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 ...
  
  About 81 more words in this entry

At last, after many hours of work, arguments and "constructive criticism" (which, I suspect, narrowly avoided descending into fist-based negotiations ;o), the Graduation Ball 2007 mini-site is up and running, announcing the Scratch Perverts and The Cuban Brothers as the headline acts:

I'm really proud of this project, because I think it might be one of the best bits of HTML I've helped to produce. It might not validate perfectly, and it might not tick all the right "boxes" for anyone else, but compared to pages I was producing 24 months - or even just 12 months - ago, the development in my coding and design is pretty clear.

I.e. I was "pretty bad"; now I'm just "fairly bad". Something like that, anyway...

I'm hoping everyone involved in the project also feels it's come out well. I was largely responsible for the later stages of the project, so the other contributors to it haven't had much input during these stages. Hopefully, there won't be tears in the office tomorrow morning.

I'm also crossing my fingers that what's gone into the FAQs page doesn't turn out to be wildly inaccurate (although what's there is a collection of what's been communicated to students for the last couple of months, so it should be ok).

Basically, I'm exhausted but proud... And we all know what comes after pride. In any case, please take a look, join the Facebook groups (1, 2), and enjoy the ball if you're going!

/al - off to get some sleep 

I'm ok with most aspects of work. I'm ok with working a 12-hour day in the office and then going home and doing another 4 hours in the comfort of my living room, in front of a good film with a cold one to hand.

One thing I'm not ok with is Mr. Branson's cable service breaking while I'm in the middle of finishing off the Grad Ball mini-site. I mean, honestly, could you not have given it just a couple of hours? Or, even better, asked your numpties to undertake Essential Maintenance Work (whatever that is - dusting the servers, possibly?) in the wee small hours when everyone *isn't* trying to watch TV, get on the internet or use the phone?

So, having found myself interweb-less, I'm now sitting in a stuffy Sabb office on a Sunday night trying to wrap up the latest headache project, and wondering if there's a line somewhere in next year's budget for an HTML-savvy slave to do this kind of stuff for me... ;o)

/al - not as grumpy as I sound. No, really...