Little Spikey Land

Ok, copied the files across to my new lovely (paid for) webhost. Theoretically I have PHP access there, which could allow for some fun. In the meantime there are probably broken links, as I have probably failed to copy some files over...

This blog has now moved to http://www.littlespikeyland.com/blog/.

posted at 6:21 PM John

littlespikeyland.com.

Seeing as my email account has been playing up lately (taking days to receive some messages) I though I'd take the plunge and get my own domain name and a proper hosting service. So with any luck I'll have transferred everything over in the next week or two.

posted at 7:53 PM John

First proper drawing since finishing the MSc. This was for a birthday card, which seems to be a good motivator for actually making me get something done.

Used a combination of ink and watercolour. Also the first real use of my newly acquired brushpen - brilliant for thick lines/areas, but the fact the ink is not waterproof got a bit annoying. Need to experiment some more methinks.

posted at 8:42 PM John

I upgraded to the latest version of Thingamablog and so now I have a working (as in valid) RSS feed. So for those of you using Firefox can now "live bookmark" this blog.

Having a lazy couple of days to recover from running around for the last week. One drawing on the way, another one planned (in my head at least).

posted at 3:46 PM John

Here's a low-tech/high-tech solution for checking your mail under OS X remotely, using the standard Mail program in OS X:

checkmail script

It's low-tech in that it's just a basic shell-script, but high-tech in that I suspect it will only be useful to people who are happy with the commandline and ssh.

To use it save the script to your mac and make it executable (chmod +x checkmail.sh). Then from another computer you can ssh to your mac and run the script to see if there are any new messages. This is only really useful in a situation where your mac is not too far away. In my case I use it to see if I have new mail, when I am using my laptop downstairs (away from my mac).

Most of the work is done using the osascript command, which communicates with the Mail application. I am sure with a little work the script could be extended to read the titles of the messages and list who they are from too.

Example output:

[iMac:~] john% ./checkmail.sh 
Mon Sep  6 17:51:22 BST 2004
Checking mail
INBOX: 0 unread
JPL: 0 unread
Psion: 0 unread
SB: 0 unread
Outbox: 0 unread

posted at 5:56 PM John

A water colour girl, using india ink (which is waterproof) for the lines, all done on bristol board.

See those supplies I consumer whored for haven't gone to waste. Definately pays to get quality supplies - the colours are really strong and cover well. Watercolours are also a bit more malleable after the fact (compared with inks), so hopefully it'll make life easier later on.

posted at 2:13 PM John

Re-did the main drawings page today. I hacked together a little shell-script to do the work of creating thumbnails and generating the html. Should make life a bit simpler. I guess next stop would be to fully automate the process so I just drop the image into the directory and it gets resized and added to the main page (and uploaded). Hmmm.

posted at 7:54 PM John

Wonderwoman as featured on another birthday card.

Edited on: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 1:22 PM
posted at 12:36 AM John

Jen Wang draws these really cute girls, with big expressive eyes and I love her stuff. So seeing as imitation is the sincerist form of flattery here is a cute girl. Annoyingly after scanning this in I thought I'd try and colour it too - bad idea. Just glad I scanned it in before hand.

posted at 11:54 PM John

I still have not plucked up the courage to see the remake of Dawn of the Dead. I also hope to break the vicious cycle of me watching zombie movies on my own in the cinema, but I need to find a willing accomplice...

I also so have to see Shaun of the Dead.

Anyway zombies are clearly in this season so here's a light bulb zombie man.

Edited on: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 4:32 PM
posted at 12:07 AM John