sam.benskin.co.uk - am i missing something?

First of all, no I'm not crazy (although some may comfortably argue against this), so let me explain why I'm so happy when a game gets released on the PC after it's been released on the Xbox 360, PS3 or insert-new-console-here-if-you're-reading-this-way-in-the-future. The easiest way to explain in most situations is to give an example.

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email recently which informed me that my website was going to go offline if I didn't pay the outstanding bills. I was a little surprised to say the least, but I decided to investigate. I noticed that for some reason my account hadn't been billed and automatically paid for months, and Layershift were catching up on their missed billing. I spoke at length with their billing team and sorted out the issue, but I then decided to ask the question, "Can I move my hosting account from your US servers to the UK ones?". I was expecting a emphatic "no chance", but the tech support guy just said, "sure, when?".

So now it's all about Drupal 6.0. Wordpress has decided to commit hara-kiri and it wouldn't allow me to make new posts or edit old ones without losing everything.

I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and hope you all had a great Christmas.

I'm also posting to let you all know that I'm currently working on changing the website again, and will be updating more frequently in future, due to the fact that Wordpress has killed itself, so I'm moving over to Drupal 6.0.

The first time i stumbled upon Selenium, i was amazed. Like many developers, I take a more relaxed approached to testing. Code the page, run the page, coke ok/not ok. It's a basic formula, but one that works quite well, until you start working on large projects with multiple developers for important, time critical customers; like we do at Bitopia. These type of systems just cannot afford to go down. Ever. This means that testing applications is becoming more and more important with each project we undertake.

I recently had to setup a linux server from scratch for a client. We were forced to use MySQL 4 due to the age of the application and due to time constraints, re-coding the MySQL queries to work in MySQL 5 would take too long. After installing mysql and deploying their php based application, the system was plagued with slow pages due to the complex nature of the application. After investigating into MySQL optimisation (yes that is an 's' in there, not a 'z'), something which i had never needed to research before (although probably should have done), i was shocked to see that the default configuration file for MySQL was for computers with 32mb-64mb of system memory (RAM).

Well, after having worked with jQuery now for a good few months, i like to think I've got a good understanding of what it can and can't do. Now, let's get onto the more interesting negative aspects.

For anyone that is thinking of moving their website or web application into the 21st century, many would automatically head for prototype, script.aculo.us, or perhaps the lesser known MooTools (incorporating the more well known moo.fx). But what alternatives are there?, i hear you cry.

I'm always one for exploring new technologies, and in recent months my focus has been on Ajax, and Rich Internet Applications, mainly because this is what I do at Bitopia. One thing that has been bothering me about the resurgence of javascript, is that it places too much emphasis on the client side. People are diving into this more easily accessible technology without thinking properly and considering the dangers.

I try not to post short articles, but i just had to share this with you fantastic people…