Archive for the 'Websites' Category

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, as ever. Still, this time I have some genuinely interesting things to say about my life (no guarantee there), rather than just a rant about how much I hate living here. The title of this post, self-actualisation, is a term that describes what I feel I have achieved over the past month. For those of you who are so heinously uneducated enough not to know, self-actualisation is the a state that sits atop Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (a model spoken about lots by marketing types). Upon reaching self-actualisation, a person feels that their physiological, security, affiliation and affection, self-respect, and recognition needs have been satisfied.

So, with the exception of financial security, I feel as though I have ‘arrived’ as it were. It’s taken me 6 months of being here, but I’m finally content with the way things are. I’ve realised that I am happy in my job as a developer, and I’m thoroughly enjoying my work so much that I’ve started throwing myself at as many tasks as I can possibly manage in the time I have, and I’m feeling more and more rewarded by it. The beauty of working for a small company such as BWS who have a large market footprint is that you can see the things you do well making a difference to people. The software that I write, improve and debug, the design work that I do, and dealing with support calls - all of it goes towards driving the company forwards, all giving me positive feedback. A good example of this is that the new website that me and Liz have been working hard on has more than doubled the number of incoming leads to the sales department since its launch a couple of months ago.

On top of enjoying my job, I feel that I’m really starting to fit into the company. I know the people there well, and we have a good time working together. And, what’s more, I feel respected for what I’m doing.

It’s a good feeling.

Once again, Britain is brought to its knees by the snow we so rarely experience, and as proven so perfectly by our school’s website, which, hosted by secondaryschoolsonline.com has been DDoS’d by the sheer volume of students from all over the country, trying to find out whether their school is closed or not.

First it’s the railways, then the rest of public transport, and then our webservers too. You gotta love it.

Now I’d like to take a moment to rant about some of the adverts at the bottom of the contact list on Windows Live Messenger (and MSN Messenger too I presume). It seems that the adverts displayed are selected by my age, sex and location - so all I see are adverts for phones, higher education grants and Habbo Hotel. I really cannot understand why on earth they insist on showing me Habbo Hotel adverts: I will never use it because it is a piece of tripe.

One of these adverts features 3 little Habbo Hotel people standing, dancing similarly to the 1936 version of Homestar Runner and you see their little chat bubbles moving up the screen: “Bring your friends”, “Things are only just getting started!”. How the hell can that be fun?! It is just a chatroom with bells and whistles that aims to make as much money out of you as it can. It seems that by purchasing online currency by a number of means, you can add little items to your rooms. Oh, joy of joys, now more 13 year old American pop-trash retard girls will come into my room saying such abominations of the English language as “omh u hav a lmp in ur rm!!!!11 dats so radd!“.

Now, kudos to the inventors - they have doubtless made a lot of money out of said girls, which is never a bad thing - except that they insist on targetting adverts at everyone aged 11-18. Unfortunately I fall into that bracket, and as a 17 year old male from the United Kingdom, that apparently means I have the same tastes as a 13 year old girl from Seattle, where it is so boring that they have to use such websites as Habbo Hotel to enjoy themselves. I despair.

After watching the HTTP messages floating in and out of my computer for a bit, I managed to grab the URL of the advert mentioned earlier. You can view it by clicking here, which will open the Flash (.swf) file at the size of your browser window. Coincidentally, manipulating the query string for that flash file changes the URL opened when you click on the advert, so if you click the advert from the link I gave, it will return to this blog post. Woo.