The Joy of PHP

I've recently started learning PHP. It all begun when I wanted yet another guest book script for one of the websites I work with. None of those I found were good enough, or wrote code that were standard enough, and none of them integrated into the existing design of the site without hundreds of template files. So, as a programmer, what do you do? You learn, of course. It didn't take me many days to code up a guest book I was pleased with. Since then I've written a few other things in PHP, and what's struck me is how easy it all is. Lots of stuff is already built-in, and if it isn't, it's usually easy to code it up yourself. Any self-respecting web programmer should have this tool in his or her tool belt.

I miss my home mouse!

I'm currently at school, needing to do some work which due to firewalls etcetera cannot be done from home. And here I sit with a generic Dell mouse, and scrolling is so slooooooooooooooooooow. At home I've got Logitech's finest, the MX Revolution, where I can scroll super fast. I keep it in its free-spinning mode, because I LOVE being able to just flick my finger and scroll through a long page (or jumble of code) in one smooth gesture. With this generic mouse, it's a hassle to scroll more than a screen height of text - it's faster to use the scroll bar. Well, time to get to work so that I can get home soon.

Happy New Year!

Just arrived home from spending New Year's Eve with my mother. Managed to take some photos of the fireworks. There's no coordinated display, so it's just one here, one there. Still, some of these shots turned out pretty well, especially for a first-timer.

Happy New Year everybody!


I also managed to take some nice pictures of a lit tree nearby.


Look! Even the moon is up late for New Year's Eve!


Edit: Well, I thought my pictures were rather nice, but then I saw this:

redgum3
I have a looooong way to go...

Tony the programming Tiger

This is a picture of my cute little programming companion, Tony. It's great to have someone to explain your code to when something isn't working the way it's supposed to. Instead of taking up some real person's time, it often works just as well with a pet or a stuffed animal. Talking to yourself just doesn't work as well, because it's difficult to be both the explainer and the explainee at the same time. At least, it feels rather stupid to explain something to yourself. It's also nice to have something cute to rest your eyes on at the side of the screen.

Introducing Lizzan

So, this is me: 24 years old, living in a small city in northern Sweden. Have studied computer programming (mainly Java and C++) for 4 years, trying to finish my degree at present. Been dancing and teaching line dance for 7 years now - still loving it! Live in a rented flat with no pets, no children, but a boyfriend and a very cute stuffed tiger called Tony. (Not a real tiger of course, just the small toy kind)

Hobbies, other than line dance: computer games (currently playing Titan Quest) and reading fantasy books. Robert Jordan is a firm favorite author, right now I'm hoping for him beating his illness, because I really want to read those 30+ years of books he's got in his head. While waiting for that to happen, I'm reading the Shannara series by Terry Brooks. It's a bit slow going at the moment, since I'm re-reading a couple of books I've already read in Swedish some years ago before starting with the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara.

I'm starting this blog to have somewhere to put my musings on my life in general, programming and line dancing in particular. Hopefully it will make me sleep better at night...it hasn't helped yet, it's 6 am and I'm still up. Tried going to sleep at 4, but had too much stuff spinning around in my head, so I wound up here.

Well, time to log off for now - will see you soon!