Airship Hangar at night, Farnborough
Recently I haven’t ventured all that far from home, I have been busy with my contract work for Rubicon who are based only 5 miles from Farnborough (home). I haven’t had all that much time for personal projects but have been beavering away at some other things besides contracting that shall be making a debut fairly soon. Problem is “fairly soon” is a dangerous term at the moment, as things have been very busy – Now that Summer is here, a lot of the really manic stuff has settled right down and looks like the contract role I am doing at the moment is going to align itself with Britain taking a little bit of time out in readiness for the Olympics and the Jubilee. Britain seems to be chilling out this summer (a great way to celebrate our national pride) and now that those equally chilly temperatures have made way for a little heat (kiss of death on the weather saying so) – We are all fishing out our flip-flops and shorts from the loft and can take things a bit slower which is ideal for taking stock of what we should be cracking on with in September once we’ve finished partying…
Farnborough Airshow is coming
Very soon we will have the world visiting us from rich Saudi Arabians to military top brass, their eyes being focused on the same event, the 2012 Farnborough Airshow. The public days will have a Diamond Jubilee theme to them in honour of Her Majesty the Queen. We always look forward to this event, albeit noisy for a few days, we get to see some incredible aerial displays right on our doorstep – which reminds us of why our town is important in global history and that the show must continue for many years to come despite a fragile global economy – In 2010 the airshow made over $28 Billion according to some sources that I have read, which is phenomenal!
The photo above is one I took some time back of the Balloon Hangar at Farnborough. It was originally used to tether airships and other such craft during test flights. It had been dismantled some years back and has been restored to become the impressive centerpiece of the IQ business park which comprises of mostly old renovated buildings that hark back to the days of the RAE (Royal Aircraft Establishment) and pioneering research into Jet flight… I could write a lot more about this now I’ve got started but shall save that for another time!
I will be out with my camera capturing the action from a different position this year, not sure where but I doubt I’ll get VIP access into one of the Exhibitors stands like I did last time alas.
As you can see, my mind is very much comfortable with sticking close to home for the time being… Ok I’ll admit that the costs of travel do have a big part in this decision!
Server Shuffle
I have been busy recently playing around with servers and whilst you may not have noticed – this website has just moved to a new Linux server and at the same time I upgraded to a new version of WordPress and I must say it is very cool indeed. I really love the big full screen mode that hides everything else allowing me to focus on some writing and it feels good to be doing it again, a long time coming.
I did have a Windows 2008 server, a Linux server, an Azure server and an Amazon server – Server madness indeed which has led to financial headaches, not to mention technical ones too. It was all becoming too expensive and as I shall tell you in a moment, I am moving back in the direction of Drupal/Wordpress, or in other words PHP & MySQL, saving my Windows activities for contracting only.
As of now I have just a Linux server and one site remains on Azure, which I shall soon be adapting to become a Linux based Drupal site!
In a nutshell this also means that I am not spending hundreds upon hundreds of pounds but now somewhere between £30-£40 per month. Period. Technically it’s much nicer too. Even fluffier if I may say so?!
What have I got planned for the site?
I’ve had a little bit of a dilemma if I am being honest. I always point people at this site but it’s a little too informal as a business site. So I have begun to sketch out a sister site for it, which will be nicklewis.co.uk and built in Drupal. I think the two sites will work nicely alongside eachother.
More writing on the horizon
So nicklewis.net will be my more casual site where I write stuff like this, let my thoughts flow through this site to you, my dear loyal reader!
Did I say something about other projects?
Yes, yes indeed – Some are secret(ish) – I have been doing a lot of work a dance school who will soon have not just on site but three! I will write about them when they go live.
I am also working on a project called “Journog” that has been in concept form for a long time now but I keep on going back to it. I now have a pretty good spec for it written up and I think it will be a lovely project when it actually makes it out there onto the web. However I am feeling cagey about revealing too much other than it will happen this year.
