A New Era...

Today, I have an announcement to make. I have created a new blog, with a custom domain, and my own hosting system. This new blog will also function as my professional e-portfolio documenting work I have done both in university and in the real world. So without further ado, you can find my new site at...

http://www.samharman.com

If you visit you will see I have started porting some of the various posts over to the new site. This process will take a while, as the new site will be a lot more focused on audio technology and programming as these are the fields I am looking to work in when I leave university.

The new blog is powered by wordpress and hosted on my own server. I have been with blogger for 3 years now, and it has served me well until this point. I can just get so much more customisation and flexibility with a wordpress system, especially run on my own hosting service.

So what may become of this blog? You may well ask. Well I intend to keep the blog running, and nothing much will change, but the posts you see here will be more personal and less formal that those on my new site. You may have noticed that I have added some ads to the sidebar and main body of this blog, I'm getting a steady stream of about 300 unique visitors a month, so the ads are a way of partially funding my new site. If you'd rather not see them, then i'm open for discussion and will remove them again.

I think that's all I really have to say at the moment, except I hope you do visit my new site, and let me know what you think! I'll update you all on how the final year at university is going in another post (suffice to say, i'm pretty damn busy!!)

Once again, thanks for reading! Feel free to leave lots of lovely encouraging comments below the break!

How I use my iPhone

I was inspired to write this by a recent post on TiPB, detailing how a student uses his iPhone on a day to day basis. This post is about how I use mine!

It starts first thing in the morning (about 11:30 for a student), with the alarm rousing me from my morning slumber. Then begins the seemingly never ending cycle of hitting the sleep button, and being woken up, and hitting the sleep button, etc etc

Once I finally decide to wake up, I check my emails for the day which is useful to find out about room changes or cancellations (in which case, back to bed!) I also check Facebook and Twitter in case... well I don't know why I check these actually, I just do! Then if I'm really bored, I'll check out the BBC site to see if anything amazing has happened overnight (it never has.)

So, then I get up and do the usual boring (but necessary) tasks, like eat, wash, etc. I then open the single most important app on my iPhone for university: iStudiez Pro. This app is brilliant, it contains a digital copy of my timetable, for all lectures, seminars, and labs I have to attend. It contains any assignments I've been set, and deadlines I have to meet. It has results of my previous assignments or exams and lets me calculate averages at the tap of a button. In short, this app is central to my organisation as a student.

iStudiez Pro also has excellent integration with the iPhones contacts, so I can send an email off to my lecturers right from the app. Which brings me onto the second most important use of the iPhone. Email. I have a constant stream of email to me wherever I am. I can be the first person to know the results of assignments, or when lectures have been canceled.

Obviously, the iPhone is a phone, and of course I use it every day to text and call my girlfriend at university elsewhere. It also keeps me up to date with the weather forecast, and train times using the National Rail app (expensive but worth it!)

Another app worth mentioning, which isn't part of my daily routine but has proven to be very useful indeed, is the Tesco clubcard app. Essentially a digital copy of your bar code which can be scanned at the checkout to collect points!

Other apps used on a daily basis, but that are not worthy of more detail because their use is obvious are: Dropbox, Skype, MSN, Camera+, Allowance, and Maps.

Anyway, that's just a bit of information about how I use my iPhone as a student at university. Thanks for reading, as always all comments and suggestions are welcomed!

Multiview App

Hello Dear Readers,

As you may know, I have opted to take the iPhone programming route with my dissertation project. Today I have been working on my iPhone Programming, and just have a small app to share with you all. This is a simple application that switches between two views and has buttons with pop-up messages. I have added a flip animation between the two views to make it look better. You can see the basic app in the video below.

This app was made following instructions and guidance from the brilliant 'Beginning iPhone 3 Development' textbook by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche. Now obviously this app was made purely to teach myself and bears no practical purpose.

I did cover various new things when developing this app today though, including multiple views, animation, UI Alerts, toolbars, etc... So my next step is to combine this with my previous 'Hello World' app to get textbox functionality within different views!

Many Thanks for reading!

As always, all comments and/or help is very much appreciated!!

Sam

iPhone Programming

So, I've started working on my dissertation. Yes, I know i don't even start my final year of university for another 2 months (or something), but i've decided to give it a go anyway. Now, when I started university as an eager fresher on my first day I was excited to be learning all about Music Technology. This excitement continued right up until the moment the words "C++ Programming" appeared on the projector.

Ask any first year student at Bournemouth University studying Music & Audio Technology and they will tell you that programming is the bane of their life. And I felt the same, we all did! Anyway, the end of term rolled around and our first assignment was set. That was when something strange started to happen, We all tentatively started work (Well, I say all... I mean those who didn't leave it till the night before!! You know who you are!! :-) ) and we coded, and googled, and coded, and googled, and daniwebbed, and coded some more, and suddenly I realised that I was actually enjoying myself quite a lot! Turned out that I got a 1st in that programming assignment.

Roll on to the present day, and my head is now full of classes, objects, inheritance, buffers, loops, heap/stack/and pile errors, memory management, garbage collector and all kinds of other programming jargon. And guess what? I've decided to do a programming based dissertation...

Except, it's not just your standard C++ VST Program (which are hard enough), No. I've decided I want to teach myself an entirely new language, on an entirely different platform. As the title of this post would suggest, it's Apples iPhone! And that is why i'm sitting here attempting to start my dissertation.

So far, progress has been made. I have followed instructions and explored enough to create a typical 'Hello World' app. And then used my limitless creativity, to expand the functionality to a 'Goodbye World' app. I know, Brilliant isn't it?

My Very Brilliant Hello World App

Well that's the stage i'm at right now. I have 2 areas to cover for this dissertation; iPhone programming, and core audio. Neither of which I have any knowledge about and both of which i believe use different programming languages, C++ for the core audio, and Objective-C for the iPhone.

Well, I have quite a task ahead of me, so expect to see posts of this nature on the blog for the next year or so. It seems that i'm destined to be an audio programmer, and if I can program for Apple devices then so much the better. I think there is a lot of potential in the iPhone / iPad devices in terms of audio that has yet to be realised.

Anyway, It would appear that i'm rambling now. So to all those non-computery folk I apologise for a very geeky blog post, and to those that are interested: Thank you for reading, and please feel free to leave any comments you may have.

Minimalism / The Mac Plan

Firstly, i'd like to apologize for the lack of content recently. I've had a very busy year at University, and have just finished the final exams for the year. Over the summer I hope to spend more time updating the blog with lots more articles relating to Apple, Music Technology, and More. But now, for the topic of the day...

Minimalism. The pursuit of a simple life, with few distractions or possessions.

I have found myself reading certain blogs like Zen Habits, Mnmlist, Minimal Mac, and Unclutterer increasingly in the last few months or so. In doing so, I have realised how much completely unnecessary clutter and rubbish I have accumulated over the last few years. Since I had my first saturday job, I saw most of my income as dispensable, and proceeded to buy various gadgets and gizmos as soon as I could afford them. A fact i'm sure most of my friends including my girlfriend would provide testimony to!

Enough is enough, I have decided to rid myself of most of this gadgetry, and focus on quality rather than quantity. Many of you know of my passion for Apple products, few know of my previous hatred for Apple products. Suffice to say somewhere along the line, i was converted.

My current mission, is to sell / give away / recycle all of my old 'PC' or 'Windows' based technology. By this I mean, pretty much everything; Keyboard, Mouse, Various additional screens, Old speakers, etc etc. I call this 'The Mac Plan'. The aim of this is to fund myself a brand new Mac Mini (2010). Now while this may sound nothing like minimalism to you, the fact is, that I can now fit everything my old desktop PC machine is capable of, into a package less than 20x20x4 cm. In addition to this space saving, the Mac Mini is confirmed to use between 7-8W of power when idling. Compare this to the relatively gargantuan 500W power supply in my desktop machine, thats a huge difference!

At £649 for the base model, it's not cheap for the specifications. But as with everything Apple, you are paying for a fantastic design, and a fantastic operating system. In addition to this, saving space is very important to me right now so I think it's a premium worth paying. I couldn't think of a better solution for me right now, than my current laptop for university, paired with the Mac Mini at home.

If you're still reading this, then you may be thinking that i've just said I need to rid myself of gadgets followed up by talking about how I intend to purchase another one. And you'd be right, thus rendering this entire post pretty pointless. But as you've got this far, i'd like to thank you for reading and keep a look out for some 'real' minimalist posts here very soon!

My latest mix...

Check it out here: http://bit.ly/awDa1o

All comments are welcome and appreciated!

Remix...

Hey All,

Just a quick update, i've just completed and handed in my remix of 'Dance Little Sister' originally by Terence Trent D'Arby and it's online for you to listen to. Just hit the link below...

- Click here to listen

It's the first remix of this type that i've done, and would appreciate any and all feedback!

Thanks for reading!
Sam

Exciting Year for Tech in 2010

We’ve got a lot of stuff to look forward to in 2010! Apples iSlate (or iGuide?!), Chrome for Mac, Google Chrome OS, potentially a new iPhone to mention just a few. I shall endeavour to blog about these things as and when they happen.

For now, i must state that my new years resolution will be 1920 x 1080 and that i shall attempt to update this blog a little more frequently!! University has kind of been taking over (as it probably should) for the last few months, and it looks set to continue this way when i get back to Bournemouth on the 10th! I have a presentation to make 9am on the 11th, so its straight back into it!

Amidst all of this, i have become rather hooked on the xbox 360 i bought a couple of months back! Its incredible, before this I was playing games on a 4/5 year old PC. The difference is incomparable… I now have a Wireless N adaptor for the xbox, just need to get me a gold subscription and i’m away!

Right now, i’m off to work on a uni assignment! Attempting to get sequential playback working in C++ using a class that has no feedback method! Fun times!

Christmas Update...

Wow, well I sure haven't been updating this blog as much as I originally intended. Well, the truth is that i've kind of been snowed under (pun very much intended) with work lately. A couple of my assignments at the moment are to analyse the RMS amplitude of various tracks and produce a scientific report, another one is to program a media player in C++, and finally to set out a strategic and operation business plan. The only one of these that I can call finished is the first one. My scientific report is full of figures, statistics, and research, fun stuff! Just need to hand that in now!

At the moment I'm also working mainly on the programming assignment, the media player has to be built purely in C++ and has to handle the playback of wav files, and also act as a playlist creator / editor / manager! So that's all fun!

Other than university, this terms been pretty awesome! Living in a flat with my mates from uni is great! Better than halls i think, if only for the quietness! haha. I can't believe that university is going so quickly, i've pretty much finished the first term in my second year. Seems like only yesterday I was arriving in Bournemouth as a nervous fresher, not sure what to expect from the whole thing! But on the whole, university is great!

This term i decided to make an investment... in an xbox 360! Well I decided it could be my early christmas present to myself, and it's fantastic! I only have a few games, including Forza 3, COD MW2, GTA IV, and some others, but i'm already becoming dangerously addicted to it!

Speaking of which, i must just go and finish that mission in GTA...

Update for family and friends...

Hey all,

This ones a more personal update for family and friends, so if you're interested in the tech stories It might be worth you skipping over this post! There will be a couple of reviews coming up in the next few weeks, one for the Crumpler Sticky Date bag, and another for the Behringer Xenyx 1204FX mixer, so stay tuned...

Well, I'm back at Uni in Bournemouth now, living in my new flat! I arrived yesterday and am still setting everything up! Most important things were done first; Photo of Emma, Computer, and Bed (in that order). And now I am about to start the mammoth task of sorting out my clothes, kitchen things, bathroom things, and loads of other general things that become necessities when at university! For those of you who have asked for pictures of the flat, I shall post them on Facebook as it is slightly more private than this blog!

So what's the flat like? Well the hot water / heating in this flat is strange! There is no program for the heating, it simply comes on when it detects that it's too cold, and the hot water comes on when it's needed. Oh... That's if we've remembered to keep the meters filled up with coins!

Speaking of coin meters, this is something which is unnerving me somewhat! When you pay your electricity quarterly or annually, you don't really think about how much you use, until the bill drops onto your doormat! Whereas when you have a little dial that is slowly ticking its way down to the big red 'Empty' marker, you suddenly become all conservative! Silly things, like turning plugs off at the wall and only filling the kettle enough for one cup, etc...  This got me thinking, maybe we wouldn't be in such a bad global climate situation if more people were on metered electricity!

Anyhow, I shall keep you updated on how i'm getting on in my second year at uni, it still feels weird being in Bournemouth, and not being in Purbeck (Halls for my first year!) Anyway, now i'm off to clean the kitchen and bathroom, and organise all my things...

Thanks for reading!

P.S. We're about to go over the 5,000 mark for hits on this blog, so thank you to each and every one of you!

Amazing what one post can do…

Well isn’t it just! A few weeks ago, this place was bumbling along, a nice happy blog with a nice number of regular readers. I write a review of the Samsung N310, and the hits go through the roof (well for me anyway). We now stand at 3,005 hits, up from around 2000 a month ago, and are now getting 40+ hits a day! I am just glad that people are reading my review, and hope that everyone finds it useful!

So, what’s planned for the blog over the next month. Well I'd like to do several things; more product reviews, unfortunately this means getting hold of these tech products! And that’s a pricey job! Those of you who know me will know that I have got a slot on a local radio station over the summer, presenting an evening music/chat show! I’m hoping to link that to the blog somehow, maybe competitions, etc. And of course, anything i find lurking on the internet that may be of use of interest to you, I’ll probably blog about that too!

Anyway, for those of you who read this blog to find out what I’m up too… Quite a lot, Like I said before, I’ve got this slot on local radio, which believe it or not involves a fair bit of prep work before going live. If you want to listen in to trashcan radio, just click on the blue writing! We are live every Thursday from 8PM – 11PM. I also start my holiday / summer job this Thursday, supervising and running local play schemes for kids during the summer holiday!

And finally for those who want to know how my first year at Uni went, I got a first, along with a letter of commendation from the Dean of the University congratulating me for finishing in the top 89%, so I was very pleased with that!

Just to finish off, I’d like to let you all know about a project my old school / college is running. Its called Classrooms for Kenya, hit the link for more info. Basically students have spent 3 or 4 years fund raising, and are now visiting Kenya for the 3rd time to build new schools, classrooms, teach and learn from Kenyan children. This is a great project and a few of my close friends, along with 57 other pupils of the Weald School, flew off to Kenya yesterday for 3 weeks to build new classrooms and help teach the children. If you could spare even a few pounds for this cause it would be very much appreciated. The scheme is a registered charity (No. 1122559) and you can donate online here!

End of the year...

Well that's it, My first year at university is over! It's gone unbelievably quickly, I mean everyone says when you go, "Make the most of your first year, it'll be over before you know it" and, if you're anything like me, at the time you were just sat there thinking 'I wish it was over right now!'. But honestly, its been a really fantastic year. I've met new people, and actually been able to study what I want for once, instead of having all the government based education shoved in your face!

If there's one thing I haven't totally enjoyed here it's the student halls. Don't get me wrong, i've got great flatmates and i'd probably say one of the happiest flats in Purbeck and it was easy to make friends when I got here. For anyone considering halls for university next year, i will say this: No matter where you get, whether you tick quiet or loud, big or small, there will be noise! Nearly every night, from about 10 until 3-4 in the morning. It's just something you have to get used to!

Now, onto the course. This year, my course has seen record dropout rates, upwards of 50% and I'm pretty sure some people will not be coming back next year. The reason for this, I think, is that my course was advertised totally wrong. It was marketed as a music technology course, which it certainly isn't! How many music technicians do you know that program in C++, are able to tell you (in detail) about the inner workings of a computer, create flash and video based animations, and can recite the OSI and TCP/IP network models (and what they do) off by heart! No, my course is definitely not a music technology course. What it is, is a low level computer science course specialising in aspects of music technology! But the thing is, it turns out that it's the perfect course for me!

I really do think that this course is a great course, but the high drop out show that some people obviously are not happy with it. I really do think that the university should look at this course again, and redefine it! Anyway, moving onto exams...

I had three this year, one earlier in the year on the fundamentals of sound and two more recently; Audio and Video principles, and Media Devices Networks and Architectures. On the whole i feel they went reasonably well, there was one or two small questions on each paper that i wasn't 100% about but I think  hope that I managed to answer the main questions in enough detail to get a good mark. I'll let you know when I receive my final grades sometime in June/July how I got on!

Anyway, that's about it as far as my first year at university goes. Check back over the summer for lots more tech related posts, and hopefully a review of my Dell mini 10 netbook (when I get one!)

Assignment Results

Hey All,

Just a quick update as I have some marks back for my assignments. If you remember I uploaded two assignments to my blog recently, a Flash based DSLR tutorial and Two Radio Jingles to promote my course. Anyway, I have just collected the results for both assignments. For the Flash tutorial I got 95% and for the two radio jingles i got 91%. I'm really pleased with these results, and I am still working on the flash tutorial to make it perfect before I release it.

Anyway, That's all for now!
Cheers for reading

Electric drums 'vs' Acoustic drums...

Recently there has been an explosion in the number of new electronic drum kits that are coming onto the market. There are many reasons for this, advances in technology is an obvious one, but I can't help feeling that games like Rock Band have encouraged the growth.

Those who know me, will know that I have always been an avid hater of the so called 'electronic drum kits' and have always preferred playing on my old acoustic drums. For those who don't know me, I have been playing drums for nearly 15 years now, so I like to think of myself as an experienced drummer.

Anyway, something strange happened when i moved to university. I brought a Yamaha DTXplorer, which is a pretty popular, standard electronic drum kit. There were a number of reasons behind this choice, mainly there was no way I could get away with a full sized kit in this tiny little university-rented room, but also I think i would have been kicked out before i could even mutter paradiddle.

Yamaha DTXplorer Electronic Drum Kit

So, after a few months use a strange thing has happened. I actually really, really like this kit (note the repetition for emphasis!). I mean, it could never compare to an acoustic kit for live performances but it definitely has some advantages for the purposes of practice. The main one being accuracy, acoustic kits are designed so that the drums sound their best when the skin is hit in the very middle of the drum (some snares are an exemption to this rule). The size of the pads on the electric kits force you to do this, and I have found that just this alone has made me a better drummer when I return to my acoustic kit.

Aside from accuracy, the electronic drum kit is much more neighbour friendly than an acoustic kit. The sound of sticks hitting a rubber pad is infinitely quieter than the sound of a drum resonating or a cymbal being hit! Whilst some drummers hate the tactile feel of the sticks on the rubber pads, i have found that it has a hidden advantage. I have found myself being forced to play double strokes properly, rather than being lazy and dragging the sticks, so while at first glance this may seem a hinderance, in the long term it could be improving your technique!

Sure, as with all things, you get what you pay for. Some electric kits are not even worth bothering with, the Alesis DM5 for example (available at around £350), although this is a nice drum module, the pads and stand are worthless! Some electronic kits, such as the Roland TD-20 (available for around £4,400), do a fantastic job of imitating the classic acoustic kit and sound great at the same time.

As with all electronic kits you get to choose different sound sets for all different styles of music, but you will no doubt return to one or two sound sets that actually sound like drums, and when you do you will be able to truly appreciate the electronic kit for what it is, not only a fantastic practice kit for when noise is a problem but also a tool to help you improve your technique for when you do get the chance to play on an acoustic kit again!

Flash based DSLR Tutorial...

A simple flash based application to teach users the basics of DSLR photography. This was the brief I was given for a recent assignment on my course. I've been promising for a while to show you a preview of the application, as the hand-in date has now come and gone, I'm free to show you what I've been working on. The best way i guess is to make a little demo video, so thats what i've done. You can see it below (don't forget to hit the 'HQ' version for a higher quality video)...



It'd be great to hear what you think of this, let me know in the comments section. I'm still working on this and hope to eventually upload it somewhere for people to use!

Thats all for now!

Back in Billingshurst...

Well I'm home, back in good old sussex. Another term at university has flown by, it was pretty hectic towards the end of the term. Lots of assignments were due in, you may have seen my promo video on this blog a while back. I fully intend to post all of my practical work on this blog after its been handed in. You may remember a while ago i talked about an interactive flash program i'm building to teach users the basics of digital photography. Well i had initially planned for this to be online by now, but the deadline has been moved forward untill after easter, so this should be online in about a month.

I've just handed in my software programming assignment. The breif: to create an audio & video sequencer in C++ within a command line prompt. The end product was fairly basic, as can only be expected from a command line prompt peice of software. The secondary part of this assignment was a report on where you think the program could be improved, needless to say i mentioned a GUI and alternative methods of building the thing entirely, as C++ really isn't the best code to be using IMHO.

About a week ago, i got marks back from my computer architecture assignment, our task was to describe and illustrate how a sound card works. For those who are interested this involved talking in depth about everything from PCM (Pulse code modulation) to the connectors used to input audio on the card. I was extremely pleased with my mark, i got 98% in the end for that assignment which puts me in very good stead for the exam next term (which promises to be challenging!)

Now for a tip for anyone who is going to uni soon, be aware that you WILL spend money on text books. My course isn't particularly theory based, although we do cover some theories, however i have spent near to £120 on 3 text books! For anyone doing the music & audio technology course at Bournemouth University i can highly reccomend these books:

- Sound and recording : An introduction - Rumsey, McCormick
- Fundimentals of Multimedia - Ze-Nian Li
- Data Commuications & Networking -Forouzan

All of these books are on the reading list for my course, along with many more. But I have found these three books to cover everything i needed for the first year of this course. We will see how they fare next year!

Where has the time gone?

It seems like just yesterday I was being dropped off in Bournemouth, living in a strange place with people i'd never met before. Now it's been almost 7 months, and I'm at the end of my second term at University. People told me to enjoy my first year because it will go so quickly, at the time I thought it couldn't go quick enough. Now I'm shocked at how little time i have left in my first year. Basically i've finished lectures for the year now, it's all about revision for my exams.

I have two exams, one on 'Audio and Video principles', and another on 'Media Devices, Architectures, and Networks' Both two hours long. Then we have a creative project week, not sure what that involves yet, I hope we get a week to do whatever we want!

Other news, i have just started writing for upcoming tech blog Techrant, check it out here. I'll be writing about Apple news and started my first post on the iPhone 3.0 software thats just been announced.

Anyway, right now I'm off to the studios to get some recording done! My next blog will probably be from home!

Promotional Video...

Hey everyone, i've just finalised my two minute promotional video on my course here at Bournemouth University. I've uploaded it to youtube for you all to see, bear in mind this is a low quality version suitable for web streaming. If you have a fast internet connection (2MB+) you can click on the "HD" button to see a high definition version of the video.

For those who are interested, the full quality version was shot in 1920 x 1080 (High Definition). The video was edited in Final Cut Pro, and the backing music is made up of royalty free loops from Apple.

I'll let you know what mark i get for this when it's been assessed

What an audience...

Wow! Well i started this blog with the idea that friends and family would be able to visit to find out what i've been up to at University. It's really turned into me typing about what's really on my mind at the time i click that 'New Post' button. Regardless of this, i checked my blog statistics today and was surprised to see this...

It's a map of all the visits on my blog! Now don't worry, its not tracking your current location (Thats illegal!), it just shows the exchange you're connected too. Now there's defiantly a couple of people i know in America and New Zealand, and I'm sure services like TOR can account for some of these hits. But the fact is, people from all over the world are reading this blog, and I'm not sure how that feels. I mean, can they all be genuinely interested in my first year antics at uni? Maybe next time you visit, you could leave a comment so i know who you are!

Moving on, its a busy few weeks in Bournemouth coming up. We have 5 assignments on the go, one of which is to create a multimedia application in flash which teaches the user the basics of how to use a DSLR Camera, those who know me will know that this is something i'd enjoy doing... and I did! It was quite a steep learning curve from what i'm used to, but i'm very pleased with the end result. I'll post some screenshots and a video up after hand in date, may even try to host the application online somewhere so you can all have a go!

Final rant, Twitter. I've been 'tweeting' for about 3 or 4 weeks now. You can see my latest 'tweet' at the top of this blog. It's an interesting concept, which at first seems exactly like Facebook status updates, and this is the underlying problem with the service. It's not until you join and start tweeting, that you realise really how different it is to Facebook! My experiences have been that when I try to encourage my friends to join, their response is "isn't that just Facebook" and that's as far as it goes. Maybe i'll post a blog on the differences, but for now I'm just wondering if any of my readers have twitter, let me know in the comments!

Assignments and home time...

Well, I got my marks back for my software programming assignment. I got 76% which is a first, so far my uni work is looking good. Only trouble is, our lectures are all rounding up in the next few weeks for the year! As in, when we come back next term, all I will have to do is revision for two exams. I've defiantly learnt a lot of stuff this year and i look forward to having the time to use some of it, and read up further on certain points.

We have a fair amount of assignments on the go at the moment. Another software programming, a 2 minute promotional video, and 2 more which we are yet to receive! I am keeping on top of things though, which is one of the reasons I'm sitting here writing this blog whilst everyone else rushes to finish the software programming assignment.

Moving away from uni, its been quite a stressful time recently with lots of other things on my mind. Still, I have now got my house for next year sorted, contract signed and deposit paid. We are living in a 3 bedroom flat in a large house that's been split into several flats. If you are interested in where it is, then just click the link below...

http://tinyurl.com/cz3x8j

I'm off home soon for a weekend which should be nice. I'm looking forward to some proper home cooked food again, and of course mums pancakes (even if they are a few days late!). A long train journey on the way back though. National Rail tells me it will be about 3 hours! Still I have my iPod so I'll be fine!

Anyway, its almost 2pm now and I haven't eaten any lunch so I'm going to go grab something to eat, then head over to my lecture at 4!