Mark McAulay

"Big kids did it" 
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August 28, 2010
 

Yes, I do sleep

Several people have now said to me things like "do you sleep?", "you are a machine" and "you work too hard". It's become apparent I'm giving the impression that I'm some sort of superhuman, one man working machine and I just felt that I should explain myself a bit because this is definitely not the way I see things. I am beginning to fear I'm giving the wrong impression and I also began to doubt that the hours i put in were in any way 'normal'. Allow me to try and clear things up a little.

Explain yourself @mcaulay

While it is true that I do spend a lot of hours in front of various machines banging out code, tweaking designs, fiddling with servers and so on and so forth, it's not that often at the expense of the time I spend with my family and friends. I do sometimes stay up way too late or get up at an altogether silly hour to 'get some work in' and there's a very good reason for this. Some of the people I know who do the same kinds of work as me also know this reason. Some of them also do a similar number of hours as me, it's just that I probably bang on about it a bit more on twitter!

Passion

I am delighted that I get to do what I do for a living. Every hour I get to work in web development I count as some kind of blessing. I love tinkering with stuff, I love building stuff and I love launching stuff and seeing what the reactions are. I also like to surprise people with added 'extra touches' whether that's by spending way too much time on a slick button, adding an unexpected bit of interaction, if I've stealthily written the whole thing in HTML5 and let the secret out at a later date or maybe even served it up on nginx rather than apache, whatever. As long as I can do a bit more than is *expected* I'm happy. I love building stuff on the web, I just cant express that enough.

Learning

I think that one of the most important parts of working on the web is to never stop learning. Never stop pushing yourself and never ever think 'that'll do' about your work. Improvement and self improvement are so fundamentally important to what is maybe the fastest moving industry there is, that the minute you stop investing time in learning, you risk being left behind by those who don't stop. I try to add at least an hour of learning onto every day. Admittedly this particular part of my day more than often comes at the expense of sleep.

This is why you'll find me up at an hour that many people aren't, this is why I probably talk too much about what I'm doing and this is why I will continue to do the same and probably more in future. With so many people unhappy and even miserable with their jobs, I count myself extremely fortunate to be able to say that I absolutely love what I do, and that's really all there is to it. Anyone feel the same?

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June 30, 2010
 

import a sql file on the MySQL command line

Because I had to figure this out the hard way, Here's a reminder for myself and others on the best way to accomplish this. I had a 21MB file.

Assuming you already have your dumped sql file.

  1. remember where you saved the file
  2. log into mysql command line client
  3. run this: source /full/path/to/your/file.sql
  4. bask in glory

Comments [1]

May 4, 2010
 

Ditched the cloud for a Linode

I've been using a server at the rackspace cloud for quite some time now to host my personal projects and for the most of it, i've been more than happy with it. Of course there was always the latency issue of using a US based server but that I could live with. The deal with cloud hosting is that you pay a minimal flat fee and then pay for bandwidth/storage/etc on top of that. The costs of these things have been pretty cool and I found I was saving myself a bit of cash in comparison to my previous host, the also awesome Slicehost. I must admit, I looked at the costs of the two and after a period of running both servers with a similar load for a while I made the call to go to the rackspace cloud as it was working out a fair bit cheaper. A couple of months recently however saw an increase in usage and the costs went up significantly and without warning. This pissed me off a bit if i'm honest. Had I been able to cap my usage to a certain budget, I'd still be with the rackspace cloud. It appears that this isn't possible (could be wrong?) and I'm only happy that the surge in popularity of the sites I hosted there wasn't greater or I'd be even more out of pocket.

So I ate humble pie and said hello to Linode. I'd been having an ongoing geek battle with @mikeduguid who to his credit, swore that Linode were the most sensible option for quite a long time. I of course argued that Slicehost and then Rackspace were better. Childish I know but hey, we like a good argument down the pub etc.

My new Linode server is UK based (London data center) and I have a fixed fee every month for a healthy service. To date I am delighted with it.

Several people have asked me why I moved...so there you have it.

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May 4, 2010
 

One Month On

'Tempus Fugit' as they say in Latin.

Just over one month ago I joined Fifth Ring as a Front End Developer. To say I hit the ground running is a bit light on impact to describe what has been one of my busiest months in years. I'm thoroughly enjoying my time here so far though and getting the opportunity to learn about project management on a larger scale while also learning about business strategy and a whole plethora of other things relating to how a large agency operates. I am soaking up a lot of knowledge here while mainly concerning myself with building websites which, is what I hoped would happen.

One of my main initial concerns when joining was how i'd readjust to working with a lot of people again. Since I left London in 2003 I have only worked in very small and focussed 2-5 man teams and to suddenly find myself in the midst of a global operation was a bit daunting if i'm being completely honest. Everyone I've met so far has been very friendly and welcoming so I suppose I really had nothing to worry about. I must admit that the fact I've been doing work for Fifth Ring as a supplier for the past 5 years helped a lot in making sure that not everyone I meet is a complete stranger.

All in all a good month and a great start to what I hope will be a long stay with my new employers.

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April 30, 2010
 

Aberdeen web types, let's go to the pub

It's been a long time since I did something about this. Far too long in fact. I've spoken about it but now is the time for action. A lot has happened, not just to me but to many people in the local scene. That got me thinking...damn, we have a lot to discuss...followed shortly after by damn, I could totally handle a beer with some geeky web chat.

Web designing and developing ladies and gents of Aberdeen, I call a web types meetup...in a pub! Am thinking that the Prince of Wales would be a good shout and I'm thinking that next Friday night(7th May) sounds particulary geeky but it's not all about me now is it, so who wants to stick their oar in?

Comments [3]