British Programmer living in Andorra

So I started using Stack Overflow as a user back in 2013 – I’d lurked before, but never contributed. The collapse of the traffic on B&B UK meant that I’d finally taken the plunge and learnt .net.  This was a blessing in disguise, now 3 year later we are producing (together with MVC) the best website/applications I’ve ever made.   Anyway.. So I was playing around with some Java libs and this happened. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/148968/windows-batch-files-bat-vs-cmd/17024700 Well.. actually it didn’t.    I noticed within a few days that I must have been mistaken and it didn’t make any difference to the amount of memory. The thing is.. with SO you need some reputation to “highlight” questions – get them answered sooner.  You can’t pay or bribe or offer favours.  Nothing but reputation.  So I was getting a few pluses..  And my family needed me.  So I just left it.   Clock, Clock – Even though’...

Frustrating times here. " If you believe you're a citizen of the world, you're a citizen of nowhere. You don't understand what the very word "citizenship" means." -          Theresa May Conference Party Speech 2016 Well I tell you Mrs May.  I am a "Citizen of the World" and I am affronted by your narrow minded, xenophobic views. My mother was born in Finland to a family that had emigrated there from Sweden.  My Father was born in India to an Irishman and his French Indian wife.  I grew up in London but was able to freely move to nearby my wife's family in Spain when my children were born, and have had the privilege of moving to Andorra and enjoy all its advantages. We've not stopped either – I look at the World with unlimited vision.  If my business or my desires take me – we will move to wherever we are made to feel welcome and can contribute. Where I can tell you I won't be going, or considering set...

OK, this is a pretty bad day.  Normally I have a couple of pages but sometimes it comes like a tornado.  Today it seems themusiczoo.com has been targeted. It is not a brand I’m familiar with in Europe, but maybe better known in the US.   The Receipt(numbers).zips will contain a virus payload that will encrypt my documents and then the hackers will expect an anonymous randsomware payment by bitcoin to unlock it all.   As you can see I run a @catchall address on my old karlomeara.com and bendecko.com domains – companyname@bendecko.com etc.   Most of these aliases have been scraped from websites e.g. the paypal one – that one, for example, on an old site where I offered some products for sale:  It is used in the Url sent to PayPal.   Others, like the LinkedIn alias, were not.  I was aware of a leak from LinkedIn years before it was in the news – because I could see Spam like this addressed to the my LinkedIn alias ...

My post today is about programmers and pizza and Coke. I just realized why programmers are  always eating pizza and drinking copious amounts of Coke-a-Cola. It's not that we like pizza or Coke particularly. Although they are both very pleasant things. Possibly not so good for the middle-aged waistline as for the young lad that I used to be, and living the married life my routine is dictated by children and wife. I noticed that the morning session is by far the best for productivity. Come lunch-time living in Iberia we normally have a siesta. This is in part due to the large amount of carbs in the lunch time meal. Quite often, when deadlines that time I have tried to work through this period.  Quite often with disastrous results - either I write terrible code,  or don't write anything at all. So the family's been away for the last couple of weeks,  and I have to get used to living like a teenager again. Now finally I see the benefit of the pizza and cok...

So I wanted to write a quick summary of where we are at with the Brexit situation. I’m a committed European: my mother being Finnish and my father with his part-Irish ( and Indian ) heritage, I am an avid war-history reader and keen business person.  To me leaving the European Union is complete madness.   Since attaining adulthood I have always been saddened by the United Kingdom's reticence to join the institutions of Europe with real vigour. For example, I could not understand why London as the centre of global commerce would not to host the European Central Bank?  Similarly the United Kingdom with its long history of developing democracy and legislature not wish to be the home of the European Parliament or European Courts? When these were suggested in the ‘70s and ‘80s, why didn’t we say “Hey great idea this 'Euro' - let’s have the ECB in London”, or “You know what, European Court of Human Rights? - yeah bring it on - we’ve got some lovely old buildings here ...

So, another bites the dust.   (subscribers only) http://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/45892-andorra-airlines-indefinitely-postpones-launch-plans http://www.webcitation.org/6h7DSlxiU        

Let me start off by saying upwork.com has transformed my business (freelancer.com was good too).  They cost a fair amount 10% but do add value! Anyway so there will always be scammers around, and here’s a live one! I posted up a job, helping out a friend of mine at http://masmirobiofarm.com , on a new account.  Got a few enquiries – one from this guy “Bullen Nicholas”.  I’ve had some good results from US contractors on Upwork so was excited. A few things stood out – 0 hours worked, and 0 jobs.  That’s a warning.  Although I have a similar guy from the US who was just starting out and needed some work history – so was able to give me a great deal and I gave him his first job. But the picture and the text were the giveaways; web developer with a mutilated avatar? LOL, and the text “working as web developer from last 6 years”.   Maybe education standards have slipped in the US over the last few years, but that is inexcusable. ...

As many a webmaster, web-designer, web-entrepreneur knows: You "collect" domain names over the years. This happens almost by accident.  You think of a idea, product, or brand - fire up your favourite webregistrar - and *bang* there goes $10 and you've got a new domain.com or .net or whatever. This is fine.  Except that very often, very very often, nothing comes of it.  It goes onto the "projects backburner" list and never comes off. Well sometimes.  And it is always "deleted" - very very rarely will a domain progress beyond the backburner to progress. They just sit there, year after year billing $10 or whatever the renewal fee is - "ah.. one day I'll do this project" you say to yourself - but it never does. So today is clean out day. I've had a few domains in my time, and these two I'm getting rid of today have been with me a while, 10 years - 2004 I just checked the WHOIS for "onewaylinkexchange.com" and l...

I was talking with my brother-in-law about the Nokia Lumia 1020, and remarked about the 10mb image size.  I’d zoomed them before, and not really seen any benefit, but this weekend I’d taken some well-lit shots of the kids, and it does actually seem to have some benefit.   Here’s the original frame.       I could quite easily zoom in several times and still get a good clean image e.g.     And taking it too extremes a real close-up face and the ~1mb comparison image.  At these levels I probably woundn’t want to have to present these to anyone, but at least the image data is there.                    

So farewell then FriendsReunited!  Typically British invention totalled by superior American effort.     Here are my musings on there, before they get deleted.     Went to Nottingham to Uni - realised there was a lot more cash and fun in computers rather than biology! Updated 2001 - Changed my career direction, and stayed in Nottingham for many years. Recently returned to London and work in a .com in the city. Live in Oval, Kennington and would love to hear from anyone who I had a laugh with at Shrewsbury, Epsom or college. Updated 2002 - .com went under. hehe. so cleared off travelling in SE Asia. Found an interesting new job in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia and am still here. Got a pet-project website www.bedandbreakfasts.co.uk which I do on the side. Update 2004 - Been contracting back in the UK for a while. Itchy feet feeling coming on again. I can be spammed happily at - bendecko at h*tmail c*m with the word NOSPAM in the subject line Uodate 2006 - Now in Tarragona...