like: ‘I build and maintain dynamic online applications and websites using various combinations of server side technologies including: ColdFusion, SQL Server and .NET. I also develop with the typical client-side technologies such as JavaScript and HTML and CSS.’ I honestly don’t think the majority of responses would be any different. I get internally labelled as ‘One of those people’ by the person I’m talking to either way.

Anyway, if any of you are interested, here are some examples of what I do.

I built the online entry form for the ‘Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize’. (Not the site itself, just the entry form linked to on this page.) Doing it was quite cool because I got to learn some ‘Web 2.0’ things by using AJAX calls and also the JQuery JavaScript library.

I also built this Interactive PDF form: (or Smartform) DFC Concessions Smartform. Which is linked to here. This form was built using some software called ‘Adobe Livecycle Designer'. It competes with Lotus Notes for the title of ‘worst piece of software I’ve ever used’. It uses lots of Javascript for form validation and submits data to a .NET web service.

Two Groups of Friends

My wife & I (nope, still not used to saying that) have 2 groups of friends. These 2 groups are very different from each other.

One of them is my group of mates that I've known since high school. They're Christian guys (& girls) that go to church every Sunday, don't drink a whole lot, and often helpout with local youth groups etc.

The other group of friends is Tiarnee's group of friends from College. Several times this year we've been to loud obnoxious parties they've hosted, and at different times for different reasons, we've felt let down by them, as I'm sure they have felt the same way about us.

In addition to our wedding presents, both groups of friends decided to give us somthing extra upon moving into our new house. One group brought us a brand-spanking new4 burner BBQ with gas bottle to use it. We'd wanted one to go with our awesome pool and backyard, but could never have afforded one. We were very suprised, humbled and gratefull to receive it.

The other group of friends took their strange version of a joke completely too far. They trashed our house, meaning that I spent the first 2 days in my new and previously spotless house (oh yeah, that I'm renting) with my new wife cleaning.

Yep, if you've read this far, you have probably guessed what happened. The "Christian" friends trashed the house and the "non-Christian" friends brought us the BBQ.

This has raised a whole bunch of questions in my own mind, but the one that baffles me the most is this: Why is it that non-Christian binge-drinking uni students know infinitely more about 'loving thy neighbour' than those who claim to know God?

Good Friday

John 3:16 (New International Version)
16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Today was 'Good Friday'. Enough said.

Bushfire Connection

My only personal connection to the recent and much publicised Victorian Bushfires is that our wedding reception venue, the Horsham Gold Club was destroyed on 'Black Saturday'. Many people don't realise there was a fire at Horsham that day. But there was, and it destroyed 7 houses and the aforementioned Golf Club.

This is what our reception looked like inside:
This is what the Golf Club looked like after the fire:

Our head table was on the other side of these windows:The loss of a Golf Club (or a reception venue) however, is pretty trivial compared to all the other losses that day.