Alex Harries's diary

Since one of this blog's remits is to let the students of Portsmouth University know what they're getting for their money by employing me, here's the, err, "highlights" of the last month's work:

• Sabb/UPSU Media stuff: harassed, cajoled and begged until the order for the new 24" iMac suite went through
• Sabb stuff: met with numerous Uni bods , and learnt a bit about how the University operates on a decision-making and budgetary level (fascinating stuff. Maybe...)
• Web stuff: finally finished the Grad Ball website (homepage) after plenty of ball-ache, making sure we answered as many FAQs as we could, as openly and honestly as we could
• More web stuff: asked Steve, Mike and Fraggy whether we could benefit from the services of online development chap Kris Talikowski (the chap who judged our website as the best SU site in the country) - I haven't heard back yet, but then it's a very busy time for everyone
• Answered around 300 e-mails, and junked probably twice as many again
• Played with power tools while helping (or, in the real world, "hindering") build the new desks to kit out what was the sports office until a couple of days ago, ready for the Union's membership services bods (Steve, Mike and Graham) to move in, and ahead of the annual "Sabbatical Feng Shui" of the Sabb office's desks (and the inevitable associated fighting over space and territorial behaviour... of which I will no doubt be a part, being the child that I am... ;o)
• Found out Chill radio isn't on TV any more - bugger
• Sabb stuff: I'm going to Ibiza in September and the Malibu Soundclash is coming to Pompey (during the autumn term) - nice!
  
• Sabb stuff: re-read the minutes from the last SAGA meeting - thrilling stuff (sarcasm aside, quite an important meeting) and wrote a load of notes & questions I want answered
• Web stuff: created the UPSU news tracker to keep an eye on the site's health
• Web stuff: created a hee-yowge, site-wide tracking system (which the news tracker is built on)
• Sabb/UPSU Media stuff: had a looooong meeting with some Pure:FM bods about their planned forthcoming rebrand. Hopefully they don't dislike me too much after that meeting...!
• Web stuff: pickled my noodle over the various levels of group permissions interactions in the UPSU Groups system (I still haven't got it entirely worked out...) - again, fascinating... Maybe.
• Web security stuff: added a lock-out "feature" on peoples' accounts on UPSU.net - get the password wrong 5 times and you can't log in for a further 30 minutes. Handy to slow down brute-force password attacks, and a pain in the arse if you simply forgot your password.
• Web stuff: put the music survey online for Pure:FM
• Sabb stuff: attended ...
  
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